The Civil War was ENTIRELY about slavery

I haven't been watching a lot of news lately. MSNBC's terrible reporting makes me gag, CNN is too busy trying to show how cool they are since they're on the Twitters and the YouTubes, and Fox News is well, Fox News. So maybe I missed something, but I haven't heard a lot of talk about the American Civil War. You would think on the 150th anniversary of the darkest chapter in our nation's history would be something worth discussing. 9/11, significant as it was, can't go by without a 24-hour terror porn replay of the newscasts from the days events, yet the anniversary American Civil War, which left over 365,000 people dead, has gone by without much of a peep.

You know that cliché, "those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it"? Well, in an political climate where elected officials, not just tinfoil hat buffoons and charlatans like Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart, are telling Americans that they may need to take up arms against their government, the Civil War might be something we want to talk about. Michele Bachmann (R-Toon Town) wants her constituents "armed & dangerous," Sharon Angle talked about "Second Amendment remedies" if she lost the election against Harry Reid (she did... barely) and Texas Governor, Rick Perry, has been stoking the flames of secession for years now.

On top of all this, we have people who actually claim that the Civil War wasn't really about slavery. Google "Civil War not about slavery" and you'll find millions upon millions of results. Oh really, the Civil War wasn't about slavery? This guy begs to differ:

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

Who said something so awful? The fucking Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens. Yeah, slavery had NOTHING to do with it. Excuse me while I LOL.

So the next time some asshole tries to tell you otherwise, or even worse, if you have some lunatic teacher shoving some bullshit about "states' rights" (yeah, states' rights to own black people), read them that quote from Alexander Stephens. My ultra right-wing 9th grade history teacher tried to push that nonsense on us... and yes right-wingers, it's not just liberal indoctrination in schools, I wish I paid more attention when I was 14 to call him out on his bullshit.

The Civil War was ENTIRELY about slavery and as our population gets increasingly dumber, these kind of climates can reemerge. Not that I think Michele Bachmann is going to bring back the slave trade, but it contributes to this society of nimrods that think the Civil War wasn't about race and if we just get violent, the government will actually listen to them. That's dangerous and that's where America is right now.