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this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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They had slaves.
We do too.
We just call it outsourced labor and are happy about cheap clothes.
They also raped and tortured their slaves.
Please don't pretend like people buying the only clothes they can afford is in any way comparable literally owning chattel slaves.
Of course it is. Today's slaves get raped and tortured as well. Just not by us directly.
Essentially we outsourced the cruelty so we can live in blissful ignorance.
Exactly: "Essentially we outsourced the cruelty so we can live in blissful ignorance."
"Just not by us directly" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. What the fuck is this "us" shit? I didn't choose to enslave anyone and I have no power to free them. Equivocating being forced to participate in capitalism with directly owning a my own fucking plantation is just mystifying history - just edgy nihilism.
The Founders were among history's monsters and you need to stop trying to protect their legacy by painting us with their brush. Chattel slavery was a uniquely horrible institution and its end mattered.
Dude, I'm German. I know a thing or two about facing the past. So don't act like I'm defending anyone.
As far as I know, only about a third of people in the US back then ever owned slaves. The other two thirds didn't choose that either. Yet most of them got complacent for a pretty long time.
Also, you do have a choice. You can buy clothes that are maybe not morally pure, but at least better. You could buy a Fairphone. You could become politically active or at least vote for the better candidates/parties. Sure, that won't turn the world into utopia over night, but at least you can make it a bit better.
We all have to face the fact that our actions and inactions cause suffering, and some of that is indeed not in our power to change. But your stance of essentially giving up and pointing at the other crime as ever worse is hypocritical.
As Adorno said: there's no right living in the wrong. And we are so wrong currently the slave population in this world is higher than ever in the US: https://www.un.org/en/delegate/50-million-people-modern-slavery-un-report
Okay? We're talking about the Founders, and they owned slaves. They were directly responsible for it, they had their own plantations. Comparing that to bystanders and voting and buying local and being complacent is absurd.
Are you perhaps under the impression that all Americans in 1776 were Founders? Because generally when USians talk about our Founders we're talking about the people at the Constitutional Convention and terroist organizations like the Sons of Liberty.
Are you perhaps under the impression that us stupid Europeans don't know what you're talking about?
Again, I'm German. I've heard that excuse before.
Don't act like being German gives you some kind of unique perspective. Hitler was inspired by the US exterminating it's Native population and by the US reservation system.
There's a clear difference between living in society and ruling that society.
Don't act like being American gives you some unique perspective. Wow, that looks stupid, right?
Sure, but you're implying that not being part of the ruling class absolves you from any guilt or responsibility. And that is literally what all Germans said after the war. What was I supposed to do?
And you're living in a democracy.
No, I'm implying that the ruling class has unique guilt and responsibility, which is nontransferable to their subjects. I never said we have no responsibility. I only contend that holding us equally accountable is mystification; it obscures the uniquely horrible actions of the ruling class. They're the ones who deserve to be tried for their crimes, after all.
By flattening society, by holding the least of us accountable for the crimes of our rulers, you actually make it harder to hold anyone accountable for anything at all.
Or do you think the Red Army should have executed all Germans because a minority of them voted for Hitler?