For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act of Northern Aggression

Re:For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act o... by stevenwoo on Saturday November 24, 2018 @10:29PM (#18525293)

Historically in the US, it has been those in power pitting group against group like poor whites against slaves in this case (or one ethnic group versus another in other struggles with labor in the North during the same time period and afterwards), for the purpose of keeping those at the bottom occupied with an easily identified other, versus those with a lot more power and harder to reach. There were likely some familial ties from the average southern white laborer with some who owned slaves or were in the system as overseers. I also don't see how evil is unlikely, the daily brutality of slavery required a large standing militia to suppress the constant threat of active rebellion of the slaves against the owners, and it's likely the average white adult male would have been a part of said militia. It seems to me that living with that one has to make the moral choice to accept it - for the alternative there was only one John Brown and family and maybe one Free State of Jones situation, for almost everyone else, they either did not see it as evil we see it today and commonplace (so not perhaps evil in their own eyes) or not willing to make the ultimate commitment against it. On the other hand, the United States being probably the last country to outlaw slavery does not speak too well of our country. The poor did not start the war, only serve as foot soldiers and there was a draft on both sides - the elite class served as officers, this notion that the war was initiated by the average person seems counterfactual, most of the time it's elites who want to start war and waging a propaganda campaign to get the populace behind starting a war.

Even today there's no popular campaign today to go to war against Iran or North Korea, but it sure is popular in some conservative think tanks and with our current NSA, John Bolton, it's been his obsession for the last 20 years it feels like.

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Re:For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act o... by lsc on Sunday November 25, 2018 @12:28AM (#18525597)

>Historically in the US, it has been those in power pitting group against group like poor whites against slaves in this case (or one ethnic group versus another in other struggles with labor in the North during the same time period and afterwards), for the purpose of keeping those at the bottom occupied with an easily identified other, versus those with a lot more power and harder to reach.

Yeah, I keep hearing this, and I just... saying things happen because people are too dumb to see their own self interest is... it's just really unsatisfying. It fits the data, but it also tastes like the other times in my life where I've been wrong because I'm arrogant.

It's also unsatisfying because it's not particularly predictive; it doesn't tell me which elites the masses will follow and why.

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Re:For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act o... by stevenwoo on Sunday November 25, 2018 @10:26AM (#18527231)

I can imagine a situation where people feel they have little choice but support the status quo, that does not make them too dumb to see their self interest. There are quite a few reports from the Civil War on both sides of men rising up against conscription as the war dragged on or in the North of whites taking it out on blacks as it was their fault.

There's also the trope of the bonding that takes place within smaller military units that makes them committed not to the cause but to each other.

In addition the other side of people too dumb to see their self interest, I am not saying these people are dumb but we see that today if we turn on the news to see for one example - farmers rationalizing themselves being hurt by retaliatory tariffs on American farm stuffs - they seem cognizant of the problem, aware of the higher order consequences for themselves, and willing to accept them to try what seems to be on some terms a way to attempt for fair trade with China, and still support the President. It may be rationalizing but it's not done out of ignorance or stupidity.

What you are asking for in the end sound like some equivalent to Psychohistory in Asimov's Foundation, which would be a neat idea.

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Re:For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act o... by suzzer99 on Sunday November 25, 2018 @03:51AM (#18526047)

It's all about hijacking natural human tribaliasm for your own ends imo.

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Re:For Decades, Southern States Saw Thanksgiving as an Act o... by philwelch on Monday November 26, 2018 @12:14PM (#18534881)

> for the alternative there was only one John Brown and family and maybe one Free State of Jones situation, for almost everyone else, they either did not see it as evil we see it today and commonplace (so not perhaps evil in their own eyes) or not willing to make the ultimate commitment against it

John Brown was one of many anti-slavery militants who was involved in Bleeding Kansas, and far from being the extremist he's portrayed as today, he was widely considered a hero in the North, with songs being sung in his honor by Union troops during the war, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown%27s_Body). Others defied federal law in attempts to free slaves and secret them north towards Canada.

The resolve and radicalism of the abolitionist and free-stater movements shouldn't be underestimated. Many Americans in the antebellum years perceived slavery as an unconscionable evil just as we do today. A few undertook great personal risks to resist it, while many, many more worked through the political system to resist slavery.

Many of our contemporary perceptions of antebellum America are somewhat biased by the historical revisionism of neo-Confederates.

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