S4 E26: Confederacy, Birth Control & Trump's Cabinet: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

[@bellamychalsruch5018]

genuinely delighted when he unveiled Stephen, love that he agreed to this guest appearance

[@Rowsy91]

Stephen used to be the man. Shame what hes become on late night He was up there with Oliver and Stewart once upon a time

[@Spencer-wc6ew]

I want to know how long he was standing there. It looks like that area was just sitting there on the left that entire segment

[@sirdaine2567]

@@Rowsy91 What *has* he become? I haven't been following his show in a few years.

[@Rowsy91]

@@sirdaine2567 just a nudered MSM version of himself . Not funny just polishing politics

[@rolo4733]

@Rowsy91 Ok Mr, "Alex Jones is the GOAT of entertainment" and "John is a really good guy but I think he fell a little bit too hard for the covid scare." Keep ya unpopular opinions online with 0 context to support your wild tin-foil hat based claims. Plus your 100 other comments on this channel. They're very entertaining to read tbh. Popping pop corn rn to read the rest.

[@j-wizzhathorn674]

The irony now is these same people are banning books that talk about slavery.

[@TheNinthGeneration1]

Well in their defence, hearing about the problems of the past makes them feel bad because it means that they might be bad people because their ancestors were, so it’s better to paint the past in as good of a light as possible so no one (who is white) ever has to feel bad or guilty ever again.

[@jerremylazy]

I was gonna mention the CRT episode.

[@kittycheshire5099]

This aired when I was actively in middle school. Why has literally nothing changed?

[@Wh40kFinatic]

Trump and the GOP. The mass disinformation campaign that has been run the past 8+ years in a desperate attempt to keep Republicans in power. Turning people against science and the truth, creating an environment of a literal reversal of reality.

[@spuriouslathos2518]

Because the current political climate has emboldened Nazis and Confederates instead of shaming them like it should. Republicans are trying to use the Dredd Scott decision claiming black people are not citizens as proof that Kamala Harris can't run for president. Learn about how we won the last civil war so that we may win the next one which is imminent.

[@agiar2000]

I think that little has changed because there are many, many people who have totally bought into the right-wing propaganda who are fighting hard to make changes for the worse, and there are a lot of moderates fighting hard to make sure nothing changes for the better.

[@CronoXpono]

@@agiar2000Also doesn’t help that corporations basically own everything. Easier for far left and far right folks to speak to one another when they needed each other. Now? Corporations rule every goddamn thing so we all simply hate each other without any real vested interests. It fucking sucks.

[@nevrsleep1]

It’s good you aren’t complacent, but if you think things haven’t changed since 2017, it’s perhaps because you haven’t lived long enough yet. In the grander scheme of things, it takes more than 6 or 7 years for social change to become apparent. Questioning our nation’s excusing of and obsession with the confederacy, for example, has been a subject for as long as I can remember. Only recently were monuments starting to come down, but the actual change only comes with time - slowly, with each new generation. By the time you retire, you might still be saying much the same things even if times improve. But you’ll also recognize how much has changed.

[@nl5828]

as someone from the uk, it is not often that i see a video where jimmy saville is not even close to being the worst thing being discussed!

[@TiffanyCLockhart]

Yay! It's the actual Stephen Colbert! I love that he agreed to be a part of this bit towards the end! Also, the argument that John and Stephen were having as the credits rolled was hilarious! “You started it!” “No, you started it!” XD

[@ChrisKewl]

This was before Colbert started only doing 4 shows a week. I guess he stopped doing a 5th show because he had his duties to stand at that pedestal in the square in Charleston.

[@heyitsfei]

IMO, I think the US could take a page out of Germany's book regarding how they've handled Naziism and the Holocaust, albeit not exactly by choice. After WWII ended, the Allies issued several orders directing Germany's denazification. Directive 30 stated that: 1) it was illegal to design/create/install anything to commemorate the Nazis or their ideals (eg statues and street names), and 2) any pre-existing memorials had to be dismantled/removed within one year (it noted that tombstones and similar burial memorials were permitted, but only if the deceased was not a member of any Nazi paramilitary group). Additionally, learning about Nazis and the Holocaust has been mandatory in German secondary schools for over 30 years, with many schools even taking field trips to concentration camps if they're able

[@evhwolfgang2003]

Hitler was inspired by the American Confederacy. The Con-feds were breeding people for traits, and Hitler took that to mean that genetic purity could be achieved. Also The way the government had so many Christians accepting torture, rape, trafficking, and murder based on race, and that was right up his ally. It goes on from there. He wrote a book, but most people are afraid to read it for some reason. READ IT. JD Vance wrote a book too. They're not dissimilar.

[@michaelmeroyers5487]

they need to do this nowadays, otherwise history repeats itself!!!!!!😮

[@agiar2000]

My very cosmopolitan close friend from South Africa also had some good perspectives on this, in my opinion. She said that America needed a "truth and reconciliation" (I might be misremembering the phrase) committee like South Africa had after apartheid to really come to terms with what happened and how to make it right. She also mentioned that the former Soviet Union has a "monument graveyard" where they have stashed many of the statues and symbols of the old Soviet Union, in a dismantled, vandalized, defaced, and disgraced state, to preserve the history while putting it in a decidedly _NOT_ glorified position.

[@Mr2tonearmy]

That would sadly imply that the South would WANT to reckon with their past...which how the Republican Party and the South is going- probably won't happen in our life.

[@mischevious]

⁠@@Mr2tonearmyThe confederates were democrats. Lincoln was a Republican. It was republicans who conspired for the necessary votes to free the slaves. Rethink

[@Apretentiouspotato]

Good update on the Forrest statue! It was in my town, and in 2020 someone spray painted “monster” on it. (Deserved.) It came down about a year after that, although the flags are still up

[@the_united_republican]

This show is BRILLIANT by bringing back their old episodes starting long enough ago that this is what we are being reminded of right before the election. How Trump was, what we were scared he was doing to do, and with the hindsight of living in the future, we can now see the early warning signs. Everyone with MAGA family start them on Last Week Tonight right around the debates, when Trump was a lovable clown who everyone including him thought would lose, and not someone desperate for power.

[@keiyakins]

As a wise goose in a meme once said, STATES RIGHTS TO WHAT?

[@elijahjarman2837]

"BuT It'S oUR hErITaGe"

[@rjpittman4510]

"Monuments glorify and celebrate history. Museums preserve it" is the perfect way to describe Confederate statues

[@charlottebowers5485]

this is entirely genius, pure, simple, totally, unadulterated, genius -- tracking down the clip and showing the clip, "do you know how much...!?" utterly amazing, John Oliver was right to use that word...

[@MrDanJB85]

Whilst I’ve seen the clip before, a really basic question about “fought to save their farm under this flag” is just occurring to me: save it from what? I’m no scholar of the American Civil War, but if the farm was worked by his ‘poor’ family (and nobody else) how would the outcome of the war affect it? Is the man talking nonsense, or was there propaganda (or even substantive issues) that would lead a farmer to believe they would lose their farm if the Union won?

[@Wh40kFinatic]

Well, many farms WERE targeted, because they were feeding the Southern army. But, no, it seems like nobody would have lost their farms.

[@liliases]

speaking from experience, it's very possible the notion that the farm was worked by a poor family and nobody else could very well be bullshit. it's very common that families either had slaves or 'needed' them, and that information isn't really ever passed down. it's not like a guy would tell his grandkids 'well you see son, when i was a little boy my father worked long and hard everyday so that one day he could buy a human person'

[@stratbaseballman]

The farmer could easily lose their current crop and a poor farmer might be that close to foreclosure that they might lose the farm financially, but if that was the case leaving to go fight makes even less sense. Also, I don't know of any slaveowners who actually lost land after the 40 acres and a mule was rescinded. Let alone a non-slave owner on a small farm.

[@CronoXpono]

@@stratbaseballmanAlso the explicit statement that if they HADN’T been expensive, they would’ve bought them. For. Fuck’s. Sake. 🤦‍♂️

[@keiyakins]

There's also the fact that there was widespread belief that if they stopped enslaving black people, then the (lazy and useless without white people to direct them and also violent and vicious, because propaganda doesn't change and it's always self-contradictory) newly freed black folks would murder their way across the countryside. Not *entirely* unfounded, either. The Haitian revolution was just barely still in living memory.

[@teucer915]

I feel like this season of rereleases came just in time to remind us what having Trump in office is actually like.

[@mboatrightED300]

And how steep his mental decline has been.

[@sonorasgirl]

The only conspiracy theory I believe is that John pressured HBO into releasing these in the months before the election for that exact reason lol

[@mischevious]

@@sonorasgirlThat’s not conspiracy theory. That’s literally how the Dems work, through party friends in liberal media, and they’re not the least bit shy about it. So if you don’t know, then you’re not paying attention.

[@TheNinthGeneration1]

@@sonorasgirl considering they haven’t gotten the Covid season up, it’s not as strong of a theory, but seeing as the most recent episode was uploaded on Sunday, it’s possible they wanted to get as many as they could.

[@lolopotatoes9397]

What is it about this show that always just cheers me up??😊

[@bwenluck9812]

@lol Maybe it's the fact that it exposes the seedy underbelly of everything???

[@LionHeartSamy]

22:47 Me sitting here drinking tea, and then suddenly looked up at the realization that he could just anagram his name into "grow a spine", but no no no, "grow a penis"

[@daniellamurphy9862]

The Daughters of the Condederacy were responsible for many of those statues.

[@xx_isabel_the_wolf_xx3869]

Atun shei films had amazing videos on this

[@evhwolfgang2003]

They're not women. Its a bunch of men fighting to keep the confederacy alive. HITLER was inspired by the confederacy. I bet most people don't know that.

[@Wh40kFinatic]

@@xx_isabel_the_wolf_xx3869 He's where I got pretty much all my knowledge on this issue.

[@RustyJones-j3h]

Lol Hashtag Feminism Hashtag Confedera-She

[@Stew-s5e]

Wonder how they would react if a group of relatives of Japanese soldiers put up a memorial in pearl harbour celebrating the battle of December 1941. You think they would be so accommodating?

[@corybaldwin1168]

Speaking as a professional historian, the vast majority of the job actually is deciding what is and isn't history rather than just stuff that happened and history changes all the time.

[@laszlodomonkos3941]

"I don't wanna hear that." "Of course, you don't." A bit on the nose, there, isn't it?

[@snicketylemony]

well yes that’s the joke

[@jujitsujew23]

seeing Colbert on Olivers show is just great. They're a fantastic duo

[@kumbaya69421]

I love that John looks like Steve Mnuchin

[@mozar5278]

The Trump presidency was a public health emergency from the start, and violence is a societal and cultural disorder, more than an individual one. Individual circumstances may vary, but of greater significance is the cultural shift that pushes vulnerable individuals into violence where previously they may not have been. Dr Bandy Lee

[@Rowsy91]

This is one of the best episodes they did. Season 4 might have been peak LWT

[@BlueAster12]

All LWT is peak LWT

[@Rowsy91]

@@BlueAster12 the million covid episodes aren’t peak Lwt lol Most episodes are very very good though

[@utilid4lifefigureitout602]

All you have to do to understand, unequivocally, that the Confederacy fought the Civil War to preserve slavery/refuse any notion of abolition, is to look at the Constitution of the Confederacy. Also, just as damning, each state/territory planning to secede filled out a written Ordinance of Secession. Each one clearly spells out that maintaining chattle slavery/making abolition illegal is what forced them to commit treason and create/join a new safe space for slavery, the Confederacy. For most states, The Ordinance of Secession referenced slavery as the impetuous within the 1st two paragraphs, some did in the 1st few sentences. The KKK, daughters of the confederacy, and other white supremacists groups/movements would spend the next century and beyond trying to push the absurd Lost Cause Myth to whitewash the South/the confederacy's role in the Civil war... in pursuit of Making America Great Again I.e. circa 1850(MAGA was literally one of their main slogans... one of the quintessential slogans appearing on their banners and propaganda literature).

[@Claudefather]

Jesus just wants a big hug 🤗

[@lauren5658]

Stephen and John look so young!!!! COVID hit everyone hard 😖

[@wta1518]

13:42 States' rights to do what?

[@asamlos]

Doobus Goobus reference or am I just crazy

[@wta1518]

@@asamlos You are not crazy

[@mmarzett]

The beginning for the "Sexy Steve Mnuchin" jokes.

[@GeorgeRoberts-m3m]

I was asked, by one of my wife's relatives if I'd been to stone mountain, I said yes, I was there when it opened. She asked what thought of it, I said "I'm not big on monuments to losers."

[@bangslamwham88]

In the end we never found out what Trump meant by "The Calm before the Storm".

[@adamstiles1154]

Does anyone know if those statues that Oliver proposed ever go up? I kinda wish they did. That would be nice.

[@fireflyfox93]

As a Floridan, I would love Herman 😂

[@colincook-o9p]

I actually tried to make grilled cheese with my toaster turned on it's side, and all the crumbs that had accumulated on the bottom over the years caught fire 😂 yeah I'm an idiot

[@Baked42L0ng]

Bro…. That happens with regular toasters too…. Clean ur toaster 😂

[@Tonyhouse1168]

You tried something new; that’s not nothing

[@MrSknottykid]

My high school Honors English teacher taught the civil war was about taxation.

[@Tonyhouse1168]

It was, in a roundabout way. If you make slaves citizens, then they have to pay taxes, even with no land and no job prospects. In a way, the whole current immigration debate is a racist rant about taxation too.

[@Jeudaos]

'looks like if a nickel did cocaine" LMFAO

[@MusicfromMarrs]

What that guy defending confederate statues with "my family was poor" needs to realize is that his ancestors were likely impressed into serving in the Confederate Army. There's at least a 50/50 chance that his great great papaw didn't want to fight.

[@cgxoxo1]

How dare you, Franklin MA is the home of the first public library

[@calumproctor981]

The one in Charleston was founded in 1698. The Franklin Public Library wasn't founded until 1790, although it is the oldest public lending library *in continuous existence* in the United States (the one in Charleston closed some time in the 1800s).

[@0hpossum]

My grandmother always says the civil war was about states’ rights. She gets very upset whenever I ask her “states’ rights to what?”

[@wiktorLicht]

I'm from Poland. We have many Soviet monuments around. You would be surprised how - no matter how much they hear about it - seeing a concrete obelisk with Red Star at the top makes it very very real for people that we actually were under a foreign occupation, not so long ago. Younger people don't grasp it, it's like an old legend that has as much to do with reality as Harry Potter, that treat Russia as some cousin that we didn't keep contact with for some time but will gladly help him, not remembering he tried to steal out home. I'm not saying the Confederate monuments should stay, you make some good points but we should be mindful when deleting physical evidence of history from places where everyone can see them. How many people go to museums? How many people read about history?

[@CronoXpono]

Mate, this is America. We don’t do nuance and we definitely don’t educate.

[@katalina256]

There is actually a really good civil war museum in Vicksberg Mississippi I recommend everyone to go to. I know the phrase "civil war museum in Mississippi" raises some red flags, but trust me, this one is real good. No states rights bullshit.

[@davidschloeder5344]

How bazar when comedians give you more history than news broadcasting.

[@laestrella9727]

Bizarre

[@voltjmgaming2119]

20:07 You can't ignore it, like Batman!🤣

[@CCUONKNOWABOUTME]

They’re all about preserving history until it comes to critical race theory.

[@patriciabulleigh3382]

The storm was January 6th and it faild!😂

[@spuriouslathos2518]

"My opinion of my Confederate ancestors is that he was simply fighting for his rights! **ahem** wHaTeVeR tHoSe RiGhTs WeRe..." Really drives home that he knew he was wrong and needed to pivot away from the subject if his emotional appeal was going to work.

[@kevinmcqueenie7420]

Absolutely nobody should be held accountable for what their ancestors did, but absolutely nobody should condone bad sh1t their ancestors did.

[@fwfulton]

Cubits, yes, Cubits that is what the statue is showing you...

[@slipstick985]

Also Abraham Lincoln statues are taken down for saying he did not think the black man was equal. Lincoln is not a friend to the black man, I don't know who is.

[@matthewhancox4389]

Those were some impressive Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon drawings. If you get that reference, you’re officially cool.

[@martinhumble]

Why did it have to be me was actually released in another version; Happy Hawaii. Both are great. ❤️ ABBA ❤️

[@littlechris8182]

'My family fought to save their farm. My family worked the fields without slaves because they were poor. Do you know how much slaves were back then?' So wait.... wouldn't his families non slave self labored farm be ahead of the rest that lost slave labor? So either his family used slaves or fought against something that would benefit them.

[@vonriel1822]

Oh hey, for anyone who wants a more thorough takedown of The Lost Cause myths, you should go look up Atun-Shei's "Checkmate, Lincolintes!" series.

[@ethanc2280]

Ah Colbert, before the existential dread

[@eightleganimations2595]

That would be like naming US military bases after revolutionary war british people. King George's Military Base.

[@heyheysbk]

#confederashe

[@pleappleappleap]

The Dixie Stampede should be serving Coke. It's Southern. Pepsi is from the North.

[@TheDiamondcutter101]

I wonder if it's deliberate that they didn't use any BBC clips when discussing Jimmy Savile. I'm not sure if people outside of Britain know but the BBC was complicit in Savile getting away with his crimes for years.

[@rjpittman4510]

Do you think Colbert was giggling under the blanket?

[@jayluck8047]

If slavery were to come back, do you really think black Americans are going to go back into chains? If not, who then? No answer should make you comfortable.

[@Kizmiass-o6p]

With few exceptions Southern generals were actually pretty crappy especially the one that lost Atlanta

[@aabu4995]

And…. Chicago in the state where all license plates say land of Lincoln started a committee to decide if they should take down a statue of Lincoln

[@agiar2000]

Do you know what the motivation was for forming that committee? Like, who wanted that statue taken down and why?

[@aabu4995]

@@agiar2000 social justice warriors whose voices were amplified by Twitter is a strong possibility

[@calumproctor981]

​@@agiar2000 What actually happened was that, following the 2020 unrest, Chicago announced a Project to Assess Memorials and Monuments in the City’s Public Art Collection. The associated committee listed a number of statues that it thought needed to be reviewed. That list included five Lincoln statues, as well as statues of Ulysses S. Grant, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin. It also included several monuments to Indigenous people. It would be helpful to know why they were put on the list, because the Chicago Monuments website appears to only say complimentary things about them. It is worth noting that the reasons given for considering the need for "public discussion" about the monuments on the list includes "[c]reating tension between people who see value in these artworks and those who do not". That might apply to at least one of the Lincoln statues, since it portrays his "humble humanity" with "rumpled" clothes.

[@annemc41]

I have ancestors on both sides of the Civil War.

[@danisgay100]

I have been enlightened with the statue story, I will have to say he touched on some of the early presidents and some of them were slave keepers

[@gibshit4118]

This is one of the few times I think this man has been wrong, the civil war was primarily about slavery, but not because people thought it was unjust, it was because the north didn’t want to adopt slavery in the western states because they thought it would take work away from white people and damage their economy, and the south wanted the right to do whatever they wanted without interference from the federal government. It was fought because of economic issues not moral ones, it was fought to protect the rights of the white working class not to give rights to african americans, that was just a necessary product of it. It wasn’t good guys against bad guys, it was bad guys against worse guys.

[@Rundstedt1]

Stopping slavery's expansion was seen by both sides as the death knell of slavery, that was why it was important. And it was one of the few direct actions against it that could be taken without having to get an amendment. _"The area of slavery must be extended correlative with its antagonism, or it will be put speedily in the 'course of ultimate extinction.'....The extension of slavery is the vital point of the whole controversy between the North and the South..."_ Henry M. Rector, Governor of Arkansas, March 2, 1861, Arkansas Secession Convention" _The present Government of the United States is not an abolitionist government. Abolitionists, in America, mean those who do not keep within the Constitution; who demand the destruction (as far as slavery is concerned) of as much of it as protects the internal legislation of each State from the control of Congress, who aim at abolishing slavery wherever it exists, by force if need be, but certainly by some other power than the constituted authorities of the Slave States. The Republican party neither aim nor profess to aim at this object. And when we consider the flood of wrath which would have been poured out against them if they did, by the very writers who now taunt them with not doing it, we shall be apt to think the taunt a little misplaced. But though not an Abolitionist party, they are a Free-soil party. _*_If they have not taken arms against slavery, they have against its extension. And they know, as we may know if we please, that this amounts to the same thing._*_ The day when slavery can no longer extend itself, is the day of its doom. The slave-owners know this, and it is the cause of their fury. They know, as all know who have attended to the subject, that confinement within existing limits is its death-warrant. Slavery, under the conditions in which it exists in the States, exhausts even the beneficent powers of nature."_ - John Stuart Mill, 1863 And even if what you say were true, the North would still have been the good guys. What was seen when slavery moved in was that the only people that really prospered were the large slave holders and the economy and politics became subservient to their desires at the expense to the non owners and small holders. So you're trying to say that; the mass of people, both northern and southern in those future states, by trying not to have to live as serfs to aristocratic petty tyrants are "bad guys," in what amounts to a really terrible false equivalency. Additionally, like most libertarian claimants, the South were hypocrites, they loved interference from the federal government and had been using it from the inception of the nation to protect their own interests, i.e. Slavery. And it was the South that had been in control of that government for most of the years prior to the war and indeed right up to it with the "Doughface" Buchanan administration. If they had any complaints about the government, it was most likely their own doing. _“As long as the Government is on our side, I am for sustaining it and using its power for our benefit. … [if] our opponents reverse the present state of things then I am for war.”_ Future South Carolina governor Francis W. Pickens, and Minister to Russia under the Buchanan administration, 1857. _"White Southerners had no problem using the federal government's powers when it came to protecting and promoting the interests of slavery. They only invoked states' rights rhetoric in trying to restrict federal power against slavery. Divisions over the interpretation of the Constitution were directly related to the issue of slavery."_ - Professor Brooks D. Simpson And it certainly was fought to give rights to African Americans, in the very least the right not to be treated as chattel. _“I have never said any thing to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence-the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas that he is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color-perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments; but in the right to eat the bread without the leave of any body else which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every other man.”_ And that that isn't perfect equality is meaningless as it was not only a huge step forward but was conceived as a wedge to widen the issue. expecting modern reactions and policies would be a gross demonstration of Presentism and the "perfect solution" fallacy. _"Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political evil, having due regard for its actual existence amongst us and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it; but, nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a wrong it may come to an end."_ The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Lincoln-Douglas Debate at Galesburg" (October 7, 1858), p. 226. Nope, nothing about economics there. Even the South, especially when addressing their own citizens, made most their arguments along racial lines. Clearly from their after-war activities trying to restore the old racial order it shows that racism was an even greater driving force than anything about economics. _"It is quite true, of course, that economic conflicts of interest took place between agrarian and industrial factions. ... But these matters divided PARTIES (Whig and Democrat) and interest groups more than they divided North and South. The South in the 1840s and 1850s had its advocates of industrialization and protective tariffs and a national bank, just as the North had its millions of farmers and its low tariff, antibank Democratic majority in many states._ _The Civil War was not fought over issues of the tariff or banks or agrarianism vs. industrialism. These and similar kinds of questions have been the bread and butter issues of American politics throughout the nation's history, often generating a great deal more friction and heat than they did in the 1850s. But they have not caused any great shooting wars."_ - James McPherson "The Mighty Scourge" p10 .

[@Cheshirestog]

Well, many schools still emphasize the state rights as a reason which is why people think that. And they also dont really speak about the following issues: The north did have slaves that many richer families had. That many traveling to the north were allowed to bring their slaves and they were not suddenly free cause they were in the north. That although slavery wasn't supposedly legal they returned runaway slaves. That after slavery was made illegal the people in the north treated ex slaves terribly and were, often by richer people, brainwashed to once again scapegoat blacks and immigrants for issues with jobs, newer immigrants). That many were conscripted to the war and some didnt even want to fight in it, didnt believe in slavery and tried to escape. And that most the same families owned slaves, poorer folks did not and were leveraged by the rich in various ways to fight the rich's war. --so to say your confederate soldier ancestor would want that history and be represented is kind of ridiculous when they were often forced to fight (they were on the front lines, not the rich slave owners often, and used as pawns, as well as running away was punishable by death) and the way they treated families left by soldiers during the war..none of this is a good history someone's amcestors would want today if they were around. Most if not all statues are of rich bigoted losers who took advantage of the populace and used them like pawns. Not something youd think you want to remember for your ancestry.

[@Cheshirestog]

Oh, and another thing schools don't fully cover is the slavery in South America and the slaughter of Africans treated like a unlimited supply so they just killed them at great numbers, or islands and their populace and how terrible people were treated there. At least not when I was in school and I don't think anything has expanded or changed. And I went to school in the northeast.

[@Rundstedt1]

@@Cheshirestog The reason they don't cover any of that is because you have no idea about what you are trying to talk about and just posted a gish gallop of garbage that is so superficial it makes me wonder if you're still in primary school. For instance only between 2 and 6% of Union forces are draftees and about 21% of Confederate forces are. Also, every Northern state had acted to end slavery before the war, and even as early as 1820 there will only be about 3000 slaves left in the North, well before it was industrialized, and that number is falling. (Macmillan Encyclopedia, "Slavery In The Civil War Era"). Or as Professor Paul Finkelman put it, _"By 1804, all of the states north of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware had either ended slavery outright or had passed legislation to gradually abolish the institution. Thus, after 1804, Slavery was peculiar to the South."_ But meanwhile the Southern states not only refused to try to give it up, they grew it and embraced it even more and even as early as the time of the Revolution: _"The Southern Colonies of Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, by contrast, were not merely societies with slaves but "slave societies" organized economically, socially, and politically around the principle and practice of human bondage. In 1760, 88 percent of the 325,806 slaves in the British mainland colonies lived in the South."_ Elizabeth R. Varon "Disunion, the coming of the American Civil War" p17 And that law that required the return of runaways was part of the constitution, it was not the Northern states that were doing that and as a matter of fact they were resisting it with personal liberty laws and organized resistance to free runaways. This is especially true after the 1850 law forced on the North by a Southern dominated federal government, as it most often was before the war. And slave ownership in the south was an up and coming middle class condition not one of only the "rich." Most slave owners were not the large planter who were classified as those with 20 or more slaves, but were the small farmer with only one or few. _"While slaves were concentrated in the areas where staple crops were produced on a large scale, the bulk of the slave owners were small farmers" "It is not generally known that 200,000 owners in 1860 had five slaves of less. Fully 338,000 owners, or 88% of all owners of slaves held less than twenty slaves."_ - John Hope Franklin, "From Slavery to Freedom" p113 And by owners there he means families. The prevalence of slavery is actually determined by family ownership. The slave is owned by the family; one cannot call the children and wives living in a slave holding household 'non-slave owners' by just dividing the number of owners into the white population. It is owners and family households that are the critical numbers, not owners and the overall population _"The number that really matters is how many American households in the South had slaves"_ - Adam Goodheart, a Washington College historian and author of 1861: The Civil War Awakening. So: on average in the entire slave owning south about 25% of white families are slave holding households. And if we look just at the states that actually rebelled and leave out those four Southern states where the rate of ownership was low and which didn't rebel, like Delaware with only 1800 slaves in the state, or Maryland where only 12% of the families were owners; then in those states that will actually become the Confederacy; on average 1/3 of the families were slave holding households and this rose to almost 1/2 of the white family households in the deep south like South Carolina (46%) or Mississippi (49%) This is hardly a unique condition of the rich elites but a common desire amongst the average Southern citizen. Fighting for slavery and its attendant racism was Raison d'être of the Confederacy, its army, and what was behind the soldiers motivation as they saw a common interest in the protection slavery and white supremacy. _”Better, far better! endure all the horrors of civil war than to see the dusky sons of Ham leading the fair daughters of the South to the altar.”_ William M. Thomson to Warner A. Thomson, Feb. 2, 1861, "For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War," p19 _”Joseph Bruckmuller, a German immigrant saloon keeper who fought with the Seventh Texas, had almost nothing in common with the scion of the Palmetto State, yet Bruckmuller also saw the need to preserve slavery as a powerful glue binding all whites in the South. Scoffing at ‘improve-the-world ideas of emancipation,’ Bruckmuller urged his fellow ‘adoption citizens’ to stand by ‘your own countrymen and race’ against the ‘murder and arson, hanging and stealing’ that were sure to accompany the ‘liberation of the half-civilized cannibal.’”_ Chandra Manning, What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War p31-32 _"Because they could not imagine that the South, their families, or even their own identities as white men could be safe in the absence of slavery, most Confederate troops responded to 1864s preview of a world without a slavery-enforced racial hierarchy not by questioning chattel bondage, but by clinging desperately to it, and to a war to defend it."_ - Chandra Manning, "What this Cruel war is Over" p172 And yes the effects of slavery in South America are taught in schools. It's part of world history, not United States history, you must have missed that day or not read the reading assignments. .

[@magster6022]

HWcame of age, but never grew up.

[@felixwallace5041]

If any are still standing, we should update the plaques to include the effects their decisions had on their descendents

[@wendymiles3454]

Alright i think it says who sould we mail your pienal gland to, not you, but anyone, what is the right afterlife management company for you? So we offer credit counseling so you can make peace in the after life and an afterlife pow exchange program and uniquely taylored immersive story time experiences

[@jamesdelcol3701]

This was actually a long time ago. Trump has not been the president for a long time. The Biden Administration is almost done. We're going to vote for this next presidential administration. It is going to be Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris. See you on November the 5th.

[@wendymiles3454]

So uh ogden house gift? Consent form needed. United nations remains, paperwork not filed with us? Bridge incident x needs remains and afterlife planning

[@rebgates]

watching this the day of Trump's second assassination attempt...

[@wendymiles3454]

If you have unfinished business with the living we may be a good afterlife choice for you

[@JinxTheLooneyToon915]

5:59 | *Wednesday, January 6th, 2021*

[@michaelwicklund]

He really likes creating chaos on January 6th doesn’t he

[@Tonyhouse1168]

We went wrong when we decided that everyone’s opinion and feelings should matter. Truth doesn’t care about feelings.

[@cAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHt]

ermagerd, John Oliver does NOT age

[@matthewishunting]

he does you just have to attempt to look with your eyeballs

[@jlev1028]

His hair clearly does.

[@Frank-fh2qn]

I don't like references to things I actually know about in a news program.

[@MagnusLeeAmerica]

*Are Goths Devil Worshippers?* “Reincarnation Chess and the Volumes of Kings and Princes” This is officially the last of the bloodline stew. Kings and Queens are an instinctual flaw in the human ignorance. They’re a natural inclination that most people can’t learn out of because they’re not clever enough for bibliographies. These unseen noble lines shall become impossible to reestablish. Humanity shall be a dragon without a head. Instead we will worship God or the Devil. That means the gods are the true puppet masters. The truth would crash your bloodlines, anyway. Onward, to philosopher kings! These aristocracies are just vessels for a later date. Try and break the spiritual telepathic influence. The kings and queens are just PR for their feeble minds to handle. We shall be run by information. The awful truth is that princes and kings are already run by information and always have been. Their determinations are set and passed down through the ages but really culled from the vaster traditions. Boxers or briefs? What the political landscape is really about is getting ahold of the paperwork and competing with the other papers of separate countries and nations while convincing the public that you have conquered your way there and that you have none or few at your disposal. America was not set up only by the Constitution because they were aware of the information and secrecy of prior kingdoms. Be warned. They’re communication ma-chines.

[@slashplane]

15:14 People need to realize the reason was not slavery, the cause was slavery. That is to say, many, most soldiers did not fight for or agianst slavery, many generals and leaders too. They fought to protect thier nation and family. The cause of the civil war, in all respects was slavery. The southern states wanted slavery, the northern states did not want the south to cede. ( The north did not go in wanting to end slavery). The confederacy was built on the ideas of slavery, most who died for it didn't care about slavery, but whether they agreed with it, they fought for slavery.

[@TheNinthGeneration1]

Many soldiers’ journals would strongly disagree with you. While it is true that only 30% of the southern population were slave holders, many of them saw abolition as an existential issue that would end their way of life and would make them “not white anymore”, that’s a pretty common sentiment that you can find written down towards the end of the war

[@chriscasperson5927]

Looks like someone needs to read *Marching Masters* or watch some Atun-Shei. Hate to tell you this, but a vast majority were all-in on slavery and said so.

[@TheNinthGeneration1]

@@chriscasperson5927 he’s definitely not going to only be a footnote

[@slashplane]

@@chriscasperson5927 less then 20% of southerners owend slaves. Many if not most didn't see any problems with slavery, and racism was extreme, on both sides. But most northerners in the first half didn't care to see slavery abolished. Some southerners where ernest about slavery, others, many southerners where drafted or joined to protect thier country, thier leaders and elites had them fight for slavery. Point being, there where good people on both sides. but there was no "good guys"

[@chriscasperson5927]

@@slashplane The "good people" on the Confederate side fought to preserve and expand slavery and tried to teat this nation apart to do so.

[@johnchessant3012]

26

[@BlaMM74]

I saw it here first!

[@mcarmstrong14]

Second

[@matthewishunting]

SUPER TRUE I SAW THE COMMENT BEING MADE IN REAL TIME

[@RodMcPherson-n2u]

You didn't interview anyone who was black in your short panel it was very lopsided and disgusting

[@ababame]

why all those releases like that??

[@SomeRandomDude-q1i]

keep the monuments, they are history, just disgrace them by making them wear pink skirts

[@BaldwinBay]

Creepy

[@wendymiles3454]

🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑✍️

[@Jcewazhere]

Atun-Shei wrapped up his 'Checkmate Lincolnites' series a few weeks back. It was epic, go watch it when you're done ogling Jon.

[@user-dv6gt5iw4b]

this is 6 years old

[@TheNinthGeneration1]

Yes, this is from season 4, they’re releasing all of the old seasons in their entirety, they’ve done this three times before and they’ll keep doing it.

[@jmfu]

If you're not first, your last!

[@JohnTLyon]

Leave 'em up. To remind us ALL how badly we fucked up.

[@particles343]

Honestly I think the UK needs to annex the U.S.

[@Kartissa]

Sorry. It's too big for the British Museum.

[@nanyubusnis9397]

I don't think the UK wants them back at this point.

[@spuriouslathos2518]

Europeans taking over these continents is exactly why everything went so wrong to begin with.

[@jeffdavies2824]

Why are you publishing episodes from 7 years ago as if they are new?

[@tabularasa0606]

They are not. The airing date is in the description.

[@stevemonges]

If you follow Last Week Tonight, you will notice that they mentioned that this year they would release full seasons(starting from Season 1) whenever the Present show was on break. (So no show this week, they uploaded all of Season 4 episodes. Coincidentally, Trump's first year as President.

[@Apagador69]

LOL, can't think of new shit, huh?

[@johndeitman5059]

They've been uploading old seasons on dates the show dosen't air.