By: Jeremiah Chiappelli, Editor
Now that the easy part of the war on Iraq is over, it got me thinking. A lot of alternative history focuses on what would have happened had the other side won a certain war. Sometimes it takes a lot of cleverness or acts of God to help the underdog win, like Iraq vs. the US or Argentina vs. Britain in the Falklands. Other times both sides are pretty evenly matched and it wouldn't take much to nudge events in the other direction, like World War I. And sometimes the underdogs do win and the story is about what if the dominant power had rallied and won, like the American Revolution or the Vietnam war.
Anything can happen in history when we put our minds to it. But when the Nazi's win World War II or the Soviets defeat the US in the Cold War, it's not a good thing. Usually it's to create an evil empire for the protagonist to struggle against. Or sometimes alternate history favors underdogs, like the Native Americans vs. the US or the Jews manage to prevent the Holocaust. The thing I find interesting is that certain regimes are endowed as either good or bad. Except for one- the Confederacy of the American Civil War.
What I can't understand is how it could be considered good. It has a lot of features in common with the 'evil' regimes of history. Right off the bat, it had slavery. Even in the 1860's that was a dead institution. The Soviets, Nazi's, and Imperial Japanese all had slaves. And just like those evil empires, Southern slavery was also based on racism. Replace black with Jew, Chinese, or enemy of the state and you'll see what I mean.
Southern culture was repressive. Living in fear of a slave rebellion, the created a police state and sought to stop freedom of expression. Ideas like freedom, equality, and liberty were stifled. Even the religions that swept the South focused on blind obedience and anti-intellectualism. In a way, it was quite clever. The poor whites who should have naturally been trying to change this culture were instead brought into it. They were fed lies and told not to question them.
It was a pyramid society with a few white plantation owners at the top and everyone else underneath. Very much like Communist societies with Party members at the top and everyone else. I mean, even the Nazi's tried to help the average Aryan.
Those who find the good in the South usually brush over all the bad things and cite how noble their struggle against centralized government was. Except that argument is based on a lie. The same Southern congressional leaders who broke away to escape the tyranny of the North were the same leaders that refused to let New England secede in order to escape the tyranny of the South.
And what really gets my panties all bunched up is super-patriots in America today who call people who criticize the government traitors and then rally to the Confederate flag, a flag that belongs to traitors. Rather than try and paint a confederacy free from flaws, we should recognize them as one of the original evil empires.
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