Confederate
I'm guessing that is because there are far more Confederate sympathizers in the US than Nazi sympathizers (although the ranks of the Nazis are clearly growing). Topicality, in other words.
Much ado about nothing. MOL can have a raging five week thread about Daylight Savings Time. Make that 1000 fold for Twitter. If this is all you got, its a quiet day for whataboutIsm.
Gilgul said:
Why is a show about an alternate history where the Confederacy won the Civil War (and African Americans are still slaves in the south) instantly labled as "politically controversial" and widely attached when a show about an alternate history where the Nazis won WWII (and Jews in America have been killed, or are in hiding or on the run) is considered (and imo opinion is) just a very interesting "what if"?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/d...
You could pretty much do this at any point where the hinge of fate swings wide.... Waterloo, Trafalgar, Vienna, Thermopylae, Gettysburg, the Cold War....Martel, Alfred the Great, Wellington, Churchill in big moments...buford, chamberlain in micro but massively impactful...any point in history where the fate of the west- or some part of it or version of it in the case of the European conflicts- fought an existential threat.
It's always going to be fake but at its best hopefully thought provoking. At the very least it should remind the present what so many died to preserve.
In the realm of alternative history, the idea that a slave-holding "Western" society could have survived past the early 20th century is questionable.
South_Mountaineer said:
In the realm of alternative history, the idea that a slave-holding "Western" society could have survived past the early 20th century is questionable.
That's a fair point. There was a racist component to slavery (obviously) but probably just as large was the utilitarian component: witness various founding fathers basically saying slavery's wrong but well, we need the labor.
Once the labor part was devalued due to improvements in technology slavery would have become less attractive to many. With the utilitarian argument gone, all you have left is the racialist arguments.
I wonder how the program will tackle that. With the unskilled labor value minimized you what, educate your slaves to do higher order labor? Giving education to slaves historically does not turn out well for slaveowners.
Jackson_Fusion said:
South_Mountaineer said:
In the realm of alternative history, the idea that a slave-holding "Western" society could have survived past the early 20th century is questionable.
That's a fair point. There was a racist component to slavery (obviously) but probably just as large was the utilitarian component: witness various founding fathers basically saying slavery's wrong but well, we need the labor.
Once the labor part was devalued due to improvements in technology slavery would have become less attractive to many. With the utilitarian argument gone, all you have left is the racialist arguments.
I wonder how the program will tackle that. With the unskilled labor value minimized you what, educate your slaves to do higher order labor? Giving education to slaves historically does not turn out well for slaveowners.
Its interesting to see how blind folks are to the way our country works. The role once occupied by slaves is now filled by illegal immigrants. Who do you think is picking your strawberries?
Slavery is rooted in racism. We really haven't come very far when it comes to racism in this country. Though we like to think we have. Trump proved otherwise to us all.
Klinker said:
Jackson_Fusion said:
South_Mountaineer said:
In the realm of alternative history, the idea that a slave-holding "Western" society could have survived past the early 20th century is questionable.
That's a fair point. There was a racist component to slavery (obviously) but probably just as large was the utilitarian component: witness various founding fathers basically saying slavery's wrong but well, we need the labor.
Once the labor part was devalued due to improvements in technology slavery would have become less attractive to many. With the utilitarian argument gone, all you have left is the racialist arguments.
I wonder how the program will tackle that. With the unskilled labor value minimized you what, educate your slaves to do higher order labor? Giving education to slaves historically does not turn out well for slaveowners.
Its interesting to see how blind folks are to the way our country works. The role once occupied by slaves is now filled by illegal immigrants. Who do you think is picking your strawberries?
Knew someone would go there 
Jackson_Fusion said:
Klinker said:
Jackson_Fusion said:
South_Mountaineer said:
In the realm of alternative history, the idea that a slave-holding "Western" society could have survived past the early 20th century is questionable.
That's a fair point. There was a racist component to slavery (obviously) but probably just as large was the utilitarian component: witness various founding fathers basically saying slavery's wrong but well, we need the labor.
Once the labor part was devalued due to improvements in technology slavery would have become less attractive to many. With the utilitarian argument gone, all you have left is the racialist arguments.
I wonder how the program will tackle that. With the unskilled labor value minimized you what, educate your slaves to do higher order labor? Giving education to slaves historically does not turn out well for slaveowners.
Its interesting to see how blind folks are to the way our country works. The role once occupied by slaves is now filled by illegal immigrants. Who do you think is picking your strawberries?
Knew someone would go there
Cause its kind of obvious.
Klinker said:
Jackson_Fusion said:
Klinker said:
Jackson_Fusion said:
South_Mountaineer said:
In the realm of alternative history, the idea that a slave-holding "Western" society could have survived past the early 20th century is questionable.
That's a fair point. There was a racist component to slavery (obviously) but probably just as large was the utilitarian component: witness various founding fathers basically saying slavery's wrong but well, we need the labor.
Once the labor part was devalued due to improvements in technology slavery would have become less attractive to many. With the utilitarian argument gone, all you have left is the racialist arguments.
I wonder how the program will tackle that. With the unskilled labor value minimized you what, educate your slaves to do higher order labor? Giving education to slaves historically does not turn out well for slaveowners.
Its interesting to see how blind folks are to the way our country works. The role once occupied by slaves is now filled by illegal immigrants. Who do you think is picking your strawberries?
Knew someone would go there
Cause its kind of obvious.
So you're making a parallel between how society treated chattel slaves, who were born, lived and died as property, with no legal rights, no right to even keep their children, who were raped and killed with impugnity, and people coming of their own free will to the United States in an attempt at getting a better economic life?
I just want to be 100% clear. That isn't a view one hears every day so I want to understand! Is that what you're saying?
Jackson_Fusion said:
Klinker said:
Jackson_Fusion said:
Klinker said:
Jackson_Fusion said:
Its interesting to see how blind folks are to the way our country works. The role once occupied by slaves is now filled by illegal immigrants. Who do you think is picking your strawberries?
Knew someone would go there
Cause its kind of obvious.
So you're making a parallel between how society treated chattel slaves, who were born, lived and died as property, with no legal rights, no right to even keep their children, who were raped and killed with impugnity, and people coming of their own free will to the United States in an attempt at getting a better economic life?
I just want to be 100% clear. That isn't a view one hears every day so I want to understand! Is that what you're saying?
Not "a view one hears every day" but you "knew someone would go there".
Welcome to MOL.
LOST said:
Jackson_Fusion said:
Klinker said:
Jackson_Fusion said:
Klinker said:
Jackson_Fusion said:
Its interesting to see how blind folks are to the way our country works. The role once occupied by slaves is now filled by illegal immigrants. Who do you think is picking your strawberries?
Knew someone would go there
Cause its kind of obvious.
So you're making a parallel between how society treated chattel slaves, who were born, lived and died as property, with no legal rights, no right to even keep their children, who were raped and killed with impugnity, and people coming of their own free will to the United States in an attempt at getting a better economic life?
I just want to be 100% clear. That isn't a view one hears every day so I want to understand! Is that what you're saying?
Not "a view one hears every day" but you "knew someone would go there".
Welcome to MOL.
Are those two in any way mutually exclusive? Explain how.
TIA!
FWIW, I read Klinker's analogy as a rebuttal to Jackson_Fusion's assertion that the demand for cheap, unskilled labor has been minimized so much, not as a comparison of the treatment of such laborers.
DaveSchmidt said:
FWIW, I read Klinker's analogy as a rebuttal to Jackson_Fusion's assertion that the demand for cheap, unskilled labor has been minimized so much, not as a comparison of the treatment of such laborers.
So anyone engaging in unskilled labor for compensation has some analogous relationship to slavery?
Slavery wasn't "cheap" I would point out. It was not compensated at all. "Slavery".
Are you co-signing?
I didn't think the comment had anything to do with the laborers (i.e., "anyone") themselves. I took it to be about the continued economic reliance on unskilled labor.
Anyway, Klinker can take it from here if he or she chooses. I'll continue to listen in and keep my quill in the inkwell, if that's OK.
Jackson_Fusion said:
Klinker said:
Jackson_Fusion said:
Klinker said:
Jackson_Fusion said:
South_Mountaineer said:
In the realm of alternative history, the idea that a slave-holding "Western" society could have survived past the early 20th century is questionable.
That's a fair point. There was a racist component to slavery (obviously) but probably just as large was the utilitarian component: witness various founding fathers basically saying slavery's wrong but well, we need the labor.
Once the labor part was devalued due to improvements in technology slavery would have become less attractive to many. With the utilitarian argument gone, all you have left is the racialist arguments.
I wonder how the program will tackle that. With the unskilled labor value minimized you what, educate your slaves to do higher order labor? Giving education to slaves historically does not turn out well for slaveowners.
Its interesting to see how blind folks are to the way our country works. The role once occupied by slaves is now filled by illegal immigrants. Who do you think is picking your strawberries?
Knew someone would go there
Cause its kind of obvious.
So you're making a parallel between how society treated chattel slaves, who were born, lived and died as property, with no legal rights, no right to even keep their children, who were raped and killed with impugnity, and people coming of their own free will to the United States in an attempt at getting a better economic life?
I just want to be 100% clear. That isn't a view one hears every day so I want to understand! Is that what you're saying?
Jackson_Fusion said:
DaveSchmidt said:
FWIW, I read Klinker's analogy as a rebuttal to Jackson_Fusion's assertion that the demand for cheap, unskilled labor has been minimized so much, not as a comparison of the treatment of such laborers.
So anyone engaging in unskilled labor for compensation has some analogous relationship to slavery?
Slavery wasn't "cheap" I would point out. It was not compensated at all. "Slavery".
Are you co-signing?
You said that there was no longer demand for the sort of labor that slaves provided. I just pointed out that there is substantial demand for this type of labor. I apologize if my response did not neatly fit in with your agenda.
Confederates? Turtledove did a whole series of novels on this. Things would be so different that society would bear little resemblance to our world. The outcome of WWI would almost certainly been different and everything beyond that would be unrecognizable.
Gilgul said:
Very little labor is needed to harvest cotton these days so no.
Right but a tremendous amount of labor is needed to harvest cherries, apples and peppers.
And slaves did more than just pick cotton. They were household staff, childcare providers (wet nurses), blacksmith, carpenters, raised animals and were chauffeurs. Even field work varied by location: cotton, tobacco, indigo, harvesting rice.
This concept has the potential of being "interesting" due to the downstream impacts. What happens to abolitionist, women's rights, settlement, temperance, suffrage movements? What happens to the small group of Black people who were never enslaved? How would it impact Native Americans and our "Indian Policy"? What about European and Chinese immigration of unskilled laborers?
Klinker said:
I'm guessing that is because there are far more Confederate sympathizers in the US than Nazi sympathizers (although the ranks of the Nazis are clearly growing). Topicality, in other words.
Yeah, I used to think there were more South sympathizers before the '16 election too. Then again, I think there might be a bit of overlap there. 
My man Rush was quick to say (w/o any evidence) that the show will probably portray the "evil slaveowners" in typical lefty fashion. Not sure how you portray them positively.
Jackson_Fusion said:
LOST said:Not "a view one hears every day" but you "knew someone would go there".
Welcome to MOL.
Are those two in any way mutually exclusive? Explain how.
TIA!
Not at all mutually exclusive which was my point. You can always count on MOL for an opinion that is not one heard every day.
LOST said:
Jackson_Fusion said:
LOST said:Not "a view one hears every day" but you "knew someone would go there".
Welcome to MOL.
Are those two in any way mutually exclusive? Explain how.
TIA!
Not at all mutually exclusive which was my point. You can always count on MOL for an opinion that is not one heard every day.
That's fair.
For all the attention it's getting I wonder how many will actually tune in.
They haven't even written it yet.
http://www.vulture.com/2017/07...
But this points out — we haven’t written any scripts yet. We don’t have an outline yet. We don’t even have character names. So, everything is brand-new and nothing’s been written. I guess that’s what was a little bit surprising about some of the outrage. It’s just a little premature. You know, we might fck it up. But we haven’t yet.
As GoSlugs notes, "Things would be so different that society would bear little resemblance to our world." If this ends up being just "it's exactly like our world, only there's still slavery!" it'll be a pretty terrible series. If they really were to get into the implications of how a change at a fulcrum point of history really would change everything, there's some opportunities for interesting things there, from the geopolitical (I doubt there would even be a U.S at this point for instance, just 150 years of perpetual warfare as first the confederacy, then the rump of the union, fell apart and warred against each other for control of western and other territories) to sociological (for instance, it's backwards to say slavery existed because of racism. Slavery created racism -- what are the implications of a world where the slave powers were not defeated on the battlefield?).
I suspect it's more likely to be the former, and even if it was the latter, the odds are very, very long that they could successfully pull of anything beyond the shallowest dive into such complexities. It's tv after all, and for profit, entertainment tv -- this is heavy and complicated stuff that would probably just be either boring or horrifying (or by turns both) if followed through to any depth.
But of course, this is me talking from the distance of years and the distance of white privilege. A better response, by someone who's thought about and written a lot about the Civil War in American memory, comes from Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic. I think his whole post is worth reading, but here's a few excerpted points I found especially compelling:
While the Confederacy, as a political entity, was certainly defeated, and chattel slavery outlawed, the racist hierarchy which Lee and Davis sought to erect, lives on. It had to. The terms of the white South’s defeat were gentle. Having inaugurated a war which killed more Americans than all other American wars combined, the Confederacy’s leaders were back in the country’s political leadership within a decade. Within two, they had effectively retaken control of the South.
And:
The symbols point to something Confederate’s creators don’t seem to understand—the war is over for them, not for us. At this very hour, black people all across the South are still fighting the battle which they joined during Reconstruction—securing equal access to the ballot—and resisting a president whose resemblance to Andrew Johnson is uncanny. Confederate is the kind of provocative thought experiment that can be engaged in when someone else’s lived reality really is fantasy to you, when your grandmother is not in danger of losing her vote, when the terrorist attack on Charleston evokes honest sympathy, but inspires no direct fear. And so we need not wait to note that Confederate’s interest in Civil War history is biased, that it is premised on a simplistic view of white Southern defeat, instead of the more complicated morass we have all around us.
If you like this sort of things, I recommend "What If?", a collection of essays, each with a premise that some major historical event broke a different way.
Why is a show about an alternate history where the Confederacy won the Civil War (and African Americans are still slaves in the south) instantly labled as "politically controversial" and widely attached when a show about an alternate history where the Nazis won WWII (and Jews in America have been killed, or are in hiding or on the run) is considered (and imo opinion is) just a very interesting "what if"?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/d...