Political Leadership and Obama's State of the Union

With his eye set on the next election, President Obama attempted to remind the country and the Congress that sacrifice for the common good is a pressing need.   As preacher-in-chief, he tried to summon the best within our national character to meet the great tasks before us.  He embraced many liberal goals:  more teachers, more roads, and more innovative technology.  However, despite the impressive rhetoric, in tackling the domestic and international agendas, Obama, two years into his term, has come up wanting.  He seems to be always negotiating half-heartedly, indifferently, and fearfully. In short, when Obama comes to the bargaining table, he is so focused on facilitating compromise and restoring civility that he prematurely abandons the very principles he espouses. However, political life requires making the good fight with tenacious commitment to principle and pursuit of hard bargaining.  Compromise comes only after political struggle. Unfortunately, Obama, for reasons of inexperience or character, is not willing, when push comes to shove,  to confront power and entrenched interests in either domestic or international politics.          
In last night’s State of the Union message, Obama’s call to sacrifice  was framed in terms of “competitiveness,” not in terms of restoring equality to the American landscape.   We are asked to focus on our competition with the Chinese in order to sell them more products.  Restoring the quality of life to our fellow citizens who are unemployed, who have lost their homes and retirement savings, is a second order priority. 
The President also gave in to the Republican framing of the issues:  the emphasis was on deficit reduction, government efficiency, and reduction of public expenditures.  With this agenda, America will be saved by the American spirit and character.  This begs the question of who will pay for the country’s new investments for the future.
The speech made only passing reference to international affairs. Obama is not incapable of negotiating as the new Salt Treaty and the Sudan settlement show.  But in international affairs, Obama seems to be operating on the principle that ambiguity and civility will produce results.  In resolving the Afghan/Pakistan conflict, he remains committed to a long war and to a short war. In the Middle East, he remains committed to freezing Israeli settlements and to deferring to Netanyahu’s political vision. In fighting the war on terror, he remains committed to Bush’s “War on Terrorism” but under a different banner and without a muscular commitment to civil liberties and international law.
Last night’s State of the Union suggests that President Obama can be both inspirational and insightful. Whether he can achieve concrete results in the fighting ring of politics, defined by the intransigence of Republican or foreign leaders, is another matter.

REVISIONIST CIVIL WAR HISTORY

The United States Civil War began in April of 1861 and would last four long years. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln referred to the secessionist movement as an "insurrection" which he believed could be quickly squelched. Approximately 650,000 men would die before it was over.

I can only speculate as to why Lincoln was so dismissive and so wrong about the seriousness of the differences between the North and South. After Lincoln was elected and before he was sworn in as president, seven states had already seceded from the Union. Those states were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, in that order. If he discounted that fact, by June, four more states had joined the Confederacy...Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

The victors write history and that's nowhere more true than in the case of our Civil War. We are taught in school that the hero of the Civil War was Lincoln for freeing slaves when, in fact, he did no such thing. Nor was he inclined to. He did make some "official" proclamations, but they were so full of exceptions that the result wasn't even close to completely outlawing slavery and many remained enslaved. He made political gestures, not sweeping reforms.

If I were the victor, I'd prefer that history record me as the savior of an entire group of people too, rather than as the hapless president who over saw a blood bath in the name of preserving the union. As victor, perhaps it would be convenient to omit things like states' rights and unfair taxes/tariffs as legitimate grievances of one's enemy.

After Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in the late 1700s, the South became increasingly a one crop economy. More and more plantation owners abandoned other crops in favor of cotton after Whitney's invention dramatically reduced harvest time. In contrast, the North was becoming more and more industrialized. The South claimed the North had an unfair advantage when it came to tariffs, as the South had to import many more of their needs than did Northerners. Northerners were producing their own products in their own factories while the South was picking cotton. In some ways, the Civil War was about an industrialized economy bumping heads with an agrarian society and it was a boil festering since at least the early 1800s.

Southern secessionist states believed their rights as sovereign entities were being steadily eroded and further believed that to be in violation of provisions of the Constitution. They fervently resented what they saw as federal encroachment into their daily lives and didn't believe a state should have to accept every law coming out of the nation's capital at the expense of what was coming from their own state legislators.

This is not to say that slavery was not an issue in the Civil War. Some would even argue that our Civil War began in the 1840s and 1850s when the streets of Kansas and Missouri bled red over the issue of slavery, not in 1861 at Fort Sumter. Missourians were primarily pro-slavery, while Kansas was home to many abolitionists. Missourians repeatedly crossed into Kansas and made raids. "Bloody Kansas" referred to battles with "Border Ruffians."

The abolitionists were busy too, including pulling off one particularly infamous massacre in 1856 (at Pottawatomie), led by abolitionist John Brown and several of his sons in retaliation for those killed in a massacre in Lawrence, Kansas. This is the same John Brown who would in 1859 lead a disastrous raid at Harper's Ferry, in an effort to arm slaves for revolt. Yes, we were fighting a war over slavery a long time before 1861.

There's a popular misconception about the Southerners who fought for the Confederacy. Many still cling to the belief that rich plantation owners were fighting to protect their livelihoods and what they saw as their property (slaves). The reality is that there were relatively few rich people in the South in 1861. Most were dirt poor, unable to afford even shoes, and struggling to put food on their tables.

Unfortunately, Southern politicians and large plantation owners (often, one and the same) banded together to rally poor white folks to fight their war for them and used the issue of slavery to persuade them to bear arms against the "damn Yankees." Those with a lot at stake stirred the masses with the assertion that if slavery was made illegal, there would be even fewer jobs for poor whites; the argument was that, of course, freed slaves would work for less than would whites. For those barely able to keep food on their family table, this was perceived as an unacceptable threat to their already marginal existence. It was a rallying call.

The bottom line? Poor white folks fought the rich man's war. What a surprise. Fat cat plantation owners knew their livelihoods depended on their ability to keep slaves. No less than the Governor of Georgia would in 1860 write a letter to the editor of a prominent newspaper warning that whites would have fewer employment opportunities if slaves were freed, but he positioned it as a states' rights issue. In the main, Confederate soldiers were not fighting to keep slaves; they were fighting out of fear they'd be in even more dire economic circumstances than they already were if slaves were freed. There's a difference.

Even today, some in the South are still angry about the Civil War and some in the North don't understand why. They wonder, "Why don't they just get over it?" If I had a nickel for every time I've seen that sentiment expressed online on a political forum, I'd be in a hammock today, somewhere in a balmy clime, sipping daiquiris instead of sitting here writing this damn blog.

It's important to remember just how relatively recent the Civil War really was when you look at it in the context of generations and not just the number of years since it's been over. When viewed in that context, it really wasn't so long ago. I grew up knowing people who had known people who fought this bloody war. Does that put it in better perspective?

Tennessee State Capital Building in Nashville, occupied by Union forces in 1862

I have ancestors who fought on both sides of the Civil War. One, my maternal great great grandfather, Edward Simmons, fought with a Union regiment formed in Maryland...a border state in which allegiances were deeply divided. He had four brothers who did the same. Edward was wounded at Gettysburg in a battle that was later confirmed by his commander to have been fought against a Confederate unit from the same Maryland county where Edward's unit was formed. The often stated assertion that the Civil War was one of brother against brother and cousin against cousin was literally true.

Edward Simmons was something of a local hero when he came home after the war, per newspaper accounts of the time. After surviving the injuries he sustained at Gettysburg, he fought with his regiment for the duration of the war. He came home, married, and raised seven children. One of his daughters would be my mom's grandmother who would live until 1970...long enough for both my mom and I to have heard many stories about Edward's participation in the war. The war isn't so long ago now, is it?

Union soldier Edward Simmons

I have several paternal grandfathers who fought for the Confederacy, but records for them are much harder to come by. I can document one of them, James Lewis Jones, Sr., with complete records...the exception in the South, not the rule. He was my dad's grandfather and Dad knew him well. Of course, Dad heard about the war from him and I then heard some of it from my dad. Lewis was also at Gettysburg and was wounded at Seven Pines. My grandmother was his child and lived to be ninety-six. By then, I was twenty-six myself, so I'd had many years to hear the tales she related as told to her by her father. Again...a history that has been more alive than not in my lifetime.

So, you see? Not only are the wounds and animosity relatively recent, there is also the issue of the devastation visited on the South by Union troops. Most have at least heard of General Sherman's fiery hell that reigned from Atlanta to Savannah, but that wasn't all of it. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the South had not only lost a generation of her young men, her economy was completely destroyed. Her historical records were pillaged and burned and her legacy was forever compromised.

While I'm at it, I'll address the issue of what is properly known as The Confederate Battle Flag, but is usually referred to simply as "The Confederate Flag." The displaying of this flag remains a contentious issue even today for those whose history lessons did not include the fact that the Civil War was fought over much more than slavery alone. Instead, blacks and politically correct whites still insist the flag is a pro-slavery symbol; I guess that's "sexier" than states' rights and unjust tariffs.

I, on the other hand, see the Confederate Battle Flag as part of my personal history, part of how I became who I am today. I'm not offended by its display and I believe that, too, to be a states' rights issue. I'm no more proud of my great great grandfather Simmons' service to the Union's cause than I am of my great grandfather Jones's service to the Confederate cause. Indeed, why on earth should I be?

The Confederate Battle Flag has thirteen stars, representing not only those states that seceded from the Union, but also Missouri and Kentucky...neither of which had outlawed slavery.

 

Confederate Battle Flag

As for the flag of the Union troops, the one used by the end of the war had thirteen red and white stripes, representing the original thirteen colonies. But, it also had thirty-five stars. There were thirty-five stars because President Lincoln thought it would legitimize the secessionists if the stars representing their states were omitted on the flag that represented the "union" he was trying to preser

 Union flag by the end of the war

Those who claim either tariffs, states' rights, or slavery as the sole reason for the Civil War are incorrect; it really was about all three. As with most issues, more than one thing can be true at the same time. It's only those with the simplest of minds who insist on the simplest of answers.

We need to set history straight and stop teaching that slavery was the sole reason for the Civil War and that President Lincoln was the great hero and emancipator of slaves; it wasn't and he wasn't. It's time for history lessons on the Civil War to include as much about trade/tariffs and states' rights issues as they do about slavery. It's also time for Southerners to be able to proudly display a flag that represents their ancestry and history without being labeled as racist and pro-slavery.

Today, most large cities in the South have become quite cosmopolitan and old grudges and offenses are fading to be not much more than notations in history books. That's true where I live, but there are still people here I wouldn't have a conversation about the Civil War with. That would be even truer for me if I spent much time in the "hollers" of eastern Tennessee. One still hears "damn Yankee" occasionally and I doubt that's going to be completely gone for a long time. Again, we're not talking about a history that's ancient and the South was devastated by the war. But, those who keep the memories alive are dying off. It remains to be seen how their children and grandchildren will continue or not continue the discussion.

It also remains to be seen if we've learned any lessons from this history. Only if we embrace the entire truth will we be able to move on as a nation and stop fighting old wars. We have too much to do to not work together.

The Unique Spartan Political System

The Spartans were unique among Greeks because the political system they developed never quite made it to a democracy. Elsewhere kings were overthrown by an aristocratic class, which became the governing body of the Polis, and later extended democratic rights to the common people. In Sparta, however, the kings came to some kind of accommodation with the wealthy where they would give up some power in return for the continuation of their authority. This sharing of power created the stability Sparta needed to survive for six centuries.

Sparta had two kings -- hereditary kings, one from each of two families. The kings were the sole military commanders and religious leaders but nothing more. When it came to governance, they could only act as advisors to the oligarchy. Sparta had a governing council called the Gerusia consisting of twenty-eight men plus the two kings. This body advised the assembly, could veto legislation if it disapproved, and also presided over trials for capital offences. Members had to be sixty years of age and served for life. The assembly consisted of all adult Spartiates over twenty years of age – a number on the order of 5000. The assembly had limited power but was allowed to debate the merits of legislation to try and influence its passage.

There is one other component of the Spartan political system we have not mentioned – the Ephors. The creation of Ephoric office was said to have been part of the mid-seventh century reforms of Lycurgus. Five were elected by the assembly each year, and their powers were varied and extensive. They had disciplinary control over other magistrates, conducted foreign policy, and presided over the assembly and council. Their powers even included some controls over the king. For example, they could summon the kings to a meeting, fine them for bad behavior, or even recommend the king be impeached. Perhaps the Ephors most powerful role was in foreign policy, because they were to ones who met with foreign dignitaries and negotiated treaties.

What is it about the Spartans that made them carry on a model of hereditary kings and go down a path different from all of Greece? Somehow they developed a unique character: secretive, organized, and religious -- closed to the outside. We will look at them again in coming posts to see what they have to teach us.

Arizona's Ugly Political History

was raised in Tucson’s Barrio Hollywood, lived in Arizona for the first 30 years of my life and considered it home even after I left to begin my academic career. My memories are good and bad. The good include the pleasures of youth complemented by great food, especially the uniquely savory carne seca chimichangas and green corn tamales that are the best I have ever tasted. The bad include discrimination of varying types and intensity.
But the state’s apparent commitment to resuscitating its myopic and racist past weighs increasingly on my estrangement from my home state.

We're still learning the facts about this weekend's shooting — which killed six people at local Congressional meet-and-greet — but it is just the latest stain on the state's ugly political history.
We all know about Arizona's effort to enact its own immigration laws last year, but the lack of vision shared by the state’s leaders was first evident in 1885. Given the choice between being the site for a state’s mental hospital and a state university, Phoenix chose the hospital because it included a slightly larger allocation of funds, and Tucson, to the disappointment of its citizens, was saddled with the university. In 1972, when the Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta-led United Farm Workers (UFW) was at the apex of its efforts, Arizona’s Republican-controlled legislature, supported by Governor “One-Eyed Jack” Williams was vigorously trying to prevent the unionization of farm workers. The legislature passed a bill that denied farmworkers the right to strike and boycott during the harvest season, effectively vitiating any organizing effort. Rather than meet with UFW representatives to discuss the legislation before it was signed, “One-Eyed Jack” ordered state troopers to bring him the bill and he signed it within an hour after passage. When UFW leaders protested, Williams remarked, “As far as I’m concerned, those people don’t exist.”
These examples pale in comparison with the state legislature’s efforts to make Mexican American courses illegal and the related threats to withhold funding from schools, including universities that allow organizations like El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) to exist on campus because they are perceived as encouraging “dissent from American values" or "based in whole or in part on race-based criteria." This law suggests the state’s Republican leadership seeks to emulate the model of Soviet leaders who rewrote history in an effort to create one official view of the of the nation and the state. It is hard to think of a more fundamental American value than the right to dissent. The effort to prohibit “dissent from American values” is a flagrant attack on what Arizona’s legislature claims to be defending.
After more than a century of bitter encounters, riots, killings and painful political conflict, Anglos and Mexican Americans in Texas realized in the 1970’s that the state’s economic and social future depended on their establishing a rapprochement. Now that conditions in Arizona have regressed to where they were in Texas prior to 1975, Arizona has replaced Texas as the worst place in America for Mexican Americans.

And after another horror over the weekend, the future offers little hope that this feeling will be a temporary status.

And after another horror over the weekend, the future offers little hope that this feeling will be a temporary status.
Rodolfo de la Garza, a Columbia University professor of Political Science, has studied immigration, political attitudes and voting for over 30 years. He directed the first national political survey of Latinos and has authored, co-authored and edited 18 books and more than 100 scholarly articles and reports on foreign policy, immigration and political attitudes and behavior.

History and politics in Swaziland

Swaziland, the last autocratic monarchy in Africa, is a country in an almost constant state of crisis. The repeated human rights violations and harassment of the Swazi democracy movement by the Swazi regime, the huge inequalities between a small Swazi elite and the poor majority, and an Aids prevalence rate of over 40% should make newspapers and governments around the world react. In recent months the house of the Swaziland United Democratic Front National Organising Secretary has been bombed, maybe by the Swazi police; the President of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions has has his house searched by no less than 12 police officers; the leader of the largest opposition party, PUDEMO, Mario Masuku has been charged with acts of terrorism for speaking his mind and is more or less constantly harassed by police; student leader Pius Vilakati has gone missing after having been attempted abducted by police; and human rights activist and PUDEMO member Sipho Jele died in police custody, probably at the hands of the police.
But these stories are rarely if ever covered by the foreign media or condemned by world leaders or governments and the historic background to Swaziland’s present situation is more or less unknown.
This article will therefore give a brief historical overview of Swaziland and comment on the situation, after which Morten Nielsen from Africa Contact will briefly comment on the problems of the Swazi regime.
History
Colonialism
Swaziland was a British protectorate for over 60 years and bore the brunt of the a colonisation not unlike that of other African colonies, including its African “subjects” being treated cruelly and looked upon as savages, and hut taxes that were designed to proletarianise the the Swazis and use them as a cheap source of labour. Swaziland was an example of British “colonialism of the cheap”, however, and the traditional societal structure was to a degree kept in place, to a degree invented and changed to suit British interests and the interests of the Swazi monarch, and much of the daily administration was subsequently carried out by the King and his chiefs.
Independence
Swaziland’s gained its independence in 1968 after the Swazi monarchy had become the champion of the nationalist cause, playing on the homogeneous nature of the Swazi population and a Swazi tradition, most of which is surprisingly recent in origin. The reason for Swaziland’s relatively smooth road to independence had indeed been the patient diplomacy of the Swazi monarch, King Sobhuza II. The democracy that had been agreed upon with the British colonisers soon broke down, however, and  King Sobhuza II suspended the Independence Constitution in 1973, proclaimed a state of emergency, banned demonstrations, political parties and meetings in the process, and began ruling by decree – probably because he feared the steady increase of progressive politics and votes for the main opposition party, the Ngwane National Liberatory Congress (NNLC). The reasons given for the suspension were more along cultural lines, however, the King claiming that “the constitution has permitted the importation into our country of highly undesirable political practices alien to, and incompatible with the way of life in our society”and was therefore “unfit for the Swazi way of life”.
Cooperation with the apartheid regime
The Swazi monarchy was certainly not progressive in its politics nor in its friends as it had cooperated closely with apartheid South Africa, as well as with the Portugese in Mozambique. Not only had King Sobhuza II based his post-independence strategy on advice from a prominent member of the South African Afrikaaner Broederbond, Van Wyk de Vries, but from around 1978 both Sobhuza II and his successor choose to sign security pacts with its southern neighbour, as well as to help in, or at least not impede, the hunting down and killing of ANC members based in Swaziland. The Swazi government also criticised the campaign of sanctions and disinvestment that was mounting against South Africa in the eighties, making it the only Commonwealth country besides Thatcher’s Britain to do so. This harassment of the ANC continued right up until the unbanning of the ANC in South Africa and the release of Nelson Mandela, although members of the democratic movement disagreed with this policy and helped protect and aid ANC members.
Politics
The question of land lies at the heart of the coercion of the Swazi monarchy. This is because of a system where all non-privately owned land is held in trust by the King, who therefore in effect controls all allocation of public land, and where forced labour, forced contribution, and forced removals are commonplace. In addition to this, women are only able to gain access to land through their husband, thereby being doubly oppressed.
Tinkundla
The Tinkhundla system of government is another important means of power – an electoral system where each Tinkundla elects one representative to the Swazi House of Assembly, but where political parties are illegal and where the King must accept all members of parliament, nominating a fifth of its members personally including the Prime Minister. Furthermore, he can simply choose to ignore parliament in his rulings. Power is still highly centralised, and accumulation of wealth is still to a large degree being dependent upon one’s state connections. This is one of the main reasons for the failure of democratisation in Swaziland, as it is in much of Africa: It is not in the interest of those in power to change the status quo and opposition parties and mass movements operating outside the Tinkundla system are thus the only plausible means of changing and improving Swazi society. The Tinkhundla system was seen as an experiment by king Sobhuza II, and a majority of Swazi’s believe it to be an experiment in need of either an overhaul or replacement with a more democratic system. In 1991, when a committee visited all the Tinkhundla, the system was “given an overwhelming vote of no confidence by the majority of the people who attended the meetings”, according to Richard Levin.
The Tinkundla-system was for many years seen as a necessary evil by the opposition. The NNLC had initially been the main opposition party, fighting within the Tinkhundla system for a more democratic Swaziland and winning three out of 24 seats seat in parliament at the 1972 elections, but police and government harassment, arrests, several splits, and the eventual suspension of the constitution, proclamation of a state of emergency, and banning of all political parties in Swaziland in 1973 severely weakened it.
From Sobhuza II to Mswati III
The cult surrounding Sobhuza II and his powerful oratory skills had too a degree legitimized his rule in the eyes of many Swazis, but when he died in 1980 much of this legitimacy and the relative stability of Swazi society died with him. Major confrontations occurred within the royal power bloc, and it took until 1986 before a new King, the present King Mswati III, could be coronated. Mswati III disappointed those who had hoped for a more progressive ruler, however. He pledged to “protect and preserve our revered traditional institutions, allowing them to develop in line with our cultural evolution”, and proved to be no less authoritarian than his predecessor in e.g dissolving parliament in 1987. The increasing unpopularity and perceived illegitimacy of the king and the Swazi regime could also be seen in both the increasing strength of the democracy movement and the dwindling turnouts for elections – especially the poor turnout of the first elections to be held after Mswati III had dissolved parliament, where only about a third of the adult population voted.

Developing Political Tolerance

Developing Political Tolerance. This essay is an ERIC Digest from 2002. It looks at how students can be taught to tolerate and accept political views that differ from their own.

As the article says, "Political tolerance is the willingness to extend basic rights and civil liberties to persons and groups whose viewpoints differ from one's own. It is a central tenet of a liberal democracy."

This article makes strong connections to American history. The text notes, "The protection of individuals' rights, including those of individuals we dislike or with whom we strongly disagree, has often been a struggle in U.S. society. Consider the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the interrogation of suspected American Communists in the 1950s, or the FBI files on Vietnam War protesters. In each case, Americans tended to support the abnegation of rights for unpopular minorities."

Political tolerance is a good thing most of the time. But is it always the best? If you believed slavery was wrong in the 19th Century, would have being an abolitionist been evidence of political intolerance for the views of southerners? Would being opposed to abortion in the 21st Century be seen as political intolerance today?

REVISIONIST CIVIL WAR HISTORY

The United States Civil War began in April of 1861 and would last four long years. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln referred to the secessionist movement as an "insurrection" which he believed could be quickly squelched. Approximately 650,000 men would die before it was over.

I can only speculate as to why Lincoln was so dismissive and so wrong about the seriousness of the differences between the North and South. After Lincoln was elected and before he was sworn in as president, seven states had already seceded from the Union. Those states were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, in that order. If he discounted that fact, by June, four more states had joined the Confederacy...Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

The victors write history and that's nowhere more true than in the case of our Civil War. We are taught in school that the hero of the Civil War was Lincoln for freeing slaves when, in fact, he did no such thing. Nor was he inclined to. He did make some "official" proclamations, but they were so full of exceptions that the result wasn't even close to completely outlawing slavery and many remained enslaved. He made political gestures, not sweeping reforms.

If I were the victor, I'd prefer that history record me as the savior of an entire group of people too, rather than as the hapless president who over saw a blood bath in the name of preserving the union. As victor, perhaps it would be convenient to omit things like states' rights and unfair taxes/tariffs as legitimate grievances of one's enemy.

After Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in the late 1700s, the South became increasingly a one crop economy. More and more plantation owners abandoned other crops in favor of cotton after Whitney's invention dramatically reduced harvest time. In contrast, the North was becoming more and more industrialized. The South claimed the North had an unfair advantage when it came to tariffs, as the South had to import many more of their needs than did Northerners. Northerners were producing their own products in their own factories while the South was picking cotton. In some ways, the Civil War was about an industrialized economy bumping heads with an agrarian society and it was a boil festering since at least the early 1800s.

Southern secessionist states believed their rights as sovereign entities were being steadily eroded and further believed that to be in violation of provisions of the Constitution. They fervently resented what they saw as federal encroachment into their daily lives and didn't believe a state should have to accept every law coming out of the nation's capital at the expense of what was coming from their own state legislators.

This is not to say that slavery was not an issue in the Civil War. Some would even argue that our Civil War began in the 1840s and 1850s when the streets of Kansas and Missouri bled red over the issue of slavery, not in 1861 at Fort Sumter. Missourians were primarily pro-slavery, while Kansas was home to many abolitionists. Missourians repeatedly crossed into Kansas and made raids. "Bloody Kansas" referred to battles with "Border Ruffians."

The abolitionists were busy too, including pulling off one particularly infamous massacre in 1856 (at Pottawatomie), led by abolitionist John Brown and several of his sons in retaliation for those killed in a massacre in Lawrence, Kansas. This is the same John Brown who would in 1859 lead a disastrous raid at Harper's Ferry, in an effort to arm slaves for revolt. Yes, we were fighting a war over slavery a long time before 1861.

There's a popular misconception about the Southerners who fought for the Confederacy. Many still cling to the belief that rich plantation owners were fighting to protect their livelihoods and what they saw as their property (slaves). The reality is that there were relatively few rich people in the South in 1861. Most were dirt poor, unable to afford even shoes, and struggling to put food on their tables.

Unfortunately, Southern politicians and large plantation owners (often, one and the same) banded together to rally poor white folks to fight their war for them and used the issue of slavery to persuade them to bear arms against the "damn Yankees." Those with a lot at stake stirred the masses with the assertion that if slavery was made illegal, there would be even fewer jobs for poor whites; the argument was that, of course, freed slaves would work for less than would whites. For those barely able to keep food on their family table, this was perceived as an unacceptable threat to their already marginal existence. It was a rallying call.

The bottom line? Poor white folks fought the rich man's war. What a surprise. Fat cat plantation owners knew their livelihoods depended on their ability to keep slaves. No less than the Governor of Georgia would in 1860 write a letter to the editor of a prominent newspaper warning that whites would have fewer employment opportunities if slaves were freed, but he positioned it as a states' rights issue. In the main, Confederate soldiers were not fighting to keep slaves; they were fighting out of fear they'd be in even more dire economic circumstances than they already were if slaves were freed. There's a difference.

Even today, some in the South are still angry about the Civil War and some in the North don't understand why. They wonder, "Why don't they just get over it?" If I had a nickel for every time I've seen that sentiment expressed online on a political forum, I'd be in a hammock today, somewhere in a balmy clime, sipping daiquiris instead of sitting here writing this damn blog.

It's important to remember just how relatively recent the Civil War really was when you look at it in the context of generations and not just the number of years since it's been over. When viewed in that context, it really wasn't so long ago. I grew up knowing people who had known people who fought this bloody war. Does that put it in better perspective?