The US Slave Regime, Part II

  

The US Slave Regime, Part II

Peter Schultz

 

                  So, the question occurred to me: What’s the better description of the regime created in the United States with the Constitution and thereafter: a slave regime or a white supremacist regime? The latter.

 

                  As Baptist wrote in is The Half That Was Never Told: “… then again, there was the fact that a third of the refugees [from Cuba] were free people of color, forbidden to immigrate to the US and unwanted by whites in New Orleans – particularly by English-speakers who preferred the ostensible clarity of their own American pattern in which all black people were assumed to be enslaved.” (54)

 

                  But it should read deserved to be enslaved. Enslavement was a value, not just a fact. Such value required white supremacist thought, beliefs, actions. White supremacy was/is more fundamental than slavery, because slavery as a fact could be accidental or incidental, as could white rule as well. But regimes are not the results of accidents or incidents. They don’t grow. They are constructed on the basis of values thought to be best, while those possessing those values justifiably rule.

 

                  Per Baptist: “Allowing slavery’s expansion, the mayor and other wealthy Louisianans insisted, made white New Orleans and white America more prosperous and more united, binding states and factions together.” (55)

 

                  “The governor himself enforced only a single law. Following territorial regulations to the letter, he expelled all free males of color over the age of fifteen who had entered on refugee ships.” (55)

 

                  Slavery was a reflection of white supremacy. But white supremacy was a reflection of elitism. So, it turns out that elitism is the fundamental political phenomenon, one that needs attention in order to ameliorate the human condition. Should Plato’s Republic, e.g., be read as a critique of elitism? And, when done, wouldn’t that be “a horse of a different color” than that ridden by some neo-conservatives and others?

The United States and Its Slave Regime

  

The United States and Its Slave Regime

Peter Schultz

 

                  Regimes are created politically, that is, created by the most powerful forces present at the creation and then are mythologized. The regime created in the United States in the late 18^th century and afterwards cannot be adequately understood unless the central role play by slavery is recognized. Edward Baptist in his book The Half Has Never Been Told illuminates how slavery influenced, in fact controlled the creation of an American regime with the drafting of a new constitution and its implementation. It is not inaccurate to label that regime a slave regime.

 

Conventionally, slavery in the US is treated as just one aspect of the new nation, and as a shameful aspect at that. Lincoln talked of the twenty-year delay in outlawing the Atlantic slave trade as an indication of that shame over slavery. But as Baptist makes clear, a slave regime was built in the United States and that regime lay at the base of America’s emerging greatness. The twenty-year delay in outlawing the Atlantic slave trade was one aspect of that regime.

 

The constitutional convention was guided by the likes of Rutledge and Ellsworth, who argued that “the economic interests of white Americans dictate[d] [that] the Atlantic slave trade [not] be closed.” [10] As Rutledge put it: “’If the Northern States consult their interests, they will not oppose an increase of slaves which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers.’” [11] In the end, a deal was struck involving the Atlantic slave trade – as well as the 3/5’s clause – because “interest was the governing principle shaping the Constitution…. The outcome was plain: the upper and lower South would get to expand slavery through both the Atlantic trade and the internal trade. Meanwhile, the North would earn profits by transporting the commodities generated by slavery’s growth.” [11] In other words, slavery was not grudgingly accepted by the convention; rather, it became the central feature of the “more perfect Union” being created. Via the Constitution and its compromises, a slave regime was being created, being built in the United States.

 

Jefferson contributed to this regime insofar as he and “his allies wanted to neutralize the discussion of slavery.” [28] But what Baptist calls “neutralization” meant acceptance of slavery and acceptance soon became approval, with slavery becoming a regime, “a way of life” in the South. As political animals, humans build “regimes,” as Aristotle pointed out. Regimes are “ways of life” and these ways of life, although first facts of life, become valued and valuable. In fact, particular regimes come to be embraced as “the way of life,” that is, the best way of life. Democrats, oligarchs, aristocrats, et. al., embrace their regimes, each thinking and acting as if their way life was best. It might be said that regimes are created when a way of life becomes the way of life. So, Jefferson’s neuralization of slavery contributed to the acceptance and approval of slavery as the way of life. “Allowing slavery to continue and even expand meant political unity” for the United States, a unity based on a way of life built around slavery. North and South would be “yoked” together for decades to come.

 

This regime was fed by material interests and constitutional jurisprudence. “Many northern Republicans invested in Yahoo bonds. Many Georgians recognized how they could benefit if [the Yahoo] sale stood.” Moreover, “many congressmen examined their financial interests and chose to ensure that Mississippi became a slave territory.” [29] John Marshall, in the case of Fletcher v. Peck, established the inviolability of contracts and, so, “Marshall’s ruling … gave every future defender of slavery and its expansion an incredible tool.” [33] In sum, “the interlinked expansion of both slavery and financial capitalism was … driving … an emerging national economic system” highly valued by nationally dispersed elites, that is, elites in the north as well as the south. “Forced migration and the expansion of slavery became a … permanent and inevitable element of the mutually-agreed-to structure of lies that, defended by the agile legal realism of Marshall and the myth of diffusion, made the nation.” [36, emphasis added]

 

The diffusion argument, pressed by Jefferson among others, illustrates the power of the regime in controlling people’s thoughts and actions. The diffusion argument was that spreading slavery out would hasten its decline. Baptist captures the irony of such an argument well: “Make slavery bigger in order to make it smaller. Spread it out to contain its effects.” [30] Make it bigger so it would become smaller. Spread it out to contain it. The illogic is obvious of course. But the argument took no notice that the slavers had no desire and saw no reason to make slavery smaller or to contain it. To them, a slave regime was the best way of life. The diffusion argument, for them, was little more than a way to disguise their pro-slavery agenda as an anti-slavery agenda. And many otherwise intelligent people bought it.

 

Regimes are creations, they are constructions. They don’t grow, they aren’t spontaneous events. They are created by the most powerful social and political forces. In the earliest years of what became the United States, slavery lay at the base of the most powerful forces, economic as well as political. Overwhelmingly, the nation’s earliest presidents were slave owners, with John Adams being the only exception, a testament to power of slavers and their allies, both north and south.  It is baffling that the United States is so rarely thought of as a slave nation, whose founders had created a slave regime, deliberately and not accidentally. But then, so it goes.

 

Thoughts on "Thoughts"

  

Thoughts on Thoughts

Peter Schultz

 

                  From Leo Strauss’s book Thoughts on Machiavelli: “Machiavelli … takes issue explicitly and coherently with the traditional and customary view according to which the prince ought to live virtuously and ought to rule virtuously.” [59] But despite this, “the political prerequisites of Italy’s liberation [are] withheld because Machiavelli desired to keep the noble and shining end untarnished by the base and dark means … indispensable to its achievement.” [67]

 

                  This seems to make sense except Machiavelli might have not thought that that “noble and shining end” was illusionary insofar as established ways require “base and dark means” to be maintained. Insofar as that is the case, one should wonder about whether liberating or unifying Italy, as well as all established orders, is so noble and shining. Living virtuously and ruling virtuously are luxuries that princes cannot afford. And, yet, appearing to do so is indispensable.

 

                  Further, the liberation of Italy would not be “spontaneous.” It would require “a policy of iron and poison, of murder and treachery, … the extermination of Italian princely families and the destruction of Italian republican cities…. The liberation of Italy means a completer revolution…, above all else a revolution in thinking about right and wrong, [learning] that the patriotic end hallows every means however much condemned by the most exalted traditions of both philosophy and religion.” [67-8]

 

So, “cruelty well used,” as engaged in by Cesare Borgia, does not seem to be enough. After all, “Cesare’s successes ultimately benefitted only the Church and thus increased the obstacles to the conquest or liberation of Italy.” Further, “Cesare was a mere tool of Alexander VI and hence, a mere tool of the papacy…. For Cesare’s power was base on the power of the papacy. That power failed him when Alexander died.”

 

                  Which means that Cesare’s power was not based on “cruelty well used.” And the argument that it was is merely what Strauss calls the “traditional exterior” of Machiavelli’s thought. It was, as Machiavelli’s examples make clear, known, well known the ancients as well to almost anyone who engaged in politics. But the “revolutionary center” of Machiavelli’s thought is something different altogether.

 

                  In the “traditional exterior” of Machiavelli’s thought, he presents himself as seeking “to found a pagan Rome, a Rome destined to become again the most glorious republic and the seminar and the heart of the most glorious empire.” But this assumes that Machiavelli actually or finally thought that pagan Rome was “a most glorious republic” and a “most glorious empire.” If this is the case, then it is fair to say Machiavelli’s thought wasn’t revolutionary; it was in fact reactionary.

 

                  By focusing on and embracing as he does on “cruelty well used,” Machiavelli is focused on means, obscuring that genuine revolutions require new ends. Cesare was “a mere tool of Alexander” and “of the papacy” because he didn’t dispute and reject the Church and its ends. And so, despite his “cruelty well used,” his “successes … benefitted only the Church.” Insofar as Italy – and other places as well – could not be conquered or liberated without challenging and rejecting the modes and orders established by the Church, by Christianity that is, just so far than no genuine revolution would be possible. The same may be said of the modes and orders that had been established by pagan Rome and even those established by the likes of Plato and Aristotle.

The Politics of Scandal

  

The Politics of Scandals

Peter Schultz

 

                  Scandals are common in politics, so it is worthwhile to speculate about them and their relationship to what Aristotle labeled “regimes.”

 

                  For example, do scandals fortify the status quo or not? Conventionally speaking, scandals are understood as threatening the status quo or the existing regime and, yet, we have experienced what have been called “teflon presidents,” and currently have a president who has bragged that he is virtually immune from the bad effects of scandalous behavior. Insofar as Trump is correct, what does this tell us about scandals and politics? That scandals are not as dangerous as they are often thought to be, is this just the result of successful cover-ups or is something else going on here?

 

                  It is possible that scandals do not controversialize regimes; that is, they fit in regimes in ways that fortify the status quo by hiding the controversial character of a regime, of any regime. For example, how did people feel as the Watergate scandal occurred? As it was revealed, they were relieved as reflected by President Ford’s comment after Nixon resigned that “Our national nightmare is over.” So, whatever had happened during Watergate, it did not make Americans doubt the existing regime, their way of life politically. “Dirty tricks” were part of the American regime. Certainly, Nixon’s actions were shocking, but this did not lead to dissatisfaction with how America did politics. Watergate was more like a horror movie: Shocking behavior, to be sure, but not dangerously delusional social behavior that called into question how we live as a people or as a nation.

 

                  And so, there are two responses to scandals: one is covering up and the other is exposing and punishing the responsible parties. So, cover ups become normal behavior, even when they don’t make much sense, and investigations end up looking for “smoking guns,” i.e., for individual culpability or criminality. Very few are upset by cover ups because it is what culpable, criminal individuals always do, are expected to do.

 

                  Ironically then, turning something into a scandal is the first step for fortifying the established regime. It is a rather safe bet that almost every scandal will result in a reinforcement, a fortification of the established regime, of the status quo. In fact, there is nothing like a good scandal for fortifying the existing regime, the prevailing way of life.

 

                  If you doubt this, ask yourself: Why did Richard Nixon become an “elder statesman,” one that presidents should consult politically? Or: Why is Tony Blair now being taken as someone to consult about war? Ditto for George W. Bush and others.

 

                  Like so much else in politics, scandals are often disguises that blind us to the real character of the political, which is an arena characterized by smoke and mirrors that hide the fact that force and fraud are intrinsic to politics. As Machiavelli pointed out, those who “learn to be able not to be good” are the most successful politicians, even the most successful human beings. So, remarkably, many have risen to great heights politically despite scandals. And this is one reason why the political and the ironic have been said to go together very well. Understanding politics requires expertise, to be sure. But it also requires a sense of humor.

                                   

Regime Concept

  

Regime Concept

Peter Schultz

 

                  From JFK and Vietnam: report on Nam when JFK assumed the presidency: “an extremely vivid and well written account of a place going to hell in a hack….”

 

(1)     Decision made, acceptance follows, ala’ el jefe. The die was cast, with the war to follow. So it goes.

(2)     That Vietnam was “going to hell in a hack:” no one ever came close to questioning this; accepted by all as if it were a self-evident truth, unquestionable. Why? The regime made this assessment seem to be self-evidently true, unquestionable.

 

Perhaps this is what Aristotle meant by regime being “a way of life.” Something like Quinn’s Mother Culture. Regimes determine what people take to be real. America’s regime, its way of life, its way of living led Americans to accept without question that Vietnam was going to hell, even though many Vietnamese didn’t think that. But then the Vietnamese didn’t live like Americans. Different regime, different way of life, different truth.

Technologically Advanced Barbarism

  

Technologically Advanced Barbarism

Peter Schultz

 

"Chris Hedges’ recent speech at Princeton is not simply a commentary on the wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran — it is a sweeping indictment of a global order collapsing into what he calls “technologically advanced barbarism.” 

 

https://consortiumnews.com/2026/04/03/chris-hedges-the-new-world-order/

 

Chris Hedges is correct: The world order is experiencing “technologically advanced barbarism.” Or, as some would put it, in order to get to the bottom of things: what we are experiencing is “technologically advanced politics” because “barbarism” is intrinsic to, indistinguishable from politics. By labeling what he is calling “a new world order” “barbarism,” Hedges is laying the groundwork for affirming the political. Ironically, affirming the political points in the direction of “barbarism.” And if that sounds strange, just review in your mind how the US has waged continuous war since the end of WW II, all for the sake of peace, prosperity, and progress. Or, review in your mind how its greatness was built on the backs and corpses of slaves and the indigenous. 

 

Trump's Trap

  

Trump’s Trap

Peter Schultz

 

This headline almost has it right.

"Trapped by His Own Image: Trump's Iran War and The Politics of Ego"  

 

                  Trump is trapped, but it isn’t only because of his ego. He is also trapped by the presidency or, more generally, the American political order. That order, despite repeated denials by many, is geared toward war. It isn’t “the politics of ego” that has Trump trapped; rather, it is the politics of war. And the politics of war is intrinsic to the American political order.

 

                  JFK, allegedly, couldn’t pull out of Vietnam before the 1964 presidential election because he would, he was convinced, lose that election. He also could not squash the Bay of Pigs invasion and although it proved to be a fiasco, his popularity rose as a result. Similarly, LBJ couldn’t pull out of Nam because he was convinced that he would lose the 1968 election had he done so. And, of course, Nixon continued the war for four years in order to secure his reelection in 1972, even telling the Chinese that he was prepared to lose that war provided there was a “decent interval” before the North Vietnamese won.

 

                  There is little need to list all the examples of presidents being “trapped” into wars, but some examples are: Truman in Korea; Carter in Afghanistan and Iraq; Reagan in Nicaragua; Bush Sr. in Kuwait; Clinton bombing Iraq on a daily basis; Bush Jr. in Afghanistan and Iraq, and so on and so on and so on. War is a continuing presidential phenomenon.

 

                  We do not have an “ego problem,” but a political problem; what one might call “a regime problem.” As some of those who opposed the Constitution when it was being debated argued, it has “an awful squinting,” it squints in the direction of monarchy and of war. Or as Ben Franklin is reputed to have said when asked what the new Constitution created: “A republic if you can keep it.” We haven’t, but then Franklin might have been being kind in his assessment. 250 years later, the proof is in the pudding or, as my mother use to say regarding human beings, “the fruit don’t fall to far from the tree.”