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well, from what i have been able to figure out, there is nothing controversial in the op, really: that the usual elementary school "history" explanations of the civil war are wrong--i would assume this is given.
that the civil war can be interpreted as being about which type of economic system would be dominant in the states--not really controversial.
that lincoln was not particularly other than racist himself (read the debate with calhoun)--obvious if you have done the research. not if you havent.
that the outcome of the civil war was fundamentally shaped by the debacle of reconstruction--not controversial.
that the way "state's rights" discourse works in contemporary conservative politics owes everything to the racist outcomes of reconstruction--obvious, but potentially controversial.
that among these outcomes was a truly horrific intertwining of class and racism in the states--obvious, but perhaps controversial.
that this intertwining of class and racism is a basic feature of american history--obvious. it should not be controversial, but then again denial is a powerful thing.
that confronting the persistence of this intertwining of class and racism in the present requires a confrontation with its history--obvious, except perhaps to conservatives who actually believe the kind of Hero Worship that the right's "intellectuals" espouse.
that a confrontation with this persistent feature of the american past in the present is desirable--obvious, but perhaps controversial. there are folk who look around the states and see only what they want to see. there are folk who tacitly endorse the squalid history of racism and class conflict in america because they think those who have lost out deserve/deserved to lose out--some crude social darwinism at work that only recoils when it is named---knit straight into the fabric of conservative economic ideology itself.
well maybe there are things that could be debated.
but spaces like politics in a messageboard are not about opening one's mind--they are about looking for affirmation for what one thinks one already knows----even when it comes to that thin veneer of experiences disappeared into the past that we call history (a discourse that is itself a form of compensation--the illusion of recuperation of the past, of the transparency of what is recuperated, the illusion that the past is as close as any other scene reconstituted via reading (novels, recipes, history, harlequins) are all functions of deep anxieties about the present, about instability, about conflict about death--repetitions of the pseduo-transparency television provides its viewers)
you cant force people to see what their politics and/or aesthetic preferences (is there a difference?) prompt them to prefer, how they carve up their world, what they leave out, what they rationalize, how they rationalize it. not in a space like this at least.
if that's true, then what, really, is debate here?
does it really feel like anyone is missing out on anything because there nothing is happening in this thread?
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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