(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
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On Juneteenth, Let’s Examine the Link Between MAGA and the Old South [1]
['Thom Hartmann', 'The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent', 'Timothy Noah', 'Melissa Gira Grant', 'Matt Ford']
Date: 2024-06-19
Now that one machine could clean as much cotton as 50 people, every cotton plantation faced the possibility that it could produce 50 times as much cotton (and profit) if only it had 50 times as much land to grow the cotton on and 50 times as many people to pick it.
The wealthiest among the Southern oligarchs colluded on price-fixing to bankrupt and then buy out small farms and plantations for pennies on the dollar. Within a few decades, by the early 1840s, a handful of fabulously wealthy families had seized complete control of the economic and political systems of each state in the Old South.
And they brooked no opposition: White men who dared run or vote against them in elections were often assassinated or lynched; newspapers were seized and handed over to oligarchs friendly to the plantation owners; elections became a mere charade. They even monitored the mail: If you wrote a letter to a friend complaining about the end of democracy, you’d find yourself in prison or hanged from a tree.
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[1] Url:
https://newrepublic.com/article/182890/juneteenth-...
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