No Country for All
Perhaps the great war between the north and south never truly ended. Certainly the militarized armed forces of the union and confederacy are no longer firing cannons across peaceful farmlands. But for the most part our country has not stopped fighting the same type of warfare since landing on these shores. The early settlers and subsequent invaders began their crusade against anyone who objected to a misguided arrogant sense of legacy entitlement. The Europeans coming to the new world brought with them the same principles of domination through colonialism embraced by the English crown.
Our American history is rife with accounts of ethic subordination, brutal displacement, and subsequent enslavement of entire peoples. History books written by the oppressors seek to craft an endearing narrative that all they wanted was to live in peace and freedom. Acknowledging the notion that they were neither welcome nor invited was not a consideration for the early colonizers. Adding further insult to indigenous nations, who had already dominated the America’s, the founding fathers and framers of the constitution did not consider them to be human.
The people of indigenous nations were considered savages since they fought back to protect their lands and loved ones. Early indentured immigrants, such as east indians and the chinese, were considered property until debts pertaining to their passage were paid. Even if one attained such status you were truly not embraced as equal to their humanity. Which brings us to the forced migration and brutal enslavement of African peoples. With vast sections of the southern states clear of native populations another form of labor was needed to exploit the land. Using indentured workers was complex and expensive thus driving the economics of the slave trade.
By importing human machines and developing sophisticated new forms of monetizing this flesh based capital became the engine of the new world. Slaves were accounted for in a tranche which grouped them together for investment purposes by the traders of New Amsterdam (now New York city). In modern finance the tranche is now called a collateralized debt obligation or CDO. The CDO was at the heart of the 2008 financial crisis. Investing in flesh meant polite society could earn returns similar to gold of the day with reduced risk to pledged capital.
Thus the desire for more returns from plantations and related flesh backed securities drove even more slave imports. To say that both northerners and southerns profited would be a gross understatement regarding the incestous nature of early American economics. By the time the civil war began slavery was already a 242 year old industry with beneficiaries throughout the country. Make no mistake in that it was the southern states that bore the brunt of battles and subsequent loss of an unpaid labor force.
Upon ending the war our country then faced a seminal moment. How would the nation heal and insure a lasting peace after such a bloody conflict. While the confederacy was forced into surrender they never let go of the actual fight. The narrative of northern aggression which robbed the sons and daughters in the south of their birthright to prosperity was seeded. To this day the flag of a defeated army flies throughout these united states. Young men still proudly wear confederate uniforms to senior proms. Statues of fallen confederate leaders stand on public lands as a reminder of what was and may still yet live in the hearts of many.
America is still divided along racial lines. Not economic or class lines but racial ones. We have not learned the lesson of a war fought on our own soil between our own blood. Other nations have studied our transgressions and learned how to reconcile wide and grave divisions. The Germans used a different and effective strategy after the end of World War II. No flag of the fallen ideology flies anywhere in dutcheland and attempting to revive it is considered a crime. South Africa entered into a process of ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ to heal the nation after the abolition of apartheid. All parties were offered the opportunity to confess or proclaim injustices they perpetrated and behalf of the state. Did either of these nations eradicate racism? Not at all. But they laid the foundation for a welcoming and just society that, by law and the spirit of said law, would protect the rights and liberties of all people.
Has the American democratic experiment gone past its expiration date? Are festering seeds of division long planted by the fallen and disgraced confederacy rising into mainstream America? Seems that America has been given a fresh and harsh dose of hate reality. For if there are multiple forms of justice and freedom, where the descendants of settlers, colonizers and oppressors reap benefits, this nation cannot prosper. God bless America though we may not deserve such grace.
