C.S.A.

[wheelgun1958]

So as not to hijack the Machete thread, who has seen the Spike Lee film C.S.A.?

[idrathernot]

I doubt you'll find any Spike Lee afficiandos here. I've never heard of C.S.A but after checking the imdb page I can say that I have a very poor opinion of it.

To assume that slavery would have continued had the south won the war is spurious at best and to make it the central theme of the civil war is probably one of the most gross oversimplifications one can make. The fact is that every other nation on Earth was able to eliminate slavery without waging a total war. I think a more appropriate documentary would explore the alternate history should the south been given the option of compensated emancipation as all other comparable nations of the day pursued.

[TLE2]

I might disagree. It's possible that socioeconomic changes might have eventually obviated slavery, but it was an ingrained practice in the south. However, the viability of a separate south is in some dispute.

My father's family is from Alabama and the thinking there, at least in some portion of the populace, hasn't been enlightened much.

IMHO.

[idrathernot]

Slavery existed virtually without criticism for some three thousand years before abolitionist movements around the world began criticizing it in the late eighteenth century. The first substantial abolitionist movement was organized in England on the eve of the American Revolution (1774), and by 1888 the last bastion of slavery in the Americas -- Brazil -- had achieved emancipation. Thus, an institution that was a normal state of affairs in most countries of the world for three thousand years was eliminated within the course of a century (although chattel slavery has been resurrected in the Sudan and elsewhere in contemporary Africa).

Abolition of slavery throughout the world occurred for religious, philosophical, and economic reasons. The Quakers were among the first abolitionists because of their belief that slavery was an offense against God. The philosophy of the Enlightenment, which championed individual rights and the idea of equality under the law, added fuel to the argument that all human beings have natural rights to life, liberty, and property and ought to be treated equally under the law.

The advent of the industrial revolution added economic pressures as well, for slave labor is inherently inefficient compared to free labor. Slaves have very few, if any, incentives to work productively, to acquire new skills, and to improve their productivity levels, since they do not stand to benefit from doing so. Furthermore, capital-intensive agriculture and industry began to render labor-intensive production, including slave labor, uncompetitive. As the economist Mises wrote, "Servile labor disappeared because it could not stand the competition of free labor; its profitability sealed its doom in the market economy."
With the development of capitalism, slavery all over the world became uneconomical, with the result being manumission -- the willingness of slave owners to allow their slaves to purchase their freedom -- and other forms of peaceful emancipation.

Dozens of countries, including, the possessions of the British, French and Spanish empires, ended slavery peacefully during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Only in the United States was warfare associated with emancipation.

The Real Lincoln
Thomas J. DiLorenzo


apologies for any typos I made when quoting.

[C-dub]

Wasn't the first major slave "uprising" when Moses lead the Isrealites out of Egypt?

[couzin]

Spike Lee was one of the producers - Kevin Willmott directed. Actually, a very funny movie - sorta what you would have got if co-directed by Mel Brooks and John Waters...

[wheelgun1958]

Spike Lee was one of the producers - Kevin Willmott directed. Actually, a very funny movie - sorta what you would have got if co-directed by Mel Brooks and John Waters...

Mel Brooks directing the "commercials."

[Douva]

So as not to hijack the Machete thread, who has seen the Spike Lee film C.S.A.?

I caught the first half of it on premium cable late one night and had to go to bed before it was finished. I've been dying to see the rest of it ever since. The part I saw was both entertaining and thought-provoking. I particularly enjoyed the filmed interview with an 80-something-year-old Abraham Lincoln, who had apparently escaped to Canada and lived out the rest of his (long and healthy) life there.