But when loss breeds twisted versions of history to salve its pain, when it encourages the revitalization of vast systems of oppression, and when loss is allowed to freely commemorate itself in stone and in sentimentalism across the cultural landscape, it can poison a civil society and transform itself into a ruling regime. Loss on an epic scale is often the source of great literature, stories that take us to the dark hearts of the human condition. The Lost Cause is one of the most deeply ingrained mythologies in American history. Capitol and left at the Smithsonian Castle, for a decision on their final resting place. Du Bois once called, in 1901, our “present-past.” They are a history never to be erased, even if and when the bronze Jefferson Davis and Robert E. They still haunt the air we breathe, or cannot breathe. As so many now understand-whether they have read William Faulkner or Toni Morrison or the thousands of scholars who have reshaped American history in the past three generations- slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and segregation are never purely historical. Most of all, we must remember what the Lost Cause is and was before we try to call it past. History did not end when the Soviet Union dissolved, and it will not end now, even if a vibrant movement sweeps a new age of civil rights into America. We should not celebrate too much as monuments topple and old slave-auction blocks are removed. If so, it has taken a long, long night-to borrow from Robbie Robertson and the Band-to drive old Dixie down. The summer of 2020, like the autumn of 1989, could mark the death of a specific vision of history. And many of us feel some awe in seeing, during these past few weeks, Confederate monuments in America likewise reduced to pieces, relics of the collapse, after a hundred and fifty-five years, of the public vestiges of the Lost Cause tradition. Many people still possess, as I do, little pieces of concrete from the Berlin Wall. Now a whole vision of history-a vision meant to maximize freedom, but which had turned, over time, into tyranny-seemed to be leaving the stage. Could it be true that Communism was about to collapse? For seventy years, it had been a system, an ideology, that ordered large swaths of the globe. You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.In November, 1989, when the Berlin Wall suddenly began to crumble and then fall, much of the world watched in awe. You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity. You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called a Cowkimona and market it worldwide. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. The banks and the IMF call to collect their cows/milk. The banks call to collect their milk, but you cannot deliver so you call the IMFT. You have two cows borrowed from French and German banks. You go on strike, organize a riot, block the roads and dump 5 tons of cowshit on the steps of the National Assembly because it’s a national pastime. You borrow lots of euros to build barns, milking sheds, hay stores, feed sheds, dairies, cold stores, abattoirs, cheese units and packing sheds. Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead. SURREALISM You have two giraffes.The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.ĪN AMERICAN CORPORATION You have two cows.You sell one and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. The annual report says the company owns ten cows with an option on one more. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your dodgy lawyer at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. You sell one and buy a bull.Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM You have two cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other dry, and then throws the milk away You give one to your neighbor.ĬOMMUNISM You have 2 cows.The State takes both and gives you some milkįASCISM You have 2 cows.The State takes both and sells you some milk
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