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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#159351: Nov 29th 2016 at 1:29:43 PM

The French and English apparently only got into abolitionism after Haiti emancipated themselves and kicked their asses and made Slavery unsustainable.

As for Revolutionary France, that was a special time. English-speakers who are not Jefferson seem to love talking shit about it.

Trump is no Social Climber, he was born a bllionaire. Hamilton had one sex scandal. One. And he confessed. And, hey, at least he was honest with your money.

The point is why replace one myth with another. Jefferson was distorted beyond all proportion but how is doing the same to Hamilton balancing the force. Why do people want to keep Holding Out for a Hero and an ideal vision of America's founding father. Why not show that the Founding Fathers were all a mix of total scum and visionaries which is what Gore Vidal did in Burr?

I think the musical does a pretty good job of that. Even Washington is subtly condescending.

edited 29th Nov '16 1:32:33 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#159352: Nov 29th 2016 at 1:30:57 PM

[up][up]Have to admit I've read some of Burr and am probably going to buy it in my next book purchase, so I'm not speaking from knowledge, but I kind of had the impression that Vidal had some of that "Jeffersonian bias". I'm not sure how Jefferson comes off, but I've heard (again, indirect knowledge) that Burr viewed Lincoln as a tyrant and consequently had a fairly negative presentation of him in that historical novel.

My impression is not that Vidal was at all on the Lost Cause of things, but rather was on the more Libertarian Left spectrum than Authoritarian Left so wasn't predisposed to attribute good motives to uses of federal power- so Hamilton and Lincoln were naturally on his shit list.

I think the Hamilton/Trump comparison is an unfair one. Trump's father was a multi-millionaire and he was born with a golden spoon in his mouth, which is pretty different from Hamilton's impoverished upbringing and how he rose through the ranks through a combination of hard-work, intellect, and sucking up to/befriending the right people. And while Trump is the stereotypical gauche Nouveau Riche, Hamilton fit in well with old money people (that he was just as elitist as them is not cool, but that's what it is).

edited 29th Nov '16 1:36:06 PM by Hodor2

blkwhtrbbt The Dragon of the Eastern Sea from Doesn't take orders from Vladimir Putin Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
The Dragon of the Eastern Sea
#159353: Nov 29th 2016 at 1:31:14 PM

The French revolution is not a good example of the establishment of democracy.

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you
JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#159354: Nov 29th 2016 at 1:36:50 PM

The French and English apparently only got into abolitionism after Haiti emancipated themselves and kicked their asses and made Slavery unsustainable.

Not true. Comte de Mirabeau advocated bolitionism before the Haitian Revolution broke out. He warned the French slaveowning lobby that they would face revolution if they didn't listen to him. They didn't listen to him. And even then, the French abolished slavery in all colonies, not just Haiti, but the other Caribbean colonies where Revolution hadn't broken out yet.

As for the English, in the 1790s they supported white slaveholders and opposed Toussaint Louverture. It was only in 1807 when Napoleon had restored slavery (apparently because Josephine's family lost their plantation fortunes in Martinique) that abolitionism crested and in 1807 they abolished the slave trade, but let slavery continue in their rich plantations in the Caribbean until 1833. Abolishing the slave trade was not especially controversial, even President Jefferson agreed to it, and ended America's participation in the Triangle trade and the importing of new slaves.

As for Revolutionary France, that was a special time. English-speakers who are not Jefferson seem to love talking shit about it.

In England it had to do with anti-semitism since Edmund Burke was worried about the Revolutionaries giving rights to Jews and feared the arrival of a civilization of "jew brokers".

Well in America, it was a complex geopolitical mess made worse by that incompetent girondin ambassador Edmond Genet (who did found one club in America called...Democrat). But even then the American Government teamed up with the Jacobins in a plot to kill Thomas Paine in exchange for food imports.

JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#159355: Nov 29th 2016 at 1:47:57 PM

Have to admit I've read some of Burr and am probably going to buy it in my next book purchase, so I'm not speaking from knowledge, but I kind of had the impression that Vidal had some of that "Jeffersonian bias".

Believe me, Thomas Jefferson doesn't come off well in that book. Burr's whole trial for "sedition" is shown as a kind of show-trial witch-hunt that Jefferson used to screw him over.

I'm not sure how Jefferson comes off, but I've heard (again, indirect knowledge) that Burr viewed Lincoln as a tyrant and consequently had a fairly negative presentation of him in that historical novel.

Huh...Lincoln was barely a blip on anyone's rader when Burr died in the 1830s.

My impression is not that Vidal was at all on the Lost Cause of things, but rather was on the more Libertarian Left spectrum than Authoritarian Left so wasn't predisposed to attribute good motives to uses of federal power- so Hamilton and Lincoln were naturally on his shit list.

That's a very simplistic look at Vidal's views and he would mock you in his fantastic voice for it. Vidal had a complex nuanced look at history, not wholly good or wholly bad. He basically saw the use and expansion of federal power as a Franchise Original Sin, something that could be used for good but in his lifetime was associated with the American empire, the awfulness that is USA's foreign policy...which Vidal was a lifelong critic of. He admired FDR but he felt that making America into a global superpower and Number 1 which Roosevelt brought about was not a good thing to do, even if it did lead to some good things like Roosevelt's support for decolonization.

Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#159356: Nov 29th 2016 at 1:50:06 PM

Sorry. Meant to say that Vidal viewed Lincoln as a tyrant.

[down] Apparnetly there was an acrimonious debate in the New York Times Book Review between Vidal and some Lincoln scholars. I don't think the scholars are totally correct (for example, I'm pretty sure Vidal is right about Lincoln's chichanery regarding judicial and other positions). However, as is indicated by the accusations and Vidal's response, Vidal was definitely of the view that Lincoln inherently disrespected the Constitution and considered Lincoln's anti-slavery efforts/sentiments as 100% political calculation. Also, if I'm understanding correctly, Vidal advanced that assertion that up until the end to ship blacks back to Africa.

So like basically, Vidal is a good example of an anti-racist left-wing revisionist review of Lincoln ending up as identical to a Lost Cause Historical Villain Upgrade.

edited 29th Nov '16 2:03:01 PM by Hodor2

JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#159358: Nov 29th 2016 at 1:59:08 PM

Sorry. Meant to say that Vidal viewed Lincoln as a tyrant.

He did not view Lincoln as a tyrant, as the novel Lincoln shows. He shows him as a cold, deeply intelligent and pragmatic politician. He did compare Lincoln to a Roman-style dictator i.e. the Pre-Sulla ones...mostly for how during the Civil War, Lincoln unleashed Emergency Authority like suspending habeas corpus and creating surveillance programs, saying this was, in the novel, justified as "inherent powers" of the President vested by the Constitution. These were wartime measures, were not otherwise abused, and it was totally necessary for that time and place...but modern time you would raise an eyebrow for that, just like people do with NSA, which honestly I am okay with.

I mean the job of spies is to spy on other governments and your citizens, there's never been a time when espionage has meant anything other than that. It's the left-handed form of diplomacy and the house rules is "don't get caught". And creeps like Snowden are saboteurs and incompetents too stupid to understand it.

The thing is by doing that, Lincoln was creating a precedent for future presidents to expand executive overreach. Those concerns are valid and legitimate. Like Obama used Executive Orders to put in bills for Climate change and other stuff, because Congress were gridlocking him. Now Trump's in charge and god knows what he'll abuse Executive orders for.

So that's what Vidal's view was. And let's face it the President as a strong role is more analogous to the Cincinnatus style dictators (who Washington saw as his hero) than the Roman Consul. It's a powerful executive-authority invested in one man.

edited 29th Nov '16 2:01:12 PM by JulianLapostat

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#159359: Nov 29th 2016 at 2:01:38 PM

[up]More like a Jeffersonian "whaaaaaat."

Believe me, Thomas Jefferson doesn't come off well in that book. Burr's whole trial for "sedition" is shown as a kind of show-trial witch-hunt that Jefferson used to screw him over.

What, so he didn't try to make himself emperor in Mexico? Next thing you'll tell me is that Hamilton wasn't involved in a Monarchist conspiracy like Adams claimed.

Man, the FF were such a bunch of mouthy fuckheads.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#159360: Nov 29th 2016 at 2:03:49 PM

What, so he didn't try to make himself emperor in Mexico?

No. That was a smear campaign. IT was the equivalent of Benghazi and the Emails. Burr was submitted to repeated trials and no evidence was ever found.

Man, the FF were such a bunch of mouthy fuckheads.

That's about the one thing modern america has in common with them.

edited 29th Nov '16 2:04:28 PM by JulianLapostat

ViperMagnum357 Since: Mar, 2012
#159361: Nov 29th 2016 at 2:07:38 PM

Recently, I encountered a less charitable but not necessarily incorrect assessment of the Founding Fathers that framed Washington and Ben Franklin as Nominal Hero exceptions...who happened to be the Token Good Teammate to a Flock of Wolves.

edited 29th Nov '16 2:08:08 PM by ViperMagnum357

Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#159363: Nov 29th 2016 at 2:16:56 PM

@Julian- I linked to above this discussion about Vidal's characterization of Lincoln's abolitionist views and wondered your thoughts/response. Because I've seen you note quite rightly that Lincoln is probably the first Civil War movie to not buy into Lost Cause sentiments- which is both a good thing about the movie and kind of a terrible thing about the norm of previous presentations.

My impression is that Vidal would have hated Lincoln for its essentially favorable characterization of Lincoln's motives. I mean the movie is very open about Lincoln's political scheming and does show him taking a Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! view of Presidential power, including in service of abolitionism- whereas Vidal had a largely negative take on Lincoln's motives in all those areas.

edited 29th Nov '16 2:19:11 PM by Hodor2

JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#159364: Nov 29th 2016 at 2:18:02 PM

Well Franklin wanted to invade and grab land in Canada...so he's got that against him.

The Founding Fathers were a generation of conniving wheeling-dealing backstabbing power-players who were slaveowning oligarchs, married slaveowning oligarchs, supported the interests of slaveowning oligarchs and used capital from slave-businesses to other aspects of the economy.

They were also expansionist imperialists who grabbed land from the Mohawks and among the many motivations for rebelling against England was that the Crown was limiting expansion and settlements for the time being because of some treaties with Native tribes (which considering England's long history of violating treaties and getting away with it, is not saying much in favor of America should never have rebelled arguments, granted). George Washington was called "Town Destroyer" or "Village Destroyer" by the people in the Mohawk valley who were kicked off their land, sent to canada, and then had land distributed among white men.

They were all this and also builders of genuine democratic institutions, like the Constitution, the supreme court, the checks-and-balances, long tradition of freedom of speech and so on. Some of these institutions like the Electoral College was not something they were on board with either, like John Adams wanted popular vote among the ones who had franchise...and obviously reveals how far US was from a modern democracy at the time of its founding.

JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#159365: Nov 29th 2016 at 2:24:27 PM

I linked to above this discussion about Vidal's characterization of Lincoln's abolitionist views and wondered your thoughts/response. Because I've seen you note quite rightly that Lincoln is probably the first Civil War movie to not buy into Lost Cause sentiments- which is both a good thing about the movie and kind of a terrible thing about the norm of previous presentations.

My impression is that Vidal would have hated Lincoln for its essentially favorable characterization of Lincoln's motives. I mean the movie is very open about Lincoln's political scheming and does show him taking a Screw The Rules Im Doing What Is Right view of Presidential power, including in service of abolitionism- whereas Vidal had a largely negative take on Lincoln's motives in all those areas.

Well Vidal doesn't like the idea of heroes. He thinks they stink. I mostly agree with that principle. He would criticize Lincoln for making the President into a hero and a larger than life figure. To Vidal Greatness does not equal goodness and that its dangerous to make anyone in office into a saint because it gives politicians bad ideas.

Vidal was an anti-racist but to him the people who should have that halo of abolitionism is the likes of Tubman and Frederick Douglass, maybe John Brown, or Thaddeus Stevens (who is shown quite positively in the novel as a critic of Lincoln's wishy-washy moderate approach). He doesn't give credit to people for doing the right thing after every thing else has been tried.

Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#159366: Nov 29th 2016 at 2:30:59 PM

I agree there. I think my "problem" with Vidal is that this kind of mythbusting can lead into the problems we are encountering in our country now (look how I'm subtly getting on topic smile). Because it's very easy for efforts to combat haigiography to go the opposite direction and be a Historical Villain Upgrade (which I see in Vidal's Lincoln), and it's kind of a similar impulse in criticism of ills of "Establishment Politics" veered into an idea that political experience was itself a bad thing as was any widely accepted principle (even if it is a good one). And that's how we got Trump.

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#159367: Nov 29th 2016 at 2:33:29 PM

Freedom of Speech in the USA largely amounts to the bigwigs slamming each other on the papers and printing no retractions. The poor, the disenfranchised, the unions, etc. are not really part of the conversation.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#159368: Nov 29th 2016 at 2:53:24 PM

Because it's very easy for efforts to combat haigiography to go the opposite direction and be a Historical Villain Upgrade (which I see in Vidal's Lincoln), and it's kind of a similar impulse in criticism of ills of "Establishment Politics" veered into an idea that political experience was itself a bad thing as was any widely accepted principle (even if it is a good one). And that's how we got Trump.

That's why Vidal wrote very dense books, with detailed language. He wrote novels for people who think, for adults who want to have a more dense understanding of America, the good and the bad, which he sees as inextricable at least for most of its history.

And you know there's always a risk that ideas will get misrepresented but the danger is greater with hagiography like Hamilton than with anything else.

I mean as far as the Trump anti-establishment phenomenon goes, the real danger is Batman and Iron-Man and these glorification of billionaires as kind of self-sacrificing christ figures who are protecting ordinary people from villains and external threats. Batman says cops are corrupt, except this one Commissioner who is more or less my crony...politicians can be good like Dent but they become evil...and I alone, with my millions of unaccounted cash in dummy corporations, unanswerable to my shareholders, I alone can save the world.

That kind of mentality probably had a big impact in the appeal of Trump.

Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#159369: Nov 29th 2016 at 2:59:08 PM

I'm not sure if I'm misreading your post, so apologies if I'm off-base, but you're insinuating that I'm not one of those people who think because I'm criticizing Vidal, right?

edited 29th Nov '16 3:01:18 PM by Hodor2

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#159370: Nov 29th 2016 at 3:09:27 PM

Rome and its Republic have been, historically speaking, common reference points for US politics

That doesn't make them a good reference point or mean that anybody making said comparisons has a clue what they're doing.

If you take that attitude you are condemning a good portion of the global population at present and for most of the 20th Century as being victims, which is not a healthy, useful and accurate attitude.

This is the worst form of hard-left thinking right here, suggesting that we cannot condemn the actions of dictators because it might be impolite to call their victims, victims. If someone has been brutalized or repressed by an autocratic regime they are a victim of that regime. They may be lots of other things as well, because victimhood is not an end-all, be-all descriptor, but they are victims nonetheless.

These days, a lot of people are nostalgic for Saddam Hussein, since he didn't wreck up the Middle East the way Bush the Second did.

I'll tell that to the victims of the genocide he ran against the Kurds. They're still finding bodies now. That George W was an incompetent who completely screwed up Iraq and the greater Middle East does not suddenly erase Saddam's crimes, or make him and his government a loss to the world.

One does not have to lionize Saddam to condemn the Iraq War. That the chaos that replaced Saddam's regime was worse, does not make Saddam's rule a good thing, anymore than the statement "Stalin wasn't as bad as Hitler" pays a compliment to Stalin.

RE: Noam Chomsky

That Noam Chomsky quote is nonsense and reveals once again that Chomsky has no clue what he's talking about. It's telling that he compares the USA and Britain not to colonial dictatorships, like the Second Reich, but to dictatorships that stayed within their own borders. As horrendous as the American and British imperial projects were, the German and Belgian ones (a note here: Belgium is a democracy, but its colonies were under the sole rule of Leopold II for most of his life) managed to be worse.

The US Constitution had a 3/5ths clause...

I was referring to modern democracies and modern dictatorships. The further back you go, the more the lines between the two blur.

Apartheid South Africa was a republic that accommodated similar distinctions and that was in the 20th Century and during the Cold War, and against that Republic and its expansionism, Castro started to look like a hero.

Bad example. The RSA was a de facto one-party state. And ultimately, the human rights abuses that Cuba and the states it supported engaged in results in nobody looking good coming out of that war.

to say that a republic is inherently morally superior or that the worst republic is better than a dictator

You keep saying "republic". The USSR was a republic. Cuba is a republic. We're talking about democracies and dictatorships. Not republics and dictatorships, since a republic can be a dictatorship.

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#159371: Nov 29th 2016 at 3:10:27 PM

Also, the idea that a billionaire "can't be bought" (one of the biggest things Trump's supporters love to parrot) flies completely in the face of how greed works. It doesn't matter how much you already have: you want more.

Trump's ability to sell that image to his voters and that he somehow represents their interests, in spite of the well-documented history about his volatile personality and complete disrespect for anyone he considers beneath him, says as much about him as the general ignorance of the electorate. It's pretty damning that someone could be convinced that a man born into complete privilege who regularly stiffs his contractors is a man of the people.

edited 29th Nov '16 3:15:03 PM by Draghinazzo

TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#159372: Nov 29th 2016 at 3:11:49 PM

[up]Give a man the whole world, and eventually he'll want the moon too.

New Survey coming this weekend!
thatguythere47 Since: Jul, 2010
#159373: Nov 29th 2016 at 3:18:41 PM

And considering we don't have his tax returns we can probably assume he is like 90% bluster. My favorite conspiracy theory is that he owes so much to so many foreign interests that simply releasing his tax returns would turn congress against him. Plus once we get into the uber-wealthy the numbers start to get crazy. Trump's got six billion? Buffet gave that away in charity. In one year. There's some Russian oligarchs who have yacths worth that much. Trump's chump change in the lands of the uber-rich.

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#159374: Nov 29th 2016 at 3:20:31 PM

Why stop at the moon? RAW RAW, FIGHT THE POWER!

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
pwiegle Cape Malleum Majorem from Nowhere Special Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Singularity
Cape Malleum Majorem
#159375: Nov 29th 2016 at 3:23:20 PM

There are treatments for every imaginable form of addiction, except one. Judges can order people to take classes in anger management, but unfortunately there is no such thing as greed management.

This Space Intentionally Left Blank.

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