A Fascinating Book I'm Reading
One of the best non-fiction reads I've read in a while, it's not a military history book, but details specifically the Confederate government, culture, society, the legal system, and economy.
What I find most fascinating about the book was just how fucked up the Confederacy became even from the early outset. Especially in terms of law and order. Due to the incredible manpower demands most men of military age either enlisted or were later conscripted into the army. This resulted in severe manpower shortages at home. When this happened, the system of slavery the Confederates were fighting for became a grave liability as there was no one left to control the millions of slaves that populated the south. As a result, whole plantations of slaves would run away and form free communities in the wilderness, surviving by pillaging plantations and farms, or robbing travelers on highways. In Louisiana there was a slave town hidden deep in the swamps that housed 2,000 people! At the same time thousands of Confederate soldiers were deserting as the war started going bad. Many soldiers found that their homestead and family was falling apart in their absence, so they deserted. These deserters were declared outlaws, and as a result many banded together, formed groups, and made a living as bandits and marauders.
At the same time many officers in the Confederate army who were garrisoned in specific places became de facto military dictators and warlords over the territory they controlled. They often disobeyed the law and refused to carry out orders issued by the Confederate government, but due to manpower shortages and the disorganization of the government there was little that could be done to reign them in. Often, these warlord Confederates acted as bandits, pillaging the territory they controlled not just for food and necessary supplies but for valuables as well. In many cases, whole towns and even counties rebelled against Confederate military authorities as they were sick of being pillaged by warlord Confederates. A good example was Jones County, Mississippi which actually seceded from the Confederacy as a result. Often, these rebel towns and counties survived by banditry and became marauders themselves just to make a get by.
According to the author, by 1863 much of the rural south was in a state of lawlessness and anarchy with the countryside controlled by bandits, marauders, independent towns or counties, pro-Union enclaves, and military warlords. Like bruh, this would be a good setting for an open world RPG game, perhaps something set in the Red Dead Redemption Universe.
Anyway if you are a Civil War buff I highly recommend this book.
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Jesse Plemons getting a role in Civil War because Kirsten Dunst suggested casting him after the original actor dropped out is a rare example of Hollywood nepotism gone occasionally right?
No, but most reviews I have read about this film say he is absolutely best thing in it.
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There was a brief period between the first two Avengers movies where the MCU threatened to actually make a statement about contemporary surveillance state politics and the role of the USA as an imperialist super power and it seems to have scared the powers at be so much that pretty much every subsequent film has gone out of its way to being as overtly copagandy as possible while maintaining the vaneer of plausible deniability.
Like the divide between "Hey maybe we shouldn't be the arbitrary holders of life and death" Winter Soldier and "We should be allowed to kill as many black and brown people as needed in the name of justice" Civil War is amazingly fucked in hindsight, it makes Rise of Skywalker's backpedaling after The Last Jedi seem restrained by comparison.
Like, if Iron Man 3 were made rn, they would've played the Iron Patriot persona Rhodey adopted completely straight and have him be the 3rd act saviour instead of being portrayed as a joke turned 3rd act villain's plot twist.
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This was removed from all Gannett papers. It's a travesty for many reasons, + though GT is surely fine, it's another example of how conditions for cartoonists keep getting worse + worse: positions eliminated, cartoons with bite being purged, fees decimated, outlets disappearing.
[Ward Sutton]
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