The Confederacy was the Islamic State of Its Time

[damnedifIknow]

If ever a cause was unworthy, that cause was the US Confederacy. If ever a cause was righteously defeated, it was the cause of the US Confederacy. And if ever a flag was and is an insult to human decency and dignity, it is the US Confederate flag.

The mere fact this is still being debated in the United States, the fact there are those who continue to accord a nobility, valor, and romanticism to the Confederacy – regarded wistfully as the ‘Lost Cause’ by its adherhents – this is evidence of the deep polarization that divides a society yet to fully come to terms with its legacy of slavery, racial oppression, and barbarism."

*Racial oppression, whether delivered from the gun of a mass murderer in a South Carolinian church, or the gun of a police officer, has yet to be expunged in the land of the free, even though 150 years have passed since the Confederacy was defeated in battle.

*The end of Reconstruction in 1877, and the withdrawal of federal troops from states such as South Carolina, resulted in the plight of blacks in said states suffering a sharp reverse. The Klu Klux Klan’s influence and power as America’s first terrorist organization instantly made its presence felt, measured in the rise and entrenchment of white supremacy as a state and culture of segregation returned across the South. Blacks were lynched, murdered, and tortured with impunity from then on, and their status as second-class citizens entrenched.

This mindset remains a fact of life not just across the South but also across the United States, carried in the hearts and minds of right wing Republicans and a reactionary media that on a daily and nightly basis whips up divisions and spews prejudice and racial stereotypes with blithe disregard for common decency.

By far the most compelling evidence of this culture of racial prejudice, however, has been the treatment of the nation’s first black president, Barack Obama, since he entered the White House in 2009. Never has a US President been subjected to such a sustained campaign of demonization and hate as he has.

*There was nothing noble or romantic about the Confederacy, and its defeat marked a victory for human progress."

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/30/the-confederacy-was-the-islamic-state-of-its-time/

[Dawson Leery]

1. kick

[Initech]

2. The Confederate flag: how is this still a thing?

[CK_John]

3. They were just Torys being subsized by the British industrial machine, cotton for finished goods.

[Ex Lurker]

4. Hyperbole much? NT

[JI7]

5. counterpunch

[lostnfound]

6. Emmett Till, lynchings - intended to terrorize blacks

It's an interesting comparison

[MisterP]

7. I dunno, even ISIS never came up with

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_race

[NightWatcher]

8. Is this the new Godwin's Law? Simply replace "Hitler" with "Isis"

[LanternWaste]

11. The absolute and unquestioning faith we place into internet memes such as Goodwin's Law is adorable.

The absolute and unquestioning faith we place into internet memes such as Goodwin's Law is adorable...

Like bumper sticker philosophies or a law education coming off Wikipedia, they certainly are convenient for people who dislike investing too much into thought.

[prayin4rain]

14. ....even when Hitler is probably a more apt analogy. n/t

[ananda]

9. Good article.

Not only that, but after Reconstruction, 4 million Blacks were allowed to starve.

I couldn't believe the true story I heard from my own uncle, who grew up in
Wills Point, Texas. The young guys would hang around the town square, and
one day a Black man came up and they went after him, tied him to a car, and
dragged him around the square till he died... no consequences.

The towns south of Houston were Klan havens for years, which surprised me
to say the least because I was stupid enough to think that Civil Rights had
put an end to that sort of thing.

But Blacks were still afraid to meet up with Whites publicly around there, and
don't even get me started on Vidor, Tx. They were afraid to even drive by that
town on the highway, probably still are.

These stories are not exaggerations or made up, they are absolutely true.

I was actually thinking of the Confederacy and even Jim Crow as ISIS like
before this thread came along.

It's not a stretch.

[former9thward]

13. When did 4 million Blacks starve?

According to the Census at beginning of Civil War there were 4.4 million Blacks, 1870 4.8 million, 1880 6.6 million and 1890 7.5 million.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_demographics_of_the_United_States

[AZ Progressive]

10. Well, Lincoln suffered the ultimate disrespect, a part of the nation seceding because he became...

president.

This shit from Southerners and other like minded right wingers is nothing new.

[former9thward]

12. More anti-history.

When the Confederacy tried to leave the union Lincoln had a choice. He could attack and try and end the rebellion or he could have done nothing. So he attacked and we know what happened. ISIS is trying to expand its territory all over the Middle East and to the world itself. The Confederacy had no such ambitions. If Lincoln had done nothing we would have had two nations (at least until slavery naturally ended as it did all over the western world).

[Paladin]

16. Approximately when would slavery have ended in your idealyzed little fantasy?

Can you give us a guess of what year everything would have turned out hunky-dory for the confederacy and its human chattel?

[former9thward]

17. I doubt anything would have turned out "hunky-dory" as YOU put it.

There have been lingering issues for every former slave owning country in the western world. To say, as the OP did, that the Confederacy is ISIS is anti-history to the extreme. Written, no doubt, by someone who did not get the top grades in history classes.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

15. The analogy fails when it comes to proposed responses.

Many here who gladly make these analogies also gladly applaud the Civil War for having suppressed the rebellion. Yet, these same voices seem loathe to confront ISIS in similar terms.