We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, September 8, 2016

The class essence of the Confederacy in the American Civil War

Click here to access article by Douglas Lyons from World Socialist Web Site

Critics from major media do not like the recently released film entitled "Free State of Jones". The author of this post especially goes after a critic of the NY Times, the "newspaper of record" and the newspaper of the capitalist class that rules the US, because it points to the class nature of that war. In the US any kind of analysis that even hints of class issues is strictly "verboten". No doubt, the critic will go far in his career at the NY Times and other major media.
The recent film, Free State of Jones (directed by Gary Ross) was condemned by numerous media figures and film critics, perhaps most notably op-ed columnist Charles Blow of the New York Times. According to Blow, the film “tries desperately to cast the Civil War, and specifically dissent within the Confederacy, as...a populism-versus-elitism class struggle....
No, according to all agents of the ruling class, the American Civil War was all about the issue of slavery. Referring to the myth of a "solid south" waging war over slavery, the author concludes his article with this insight:
Advocates of identity politics today, such as Blow of the New York Times, cling desperately to this myth for a contemporary purpose—to divide the American working class along racial lines in order to protect and advance their own interests.