this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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Let me copy pasta myself here to save time and just say - they are already murdering us in the millions, any harm that might come to them is an act of self defence.
But they did though. Robert E Lee, Jefferson Davis, Alexander H Stephens, plus countless slaveowners all just... surrendered, and went back to owning the exact same plantations their slaveowning had provided the startup capital for.
Was it right? Hell no! Their plantations should have been given to their slaves. We would live in a better country if they had.
But it's worth repeating that people who blew out their chest and blustered about how it was better to die than to lose this fight just went right back to comfortable lives after a heinous, sadistic, brutal form of capital exploitation was abolished right out from under them.
If you can abolish slavery without killing Dolly Sumner Lint or Jefferson Davis, then it stands to reason that even after sending Pinkertons, cops, and bootlickers to die by the thousands, these billionaires will surrender at the first sign of blood on their doorstep.
Meaning you can abolish capital without killing Jamie Johnson OR Jeff Bezos.
Which in turn means the killing of those particular people ends up peripheral at best.
They will not throw their bodies in front of the bullets aimed at their orphan killing machines.
As much closure as they would bring, as good as that would feel. It's just not going to happen.
And then, at that point -- when they have surrendered -- it's like torturing a serial killer. We gain nothing. It doesn't bring anyone back to life. It doesn't put the aerosolized carbon back underground or bring the temperature back to livable levels. All it does is introduce a little bit more pain to the world.
Again: at best.
At worst it could potentially set a precedent that anyone perceived as "aligned" with billionaires deserves the same death inflicted on those billionaires.
In other words, at worst, it could turn the person holding the guillotine into the de facto capitalist controlling all of the factories, all of the land, and all of the equipment single-handedly. Because who is going to stop them? Anyone who challenges that person can be easily labeled a "capitalist reactionary, counter-revolutionary" and punished according to that label.
Yes. And it's horrible! And we should have done more!
We should -- like I said -- have stripped property from the slaveowners. They surrendered unconditionally! The North could have done with them as it liked.
It should have confiscated the property of everyone who profited from slavery prior to the war, and given that property to the slaves. And yes, the North should have killed as many people (be they slaveowners or bootlickers) as was necessary to carry out that transfer of property.
Station troops on the plantations. Shoot everyone who shows up with torches to burn them down and deprive former slaves of their newfound wealth.
But what I'm trying to say is: no more than that number. No more killing than is absolutely necessary to achieve that goal.
We should be imagining Jeff Bezos in prison, not dead. You don't want to make allies out of the people who want him dead. Those people are not good friends.
How do you think Jim Crow was established? With violence.
It was not simply due to congressional reconstruction that programmatic land reform wasn’t attempted in the south. People were actively pursuing campaigns of violence during reconstruction.
There was no alternative to violent resistance.
There is no alternative to violent resistance.
Perhaps because even after they lost the slaves they were still rich as fuck and powerful. And then they passed laws to still enslave black people and fuck them over so shit didn't really change all that much. Think about how much better life would be today if every slave owner and klansman were put to death for their heinous crimes instead of slapped on the wrist and given back control of their slaves
You replied to my accidentally deleted comment (which probably isn't deleted on your instance.) I really wish Liftoff didn't put the edit button right next to the delete button. But oh well.
I believe in life sentences, not death sentences. I would have been fine if the Nazis had been thrown in prison to serve non-commutable life sentences for their crimes. I would have preferred it.
But the entire reason the Civil War didn't stick was because slaveowners kept their property. Not because they kept their lives.
Dude. Their kids grew up and enslaved black people using "prisons" and Jim Crow laws. And they were able to do this because they wielded the power they inherited from their slaveowning parents. If you leave the kids this power, then you're going to need to kill them eventually for committing the same crimes.
Just take away their power! Imprison as many of the slaveowners if you can. And then leave it at that.
The South surrendered unconditionally. If I had a time machine, and could influence the North's decisions, I would take their property because that would actually accomplish something. But I would not take any more lives than were absolutely necessary.
Because I don't want to be on the side that kills more people than is necessary.
Their property would have passed to their heirs.
If your only available tool was killing people, then maybe you could have followed it up by killing their children?
But then you have to contend with the fact that your movement (and the people you have handed weapons to) are now a very specific subset of communists -- "communists who are okay with killing children." You can't build a country off of that!
If on the other hand you have some way of stopping slaveowners' heirs from receiving their fortunes without killing those heirs, then you clearly have some tool that can void the property of the slaveowners themselves without killing them.
And once again, if you choose to kill the slaveowners despite possessing such a tool, then you wind up building your movement off of, "people who are fine with killing when it's no longer necessary." After that, it's no surprise when that movement starts blowing up a bunch of members of Hungarian soviets -- the very people the movement claims to protect -- with tanks.
Yeah, I think their plantations should have been taken from them. Yeah, I think Klansmen should have been stripped of everything they owned.
But once you're powerful enough to do that, you're also powerful enough to do that without killing them.
If they throw their bodies in front of the Orphan Crushing Machine, don't let that stop your bullets. But if they step aside, you have a choice: align yourself with people who kill when they don't need to, or align yourself with people who avoid killing whenever possible.
One of those is better than the other.
What an absurd sweeping generalization of incredibly complex events and context.
Just say you’re another bootlicker and get on with your life. Please oh PLEASE don’t hurt those that exclusively exist to make our lives worse keep us poor dumb and sick!!!
You sayin the French were fools? Fuck off with your neat little bow on top of a simple little “just threaten them and they will play nice”, life isn’t that simple, that’s not how this works, the civil war and what we have now is incomparable. These billionaires are international and actually play as a united team against us poors.
But yeah just a drop of blood and Bezos gives up his fortune and union breaking and insane net worth and lives a subservient life after that. Yeah that sounds realistic
Reconstruction was ended through assassination. This was hardly a resounding conclusion to slavery but a re-systemization of oppression. For starters, the slaves never received compensation, whole many of the previous slave owners did. Same goes for the GI Bill.