tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156536327610779049.post7781201321971095662..comments2024-02-23T11:23:45.971-05:00Comments on Lost Motorcyclist: How We Would Have Been Better Off Without SlaveryLost Motorcyclisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08873504561959138792noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2156536327610779049.post-41729884834764312472011-04-17T10:17:45.722-04:002011-04-17T10:17:45.722-04:00Slavery, of course, is older than human history an...Slavery, of course, is older than human history and <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0901/p16s01-wogi.html" rel="nofollow">persists to this day</a>, the most egregious example being the commercial sex trade.<br /><br />Slavery in America was established in the 16th century by the Spanish and imported into what is now the United States by the British in the plantation economies of the 17th century. (The British, at that time, also <i>de facto</i> enslaved white people through the institution of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude" rel="nofollow">indentured servitude</a>.)<br /><br />Despite the Enlightenment philosophies of the founding fathers of the United States, and their high-flown declaration that, '<i>All men are created equal</i>,' Congress did not outlaw the slave trade, and founders such as Thomas Jefferson continued to hold (and have sexual congress with) slaves. What they actually seem to have meant was: '<i>Most white men are created more or less equal</i>.'<br /><br />The fundamentally corrosive influence of slavery in North America was the underlying social requirement that the population at large, especially the lower classes, believe that slaves (i.e. blacks) were racially inferior, in fact, subhuman. This encouraged a long-standing racism against blacks <i>throughout</i> the U.S. which lingers even today.<br /><br />The American Civil War was essentially about 'states rights' (a conflict which continues) which came to a head over the status of slavery in the new territories (Kansas, Nebraska, &c.) being added to the U.S. in the mid-19th century. While it's true that a relative minority of Southerners owned slaves, most Southerners had been manipulated by propaganda into a hysterical racist fear of the large black, slave population.<br /><br />And, although there are unquestionably lingering effects of the slave trade in African society, I'd argue that the majority of today's problems on that continent are actually the legacy of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism#Age_of_Imperialism" rel="nofollow"><i>Age of Imperialism</i></a> - and the ongoing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism#Multinational_corporations" rel="nofollow">neocolonialism</a> of the large multinationals.Madeyehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02593933575568389288noreply@blogger.com