Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

Everything you say is true. However, I hope our side does not campaign on ‘restoring your student loan debt’ and ‘making you pay back your stimulus check’ and ‘abolishing Social Security and Medicare and Workmen’s Compensation’. Especially since Republicans have never been shy about pushing taxpayers’ money to big corporations.

What we need to emphasize now is the progressives’ push to sexualize children, and to slime American history. That’s what should be 80% of our campaign propaganda right now.

And it will work: Parents' win in Florida's school board elections - Louder With Crowder

People who don’t want grandmother to lose her Social Security because she mustn’t be dependent on the government, also don’t want their children to be persuaded to cut off their body parts. They don’t want to see sexual deviancy normalized.

This is what we must emphasize between now and November: make every Democrat politician take a stand on this stuff.

It wasn’t about slavery until the 3rd year into the war. It was Lincoln who decided as a propaganda ploy to make it about slavery when morale of the country was low and he was losing support for the war effort.

The notion that a war would be fought over a principled moral argument such as 'Slavery" is on face value a farcical narrative when the victors get to dictate history. However, no war in the history of mankind has ever been fought over principles but rather over control of commerce and the territory thereof.

Interesting insights by two writers who lived during the time to witness the politics of it all.

Charles Dickens wrote

“The Northern onslaught upon slavery is no more than a piece of specious humbug disguised to conceal its desire for economic control of the United States.”“Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as many, many other evils. The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.”

Karl Marx wrote:

“The war between the North and South is a tariff war. The war, is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for power.”

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Of course it was about slavery, in the sense that the Southern Slavocracy feared that, with the addition of new ‘free’ states, they would eventually lose their disproportionate political power in Congress. They did not secede over tarrifs.

Now, it is true, that the North was not, in general, animated by a love of the slaves or the desire to set them free. Some Northern leaders, like Lincoln, realized that, if the South stayed in the Union, the slaves would, eventually, be freed. He was a smart guy and used the correct tactics to hold the border states, and to try to split public opinion in the South. We could learn from him.

But most people in the North just did not want to see their country fragmented. So, yes, in that sense, for the people of the North, it was not ‘about’ slavery, it was about saving the Union. But it was the issue of slavery that led the Slavocracy to try to destroy the Union.

The quote from Karl Marx is interesting – I have never come across it before. Do you have the source? Formally, it stands in complete contrast to Marx’s well-known enthusiastic support for the Northern cause, which he saw as opening up the path to socialist revolution. Towards the end of the War, the International Workingmen’s Association sent a letter to Abraham Lincoln, almost certainly drafted by Karl Marx.

From the commencement of the Titanic-American strife the working men of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class. The contest for the territories which opened the dire epopee, was it not to decide whether the virgin soil of immense tracts should be wedded to the labor of the emigrant, or prostituted by the tramp of the slave-driver?

. . . the working classes of Europe understood at once, even before the fanatic partisanship of the upper classes for the Confederate gentry had its dismal warning, that the slave-holders’ rebellion was to sound the tocsin for a general holy crusade of property against labor, and that for the men of labor, with their hopes for the future, even their past conquests were at stake in that tremendous conflict on the other side of the Atlantic.

. . . While the working men, the true political power of the North, allowed slavery to defile their own republic; while before the Negro, mastered and sold without his concurrence, they boasted it the highest prerogative of the white-skinned laborer to sell himself and choose his own master; they were unable to attain the true freedom of labor or to support their European brethren in their struggle for emancipation, but this barrier to progress has been swept off by the red sea of Civil War.

The working men of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Anti-Slavery War will do for the working classes.

I am 100% in total disagreement over your assertion! The war was never about slavery, and there is plenty of evidence to support that assertion as being true. For the church of Lincoln goers such as yourself seeing another perspective is almost impossible for you to do when looking through such a narrow lens as opposed seeing through the eyes of a southerners point of view.

Also upon further reflection on why we started this discussion, was the mere concept of slavery itself, and the prevailing history in which man himself has been fighting against since the dawn of western civilization, (or perhaps since its inception). While abolition was a just cause, as well as something that had to be instituted, as recognized in the 13th amendment as well as the 14th amendment was among it, its greatest achievements in advancing liberty, justice for all and equal rights, (something that would take another 100 years to advance even further), was a mere afterthought when the dust settled. The excessive disproportionate taxes that the south was paying while the north was lavishly prospering as a result does give credence to how conflicts start and yes the war started over tariffs, not over the issue of slavery. The Federal government’s only source for revenue at the time was through the use of Tariffs due to the fact there was no income tax at the time. In fact Lincoln won his presidency with support of promises of corporate welfare to his benefactors such as the railroads, as he was a Lawyer for the Railroads prior to becoming president and thus was beholden to them by raising tariffs in order to help pay and subsidize them to build across the continental US.

To understand the premise of why the civil war started, one has to also understand the southerner point of view (white as they may be, although they could have been another race, yet the results would have been the same) and to many who understand this, would simply see that submitting to Lincolns vision was another form of slavery such as Federalism vs, States rights. As is the case with most wars in human history, are fought over the freedom of commerce. (see the civil war of Sri Lanka and case in point was an unfair, unjust practice of discrimination based on racism against the Tamil’s, and a people who wanted better for their lives, to have the same opportunities as the majority of the Sinhalese were getting. Even though its issues were social in their causes, it still takes the freedom of commerce to overcome them).

Can we honestly say that the cause in which the Civil War was brought about was the issue of slavery itself? When you consider the cost in which both sides paid, I find it very hard to believe that a war that defined a nation as we are today would have been over a principled argument, when the simple solution would have been to legislate a law outlawing slavery altogether before the war even started. The often debated point was the freedom of commerce.

Also something that is often left out of the historical chronology leading up to the Civil War, was the European Influence at the time. The banking cartels of Germany and England, and the issue of debt, something Jackson knew about 25 years prior, who managed to pay off the National debt and drive away Centralized banks from controlling Americas monetary system. (Jackson was the only US president to pay off the National debt in the nations history) When Lincoln became president, the country was close to being broke, and was denied by the European central banks a loan in which Lincoln was seeking to fund his war cause. His brilliance was the issuance of “Greenbacks” a debt free currency that flourished until Centralized banking was allowed once again to set up shop shortly after Lincoln’s assassination, thus ultimately creating another depression by limiting the flow of currency, creating scarcity in 6 years following the civil war in America.

I hear so many say how America is the greatest nation that was ever created, and the idea of liberty born from an idea, was unto itself one that had those opportunities to pursue. While we can agree that the latter is true, it in its present terms has eroded into a perversion of those ideas to which we have become a divided nation once again. This time not over race, (while we are seeing and hearing racism as an issue perpetuated by main stream media is but a mere rouse to start those divisive contempt’s once again as a means to create distractions) but over socialism, social issues, taxation, and personal liberties that are being encroached upon once again. The idea in which the civil War was fought over, is very much still being fought today, which to the astute observer is an irony that can not be ignored. The fight for hearts and minds still rages on among the ideologues of the previous administration (Obama) who seek to subvert those opposed by its deep state implants and various weaponizations of the DOJ, the FBI, SCOTUS, and the ones who altogether cling to what America was originally intended to be, thus it is no surprise the talk of secession can be heard in contemplative loathing in certain states who are resistant to America becoming like Europe. Ask who are truly free in this world and the answer is not that hard to figure out.

Conclusion,

The Civil War did not start over slavery. Slavery became an issue in large part due to Fredrick Douglas’s persistence to write about it for three years becoming an activist within the parlor of the high society types he would associate with prior to Lincoln’s Proclamation Emancipation Act, and many years following. The fact is Lincoln was a master propagandist, as he owned several news papers and actively silenced his critics by jailing them or exiling them to Canada during the war. Where do you think William Randolph Hurst learned the art of “Yellow Journalism” from? I got news for you, it was Lincoln. Hurst was Born during the civil in 1863 and was the next generation following Lincoln who by all accounts was heavily influenced by him posthumously.

While it is well known he was a Northern Sympathizer, his views in terms of what the war was about was clear, which most Europeans at the time thought the issue was over tariffs. However Marx’s views on slavery and the Oligarchy of the old South is something he often commented about as the war matured after Lincoln’s famous Proclamation Act to which the issue of Slavery took front page as the singular cause for winning the war.

It’s dumb statements like that is very reason we have over half the able-bodied Americans collecting government benefits . Most corporations pay tens of millions in taxes , payroll , FICA , Unemployment , property , etc. Who also provide the jobs no one seems to want anymore because of the socialist in office and the uninformed like Doug .

Well, let’s see where we disagree. It’s not clear to me what you’re objecting to.

Are you saying that there is no such thing as ‘corporate welfare’, or are you saying that special tax breaks, subsidies, and limitations on competition given to corporations are okay? (That is, that what some people call ‘corporate welfare’ is a good thing.)

I’d like the exact source, please.
Note: The Communist Manifesto – which everyone should read, if for no other reason than its fulsome praise of what capitalism has done for humanity – was written in 1848, more than a decade before the American Civil War began.

I’m not saying Marx couldn’t have written something like this – he was an irascible man, and could well have questioned the motives of the bourgeoisie in the North for engaging in the war – especially since they would try to sell it to Europeans, whom they wanted to respect the North’s economic blockade of the South, as a moral crusade. But Marx was strongly in favor of the victory of the North – as were other socialists, including British textile workers who were hard hit, economically, by the cut-off of cotton from the South. In fact, their response – to support the North – gives the lie to cynics who claim that everyone always does things in their immediate self-interest.

Viennese Die Presse and no I don’t have the direct link, that you have to look for yourself. Marx wrote over 300 articles during the war some for the NY Tribune and the other for Viennese Die Presse so I am not sure where exactly I got that from only I saved it a while back because it provided useful insight on what people outside of the US were viewing the war as at the time.

Also I mispoke on the book title that Karl Marx released during the civil war, It was “Capital” to which he started writing shortly after the release of CM, and was finished during the years of the civil war. The English translation wasn’t released until 1867, however that is disputed due to several articles he was writing in England at the time suggested the excerpts of it were already being published before that date.

All of the rest in terms of who he favored I already stated, so not sure why you had to repeat that factoid. The fact is he saw slavery and commerce within the parameters of the Civil war as a revolution against the backdrop of the working class getting on without compensation, comparing often to the struggles in Russia in similar context.

It didn’t end well for the North either. Their factories and the materials that they got from the South didn’t suddenly just recover overnight with their victory over the South during the reconstruction period. It wasn’t until the late 1870’s that the rise of the industrial revolution would take hold and transform into something different. The late 1860’s and early 1870’s was a very depressed era with lean years of foreclosures and famine for the US. Frank L Baum’s book, “The Wizard of Oz” was a commentary about the scarcity that was not only created by big banks, but the slow recovery in the aftermath of the civil war itself. Sure the North eventually would recover faster due to the fact they were light years ahead of the South in terms of industrialization and the expansion of the railroads accelerated their recovery even more, but they were not immune from a period of depression as a result of the war’s aftermath.

As far as Karl Marx is concern he is a mere lesson in the bigger picture of humanity’s insolvency when it comes to economics and contributed to more deaths than any writer in history. Much like Freud many of his ideas are proven to be flawed in its ideological design, and eventually will out-gain its usefulness in time even though academia is still trying to resurrect his ideas in other incarnations that are both sinister in its agenda and intent; only to be met with more resistance to perpetuate the false pretenses of “Oppressed and Oppressor” with other ideological musings of career academics of today’s universities. Suggesting Karl Marx still reaches to this day from the grave to continue advocating for something that has already been proven to fail, is humanities greatest plague so far.

Okay, I’ll look around for the source.

The idea of ‘the oppressed vs the oppressor’ is not, of course, original to Marx. The current ‘identity politics’ of the Left has zero to do with Marx. And most of these people are political illiterates who have never read a word of Marx and couldn’t understand him if they did.

And, as I am sure you know, Marx was very definitely politically incorrect! If we resurrected him and had him try to speak on a typical American college campus, he’d be driven off!

Marx thought capitalism was a huge advance on previous forms of society, and for the same reasons that all civilized people do. He thought socialism would be another advance, and there he was wrong, as bitter experience has proved. Today, almost no one is for genuine socialism – ie where the state owns the means of production and a central planning board substitutes for the market.

What the current generation of chowder heads mean by ‘socialism’ is, ‘someone else pays my bills’.

Just like Hillary Clinton claiming the war in Afghanistan was about the women’s rights there.

Anything she touches turns into shit. So did the wars in Afghanistan, Serbia, Iraq and Libya.

Pro-Confederates are ashamed of the fact that the South wanted to separate so that they could continue to practice slavery. So they invent all sorts of ridiculous arguments to deny that obvious fact. I suppose that’s a positive thing … at least they don’t justify slavery.

Many wars are fought for reasons other than what the cannon-fodder are told. ‘Make the World Safe for Democracy’, etc.

The danger we face now is that the US is a declining power, both rotting from within, and facing a rival, in China, who is on the way up. A rational ruling class would accept this, and make the best of it. But ours thinks we still are the sole superpower, even though illiterate tribesmen with AK47s drove us out of their country only a year ago. A very dangerous situation.

[quote=“Doug1943, post:21, topic:11657”]
In a previous post I said “Especially since Republicans have never been shy about pushing taxpayers’ money to big corporations.”

TT53 evidently didn’t agree that Republicans do this, or didn’t think that it was wrong to do it – it’s not clear, and he hasn’t responded to a request to clarify. He said
" t’s dumb statements like that is very reason we have over half the able-bodied Americans collecting government benefits . Most corporations pay tens of millions in taxes , payroll , FICA , Unemployment , property , etc. Who also provide the jobs no one seems to want anymore because of the socialist in office and the uninformed like Doug ."

Hmmmm… forced taxpayer subsidies to big corporations, with the approval of mainstream Republicans, is well known It’s called ‘corporate welfare’. There are literally hundreds of articles about it in the conservative press. Here are just a few, all from conservative sources:

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/inflation-reduction-act-is-corporate-welfare-in-disguise/

https://www.cato.org/multimedia/media-highlights-radio/scott-lincicome-discusses-corporate-welfare-micro-chip-industry

That is ridiculous and totally inaccurate! Most Southerners hated slavery because they couldn’t compete with the big plantations run by wealthy aristocrats that did more harm to the southerner working class than to help it with slavery and is one of the most widely misconceived and misunderstood aspects about the Southerners. I am guessing you went to a public school in the North somewhere like Pennsylvania or New York where they teach such nonsense?

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I went to Stonewall Jackson Junior High, and Stephen F Austin Senior High, in Houston, Texas. Graduated in 1962. So I had a very traditional, Southern education. All the schools I went to were racially segregated, as well.

I would be grateful for your sources re. the view of the average Southerner towards slavery.

Start with Thomas DeLorenzo’s “The Real Lincoln” There are many others as well, but based on the views that you have proclaimed so far I seriously doubt you’d appreciate them.

I try to learn the truth, even if it conflicts with views that I hold. I’ve changed my mind in the past, and can change it again in the future. I hope that every patriot has the same attitude. People who only read things that they agree with, or, worse, don’t read at all, are unlikely to be effective in the struggle to save civilization, which is what we are engaged in now.

Any patriot who minimizes the horrors of slavery, and of the Jim Crow regimes that followed it, is doing a dis-service to the cause.

I’ve ordered The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked. Reading the reviews of these books, I don’t see anything new there – anyone who knows anything about the Civil War and Lincoln knows he wanted to send the Blacks out of the US – but I’ll see what the books say. I notice one reviewer who hates Lincoln also hates Churchill, and for the same reasons, I suspect.

Doug try hard not to be so dense . Cities and States have always tried to lure big Corporations to their State or city because they provide JOBS and a huge TAX GAIN that far exceeds ANY incentive giving , you do understand the reasoning , perhaps NOT .
DemoRATS simlpy want to make Americans DEPENDENT !!!
DemoRATS want TOTAL CONTROL …

  1. They control the media and what is ALLOWED to be said .
  2. They control your healthcare .
  3. They increase poverty and create a division between the classes .
  4. They increase the DEBT and raise TAXES .
  5. They increase those collecting welfare , making millions upon millions extremely
    DEPENDENT .
  6. They control education and what your children learn . what they read and what they are
    ALLOWED to learn
  7. They control if you are even allowed to have a gun with GUN CONTROL .

Doug try hard to understand what is happening under these socialist bastards .
Venezuela suffers from a perfect storm of an economy in meltdown because of socialism . They went from super rich to runaway inflation, despotism, mass emigration, criminality, disease and starvation. Doug keep babbling about welfare and the true recipients and the true victims !!!

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Yes, everything you say about the Democrats is true.

But this isn’t relevant to the issue at hand, which is: do big (and small) corporations try to get the government to give them handouts?
I think you agree that this is case, but that it’s justified.

That puts you in conflict with every conservative organization I know of, although not with the run-of-the-mill, Chamber-of-Commerce Republicans who, before Donald Trump came along, were happy to see American jobs go overseas (cheaper for their donor class), happy to see mass illegal immigration (cheaper labor for their donor class).

Now, maybe you are right, and all these others … American Enterprise Institute, National Review, Cato Institute, American Conservative, Chronicles of American Cultuer, American Thinker … and I could have added twenty more … maybe all these consevatives are wrong, and you are right. Maybe taxpayers’ money should go to wealthy corporations, but not to American citizens who are unemployed, disabled, old.

The Democrats claim that the Republicans are for ‘socialism for the rich’: bailouts for the banksters who gambled and lost in 2008 … when they win, they get to keep their winnings; when they lose, we pay their losses. Doesn’t sound like the ‘Main Street Conservatism’ we ought to be known for

But, how about this: you read one of the articles I linked to above, about ‘Corporate Welfare’, and tell me what you think of it. You can post a link to an article that backs your view, and I’ll read it. Then we can discuss the two.

Please note: I’m not against all government subsidies and government ownership (socialism).

Some socialism is good: I’m glad the Federal Government owns the National Parks and Forests, subsidizes research into how to make better atom bombs and go to the moon, buys weapons and uniforms for the military, builds and maintains highways, etc.

But in general, things work better when the government just provides framework for individuals to compete with each other in the free market. Welfare … for individuals or corporations … should be strictly only when necessary for the public good, and limited in time.

Are saying that sarcastically? We don’t know how many people go missing there. There’s a former cop (His name escapes me but he has a book or two and some videos) who tried to make sense of all these mysterious disappearances. If you have a German family name (being of German extraction), you need to be extra cautious. Genetic experiments? Who knows.

Genetic differences among humans do exist. Some races are better off as slaves. In fact, there’s a view that humanity was created to be slaves thousands of years ago.