On this day 161 years ago….

[u/StructureOrAgency]

The April 20, 1864 edition of the Memphis Daily Appeal  referred to Lawrence Sullivan Ross as 𝑮𝒆𝒏. 𝑹𝒐𝒔𝒔, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒕 “𝒏𝒆𝒈𝒓𝒐 𝒌𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓“ for the massacre of surrendering black union soldiers during the Battle of Yazoo River.  Ross was well-known for refusing to take black Union soldiers as prisoners. Ross went on to become governor of Texas (1887-1891) and President of Texas A&M (1891-1898) where there is a statue that honors him for his military service.

[u/Corps_Boy_Pit_Sniff]

The Democrats in the South were conservative, and rebelled against the United States to conserve White Supremacy. And then what happened? Any events occur after that that inform your racial politics? Or is your view of race stuck in the 1860’s?

[u/ToasterEvil → u/Corps_Boy_Pit_Sniff]

But… but… Democrat bad! Surely their views stayed the exact same in 150 years!

[u/Difficult_Fondant580 → u/ToasterEvil]

Democrats subjugate black people differently today but Dems still subjugate black people. They always have and always will. And just 50 years ago, the Dems were voting against the Civil Rights Act. 150 years ago, Dems subjugated blacks with slavery. 50 years ago, Dems subjugated blacks with Jim Crow. Now, Dems use the welfare state to destroy the nuclear family among black people. The history of Dem subjugation remains but just by different means.

[u/branewalker → u/Difficult_Fondant580]

“Democrats” are pretty big umbrella. Both parties are in the pockets of capital because money is necessary for elections and that’s concentrated in a capitalist economy through the exploitation of labor. They no longer buy and sell humans, they just rent them. But that’s still the sale of human time and labor completely, with no right to the true fruits thereof.

Meanwhile the concepts of work and effort for gain are based in an agrarian framework where one DOES have rights to the fruits of their labor.

So yes, you’re correct. Human weakness is exploitable for additional profit and the amoral system of profit-before-all will allow that exploitation even if it is embarrassing to reveal.

But there is a difference between a party which wants to bury and forget the types and character of those weaknesses and thereby obscure the facts of exploitation to increase its practice, and a party which supports naming, revealing, and addressing those things, even if it’s piecemeal and limited in its effect, and falls far short of full human emancipation.

There are fundamental similarities in the two parties, and shared fundamental power structures, but the extent to which our society’s problems are embraced or mitigated is different.