Whistling Dixie

As we move further into the sesquicentennial anniversary year of the American Civil War, there are quite a few interesting things to consider. The New York Times has been running their Disunion series for a number of weeks now and it is truly fascinating. Even USA TODAY, which I tend not to read unless stuck in an airport, weighed in with a very good look at the subject. The Secession Ball was a not-to-miss event if you happened to be Charleston, SC. Maybe in four more years, they'll burn down the city again!

On a more scholarly note, I happen to be reading a book right now titled How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War by Dominic Tierney. Haven't finished it yet, but did get through the chapter that is relevant to this post. Tierney picks the Civil War as his starting point, and does an excellent job of analyzing the glaring difference between how the war was fought, and the way in which the peace was lost. Meaning that the Union was infused with a powerful crusading spirit so long as the fighting was continuing, but the people of the North did not have the will or the patience to see the project through to the end.

The Reconstruction period that followed the end of hostilities is barely remembered today. If it is remembered, the perception is of a failed experiment marked by "scalawags", "carpetbaggers", and rampant corruption. While elements of all these things did exist, that is not quite the entire story. Dominic Tierney offers a novel treatment of the Reconstruction era. Tierney presents it as America's first attempt at what we today call "nation-building". And that is an excellent way to describe Reconstruction.

In April of 1865, the South lay largely in ruins. The region's entire social structure had been completely upended. It's economy and physical infrastructure was wrecked. Never was there a more opportune time for the victors to go about reordering the system, and rebuilding the South in their own image. Unfortunately, Abraham Lincoln was murdered and his vice-president Andrew Johnson was not the man to impose such a peace. When Grant took office, progress was finally being made, but precious time had been lost.

What followed was a sad litany of Southern white resistance, puncuated by acts of extreme terrorism, aimed at returning blacks to their former status. The people of the North eventually tired of the whole dismal enterprise and the last federal troops were removed from the region in 1877. Blacks ended up waiting another century to finally receive the whole range of rights guaranteed them by the Constitution.

Dominic Tierney poses a very provocative question towards the end of the chapter. He asks how much worse could the Reconstruction government have been then the one that led the region into a catastrophic war in 1861?

Lunatic Fringe

When the process of governing is incomprehensible, manipulation and propaganda thrives. The strange stories that Glenn Beck creates with his chalkboard gain traction with Americans, who are made anxious by the large changes that have overtaken the United States, including the election of a black president and the increasing racial diversity of the population, deindustrialisation and the decline of American power abroad, as well as cultural changes in sexual and family norms.

By telling simple fairy tales that trace these big and complex changes to the machinations of particular people, Beck makes the changes comprehensible in a way, and also makes the people who are presumably responsible the targets of his listeners' frustration and outrage. Partly because it is utterly irrational, and partly because it is an effort to bully and intimidate his political opponents, this is dangerous for democratic politics.

The above paragraphs were written by Francis Fox Piven, an elderly academic who has become the latest target of Glenn Beck's increasingly unhinged rhetoric. Despite being subjected to numerous death threats, as a result of the spotlight Beck is putting her in, Piven has managed to maintain her composure, while providing the most lucid explanation of Beck's appeal that I have yet heard. Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of 20th century history should quickly recognize Beck's "history lessons" for what they are. Glenn Beck starts with an already formulated version of history complete with stock villains. He then proceeds to distort the historical record until it fits his warped version of events.

Another person who makes sense of otherwise seemingly inexplicable political and cultural phenomenon is Chris Hedges, a columnist and foreign correspondent. Hedges most recent book is titled Death of the Liberal Class, and I am about halfway through it at the moment. A discussion about the book by the author is available on youtube, and is definitely worth a watch. Interestingly enough, Hedges works within the same time period in American history as does Beck, but without the chalkboard, tweed jacket, pipe, or insane theories.

Since I can embed the video within my blog post, I think I'm going to do just that: