There have been calls for Orkney to become part of Norway
Orkney councillors have voted to investigate alternative methods of governance amid deep frustrations over funding and opportunities. Council leader James Stockan said the island had been "held down" and accused the Scottish and UK governments of discrimination. His motion led to media speculation that Orkney could leave the UK or become a self-governing territory of Norway.
It was supported by 15 votes to six.
It means council officers have been asked to publish a report to Orkney's chief executive on options of governance.
This includes looking at the "Nordic connections" of the archipelago and crown dependencies such as Jersey and Guernsey.
A further change which would see the revival of a consultative group on constitutional reform for the islands was accepted without the need for a vote.
what percentage of UK/Scottish oil and gas is in Shetland and Orkney waters (both have discussed independence)? I guess @Richard_Tyndall might know?
Next to nothing, dumbass, if they were not part of Scotland as they would only get 12 miles of water. Neither have discussed independence from Scotland either , only UK.
Why would an EEZ not apply? - every other state, with a sea board, I can think off has to negotiate the clashes between their EEZ claims and the EEZ claims of others.
Here's a rough idea of the absolute maximum an independent Orkney could expect purely in terms of what is closer to Orkney as opposed to Shetland, mainland Scotland, or the Faroes.
Note that Fair Isle, not visible at this level of zoom, is part of Shetland and is the reason the north-east boundary dips so steeply to the south.
This was done by eye and is very rough, so could be profoundly wrong if I've forgotten something.
I think a bit much ,
The Continental Shelf Act 1964 and the Continental Shelf (Jurisdiction) Order 1968 defines the UK North Sea maritime area to the north of latitude 55 degrees north as being under the jurisdiction of Scots law meaning that 94% of the UK’s oil resources are under Scottish jurisdiction. In addition, section 126 of the Scotland Act 1998 defines Scottish waters as the internal waters and territorial sea of the United Kingdom as are adjacent to Scotland.
However, if Shetland decided to breakaway, under International law and United Nations convention (UNCLOS) regarding small islands / enclaves they would only be entitled to six miles of territorial waters meaning no oil and not much fish.
What if, for example, Whalsay and Foula declared independence or elected to stick with Scotland? Unionists should note that the Isle of Man and Channel Islands only have rights up to six miles offshore.
Even under the hypothetical circumstance that this occurred, Westminster wouldn’t be able to retain control of the oil fields anyway. These matters are regulated by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which the UK is a signatory. International law specifies that a state controls the continental shelf and associated mineral and fishing rights up to 200 nautical miles (230 miles or 370 km) off its shores. When another state possesses an island within the continental shelf of this state, special rules apply.
This matter was discussed in detail in a legal paper published by the European Journal of International Law: Prospective Anglo-Scottish Maritime Boundary Revisited
Met to investigate two recent Tory Partygate claims - but not those made about Boris Johnson and events at Chequers
The Metropolitan police have just issued a statement about the three sets of alleged lockdown breaches involving Tories that it has been reviewing. In two cases it is opening or re-opening investigations, but in the third set of allegations – involving Boris Johnson and Chequers – it is not taking action.
Here are the main points.
Boris Johnson faces no further action over the claims – that he strongly denied that – information from his diaries reviewed in connection with the Covid inquiry showed that lockdown rules had been broken at Chequers and No 10. The Met said in its statment:
The Met and Thames Valley Police have assessed material referred by the Cabinet Office regarding potential breaches of the regulations between June 2020 and May 2021 at Downing Street and Chequers. Based on an assessment of that material and an account provided regarding the diary entries, and also having sought some further clarification, the Met and Thames Valley Police have each assessed the events in their jurisdiction and concluded that they do not meet the retrospective criteria for opening an investigation.
But the Met is reopening its investigation into claims – almost impossible to deny, given the video footage leaked to the Sunday Mirror – that lockdown rules were broken when Tories involved in Shaun Bailey’s campaign for London mayor held a party. The Met said:
Following assessment of new evidence that was not previously provided to officers, the Met is now re-opening an investigation into potential breaches of the Regulations at an event in Matthew Parker Street on 14 December 2020.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Met commissioner, said last month that the video meant the original decision not to take action would be reconsidered. “We can all see the colourful nature of the video and how much it tells a story way beyond the original photo,” he said.
And the Met will investigate an event in the Commons office of Dame Eleanor Laing, the deputy speaker, attended by Sir Bernard Jenkin in December 2020. This came to light shortly before the publication of the privileges committee report into Boris Johnson. Jenkin is a member of the committee, and Johnson claimed the report of his attendance at an alleged drinks party when Covid restrictions were in force showed he was a hypocrite. The Met said:
Following assessment of material relating to a gathering in Parliament, the Met is opening an investigation into potential breaches of the Regulations at an event on 8 December 2020.
Jenkin has not commented in detail on the event, but allies have argued that it was a work event and therefore allowed under the rules at the time.
There have been calls for Orkney to become part of Norway
Orkney councillors have voted to investigate alternative methods of governance amid deep frustrations over funding and opportunities. Council leader James Stockan said the island had been "held down" and accused the Scottish and UK governments of discrimination. His motion led to media speculation that Orkney could leave the UK or become a self-governing territory of Norway.
It was supported by 15 votes to six.
It means council officers have been asked to publish a report to Orkney's chief executive on options of governance.
This includes looking at the "Nordic connections" of the archipelago and crown dependencies such as Jersey and Guernsey.
A further change which would see the revival of a consultative group on constitutional reform for the islands was accepted without the need for a vote.
what percentage of UK/Scottish oil and gas is in Shetland and Orkney waters (both have discussed independence)? I guess @Richard_Tyndall might know?
Next to nothing, dumbass, if they were not part of Scotland as they would only get 12 miles of water. Neither have discussed independence from Scotland either , only UK.
Why would an EEZ not apply? - every other state, with a sea board, I can think off has to negotiate the clashes between their EEZ claims and the EEZ claims of others.
Here's a rough idea of the absolute maximum an independent Orkney could expect purely in terms of what is closer to Orkney as opposed to Shetland, mainland Scotland, or the Faroes.
Note that Fair Isle, not visible at this level of zoom, is part of Shetland and is the reason the north-east boundary dips so steeply to the south.
This was done by eye and is very rough, so could be profoundly wrong if I've forgotten something.
I think a bit much ,
The Continental Shelf Act 1964 and the Continental Shelf (Jurisdiction) Order 1968 defines the UK North Sea maritime area to the north of latitude 55 degrees north as being under the jurisdiction of Scots law meaning that 94% of the UK’s oil resources are under Scottish jurisdiction. In addition, section 126 of the Scotland Act 1998 defines Scottish waters as the internal waters and territorial sea of the United Kingdom as are adjacent to Scotland.
However, if Shetland decided to breakaway, under International law and United Nations convention (UNCLOS) regarding small islands / enclaves they would only be entitled to six miles of territorial waters meaning no oil and not much fish.
What if, for example, Whalsay and Foula declared independence or elected to stick with Scotland? Unionists should note that the Isle of Man and Channel Islands only have rights up to six miles offshore.
Even under the hypothetical circumstance that this occurred, Westminster wouldn’t be able to retain control of the oil fields anyway. These matters are regulated by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which the UK is a signatory. International law specifies that a state controls the continental shelf and associated mineral and fishing rights up to 200 nautical miles (230 miles or 370 km) off its shores. When another state possesses an island within the continental shelf of this state, special rules apply.
This matter was discussed in detail in a legal paper published by the European Journal of International Law: Prospective Anglo-Scottish Maritime Boundary Revisited
My point was not about maritime law: I know nothing about that. It's just about proximity. The above is the absolute upper limit. As you point out, it may well be much less than that again.
It's a load of silly-season fluff, really. Orkney isn't leaving.
They wanted some more attention, and they've gotten it - from their perspective it's not been silly at all in that regard.
There have been calls for Orkney to become part of Norway
Orkney councillors have voted to investigate alternative methods of governance amid deep frustrations over funding and opportunities. Council leader James Stockan said the island had been "held down" and accused the Scottish and UK governments of discrimination. His motion led to media speculation that Orkney could leave the UK or become a self-governing territory of Norway.
It was supported by 15 votes to six.
It means council officers have been asked to publish a report to Orkney's chief executive on options of governance.
This includes looking at the "Nordic connections" of the archipelago and crown dependencies such as Jersey and Guernsey.
A further change which would see the revival of a consultative group on constitutional reform for the islands was accepted without the need for a vote.
what percentage of UK/Scottish oil and gas is in Shetland and Orkney waters (both have discussed independence)? I guess @Richard_Tyndall might know?
Next to nothing, dumbass, if they were not part of Scotland as they would only get 12 miles of water. Neither have discussed independence from Scotland either , only UK.
Why would an EEZ not apply? - every other state, with a sea board, I can think off has to negotiate the clashes between their EEZ claims and the EEZ claims of others.
Here's a rough idea of the absolute maximum an independent Orkney could expect purely in terms of what is closer to Orkney as opposed to Shetland, mainland Scotland, or the Faroes.
Note that Fair Isle, not visible at this level of zoom, is part of Shetland and is the reason the north-east boundary dips so steeply to the south.
This was done by eye and is very rough, so could be profoundly wrong if I've forgotten something.
I think a bit much ,
The Continental Shelf Act 1964 and the Continental Shelf (Jurisdiction) Order 1968 defines the UK North Sea maritime area to the north of latitude 55 degrees north as being under the jurisdiction of Scots law meaning that 94% of the UK’s oil resources are under Scottish jurisdiction. In addition, section 126 of the Scotland Act 1998 defines Scottish waters as the internal waters and territorial sea of the United Kingdom as are adjacent to Scotland.
However, if Shetland decided to breakaway, under International law and United Nations convention (UNCLOS) regarding small islands / enclaves they would only be entitled to six miles of territorial waters meaning no oil and not much fish.
What if, for example, Whalsay and Foula declared independence or elected to stick with Scotland? Unionists should note that the Isle of Man and Channel Islands only have rights up to six miles offshore.
Even under the hypothetical circumstance that this occurred, Westminster wouldn’t be able to retain control of the oil fields anyway. These matters are regulated by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which the UK is a signatory. International law specifies that a state controls the continental shelf and associated mineral and fishing rights up to 200 nautical miles (230 miles or 370 km) off its shores. When another state possesses an island within the continental shelf of this state, special rules apply.
This matter was discussed in detail in a legal paper published by the European Journal of International Law: Prospective Anglo-Scottish Maritime Boundary Revisited
Stop talking Orkney down
Not me, it is part of Scotland and most would always want it to stay that way. We never hear mince about IOM wanting to be Norwegian etc again. Made up bollox by pathetic cretins. Personally Scotland would be far better being part of Nordic nations for sure.
I’m off to Boston now. How much, including interest, should I charge them for the tea?
Could you not just drink some of the harbour water ?
Probably taste better than the tea at work TBF.
I expect if I was used to having tea made by 90-odd degree water I'd be angry about it too.
Americans and Europeans: you need to use BOILING water for the little cup of brown joy.
What's your view on putting the milk in the teapot?
That is madness. I know, and don't mind either way about, the argument between tea first and milk first in the cup. Personally I'm tea first, but that's purely force of habit. But who puts milk in the teapot? Who does that help? That would mean you would then have to properly wash the teapot afterwards, which is hard to do.
Just a quick rinse will do it for the pot. And the benefit? Obvious surely - you reduce the total operations required for the job.
Milk in pot. Bags in pot, Water in pot. Leave. Pour out 4 cups of total tea.
Better than, bags in pot, water in pot, pour out 4 cups of 'work in progress' tea and THEN 4 lots of milk.
In fact, now I think about it, if all your guests take sugar you can do worse than put that in the pot too. Pour out 4 cups of *sugared* tea.
You get the best cup of tea running the tea bag under the cold tap for about 10 seconds before using it in the boiling water.
This removes the taste that comes from the fine dust-size particles within the bag which carry a much more bitter flavour. The fine powder is rich in anthocyanins and phenolic acid. Phenolic acid is what faintly reminds some people of urine and which can give the tea an unpleasant aroma for some people with acute senses of smell.
Ok, so you're Frank Muir on Call My Bluff and I'm calling BLUFF.
There have been calls for Orkney to become part of Norway
Orkney councillors have voted to investigate alternative methods of governance amid deep frustrations over funding and opportunities. Council leader James Stockan said the island had been "held down" and accused the Scottish and UK governments of discrimination. His motion led to media speculation that Orkney could leave the UK or become a self-governing territory of Norway.
It was supported by 15 votes to six.
It means council officers have been asked to publish a report to Orkney's chief executive on options of governance.
This includes looking at the "Nordic connections" of the archipelago and crown dependencies such as Jersey and Guernsey.
A further change which would see the revival of a consultative group on constitutional reform for the islands was accepted without the need for a vote.
what percentage of UK/Scottish oil and gas is in Shetland and Orkney waters (both have discussed independence)? I guess @Richard_Tyndall might know?
Next to nothing, dumbass, if they were not part of Scotland as they would only get 12 miles of water. Neither have discussed independence from Scotland either , only UK.
Why would an EEZ not apply? - every other state, with a sea board, I can think off has to negotiate the clashes between their EEZ claims and the EEZ claims of others.
Here's a rough idea of the absolute maximum an independent Orkney could expect purely in terms of what is closer to Orkney as opposed to Shetland, mainland Scotland, or the Faroes.
Note that Fair Isle, not visible at this level of zoom, is part of Shetland and is the reason the north-east boundary dips so steeply to the south.
This was done by eye and is very rough, so could be profoundly wrong if I've forgotten something.
I think a bit much ,
The Continental Shelf Act 1964 and the Continental Shelf (Jurisdiction) Order 1968 defines the UK North Sea maritime area to the north of latitude 55 degrees north as being under the jurisdiction of Scots law meaning that 94% of the UK’s oil resources are under Scottish jurisdiction. In addition, section 126 of the Scotland Act 1998 defines Scottish waters as the internal waters and territorial sea of the United Kingdom as are adjacent to Scotland.
However, if Shetland decided to breakaway, under International law and United Nations convention (UNCLOS) regarding small islands / enclaves they would only be entitled to six miles of territorial waters meaning no oil and not much fish.
What if, for example, Whalsay and Foula declared independence or elected to stick with Scotland? Unionists should note that the Isle of Man and Channel Islands only have rights up to six miles offshore.
Even under the hypothetical circumstance that this occurred, Westminster wouldn’t be able to retain control of the oil fields anyway. These matters are regulated by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which the UK is a signatory. International law specifies that a state controls the continental shelf and associated mineral and fishing rights up to 200 nautical miles (230 miles or 370 km) off its shores. When another state possesses an island within the continental shelf of this state, special rules apply.
This matter was discussed in detail in a legal paper published by the European Journal of International Law: Prospective Anglo-Scottish Maritime Boundary Revisited
My point was not about maritime law: I know nothing about that. It's just about proximity. The above is the absolute upper limit. As you point out, it may well be much less than that again.
It's a load of silly-season fluff, really. Orkney isn't leaving.
For sure an old chestnut that some numpties bring up every so often.
There have been calls for Orkney to become part of Norway
Orkney councillors have voted to investigate alternative methods of governance amid deep frustrations over funding and opportunities. Council leader James Stockan said the island had been "held down" and accused the Scottish and UK governments of discrimination. His motion led to media speculation that Orkney could leave the UK or become a self-governing territory of Norway.
It was supported by 15 votes to six.
It means council officers have been asked to publish a report to Orkney's chief executive on options of governance.
This includes looking at the "Nordic connections" of the archipelago and crown dependencies such as Jersey and Guernsey.
A further change which would see the revival of a consultative group on constitutional reform for the islands was accepted without the need for a vote.
what percentage of UK/Scottish oil and gas is in Shetland and Orkney waters (both have discussed independence)? I guess @Richard_Tyndall might know?
Next to nothing, dumbass, if they were not part of Scotland as they would only get 12 miles of water. Neither have discussed independence from Scotland either , only UK.
Why would an EEZ not apply? - every other state, with a sea board, I can think off has to negotiate the clashes between their EEZ claims and the EEZ claims of others.
Here's a rough idea of the absolute maximum an independent Orkney could expect purely in terms of what is closer to Orkney as opposed to Shetland, mainland Scotland, or the Faroes.
Note that Fair Isle, not visible at this level of zoom, is part of Shetland and is the reason the north-east boundary dips so steeply to the south.
This was done by eye and is very rough, so could be profoundly wrong if I've forgotten something.
I think a bit much ,
The Continental Shelf Act 1964 and the Continental Shelf (Jurisdiction) Order 1968 defines the UK North Sea maritime area to the north of latitude 55 degrees north as being under the jurisdiction of Scots law meaning that 94% of the UK’s oil resources are under Scottish jurisdiction. In addition, section 126 of the Scotland Act 1998 defines Scottish waters as the internal waters and territorial sea of the United Kingdom as are adjacent to Scotland.
However, if Shetland decided to breakaway, under International law and United Nations convention (UNCLOS) regarding small islands / enclaves they would only be entitled to six miles of territorial waters meaning no oil and not much fish.
What if, for example, Whalsay and Foula declared independence or elected to stick with Scotland? Unionists should note that the Isle of Man and Channel Islands only have rights up to six miles offshore.
Even under the hypothetical circumstance that this occurred, Westminster wouldn’t be able to retain control of the oil fields anyway. These matters are regulated by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which the UK is a signatory. International law specifies that a state controls the continental shelf and associated mineral and fishing rights up to 200 nautical miles (230 miles or 370 km) off its shores. When another state possesses an island within the continental shelf of this state, special rules apply.
This matter was discussed in detail in a legal paper published by the European Journal of International Law: Prospective Anglo-Scottish Maritime Boundary Revisited
Isle of Man and Channel Islands are not independent countries. They are Crown Dependencies. That is a straw man argument.
If Orkney and Shetland did become fully independent then they would have the right to control over their own oil and gas resources up to the median line. This has already happened in recent times when East Timor became independent. There is a well established procedure and it would apply equally to Orkney and Shetland.
By the time Lincoln gave that speech (1860), a large majority of the American population lived in states that had banned slavery -- and the free states were growing much more rapidly than the remaining slave states.
For example, Lincoln shows that the Northwest Ordinance, which banned slavery in the territory that became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota, was supported by most of the "founding fathers". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Ordinance
As Luntz said on current polls any Tory MP with a majority under 15,000 is likely gone at the next general election. Hence a lot of Tory MPs standing down. That gap may close but likely still many face defeat if running again.
However I have more respect for those who will go down with the ship and stand again even if they face likely defeat, that includes IDS, or those willing to serve as MPs on the opposition benches and continue to serve their constituents and hold the government to account. Those rushing off to seek a directorship or lobbyist post asap as soon as the election is called may be doing better for their careers but it is the former group who should have the most respect
The problem with saying such things HY, as you often do, is how much is a prediction based just on uniform con to Lab swing nationally? But the feature right now is we are likely to get more of a “get the Tories out” tactical vote in the General Election next May than there even was in 1997.
As an example, Polling report has Penny Mourdant safe. It’s needs a 17% con to lab swing to remove her from a post election leadership contest, identical to what done for Portillo in 97. But if we factor in willingness of Lib Dem’s are greens to vote tactically, are there enough votes there for Tories to lose the seat?
Extrapolating this example to seat totals, today July 2023 polling report has Tories getting as high as 189 seats - is this just uniform swing based on current polls with no tactical voting at all? The gap between Tory to Labour could close to single digits and the Tories get less than 189.
Mordaunt's majority is 15,780, so exactly on the border of the Tory seats with majorities of 15,000 or less Luntz says will be lost on current polls.
Her seat was also Labour from 1997 to 2010
My point being, the reason May’s local election models predicted a hung Parliament was the psephologists will only work with votes they know as fact, no local elections in Scotland + Wales this year so no updated facts to work with (the polling report model above has Labour on more than 350 MP still with Scotland returning 44 SNP). The Psephologists won’t go into fantasy land anticipating tactical voting which might not even happen.
But here on PB we should be looking at that 189 based solely on uniform national swing and suspecting that’s really sub 150 Tory MPs shouldn’t we?
There may be more LD tactical votes for Labour in Tory marginals however the Labour vote will also be up on 2019 in Tory marginals the LDs are targeting.
Remember too many LD voters in the local elections will vote Conservative in the general election when faced with the risk of a Labour government increasing their taxes rather than just a LD led council
It’s looking like you are right HY. Nationally Labour are infeasibly high in the polls, the libdems look low compared to what they get at local elections when the area goes gold.
The blue wall polling is key here. Today points to high labour votes in constituencies the Lib Dem’s could have won without much targeting, if the Lib Dem’s squeezed labour to go beyond the Tory total.
We are agreed, if we see the Tory’s pull away from labour in the blue wall, this could be disaster for the Tories if its labour vote haemorrhaging to libdems? 8 more off labour in blue wall all added to libdems could see libdems top 50 on expense of the Tories.
But we are not seeing this in national or blue wall polling. Labour vote remains too high to hurt the conservatives, and Libdem vote too low, when at this stage the Lab and green voters must know they will vote lidbdem at the general election to hurt the Tories, why are they not reporting this to pollsters?
At this stage you appear correct HY, Lab and green tactical switch to libdem to get the Tory’s out is not being picked up in any polling.
Suppose there is a 50% tactical switch of a 40% Lab and Green vote in Tory/LD marginals. At most there are about 50 such marginals so this translates to 50%x40%x50/625 = 1.6%
There has been a recent increase of about 2% in the Lib Dem national share so maybe that is it.
Noooooooooo. That Labour and Green vote must surely be very soft where Lib Dem’s need it, it will need great armfuls to reduce Tories closer to 100 than 150 MPs. Surely the voters know what they need to do on their home patch by now?
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
Which if true would mean that Lincoln died for his progressive views.
Much as I admire Lincoln though, I'd suggest FDR is by quite some margin the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world.
He saved the free world, he transformed America from the despair of Great Depression into the world's leading economic, cultural and military power, he won twice as many Presidential elections as anyone else. And all as a disabled man at a time when the taboos and prejudices surrounding disability meant he could never be photographed or filmed in a wheelchair.
As I say, the greatest by some margin.
My personal preference is for Truman. Both his domestic and international policies were truly world changing. Even more so than FDR in my view
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
I recently stood in front of this building. The fact it is still there is disturbing in itself, weirdly
No more disturbing than Auschwitz etc being preserved, it shows what reality was.
I remain unconvinced that my local MP will be getting much of an incumbency bonus. . .
All the local tories hate her.
Relations between many MPs and local parties appear pretty bad. The rest are the other extreme, entirely controlled by the dozen or so worthies of their local party.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
If you were to plot the spectrum of views that white people in America held towards black people and the issue of slavery at the time then Lincoln's views were at the extreme liberal/progressive end without a doubt, especially as they evolved during the course of the war. I spent a year studying the US Civil War in CSYS history at school, and came away quite in awe of Lincoln.
This doesn't sound like a particularly extreme liberal/progressive position:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
"Captain Tom's daughter 'used hero veteran's name to build spa and pool complex at home'
Captain Tom's daughter, Hannah Ingram-Moore, and her husband Colin reportedly put forward the planning application in their own names, but then used the charity's name in their design and access statement"
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
Yep, as I say I don't know and my knowledge expanded considerably today because I bothered to go and look. So I am certainly not in a position to argue one way or the other on the detail.
This fine sentiment if widely shared would spell big trouble for PB.com.
Met to investigate two recent Tory Partygate claims - but not those made about Boris Johnson and events at Chequers
The Metropolitan police have just issued a statement about the three sets of alleged lockdown breaches involving Tories that it has been reviewing. In two cases it is opening or re-opening investigations, but in the third set of allegations – involving Boris Johnson and Chequers – it is not taking action.
Here are the main points.
Boris Johnson faces no further action over the claims – that he strongly denied that – information from his diaries reviewed in connection with the Covid inquiry showed that lockdown rules had been broken at Chequers and No 10. The Met said in its statment:
The Met and Thames Valley Police have assessed material referred by the Cabinet Office regarding potential breaches of the regulations between June 2020 and May 2021 at Downing Street and Chequers. Based on an assessment of that material and an account provided regarding the diary entries, and also having sought some further clarification, the Met and Thames Valley Police have each assessed the events in their jurisdiction and concluded that they do not meet the retrospective criteria for opening an investigation.
But the Met is reopening its investigation into claims – almost impossible to deny, given the video footage leaked to the Sunday Mirror – that lockdown rules were broken when Tories involved in Shaun Bailey’s campaign for London mayor held a party. The Met said:
Following assessment of new evidence that was not previously provided to officers, the Met is now re-opening an investigation into potential breaches of the Regulations at an event in Matthew Parker Street on 14 December 2020.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Met commissioner, said last month that the video meant the original decision not to take action would be reconsidered. “We can all see the colourful nature of the video and how much it tells a story way beyond the original photo,” he said.
And the Met will investigate an event in the Commons office of Dame Eleanor Laing, the deputy speaker, attended by Sir Bernard Jenkin in December 2020. This came to light shortly before the publication of the privileges committee report into Boris Johnson. Jenkin is a member of the committee, and Johnson claimed the report of his attendance at an alleged drinks party when Covid restrictions were in force showed he was a hypocrite. The Met said:
Following assessment of material relating to a gathering in Parliament, the Met is opening an investigation into potential breaches of the Regulations at an event on 8 December 2020.
Jenkin has not commented in detail on the event, but allies have argued that it was a work event and therefore allowed under the rules at the time.
Link? (A possibly dodgy one with all those typos?)
There have been calls for Orkney to become part of Norway
Orkney councillors have voted to investigate alternative methods of governance amid deep frustrations over funding and opportunities. Council leader James Stockan said the island had been "held down" and accused the Scottish and UK governments of discrimination. His motion led to media speculation that Orkney could leave the UK or become a self-governing territory of Norway.
It was supported by 15 votes to six.
It means council officers have been asked to publish a report to Orkney's chief executive on options of governance.
This includes looking at the "Nordic connections" of the archipelago and crown dependencies such as Jersey and Guernsey.
A further change which would see the revival of a consultative group on constitutional reform for the islands was accepted without the need for a vote.
what percentage of UK/Scottish oil and gas is in Shetland and Orkney waters (both have discussed independence)? I guess @Richard_Tyndall might know?
Next to nothing, dumbass, if they were not part of Scotland as they would only get 12 miles of water. Neither have discussed independence from Scotland either , only UK.
Why would an EEZ not apply? - every other state, with a sea board, I can think off has to negotiate the clashes between their EEZ claims and the EEZ claims of others.
It has been discussed ad nauseum and under International law they get 12 miles rest remains with Scotland.
No they don't. I don't know who you have been discussing it with but that is completely wrong. All oil and gas rights are decided on median lines between neighbouring states.
As I say, it won't happen in my vview but if it did then Scotland would lose a significant amount of their UKCS assets.
Of course England loses a lot more if and when Scotland gains independence for the same reason. They would be left with the Southern North Sea gas fields and a big argument about where the median line should run heading out from Berwick.
All seems rather fucking academic given everyone seems to want to stop extracting oil from there.
We live in hope that they will see sense and ditch such stupid ideas.
"Captain Tom's daughter 'used hero veteran's name to build spa and pool complex at home'
Captain Tom's daughter, Hannah Ingram-Moore, and her husband Colin reportedly put forward the planning application in their own names, but then used the charity's name in their design and access statement"
Provided they were not using charitable donations to pay for it, why should we care? Getting planning permission in the wrong name seems a technical foul at most.
There have been calls for Orkney to become part of Norway
Orkney councillors have voted to investigate alternative methods of governance amid deep frustrations over funding and opportunities. Council leader James Stockan said the island had been "held down" and accused the Scottish and UK governments of discrimination. His motion led to media speculation that Orkney could leave the UK or become a self-governing territory of Norway.
It was supported by 15 votes to six.
It means council officers have been asked to publish a report to Orkney's chief executive on options of governance.
This includes looking at the "Nordic connections" of the archipelago and crown dependencies such as Jersey and Guernsey.
A further change which would see the revival of a consultative group on constitutional reform for the islands was accepted without the need for a vote.
what percentage of UK/Scottish oil and gas is in Shetland and Orkney waters (both have discussed independence)? I guess @Richard_Tyndall might know?
Next to nothing, dumbass, if they were not part of Scotland as they would only get 12 miles of water. Neither have discussed independence from Scotland either , only UK.
Why would an EEZ not apply? - every other state, with a sea board, I can think off has to negotiate the clashes between their EEZ claims and the EEZ claims of others.
Here's a rough idea of the absolute maximum an independent Orkney could expect purely in terms of what is closer to Orkney as opposed to Shetland, mainland Scotland, or the Faroes.
Note that Fair Isle, not visible at this level of zoom, is part of Shetland and is the reason the north-east boundary dips so steeply to the south.
This was done by eye and is very rough, so could be profoundly wrong if I've forgotten something.
I think a bit much ,
The Continental Shelf Act 1964 and the Continental Shelf (Jurisdiction) Order 1968 defines the UK North Sea maritime area to the north of latitude 55 degrees north as being under the jurisdiction of Scots law meaning that 94% of the UK’s oil resources are under Scottish jurisdiction. In addition, section 126 of the Scotland Act 1998 defines Scottish waters as the internal waters and territorial sea of the United Kingdom as are adjacent to Scotland.
However, if Shetland decided to breakaway, under International law and United Nations convention (UNCLOS) regarding small islands / enclaves they would only be entitled to six miles of territorial waters meaning no oil and not much fish.
What if, for example, Whalsay and Foula declared independence or elected to stick with Scotland? Unionists should note that the Isle of Man and Channel Islands only have rights up to six miles offshore.
Even under the hypothetical circumstance that this occurred, Westminster wouldn’t be able to retain control of the oil fields anyway. These matters are regulated by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which the UK is a signatory. International law specifies that a state controls the continental shelf and associated mineral and fishing rights up to 200 nautical miles (230 miles or 370 km) off its shores. When another state possesses an island within the continental shelf of this state, special rules apply.
This matter was discussed in detail in a legal paper published by the European Journal of International Law: Prospective Anglo-Scottish Maritime Boundary Revisited
My point was not about maritime law: I know nothing about that. It's just about proximity. The above is the absolute upper limit. As you point out, it may well be much less than that again.
It's a load of silly-season fluff, really. Orkney isn't leaving.
They wanted some more attention, and they've gotten it - from their perspective it's not been silly at all in that regard.
If you like.
Also, I have nothing against the concept. If that's what Orcadians want, then they should have it. Not up to the rest of us. I just don't think they really do want a change to the status quo.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
If you were to plot the spectrum of views that white people in America held towards black people and the issue of slavery at the time then Lincoln's views were at the extreme liberal/progressive end without a doubt, especially as they evolved during the course of the war. I spent a year studying the US Civil War in CSYS history at school, and came away quite in awe of Lincoln.
This doesn't sound like a particularly extreme liberal/progressive position:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
That was spoken in the context of trying to get the Border States not to secede - which would have lost the war for the Union in short order.
If Lincoln is to be believed - in his own letters - he was far more of an abolitionist in private than in public, for most of his life.
A central feature of his private beliefs was that slavery was dying, and that Succession would revive the corpse for a while. This was a common view among some Northerners.
Met to investigate two recent Tory Partygate claims - but not those made about Boris Johnson and events at Chequers
The Metropolitan police have just issued a statement about the three sets of alleged lockdown breaches involving Tories that it has been reviewing. In two cases it is opening or re-opening investigations, but in the third set of allegations – involving Boris Johnson and Chequers – it is not taking action.
Here are the main points.
Boris Johnson faces no further action over the claims – that he strongly denied that – information from his diaries reviewed in connection with the Covid inquiry showed that lockdown rules had been broken at Chequers and No 10. The Met said in its statment:
The Met and Thames Valley Police have assessed material referred by the Cabinet Office regarding potential breaches of the regulations between June 2020 and May 2021 at Downing Street and Chequers. Based on an assessment of that material and an account provided regarding the diary entries, and also having sought some further clarification, the Met and Thames Valley Police have each assessed the events in their jurisdiction and concluded that they do not meet the retrospective criteria for opening an investigation.
But the Met is reopening its investigation into claims – almost impossible to deny, given the video footage leaked to the Sunday Mirror – that lockdown rules were broken when Tories involved in Shaun Bailey’s campaign for London mayor held a party. The Met said:
Following assessment of new evidence that was not previously provided to officers, the Met is now re-opening an investigation into potential breaches of the Regulations at an event in Matthew Parker Street on 14 December 2020.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Met commissioner, said last month that the video meant the original decision not to take action would be reconsidered. “We can all see the colourful nature of the video and how much it tells a story way beyond the original photo,” he said.
And the Met will investigate an event in the Commons office of Dame Eleanor Laing, the deputy speaker, attended by Sir Bernard Jenkin in December 2020. This came to light shortly before the publication of the privileges committee report into Boris Johnson. Jenkin is a member of the committee, and Johnson claimed the report of his attendance at an alleged drinks party when Covid restrictions were in force showed he was a hypocrite. The Met said:
Following assessment of material relating to a gathering in Parliament, the Met is opening an investigation into potential breaches of the Regulations at an event on 8 December 2020.
Jenkin has not commented in detail on the event, but allies have argued that it was a work event and therefore allowed under the rules at the time.
Link? (A possibly dodgy one with all those typos?)
SNP 37% (-1) LAB 34% (+2) CON 17% (-1) LD 9% (nc) OTH 4% (nc)
F/w 23rd - 28th June. Changes vs. 27th April - 3 May.
24 SNP seats would go Labour on that swing since 2019, giving Labour most seats in Scotland again, albeit only by 1 MP.
However it could be more if Conservatives and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP. Zero swing between SNP and Tories so the Tories would hold all their Scottish seats
Surely Labour would get many more than that, as Conservatives vote tactically to keep the SNP out?
There have been calls for Orkney to become part of Norway
Orkney councillors have voted to investigate alternative methods of governance amid deep frustrations over funding and opportunities. Council leader James Stockan said the island had been "held down" and accused the Scottish and UK governments of discrimination. His motion led to media speculation that Orkney could leave the UK or become a self-governing territory of Norway.
It was supported by 15 votes to six.
It means council officers have been asked to publish a report to Orkney's chief executive on options of governance.
This includes looking at the "Nordic connections" of the archipelago and crown dependencies such as Jersey and Guernsey.
A further change which would see the revival of a consultative group on constitutional reform for the islands was accepted without the need for a vote.
what percentage of UK/Scottish oil and gas is in Shetland and Orkney waters (both have discussed independence)? I guess @Richard_Tyndall might know?
Next to nothing, dumbass, if they were not part of Scotland as they would only get 12 miles of water. Neither have discussed independence from Scotland either , only UK.
Why would an EEZ not apply? - every other state, with a sea board, I can think off has to negotiate the clashes between their EEZ claims and the EEZ claims of others.
Here's a rough idea of the absolute maximum an independent Orkney could expect purely in terms of what is closer to Orkney as opposed to Shetland, mainland Scotland, or the Faroes.
Note that Fair Isle, not visible at this level of zoom, is part of Shetland and is the reason the north-east boundary dips so steeply to the south.
This was done by eye and is very rough, so could be profoundly wrong if I've forgotten something.
I think a bit much ,
The Continental Shelf Act 1964 and the Continental Shelf (Jurisdiction) Order 1968 defines the UK North Sea maritime area to the north of latitude 55 degrees north as being under the jurisdiction of Scots law meaning that 94% of the UK’s oil resources are under Scottish jurisdiction. In addition, section 126 of the Scotland Act 1998 defines Scottish waters as the internal waters and territorial sea of the United Kingdom as are adjacent to Scotland.
However, if Shetland decided to breakaway, under International law and United Nations convention (UNCLOS) regarding small islands / enclaves they would only be entitled to six miles of territorial waters meaning no oil and not much fish.
What if, for example, Whalsay and Foula declared independence or elected to stick with Scotland? Unionists should note that the Isle of Man and Channel Islands only have rights up to six miles offshore.
Even under the hypothetical circumstance that this occurred, Westminster wouldn’t be able to retain control of the oil fields anyway. These matters are regulated by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which the UK is a signatory. International law specifies that a state controls the continental shelf and associated mineral and fishing rights up to 200 nautical miles (230 miles or 370 km) off its shores. When another state possesses an island within the continental shelf of this state, special rules apply.
This matter was discussed in detail in a legal paper published by the European Journal of International Law: Prospective Anglo-Scottish Maritime Boundary Revisited
Jersey is 12 miles territorial unless that crosses into French or Guernsey waters where it’s calculated at a mid point.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
I recently stood in front of this building. The fact it is still there is disturbing in itself, weirdly
No more disturbing than Auschwitz etc being preserved, it shows what reality was.
It's different, rather than "more or less disturbing"
Auschwitz is infinitely more evil even than the horror of slavery, as it was a unique attempt to destroy a nation of many millions with industrialised homicide, for no other reason than to get rid of them all. Even slavery doesn't match that
However I find that photo quite uniquely chilling because in so many senses it is familiar. It is a brick building of late Georgian/early Victorian type, of which there are millions in the UK. Right down to the sash windows. The font in the sign is Victorian British
It could be an old photo of a shopfront in Camden High Street, 80 yards from me, and it would say "Dealers in Linens and Cloths". And yet it says "Dealers in Slaves"
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
If you were to plot the spectrum of views that white people in America held towards black people and the issue of slavery at the time then Lincoln's views were at the extreme liberal/progressive end without a doubt, especially as they evolved during the course of the war. I spent a year studying the US Civil War in CSYS history at school, and came away quite in awe of Lincoln.
This doesn't sound like a particularly extreme liberal/progressive position:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
Of course when Lincoln was President the Republicans won all the North East, the West coast and most of the Mid West.
The Democrats however won virtually all the South and Missouri, almost the reverse of now. Indeed Biden's Democrats are arguably closer to the party of Lincoln now and Trump's Republicans closer to the Confederacy
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
I recently stood in front of this building. The fact it is still there is disturbing in itself, weirdly
A cook called Richard Roose was tried for the crime of poisoning and was executed by boiling in 1532, taking two hours to die and excruciating death. The case remained valid in case law and discussed soberly by lawyers for hundreds of years thereafter.
Hang around long enough and any act, no matter how horrific, will be recategorised as history and story stuff. In 1190 local Jewish people, entrapped in Clifford's Tower in York, committed suicide rather than submit, setting it alight in the process. The good citizens of York were still holding firework displays there until the 1990s.
As these cases and your example shows, there is no activity so gross that people will not eventually convert it to "long ago", slap a blue plaque on it, and it just becomes part of the landscape...
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
The past was different but is it shocking that something called the slave trade involved trade in slaves? Surely the clue is in the name.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
Yep, as I say I don't know and my knowledge expanded considerably today because I bothered to go and look. So I am certainly not in a position to argue one way or the other on the detail.
This fine sentiment if widely shared would spell big trouble for PB.com.
I deliberately post with as little, er, deliberation as possible. Keeps me surprised by events.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
I recently stood in front of this building. The fact it is still there is disturbing in itself, weirdly
A cook called Richard Roose was tried for the crime of poisoning and was executed by boiling in 1532, taking two hours to die and excruciating death. The case remained valid in case law and discussed soberly by lawyers for hundreds of years thereafter.
Hang around long enough and any act, no matter how horrific, will be recategorised as history and story stuff. In 1190 local Jewish people, entrapped in Clifford's Tower in York, committed suicide rather than submit, setting it alight in the process. The good citizens of York were still holding firework displays there until the 1990s.
As these cases and your example shows, there is no activity so gross that people will not eventually convert it to "long ago", slap a blue plaque on it, and it just becomes part of the landscape...
I'm alightly hazy - does the building still have the "slaves for sale" sign today?
SNP 37% (-1) LAB 34% (+2) CON 17% (-1) LD 9% (nc) OTH 4% (nc)
F/w 23rd - 28th June. Changes vs. 27th April - 3 May.
24 SNP seats would go Labour on that swing since 2019, giving Labour most seats in Scotland again, albeit only by 1 MP.
However it could be more if Conservatives and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP. Zero swing between SNP and Tories so the Tories would hold all their Scottish seats
Surely Labour would get many more than that, as Conservatives vote tactically to keep the SNP out?
Starmer needs LD tactical votes in England to beat the Tories and Tory tactical votes in Scotland to help beat the SNP
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
If you were to plot the spectrum of views that white people in America held towards black people and the issue of slavery at the time then Lincoln's views were at the extreme liberal/progressive end without a doubt, especially as they evolved during the course of the war. I spent a year studying the US Civil War in CSYS history at school, and came away quite in awe of Lincoln.
This doesn't sound like a particularly extreme liberal/progressive position:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
Before the war and in its early stages, Lincoln was more exercised by Secession than by slavery, or so he said. His focus, as that quote shows, was on preserving the USA
Later I believe he did become more morally involved in the question of slavery and the pressing need to abolish it. Tho this was also politically convenient as it means he got more support from powerful anti-slavers in Britain and France - he was terrified the British Empire might side with the South - which could easily have tilted the war towards a Confederate victory
He remained a racist, as we would know it, to the end. But he was a man of the mid 19th century
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
If you were to plot the spectrum of views that white people in America held towards black people and the issue of slavery at the time then Lincoln's views were at the extreme liberal/progressive end without a doubt, especially as they evolved during the course of the war. I spent a year studying the US Civil War in CSYS history at school, and came away quite in awe of Lincoln.
This doesn't sound like a particularly extreme liberal/progressive position:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
Of course when Lincoln was President the Republicans won all the North East, the West coast and most of the Mid West.
The Democrats however won virtually all the South and Missouri, almost the reverse of now. Indeed Biden's Democrats are arguably closer to the party of Lincoln now and Trump's Republicans closer to the Confederacy
The Republicans have always been the party of businessmen. The Democrats have generally been the party of labour. Almost everything else has been volatile.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
I recently stood in front of this building. The fact it is still there is disturbing in itself, weirdly
A cook called Richard Roose was tried for the crime of poisoning and was executed by boiling in 1532, taking two hours to die and excruciating death. The case remained valid in case law and discussed soberly by lawyers for hundreds of years thereafter.
Hang around long enough and any act, no matter how horrific, will be recategorised as history and story stuff. In 1190 local Jewish people, entrapped in Clifford's Tower in York, committed suicide rather than submit, setting it alight in the process. The good citizens of York were still holding firework displays there until the 1990s.
As these cases and your example shows, there is no activity so gross that people will not eventually convert it to "long ago", slap a blue plaque on it, and it just becomes part of the landscape...
Er, weren't the York fireworks on 5 November and therefore Gunpowder Plot?
Met to investigate two recent Tory Partygate claims - but not those made about Boris Johnson and events at Chequers
The Metropolitan police have just issued a statement about the three sets of alleged lockdown breaches involving Tories that it has been reviewing. In two cases it is opening or re-opening investigations, but in the third set of allegations – involving Boris Johnson and Chequers – it is not taking action.
Here are the main points.
Boris Johnson faces no further action over the claims – that he strongly denied that – information from his diaries reviewed in connection with the Covid inquiry showed that lockdown rules had been broken at Chequers and No 10. The Met said in its statment:
The Met and Thames Valley Police have assessed material referred by the Cabinet Office regarding potential breaches of the regulations between June 2020 and May 2021 at Downing Street and Chequers. Based on an assessment of that material and an account provided regarding the diary entries, and also having sought some further clarification, the Met and Thames Valley Police have each assessed the events in their jurisdiction and concluded that they do not meet the retrospective criteria for opening an investigation.
But the Met is reopening its investigation into claims – almost impossible to deny, given the video footage leaked to the Sunday Mirror – that lockdown rules were broken when Tories involved in Shaun Bailey’s campaign for London mayor held a party. The Met said:
Following assessment of new evidence that was not previously provided to officers, the Met is now re-opening an investigation into potential breaches of the Regulations at an event in Matthew Parker Street on 14 December 2020.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Met commissioner, said last month that the video meant the original decision not to take action would be reconsidered. “We can all see the colourful nature of the video and how much it tells a story way beyond the original photo,” he said.
And the Met will investigate an event in the Commons office of Dame Eleanor Laing, the deputy speaker, attended by Sir Bernard Jenkin in December 2020. This came to light shortly before the publication of the privileges committee report into Boris Johnson. Jenkin is a member of the committee, and Johnson claimed the report of his attendance at an alleged drinks party when Covid restrictions were in force showed he was a hypocrite. The Met said:
Following assessment of material relating to a gathering in Parliament, the Met is opening an investigation into potential breaches of the Regulations at an event on 8 December 2020.
Jenkin has not commented in detail on the event, but allies have argued that it was a work event and therefore allowed under the rules at the time.
Link? (A possibly dodgy one with all those typos?)
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
The past was different but is it shocking that something called the slave trade involved trade in slaves? Surely the clue is in the name.
We understand it intellectually, not at gut level. People do horrific things and we eventually sanitize it. We don't hold the memory of pain in long-term memory and (as @SeanT wrote about in the Spectator) we remember wars but forget pandemics.
Ben Chu @BenChu_ This interesting analysis from Bloomberg suggests the income *boost* to UK households, in aggregate, from higher interest rates has so far outstripped the income *hit* to all households from higher mortgage rates...
Ben Chu @BenChu_ · 1h ...The Bloomberg article suggests this aggregate boost to UK household incomes from rate rises could be one of the reasons inflation is proving hard to tame here - i.e. the rate rises are *helping* households more than they're *hurting* and *supporting* consumption..
I assume the boost will be on pension annuities. Not bank savings accounts. So good news for the boomers. Everything is good news for the boomers.
This point is underappreciated imo. If you're risk averse and cash rich, so your income is mainly interest, you've had a payrise of 300% in the space of a couple of years. You've got triple the money coming in now compared to before. Yes, inflation erodes everything etc, but you're doing much better than most and you're arguably better off now than you were, or at least it will probably feel that way.
Must be a very miniscule amount of people who live on interest, lottery winners and a few billionaires at best.
Yes, I'm puzzled by this. I'm not saying Ben Chu is wrong - but it's a long way from the experience of anyone I come across. Even those who live of income from their wealth (like the billionaires Malc alludes to and, I guess, many retirees) will mostly get income from investments, rather than just have it trickle in from a bank account. And investments won't be doing well because interest rate rises.
Not necessarily a 'bank account' but if you're wealthy and risk averse you'll have a lot in 'cash' category assets, eg NSI, term depos, gilts etc. Such a person will have seen their aggregate income boosted massively. Maybe as much as tripled.
OK, take NS&I. Take a person who has £50k of premium bonds, and is getting, I dunno, £500 a year from them. The rate of return then triples. He's now getting £1500 a year from them. But he's still getting poorer because his £50k of premium bonds is worth 10% less than what it was last year. He had an asset worth £50k in 2022 prices, he now has an asset worth £45k in 2022 prices, plus £1500. He's £3,500 poorer than he was last year. This doesn't amount to getting richer, just getting poorer more slowly. Whereas when inflation was 2% and interest rates were 1% he would have lost £1000 in depreciation against which he would be £500 up in interest. He will only have been £500 poorer.
Neither are ideal - you don't want big wads of cash around in any sort of investment: interest will rarely beat depreciation. But those with cash were surely better off when inflation and interest rates were low.
You're not wrong but (per my post 2.58) it depends how they view things. We have a real hard cash net income & expenditure account gain whereas the balance sheet 'loss' comes from a PV inflation accounting adjustment.
So we have consumption driven by people transferring capital to income without really meaning to! There's nothing about this which strikes me as in any way a good thing.
Persistent high inflation is a very bad thing. It's the pits. But as we go through this painful (and inevitable but too rapid) transition from cheap money to normal money, there are lots of people benefiting (in hard 'now' cash terms) and I think this is a little bit under-appreciated. Although maybe not now since I've banged on about it for the best part of an afternoon.
But the benefits are all an illusion! Indeed, it’s those with lots of cash savings who lose out most from inflation.
They aren't (!) all an illusion. There's a big boost to your (net of expenditure) regular income. That's real. You can spend it or save it or give it away. As against this there's a reduction in the calculated purchasing power of your liquid capital. The latter 'loss' is also real but it's real in a slightly less real, more theoretical way. It might be arithmetically bigger but it's an estimated number (influenced by assumptions). The first is a hard 100% factual objective number, which can justifiably be given a higher weighting. You don't have to, but it isn't 'wrong' if you do.
Yes, but if you wanted a bigger income in a low interest/low inflation scenario and weren't bothered about your capital shrinking, you could just chisel some of your capital and call it income. And be less poorer than in the high interest high inflation scenario.
You could indeed. There'd be negative compounding then but maybe you'd still be ahead of the game. I sense you usually would but I'd have to run the numbers and I'm not capable of that these days. I'm 62.
But look, what I'll grant you is - if you're in the habit of viewing your personal balance sheet on a constantly PV adjusted basis you will probably calculate a net asset reduction there that's greater than the juicy income boost you're getting.
However, many don't do this (and it isn't wrong not to), and at the very least it's accurate say that cash rich, no salary, debt free people (of which there are many) are relative winners in this new hiked interest rate environment.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
I recently stood in front of this building. The fact it is still there is disturbing in itself, weirdly
No more disturbing than Auschwitz etc being preserved, it shows what reality was.
It's different, rather than "more or less disturbing"
Auschwitz is infinitely more evil even than the horror of slavery, as it was a unique attempt to destroy a nation of many millions with industrialised homicide, for no other reason than to get rid of them all. Even slavery doesn't match that
However I find that photo quite uniquely chilling because in so many senses it is familiar. It is a brick building of late Georgian/early Victorian type, of which there are millions in the UK. Right down to the sash windows. The font in the sign is Victorian British
It could be an old photo of a shopfront in Camden High Street, 80 yards from me, and it would say "Dealers in Linens and Cloths". And yet it says "Dealers in Slaves"
Deeply disquieting
I wonder if you're getting a little glimpse into the emotional state of some people when they see statues of slavers and suchlike. Makes it a little easier to understand them wanting to remove such functionless and offensive symbols when even an extant building's former purpose can give you the heebie jeebies.
Believe it or not, yes I am
My recent roadtrip around America, and the reading I did, has made me a little more sympathetic to the Wokerati and the statue-topplers, in America (and this on top of previous recent trips to the Deep South, Louisiana etc)
The visits to Monticello, Antietam, Lexington and Staunton were particularly powerful
I still think Wokeness is a mortal danger to the Enlightenment, and has gone way too far, and needs to be stopped. But I can more easily see why so many Americans are uncomfortable with anything that remotely reminds them of the slaving past
See: travel broadens the mind. It really really does. You have to get out there and see and feel and read, and see again
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
If you were to plot the spectrum of views that white people in America held towards black people and the issue of slavery at the time then Lincoln's views were at the extreme liberal/progressive end without a doubt, especially as they evolved during the course of the war. I spent a year studying the US Civil War in CSYS history at school, and came away quite in awe of Lincoln.
This doesn't sound like a particularly extreme liberal/progressive position:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
Of course when Lincoln was President the Republicans won all the North East, the West coast and most of the Mid West.
The Democrats however won virtually all the South and Missouri, almost the reverse of now. Indeed Biden's Democrats are arguably closer to the party of Lincoln now and Trump's Republicans closer to the Confederacy
The Republicans have always been the party of businessmen. The Democrats have generally been the party of labour. Almost everything else has been volatile.
'Always' is pitching it very strong there. Since 1932, arguably, but before World War 1 you could make a very good case it was the other way around.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
I recently stood in front of this building. The fact it is still there is disturbing in itself, weirdly
A cook called Richard Roose was tried for the crime of poisoning and was executed by boiling in 1532, taking two hours to die and excruciating death. The case remained valid in case law and discussed soberly by lawyers for hundreds of years thereafter.
Hang around long enough and any act, no matter how horrific, will be recategorised as history and story stuff. In 1190 local Jewish people, entrapped in Clifford's Tower in York, committed suicide rather than submit, setting it alight in the process. The good citizens of York were still holding firework displays there until the 1990s.
As these cases and your example shows, there is no activity so gross that people will not eventually convert it to "long ago", slap a blue plaque on it, and it just becomes part of the landscape...
Er, weren't the York fireworks on 5 November and therefore Gunpowder Plot?
Yes. That was my point. Despite knowing about the 1190 massacre, they held the fireworks to celebrate the 1605 Gunpowder Plan there.
"Captain Tom's daughter 'used hero veteran's name to build spa and pool complex at home'
Captain Tom's daughter, Hannah Ingram-Moore, and her husband Colin reportedly put forward the planning application in their own names, but then used the charity's name in their design and access statement"
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
I recently stood in front of this building. The fact it is still there is disturbing in itself, weirdly
No more disturbing than Auschwitz etc being preserved, it shows what reality was.
It's different, rather than "more or less disturbing"
Auschwitz is infinitely more evil even than the horror of slavery, as it was a unique attempt to destroy a nation of many millions with industrialised homicide, for no other reason than to get rid of them all. Even slavery doesn't match that
However I find that photo quite uniquely chilling because in so many senses it is familiar. It is a brick building of late Georgian/early Victorian type, of which there are millions in the UK. Right down to the sash windows. The font in the sign is Victorian British
It could be an old photo of a shopfront in Camden High Street, 80 yards from me, and it would say "Dealers in Linens and Cloths". And yet it says "Dealers in Slaves"
Deeply disquieting
I wonder if you're getting a little glimpse into the emotional state of some people when they see statues of slavers and suchlike. Makes it a little easier to understand them wanting to remove such functionless and offensive symbols when even an extant building's former purpose can give you the heebie jeebies.
Believe it or not, yes I am
My recent roadtrip around America, and the reading I did, has made me a little more sympathetic to the Wokerati and the statue-topplers, in America (and this on top of previous recent trips to the Deep South, Louisiana etc)
The visits to Monticello, Antietam, Lexington and Staunton were particularly powerful
I still think Wokeness is a mortal danger to the Enlightenment, and has gone way too far, and needs to be stopped. But I can more easily see why so many Americans are uncomfortable with anything that remotely reminds them of the slaving past
See: travel broadens the mind. It really really does. You have to get out there and see and feel and read, and see again
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
If you were to plot the spectrum of views that white people in America held towards black people and the issue of slavery at the time then Lincoln's views were at the extreme liberal/progressive end without a doubt, especially as they evolved during the course of the war. I spent a year studying the US Civil War in CSYS history at school, and came away quite in awe of Lincoln.
This doesn't sound like a particularly extreme liberal/progressive position:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
That was spoken in the context of trying to get the Border States not to secede - which would have lost the war for the Union in short order.
If Lincoln is to be believed - in his own letters - he was far more of an abolitionist in private than in public, for most of his life.
A central feature of his private beliefs was that slavery was dying, and that Succession would revive the corpse for a while. This was a common view among some Northerners.
A curiosity of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 is that it only applied to Confederate held territory. The slave states that remained in the Union (Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri) did not have slavery abolished by it, nor did it apply to Union occupied areas of the South such as New Orleans. These areas had to wait until 1865 and the 13th ammendment (and that doesn't include convicted prisoners, who can still legally be slaves)
SNP 37% (-1) LAB 34% (+2) CON 17% (-1) LD 9% (nc) OTH 4% (nc)
F/w 23rd - 28th June. Changes vs. 27th April - 3 May.
24 SNP seats would go Labour on that swing since 2019, giving Labour most seats in Scotland again, albeit only by 1 MP.
However it could be more if Conservatives and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP. Zero swing between SNP and Tories so the Tories would hold all their Scottish seats
Surely Labour would get many more than that, as Conservatives vote tactically to keep the SNP out?
Starmer needs LD tactical votes in England to beat the Tories and Tory tactical votes in Scotland to help beat the SNP
Sunak on the other hand needs a feckin' miracle of biblical proportions.
SNP 37% (-1) LAB 34% (+2) CON 17% (-1) LD 9% (nc) OTH 4% (nc)
F/w 23rd - 28th June. Changes vs. 27th April - 3 May.
24 SNP seats would go Labour on that swing since 2019, giving Labour most seats in Scotland again, albeit only by 1 MP.
However it could be more if Conservatives and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP. Zero swing between SNP and Tories so the Tories would hold all their Scottish seats
Surely Labour would get many more than that, as Conservatives vote tactically to keep the SNP out?
Starmer needs LD tactical votes in England to beat the Tories and Tory tactical votes in Scotland to help beat the SNP
Sunak on the other hand need a feckin' miracle of biblical proportions.
Lincoln didn't move much on colonisation except for the rather important caveat that it should be voluntary, which rendered it a notion and a dead letter. You could pay people to move to Australia. Not Belize.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
If you were to plot the spectrum of views that white people in America held towards black people and the issue of slavery at the time then Lincoln's views were at the extreme liberal/progressive end without a doubt, especially as they evolved during the course of the war. I spent a year studying the US Civil War in CSYS history at school, and came away quite in awe of Lincoln.
This doesn't sound like a particularly extreme liberal/progressive position:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
That was spoken in the context of trying to get the Border States not to secede - which would have lost the war for the Union in short order.
If Lincoln is to be believed - in his own letters - he was far more of an abolitionist in private than in public, for most of his life.
A central feature of his private beliefs was that slavery was dying, and that Succession would revive the corpse for a while. This was a common view among some Northerners.
A curiosity of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 is that it only applied to Confederate held territory. The slave states that remained in the Union (Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri) did not have slavery abolished by it, nor did it apply to Union occupied areas of the South such as New Orleans. These areas had to wait until 1865 and the 13th ammendment (and that doesn't include convicted prisoners, who can still legally be slaves)
And of course, after "Emancipation" came Jim Crow and share-cropping
SNP 37% (-1) LAB 34% (+2) CON 17% (-1) LD 9% (nc) OTH 4% (nc)
F/w 23rd - 28th June. Changes vs. 27th April - 3 May.
24 SNP seats would go Labour on that swing since 2019, giving Labour most seats in Scotland again, albeit only by 1 MP.
However it could be more if Conservatives and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP. Zero swing between SNP and Tories so the Tories would hold all their Scottish seats
Surely Labour would get many more than that, as Conservatives vote tactically to keep the SNP out?
Starmer needs LD tactical votes in England to beat the Tories and Tory tactical votes in Scotland to help beat the SNP
Sunak on the other hand need a feckin' miracle of biblical proportions.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
If you were to plot the spectrum of views that white people in America held towards black people and the issue of slavery at the time then Lincoln's views were at the extreme liberal/progressive end without a doubt, especially as they evolved during the course of the war. I spent a year studying the US Civil War in CSYS history at school, and came away quite in awe of Lincoln.
This doesn't sound like a particularly extreme liberal/progressive position:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
That was spoken in the context of trying to get the Border States not to secede - which would have lost the war for the Union in short order.
If Lincoln is to be believed - in his own letters - he was far more of an abolitionist in private than in public, for most of his life.
A central feature of his private beliefs was that slavery was dying, and that Succession would revive the corpse for a while. This was a common view among some Northerners.
A curiosity of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 is that it only applied to Confederate held territory. The slave states that remained in the Union (Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri) did not have slavery abolished by it, nor did it apply to Union occupied areas of the South such as New Orleans. These areas had to wait until 1865 and the 13th ammendment (and that doesn't include convicted prisoners, who can still legally be slaves)
Delaware too.
In fact Kentucky and Delaware were the only states whose slaves were emancipated by the 13th Amendment. Maryland abolished it in 1864 and Missouri in January 1865.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
Didn't they even have colour photos in those days?
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
I recently stood in front of this building. The fact it is still there is disturbing in itself, weirdly
No more disturbing than Auschwitz etc being preserved, it shows what reality was.
It's different, rather than "more or less disturbing"
Auschwitz is infinitely more evil even than the horror of slavery, as it was a unique attempt to destroy a nation of many millions with industrialised homicide, for no other reason than to get rid of them all. Even slavery doesn't match that
However I find that photo quite uniquely chilling because in so many senses it is familiar. It is a brick building of late Georgian/early Victorian type, of which there are millions in the UK. Right down to the sash windows. The font in the sign is Victorian British
It could be an old photo of a shopfront in Camden High Street, 80 yards from me, and it would say "Dealers in Linens and Cloths". And yet it says "Dealers in Slaves"
Deeply disquieting
I wonder if you're getting a little glimpse into the emotional state of some people when they see statues of slavers and suchlike. Makes it a little easier to understand them wanting to remove such functionless and offensive symbols when even an extant building's former purpose can give you the heebie jeebies.
Believe it or not, yes I am
My recent roadtrip around America, and the reading I did, has made me a little more sympathetic to the Wokerati and the statue-topplers, in America (and this on top of previous recent trips to the Deep South, Louisiana etc)
The visits to Monticello, Antietam, Lexington and Staunton were particularly powerful
I still think Wokeness is a mortal danger to the Enlightenment, and has gone way too far, and needs to be stopped. But I can more easily see why so many Americans are uncomfortable with anything that remotely reminds them of the slaving past
See: travel broadens the mind. It really really does. You have to get out there and see and feel and read, and see again
I'm just back from Buxton.
Hope you have come back with a spring in your step.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
If you were to plot the spectrum of views that white people in America held towards black people and the issue of slavery at the time then Lincoln's views were at the extreme liberal/progressive end without a doubt, especially as they evolved during the course of the war. I spent a year studying the US Civil War in CSYS history at school, and came away quite in awe of Lincoln.
This doesn't sound like a particularly extreme liberal/progressive position:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
Of course when Lincoln was President the Republicans won all the North East, the West coast and most of the Mid West.
The Democrats however won virtually all the South and Missouri, almost the reverse of now. Indeed Biden's Democrats are arguably closer to the party of Lincoln now and Trump's Republicans closer to the Confederacy
The Republicans have always been the party of businessmen. The Democrats have generally been the party of labour. Almost everything else has been volatile.
'Always' is pitching it very strong there. Since 1932, arguably, but before World War 1 you could make a very good case it was the other way around.
I don't think that would be a reasonable description of the time of - say - McKinley or Taft or the admittedly much less competitive postbellum period of Republican paramountcy.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
The past was different but is it shocking that something called the slave trade involved trade in slaves? Surely the clue is in the name.
We understand it intellectually, not at gut level. People do horrific things and we eventually sanitize it. We don't hold the memory of pain in long-term memory and (as @SeanT wrote about in the Spectator) we remember wars but forget pandemics.
Eg people considered farm animals because of their skin colour. You shouldn't be able to 'debate' that really. I certainly can't. What's to discuss?
Washington Post (via Seattle Times) - A viral left-wing Twitter account may have been fake all along
In eight months, Erica Marsh has become one of the most consistently viral left-wing voices on Twitter, gaining more than 130,000 followers for her hyper-liberal, often melodramatic opinions on the biggest flash points in American news.
She’s been especially popular with conservatives, who promoted her as a perfect symbol of how overly theatrical and inane progressives can be — like when she attacked the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action decision last week by saying “no Black person will be able to succeed in a merit-based system.” The tweet was viewed more than 27 million times.
There’s just one problem: She’s probably a fake.
The “proud Democrat” in Washington, as she described herself on Twitter, doesn’t show up in any local phone or voting records. . . .
After The Washington Post raised questions about the account with employees of Twitter’s trust and safety department, the account was suspended on Sunday for unknown reasons. . . .
Marsh’s account tended to post messages so polarizing and incendiary that readers couldn’t help but respond, boosting her public profile in the process — a tactic known as “rage baiting.”
The strategy was most infamously deployed by trolls linked to the Russian government . . . during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. . . .
For months, Marsh’s account had raised suspicions among online misinformation experts due to her lack of a real-world footprint and her devotion to attention-grabbing viewpoints one called “cartoonishly liberal.” . . .
When it came to political commentary, she seemed to regard every polarizing news story as an opportunity to offer her opinion and to solicit her fans to promote her to their own networks. [SSI - sound familiar, PBers?] . . . .
Some of her tweets . . . read like liberal caricatures; last month, she said she still wears “2 masks whenever I go out and support Ukraine.” . . .
Her most extreme and mean-spirited tweets, including her glee over the death of a Jan. 6 rioter, were often used by conservatives to criticize the Biden administration based on her assertion she’d been involved with his campaign.
Her tweet about the affirmative-action decision, in which she said Black people would not succeed in a merit-based system, sparked a viral outcry of its own . . . .
A former Twitter trust and safety employee . . . said the company had seen a rush of accounts out of North Macedonia around October 2022 posing as pro-Trump influencers and offering up the same style of “over-the-top, clickbait tweets.” . . .
For some months, the Erica Marsh account profile included a link to a Venmo account, which would’ve allowed readers to send her money. Venmo didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment. . . .
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
Didn't they even have colour photos in those days?
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
I recently stood in front of this building. The fact it is still there is disturbing in itself, weirdly
A cook called Richard Roose was tried for the crime of poisoning and was executed by boiling in 1532, taking two hours to die and excruciating death. The case remained valid in case law and discussed soberly by lawyers for hundreds of years thereafter.
Hang around long enough and any act, no matter how horrific, will be recategorised as history and story stuff. In 1190 local Jewish people, entrapped in Clifford's Tower in York, committed suicide rather than submit, setting it alight in the process. The good citizens of York were still holding firework displays there until the 1990s.
As these cases and your example shows, there is no activity so gross that people will not eventually convert it to "long ago", slap a blue plaque on it, and it just becomes part of the landscape...
Er, weren't the York fireworks on 5 November and therefore Gunpowder Plot?
Yes. That was my point. Despite knowing about the 1190 massacre, they held the fireworks to celebrate the 1605 Gunpowder Plan there.
Thanks, I did wonder. Interesting thought. I wonder if the tourist industry - or at least elements of it - incorporates the massacre into their ghost tours? The Edinburgh equivalents, I suspect, aren't too fussy about execution sites.
Washington Post (via Seattle Times) - A viral left-wing Twitter account may have been fake all along
In eight months, Erica Marsh has become one of the most consistently viral left-wing voices on Twitter, gaining more than 130,000 followers for her hyper-liberal, often melodramatic opinions on the biggest flash points in American news.
She’s been especially popular with conservatives, who promoted her as a perfect symbol of how overly theatrical and inane progressives can be — like when she attacked the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action decision last week by saying “no Black person will be able to succeed in a merit-based system.” The tweet was viewed more than 27 million times.
There’s just one problem: She’s probably a fake.
The “proud Democrat” in Washington, as she described herself on Twitter, doesn’t show up in any local phone or voting records. . . .
After The Washington Post raised questions about the account with employees of Twitter’s trust and safety department, the account was suspended on Sunday for unknown reasons. . . .
Marsh’s account tended to post messages so polarizing and incendiary that readers couldn’t help but respond, boosting her public profile in the process — a tactic known as “rage baiting.”
The strategy was most infamously deployed by trolls linked to the Russian government . . . during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. . . .
For months, Marsh’s account had raised suspicions among online misinformation experts due to her lack of a real-world footprint and her devotion to attention-grabbing viewpoints one called “cartoonishly liberal.” . . .
When it came to political commentary, she seemed to regard every polarizing news story as an opportunity to offer her opinion and to solicit her fans to promote her to their own networks. [SSI - sound familiar, PBers?] . . . .
Some of her tweets . . . read like liberal caricatures; last month, she said she still wears “2 masks whenever I go out and support Ukraine.” . . .
Her most extreme and mean-spirited tweets, including her glee over the death of a Jan. 6 rioter, were often used by conservatives to criticize the Biden administration based on her assertion she’d been involved with his campaign.
Her tweet about the affirmative-action decision, in which she said Black people would not succeed in a merit-based system, sparked a viral outcry of its own . . . .
A former Twitter trust and safety employee . . . said the company had seen a rush of accounts out of North Macedonia around October 2022 posing as pro-Trump influencers and offering up the same style of “over-the-top, clickbait tweets.” . . .
For some months, the Erica Marsh account profile included a link to a Venmo account, which would’ve allowed readers to send her money. Venmo didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment. . . .
Did they have any interest in flint knapping perchance?
Lincoln didn't move much on colonisation except for the rather important caveat that it should be voluntary, which rendered it a notion and a dead letter. You could pay people to move to Australia. Not Belize.
Both Liberia and Sierra Leone were founded as colonies for freed slaves. This leaves a legacy to the present day as both countries have had some tensions between the creoles and the local indigenous peoples.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
If you were to plot the spectrum of views that white people in America held towards black people and the issue of slavery at the time then Lincoln's views were at the extreme liberal/progressive end without a doubt, especially as they evolved during the course of the war. I spent a year studying the US Civil War in CSYS history at school, and came away quite in awe of Lincoln.
This doesn't sound like a particularly extreme liberal/progressive position:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
Of course when Lincoln was President the Republicans won all the North East, the West coast and most of the Mid West.
The Democrats however won virtually all the South and Missouri, almost the reverse of now. Indeed Biden's Democrats are arguably closer to the party of Lincoln now and Trump's Republicans closer to the Confederacy
The Republicans have always been the party of businessmen. The Democrats have generally been the party of labour. Almost everything else has been volatile.
'Always' is pitching it very strong there. Since 1932, arguably, but before World War 1 you could make a very good case it was the other way around.
Even the 19th century Republican party was the party of northern Protestants and professionals, wealthy farmers and later added former black slaves.
However business was divided between free trade Bourbon Democrats and protectionist Republican businessmen. Labour and unions became increasingly Democrat as the franchise expanded.
Most businessmen are now Republicans and farmers still very Republican but African Americans now strongly Democrat and professionals increasingly Democrat.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
I recently stood in front of this building. The fact it is still there is disturbing in itself, weirdly
No more disturbing than Auschwitz etc being preserved, it shows what reality was.
It's different, rather than "more or less disturbing"
Auschwitz is infinitely more evil even than the horror of slavery, as it was a unique attempt to destroy a nation of many millions with industrialised homicide, for no other reason than to get rid of them all. Even slavery doesn't match that
However I find that photo quite uniquely chilling because in so many senses it is familiar. It is a brick building of late Georgian/early Victorian type, of which there are millions in the UK. Right down to the sash windows. The font in the sign is Victorian British
It could be an old photo of a shopfront in Camden High Street, 80 yards from me, and it would say "Dealers in Linens and Cloths". And yet it says "Dealers in Slaves"
Deeply disquieting
I wonder if you're getting a little glimpse into the emotional state of some people when they see statues of slavers and suchlike. Makes it a little easier to understand them wanting to remove such functionless and offensive symbols when even an extant building's former purpose can give you the heebie jeebies.
Believe it or not, yes I am
My recent roadtrip around America, and the reading I did, has made me a little more sympathetic to the Wokerati and the statue-topplers, in America (and this on top of previous recent trips to the Deep South, Louisiana etc)
The visits to Monticello, Antietam, Lexington and Staunton were particularly powerful
I still think Wokeness is a mortal danger to the Enlightenment, and has gone way too far, and needs to be stopped. But I can more easily see why so many Americans are uncomfortable with anything that remotely reminds them of the slaving past
See: travel broadens the mind. It really really does. You have to get out there and see and feel and read, and see again
I'm just back from Buxton.
Nice. I still remember your post from atop Thorpe Cloud. Can't keep you away from Derbyshire.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
The past was different but is it shocking that something called the slave trade involved trade in slaves? Surely the clue is in the name.
We understand it intellectually, not at gut level. People do horrific things and we eventually sanitize it. We don't hold the memory of pain in long-term memory and (as @SeanT wrote about in the Spectator) we remember wars but forget pandemics.
You sound as if you are selling psychopathy as a natural and laudable characteristic. Your imagination may have a 100 year cut off, mine does not. So please don't write "We" when you mean "I".
SNP 37% (-1) LAB 34% (+2) CON 17% (-1) LD 9% (nc) OTH 4% (nc)
F/w 23rd - 28th June. Changes vs. 27th April - 3 May.
24 SNP seats would go Labour on that swing since 2019, giving Labour most seats in Scotland again, albeit only by 1 MP.
However it could be more if Conservatives and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP. Zero swing between SNP and Tories so the Tories would hold all their Scottish seats
Surely Labour would get many more than that, as Conservatives vote tactically to keep the SNP out?
Starmer needs LD tactical votes in England to beat the Tories and Tory tactical votes in Scotland to help beat the SNP
Sunak on the other hand need a feckin' miracle of biblical proportions.
Another nugget from my recent reading. The soldiers of the Union were often as brutally racist as the Confederates
eg They would "liberate" a Southern Plantation and immediately rape all the young, attractive, female slaves. Then they'd set the slaves to work, cooking, cleaning, farming - for no money. So life got no better for slaves at all, unless you could get away, and for the women slaves it got worse
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
The past was different but is it shocking that something called the slave trade involved trade in slaves? Surely the clue is in the name.
We understand it intellectually, not at gut level. People do horrific things and we eventually sanitize it. We don't hold the memory of pain in long-term memory and (as @SeanT wrote about in the Spectator) we remember wars but forget pandemics.
You sound as if you are selling psychopathy as a natural and laudable characteristic. Your imagination may have a 100 year cut off, mine does not. So please don't write "We" when you mean "I".
He's right tho. I reckon 100 years is about right. Maybe 150 tops
There will come a time when the Holocaust means as much to us as the Black Death does now. Some terrible but very distant thing, a colourful period of awfulness, which we read with some relish for the gory stories
Is there anyone who honestly gets emotionally roiled by the Irish Famine? Maybe a few, but vanishingly few. Its final embers are dying
SNP 37% (-1) LAB 34% (+2) CON 17% (-1) LD 9% (nc) OTH 4% (nc)
F/w 23rd - 28th June. Changes vs. 27th April - 3 May.
24 SNP seats would go Labour on that swing since 2019, giving Labour most seats in Scotland again, albeit only by 1 MP.
However it could be more if Conservatives and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP. Zero swing between SNP and Tories so the Tories would hold all their Scottish seats
Surely Labour would get many more than that, as Conservatives vote tactically to keep the SNP out?
Starmer needs LD tactical votes in England to beat the Tories and Tory tactical votes in Scotland to help beat the SNP
Sunak on the other hand need a feckin' miracle of biblical proportions.
We all Noah that.
He certainly needs faith in the Job.
I think everyone is now expecting many Lamentations from Conservative candidates on election night.
SNP 37% (-1) LAB 34% (+2) CON 17% (-1) LD 9% (nc) OTH 4% (nc)
F/w 23rd - 28th June. Changes vs. 27th April - 3 May.
24 SNP seats would go Labour on that swing since 2019, giving Labour most seats in Scotland again, albeit only by 1 MP.
However it could be more if Conservatives and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP. Zero swing between SNP and Tories so the Tories would hold all their Scottish seats
Surely Labour would get many more than that, as Conservatives vote tactically to keep the SNP out?
Starmer needs LD tactical votes in England to beat the Tories and Tory tactical votes in Scotland to help beat the SNP
Sunak on the other hand need a feckin' miracle of biblical proportions.
We all Noah that.
He certainly needs faith in the Job.
I think everyone is now expecting many Lamentations from Conservative candidates on election night.
Though there will be twists and turns and perhaps ultimately some Revalations.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
If you were to plot the spectrum of views that white people in America held towards black people and the issue of slavery at the time then Lincoln's views were at the extreme liberal/progressive end without a doubt, especially as they evolved during the course of the war. I spent a year studying the US Civil War in CSYS history at school, and came away quite in awe of Lincoln.
This doesn't sound like a particularly extreme liberal/progressive position:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
Of course when Lincoln was President the Republicans won all the North East, the West coast and most of the Mid West.
The Democrats however won virtually all the South and Missouri, almost the reverse of now. Indeed Biden's Democrats are arguably closer to the party of Lincoln now and Trump's Republicans closer to the Confederacy
The Republicans have always been the party of businessmen. The Democrats have generally been the party of labour. Almost everything else has been volatile.
'Always' is pitching it very strong there. Since 1932, arguably, but before World War 1 you could make a very good case it was the other way around.
Before 1930s BOTH Republicans and Democrats vied to represent business, at least SOME business interests and businessmen. NOTE that they tended to appeal (for votes AND contributions) upon different economic sectors:
> Republicans being the party of protectionism, with support from manufacturing including mainly business but also plenty of working people, as well as some farmers (for example, sugar planters in south Louisiana) also concerned with foreign competition.
> Democrats being the party of free trade, with support from many commercial interests who mostly wanted open markets and low tariffs for imports, and many farmers and other ag-based concerns, who wanted to open the door to EXPORT their produce to foreign markets.
Toward and after turn of 19th>20th century this basic pattern started to get scrambled, first by dispute between hard dollar versus expanded money supply. With farmers being mostly in favor of the latter (for example Greenbackers > Populists) and providing the mass, joined by silver mining.
And while "bimetalism" waned as a burning issue after 1896 (due in part to major gold-rushes in Yukon and South Africa) its place was taken by rising tide of concern and controversy over rise of corporate "trusts" dominating the economy, AND worsening conditions for labor.
Which again scrambled, or substantially blurred, party lines, and in 1912 split the GOP (Theodore Roosevelt versus Wm Howard Taft) giving victory to Democrats under Woodrow Wilson. His administration opened the door, a bit anyway, for organized labor of moderate tendency, but WW1 and aftermath led to both significant labor strife, particularly with more radical and broad-based unions (such as IWW = Wobblies) and seriously diminished even moderate (AFL) unionism.
Note that in the midst of the economic boom for (many but hardly all) American of the "Roaring Twenties" the Democrats nominated . . . a Wall Street lawyer (and Wilson's ambassador to Court of St. James) John W. Davis (originally from WVa). This along with GOP nomination of stand-pat Calvin Coolidge, prompted a serious 3rd-party Progressive campaign lead by Republican insurgent Robert "Fighting Bob" LaFollette that united disaffected liberals, farmers and labor - with the result that Davis was the WORST performing Democratic nominee of 20th century.
SNP 37% (-1) LAB 34% (+2) CON 17% (-1) LD 9% (nc) OTH 4% (nc)
F/w 23rd - 28th June. Changes vs. 27th April - 3 May.
24 SNP seats would go Labour on that swing since 2019, giving Labour most seats in Scotland again, albeit only by 1 MP.
However it could be more if Conservatives and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP. Zero swing between SNP and Tories so the Tories would hold all their Scottish seats
Surely Labour would get many more than that, as Conservatives vote tactically to keep the SNP out?
Starmer needs LD tactical votes in England to beat the Tories and Tory tactical votes in Scotland to help beat the SNP
Sunak on the other hand need a feckin' miracle of biblical proportions.
We all Noah that.
He certainly needs faith in the Job.
I think everyone is now expecting many Lamentations from Conservative candidates on election night.
After which, with any luck, they will wander about in the wilderness for 40 years.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
The past was different but is it shocking that something called the slave trade involved trade in slaves? Surely the clue is in the name.
We understand it intellectually, not at gut level. People do horrific things and we eventually sanitize it. We don't hold the memory of pain in long-term memory and (as @SeanT wrote about in the Spectator) we remember wars but forget pandemics.
You sound as if you are selling psychopathy as a natural and laudable characteristic. Your imagination may have a 100 year cut off, mine does not. So please don't write "We" when you mean "I".
He's right tho. I reckon 100 years is about right. Maybe 150 tops
There will come a time when the Holocaust means as much to us as the Black Death does now. Some terrible but very distant thing, a colourful period of awfulness, which we read with some relish for the gory stories
Is there anyone who honestly gets emotionally roiled by the Irish Famine? Maybe a few, but vanishingly few. Its final embers are dying
I guess the question is, what determines the events that enter the canon of human memory? You've mentioned before the awfulness of the Khmer Rouge, which was huge at the time (on Blue Peter and everything) and is now semi forgotten. There are some stories that just touch enough nerves to become unforgettable.
It sends some advocates potty- why have you forgotten X? And it is a capricious process. But it's possible that something about the Holocaust, maybe as the first really industrial attempt to eradicate a race, will make it stick in our collective memory.
Another nugget from my recent reading. The soldiers of the Union were often as brutally racist as the Confederates
eg They would "liberate" a Southern Plantation and immediately rape all the young, attractive, female slaves. Then they'd set the slaves to work, cooking, cleaning, farming - for no money. So life got no better for slaves at all, unless you could get away, and for the women slaves it got worse
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
The past was different but is it shocking that something called the slave trade involved trade in slaves? Surely the clue is in the name.
We understand it intellectually, not at gut level. People do horrific things and we eventually sanitize it. We don't hold the memory of pain in long-term memory and (as @SeanT wrote about in the Spectator) we remember wars but forget pandemics.
You sound as if you are selling psychopathy as a natural and laudable characteristic. Your imagination may have a 100 year cut off, mine does not. So please don't write "We" when you mean "I".
He's right tho. I reckon 100 years is about right. Maybe 150 tops
There will come a time when the Holocaust means as much to us as the Black Death does now. Some terrible but very distant thing, a colourful period of awfulness, which we read with some relish for the gory stories
Is there anyone who honestly gets emotionally roiled by the Irish Famine? Maybe a few, but vanishingly few. Its final embers are dying
I guess the question is, what determines the events that enter the canon of human memory? You've mentioned before the awfulness of the Khmer Rouge, which was huge at the time (on Blue Peter and everything) and is now semi forgotten. There are some stories that just touch enough nerves to become unforgettable.
It sends some advocates potty- why have you forgotten X? And it is a capricious process. But it's possible that something about the Holocaust, maybe as the first really industrial attempt to eradicate a race, will make it stick in our collective memory.
It will always be in big in the history books, but I am firmly comvinced it will lose that OMFG quality which it possesses now. Indeed I suspect it is already losing it. No number of Holocaust museums can keep people caring
Once all the living witnesses to an event have died, no matter how enormous and heinous, it begins to fade
Indeed if I was looking for an exception to this it might be World War One, not the Holocaust
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
I recently stood in front of this building. The fact it is still there is disturbing in itself, weirdly
No more disturbing than Auschwitz etc being preserved, it shows what reality was.
It's different, rather than "more or less disturbing"
Auschwitz is infinitely more evil even than the horror of slavery, as it was a unique attempt to destroy a nation of many millions with industrialised homicide, for no other reason than to get rid of them all. Even slavery doesn't match that
However I find that photo quite uniquely chilling because in so many senses it is familiar. It is a brick building of late Georgian/early Victorian type, of which there are millions in the UK. Right down to the sash windows. The font in the sign is Victorian British
It could be an old photo of a shopfront in Camden High Street, 80 yards from me, and it would say "Dealers in Linens and Cloths". And yet it says "Dealers in Slaves"
Deeply disquieting
I wonder if you're getting a little glimpse into the emotional state of some people when they see statues of slavers and suchlike. Makes it a little easier to understand them wanting to remove such functionless and offensive symbols when even an extant building's former purpose can give you the heebie jeebies.
Believe it or not, yes I am
My recent roadtrip around America, and the reading I did, has made me a little more sympathetic to the Wokerati and the statue-topplers, in America (and this on top of previous recent trips to the Deep South, Louisiana etc)
The visits to Monticello, Antietam, Lexington and Staunton were particularly powerful
I still think Wokeness is a mortal danger to the Enlightenment, and has gone way too far, and needs to be stopped. But I can more easily see why so many Americans are uncomfortable with anything that remotely reminds them of the slaving past
See: travel broadens the mind. It really really does. You have to get out there and see and feel and read, and see again
I'm just back from Buxton.
Nice. I still remember your post from atop Thorpe Cloud. Can't keep you away from Derbyshire.
Yes it's become an annual. Although climbing a challenging peak was a one off.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
I've read a lot of American history in the last years, and I reckon at least some of the signatories - the Founding Fathers - sincerely meant all mankind by the phrase "all men are created equal". They just didn[t want to give up the profitable, easeful convenience of slaves any time soon, it was something they would get round to. Eventually. Like Augustine and celibacy
They also realised that extending freedom to slaves would have kicked off civil war as soon as Independence was achieved, as the slave owning south entirely depended on slaves for its riches
Other Founding Fathers were out and out racists and misogynists and surely believed true freedom was only meant for white men (probably men of property)
Other facts I've learned in my recent travels. Lincoln never meant for the freed slaves, post bellum, to stay in the USA. His idea was they could all go live in central America. He envisaged they would be either a burden or a menace, he was quite racist himself
"Never" is incorrect. His views evolved considerably over the course of the war.
That's right, Lincoln's views evolved a lot reflecting the experience of the war - seeing black soldiers fighting for the union - and his interactions with figures such as Frederick Douglass. His views reflected the times he lived in but by the standards of those times he was woke in the extreme. Lincoln is in my opinion the greatest political leader in the history of the English speaking world. To have come from where he came from, to have basically taught himself everything he knew, and to have led his country through such difficult times and effected such positive change while remaining so kind and humble in his dealings with everyone he encountered is simply extraordinary. I really can't think of a single other political leader I admire as much as Lincoln.
"Woke in the extreme" seems a tad generous
"In a debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln made his position clear. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed Black people having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. "
But as OLB says, those views changed. How many of them did he still hold in 1864? I genuinely don't know but it certainly seems like he had shifted a great deal.
Edit: I have just checked and 3 days before his assassination he gave a speech supporting votes for blacks. Indeed it is claimed that it was Wilkes' presence at this speech which finally decided him on assassination.
I am willing to believe he moved on black voting, but the evidence is that he did NOT change his mind on colonisation. He wanted freed blacks to be "repatriated" to Africa or be sent to central America/Caribbean. He only piped down about it as it made others angry - the more pure abolitionists and the black soldiers he wanted to recruit
He was a great man, but a man of his time, and "Woke in the extreme" sounds like nonsense
If you were to plot the spectrum of views that white people in America held towards black people and the issue of slavery at the time then Lincoln's views were at the extreme liberal/progressive end without a doubt, especially as they evolved during the course of the war. I spent a year studying the US Civil War in CSYS history at school, and came away quite in awe of Lincoln.
This doesn't sound like a particularly extreme liberal/progressive position:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
Of course when Lincoln was President the Republicans won all the North East, the West coast and most of the Mid West.
The Democrats however won virtually all the South and Missouri, almost the reverse of now. Indeed Biden's Democrats are arguably closer to the party of Lincoln now and Trump's Republicans closer to the Confederacy
The Republicans have always been the party of businessmen. The Democrats have generally been the party of labour. Almost everything else has been volatile.
'Always' is pitching it very strong there. Since 1932, arguably, but before World War 1 you could make a very good case it was the other way around.
Before 1930s BOTH Republicans and Democrats vied to represent business, at least SOME business interests and businessmen. NOTE that they tended to appeal (for votes AND contributions) upon different economic sectors:
> Republicans being the party of protectionism, with support from manufacturing including mainly business but also plenty of working people, as well as some farmers (for example, sugar planters in south Louisiana) also concerned with foreign competition.
> Democrats being the party of free trade, with support from many commercial interests who mostly wanted open markets and low tariffs for imports, and many farmers and other ag-based concerns, who wanted to open the door to EXPORT their produce to foreign markets.
Toward and after turn of 19th>20th century this basic pattern started to get scrambled, first by dispute between hard dollar versus expanded money supply. With farmers being mostly in favor of the latter (for example Greenbackers > Populists) and providing the mass, joined by silver mining.
And while "bimetalism" waned as a burning issue after 1896 (due in part to major gold-rushes in Yukon and South Africa) its place was taken by rising tide of concern and controversy over rise of corporate "trusts" dominating the economy, AND worsening conditions for labor.
Which again scrambled, or substantially blurred, party lines, and in 1912 split the GOP (Theodore Roosevelt versus Wm Howard Taft) giving victory to Democrats under Woodrow Wilson. His administration opened the door, a bit anyway, for organized labor of moderate tendency, but WW1 and aftermath led to both significant labor strife, particularly with more radical and broad-based unions (such as IWW = Wobblies) and seriously diminished even moderate (AFL) unionism.
Note that in the midst of the economic boom for (many but hardly all) American of the "Roaring Twenties" the Democrats nominated . . . a Wall Street lawyer (and Wilson's ambassador to Court of St. James) John W. Davis (originally from WVa). This along with GOP nomination of stand-pat Calvin Coolidge, prompted a serious 3rd-party Progressive campaign lead by Republican insurgent Robert "Fighting Bob" LaFollette that united disaffected liberals, farmers and labor - with the result that Davis was the WORST performing Democratic nominee of 20th century.
With the macro-context between the war and FDR being that - at national level - Republicans dominated two of three branches of the growing federal government, plus the US Senate, and did fine in the US House. In effect the Republicans were the party of government and Democrats the party of opposition. So at a sheer numerical level, among electorates where the Republicans did well, they tended to do VERY well compared to today.
SNP 37% (-1) LAB 34% (+2) CON 17% (-1) LD 9% (nc) OTH 4% (nc)
F/w 23rd - 28th June. Changes vs. 27th April - 3 May.
24 SNP seats would go Labour on that swing since 2019, giving Labour most seats in Scotland again, albeit only by 1 MP.
However it could be more if Conservatives and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP. Zero swing between SNP and Tories so the Tories would hold all their Scottish seats
Surely Labour would get many more than that, as Conservatives vote tactically to keep the SNP out?
Starmer needs LD tactical votes in England to beat the Tories and Tory tactical votes in Scotland to help beat the SNP
Sunak on the other hand need a feckin' miracle of biblical proportions.
We all Noah that.
He certainly needs faith in the Job.
I think everyone is now expecting many Lamentations from Conservative candidates on election night.
After which, with any luck, they will wander about in the wilderness for 40 years.
Labour will only have wandered for another 9 years after their leader displayed a giant stone tablet with commands on it.
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
The past was different but is it shocking that something called the slave trade involved trade in slaves? Surely the clue is in the name.
We understand it intellectually, not at gut level. People do horrific things and we eventually sanitize it. We don't hold the memory of pain in long-term memory and (as @SeanT wrote about in the Spectator) we remember wars but forget pandemics.
You sound as if you are selling psychopathy as a natural and laudable characteristic. Your imagination may have a 100 year cut off, mine does not. So please don't write "We" when you mean "I".
He's right tho. I reckon 100 years is about right. Maybe 150 tops
There will come a time when the Holocaust means as much to us as the Black Death does now. Some terrible but very distant thing, a colourful period of awfulness, which we read with some relish for the gory stories
Is there anyone who honestly gets emotionally roiled by the Irish Famine? Maybe a few, but vanishingly few. Its final embers are dying
I guess the question is, what determines the events that enter the canon of human memory? You've mentioned before the awfulness of the Khmer Rouge, which was huge at the time (on Blue Peter and everything) and is now semi forgotten. There are some stories that just touch enough nerves to become unforgettable.
It sends some advocates potty- why have you forgotten X? And it is a capricious process. But it's possible that something about the Holocaust, maybe as the first really industrial attempt to eradicate a race, will make it stick in our collective memory.
That's an interesting question. Some potential factors I've plucked out of my posterior:
*) Documentation. The more photographs and names of victims, and recorded testimony of survivors there are, the more it will be mentioned. *) Long-term effect. Does the effect of what happened still cause ripples in world events today? *) (Sadly) how like us are the victims and the perpetrators? Could they have been / be us? *) Are there groups trying to raise awareness of the events? *) Are there groups / countries claiming that the event was *not* as stated?
Another nugget from my recent reading. The soldiers of the Union were often as brutally racist as the Confederates
eg They would "liberate" a Southern Plantation and immediately rape all the young, attractive, female slaves. Then they'd set the slaves to work, cooking, cleaning, farming - for no money. So life got no better for slaves at all, unless you could get away, and for the women slaves it got worse
Of the 56 "brave, patriotic" men who signed the Declaration of Independence - which avows that "all men are created equal" - 41 of the signatories owned slaves, including Thomas Jefferson, who actually wrote the document. Indeed Jefferson used his slaves for sex
Depends if Africans were defined as human beings ("men"), though [edit: not that it makes it any better if they weren't, obvs]. I don't know enough about the thinking of Jefferson et al. But in the mid-19th century, many Americans always showed a worrying interest in taxonomies which regarded Homo sapiens as being more than one species.
What I hadn’t realised, but found very disturbing, was that they bred slaves to sell the children. If you see them as economic units of production rather than people that makes sense. But still… urrgh!
Yes. For some reason, the following picture shocks people, in a different way.
All together now. "If it's legal you should be able to advocate for it". If cannibalism was legal, people'd be boasting about eating the poor and how teens should be overfed and beaten to marbleize the flesh. Normal is highly situational (duh) and PB finds it very difficult to understand on a gut level that the past was different.
I recently stood in front of this building. The fact it is still there is disturbing in itself, weirdly
No more disturbing than Auschwitz etc being preserved, it shows what reality was.
It's different, rather than "more or less disturbing"
Auschwitz is infinitely more evil even than the horror of slavery, as it was a unique attempt to destroy a nation of many millions with industrialised homicide, for no other reason than to get rid of them all. Even slavery doesn't match that
However I find that photo quite uniquely chilling because in so many senses it is familiar. It is a brick building of late Georgian/early Victorian type, of which there are millions in the UK. Right down to the sash windows. The font in the sign is Victorian British
It could be an old photo of a shopfront in Camden High Street, 80 yards from me, and it would say "Dealers in Linens and Cloths". And yet it says "Dealers in Slaves"
Deeply disquieting
I wonder if you're getting a little glimpse into the emotional state of some people when they see statues of slavers and suchlike. Makes it a little easier to understand them wanting to remove such functionless and offensive symbols when even an extant building's former purpose can give you the heebie jeebies.
Believe it or not, yes I am
My recent roadtrip around America, and the reading I did, has made me a little more sympathetic to the Wokerati and the statue-topplers, in America (and this on top of previous recent trips to the Deep South, Louisiana etc)
The visits to Monticello, Antietam, Lexington and Staunton were particularly powerful
I still think Wokeness is a mortal danger to the Enlightenment, and has gone way too far, and needs to be stopped. But I can more easily see why so many Americans are uncomfortable with anything that remotely reminds them of the slaving past
See: travel broadens the mind. It really really does. You have to get out there and see and feel and read, and see again
Indeed. One of the reasons I can't abide statues to slavers is that I lived in the Caribbean and in Washington DC for several years. When you've spent time in societies still disfigured by the legacy of slavery it's hard to stomach monuments venerating the people responsible for it.
SNP 37% (-1) LAB 34% (+2) CON 17% (-1) LD 9% (nc) OTH 4% (nc)
F/w 23rd - 28th June. Changes vs. 27th April - 3 May.
24 SNP seats would go Labour on that swing since 2019, giving Labour most seats in Scotland again, albeit only by 1 MP.
However it could be more if Conservatives and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP. Zero swing between SNP and Tories so the Tories would hold all their Scottish seats
Surely Labour would get many more than that, as Conservatives vote tactically to keep the SNP out?
Starmer needs LD tactical votes in England to beat the Tories and Tory tactical votes in Scotland to help beat the SNP
Sunak on the other hand need a feckin' miracle of biblical proportions.
We all Noah that.
He certainly needs faith in the Job.
I think everyone is now expecting many Lamentations from Conservative candidates on election night.
After which, with any luck, they will wander about in the wilderness for 40 years.
Labour will only have wandered for another 9 years after their leader displayed a giant stone tablet with commands on it.
As I recall, the Edstone had 5 pledges. Presumably he has another 5 on the next one.
Hopefully one pledge will be the free owls. I was very disappointed when that was dropped.
Another nugget from my recent reading. The soldiers of the Union were often as brutally racist as the Confederates
eg They would "liberate" a Southern Plantation and immediately rape all the young, attractive, female slaves. Then they'd set the slaves to work, cooking, cleaning, farming - for no money. So life got no better for slaves at all, unless you could get away, and for the women slaves it got worse
Another nugget from my recent reading. The soldiers of the Union were often as brutally racist as the Confederates
eg They would "liberate" a Southern Plantation and immediately rape all the young, attractive, female slaves. Then they'd set the slaves to work, cooking, cleaning, farming - for no money. So life got no better for slaves at all, unless you could get away, and for the women slaves it got worse
Another nugget from my recent reading. The soldiers of the Union were often as brutally racist as the Confederates
eg They would "liberate" a Southern Plantation and immediately rape all the young, attractive, female slaves. Then they'd set the slaves to work, cooking, cleaning, farming - for no money. So life got no better for slaves at all, unless you could get away, and for the women slaves it got worse
Another nugget from my recent reading. The soldiers of the Union were often as brutally racist as the Confederates
eg They would "liberate" a Southern Plantation and immediately rape all the young, attractive, female slaves. Then they'd set the slaves to work, cooking, cleaning, farming - for no money. So life got no better for slaves at all, unless you could get away, and for the women slaves it got worse
A cruel cruel war
This is about as much of a parody as that fake Twit woman.
Did such things happen? Yes. Were they the norm? Way less than you might guess from Leon's commentary.
Note that slaves started heading toward Union lines, as soon as there were Union troops in reasonable proximity. In significant numbers, that way before the Emancipation they'd been nicknamed "Contrabands" which in fact was used as justification for putting them to work but NOT re-enslaving them, say by selling to Union slave holders.
EDIT - Implication that lives of former slaves re: Union army, got WORSE in general than their previous condition of servitude, is NOT correct, again in general.
Adam Payne @adampayne26 Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements, @politicshome is told
This will revive their electoral fortunes and no mistake. As a 49 and a half year old brought up with metric I, and those younger than me, relish the idea of spending the many years we have until retirement fucking reeducating ourselves in systems of measurement used by precisely one other country for the benefit of Boomer nostalgics. Great idea. Bring back pounds, shillings and pence while you’re at it - I missed those entirely. My vote’s in the fucking bag Rishi!
Another nugget from my recent reading. The soldiers of the Union were often as brutally racist as the Confederates
eg They would "liberate" a Southern Plantation and immediately rape all the young, attractive, female slaves. Then they'd set the slaves to work, cooking, cleaning, farming - for no money. So life got no better for slaves at all, unless you could get away, and for the women slaves it got worse
A cruel cruel war
I'd be interested to know what life was like in Canada for black people at that time, (acknowledging that there probably weren't many of them).
Another nugget from my recent reading. The soldiers of the Union were often as brutally racist as the Confederates
eg They would "liberate" a Southern Plantation and immediately rape all the young, attractive, female slaves. Then they'd set the slaves to work, cooking, cleaning, farming - for no money. So life got no better for slaves at all, unless you could get away, and for the women slaves it got worse
Comments
First lead for Starmer over Sunak in these seats since we started our Blue Wall tracker in October.
Which of the following do Blue Wall voters think would be the better PM? (2 July)
Keir Starmer 36% (+2)
Rishi Sunak 34% (-5)
Changes +/- 17-18 June
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1676262140066295810
Met to investigate two recent Tory Partygate claims - but not those made about Boris Johnson and events at Chequers
The Metropolitan police have just issued a statement about the three sets of alleged lockdown breaches involving Tories that it has been reviewing. In two cases it is opening or re-opening investigations, but in the third set of allegations – involving Boris Johnson and Chequers – it is not taking action.
Here are the main points.
Boris Johnson faces no further action over the claims – that he strongly denied that – information from his diaries reviewed in connection with the Covid inquiry showed that lockdown rules had been broken at Chequers and No 10. The Met said in its statment:
The Met and Thames Valley Police have assessed material referred by the Cabinet Office regarding potential breaches of the regulations between June 2020 and May 2021 at Downing Street and Chequers. Based on an assessment of that material and an account provided regarding the diary entries, and also having sought some further clarification, the Met and Thames Valley Police have each assessed the events in their jurisdiction and concluded that they do not meet the retrospective criteria for opening an investigation.
But the Met is reopening its investigation into claims – almost impossible to deny, given the video footage leaked to the Sunday Mirror – that lockdown rules were broken when Tories involved in Shaun Bailey’s campaign for London mayor held a party. The Met said:
Following assessment of new evidence that was not previously provided to officers, the Met is now re-opening an investigation into potential breaches of the Regulations at an event in Matthew Parker Street on 14 December 2020.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Met commissioner, said last month that the video meant the original decision not to take action would be reconsidered. “We can all see the colourful nature of the video and how much it tells a story way beyond the original photo,” he said.
And the Met will investigate an event in the Commons office of Dame Eleanor Laing, the deputy speaker, attended by Sir Bernard Jenkin in December 2020. This came to light shortly before the publication of the privileges committee report into Boris Johnson. Jenkin is a member of the committee, and Johnson claimed the report of his attendance at an alleged drinks party when Covid restrictions were in force showed he was a hypocrite. The Met said:
Following assessment of material relating to a gathering in Parliament, the Met is opening an investigation into potential breaches of the Regulations at an event on 8 December 2020.
Jenkin has not commented in detail on the event, but allies have argued that it was a work event and therefore allowed under the rules at the time.
They're getting hammered at 1997 levels then.
You smile enigmatically, turn the card and ???
If Orkney and Shetland did become fully independent then they would have the right to control over their own oil and gas resources up to the median line. This has already happened in recent times when East Timor became independent. There is a well established procedure and it would apply equally to Orkney and Shetland.
By the time Lincoln gave that speech (1860), a large majority of the American population lived in states that had banned slavery -- and the free states were growing much more rapidly than the remaining slave states.
(This Wikipedia article on the speech may help with the context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_Union_speech )
For example, Lincoln shows that the Northwest Ordinance, which banned slavery in the territory that became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota, was supported by most of the "founding fathers". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Ordinance
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.4233400/?st=text
If Lincoln is to be believed - in his own letters - he was far more of an abolitionist in private than in public, for most of his life.
A central feature of his private beliefs was that slavery was dying, and that Succession would revive the corpse for a while. This was a common view among some Northerners.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2023/jul/04/rishi-sunak-liaison-committee-migration-bill-supreme-court-uk-politics-news
As for typos, well it is The Grauniad.
Auschwitz is infinitely more evil even than the horror of slavery, as it was a unique attempt to destroy a nation of many millions with industrialised homicide, for no other reason than to get rid of them all. Even slavery doesn't match that
However I find that photo quite uniquely chilling because in so many senses it is familiar. It is a brick building of late Georgian/early Victorian type, of which there are millions in the UK. Right down to the sash windows. The font in the sign is Victorian British
It could be an old photo of a shopfront in Camden High Street, 80 yards from me, and it would say "Dealers in Linens and Cloths". And yet it says "Dealers in Slaves"
Deeply disquieting
The Democrats however won virtually all the South and Missouri, almost the reverse of now. Indeed Biden's Democrats are arguably closer to the party of Lincoln now and Trump's Republicans closer to the Confederacy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_presidential_election
Hang around long enough and any act, no matter how horrific, will be recategorised as history and story stuff. In 1190 local Jewish people, entrapped in Clifford's Tower in York, committed suicide rather than submit, setting it alight in the process. The good citizens of York were still holding firework displays there until the 1990s.
As these cases and your example shows, there is no activity so gross that people will not eventually convert it to "long ago", slap a blue plaque on it, and it just becomes part of the landscape...
Later I believe he did become more morally involved in the question of slavery and the pressing need to abolish it. Tho this was also politically convenient as it means he got more support from powerful anti-slavers in Britain and France - he was terrified the British Empire might side with the South - which could easily have tilted the war towards a Confederate victory
He remained a racist, as we would know it, to the end. But he was a man of the mid 19th century
But look, what I'll grant you is - if you're in the habit of viewing your personal balance sheet on a constantly PV adjusted basis you will probably calculate a net asset reduction there that's greater than the juicy income boost you're getting.
However, many don't do this (and it isn't wrong not to), and at the very least it's accurate say that cash rich, no salary, debt free people (of which there are many) are relative winners in this new hiked interest rate environment.
My recent roadtrip around America, and the reading I did, has made me a little more sympathetic to the Wokerati and the statue-topplers, in America (and this on top of previous recent trips to the Deep South, Louisiana etc)
The visits to Monticello, Antietam, Lexington and Staunton were particularly powerful
I still think Wokeness is a mortal danger to the Enlightenment, and has gone way too far, and needs to be stopped. But I can more easily see why so many Americans are uncomfortable with anything that remotely reminds them of the slaving past
See: travel broadens the mind. It really really does. You have to get out there and see and feel and read, and see again
It is a long and profoundly melancholy history
In fact Kentucky and Delaware were the only states whose slaves were emancipated by the 13th Amendment. Maryland abolished it in 1864 and Missouri in January 1865.
Washington Post (via Seattle Times) - A viral left-wing Twitter account may have been fake all along
In eight months, Erica Marsh has become one of the most consistently viral left-wing voices on Twitter, gaining more than 130,000 followers for her hyper-liberal, often melodramatic opinions on the biggest flash points in American news.
She’s been especially popular with conservatives, who promoted her as a perfect symbol of how overly theatrical and inane progressives can be — like when she attacked the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action decision last week by saying “no Black person will be able to succeed in a merit-based system.” The tweet was viewed more than 27 million times.
There’s just one problem: She’s probably a fake.
The “proud Democrat” in Washington, as she described herself on Twitter, doesn’t show up in any local phone or voting records. . . .
After The Washington Post raised questions about the account with employees of Twitter’s trust and safety department, the account was suspended on Sunday for unknown reasons. . . .
Marsh’s account tended to post messages so polarizing and incendiary that readers couldn’t help but respond, boosting her public profile in the process — a tactic known as “rage baiting.”
The strategy was most infamously deployed by trolls linked to the Russian government . . . during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. . . .
For months, Marsh’s account had raised suspicions among online misinformation experts due to her lack of a real-world footprint and her devotion to attention-grabbing viewpoints one called “cartoonishly liberal.” . . .
When it came to political commentary, she seemed to regard every polarizing news story as an opportunity to offer her opinion and to solicit her fans to promote her to their own networks. [SSI - sound familiar, PBers?] . . . .
Some of her tweets . . . read like liberal caricatures; last month, she said she still wears “2 masks whenever I go out and support Ukraine.” . . .
Her most extreme and mean-spirited tweets, including her glee over the death of a Jan. 6 rioter, were often used by conservatives to criticize the Biden administration based on her assertion she’d been involved with his campaign.
Her tweet about the affirmative-action decision, in which she said Black people would not succeed in a merit-based system, sparked a viral outcry of its own . . . .
A former Twitter trust and safety employee . . . said the company had seen a rush of accounts out of North Macedonia around October 2022 posing as pro-Trump influencers and offering up the same style of “over-the-top, clickbait tweets.” . . .
For some months, the Erica Marsh account profile included a link to a Venmo account, which would’ve allowed readers to send her money. Venmo didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment. . . .
However business was divided between free trade Bourbon Democrats and protectionist Republican businessmen. Labour and unions became increasingly Democrat as the franchise expanded.
Most businessmen are now Republicans and farmers still very Republican but African Americans now strongly Democrat and professionals increasingly Democrat.
eg They would "liberate" a Southern Plantation and immediately rape all the young, attractive, female slaves. Then they'd set the slaves to work, cooking, cleaning, farming - for no money. So life got no better for slaves at all, unless you could get away, and for the women slaves it got worse
A cruel cruel war
There will come a time when the Holocaust means as much to us as the Black Death does now. Some terrible but very distant thing, a colourful period of awfulness, which we read with some relish for the gory stories
Is there anyone who honestly gets emotionally roiled by the Irish Famine? Maybe a few, but vanishingly few. Its final embers are dying
> Republicans being the party of protectionism, with support from manufacturing including mainly business but also plenty of working people, as well as some farmers (for example, sugar planters in south Louisiana) also concerned with foreign competition.
> Democrats being the party of free trade, with support from many commercial interests who mostly wanted open markets and low tariffs for imports, and many farmers and other ag-based concerns, who wanted to open the door to EXPORT their produce to foreign markets.
Toward and after turn of 19th>20th century this basic pattern started to get scrambled, first by dispute between hard dollar versus expanded money supply. With farmers being mostly in favor of the latter (for example Greenbackers > Populists) and providing the mass, joined by silver mining.
And while "bimetalism" waned as a burning issue after 1896 (due in part to major gold-rushes in Yukon and South Africa) its place was taken by rising tide of concern and controversy over rise of corporate "trusts" dominating the economy, AND worsening conditions for labor.
Which again scrambled, or substantially blurred, party lines, and in 1912 split the GOP (Theodore Roosevelt versus Wm Howard Taft) giving victory to Democrats under Woodrow Wilson. His administration opened the door, a bit anyway, for organized labor of moderate tendency, but WW1 and aftermath led to both significant labor strife, particularly with more radical and broad-based unions (such as IWW = Wobblies) and seriously diminished even moderate (AFL) unionism.
Note that in the midst of the economic boom for (many but hardly all) American of the "Roaring Twenties" the Democrats nominated . . . a Wall Street lawyer (and Wilson's ambassador to Court of St. James) John W. Davis (originally from WVa). This along with GOP nomination of stand-pat Calvin Coolidge, prompted a serious 3rd-party Progressive campaign lead by Republican insurgent Robert "Fighting Bob" LaFollette that united disaffected liberals, farmers and labor - with the result that Davis was the WORST performing Democratic nominee of 20th century.
You've mentioned before the awfulness of the Khmer Rouge, which was huge at the time (on Blue Peter and everything) and is now semi forgotten. There are some stories that just touch enough nerves to become unforgettable.
It sends some advocates potty- why have you forgotten X? And it is a capricious process. But it's possible that something about the Holocaust, maybe as the first really industrial attempt to eradicate a race, will make it stick in our collective memory.
FACT 2: England are 2-0 down.
It is a strange cricketing universe in which both of those statements are true."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/66097255
Once all the living witnesses to an event have died, no matter how enormous and heinous, it begins to fade
Indeed if I was looking for an exception to this it might be World War One, not the Holocaust
*) Documentation. The more photographs and names of victims, and recorded testimony of survivors there are, the more it will be mentioned.
*) Long-term effect. Does the effect of what happened still cause ripples in world events today?
*) (Sadly) how like us are the victims and the perpetrators? Could they have been / be us?
*) Are there groups trying to raise awareness of the events?
*) Are there groups / countries claiming that the event was *not* as stated?
Adam Payne
@adampayne26
Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements,
@politicshome
is told
https://www.historynet.com/seeing-the-elephant-on-the-civil-war-battlefields/
Hopefully one pledge will be the free owls. I was very disappointed when that was dropped.
Desole, if so. Also: pfff!
The sniper most egregiously.
So many PBers were shocked that you fell for obvious bullshit.
Did such things happen? Yes. Were they the norm? Way less than you might guess from Leon's commentary.
Note that slaves started heading toward Union lines, as soon as there were Union troops in reasonable proximity. In significant numbers, that way before the Emancipation they'd been nicknamed "Contrabands" which in fact was used as justification for putting them to work but NOT re-enslaving them, say by selling to Union slave holders.
EDIT - Implication that lives of former slaves re: Union army, got WORSE in general than their previous condition of servitude, is NOT correct, again in general.
Just as the evening ferry is coming up the fjord, sadly behind that guy's head
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2633866