28
Pick A Bale Of Stupid
I am beginning to suspect that the greenhouse gases being released into the world by industrialized nations are having an adverse effect on the space-time continuum. There are days, based on the rhetoric I see coming from some of the loonier corners of the right wing batty brigade, that I can’t tell whether it’s 1932, 1919, or 1896.
See, Michael Medved wants to set us all straight about the so-called evils of American slavery.
Before we go on, I just want to stop and savor that line for a minute or two. Michael Medved. American slavery. Revisionist history.
At this point, I’m pretty much irrelevant, aren’t I? You just know this is going to be chock-a-block full of gibbering insanity.
Luckily for us, he’s broken his ravings down into numbered bullet-points - much like the leaflets you find stuck to telephone poles about how the head of the CIA is a mutant lizard person who performs religious/medical experiments on homeless people often are.
Those who want to discredit the United States and to deny our role as history’s most powerful and pre-eminent force for freedom, goodness and human dignity invariably focus on America’s bloody past as a slave-holding nation.
See what I mean? Aren’t we off to a rollicking good start?
1. SLAVERY WAS AN ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL INSTITUTION, NOT A DISTINCTIVELY AMERICAN INNOVATION. At the time of the founding of the Republic in 1776, slavery existed literally everywhere on earth and had been an accepted aspect of human history from the very beginning of organized societies. Current thinking suggests that human beings took a crucial leap toward civilization about 10,000 years ago with the submission, training and domestication of important animal species (cows, sheep, swine, goats, chickens, horses and so forth) and, at the same time, began the “domestication,” bestialization and ownership of fellow human beings captured as prisoners in primitive wars. In ancient Greece, the great philosopher Aristotle described the ox as “the poor man’s slave” while Xenophon likened the teaching of slaves “to the training of wild animals.” Aristotle further opined that “it is clear that there are certain people who are free and certain who are slaves by nature, and it is both to their advantage, and just, for them to be slaves.”
And after so opining, Aristotle then got drunk on six-week-old wine and had unspeakable carnal relations with a sixteen-year old boy. For real!
Medved actually thinks an argument about how the ancient Greeks and Mesopotamians practiced slavery are worth considering. Does he know anything at all about ancient Near Eastern ethical standards? You’d think someone who’s presumably read the Old Testament once or twice in his life would appreciate the progress that humans have made in applied ethics since then. By 1776, for instance, European civilizations had given up the practice of stoning disobedient children.
As sad as this particular argument is, it’s actually the best of the six that Medved manages to muster: It’s all downhill from here, I’m sorry to say.
2. SLAVERY EXISTED ONLY BRIEFLY, AND IN LIMITED LOCALES, IN THE HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC – INVOLVING ONLY A TINY PERCENTAGE OF THE ANCESTORS OF TODAY’S AMERICANS.
Okay, now I’m really confused. Didn’t Medved just finish saying that slavery was “universal”? How could it have been “limited” in America if it were “universal”?
Actually, this chumpwad’s abuse of and ignorance about American history is making me too mad to even joke right here. Slavery was NOT limited in America AT ALL. The first American colony to legalize slavery was Massachusetts (in 1641); the first slave revolt in English colonial territory was in 1712 in New York. Slavery existed EVERYWHERE in the New World — everywhere there were people with enough money to buy other people.
And the hamfisted rhetorical trick of claiming that slavery only existed for 89 years in the United States is beyond horrid. I had a girlfriend once who had lived with a guy who beat her for eight years before she married him. They divorced after two years. If you claimed, “Well hey, she was only married to someone who hit her for two years,” you would be technically correct. You’d also be a pompous, condescending asshole of the first order by minimizing the eight years she spent with him without being married.
Slavery existed on this continent for over two hundred years before the laws supporting it were removed, and any attempt to minimize that fact is beyond execrable. Way to go, Medved — have you considered pimping this argument out to David Duke? I bet he’d love it.
Grrr. . .I don’t like being this angry. Let’s move on and hope we get to the funny stuff soon…
3. THOUGH BRUTAL, SLAVERY WASN’T GENOCIDAL: LIVE SLAVES WERE VALUABLE BUT DEAD CAPTIVES BROUGHT NO PROFIT. Historians agree that hundreds of thousands, and probably millions of slaves perished over the course of 300 years during the rigors of the “Middle Passage” across the Atlantic Ocean.
Not funny. Very true, and very sad. Could we be having a breakthrough here? Has Michael Medved looked into his own people’s history — the Exodus, the Shoah — and found compassion in his heart for the sufferings of the human chattel broken on our shores?
Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of these voyages involves the fact that no slave traders wanted to see this level of deadly suffering: they benefited only from delivering (and selling) live slaves, not from tossing corpses into the ocean.
I’m sorry; what was that?
Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of these voyages involves the fact that no slave traders wanted to see this level of deadly suffering: they benefited only from delivering (and selling) live slaves, not from tossing corpses into the ocean.
I’m. . .well, I’m…
You know what? I’m just going to go sit over here in the corner and pretend that I never, ever read that sentence. I much prefer the thought of living in a world where people who would honestly say that the worst thing about the slave trade was the money slave traders lost on slaves who died in transit are put into a home for the deranged and cared for compassionately until they died, far away from any access to pens or paper or the internet, not given syndicated radio shows. You guys watch this for a couple of minutes; I’ll be back.
All right. Let’s move on, shall we? And just forget about that earlier bit - I’m still pretending it didn’t happen. Don’t spoil the illusion for me.
4. IT’S NOT TRUE THAT THE U.S. BECAME A WEALTHY NATION THROUGH THE ABUSE OF SLAVE LABOR: THE MOST PROSPEROUS STATES IN THE COUNTRY WERE THOSE THAT FIRST FREED THEIR SLAVES.
Oh, fuck it. I give up. What does this even have to do with whether or not slavery is a blot on American history? Slavery would somehow have been more horrible if everyone had gotten rich off of it? So because the defense of slavery was often rooted in pure, unadulterated racism instead of economic convenience (an assessment I agree with, by the way), this makes it a better thing?
5. WHILE AMERICA DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY, THE UNITED STATES MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR ITS RAPID ABOLITION.
Yes. And while I deserve no unique blame for inflicting this piece of tripe by Medved on you, I merit special credit for its rapid cessation.
I have to stop soon anyway, because I’m starting to feel physically ill from reading this. If you really care, you can see a brief breakdown on when various countries outlawed slavery here; I note (as I’m reaching for the milk of magnesia) that we beat out Zanzibar by about thirty years. Hooray.
6. THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TODAY’S AFRICAN-AMERICANS WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF THEIR ANCESTORS HAD REMAINED BEHIND IN AFRICA.
And this is the crux of it right here; the fiery, dense kernel of stupid, crapulous, filthy, racist tripe that generations of wingnuts past have applied the titanic pressures of their stupidity to in order to produce a perfect diamond of codswallop.
We did those benighted African savages a favor by enslaving them, you know. We brought them civilization, and Christianity! And shoes! And transistor radios! Just look how happy they are, walking around in their shoes with their transistor radios and praising Jesus! How can you say what we did is wrong?
What’s wrong with this, of course, is that even if every single descendant from a slave alive in America today were currently rich enough to spend all of their time managing their own elephant polo team, that still doesn’t make slavery right. If slavery is wrong, then it is wrong, no matter how salutary the outcome of enslavement may (or may not) be.
Medved goes on to make some blathering argument about how calls for reparation of any sort are all motivated by white liberal guilt, and since he’s proven that there’s no need for any of us white folks to feel guilty about anything, all those annoying uppity darker folks should just get back in the kitchen and hush up. I have to say that I am consistently amazed at the moral depravity this sort of argument shows in the person who makes it - is the only time one seeks to right a wrong when one feels a personal sense of moral guilt over the wrong? From where I’m sitting, this is actually the height of moral bankruptcy. This isn’t an argument about whether some sort of reparations for slavery are right or wrong; this is simply the recognition that if reparations are a moral right, then they are a moral right whether or not you or I or Michael Medved have any reason to feel guilty over the legacy of slavery in this country.
I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to the next set of installments in the “Inconvenient Truths by Michael Medved” series. Seeing as how he schooled us all on the “Inconvenient Truth of Genocide Against Native Americans (it never happened!)” last time, I’m betting the next one is going to set us all straight on the Inconvenient Truth About Rape (it’s not so bad if you lie back and relax!), or perhaps the Inconvenient Truth About Witchtrials (those witches deserved it!).
Update: My identical brain-twin, Clif, has more. I’m beginning to think that with a little practice, Clif, we ought to be able to just communicate telepathically and collaborate that way - shall we try it for the next piece?
Marita said,
September 28, 2007 at 4:43
PUPPY BOWL!!!!1!!!
Oh wait… I’m sorry… was someone saying something?
Oh right. Medved. Gack.
Jillian said,
September 28, 2007 at 4:46
Puppy Bowl got even better when they introduced the Kitten Half-Time Show.
I am not ashamed to admit I watched the whole thing a couple of years ago. All three (or was it four?) hours of it.
a different brad said,
September 28, 2007 at 4:47
Geez, Jillian. Noble savages only existed in North America, and as the white man crossed the continent, they slowly melted away into the landscape, like so many leprechauns. Being noble, despite their savagery, they knew it was their duty to merely tend the land until the white man’s manifest destiny brought him to it, to improve it with his touch.
Africans were literally living in piles of mud until the white man came along, and in no way has anything the white man has done to the continent contribute to the problems faced in so many parts of it.
White men set the slaves free, didja ever think of that?
Marita said,
September 28, 2007 at 4:47
ZOMG! T-Rex is a poodle! Who knew?
a different brad said,
September 28, 2007 at 4:49
Oops. *contributed
School’s back, gotta stop being a McArdle.
Pere Ubu said,
September 28, 2007 at 4:50
6. THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TODAY’S AFRICAN-AMERICANS WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF THEIR ANCESTORS HAD REMAINED BEHIND IN AFRICA.
Africa would be nothing but restaurants where people hung out decked in “bling” and baggy pants and screaming “MOTHERFUCKER WHERE’S MY ICED TEA”. Or something.
Some Guy said,
September 28, 2007 at 4:50
“5. WHILE AMERICA DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY, THE UNITED STATES MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR ITS RAPID ABOLITION.”
What? Slavery had been outlawed by most other modernized nations well before the US had a war. In fact, before the Civil War, the import of slaves from Africa had already been established, too little effect. See, the key terms of it were “from Africa”. Slaves from Cuba, Dominica, any where like that? Load them on up! Never mind that THOSE slaves were from Africa! I think that they eventually fixed that loop-hole, but by that time, there was a large enough indigenous slave population to sustain itself.
Also, as has been noted, by the Civil War, slavery had already been outlawed by roughly half the states in the Union. And many other nations. Then the south decided to be pricks about every goddamned thing that didn’t go their way and started a war over it. For four years.
I wouldn’t call that “rapid”
Humor Me said,
September 28, 2007 at 4:59
Man Marita, that was my exact thought. I friggin LOVE Puppy Bowl. And Jillian, I would so tap your starter if it needed it (hope you got that fixed BTW). and, well, Medved. If there is a god, Medved will be consumed by a gay-interracial-diaper-sex scandal beyond even my imagination.
And puppies.
Some Guy said,
September 28, 2007 at 4:59
Also, chihuahuas are proof that there is no god.
And speaking of “God”, “proof”, and “chips with salsa con queso.”
http://unitedcats.wordpress.com/2007/05/29/major-biological-discoveryinside-the-chernobyl-reactor/
ZOMG! Matter, with energy applies, created life! Where’s your god, NOW, huh?
Jillian said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:00
Got the starter fixed.
Found out I need new tires. Sigh.
But the joy of being surrounded by Puppy Bowl fans more than makes up for it!
RandomObserver said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:04
“THOUGH BRUTAL, SLAVERY WASN’T GENOCIDAL”
America - home of the increasingly low standards.
Hey at least we don’t
torture.Hey at least we don’texecute children and the mentally retarded.Hey at least we don’timprison people without charging them with a crime.Hey at least we don’tspy on our own citizens in violation of our own Constitution.Hey at least we don’tmake unprovoked war on other countriesYou know…all those terrible things Iran does that
we don’t do?Err…at least we didn’t kill all black people. Hey that one’s still good! We’re golden.
Pere Ubu said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:07
Personally I prefer the Kitty Halftime show, m’self, but that’s just me.
Pere Ubu said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:12
You know…all those terrible things Iran does that we don’t do?
Iran’s such an evil poopyhead totalitarian dictatorship that they won’t even let you criticize the military!
…oh, wait…
Pere Ubu said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:15
Aristotle further opined that “it is clear that there are certain people who are free and certain who are slaves by nature, and it is both to their advantage, and just, for them to be slaves.”
Thank god our enlightened future society has evolved far beyond such ridiculous ideas.
Some Guy said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:17
New tires are fun. Makes sure you got a good pressure gage and know what your PSI’s should be at. I got new tires on mine, but fucked up when i was trying to read the tire plate on the driver side door, and had them about 10psi under what they should have been for a few thousand miles. now two of them have had inflation issues.
blowback said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:25
The mortality rate on the slave ships delivering the slaves was high and it was even higher after the British and Americans outlawed the slave trade because the penalties the captain/owner would suffer could include destruction of his vessel and execution so it was safer for the slaver to throw all the slaves overboard if he was likely to be stopped by the Royal Navy. I am surprised Medved didn’t bang on about how it was piracy for the Royal Navy to destroy slave ships (property rights!!!) and prevent slavers from earning an honest dollar.
blowback said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:29
Talking of tyres, couldn’t some one give that dumb fuck Medved a necklace.
Ruthie said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:33
I think my brain has been scorched by “teh stoopid.” I just keep wondering who is responsible for Medved’s dye job.
Djur said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:36
OK, #6 was actually proposed regularly by historical apologists for racism and slavery, so at least Medved can take pride in the fact that he’s in illustrious company. But…
Holy fuck is #5 stupid. It may be the dumbest thing I’ve ever read in my entire life, and I’ve read Little Green Footballs. It’s an ahistorical marvel, really; a wholly unprecedented feat of delusion. I won’t even believe it’s deception, because nobody capable of average cognitive reasoning could ever imagine they could get away with such an astounding lie in service to such a detestable argument.
RandomObserver said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:41
Now he did say “perhaps.” As in:
“Perhaps, to some extent, the worst thing about slavery was that I never personally got a chance to own slaves. I mean come on now!”
Pere Ubu said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:44
“Perhaps, to some extent, the worst thing about slavery was that I never personally got a chance to own slaves. I mean come on now!”
Perhaps, to some extent, being beaten vigorously about the head and shoulders with a red-hot bicycle chain wouldn’t be THE worst thing the Medved had ever experienced.
M@ said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:46
I thought moral relativism was a leftist thing. When did we lose the monopoly on that!?
Col Bat Guano said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:47
A little rewrite might be in order:
“Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of this involves the fact that Medved didn’t want to see this level of deadly suffering: he benefited only from live hookers, not from tossing corpses into the ocean. “
El Cid said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:48
Let’s say that Medved were to be judged correct in his attempt to prove that the history of slavery in the English North American colonies / USA did not prove that (a) the USA was the most cruel, savagely murderous nation in history, and (b) that the USA had failed to do some good in the world.
So?
Does he think he has proved something significant?
Does he think that Frederick Douglass wouldn’t ask the man if he thought he was lecturing a child? Does he think that American slaves and former slaves themselves were unaware of the possibilities of those two perspectives? Is he unaware that throughout the South, African Americans ran for and won political office for decades after the end of the Civil War, ceasing only due to a murderous right wing proto-fascist terrorist insurgency (”Redemption”) — precisely because they thought the country worth fighting for yet remembering the evil of slavery?
I guess right wingers basically have a simple Hitler-Stalin-Mao test for the USA. If the USA is doing something better than what Hitler-Stalin-Mao did, well, it’s not very wrong, even if it is somewhat wrong, and it’s only possibly wrong if it’s in the past, because anything wrong going on currently is for the good of the nation and the world, until such time as the said wrongness is far enough in the past to be considered harmless old news.
MrWonderful said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:48
Jillian, I’m here to tell you that your deepest reaction of revulsion at this fuckwad is exactly correct.
Years ago I wrote, in a parody of William F. Buckley’s journals, something to the effect that corporations (in WFB’s voice) “don’t take lightly to killing people, since it depletes their customer base.”
At the time I thought, Well, that’s literally true, but it’s extreme, so no one REALLY thinks that. So ha ha, yay me.
And now you’re quoting this Medved crap. And there it is: The slaves benefited from their servitude, because “there’s no reason” to think they’d have been better off back in horrible old Africa.
It really IS that extreme. God, what a desperate, pathetic fuckhead.
Go have a drink. I know I will.
amh said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:54
The comments sections fun. Two comments in there’s this:
Great article Michael, obviously you did a lot of research. Recently, I traced my family tree & I found on one side, my ancestor sold himself as an indentured slave to gain passage to the New World. After serving, he married, raised a family & was reasonably successful. On the other side of my family, my ancestors were slave owners. So, in my family there exists both slave & slave owner, & I am white. When my slave owner relatives moved, some of the slaves went with them because they wanted to be with them. One of the women slaves became the local midwife & she was buried on my family plot. I’m proud of both the slave & the slave owner, in America anything is possible.
It’s sort of like the slavery version of the “I have plenty of [insert minority] friends” defense.
g said,
September 28, 2007 at 5:55
6. THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TODAY’S AFRICAN-AMERICANS WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF THEIR ANCESTORS HAD REMAINED BEHIND IN AFRICA.
Whatever I might say to this can’t do any better than Randy Newman:
In america youll get food to eat
Wont have to run through the jungle
And scuff up your feet
Youll just sing about jesus and drink wine all day
Its great to be an american
Aint no lions or tigers-aint no mamba snake
Just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake
Evrybody is as happy as a man can be
Climb aboard, little wog-sail away with me
Sail away-sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into charleston bay
Sail away-sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into charleston bay
In america every man is free
To take care of his home and his family
Youll be as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree
Youre all gonna be an american
Sail away-sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into charleston bay
Sail away-sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into charleston bay
Clif said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:03
Oh, shit, Jillian. We have got to stop sharing the same brain cells. I just posted on the Medved column here as well. And I used the same picture but with a different, er, statuette. I’m gonna move it over to my place. Gimme a little link love, though, okay?
g said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:03
Old Slave Market, Charleston
In the seven decades between the drafting of the U.S. Constitution and the Civil War, more than one million American-born slaves were sold away from plantations in the upper South to work the rapidly expanding cotton and sugar plantations in the lower South.
JustMe said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:05
I was going to write some snark about how the Holocaust really worked out well in the end for Jews in the long run but it just wasn’t funny.
Go fuck yourself Mr. Medved.
Just go fuck yourself.
Dave Latchaw said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:11
Like Michael Medved, I am also a devotee of Aristotle. I have begun my own program of space travel based on Aristotle’s Physics. By constructing a craft of sufficient moon-ness I am sure I can can travel to the moon through the principal of “like attracts like” with no need for messy, expensive, and noisy rockets. I am having trouble aquiring sufficient quantities of green cheese, however.
After my voyage to the moon, I will embark on my exploration of the superlunary regions. By duct-taping together many, many bottles of Kristal, I hope to be drawn to the crystalline spheres themselves.
I’m wondering if Sadly, No readers could PayPal me donations to help with my research. Especially the Kristal part.
Humor Me said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:12
Cliff, you may have been second, but the lawn jockey was sweet.
RubDMC said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:21
“history’s most powerful and pre-eminent force for freedom, goodness and human dignity”
Someone please help me catch up - who’s he talking about?
Nylund154 said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:22
A number of black people over the age of 45 still remember when they weren’t allowed to legally piss in the same toilet as a white person. Some freedom.
Righteous Bubba said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:23
Someone please help me catch up - who’s he talking about?
Superman.
Clark Kent said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:25
Superman
Damn! Missed him again!
Derek Henderson said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:29
An interesting aside for any lit crit nerds out there… Medved’s argument is essentially the same one that Steven Knapp makes against the usefulness of literary theory…
Just sayin’ is all…
cf. Dawkins & the selfish gene…
Lesley said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:35
THOUGH BRUTAL, SLAVERY WASN’T GENOCIDAL…Historians agree that hundreds of thousands, and probably millions of slaves perished over the course of 300 years during the rigors of the “Middle Passage” across the Atlantic Ocean.
I’d call hundreds of thousands and probably millions dying from being stuffed into cramped fetid cargo holds with insufficient food, water, and breathing room, a form of genocide.
laserda said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:44
I’m thinking Clif must be feeling pretty slow right about now.
laserda said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:45
And I guess if I had read all the comments before opening my virtual piehole, I would have known he was feeling kinda slow.
Now I’m feeling kinda slow. Me, and Google Reader.
galactic Dustbin said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:53
THOUGH BRUTAL, SLAVERY WASN’T GENOCIDAL…Historians agree that hundreds of thousands, and probably millions of slaves perished over the course of 300 years during the rigors of the “Middle Passage” across the Atlantic Ocean.
Millions dying in pursut of profits is not genocide- its just bad business practices. The perps were punished with lower stock options and bad annual reviews. Justice has been done!
Incontinentia Buttocks said,
September 28, 2007 at 6:56
An interesting aside for any lit crit nerds out there… Medved’s argument is essentially the same one that Steven Knapp makes against the usefulness of literary theory…
Hmmm…this may be the most obscure comparison in the history of S,N!
I’m trying to figure out what Knapp’s argument might be….
1. LITERARY THEORY WAS AN ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL INSTITUTION, NOT A DISTINCTIVELY POST-STRUCTURALIST INNOVATION.
2. DECONSTRUCTION EXISTED ONLY BRIEFLY, AND IN LIMITED DEPARTMENTS, IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN ACADEMIA – INVOLVING ONLY A TINY PERCENTAGE OF THE DOCTORAL ADVISERS OF TODAY’S PROFESSORS.
3. THOUGH BRUTAL, OF GRAMMATOLOGY WASN’T GENOCIDAL: “LIVE” SPEECH IS VALUABLE BUT “DEAD” WRITING ALSO BRINGS PROFIT AVANT LE LETTRE.
4. IT’S NOT TRUE THAT STANLEY FISH BECAME A WEALTHY PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL THROUGH THE ABUSE OF LITERARY THEORY: THE MOST PROSPEROUS PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS IN THE COUNTRY ARE THOSE THAT AVOID LITERARY THEORY ENTIRELY.
5. WHILE AMERICA DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF FORMALISM, THE UNITED STATES MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR ITS RAPID ABOLITION.
6. THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TODAY’S LITERARY SCHOLARS WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF THEIR MENTORS HAD REMAINED NEW CRITICS.
Lesley said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:04
Shorter Medved: Slaves were a valuable labour force, therefore any deaths that occurred were accidental and unintentional!
Every job has risks, after all!
(I wonder why he doesn’t talk about the slave owners’ “bullet in the head” pension plan.)
Outside The Tent said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:04
[...] post appeared for about 3 minutes at Sadly, No! until I discovered that only minutes before Jillian posted on the same Medved column there. Coincidence or hacking? You decide. Permalink 2 [...]
Incontinentia Buttocks said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:06
Dept. of Tiny Silver Linings:
I suppose we should be a little grateful that most (if not all) of Medved’s argument still entails the premise that, at the time, slavery was a not entirely good thing.
Since in the last five years torture (torture!) has been entirely normalized in our society, I have come to think that just about anything is possible. At least we haven’t yet gotten to the point that the Medveds are actively trying to reintroduce slavery.
M. Bouffant said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:07
Love the commenter referenced above, comparing his ancestor’s 7-10 yrs. of indentured servitude to slavery, describing said ancestor as an indentured slave. One little difference, dipstick!! And he’s so proud of his slave owner ancestors who buried “Mammy” in the fambly plot. Gaaarrrghh!!
Commenter said: Great article Michael, obviously you did a lot of research. Maybe a lot of research for comment boy, who doesn’t know the diff ‘tween slavery & indentured servitude. Every one of those six points has been recycled by hatemongers since the ’60s. And the reason black people in Africa may not be as well off as some are in the U. S. is European imperialism & colonialism, as much as Medved wishes it was ’cause of the Bell Curve.
I’ll gladly slap that dick-dusting mustache off his face, one hair at a time, if any one wants to front me air fare.
Notorious P.A.T. said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:11
He must be right–he wrote in all caps!
Hysterical Woman said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:15
Russia abolished slavery* before us. Russia.
*Technically serfdom, but that’s a form of slavery, just one tied to certain land.
M. Bouffant said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:17
5. WHILE AMERICA DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY, THE UNITED STATES MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR ITS RAPID ABOLITION.
BULLSHIT!!! The Brits stopped it in 1830-something, & didn’t have to fight a bloody war over it, either.
Lesley said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:17
Since he looks the part - I can’t help thinking Medved must sound like this; (with profuse apologies to Terry Thomas).
Pinko Punko said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:18
I love the internal Sadly, No race to the bottom of the barrel. Oh, look the bottom of the barrel has a psychotic clown face, er…it’s Michael Medved!
g said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:19
I’d call hundreds of thousands and probably millions dying from being stuffed into cramped fetid cargo holds with insufficient food, water, and breathing room, a form of genocide.
Yeah, what’s the percentage of tose who survived vs. those who died? Just curious.
Lesley said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:19
Did Pinko just slam me for a looks/sound-ism?
Notorious P.A.T. said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:20
THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TODAY’S AFRICAN-AMERICANS WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF THEIR ANCESTORS HAD REMAINED BEHIND IN AFRICA.
Is there a reason to believe that, had the slaves who died crossing the ocean instead stayed in Africa and had descendants, those descendants would be glad their ancestors were not loaded onto slave ships? Just wondering, folks.
M. Bouffant said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:38
Another comment:
Get ready for the Socialists to whine
This is a great outline of the history of slavery, reasoned and well-researched.
Unfortunately, it won’t mean one jot of difference, if you find yourself confronted by a Socialist running down the US as a white-supremacist, oppressive slavemaster state.
They don’t want to know facts; they only want to feel good. Facts be damned!
Great outline of the history of slavery? Blaming the Greeks, and then making most of the rest of it up? “Socialists only want to feel good? “Aw, don’t make me feel bad by bringing up all that slavery stuff. I want to feel good about my country. You socialist, you!”
Boring factual point: Commenter who’s so proud of “mammy” being in the family plot identifies herself as MissAnn, so I guess it should be comment “girl,” as I doubt many of the Clownhallers are secure enough in their sexual identity to joke around w/ it. Or joke around w/ anything, what w/ their panties being twisted up all the time. I sort of suspected, ’cause men don’t give a shit about our ancestors (or descendents either, ha ha!!).
Snoops Durston said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:48
The estimates for the Atlantic slave trade (1440s-1880s) is estimated 9 million (lowball) to 15 million arrivals in the New World. Dead in middle passage ranged from 33% to 8%, so figure at least 2 million over 4 centuries. These numbers certainly leave out dead in coastal holding cells, marches to the coast, and warfare inspired by Atlantic slave markets. These numbers also leave out Indian Ocean and trans-Saharan slave trades, smaller annually, but over longer time periods.
The U.S. officially outlawed the import of new slaves in 1808, one year after U.K. The U.K. abolished slavery itself in its colonies kind of in 1833, though slaves had to serve a 4-6 year “apprenticeship,” so that the owners could get themselves “on their feet” with the drastic economic change. Which often wasn’t that drastic as the slaves continued in many places as low-wage laborers, or else South Asian indentured servants were imported.
Drats Durston said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:50
I meant someone other than Snoops. And “estimates … estimated.” Ugh. Edit your goddam self, Durston.
dadanarchist said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:51
Hah, the asshole is even wrong about the death of slaves on transatlantic voyages “hurting” the slave traders because it diminished their profit margins.
Actually the slavers could collect money from slaves that died. The origins of the modern insurance industry were closely tied to the slave trade. Among Lloyd’s other profitable enterprises were insuring slave shipments across the Atlantic, like any other commodity. Sometimes sick slaves or slaves that were maimed on the journey across were purposefully thrown overboard to collect insurance.
There is so much written on slavery - Medved has not even begun to penetrate .001% of its surface, what a surprise - but the one basic thing almost anyone can say about the trans-Atlantic slave trade was that it was unprecedented in its scope and in its brutality. What was particularly unique about the American system was that there was no way out for slaves. Other slave societies - for instance, the laws governing slavery in Muslim lands - provided a set of laws and customs that theoretically at least protected the slaves from the abuse of their masters and established a process of manumission. American slavery had no such features, almost unique in the history of slavery.
The jury is still out on the role that slavery played in the formation of American industrial capital, but the sense is that it was vitally important to the rise of industry generally.
I eagerly await Medved’s comments on how the annihilation of the Native Americans pales in comparison to the Roman sack of Gaul in the last century, BCE.
Some quick references:
- Ian Baucom, “Spectres of the Atlantic: Finance Capital, Slavery and the Philosophy of History” - insurance + slavery + capitalism
- Joseph Miller, “The Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade” a devastating masterpiece
- Sidney Mintz, “Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History” - sugar, slavery and the origins of capitalism
- Sadiya Hartman, “Lose Your Mother: A Journey Across the Atlantic Slave Trade” - scholar writes non-scholarly take on the slave trade
Some Guy said,
September 28, 2007 at 7:53
“Get ready for the Socialists to whine
This is a great outline of the history of slavery, reasoned and well-researched.
Unfortunately, it won’t mean one jot of difference, if you find yourself confronted by a Socialist running down the US as a white-supremacist, oppressive slavemaster state.
They don’t want to know facts; they only want to feel good. Facts be damned!”
Wow. I want to see Medved post up his history on how the Earth is really banana-shaped, and see how many of his commenters say how great it is, well-researched and all.
And what does socialism have to do with American slavery? The mind boggles!
Crooked Timber » » Horrifying Aspect said,
September 28, 2007 at 8:12
[...] Sadly, no! (whose discerning discussion of the whole column is worthy of your attention.) posted on Friday, [...]
Drats Durston said,
September 28, 2007 at 8:14
I hadn’t read the article yet when I posted, but I should’ve known he was going to bring up the crap argument that Atlantic slave trade apologists have been making at least since the late nineteenth century, “but the Arab slave trade was bigger”! Medved’s figures (12-17 mio) come from over-estimates that are based on figures drawn straight out of air, and British prejudices from the 19th-century. The chap who gets cited for the 17 million figure gets his numbers from a self-citation of a never-published paper.
Where exactly are these huge populations of Islamic-trade slave descendants living in the Middle East and South Asia these days, Mike? Why’n't you bring up the big-bad Muslims-enslaved-Whitey-in-the-Med story, huh?
Drats Durston said,
September 28, 2007 at 8:27
Because, as we all know, places that primarily produce raw materials and foodstuffs are never poor.
-The NW European shipping industry (and all its subsidiaries) built in the 17th and 18th centuries emerged in all its complexity (and wealth generation) to capitalize on the slave trade.
-The New England colonies in fact became economically viable by selling both timber to this shipping industry and cod to the slave colonies in the Caribbean.
-The tobacco, coffee, and sugar grown by slaves helped to create the consumer society that crossed the North Atlantic and diversified and enriched those economies (not to mention the pleasure centers of white consumers)
-The industrial processes required to process sugar on the Caribbean islands served as a model for the factories of the industrial revolution
-The American slaves’ production of cotton fed the beginnings of the industrial revolution in England
The whole northern hemisphere’s wealth and economy is indebted, in part, to the labors of New World slaves.
lobbey said,
September 28, 2007 at 8:30
I was going to write some snark about how the Holocaust really worked out well in the end for Jews in the long run but it just wasn’t funny.
If he was being consistent, the argument would be that the holocaust was good because it allowed the formation of Israel.
Get ready for the Socialists to whine. This is a great outline of the history of slavery, reasoned and well-researched.
what a moron, Socialism wasn’t even up and running in the 18th century
Another good book that describes the economic impact of slavery to the formation of the colonies (as they were then) is “Scotland’s Empire” by T M Devine. Is very Scotocentric, but does clearly illustrate how important slavery was in the America.
Paddy Mac said,
September 28, 2007 at 8:46
“Those who want to discredit the United States and to deny our role as history’s most powerful and pre-eminent force for freedom, goodness and human dignity invariably focus on America’s bloody past as a slave-holding nation.”
Mike, that’s cuz you Republicans refuse to give us reasons like torture, unprovoked war, secret prisons, illegal detentions, warrantless wiretapping, and stolen elections. If you’d just do that, we wouldn’t have to confuse you by citing this thing called “history”, about which you seem to know nothing.
“. SLAVERY WAS AN ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL INSTITUTION, NOT A DISTINCTIVELY AMERICAN INNOVATION. ”
In fact, even dirt-poor inhabitants of a desert on the east end of the Mediterranean had it, three thousand years ago. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, now, would you? Even though nineteenth-century American slave-holders cited a certain ancient “holy” book to justify the practice.
GNU-STRUMPET said,
September 28, 2007 at 9:54
Well, we now know what happened to the class of ‘65– and it ain’t a pretty picture. They’ve suffered many ethical casualties in transit.
JABbering Stooge :: Tossin’ the slaves down the memory hole :: September :: 2007 said,
September 28, 2007 at 10:34
[...] Michael Medved (hat tip, the fine folks at Sadly, No!): Six inconvenient truths about the U. S. and [...]
Incontinentia Buttocks said,
September 28, 2007 at 11:20
I know this is like shooting fish in a barrel, but I have another question about this Medved fan comment: how does pointing out the horrors of American slavery make us “feel good”?
Jillian said,
September 28, 2007 at 11:53
IB, it makes us feel good because WE HATE AMERICA, and anything that lets us revel in the badness that is the U.S.A. is therefore a good thing.
Yes, their thinking is really this cartoonish.
GotDaFeevah said,
September 28, 2007 at 12:06
Slavery did, in fact, exist in many other societies throughout human history, but its its place within different societies is incredibly complex and there is nowhere in the history of Africa of the Middle East where it took the particularly brutal form that it did in the New World.
My knowledge is mostly of slavery within Africa (as your resident BA in African History, natch) and there was no society in Africa that had what you call “chattel slavery” where the slaves are threated like animals and the owner owns their mind, body, soul and reproduction. There are plenty of possible formulations for not-exactly-free-ness that are less total and far less brutal. It dosen’t make either form good, but you certainly can’t use one as any sort of justification for the other (as people sometimes do, to my astonishment and disgust). To equate the slavery that we had in the US with other types from history at least profoundly ignorant and certainly morally repugnant.
And don’t even get me started on how the slave trade changed the very map of West Africa and crippled its economy in at least 3 different and profound ways. If the life of the people who avoided the slave trade was not all that great either, it is hardly a separate phenomenon.
And I am not even a specialist in West Africa. This is just shit that anybody who is going to go on about how slavery is “NOT A DISTINCTIVELY AMERICAN INNOVATION” ought to fucking LOOK UP!
What is the world coming to when guys like Medved are not run out of town for saying stuff like this?
W. Kiernan said,
September 28, 2007 at 12:29
racist bonehead: “5. WHILE AMERICA DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY, THE UNITED STATES MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR ITS RAPID ABOLITION.”
Special credit, eh? You know, the U.K. abolished human slavery quite a bit before the U.S.A. did. But that’s because the people of the U.K. weren’t so fervently devoted to the continuation of slavery. For example, as far as I know, no major church denomination was in the U.K. was created especially to serve the spiritual needs of slavery advocates, whereas here in the U.S. we have the Southern Baptists, whose reason for existence as a separate
W. Kiernan said,
September 28, 2007 at 12:41
church was the defense of slavery.
Then also, the people of the U.K. weren’t such fervent lovers of human slavery that it took a four year war that killed 800,000 people in the U.K. to put an end to the practice.
I don’t know if that last bit is entirely clear, so I will make an analogy. Imagine there are two dudes who work in your office, John and Sam, who smoke cigarettes. Imagine you’re trying to get them to quit because no one else can breathe inside the office while they’re puffing away. So you go up to John and say, “John, I hate to tell you this but you’ve got to stop smoking in the office.” John says, “Aw, do I have to?” You say “Yes,” and so John quits.
Next you go up to Sam and say “Sam, I hate to tell you this but you’ve got to stop smoking in the office.” Sam howls like a stuck pig, pulls out a gun and shoots the department secretary dead, then barricades himself inside his office and every time he hears a sound outside he responds with hysterical curses and a volley of gunfire. Four days later, the office is a shambles, half the file room has been burned out, two dozen of your fellow workers are dead and another fifteen are variously crippled amputees, and at long last the seige has ended as the authorities have dragged Sam, bleeding and dazed, from his last retreat in the men’s room. Now which of the two, John or Sam, was the bigger and crazier cigarette fan?
Scott Mercer said,
September 28, 2007 at 12:51
Medved does not deserve to call himself a Jew.
I hereby, on behalf of the Jewish people, revoke his Bar Mitzvah.
Turn in your yarmulke at the nearest synagogue, Medved.
WCW said,
September 28, 2007 at 13:55
I thought I was the only one who got physically sick while reading such things. Thanks Jilian.
To think I used to own a copy of the Golden Turkey Awards…
Ripley said,
September 28, 2007 at 14:12
Unfortunately, it won’t mean one jot of difference, if you find yourself confronted by a Socialist running down the US as a white-supremacist, oppressive slavemaster state rightwing neocon chickenhawk promoting US Imperialism and war on all brown-skinned people.
They don’t want to know facts; they only want to feel good. Facts be damned!
When you put it that way, it makes a lot of sense.
Ripley said,
September 28, 2007 at 14:14
What the….?!? Where’d my strike-thru go?
Unfortunately, it won’t mean one jot of difference, if you find yourself confronted by a
Socialist running down the US as a white-supremacist, oppressive slavemaster staterightwing neocon chickenhawk promoting US Imperialism and war on all brown-skinned people.They don’t want to know facts; they only want to feel good. Facts be damned!
julia said,
September 28, 2007 at 14:20
Sorta makes you wonder what that whiny liberal Moses was getting all worked up about, don’t it.
Pere Ubu said,
September 28, 2007 at 14:33
Unfortunately, it won’t mean one jot of difference, if you find yourself confronted by a Socialist running down the US as a white-supremacist, oppressive slavemaster state rightwing neocon chickenhawk promoting US Imperialism and war on all brown-skinned people.
They don’t want to know facts; they only want to feel good. Facts be damned!
Wull, SHEEE-IT, don’t you know the only time us Socialists “feel good” is when we’re “running down the US”?
I mean, if it was any other country, you know, we might be pointing out awful things done in the past so we could, you know, AVOID THEM in the future. But hell, American Exceptionalism and all that.
Percyprune said,
September 28, 2007 at 14:41
Because clearly that would be an admission that white slaves loved slavery as much as the blacks and that it was as beneficial for Europeans as it was Africans.
Dhalgren said,
September 28, 2007 at 15:20
So this is the arc of the Michael Medved story. He went from pro-censorship film critic, to the victim of plagiarism by a BU dean in 1991, to a syndicated opinion columnist, to a radio talk show host, to full-blown wingnut. It took 20 years.
Wally Whateley said,
September 28, 2007 at 15:30
I’ve just about had it with the national media enabling these racist motherfuckers. They managed to purge Imus, but they can’t be bothered to get rid of O’Reilly or Medved or Malkin or any of the rest of these fucknozzles.
Tell y’all what, elect me president and not only will I get the troops home by the end of the year, but I’ll make sure Medved gets his citizenship revoked and his ass deported. By cannon. Into the sun.
thelogos said,
September 28, 2007 at 15:41
Maybe his next column will be on how the Shoah was really a good thing for the Jews and that calls for damages to be paid to camp survivors and their kin are really the product of white liberal guilt.
Jake H. said,
September 28, 2007 at 15:44
Six related inconvenient truths for Medved:
1. SLAVERY WAS AN ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL INSTITUTION, NOT A DISTINCTIVELY EGYPTIAN INNOVATION.
2. SLAVERY EXISTED ONLY BRIEFLY, AND IN LIMITED LOCALES, IN THE HISTORY OF EGYPT (WHICH IS THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLD) – INVOLVING ONLY A TINY PERCENTAGE OF THE ANCESTORS OF TODAY’S EGYPTIANS.
3. THOUGH BRUTAL, SLAVERY WASN’T GENOCIDAL: LIVE JEWS WERE VALUABLE BUT DEAD CAPTIVES BUILT NO PYRAMIDS.
4. IT’S NOT TRUE THAT EGYPT BECAME A WEALTHY NATION THROUGH THE ABUSE OF SLAVE LABOR: THEY ALSO SOLD PAPYRUS AND…UH…ASPS OR SOMETHING.
5. WHILE EGYPT DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY, EGYPT MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR JUST CUTTING THEIR LOSSES ONCE THE RED SEA CLOSED UP ON THEM.
6. THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TODAY’S JEWISH-AMERICANS WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF THEIR ANCESTORS HAD REMAINED BEHIND IN PALESTINE.
Unfortunately, it won’t mean one jot of difference, if you find yourself confronted by a Moses-loving Rabbi performing a seder running down Egypt as a genocidal, oppressive slavemaster state.
Gundamhead said,
September 28, 2007 at 15:49
“5. WHILE AMERICA DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY, THE UNITED STATES MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR ITS RAPID ABOLITION.”
It always amazes and disgusts me when they make this argument. Are they stupid or just pure evil? Do they so desperately need to believe that America is the best country in the history of like the whole fucking universe that they have to just make stuff up? Are they delusional enough to believe their own lies?
Fuck, I can’t even laugh at this shit. Fuck you Porn Stache’! Just die already.
Left_Wing_Fox said,
September 28, 2007 at 15:56
Thanks to Bob B in the Comments of Crooked Timer for finding the painting that this immediately reminded me of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slave_Ship
Which was painted in 1840 in support of the British Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 and based on the Zong Affair, where slaves were murdered at sea for the insurance money.
One 19th century painting that blows #3 and #5 out of the water. You’re out of your FUCKING league little movie critic.
The Mahablog » More Drool said,
September 28, 2007 at 15:56
[...] Jillian at Sadly, No and John Holbo at Crooked Timber also comment. But no one so far has asked the critical question, which is What the hell was eating at Medved’s reptilian brain that inspired him to write this? Has criticism of American slavery been in the news lately? Spotlight [...]
Lean Left » Not a Post Racism Society: Michael Medved said,
September 28, 2007 at 16:04
[...] Via Sadly, No! we find that Michael Medved is trying to argue that slavery wasn’t so bad. No, seriously. Go Read the whole post at Sadly, No because, frankly, they are funnier than I am, and asshattery of this level deserves all the mocking that can be heaped upon it. I just want to point out three things: [...]
Percyprune said,
September 28, 2007 at 16:04
His mendacity is breathtaking. Don’t you Americans teach the history of your Civil War at school?
Percyprune said,
September 28, 2007 at 16:08
A painting by Turner, no less. A bona fide masterpiece.
Legalize said,
September 28, 2007 at 16:13
Shorter Medved: In order to free the black Africans, we had to enslave them and explot their labor for 100 years or so.
Wally Whateley said,
September 28, 2007 at 16:14
Don’t you Americans teach the history of your Civil War at school?
Our pundits don’t believe in education. Most of them are rabidly opposed to anyone learning anything.
A painting by Turner, no less. A bona fide masterpiece.
There was a PBS program called “Simon Schama’s Power of Art” that focused on Turner and “The Slave Ship” for one of its episodes. Powerful stuff.
Lex said,
September 28, 2007 at 16:21
Dammit, this is like my Pottery Barn Ruby Ridge now ex-neighbors telling me that they weren’t racists because they invited their daughter’s whole class to their party, “even the black girl” while the same kid was chasing me around my street calling me a “dirty Mexican”.
Even my white branch of the family, all of us proud Georgians, don’t understand why I apologize just to try to make things better in the world for the fact that we were a slave owning family. Well, multiple slave-owning families. It wasn’t right then, regardless of the fact that it was common practice, and though I don’t think feeling guilty personally as a nation today is the answer, individually making amends and not letting people like Medved get away with this kind of crap at least shows blacks in America that we truly have changed.
This is as bad as the growing “other neo-colonialism” I am studying regarding “evangelical Christian” missionary trips to Catholic & Orthodox countries to “save souls” and do church “seed-planting” because those poor people just don’t know the “truth about Christ”. Sickening. And their “truth” is, of course, rooted in an American modern evangelical teaching of Christianity. This isn’t over, folks. The “little brown brothers” of the former colonial age have been renamed and retargeted for transport to “Jesus Camp”, and it’s still all about race and culture.
Now with help from Medved! Charming. Important note: just as in vampire movies, these folks have a similar reaction to rainbow flags as the crucifixes in the movies. Or garlic in either case, really. Seriously, I don’t think these people have even discovered Chinese food yet.
timekiller said,
September 28, 2007 at 16:26
Jesus H. Christ! Each time you folks post something these so-called wise and serious folk write, for profit, and publish in a large forum, it is worse than the last one. Where do you find these people?
This has to be the most ignorant, thoughtless waste of paper I have read in years. This is the shit that these people get paid to write? Again, I will repeat my belief that when this is all over, these people must be required to get real jobs. In Medved’s case, he can plant, tend and pick the beans on my back 40. Maybe he’ll get a perspective on stuff he likes to write about.
I was going to point out some things I read in that piece sophistry that were flat out insanely wrong, but what’s the point?
DAS said,
September 28, 2007 at 16:35
I posted this on an earlier, dead thread, but figured it might be relevent here as well:
Why am I thinking these schmucks would get along with George FitzHugh? - Jillian
Nope … they’d hate him. FitzHugh was very anti-capitalist.
However, they’d much love to claim that our opposition to FitzHugh means that we Jews, er, liberals are not only behind the Commie, er Islamo-fascist conspiracy to enslave Christendom, but we also are behind the Capitalist, er Hollywood Elitist conspiracy to oppress the working class.
Actually, the right claims as much today with all their talk about our “cultural elitism”. Of course, it doesn’t help when so-called liberals take positions that are effectively anti-working class thus giving truth to conservative lies about who’s on whose side. Remember there is not much of a difference between the sort of “centrist” who says “well both the Dems. and GOP are equally rotten, but dang if I’m gonna trust those effete liberals in the Dem. party on issues of national security” and the Nadar voter who says “well both the Dems. and the GOP are equally rotten, so I’m gonna vote for Nadar even if it means the election goes for the GOP, since the Dems. are just as bad”. Nu? Perhaps if the Dems. move to the left (rather than to the center), that’s how they’ll get the so-called centrist block … offer an alternative to compete with the GOP “brand” rather than offering a knock off? Remember, people only buy knock-offs if they are cheaper and people don’t perceive “tax-and-spend Democrats” to be cheaper.
In fact, the GOP (with its lurch to the right) realized this a long time ago. When will we Dems. realize this? Perhaps when key Dems. realize that the so-called liberal media is not actually on our side and hence we should maybe not take their “advice” so readily?
Sarcastro said,
September 28, 2007 at 16:39
At the time of the founding of the Republic in 1776, slavery existed literally everywhere on earth …
Except Britain which abolished the practice in 1772. Oh, and Portugal which abolished slavery in 1761. Did I mention Sweden (and it’s Finnish territories) outlawed slavery in 1335? Japan did so in 1588.
That’s like 5 minutes worth of research.
JK47 said,
September 28, 2007 at 16:42
Don’t you Americans teach the history of your Civil War at school?
Naw, we got home schooling over here. In the home-school version of American History, there are no pesky, uncomfortable truths such as “slavery was bad.” This dovetails nicely with the science curriculum, which revolves heavily around a talking snake in a tree. Plus your kids don’t have to sit in class with them naggers.
Drats Durston said,
September 28, 2007 at 16:50
Except Britain which abolished the practice at home in 1772. Oh, and Portugal which abolished slavery at home in 1761.
Clarified that for you.
Left_Wing_Fox said,
September 28, 2007 at 16:59
A painting by Turner, no less. A bona fide masterpiece.
There was a PBS program called “Simon Schama’s Power of Art” that focused on Turner and “The Slave Ship” for one of its episodes. Powerful stuff.
Which is actually why that was on my mind in the first place. I happened to catch that exact episode a couple months ago back while on the road.
Percyprune said,
September 28, 2007 at 17:03
I’m mystified as to why a foreigner like me can know more about this than Americans like Medved, who have no excuse.
Percyprune said,
September 28, 2007 at 17:05
Has Medved ever sung the words to ‘John Brown’s body’? Even I have, and I’m bloody English!
atheist said,
September 28, 2007 at 17:08
To be fair, Percyprune, I think the majority of Americans still are educated that slavery was actually quite bad for the slaves. I used to believe that everyone knew this, now I’m not quite so naive. There are people like Medved, and also a surprisingly large bunch of people who aren’t so polite about it as he.
atheist said,
September 28, 2007 at 17:11
Even Americans who are anti-slavery, however, are often rather naive about what the situation really was like, until they actually start reading and researching about it. The schools teach it, but it seems to me that people are still afraid to really get into the details with children.
Sadly, Cambridgeport said,
September 28, 2007 at 17:12
Well, speaking of the Shoah, and continuing in the Godwin vein (as if the article even needed Hitler analogies to illustrate how reprehensible it is):
The Nazis technically didn’t invent the Jewish ghetto; or restrictions on employment, public access, and property ownership for the Jewish people; or the requirement that the Star of David be worn on clothing; or slave labor camps; or gas chambers. Even genocide had been practiced by various cultures for thousands of years, including, arguably, the Jewish people upon their return to Canaan.
The Nazis cannot be credited with originating any of these atrocities, but they did have a unique role in making them nearly universally taboo. What is with all the debbie-downer-dhimmis who have to go attacking Germany’s past every chance they get?
The politicians, media, and educational institutions of every country should just keep a working assumption that their country is as virtuous as it possibly can be and always has been, while the blame lies with other, much wickeder nations. That way we can all feel better! I can’t imagine how there could be any negative consequences.
sophie brown said,
September 28, 2007 at 17:13
Actually, the guy who wrote this book: http://www.amazon.com/Southern-Slavery-Was-Douglas-Wilson/dp/188576717X,
is the leading distributor of classical christian curriculem for schools and homeschooling. He feels like you have to defend american slavery, since the bible says slavery is ok.
Sadly, Cambridgeport said,
September 28, 2007 at 17:14
A painting by Turner, no less. A bona fide masterpiece
And hanging right in our very own MFA - this is still a Boston blog, right?
RubDMC said,
September 28, 2007 at 17:21
Photo caption: “You say you want me to shove this up my ass?”
J— said,
September 28, 2007 at 17:23
Clif and Jillian: I say next time, the two of you should podcast or v-log your posts simultaneously, with each of you reading your respective texts out loud and each voice coming out of a different speaker. It would be like Bloggingheads, except actually entertaining and funny.
atheist said,
September 28, 2007 at 17:40
I’d pay to see that.
El_Cid said,
September 28, 2007 at 17:41
The more fiercely US right wingers condemn the imaginarily giant phantoms of a devoted anti-US Bolshevik left, the more they become like them.
Their giant slippery-slope fear is that if it is ever truly admitted and accepted that not only have the governments of the USA done things which were wrong, but which were really, really, really wrong, then it suddenly becomes more difficult to demand obedience to their crazy crazy crazy policies right now based on the argument of uninterrupted and unquestionable the moral perfection of any right wing US policy.
kiki said,
September 28, 2007 at 17:43
Sarcastro: Hey, give the guy a break. He only said “literally” - he didn’t mean you to take his statements, like, literally.
r4d20 said,
September 28, 2007 at 17:44
White millionaires are the truly oppressed.
Jake H. said,
September 28, 2007 at 17:56
I continue to be MYSTIFIED by the American conservative movement’s failure to attract minority voters! I mean, WHAT could it be? They had mariachi bands at their convention and everything! Plus didn’t Ken Mehlman actually TALK to some black people once, and Bill O’Reilly went to a restaurant IN HARLEM, even though he knew that most black people in restaurants curse and shoot at each other and booty-dance on the table and pay with the money they got selling their food stamps (thankfully, amazingly, just this once, they sat at their tables and ordered food like white people).
Jon H said,
September 28, 2007 at 18:03
I love how he thinks the worst part of slavery was the part it had in common with retail sales - the heartbreak of shrinkage.
Righteous Bubba said,
September 28, 2007 at 18:10
I continue to be MYSTIFIED by the American conservative movement’s failure to attract minority voters!
I think it’s worth being a Republican to vote for Alan Keyes in primaries.
SamFromUtah said,
September 28, 2007 at 18:16
Dear Ghod, what an unbelievable retchtastic bit of revisionist / apologist / racist / dickweedist tripe Medved has wrought.
Puppy Bowl was the perfect antidote, though, and I thank you for that.
Puppy Bowl got even better when they introduced the Kitten Half-Time Show. I am not ashamed to admit I watched the whole thing a couple of years ago. All three (or was it four?) hours of it.
Agreed - it makes Super Bowl Sunday tolerable, since I can’t imagine giving less of a shit about football. My wife and I not only watched the whole Puppy Bowl but taped it. Bowl-Cam is teh Best Thing Evar!
The American Street » Blog Archive » In Defense of that Peculiar Institution: Moronic Punditry said,
September 28, 2007 at 18:26
[...] Oh. My. Invisible Object of Secular Non-Worship. [...]
Notorious P.A.T. said,
September 28, 2007 at 18:27
I continue to be MYSTIFIED by the American conservative movement’s failure to attract minority voters!
LOL!
isaac said,
September 28, 2007 at 18:30
the idea behind all of this is that somehow the holocaust was worse than slavery and that african americans shouldnt even try to make such a specious comparison because our suffering is sacrosanct and yours isnt
dadanarchist said,
September 28, 2007 at 18:33
“Actually, the guy who wrote this book: http://www.amazon.com/Southern-Slavery-Was-Douglas-Wilson/dp/188576717X,
is the leading distributor of classical christian curriculem for schools and homeschooling. He feels like you have to defend american slavery, since the bible says slavery is ok.”
Holy shit. What moral midgets our generation of evangelicals are.
I wonder what Garrison or Wilberforce or the Stowes or the countless other evangelical Christians who helped spearhead the abolition of slavery and the slave trade would say about these people.
Percyprune said,
September 28, 2007 at 18:38
They would weep, then roll up their sleeves and get with the ass-whupping.
Let’s not forget that in their time there was no shortage of holy rollers ready to champion the cause of slavery. They were used to these scum.
Percyprune said,
September 28, 2007 at 18:45
Thank goodness for the Dungeons & Dragons(R) cartoon strip Order of the Stick for pointing out that evil is measured in kilonazis!
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0489.html
Gentlewoman said,
September 28, 2007 at 18:50
I’m mystified as to why a foreigner like me can know more about this than Americans like Medved, who have no excuse.
Oh, he knows the truth. He just doesn’t care about it. Plus, remember he’s writing for people who probably either don’t know (a frightening proportion of the GOP Base) or don’t care (their handlers, like Medved and the rest of ClownHall).
I despair. But Puppy Bowl and Sadly, No! help me keep going. Thank you.
Dorothy said,
September 28, 2007 at 18:51
I can’t believe he said this:
IT’S NOT TRUE THAT THE U.S. BECAME A WEALTHY NATION THROUGH THE ABUSE OF SLAVE LABOR: THE MOST PROSPEROUS STATES IN THE COUNTRY WERE THOSE THAT FIRST FREED THEIR SLAVES.
I guess he can’t take the next logical step and ask why slavery continued in the US even though–in his own argument–it wasn’t a source of prosperity. You’d think that after the third or fourth state freed their slaves and suddenly prospered (I know, I know–but that’s his implication here!) , the other states (good capitalists all!) would immediately follow suit, right?
So why on earth would good capitalists continue a practice that (according Medved) was clearly inhibiting their own prosperity…hm…why might that be?
For bonus points, try to come up with an answer that makes our ancestors seem like better people than we thought they were.
Nope. I got nothing.
Kevin Hayden said,
September 28, 2007 at 19:14
Thankfully, we’ve advanced as a society so our Blacks should be grateful, and our illegal immigrants, too.
zsa said,
September 28, 2007 at 19:19
Some motherfucking ice tea would be pretty good right about now.
Kevin Hayden said,
September 28, 2007 at 19:21
Crap. That shoulda been:
Our Blacks should be grateful.
Our immigrants should be, too.
Not to mention our poor.
Sigh. As for our morons, we just keep screwing up in comments.
zsa said,
September 28, 2007 at 19:33
Medved is basically taking the “Rape: Best Just Lie Back and Enjoy It” argument and retroactively applying it to 400 years of the slave trade.
Why is he even writing about this subject? Are they hoping to get the slave trade running again? Or perhaps just bring indentured servitude back into the Overton Window? We are going to have a lot of destitute ex-homeowners pretty soon … can’t pay the mortgage, can’t declare bankruptcy, might as well put them to work to pay those debts down.
Captain Bathrobe said,
September 28, 2007 at 19:35
Is Medved actually trying to argue that slavery was not so bad because it wasn’t, technically speaking, genocide? Hello? It was *slavery*–involuntary servitude, you’re somebody else’s property, not even allowed to marry or decide with whom you reproduce, whipped bloody at someone else’s whim– slavery! Isn’t that bad enough?
This is the sort of facile, “positive good,” apologetics that would make John C. Calhoun blush–and even he didn’t try to argue that the real victims of the slave trade were the traders who lost so much precious cargo.
I would say it’s unbelievable, but (Sadly, No!) it’s what I’ve come to expect from Medved and his ilk.
mikey said,
September 28, 2007 at 19:39
You’d think that after the third or fourth state freed their slaves and suddenly prospered (I know, I know–but that’s his implication here!) , the other states (good capitalists all!) would immediately follow suit, right?
If we had Universal Health Care in this country, GM, Caterpillar, Boeing, American Airlines and the rest of the Fortune 5000 would benefit in a HUGE way. And yet the upper management of those companies will do anything and spend anything to prevent it? Wonder why that would be?
mikey
Worst. President. Ever. said,
September 28, 2007 at 19:39
5. WHILE AMERICA DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY, THE UNITED STATES MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR ITS RAPID ABOLITION.
I am a US citizen who lives in Canada. Lt. Governor John G. Simcoe abolished slavery right here in my town of Niagara-On-The-Lake in the year 1793.
In fact, I am proud to live on Simcoe Street.
Let’s type this slowly so that even complete idiots like Medved can understand:
1) Not only is the United States a bit late in stepping up to the plate (at least 70 years), but
2) it took a brutal motherfucking war to fee the slaves, and
3) even after the slaves were freed, they were still treated like shit and
4) even to this very day in the south, there are people who are mad about both the war and the slaves being freed… And I know this because some of these racist idiots are my relatives.
Wingnuts— no brains, no compassion, no shame.
timekiller said,
September 28, 2007 at 19:39
IT’S NOT TRUE THAT THE U.S. BECAME A WEALTHY NATION THROUGH THE ABUSE OF SLAVE LABOR: THE MOST PROSPEROUS STATES IN THE COUNTRY WERE THOSE THAT FIRST FREED THEIR SLAVES.
This is probably a misreading of this statement but it seems to suggest that the US could have become wealthy if they made better use of slave labor but instead the managed to become wealthy in spite of the abuse of slave labor. It seems to suggests that, “Damn it, we could still have slaves and be wealthy if we didn’t abuse misuse what we had!”
Maybe that’s just my take on this. I think there are many who consider themselves serious, refined, educated, and powerful who actually long for a time when they really can own other human beings and live in a manner akin to the Saudi Royalty. They see countries like that and think, “Why can’t that be me? And here I am in the US and have to pay these poor suckers!”
Lastly, a question: I thought the 13th amendment abolished slavery? Did individual states abolish it before the enactment of amendment 13 in 1865?
mikey said,
September 28, 2007 at 19:42
Is Medved actually trying to argue that slavery was not so bad because it wasn’t, technically speaking, genocide?
Don’t forget these are the same people who told us repeatedly and with a straight face that Guantanamo Bay wasn’t so bad, in spite of the torture, the lack of human contact, the inability to talk to a lawyer or your family or even ask why you are being held, because the food was so damn yummy…
mikey
Michael Muttonhead, Wingnut Extraordinare said,
September 28, 2007 at 19:45
“SLAVERY WAS AN ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL INSTITUTION, NOT A DISTINCTIVELY AMERICAN INNOVATION”
Among friends, I’ll go even further and admit it was an “HONORABLE” institution.
“SLAVERY EXISTED ONLY BRIEFLY, AND IN LIMITED LOCALES, IN THE HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC – INVOLVING ONLY A TINY PERCENTAGE OF THE ANCESTORS OF TODAY’S AMERICANS.”
Proof: The 1850 Census lists only 3.2 million slaves out of a total population of 23.2 million. But they’re dead, so they don’t count.
“THOUGH BRUTAL, SLAVERY WASN’T GENOCIDAL: LIVE SLAVES WERE VALUABLE BUT DEAD CAPTIVES BROUGHT NO PROFIT”
My point is that dead slaves are just like spillage at your local fast food stand.
“IT’S NOT TRUE THAT THE U.S. BECAME A WEALTHY NATION THROUGH THE ABUSE OF SLAVE LABOR: THE MOST PROSPEROUS STATES IN THE COUNTRY WERE THOSE THAT FIRST FREED THEIR SLAVES.”
That’s right, New York is wealthier today than Mississippi.
What’s that? Oh, you ask who was wealthier in 1850? That would have been Mississippi. Oopsie!
But that proves my point! Today we wouldn’t tolerate anything that would have such an adverse impact on the wealth creators in American society.
“WHILE AMERICA DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY, THE UNITED STATES MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR ITS RAPID ABOLITION.”
Nor does America deserve unique blame for the existence of Michael Medved.
“THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TODAY’S AFRICAN-AMERICANS WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF THEIR ANCESTORS HAD REMAINED BEHIND IN AFRICA.”
Like I said, dead slaves don’t count.
dadanarchist said,
September 28, 2007 at 19:50
“Don’t forget these are the same people who told us repeatedly and with a straight face that Guantanamo Bay wasn’t so bad, in spite of the torture, the lack of human contact, the inability to talk to a lawyer or your family or even ask why you are being held, because the food was so damn yummy…”
Ha, excellent point.
I was wondering where the illustrations to Medved’s article were, y’know, with a pickaniny (sp?) gratefully “thankin’ massa” for delivering him from the eeeeviiiillsss of the African continent and giving him the bible and clothes and watermelon and fried chicken…….
I mean, how bad could slavery have been, right, with all that delicious food and excellent music?
Son Of Slam said,
September 28, 2007 at 19:53
Dorothy,
Not only that, but he doesn’t even ask why, if slavery wasn’t so good for prosperity, slaves commanded those high prices he discussed.
Research. I think some of those commentors should become aware that “Making shit up” is not the same as “research.”
Sadly, Cambridgeport said,
September 28, 2007 at 19:53
I wonder what Garrison or Wilberforce or the Stowes or the countless other evangelical Christians who helped spearhead the abolition of slavery and the slave trade would say about these people.
Oh no you don’t, Wilberforce is one of THEIR heros. Evangelicals have full proprietary rights over his name, historical legacy, and
what he would say if he were here today.
A nibble:
Oh, but it gets better:
Other highlights include:
*Black conservative says slavery wasn’t about race (so STFU minorities!)
*Richard Dawkins and his atheist buddies are really to blame here
And, of course,
*slavery = abortion
Have fun kids!
K said,
September 28, 2007 at 20:03
Human beings took a crucial leap with the submission of chickens?
the stupid it burns said,
September 28, 2007 at 20:03
4. IT’S NOT TRUE THAT THE U.S. BECAME A WEALTHY NATION THROUGH THE ABUSE OF SLAVE LABOR: THE MOST PROSPEROUS STATES IN THE COUNTRY WERE THOSE THAT FIRST FREED THEIR SLAVES.
Yeah. Rhode Island & Mass shipping merchants had _nothing_ to do with the slave trade, and rum, and er, they never, ever, ever, traded with the sugar planters in the Carribean. And let’s just pretend that Northern slavery didn’t exist. ok? (Hey - how did all those bodies end up in New York City’s African burial grounds?)
And the growth of cotton in the South had nothing to do with the textile industrial revolution in England. Nothing. I can’t hear you. la la la la la la la la…
And South Carolina wasn’t the wealthiest per capita colony in the 18th century.
Whee! a fact