SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! Mesa and South Africa

hanuman wrote:Huh. South African blacks might just as well have been slaves, for all the freedom they had to make choices regarding their own lives.

I understand what you're saying, although on Mesa
it was the seccie population that took
the lead in the uprising, which is comparable
to the events in South Africa.
But your comparison also works,
1 although I should mention that the abolition movement
was primarily a Northern political movement.
Also, the major cause of the Civil War was
2 the question of whether states
had the right to secede from the Union or not,
not whether they could practice slavery or not.
The latter was ALWAYS secondary to the former.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Hanuman, your heart is in the right place,
but you are misinformed on some details.

1 Abolitionists worked mostly in the Free States,
because they were driven out of the Slave States!
(Otherwise how could the slaveholders AND would-be
slaveholders have kept slaveholding "legal?")

2 No, the ACW was not fought to test Seccesion Theory.
First time I've ever seen *that* idea!

Suggested reasons have been: 1 Protect Slavery
2 Abolish Slavery 3 Protect "Southern Customs" in general
4 Destroy some (carefully unspecified) Southern Customs
5 Impose some kind of Tyranny. 6 Save The Union

Seccesion was chosen, and then Ft Sumter was fired on,
because the Slaveholders felt that they could better
protect Slaveholding outside than inside the Union.
The result proving that they were wrong,
does not change the way the chose to gamble,
or the reason that they chose to gamble that way.

HTM

hanuman wrote:Howard, are you saying that the US government would have let the secession stand had Confederate forces not fired on Ft Sumter?

I always understood that the major casus belli was to preserve the United States as a 'perpetual union'?

kzt wrote:

hanuman wrote:Howard, are you saying that the US government would have let the secession stand had Confederate forces not fired on Ft Sumter?

I always understood that the major casus belli was to preserve the United States as a 'perpetual union'?

It's unknown. The crazies in South Carolina had been trying to start a war for ~30 years and finally pulled it off.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Perhaps not, but in fact Roth's name *is* accurate,
and *very much* appropriate.
Although I phrase it
"War For Slaveholders' Privileges" not "Rights"
because they did not have those "rights,"
they stole them!

The "aggression" that began the war was
the "Firing On Fort Sumter,"
and we all know that the CSA did that.

There were soldiers, and units, from every state in
the Union Army, and a few hundred "Northerners" in
the Confederate Army, so you were taught *lies.*
They are obvious lies, easily shown up,
and nobody over 25 years old has any excuse for believing
them, much less quoting & signing his own name to them,
no matter how much he ought to have been able to trust
the people who taught him those lies.

If you doubt whether immigrants had it worse than slaves,
simply consider how many immigrants volunteered to
become slaves, compared to the number of slaves who tried
against all odds to escape!
Hint: the number of volunteers for slavery = *NONE!*
Duh!

Old Coot, you are Old Enuf To Know Better!

Howard "True Map-addict" Wilkins, Pointy-Headed Liberal

HB of CJ wrote:Perhaps not appropriate or even somewhat accurate. How about "The War Of Northern Aggression"? Or, as I was taught years ago, ... "The War Between The States". HB of CJ (old coot) Lt.Cm.

While unpaid slaves in the South could NOT quit or move away, neither in fact could most if not all poor immigrants who worked in the many various Capitalist "company towns" of the North.

Both had about the same general lifestyle and expectations. The slaves did get some "veterinarian care". The poor immigrants received none. A slave did have great value. The immigrants none. Both systems sucked. Which one was worse? I dunno.

Pick your poison. FWIW, economically, things were better for South Africa in past years under the former government than they are today. Less crime also. Kinda makes you wonder, does it not? Mesa does have a horrible system. Wonder what will happen.

hanuman wrote:<snip>
As a solution, Rhodes came up with a rather clever (evil, but clever nonetheless) solution, namely what became known as the 'hut tax'. Essentially, the Cape colonial government levied a tax on every single hut in the Transkei (that part of the far eastern Cape that was reserved for the Xhosa-speaking Southern Nguni peoples), to be paid in cash, not goods. And since the traditional economy of the Nguni peoples was not yet integrated into the cash economy of the rest of the Colony (it was a cattle-based barter system), it meant that young men from the Transkei were forced to seek employment en masse - at the only place that was hiring huge numbers of manual labourers, the gold mines. They were paid partly in cash, but not nearly enough to support themselves while living at the mines AND pay their taxes back home, which meant that they were forced to take loans from moneylenders to pay those taxes. That drew most black mineworkers into an ever-worsening spiral of debt, as they had to make yet more loans to pay back their original loans AND pay their annual taxes. Which meant, of course, that they remained on the mines for longer and longer periods of time in order to earn more money. Some mineworkers managed to spend as little as a week or two only back home with their families, and because they earned so little, it left their families having to struggle to support themselves off an increasingly overpopulated and over-exploited land.

It was a horrible system that guaranteed those black mineworkers' continued debt slavery and laid the basis for many of the later policies that were intended to ensure self-replicating pools of cheap labour for white-owned industries in the cities. It also caused a severe dislocation of family life, with rampant crime, substance abuse and other social diseases - both back in the Transkei and on the Rand. <snip>

Theemile wrote:

hanuman wrote:<snip>
As a solution, Rhodes came up with a rather clever (evil, but clever nonetheless) solution, namely what became known as the 'hut tax'. Essentially, the Cape colonial government levied a tax on every single hut in the Transkei (that part of the far eastern Cape that was reserved for the Xhosa-speaking Southern Nguni peoples), to be paid in cash, not goods. And since the traditional economy of the Nguni peoples was not yet integrated into the cash economy of the rest of the Colony (it was a cattle-based barter system), it meant that young men from the Transkei were forced to seek employment en masse - at the only place that was hiring huge numbers of manual labourers, the gold mines. They were paid partly in cash, but not nearly enough to support themselves while living at the mines AND pay their taxes back home, which meant that they were forced to take loans from moneylenders to pay those taxes. That drew most black mineworkers into an ever-worsening spiral of debt, as they had to make yet more loans to pay back their original loans AND pay their annual taxes. Which meant, of course, that they remained on the mines for longer and longer periods of time in order to earn more money. Some mineworkers managed to spend as little as a week or two only back home with their families, and because they earned so little, it left their families having to struggle to support themselves off an increasingly overpopulated and over-exploited land.

It was a horrible system that guaranteed those black mineworkers' continued debt slavery and laid the basis for many of the later policies that were intended to ensure self-replicating pools of cheap labour for white-owned industries in the cities. It also caused a severe dislocation of family life, with rampant crime, substance abuse and other social diseases - both back in the Transkei and on the Rand. <snip>

What you're mentioning here is very similiar to the company towns in the US that HB of CJ mentioned above.

They too were usually a mine - companies would set up a town to work a mine, and solicited in the port cities for workers. The company owned the town, from the homes to the stores and bars. The salary was set so you just had a living wage, and was usually paid in company script - not actual dollars. So if you wanted new clothes or had to take the kids to the (company) doctor - well, you could go to the Company bank and get a loan.

Many of those conscripted were imigrants, many spoke little or poor English. In a short amount of time, most workers who thought they were earning a living wage, soon owed the company a year or more in pay. And the individuals who did get ahead, the script was worthless outside the company town, so they were just as poor as when they got there with no options to leave.

There were actually some major battles between the miners and the owners and local law enforcement, with the Pinkertons (a Detective/Mercenary organization who at this time had an armed force larger and better equipped than the then US Army) fighting for the owners. If you ever hear the term "redneck" applied to someone from the backwoods in the US, it comes from this period, as the miner army wore red bandanas as their uniform.

That what happened in SA was the Prime Minister driving that for his own profit was pure evil; here in the US, the corporate owners had the politicians in their back pockets, so all that blood and greed was on everyone's hands.

Theemile wrote:

hanuman wrote:<snip>
As a solution, Rhodes came up with a rather clever (evil, but clever nonetheless) solution, namely what became known as the 'hut tax'. Essentially, the Cape colonial government levied a tax on every single hut in the Transkei (that part of the far eastern Cape that was reserved for the Xhosa-speaking Southern Nguni peoples), to be paid in cash, not goods. And since the traditional economy of the Nguni peoples was not yet integrated into the cash economy of the rest of the Colony (it was a cattle-based barter system), it meant that young men from the Transkei were forced to seek employment en masse - at the only place that was hiring huge numbers of manual labourers, the gold mines. They were paid partly in cash, but not nearly enough to support themselves while living at the mines AND pay their taxes back home, which meant that they were forced to take loans from moneylenders to pay those taxes. That drew most black mineworkers into an ever-worsening spiral of debt, as they had to make yet more loans to pay back their original loans AND pay their annual taxes. Which meant, of course, that they remained on the mines for longer and longer periods of time in order to earn more money. Some mineworkers managed to spend as little as a week or two only back home with their families, and because they earned so little, it left their families having to struggle to support themselves off an increasingly overpopulated and over-exploited land.

It was a horrible system that guaranteed those black mineworkers' continued debt slavery and laid the basis for many of the later policies that were intended to ensure self-replicating pools of cheap labour for white-owned industries in the cities. It also caused a severe dislocation of family life, with rampant crime, substance abuse and other social diseases - both back in the Transkei and on the Rand. <snip>

What you're mentioning here is very similiar to the company towns in the US that HB of CJ mentioned above.

They too were usually a mine - companies would set up a town to work a mine, and solicited in the port cities for workers. The company owned the town, from the homes to the stores and bars. The salary was set so you just had a living wage, and was usually paid in company script - not actual dollars. So if you wanted new clothes or had to take the kids to the (company) doctor - well, you could go to the Company bank and get a loan.

Many of those conscripted were imigrants, many spoke little or poor English. In a short amount of time, most workers who thought they were earning a living wage, soon owed the company a year or more in pay. And the individuals who did get ahead, the script was worthless outside the company town, so they were just as poor as when they got there with no options to leave.

There were actually some major battles between the miners and the owners and local law enforcement, with the Pinkertons (a Detective/Mercenary organization who at this time had an armed force larger and better equipped than the then US Army) fighting for the owners. If you ever hear the term "redneck" applied to someone from the backwoods in the US, it comes from this period, as the miner army wore red bandanas as their uniform.

That what happened in SA was the Prime Minister driving that for his own profit was pure evil; here in the US, the corporate owners had the politicians in their back pockets, so all that blood and greed was on everyone's hands.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:Hanuman, your heart is in the right place,
but you are misinformed on some details.

1 Abolitionists worked mostly in the Free States,
because they were driven out of the Slave States!
(Otherwise how could the slaveholders AND would-be
slaveholders have kept slaveholding "legal?")

2 No, the ACW was not fought to test Seccesion Theory.
First time I've ever seen *that* idea!

Suggested reasons have been: 1 Protect Slavery
2 Abolish Slavery 3 Protect "Southern Customs" in general
4 Destroy some (carefully unspecified) Southern Customs
5 Impose some kind of Tyranny. 6 Save The Union

Seccesion was chosen, and then Ft Sumter was fired on,
because the Slaveholders felt that they could better
protect Slaveholding outside than inside the Union.
The result proving that they were wrong,
does not change the way the chose to gamble,
or the reason that they chose to gamble that way.

HTM

hanuman wrote:Huh. South African blacks might just as well have been slaves, for all the freedom they had to make choices regarding their own lives.

I understand what you're saying, although on Mesa
it was the seccie population that took
the lead in the uprising, which is comparable
to the events in South Africa.
But your comparison also works,
1 although I should mention that the abolition movement
was primarily a Northern political movement.
Also, the major cause of the Civil War was
2 the question of whether states
had the right to secede from the Union or not,
not whether they could practice slavery or not.
The latter was ALWAYS secondary to the former.