Category Archives: World Hellhole Report

Racist Trees

It is frustrating how some people need a mountain of evidence to say “well, the jury’s still out on that issue.” Racism persists because it serves a purpose to provide a framework that justifies the material benefits of those who perpetuate the system. Even trivial aspects of that racist framework, like statues of Confederate politicians and generals, provoke violent reactions when they are targeted for removal, because those who benefit from racist frameworks know that such removals will eventually force them to repent, humble themselves, and ask for forgiveness.

Getting to about an hour into the film (link below), although it depicted the arson that targeted Black homes in Palm Springs, I couldn’t help but think of the bombings in Dallas happening at the same time that targeted Black families that had moved into White neighborhoods.

I always taught my history students to select the multiple choice answer that painted the worst possible situation for Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians, Women, LGBTQIA+, and any of the other numerous divisions used by people in power to perpetuate their power. My students always did well on the state-mandated History exit exams.

Responsibility of Voters

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 that was passed in order to prevent legal and administrative maneuvers that deprived people of their votes is all but dead. There is a case going before the Supreme Court that will determine if private organizations or individuals can challenge voting restrictions. The Republican-appointed judges in lower federal courts ruled that, no, citizens and groups cannot challenge voting laws. If the Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court concur with the lower court, it will mean that the Republican Party will be responsible for both laws and jurisprudence that have returned the United States to the era of legal segregation. And although I have many friends who support the Republican Party who insist that they do not have an intent to support white supremacist agenda items, that is exactly what the Republican Party is doing.

When I was a young man in Boy Scouts, I earned the Rifle & Shotgun merit badge. I learned a lesson that I took deeply to heart – I am responsible for every round I fire. If I fire a round that causes harm or loss, I am responsible for that harm or loss, even if I did not want it to happen. Discharging a firearm involved care and safety to avoid causing unintended harm or loss.

It is the same with votes. True, we are never voting for angelic beings, but at the same time, we can limit the deviltry our votes unleash upon the nation with care and thoughtfulness. As it stands, I see the terrible impact of disenfranchisement upon the people it is so unjustly visited upon. Votes that supported the Republican Party are responsible for deeper racial divisions in the United States being codified in both law and judicial precedent. Votes that supported the Republican Party are responsible for advancing a white supremacist political agenda.

The Notion of a Black Cleopatra

There’s some strong, negative reaction to the casting of a woman of mixed-race heritage to portray Cleopatra in a Netflix series. There’s some unpacking to do, here, if we want to understand some of the criticisms of that casting choice…

Once upon a time, it was shocking at the very idea about having a woman character portrayed by an actual woman. I think Hugh Grant should be cast as Cleopatra, as he is a great English Man. 😀 But seriously, in Shakespeare’s day, Cleopatra was portrayed by and Englishman.

Taking Shakespeare as an example, I see nothing wrong with casting people of any background in any role, as everything he did was fictional. Therefore, let it be known that plays like Henry V are about the acting and the story and not the historical accuracy. When Shakespeare’s characters actually do have a particular racial or ethnic background of a group that has been historically persecuted, such as the Jews in A Merchant of Venice and Othello the Moor in Othello, that’s where things get touchy these days. The Shylock character in A Merchant of Venice used to be played as a straight-up villain until around the 19th Century. In the film adaptation of that play, Al Pacino played the role of Shylock – I think that’s fine, as part of acting is becoming someone who you are not and to interpret the role, rather than show up as a reasonable facsimile of a character and say a few words before stepping offstage.

That gets to the role of Othello and the shifting meaning of “black” as a skin tone. In Shakespeare’s day, the Irish, Welsh, and Scots could be called “black” not because of their dark skin tones, but because they happened to not have red hair or other very fair-complected attributes. Indians, Arabs, North Africans, all got lumped together as “blacks” even before we get to Sub-Saharan Africa. But modern sensibilities have settled on on Othello being much darker in skin tone and the role is typically given to a person of African dissent… except when Sir Laurence Olivier took on the role… and in 1997, when Patrick Stewart took the role in a “photonegative” production of the play, with all other roles going to persons of African descent. In the Hindi film Omkara, the Othello character is played by Ajay Devgan, who has a very dark complexion.

So that gets to presentations that attempt to document things as we think they were. Thing is, we do not know who made up Cleopatra’s matrilineal line. We have strong suspicions on who was Cleopatra’s mother, and that she was close kin to Cleopatra’s father. So that makes her highly likely to be Macedonian in background. If I was going to cast a historical re-enactment, accuracy would point towards a lighter skin tone for Cleopatra. But if there are fictional elements involved, then there’s no restriction. Cast She-Hulk in the role, for all I care. That’s the Netflix series. It’s fictionalized, so I don’t think casting choices matter. Jada Pinkett-Smith is in charge of the project, so she’s going to cast people she thinks are best for the role who she’s sympathetic to, which I do see as an improvement on the Harvey Weinstein model…

… and since Ms. Pinkett-Smith is Executive Producer, she’s got final say on who gets what part, as has any EP before her. She got the funding together, so she’s in charge.

Then there’s the matter of what exactly “woke” means. It emerged as a term in the 1930s among African-Americans to refer to being aware of systemic racism in US society, even where Segregationist laws were not formally in place to enforce a systemic racism. New Deal economic programs required Southern backing to pass through Congress, so they had strict racially-biased clauses in them that instituted nationwide racial discrimination in those federal programs. The Armed Forces were racially segregated. The G.I. Bill, passed to assist veterans of WW2 with access to housing, education, and job training, was for whites only. Beyond that, redlining of neighborhoods existed – Blacks were not allowed to move into certain neighborhoods because banks would refuse to lend and insurers would refuse to insure the homes the Blacks wanted to purchase. Being “woke” meant being aware of those systems, which persisted over many decades.

An important part of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA was extending that awareness to persons outside the Black population. As whites became aware and developed political sympathy with Blacks to oppose Segregation, discrimination in federal programs, and unofficial practices such as redlining, interesting linguistic developments appeared in the USA.

Segregation became a dirty word of sorts. So much so that persons in favor of it would publicly state that they were against it, but that the Civil Rights Movement was asking for too much or it was pushing too fast for changes or some other line that advocated keeping things largely as they were with some token concessions that did not undermine the full framework of Segregationist legalism and tradition. James Baldwin explored that in his essay, “Faulkner and Desegregation” where he points out that William Faulkner’s description of fewer blacks lynched in Mississippi in recent years as “progress” is hardly comforting to the community that is the target of the lynchings, and that a gradualist approach there is illogical. Nevertheless, the word segregation was on the way out and discussions of violent crime, demographic changes, bad neighborhoods, and voter fraud became covers for proposing pro-Segregationist laws and policies. The concerns, in general terms, are concerns to one and all. But the laws and policies put forward to deal with the issues routinely tended towards disproportionately impacting Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans – basically any non-White population.

Over time, pro-Segregationist discussions began to include assumptions of equality of power and then argue against Affirmative Action and Black History Month from that false assumption. The fact was that the ending of restrictions, when it happened, did nothing to restore the lost opportunities of home ownership, business development, or educational opportunities. Simply ending restrictions and doing nothing to work with the legacy of centuries of discrimination essentially leaves the existing power inequality where it is, and provides Segregationists the political power to gradually restore their policies and practices that ensure Whites benefit economically and politically and socially from non-Whites being kept in an inferior position. The real answer to the question “Why is there no preferential hiring for Whites?” is that there already is such a system in place, very well embedded despite its informal nature. “Why is there no White History Month?” That’s how History used to be written, from a Eurocentric bias that made all 12 months White History Month or, more exactly, White Anglo-American History Month. Things such as Black History Month are part of the program to extend awareness of the Black experience and to develop sympathy for all Americans. In such, it is a threat to Segregationism and is attacked by them.

That’s not to say that such things are misinterpreted or misapplied by those favorable to them. Too many people see assimilation as a solution to racial problems. But, when the ideal is assumed to be the White culture and lifestyle, the inherent racism in assimilation is seen, granted that it is much softer in application than die-hard Segregationism. Too many people see making token gestures of sympathy or public statements as sufficient, but all that they’ve done is to build up their own brand without truly having a desire to make the world outside their house a better place. I’ve seen firsthand how White suburbanites have demanded better quality schools for Black neighborhoods shift in their language and support when it was revealed to them that their own children benefited from the unequal and illegal ways the school administration shifted funds around. Sadly, I have seen how people like that can become shrill in their posturing as they remain sympathetic to the current system in their private lives.

But in recent years in the USA, people with Segregationist sympathies have become more open about them. This is where the word “woke” takes another turn, in that it is now used by those who favor Segregationism to ironically attack those who are working to end it, once and for all. It joins “carpetbagger” and “scalawag” as terms pro-Segregationists have used to attack their opponents, by creating a term that makes them an “other”, a less-than-full-human that they can feel justified in defending the status quo against. In my view, there is no “woke culture” outside of those who are aware of existing power inequalities and who wish for them to be addressed so that all persons in a society can live peacefully and have reasonable expectations that they won’t be discriminated against negatively because of a personal attribute. Both my wife and son have faced job discrimination because their names, when you Google on them, produce overwhelmingly Black people with the same name. My daughters and myself don’t have that happen. The outcome is that, more often that not, me and my daughters get call-backs on jobs we apply for with resumes and my wife and son do not. Their names pass for Black and that has impacted their employment options in a negative way. They’re anecdotal examples of a measured phenomenon about discriminatory biases in hiring practices – and how automated systems have also automated those biases.

Back to this show, it’s the executive producer’s call about casting. As for the facts, I’ve seen people attacking “woke culture” themselves move to suppress discussion about the facts surrounding slavery and Segregation – facts with far more impact on the lives of people today than the racial identity of a person portraying a queen from 2000 years ago. Project 1619 is constantly attacked, but why? It’s because it brings up actual facts that undermine the legitimacy of a pro-Segregationist status quo that benefits a White elite at the expense of non-Whites.

As for the Egyptians up in arms about the casting choice, I’ll say this: there’s a different history of racial discrimination in play, there. I’m sticking to the American criticisms, which I am much more familiar with.

The Postwar Period in Alma

The major conflict between the Nephites and the Lamanites led by Nephite dissenters – an opportunistic foreign intervention into an ongoing Nephite civil war, one could say – ended in the 31st year of the judges, as noted in Alma 62:39. “And thus they had had wars, and bloodsheds, and famine, and affliction, for the space of many years. And there had been murders, and contentions, and dissensions, and all manner of iniquity among the people of Nephi.” While Mormon is quick to cite the righteous prayers and deeds immediately after that summary, he is equally quick to note that many Nephites and Lamanites had become hardened because of the length and intensity of the conflict.

Looking back at the summary I quoted, the narrative already explained the wars and bloodsheds to some extent. The famine had been mentioned in passing, but no details on how many people were impacted and when and how deep it went. Given that Mormon stated that he did not want to dwell on such things, it may well have been a significant, extended famine, and the suffering from it likely impacting the faith of the survivors. The next sentence mentions murders and contentions, which one could attribute solely to the Lamanite armies until one considers how, in times of war, the disruption in normal law and order opens up opportunities for people to commit murders and other crimes out of a desire to settle an old grudge. The Nephite polity had many cities that did not always respect each others’ borders: what happens when an overarching authority that prevents such tribal disputes is removed? Murders and contentions are what happens, and they can continue well after the resumption of civil authority, until such a time as the civil authority is able to exert itself to end the ongoing violence.

Then there is the word “dissensions.” In today’s term, we would call such people “collaborators.” Both people who were willing to switch sides as well as those forced into serving the conquerors could be seen as collaborators, and as such, would be hated by the survivors once the conquerors departed. Add in the element of famine, and there opens up a possible reference to “all manner of iniquity” – women either volunteering or being forced by their families into prostitution in exchange for food. During and following the Allied liberation of Axis-conquered territories in World War Two, there was famine and there were many women who were willing to exchange sex for food – such an arrangement is not novel to that conflict, but is as old as armies themselves.

Given the generally secondary position women have had historically, it becomes very easy to demonize and dehumanize women who slept with the enemy. They become the scapegoats that the nation can heap its emasculated shame upon and, in their punishment, forget the less obvious collaborations done by the men. And while the text is not explicit in mentioning such things, I believe it would be fair to assume that, as in other conflicts, such things did happen and that the Nephites found them to be damnable, justified in that damning or not.

The war itself saw a second wave of Nephite civil violence, with its perpetrators forced to take oaths to support the Nephite state or be killed. I’d imagine that the families of the slain along with those who were forced into supporting the rule of the judges would be in the number of those who had become hardened. Conversions made as an alternative to being put to death are not long-lasting.

Also among the hardened would be any Nephites who saw the brutality of the occupation through murdered relatives, mass graves, rapes, forced servitude, and unjust imprisonments and determined that God wasn’t there because of the sufferings endured. They were targeted in part because of their faith: so why didn’t their faith save everyone? Why didn’t it at least save a bigger fraction than it did? Why did the Sons of Helaman get chosen to survive all battles without loss of life and not the rest of the Nephite armies? There are deep philosophical and spiritual discussions to go with such questions, but the askers could also be asking rhetorically because they’ve already concluded from their doubts that God isn’t listening, doesn’t care, or doesn’t exist. And if they’re done with God, they’re likely to be done being a people who are targeted because they are lumped in with those who still believe as they once did.

I’ve cataloged a few groups of people who would be uncomfortable under a resumed rule of the judges, as it begins to be re-established in the 31st year. There are likely more nuances to the historical situation, which would produce additional groups of dissatisfied people. I’m sure the numbers grew when Moroni refortified the land after the conflict ended – people who expected the depredations of war to be over would not be happy about the mandatory labor duty in preparing for the next war.

On the ecclesiastical side, the religious leader Helaman undertakes an effort to repair the damage of war done to the faith communities of his fellow-believers. This would be no easy thing, to rebuild churches – including those that may have been used as scenes of atrocities by the invaders. In any war, but especially one targeting a religious group, there are always stories of people being forced into a house of worship which is then set on fire or collapsed. Like Mormon, I will not dwell on them here, but I will mention them as a matter for the religious leaders to consider. Does one rebuild such a building, or does one instead create a memorial? Or does one wipe the evidence out, so that future generations will not be troubled by the history? These are not easy questions.

In 62:47, the text notes that laws were made and judges were chosen. Seeing as how the judges were initially elected and then handed down their judgeship father to son, the only reason to choose new judges would be because something happened to the previous judges. Either they were killed by the attackers, they fled and failed to submit to their duties, or they voluntarily collaborated with the attackers and became tainted in the eyes of the rest of the government. But even if they fled or collaborated, they still knew the law and still likely came from aristocratic families, so they would have some claim on returning to their positions. The worst would be punished, the rest forgiven.

That kind of forgiveness would be part of an overall fatigue regarding the war. The people want it all to just end. After World War Two, such men of position were easily integrated into the postwar governments and a myth of national unity during the war developed to cloak their collaborations and crimes. Ironically, those who resisted the invaders found themselves more likely to be arrested and imprisoned after the war than those who collaborated – could that be something also happening among the Nephites?

Considering that there had been many murders and bloodsheds, consider the case of a group of Nephites that heads to the wilderness, rather than remain in a city under Lamanite rule. Such a group would survive not on sedentary farming, but on mobile banditry. They would have to learn, early on, that they cannot afford the luxury of prisoners and were compelled to strike at collaborationists and their families to destabilize the occupying authority enough to permit their survival in the bush. They justify their acts in the name of resistance and carry on with them. When the war ends, how can they be properly reintegrated into urban society? How do the victims of their attacks feel about that? What if an absent/collaborationist judge is restored to authority, do the bandits/freedom fighters decide that the war isn’t over until they’ve killed off the collaborators that the government is too ineffectual to punish on its own? And now we have another group of potential dissenters in a postwar world.

The rest of Alma 62 speaks to the urge to see everyone coming together after the conflict. Mormon speaks at length of the Nephites collectively as a more righteous people and perhaps that did happen. But I don’t think that it was universal, especially with details that come out in the last chapter of Alma, Alma 63.

Alma 63 starts in the 36th year of the judges, so the Nephites have been rebuilding and recovering for five years. The shock of the conflict would largely have worn off and people are likely beginning to think about building new instead of repairing past damage.

In Alma 63:4, Mormon describes “a large company of men… with their wives and their children” that leaves the Nephite lands and heads northward in the 37th year. They do not go South, to the Lamanites, but head out in a third way. While they do not see a future among the Lamanites as did earlier groups of Nephite dissenters, they also do not see a future with the Nephites. The number of men cited, 5400, is a fairly large group, not just a single family structure. For them to depart with their families, maybe a group of 20,000 people or so, notes that this movement is not a whimsical thing, but the result of some determined planning.

Such a move would not likely be because of a lack of available land. If anything, the depopulation of the war would open up more land and place an overall higher value on human labor. So, unless the land existed under some kind of feudal structure that kept large parts off-hands to the general peasantry, there is a different reason for their departure. Because Mormon is quick to point out economic disparities as wickedness and is not doing so here, that is another indication that this migration is not likely due to economic pressures.

So who goes north in this group, 6 years after the war ends? Are they people who simply want nothing more to do with a land and a faith that did not live up to their expectation? Are they former resisters or collaborators or king-men who can’t stand living in a land that has become something they now find foreign to them? Are they families whose women were raped and they no longer want to face a society that constantly shames them collectively?

As I ask those questions, we have room for all those possibilities as Mormon describes other migrations northward by sea routes. All through the 37th year, “there were many of the Nephites who… took their course northward.” The movements continued in the 38th year, with mentions of ships not returning and people who took provisions northward not returning indicating that the Nephites have lost contact with those migrants. While it’s possible disasters befell a number of migrant groups, overall it speaks to the idea of a people unable to abide postwar Nephite society, for whatever reasons. With a group of Nephites going over to the Lamanites in the 39th year and inciting a war against a single city, the postwar period is looking increasingly troubled.

While there were many Nephites who came together and rebuilt their lands and cities with a positive, forward-looking attitude, the migrations and outright dissension mentioned in Alma 63 point to a more complicated picture, one in which the Nephites are left questioning the system that they have and making choices to opt out of that system and to try their chances elsewhere. Given the length and severity of the conflict described in Alma, it’s quite likely that the war with the Lamanites opened up a wide range of potential inner conflicts between Nephite factions and allowed them to be expressed violently. The end of the war with the Lamanites did *not* end the Nephite inner conflicts. Those inner conflicts are the likely drivers behind the migrations and dissensions and come to a greater crisis point in the book of Helaman.

War in the Book of Alma

The discussion of the war in the Book of Alma towards its end covers several periods. The first is a Lamanite attack on the Nephites that is readily repulsed by the Nephites and the Lamanites do not follow up with additional action. The second is when Amalickiah stirs up the Lamanites to attack the Nephites: the Nephites remain in their strength and again, they repel the attack and enjoy several years of peace following that attack. The third is a second offensive led by Amalickiah that leads to a protracted conflict covering a roughly six-year period from the 25th year of the judges to the 31st.

Amalickiah is killed off quickly at the start of the conflict, but his brother Ammoron continues the war. In the war, the Lamanites gain a number of Nephite cities and territories early on and hold them for nearly the duration of the conflict. The Nephites liberate a few at a time, but do not regain all their lands until the last year of the war. On a military map with arrows and armies moving about, one can follow the Nephite campaigns as outlined in the narrative. But I wish to look at the civilian experience in those years of war and attempt to surmise what may have been going on that was mentioned in passing or left unsaid, but hinted at.

First, the experience of the Nephites conquered by the Lamanites: who suffered? Who collaborated? Who joined enthusiastically? The Nephite polity itself had recently fractured, with the Zoramites dissenting and joining with the Lamanites, constructing a revisited history in the process to cast themselves as descendants of a victim and, thus, made victims themselves. What of the Mulekites, who were glossed over soon after encountering them in the narrative? Not being descendants of Lehi’s group, they have a secondary position in Nephite society, which would lead to tension. Moreover, the Mulekites themselves included descendants of Jewish nobility. I surmise that the agitation among the Nephites to have a king would come from that quarter and/or other descendants of Nephi’s line. The point of this would be that these pro-king groups were ideologically allied with Amalickiah’s cause and would step forward to administer the cities taken by the Lamanites.

How can we assume that the cities held by the Lamanites were being run by dissenters? Because there’s no mention of a revolt in any of those cities. With other details of valiant efforts being included in the narrative, the silence about resistance indicates a likelihood of pro-king collaborationist governments. Joining with them would be people who surmised that resistance would be futile and would result in needless bloodshed. Carrying out the Lamanite will saved lives in their view, so they would cooperate with those in charge over them.

Famine is mentioned more than once in describing the years towards the end of the war, so it’s likely that disease came along with the famine. Such is natural in any war. The people of the conquered cities would likely be pressed most for supplying the armies in their midst, so famine would hit them particularly hard. Those outside of government would probably face seizure of their crops and those doing the governing would have slightly more to eat each day than the people they took from.

At the end of the war, the Lamanite armies are in general retreat. In their retreat, they send back to their lands “many women and children” – permanent captives, to serve as slaves or sacrifices. This would add to the depopulation of the region. Losses due to famine and disease were then compounded by forced population transfer. Top collaborators would likely also withdraw with the Lamanites, as they knew what would await them in the hands of the Nephites.

Were any people left behind in the cities the Lamanites drove captives out of? That is an interesting consideration. One could assume that those too old to move would be left behind. The question then would be if the Lamanites would leave them alive or kill them off on their way out. Knowing from Mormon’s comments later in his narrative that he did not want to dwell on gore could be a reason as to why the full impact of the Lamanite occupation is not described in much detail. Mormon is writing about people who stood as heroes in his view – he is writing to encourage his readers to persevere through hardships, not to describe a hellscape of war. Moroni gives us a peek into the hellscape, but just a peek. So while we don’t know the full impact of the war on the conquered population, enough is said of the Lamanite ferocity and cruelty to assume the worst.

Within the Nephite lands, the years of war absolutely take their toll. Towards the end, the loss of population that can work a harvest is evident in the growing famine in the land. Disease, of course, goes along with the malnutrition. Now, a question arises about how the food is collected and distributed among the Nephites during this time of protracted, constant war.

In other actions, the wars happened in short spaces of time, leaving the soldiers a chance to return to their lands for harvesting. In this war, that is not possible. A reduced population is working the home front, and the harvest necessarily suffers. From that limited harvest, a substantial amount has to be stripped away to service the soldiers at the front. What might be a noble sacrifice in earlier years of war likely becomes a seemingly never-ending burden in the later years. Again, famine is mentioned – a crop failure in a critical time such as this could leave entire regions depopulated through starvation.

And if the meagre food available is itself reduced to supply the soldiers? That is a breaking point for the humanity in this tale. With their entire population effectively under siege, a faction arises to overthrow the judges and to declare a kingship. That kingship then seeks to ally with the Lamanites in order to bring the war to an end. Those who are kings and aristocrats among the Nephites would enjoy a position of privilege among the Nephites in that they themselves would not necessarily have to pay the tribute to the Lamanites of their own wealth, but would exact that tribute from the people over which they ruled.

I can see the appeal of a tributary peace to a people wracked with a free hunger. The victims of the famine are not dying proudly on their feet instead of living on their knees: they’re dying of malnutrition, collapsed in the dust. Those not dying are facing reduced health as a result of improper nutrition, with life-long consequences. Faced with a choice of grim life as an alternative to a grimmer death, people at the end of their patience will choose food – and life. After all, what is the difference between paying tribute to the Lamanites or paying tribute to the Nephite armies except in the amount being diverted?

The answer there is that there are spiritual implications beyond just the matter of worldly survival. But that answer means nothing to those among the Nephites who themselves are not very religious. People could have lost their faith or never had it to begin with, except as an external, communal-social expression. They could have chosen to redefine their faith, so as not to be in conflict with what they see as the eventual victor, the Lamanite polity. For the faithless, there is no benefit in prolonging the conflict. Any way to end it is preferable to them, and the proposed tributary arrangement leaves the leaders in a rather nice position, overall.

While the kingship group does take power in the capitol, the outlying provinces remain true to the cause of the Nephite armies. They suffer, but they do not lose faith. This could be because, as rural rather than urban people, they have more access to foodstuffs in times of famine. The urban civilian population, after the demands of the farmers and the soldiers, comes last in the distribution of food. That could explain why the revolt described in the later years of the war is an urban activity, not a rural one. From the strength in the rural areas and with reinforcements from the front, the Nephites restore their judges and put to death any of those who supported the kingship who are not willing to serve the state.

That area is an uncomfortable one to read about. To the casual reader, it would seem that bad guys got what they had coming from good guys, nothing more. But in reading about the aftermath of the Second World War, we read of how vigorous purges of collaborators tended to spill over to include personal conflicts, oppression of minority populations, and death for those who may not have been involved in the collaboration, but who others denounced as merely being in sympathy with the collaborators, regardless of there being any proof of the matter.

As such, given the urgency of the moment and the desperation of the Nephite polity, I can’t assume that the justice meted out was anything other than a rough and brutal one, that likely took in a number of people innocent of any actual crime. The narrative reads, “whosoever would not take up arms in the defence of their country, but would fight against it, were put to death.” This does not necessarily mean that the accused were given a choice. In the next passage, we read, “And this it became expedient that this law should be strictly observed for the safety of their country; yea, and whosoever was found denying their freedom was speedily executed according to the law.” And in the passage after is the comment that the loyal Nephites “… inflicted death upon all those who were not true to the cause of freedom.”

How far-reaching were those executions? How brutal were the executions themselves? How many were carried out by people looking to settle old scores, unrelated to the recent revolt? We simply don’t know. But, given how other episodes of wartime mass reprisals went, one can reasonably assume that some percentage of the reprisals went too far.

Readers of the Book of Mormon have to resist the urge to put a halo around every major Nephite character. These are all men with flaws, with some of those flaws being illustrated more vividly than others. By extension, we the readers cannot assume that “Nephite” automatically equates to a righteous, stalwart superman. Even the narrative constantly points out, over and over, that the Nephites always have a substantial number of wicked people in their midst, and that those wicked are easily a majority of the population most of the time. If wicked men subvert a righteous cause for their own purposes, that is on them.

Ultimately, in and around Mormon’s retelling of a hero cycle involving Captain Moroni, Teancum, Helaman, Pahoran, and the Sons of Helaman, we have marginal details that hint at true horrors. Those details are there to remind us that Mormon’s heroes are not one-dimensional avatars. They are men with flaws and failings who nevertheless strive to do good as they understand it. They strive to avoid shedding blood and they strive to keep their rage in check – and there are a few episodes where we see Captain Moroni fall victim to his demons, along with Teancum’s mental exhaustion leading to his demise. The story is not that “anyone can do it” but that “everyone *must* do it” in order to survive spiritually. The violence, starvation, disease, mayhem, and misery are all real in this history even if they are not dwelt upon.

The Nephite polity comes very close to utter destruction in this narrative, and that destruction’s chief cause was from the dissension among the Nephites themselves, not from the external, Lamanite threat. Left on their own, the Lamanites seem to have settled into a state of arm’s-length coexistence with the Nephites. The major attacks upon the Nephites described in Alma are all a result of Nephite dissenters going over to the Lamanites to stir them up against the Nephites. The Lamanites themselves are not an ultimate evil the Nephites have to face in a fight for their survival. The ultimate evil the Nephites must face is within: the factions and social forces that drive towards inequality and social stratification are the greatest threat and eventual undoing of the Nephite polity.

What Are the Requirements?

As I read about collaborationists and resistance members of World War 2, and how the Allies relied more on fascist collaborationists than antifascist resistance members in forming postwar governments, I have to ask if entry into Heaven is justified as long as one isn’t as evil as the worst of humanity or if the requirements are much more stringent than we imagine and have much less to do with how other people view us and value us and more with how we view and value humanity in general, in particular those who are different from us. And yes, if those differences include deep and profound evils we still have to ask if we value those lives as much as those who are less evil.

What Bothers Me About History

Not everyone in power or seeking power is doing so out of greed or mania. There are those sincere and oppressed ones who fight for rights, who struggle for justice, who plead for peace. I have no quarrel with their place in the narrative of human civilization, that thing which we call “history.” But, almost exclusively, the history we have preached to us in our schools is written by those who seek to clothe themselves as the oppressed for their own greed and aggrandizement – or by those who simply need a good story to justify their lofty perch and keep the rest of humanity in its place. History then becomes a justification for inequality, injustice, and wars in the hands of that lot.

We become comfortable in our national myths and, in that comfort, fail to question the inequality around us. True history should never reassure us, except when it advances the standards of the nation towards true equality. For the record, true equality has nothing to do with a group or class that is in power or which enjoys social and economic privileges making demands to preserve those powers and privileges. History shows us that, in fact, we are most at risk of inequality, injustice, and war when groups holding powers and privileges cast themselves as victims in their mythology. They cast themselves as victims so that they might justify murder to get gain.

The true history of World War Two has more in common with Catch-22, with all its insanity and brutality than it does with the high school history book. The American Army did not move as a band of green-clad angels across the face of Europe, cleansing it of evil. It moved as any army would, with increasingly frequent incidents of discipline breaches as the war deepened. American bombs fell on babies, American soldiers raped children, American interests excused Nazis from their crimes. As a nation, we have to own that. We have to own that our armies were racially segregated – an extension of the brutality in our home country – and that many of the richest men in America made themselves richer by trading with the enemy regimes.

American politicians refused to disrupt the flow of victims to the Nazi murder camps, claiming that they didn’t want to be accused of making the war all about the Jews. Well, why not make the war for such a purpose, unless one was himself somehow prejudiced against Jews? And those same politicians, as a body, made it all but impossible to truly go after their rich supporters who profited from sending American resources to Nazi Germany, by way of loopholes in neutral nations. As a body, they also stood against the moves to end racial segregation and discrimination for many years before, during, and after that war. Yet, we call them “The Greatest Generation” in a fit of nauseating myth-making.

Don’t misunderstand me – the Germans, Russians, French, Japanese, Chinese, British, Polish, Czech, Romanian, Yugoslavian, Greek, Ukrainian – the list of nations too long to enumerate fully – they have their national crimes to atone for, as well. The truest victims of wars are the civilians. And even in their numbers are those who collaborated with evil, making them into criminals. It’s easier to think of a human as a victim, so we can lazily accept any excuse that comes to us so that we don’t have to comprehend the enormity of our collective wretchedness.

A statement such as “World War Two in Europe ended on VE Day” is ludicrous. The fighting between men wearing uniforms came quickly to an end, it is true, but the violence directed towards prisoners of war and civilian populations did not suddenly abate. Jews who survived an attempt to return to Poland spoke of how it was safer for them in the chaos of Germany than in their former homelands. The Slovak government forcefully and violently ejected hundreds of thousands of Hungarians from their lands, somehow managing to claim victimhood when their nation had joined with the German cause even before the formal war started. Many of the millions of Germans being driven from Eastern Europe cursed the Poles for starting the war, clinging to an idea of victimhood that allowed them to ignore the complicated, gory reality. The Poles themselves were exterminating Ukrainians in their nation – but lest we pity Ukrainians too much, let us remember that during the war, pro-Nazi Ukrainian groups were exterminating Poles.

But, ah! Am I not myself guilty of a historical felony? Did I not just now assign collective guilt to entire nations? Am I not perpetrating lies by my over-generous labels?

Not all American soldiers were rapists or sadists, but the number of incidents that we know about shows that a disturbingly significant percentage of the American soldiery was, in fact, engaged in horrors visited upon non-combatants.

Not all Germans supported Hitler or were antisemitic. But enough were of that description to empower the Nazi regime to execute its horrors.

Not all Poles were bent upon killing or driving out Jews, Ukrainians, and Germans, but enough were to empower their postwar regime to do just that. And so on.

… and so on. Were I to catalog everything, I would exhaust myself before drawing to completion. And that is just from the Second World War, with no consideration for the organized murders before and since.

It is in the national mythos that we find the illusion of justification for inequality, injustice, and war. When we accept the details that deconstruct our myths, we place ourselves on a path towards accepting the changes necessary to bring about true equality, justice, and peace.

Paracelsus, Galen, and COVID-19

There is a long history of popular opposition to public health measures. Given the old-timey Latin-sounding names in the title, you shouldn’t be surprised that I will reach back 350 years to start this story. During the time surrounding the English Civil War, there was a medical debate between the schools of Paracelsus and the older tradition of Galen. Followers of Paracelsus put forward notions that excrement of various types could heal a range of diseases: followers of Galen were much more restricted in their application of excrement. The conservatives who held to Galen found common cause with the conservatives that supported the king, the Royalists while those who wanted to upend the medical establishment found their allies in those who wanted to upend the monarchy, the Parliamentarians.

After the Parliamentarian victory, Paracelsus was required learning for all English doctors and pharmacists. This included the recipe for “Sheep Nanny Tea”, also known as just “Nanny Tea.” The two key ingredients were fresh sheep manure and wine. Nanny Tea was identified as a cure for smallpox. That’s important, remember that. When the monarchy was restored, however, the Galen school of medicine came back to the fore and the Paracelsians were relegated to the country healers who still resisted royal authority over their beliefs.

Let’s remember that the English Civil War included a religious element – the Puritan faction of the Parliamentarians wanted to remove Catholic influences in The Church of England. The Independent faction of the Parliamentarians wanted permission to practice their faith as they saw fit, even outside The Church of England, which put them in conflict with the Puritans. The Puritans also had a radical sect among their numbers, the Fifth Monarchists, who were preparing England for the return of Christ as King on or about the year 1666. All of these groups were in conflict with the established, traditional Church of England that held itself to be the one and only church for all of England. Even though the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 returned the Church of England to authority in religious matters, disgruntled Puritans and Independents still clung to views that the government should not be so intrusive in people’s lives as to dictate a person’s creed or belief.

This resentment of government influence probably strikes a chord with nearly every American, in one way or another. But, running deeper, is the association of what were disparagingly referred to as “folk remedies” with that anti-establishment view of government, with the rural people being at odds with the urban, royalist establishment.

And before anyone jumps up and shouts, “Oh my gosh! That’s so much like what we’re facing in 2021!”, I will say that we’re not yet ready for 2021. We first need to go to around 1900 in the US state of Utah.

I picked Utah because I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and want to better understand how there’s a current split between members of my church along a number of fault lines. Other denominations may also be experiencing similar breaks – maybe the lessons learned from history can help us all. Onward.

In 1900, a smallpox outbreak had occurred in Utah, likely caused by a person who fled a quarantine in Butte, Montana who arrived in Sanpete County. As the smallpox spread, it brought out sharp divisions in Church membership over how best to respond to it.

The smallpox outbreak was not variola major, with a 20-40% fatality rate, but a strain that had emerged in the USA after the Civil War, variola minor, with a 1-2% fatality rate. It was still a rough disease to deal with, but the lower fatality rate had made many people question if quarantine measures that were developed to address the higher-fatality strain were really appropriate for the lower-fatality strain.

Cue concerned debate about the role of government in public health: it should not be surprising that predominantly rural Utahns took up opposition to government involvement and the urban Utahns mostly favored intervention for the sake of public health. It should also not be surprising that the rural groups took government involvement as an affront to their faith and folk remedies and that urban groups took resistance to government involvement as people clinging to unenlightened thinking.

With the Mormon population, there was an added dynamic surrounding declarations of current and former leaders of the Church. The official title of the head of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And even though members are now advised to avoid the short-hand notation of “Mormon” when denoting the church or its members, we sill all engage in a short-hand reference to our leader as “the Prophet.” Just as calling church members “Mormons” causes people to forget or not realize that the faith is centered around Jesus Christ, calling the leader “the Prophet” causes people to forget or not realize that he serves primarily in an administrative capacity and that prophetic revelation is not part of his day-to-day duties.

I say that because whenever there is a split in the Church, it’s up to The President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to work to end the contention and to keep the membership unified as an ecclesiastical body. If there’s revelation for the Prophet, so be it. But most of church history is full of discussion, compromise, changing views, outside pressures, internal rifts, and long, sleepless nights for those at the top as they juggle all these influences as they do their level best to keep things going forward.

It seems as though Presidents of the Church make decisions that either cause a small number of members to leave the faith, or they make decisions that cause a large bloc of members to leave the faith. So it was from the beginning, with Joseph Smith himself constantly faced with attrition of membership over his choices and statements. In a movement striving to bring in all people as one, any loss has a pain associated with it, and the Presidents have striven to bring back anyone who has left or chosen not to associate with the general membership.

So, in 1900, the Church is faced with a smallpox outbreak and one group of members insisting that the state must be vaccinating one and all and the other group insisting that they will reach for their shotguns before some intrusive statist “injects Babylon into their arms.” The pro-state, pro-vaccine group pointed to current leadership statements in favor of vaccinations. The anti-state, anti-vaccine group in turn pointed to statements by Brigham Young that were hostile to the medical profession and insisted that folk cures and faith-based cures were superior to vaccines. Enter a steamin’ hot cup of Nanny Tea at this point, because that was one of the folk cures being touted to help deal with smallpox instead of a vaccination.

This is not to say that the anti-vaccine faction was a bunch of bumpkin throwbacks to the 17th Century: the editor of The Deseret News was one of the leaders of the anti-vaccine faction, along with other prominent Church leaders, physicians, and educators. There were also those who were very much in favor of vaccinations, just not mandatory ones at the hands of the state. Here, a Libertarian argument for personal freedom joins with those who generally distrust vaccines. Utah had only recently come out from under Federal control that had disenfranchised Mormons wholesale and had disincorporated the Church and seized its assets – is this the same government to be trusted with public health measures? Would it use a vaccination campaign as the thin end of a wedge to reassert itself in persecuting Mormons?

In the cities, Catholics, Episcopalians, and Jews mostly supported state-mandated vaccinations with an option for those who did not want to be vaccinated to ride things out at home. When schools opened in Salt Lake City in January 1900, about 62% of the student population – mostly Mormons – stayed home, their parents in staunch opposition to either vaccinations or to the school forcing their children to be vaccinated in order to attend.

When the President of the Church spoke publicly in favor of vaccinations, members of the anti-vaccine faction responded with an outcry and pled with him to seriously reconsider what he was saying and how that was an affront to their faith.

At the same time, the Church was also going through a gradual strengthening of The Word of Wisdom from a set of recommendations to actual commandment-level requirements. Part of this gradual strengthening was from influence of the larger Prohibition movement in the USA. If we look at the Mormons of the day, we would find those who generally felt that the state should be totally uninvolved both in vaccination and in prohibition, those who wanted state-run vaccinations but no prohibition, those who refused state-run vaccination programs but insisted upon state intervention in prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcohol, and those who felt that a comprehensive state public health system meant both vaccination and prohibition programs. And the President had to do his level best to keep them all united in faith.

And though each group would want to call out the other as having a stance that was inconsistent with the core beliefs of the Church, the fact of the matter was that those who cited a current prophet’s support for their views would find themselves in contention with those who either brought up the views of a former prophet or who questioned if the prophet was himself articulating a formal policy or merely speaking ex cathedra.

As for the non-Mormon faiths that predominantly supported vaccination, it was only the Evangelical Protestants that found common cause with Mormon efforts to tighten up the Word of Wisdom – Episcopalians, Catholics, and Jews did not have strong prohibitionist support in their memberships. On a side note, the state of Utah was considered “one of the wettest states in the nation” in 1907 and was also the state that provided the final ratification needed of the amendment to repeal Prohibition in the USA.

Getting back on track, and I know that this has been a big ramble, and there is more ramble ahead, the same dynamics that colored the factions in the English Civil War provided near-equivalent coloration to the vaccination debate in the smallpox outbreak of 1900. Paracelsians and Libertarians in the country; Galens and Statists in the city, more or less. Out in the mission fields, there were mission presidents who required all missionaries to have smallpox vaccines and those who refused them. Where Mormon missionaries were unvaccinated, local governments often enforced quarantines – vaccination came to be seen as a requirement for sharing the gospel. Even so, there was an Apostle serving as a mission president in Mexico who refused to be vaccinated on principle that it went against the idea of faith healing who then later died of smallpox. Vaccination in the mission field was by no means a uniform decision.

The vaccination debate also broke along political faction lines in Utah. Rather than go into details, let it suffice to say that one party was mostly in favor of requiring vaccinations and another was mostly against that sort of thing. Imagine the tension resulting from a debate that involves both hardline political AND religious stances.

By the early 1920s, however, the man who was a strongly anti-vaccine editor of The Deseret News in 1900 was now a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who officially signed off on a declaration from the President of the Church in support of vaccines. In case we forgot and need reminding, people are capable of change over time. I’m sure the loss of an Apostle to smallpox helped to color that decision. However, the Church statement did not go into areas of public health – that debate remained.

Even in recent official Church statements supporting vaccination programs and the idea of vaccination itself, the statements stop shy of advocating government involvement in such program. In fact, strongly pro-vaccination statements from 1978 and 1985 and 2000 have been watered down with the inclusion of a personal judgment option in the March 2021 update to the General Handbook. That’s not to say that one prophet was better or worse than another: that is to say that one President of the Church faced different pressures and concerns than another had to deal with.

When I look at the decisions made around The Word of Wisdom over time, I see more of the concerns in the top leadership regarding taking something from a strong recommendation or sincere urging to the level of an out-and-out commandment. More often than not, this is a matter of debate in the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. It is a gradual move in one direction or another, frequently because of outside pressures manifesting themselves in factions among the membership. A too-sudden move risks a major rift in the membership. Even a change accompanied with revelation, such as the 1978 Official Declaration on the Priesthood, is an example of work in progress, not a sudden direction change.

So now I come to the promise of the title: the current COVID-19 pandemic. The divisions of old have been preserved through the centuries. We saw them again in the smallpox epidemic, we will see them again in the next epidemic. So it shall be. I may side with one or the other, but it does not mean that I have a right to force my view on anyone else. I can strongly encourage, I can urge, but if I become combative with another, am I able to encourage or urge? No, I am not. Nonviolent principles, in my view, have to extend to language as much as they do for physical actions. I am going to be in church services with people who disagree or agree with me, but not in a binary sense. There will be degrees of agreement and disagreement, and when we add another issue, we add another dimension to the tracking of said agreements and disagreements. Rather than complicate things and track all the issues I have a strong view on, maybe it is better for me to look instead for a way to sit next to my brothers and sisters in faith and allow time and positive spiritual influences to improve us all in the long run. It is a difficult choice to accept, but it is the one chosen by The President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

For further reading, I strongly recommend “The Religious Politics of Smallpox Vaccination, 1899-1901” from the Utah Historical Quarterly. https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq_volume84_2016_number1/s/166487

I also recommend “Mormons and Compulsory Vaccination” from MormonPress. https://www.mormonpress.com/mormon_vaccination

Both of these articles were written pre-COVID-19 and, as such, exist outside the charged atmosphere that emerged as a consequence of the latest pandemic.

If you are interested in the history of the Word of Wisdom, “The Word of Wisdom from Principle to Requirement” offers an interesting read. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45224999?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

A Bargain with Hatred

If the Republican Party is unable to impeach Trump and to sever its connections with the mob violence he and his supporters encourage, then it is only sealing its bond with white supremacists, antisemites, and misogynists. It is a political movement that has made common cause with hatred, intolerance, and lawlessness.

There is no “whataboutism” that will work here – the Democratic Party condemns violent protests, sends sexual abusers to the political exits, and has made known its stance on supporting diversity to the point that the racists that once made up the Southern Democrats’ faction are now all registered Republicans.

The Republican Party is home to hatred. When I hear protests originating from its leadership, they are muted and refuse to go so far as to bring consequences to bear against party members who engage in insurrection, violence, and who make openly racist or sexist statements. I see Republicans either as people who actively support hatred or who lack the moral fortitude to do the right thing and cut their ties with evil. I am no perfect man, myself. I have my flaws. But I do not allow my flaws to extend into the places where the Republican Party finds its strongest base of supporters. I have my flaws, but I do not make a bargain with hatred in order to gain power.

1860 and 2020

In 1860, something in the USA had broken. When a contentious, 4-way election produced Abraham Lincoln as the president, states began to make good on their threats to leave the nation. Even more ominously, the states that had once done everything possible to cater to the whims of those departing states were now resolved to wage war, if needed, to re-establish the Union, no longer on the terms demanded by those departing states. What led to that situation and are those conditions leading to a similar situation in 2020?

In her work, The Field of Blood, Joanne B. Freeman explores that very topic. I strongly recommend it as a book for any historian or person interested in current events. And I equally strongly recommend close attention to the story of miscalculation on the part of the Southern Congressmen who trusted in threats of violence and secession to get their way while still preserving the benefits of the political union.

Is 2020 the same as 1860? No. We are not again at that most final of crossroads in history. But we are close. While the divisions are not truly regional in this current period of tension, we are nevertheless watching as resistance to threats of violence stiffens and attitudes towards a domineering minority change from attempted accommodation to exhausted, active animosity.

Before 1860, supporters of slavery would threaten beatings, duels, and street fights against their opponents. Their opponents would refuse to engage, which played well to both sides of the slavery conflict. Anti-slavery supporters applauded how their champions refused to stoop to the level of the slavery supporters. Slavery supporters mocked the lack of manhood and dignity among the anti-slavery faction, seen as too weak-willed to stand up and fight for what they believed in.

In 1838, Congressman Cilley of New Hampshire finally accepted a duel challenge from Congressman Graves of Kentucky. Graves killed Cilley in that duel. After that, things changed. Anti-slavery attitudes hardened against that act of violence: Cilley was seen as a martyr for the cause. Slavery supporters could not claim anymore that their opponents lacked valor, which had the result of forcing their own position to take an even harder line on the issue.

When Brooks of South Carolina nearly killed Sumner of Massachusetts in an attack in the Senate in 1856, it pretty much killed off any hope of reconciliation between the two sides of the slavery debate. The slavery proponents claimed that they had no recourse but to defend their honor with violence. The slavery opponents no longer called for the preservation of the Union at any cost as a slogan of appeasement, but of eventual military conflict. Those who wanted a peaceful resolution no longer saw a path of resolution together, but as a matter of “our side is better off without the other side.” Slave state politicians threatened secession: their counterparts were ready to let them go and be done with it.

Starting with the election of Ronald Reagan, the Republican position publicly hardened around the issues of a strong anti-abortion position and an equally unyielding, highly permissive interpretation of the Second Amendment. Other issues were associated with the Republican Party, but those were the most salient. Less well-pronounced was the full meaning of their “law and order” platform, which didn’t directly state a hostility towards minorities, but which did serve to further policies that had race-negative outcomes in terms of higher rates of arrest, conviction, and incarceration of minorities vs whites for similar offenses. In time, the conflation of racist imagery with Republican Party political ads became more and more overt, leading up to the events during the Trump presidency in which party leadership failed to offer up meaningful criticism of racially-motivated violence, even as perpetrators of that violence evoked Republican leaders and talking points as justification for their violent acts.

Meanwhile, Republican Party opposition to Democratic policy initiatives and appointments hardened to the point of refusal to cooperate at all. This was perhaps most starkly illustrated in their refusal to entertain the nomination of a Supreme Court justice in 2016, claiming that such a nomination must be made to wait until after the election and then turning fully around in 2020 to rush through a Supreme Court nomination in the days just prior to the election that year.

Domestically, this inability of Republicans to offer up meaningful compromises with the Democratic Party itself led to questions within the Democratic Party on whether or not they should continue to attempt to compromise. Progressives within the Democratic Party drew more political support, particularly in the wake of the MeToo movement and a string of cases involving police brutality or other abuses in the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sean Monterrosa, Rayshard Brooks, Andres Guardado, Dijon Kizzee, Daniel Prude, Deon Kay, Ricardo Munoz, Deja Stallings, Jonathan Price, Alvin Cole, Marcellis Stinnette, Walter Wallace Jr, and Kevin Peterson Jr, among others. As Republican leadership rallied around defending its own members involved in sexual harassment cases or who had made racist statements, questions of compromise evaporated further.

At the same time, hardening attitudes in Democratic Party were also accompanied by a rise in anti-fascist violence. While such antifa violence was only a fraction of fascist and racist violence, Republicans seized upon the very fact of antifa violence as a sign of the existential nature of the conflict they now found themselves in. Democratic Party leaders did condemn antifa violence, but Republican leadership rejected such condemnations or denied that they had happened outright. Ironically, voices within the Republican Party that called for a second civil war to “cleanse” the nation were not condemned within the party.

While 2016 still saw most of the Democratic Party leadership calling for unity and compromise, the events of the 2020 election in which Trump refused to acknowledge the election of Biden left the Democratic president-elect in the uncomfortable position of finding Republican leadership unwilling to participate in the normal bipartisan cooperation that follows a change of party in an election.

Such refusal from the Republican Party has left many Democratic commentators asking openly if the nation would simply be better off without the Republicans. While not advocating openly for civil war as radicals within the Republican Party advocate, they are also not refusing to consider such a scenario. While not yet a scenario like in 1860, or even 1856, current tensions do lie on a path that leads to a similar situation.

In this, the Republicans are exercising a similar miscalculation as did the pro-slavery faction. They have spoken loudly and bullied their way around the political landscape, but are outnumbered. Now that their opposition has itself hardened its position, they are at a point in their existence that demands reconciliation and backing down from their hardline position before they are destroyed in a violent conflict that they have no hope of winning.

The Republic of South Africa faced a similar watershed in its history, when the whites-only apartheid government came to a realization that it could not maintain its control. Faced with the options of peacefully coming to terms with the African National Congress or the possibility of war in which they would detonate the nuclear weapons within their cities and key economic areas as part of a Samson act to deny their opponents what they could not themselves keep, the National Party chose to take the peaceful path, resulting in massive constitutional and organizational reform. Humanity has an example of stepping away from the brink: is the Republican Party leadership able to make the same moves as its right-wing counterpart in South Africa, or will it choose to maintain its hard line and autogolpe methods to subvert democratic institutions in America and take the nation down a path of bloodshed?

Freeman’s book shows us the parallels between the antebellum period and our own day. Our nation needs a Republican Party leadership to come to terms with reality and to come back to the table of compromise before they go too far and find that they have placed the nation into a period that parallels the years from 1860-1865.