Book review, "This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy," Harvard Univ. Press

This is a link to a book review of "This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy," at Jacobin magazine.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/11/slavery-civil-war-republicans-confederacy-abolition-lincoln/

Matt Karp is an assistant professor at Princeton University.

The book basically shows that slaveholders dominated American government before the Civil War and that slavery wasn't dying out globally and bound labor of different types in a racial hierarchy was seen by slave holders as having great prospects.

This book demolishes the idea that slavery was historically on the way out.

The title of the magazine, Jacobin, will be noticed by neo-Confederates. Neo-Confederates and their antecedents have always expressed a horror of the French Revolution and Jacobins.

To forestall red-baiting I am not a socialist. I look for good material where I find it.

What free enterprise economic theories I had in my youth I have left behind. The one theory I think I have really believed in was that automation in one area would not result in overall unemployment, but the release of people for new types of work in new industries or occupations. The steam shovel was my example.

I used to believe if a machine could do it, a person shouldn't.

However, technology has gone a lot further than I ever imagine, and technology  is moving faster than ever now then in the past. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is moving along. Self-driving cars are here or close to being here. Self-driving trucks can't be long behind, trucks which don't need sleep and can drive 24/7.

So there may not be enough jobs in the future. Sure there might be job openings for experts in femptosecond lasers or something like that. For the great majority, however, there might not be many job prospects.  (fempto is a millionth of a billionth of a second.)

Even for technologists, we are aided by technology to do many things and one individual can do more and more.

Ominously I have read the phrase "surplus humans" in an article last week. I can't think anything good will come of this. The author was arguing for more leisure time or just paying people not to work. I think though, in the scheme of things, if you have no opportunity for work, your worth in a political system might be very low. You could end up in a dangerous situation as a "surplus" person. The term "surplus humans" is sinister.

I think we are rushing into a future where it can be question whether any current or past economic idea has the answers. In short I am an economic agnostic.

New book, "Pernicious: The Neo-Confederate Campaign Against Social Justice in America"

Click on the image to see it all. 

I am still doing the assembly so it will be a few days before it is available. 

Now there is both a Kindle edition and a paperback version at www.amazon.com. 

Then I start on the Texas secession book. 

Louisiana State University Press has page up about the book "Loathing Lincoln" by John Barr.

Louisiana State University Press has page up about the book "Loathing Lincoln" by John Barr. The link is here:

http://lsupress.org/books/detail/loathing-lincoln/

New book out on Anti-Lincoln writers, "Loathing Lincoln," available for pre-order at www.amazon.com

Click on the photo to see it all. 

The above is the front side of a T-shirt sold by Southern Partisan magazine.Click on photo to see it all.

John Barr's book, "Loathing Lincoln: An American Tradition from the Civil War to the Present," is now available for pre-order at Amazon. The link to pre-order the book is:

http://www.amazon.com/Loathing-Lincoln-Tradition-Conflicting-Dimensions/dp/0807153834/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385932739&sr=8-1&keywords=John+mckee+barr

Louisiana State University Press is releasing the book April 7, 2014. The book is based on his prize winning dissertation.

The book covers anti-Lincoln writers from after the Civil War to the present. I helped John Barr with the research for the book. He visited my library at my house where I shared with him the articles form Southern Partisan and Chronicles magazines attacking Lincoln, and my neo-Confederate anti-Lincoln materials, books, and artifacts.

I also read the early drafts and later drafts of the book and gave inputs for each chapter. I must have spent dozens of hours reading the drafts and giving written and oral feedback. I have also informed Barr of every new anti-Lincoln book and kept him up-to-date on the anti-Lincoln literature. John Barr now has a shelf of anti-Lincoln books to show the media.

Over the decades I had indexed and noted the various neo-Confederate attacks on Lincoln, but largely collected information knowing that someday I would be able to give it to someone to put it to use. I don't have enough knowledge of the life of Lincoln or the Civil War or 19th century history to give the material an adequate treatment.

John Barr has the historical back ground to treat adequately these materials.

What I think is going to be interesting is when the public realizes that there is this modern movement that hates Lincoln.  Lincoln is the personification of the modern democratic egalitarian America. This is why he is hated so much by neo-Confederates who dream of a hierarchical society. The attacks on Lincoln are attacks on modern democratic egalitarian America.

Some so-called "heritage" groups are going to seem much more ominous to the American public as the public realizes how hostile neo-Confederates are to Lincoln, that it isn't a few cranks, but a movement, and further realize that this movement is hostile to modern democratic egalitarian America. Also, it will be realized that indulging the Lost Cause view of the Civil War has consequences.

It is very gratifying to see that over 20 years of my labors gathering materials about the anti-Lincoln hatred of the neo-Confederate movement will have aided the production of a book letting the public know about the anti-Lincoln neo-Confederate movement.

The following is the backside of the T-shirt shirt shown above. This T-shirt was worn by the Oklahoma bomber. Click on photo to see it all.