Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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Headhunter
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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By the way, zombie, it didn't occur to me earlier but there's an entire study dedicated to that history of the South sugarcoating/distorting its 19th century history. It's called Lost Cause of the Confederacy and it's pretty interesting.
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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Headhunter wrote:That's the biggest mystery to me in all this. I don't find it in any way appropriate for the United States to honor or pay tribute to people who fought against them in war (with the possible exception of Native American leaders). Forget the racial context that drives 99% of the narrative here, that need not even apply. What is patriotic in an American sense about honoring the Confederacy?
Why make an exception for the native Americans?
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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Headhunter wrote:By the way, zombie, it didn't occur to me earlier but there's an entire study dedicated to that history of the South sugarcoating/distorting its 19th century history. It's called Lost Cause of the Confederacy and it's pretty interesting.
hmm.. i'll have to look that up.
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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Foo wrote:
Headhunter wrote:That's the biggest mystery to me in all this. I don't find it in any way appropriate for the United States to honor or pay tribute to people who fought against them in war (with the possible exception of Native American leaders). Forget the racial context that drives 99% of the narrative here, that need not even apply. What is patriotic in an American sense about honoring the Confederacy?
Why make an exception for the native Americans?
They were discriminately massacred in most cases. They were the natives. I'm okay with the U.S. being flexible and taking accountability for those wrongs.

Maybe more examples that can apply can be found but that's the obvious one.
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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zombie wrote:
Headhunter wrote:By the way, zombie, it didn't occur to me earlier but there's an entire study dedicated to that history of the South sugarcoating/distorting its 19th century history. It's called Lost Cause of the Confederacy and it's pretty interesting.
hmm.. i'll have to look that up.
I guarantee that's where the vast majority of the pro-CSA, but non-racist schools of thought originate.
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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We find the shittiest, crime infested, drug ridden street in every urban area and name it Martin Luther King BLVD, so I am not too sure we worry about what dead people think about the monuments we dedicate to them.
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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Headhunter wrote:By the way, zombie, it didn't occur to me earlier but there's an entire study dedicated to that history of the South sugarcoating/distorting its 19th century history. It's called Lost Cause of the Confederacy and it's pretty interesting.
so, it's a way to help the south cope after losing the civil war? and also about helping to re-unify the north and the south? it feels like there could have been a way to do that, while also acknowledging that you made mistakes and held to some fucked up beliefs.
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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With some computer editing, we could rename the "General Lee" the "Malcolm X" and the Dukes could yell "Booya!" instead of "yeehaw!". Will be amazing.
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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zombie wrote:
Headhunter wrote:By the way, zombie, it didn't occur to me earlier but there's an entire study dedicated to that history of the South sugarcoating/distorting its 19th century history. It's called Lost Cause of the Confederacy and it's pretty interesting.
so, it's a way to help the south cope after losing the civil war? and also about helping to re-unify the north and the south? it feels like there could have been a way to do that, while also acknowledging that you made mistakes and held to some fucked up beliefs.
Yeah but the South was CRUSHED economically. Lot of generations of poverty created in that era. Which means shame, and then denial.
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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If there is one thing the civil war taught us, it's that when someone doesn't agree with you, first you try to starve them to death, then you start killing them and their families. #TheMoreYouKnow *shooting stars and rainbows*
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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Quite obviously, the really problematic aspect of this distorted reality leading to the idyllic Lost Cause image of the South is that it's dependent on the absurd notions that slavery was a benign and acceptable part of life and that slaves were happy.

You can be trained to stretch your suspension of disbelief to its absolute limits and still not be a racist person. But it is nuts.
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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Foo wrote:If there is one thing the civil war taught us, it's that when someone doesn't agree with you, first you try to starve them to death, then you start killing them and their families. #TheMoreYouKnow *shooting stars and rainbows*
You've mentioned a couple times points of contention where compromise could have been made between the two sides. What are you referring to and what would have been an appropriate compromise?
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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Headhunter wrote:
zombie wrote:
Headhunter wrote:By the way, zombie, it didn't occur to me earlier but there's an entire study dedicated to that history of the South sugarcoating/distorting its 19th century history. It's called Lost Cause of the Confederacy and it's pretty interesting.
so, it's a way to help the south cope after losing the civil war? and also about helping to re-unify the north and the south? it feels like there could have been a way to do that, while also acknowledging that you made mistakes and held to some fucked up beliefs.
Yeah but the South was CRUSHED economically. Lot of generations of poverty created in that era. Which means shame, and then denial.
the people who were crushed and suffered most, likely had nothing to do with owning slaves? it's my understanding that was a wealthy minority? how many who fought actually owned slaves too?
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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Meh, we capture animals and keep them for personal enjoyment and act like they love it. Selfishness has ways of making us see things.

At that moment, folks who had knowledge of Africa and the African slave trade may not have been wrong. Today we compare them to free men here, but that was not necessarily an option for Africans at various points. If my choices were eating Mac and cheese and being raped by Thomas Jefferson or starving to death and becoming lion food in sub-Saharan Africa, I am going with the former.
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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zombie wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
zombie wrote:
Headhunter wrote:By the way, zombie, it didn't occur to me earlier but there's an entire study dedicated to that history of the South sugarcoating/distorting its 19th century history. It's called Lost Cause of the Confederacy and it's pretty interesting.
so, it's a way to help the south cope after losing the civil war? and also about helping to re-unify the north and the south? it feels like there could have been a way to do that, while also acknowledging that you made mistakes and held to some fucked up beliefs.
Yeah but the South was CRUSHED economically. Lot of generations of poverty created in that era. Which means shame, and then denial.
the people who were crushed and suffered most, likely had nothing to do with owning slaves? it's my understanding that was a wealthy minority? how many who fought actually owned slaves too?
Yes, the people who owned slaves merely had to evolve their business. Those fields would be worked for another 80 years. That came in the form of convict leasing to the plantations. Homeless blacks with nowhere to go at the time were picked off the streets, hauled into jail for bogus crimes and sent to work on those plantations (see where the disconnect between the AA community and law enforcement comes from?). And the conditions were even worse because as a prisoner, you're not an asset as you would be a slave. Feeding you is no longer a priority, there will always be more in the pipeline.

You'd be right for the most part. It was a feudal society. The wealthy aristocrats, pretty poor white people, really poor white people, slaves. The Civil War was only fought for the benefit of the aristocrats.
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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Foo wrote:Meh, we capture animals and keep them for personal enjoyment and act like they love it. Selfishness has ways of making us see things.

At that moment, folks who had knowledge of Africa and the African slave trade may not have been wrong. Today we compare them to free men here, but that was not necessarily an option for Africans at various points. If my choices were eating Mac and cheese and being raped by Thomas Jefferson or starving to death and becoming lion food in sub-Saharan Africa, I am going with the former.
the point is to have a choice
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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Foo wrote:Meh, we capture animals and keep them for personal enjoyment and act like they love it. Selfishness has ways of making us see things.

At that moment, folks who had knowledge of Africa and the African slave trade may not have been wrong. Today we compare them to free men here, but that was not necessarily an option for Africans at various points. If my choices were eating Mac and cheese and being raped by Thomas Jefferson or starving to death and becoming lion food in sub-Saharan Africa, I am going with the former.
that could be argued as less oppressed (although a stretch even then), but happy? i don't see it. unless you didn't see them as people, you couldn't help but see something wrong with it. at least that's how it feels to me.
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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And I'm not going to choose to compare African slaves to pets, because that's, of course, insane.
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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Headhunter wrote:
zombie wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
zombie wrote:
Headhunter wrote:By the way, zombie, it didn't occur to me earlier but there's an entire study dedicated to that history of the South sugarcoating/distorting its 19th century history. It's called Lost Cause of the Confederacy and it's pretty interesting.
so, it's a way to help the south cope after losing the civil war? and also about helping to re-unify the north and the south? it feels like there could have been a way to do that, while also acknowledging that you made mistakes and held to some fucked up beliefs.
Yeah but the South was CRUSHED economically. Lot of generations of poverty created in that era. Which means shame, and then denial.
the people who were crushed and suffered most, likely had nothing to do with owning slaves? it's my understanding that was a wealthy minority? how many who fought actually owned slaves too?
Yes, the people who owned slaves merely had to evolve their business. Those fields would be worked for another 80 years. That came in the form of convict leasing to the plantations. Homeless blacks with nowhere to go at the time were picked off the streets, hauled into jail for bogus crimes and sent to work on those plantations (see where the disconnect between the AA community and law enforcement comes from?). And the conditions were even worse because as a prisoner, you're not an asset as you would be a slave. Feeding you is no longer a priority, there will always be more in the pipeline.

You'd be right for the most part. It was a feudal society. The wealthy aristocrats, pretty poor white people, really poor white people, slaves. The Civil War was only fought for the benefit of the aristocrats.
To follow up on this, remember how I referenced the political wedge the aristocrats drove between poor whites and poor blacks, which really represents the story of the South for centuries? Well, take a guess who poor whites were indoctrinated to take out their anger and frustrations on during Reconstruction.
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Re: Is Tom Cruise the Greatest Movie Star of All Time?

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Headhunter wrote:
zombie wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
zombie wrote:
Headhunter wrote:By the way, zombie, it didn't occur to me earlier but there's an entire study dedicated to that history of the South sugarcoating/distorting its 19th century history. It's called Lost Cause of the Confederacy and it's pretty interesting.
so, it's a way to help the south cope after losing the civil war? and also about helping to re-unify the north and the south? it feels like there could have been a way to do that, while also acknowledging that you made mistakes and held to some fucked up beliefs.
Yeah but the South was CRUSHED economically. Lot of generations of poverty created in that era. Which means shame, and then denial.
the people who were crushed and suffered most, likely had nothing to do with owning slaves? it's my understanding that was a wealthy minority? how many who fought actually owned slaves too?
Yes, the people who owned slaves merely had to evolve their business. Those fields would be worked for another 80 years. That came in the form of convict leasing to the plantations. Homeless blacks with nowhere to go at the time were picked off the streets, hauled into jail for bogus crimes and sent to work on those plantations (see where the disconnect between the AA community and law enforcement comes from?). And the conditions were even worse because as a prisoner, you're not an asset as you would be a slave. Feeding you is no longer a priority, there will always be more in the pipeline.

You'd be right for the most part. It was a feudal society. The wealthy aristocrats, pretty poor white people, really poor white people, slaves. The Civil War was only fought for the benefit of the aristocrats.
so, then the "lost cause" thing was really only to benefit the southern aristocrats too? it gave them cover. it didn't do anything for the average southerner, other than keep them blind, to the wrongdoing of the upperclass.

how many of the soldiers who fought and died, even owned slaves?
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