A Problem in Need of Attention: Assessing the Great 21st Century American Housing Bust

Across the Wide Missouri: Matthew Yglesias:

  • "People... argue about... whether the Confederate Flag is a symbol of 'heritage' or 'hate'. .... But... it's... the heritage aspect of it that's... problematic... a way of defining southern heritage so as to specifically exclude black people... a way of saying that black southerners are excluded from the political community."

  • "The real proof that the war was about slavery is how the war was conducted, which is to say with an eye more toward plantation-owners holding on to their property (including their human chattel) than toward liberating the south from northern domination. That's why there is no guerilla strategy on the Confederate side.... They fought as long and hard as they could with a strategy consistent with maintaining slavery, and when that strategy didn't work they pivoted to a strategy consistent with maintaining the plantations. Then they rebuilt the basic architecture of white supremacy."

  • "There was never a majority in the north for a pure abolitionist agenda. The Lincoln majority was built on the premise of reserving western land for free white labor... the war accomplished that... was really about... whether the American economy would be dominated by unpaid labor and slave wealth. The war ensured that it was not.... A secondary conflict about white supremacy has been going on since that time, with some ebbs and flows."

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