WaPo Publishes Sociologist Who Compares 'Low-Income' Supporters of Bush Tax Cuts with Poor Southerners Who Backed Slavery
A recurring feature in the Washington Post's weekly Outlook section is a column devoted to "Five myths about" a particular topic.
The feature for January 9 -- "5 myths about why the South seceded" -- happened to address a timely historical topic considering this year marks the sesquicentennial of the beginning of the U.S. Civil War.
Yet the author, sociologist James W. Loewen, couldn't resist the opportunity to lump modern-day Republicans and conservatives with non-slaveholding whites in the antebellum South who may have aspired to slaveholding.
Addressing the myth that "Most white Southerners didn't own slaves, so they wouldn't secede for slavery," Loewen argued that:
...Americans are wondrous optimists, looking to the upper class and expecting to join it someday. In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners. So poor white Southerners supported slavery then, just as many low-income people support the extension of George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy now.
It's pretty clear that the liberal author worked in a gratuitous and in this case despicable partisan attack line for either the amusement of the paper's mostly liberal audience or the annoyance of any conservatives reading, or both.
But in so doing, Loewen cheapened his argument and undermined his own credibility by lumping conservatives of any socioeconomic level with supporters of slavery, an immoral and unjust system antithetical to the core beliefs of economic conservatives.
If the Post wants the "Five myths about" feature to be popular with readers, it would do well to avoid giving the task to writers who set out to defame a significant portion of the American body politic in the process.
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Comments
To most physicians, "sociologist"...
Submitted by drsamherman on Sun, 01/09/2011 - 8:23pm.
...means "BS artist". They are of the soft, fuzzy variety with lots of syndromes, excuses and nonsense but no solutions outside of blame.
Ironic, too, that the liberal
Submitted by Chris Norman on Sun, 01/09/2011 - 8:35pm.
Ironic, too, that the liberal elites, like this bilge meister, have nothing but scorn and contempt for the "uneducated classes" they say they champion politically.
if history serves
Submitted by JJ OKC on Sun, 01/09/2011 - 9:05pm.
If i am correct were not those "slave owners" part of the Demoractic soth back then,
This guy is flaming liberal
Submitted by Barack_must_go..... on Sun, 01/09/2011 - 8:47pm.
This guy is flaming liberal that makes up his own version of History. He then presents this same bullshit to his fellow flamers in American acedemia as fact.
In turn those flamers perpetuate his lies by distorting the truth to match their own myopic views.
Over time these lies and distortions are incorporated and become an intregal part of the distortion of actual American Historical facts.
This fraud and his ilk are at the center of the fight we real Americans find ourselves mired in today regarding our countries History .
Barack_Must_Go.....
Some of us who back across the board tax cuts...
Submitted by GregE on Sun, 01/09/2011 - 10:27pm.
.....instead of grouping people into classes and soaking particular classes, support those across the board cuts as a matter of principle. I am not financially rich, neither by my own opinion or by that of the all-knowing godlike government who seems to think they are the arbiters of the term. But I am for tax cuts across the board. What would sociologists consider principle to be? Or, do they know what that is?
Loewen was born to Winifred
Submitted by Cowboy on Sun, 01/09/2011 - 10:56pm.
Loewen was born to Winifred and Dr. David F. Loewen in 1942. His mother was a librarian and teacher, and his father was a medical director. Loewen grew up in Decatur, Illinois. He was a National Merit Scholar as a graduate in 1960 from MacArthur High School.
He knows nothing of slavery.
But he know how to force his opinion on people whether they want it or not.
"The American Library Association considers Loewen v. Turnipseed, 488 F. Supp. 1138 (N.D. Miss. 1980), a historic First Amendment case, and one of the foundations of our "right to read freely." Mississippi: Conflict and Change was rejected for use in Mississippi's public schools by the Mississippi Textbook Purchasing Board on the grounds that it was too controversial and placed too much focus on racial matters. Judge Orma R. Smith of the U.S. District Court ruled that the rejection of the textbook was not based on "justifiable grounds", and that the authors were denied their right to free speech and press"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Loewen
Loewen was born to Winifred
Submitted by Cowboy on Sun, 01/09/2011 - 10:55pm.
Loewen was born to Winifred and Dr. David F. Loewen in 1942. His mother was a librarian and teacher, and his father was a medical director. Loewen grew up in Decatur, Illinois. He was a National Merit Scholar as a graduate in 1960 from MacArthur High School.
He knows nothing of slavery.
But he know how to force his opinion on people whether they want it or not.
"The American Library Association considers Loewen v. Turnipseed, 488 F. Supp. 1138 (N.D. Miss. 1980), a historic First Amendment case, and one of the foundations of our "right to read freely." Mississippi: Conflict and Change was rejected for use in Mississippi's public schools by the Mississippi Textbook Purchasing Board on the grounds that it was too controversial and placed too much focus on racial matters. Judge Orma R. Smith of the U.S. District Court ruled that the rejection of the textbook was not based on "justifiable grounds", and that the authors were denied their right to free speech and press"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Loewen
Love to see his proof for this....
Submitted by Saint Zero on Mon, 01/10/2011 - 2:57am.
In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners.
Where'd he get this idea? Did he interview any?
Love to see his proof for this....
Submitted by Saint Zero on Mon, 01/10/2011 - 2:58am.
In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners.
Where'd he get this idea? Did he interview any?