"Frederick Douglass, who was born into Southern #slavery, described the South as “a little nation by itself, having its own language, its own rules, regulations, and customs.”

Fewer than 2000 families — six-tenths of one percent of the Southern #population — owned more than 50 enslaved people and ruled the #oligarchy that we call the #Confederacy with an iron fist. The 75 percent of white #people in the South during that era who did not own any enslaved persons generally lived in deep #poverty.

#Women had no rights, #queer people were routinely #tortured and #murdered, #education for both enslaved #Africans and poor whites was generally outlawed, #religious attendance was often mandated, and #hunger and #disease stalked all but those in the #families of the two thousand morbidly #rich planter #dynasties.

#Modern-day Red states are doing their best to recreate that old Confederacy, right down to state Senator Kathy #Chism’s new effort to return the Confederate battle flag to #Mississippi's state flag. Ron #DeSantis and Mike #Pence have both emphasized their presidential pledges to restore the names of murderous Civil #War #traitors to #American #military bases, celebrating their armed defense of the “values” of the Old South.

Today’s version of yesteryear’s #plantation owners are called #CEOs, hedge and vulture fund managers, and the morbidly rich.

They use the power of #political #bribery given them by five corrupt #Republicans on the #SupremeCourt — with Clarence #Thomas’ tie-breaking #Citizens United vote on behalf of his sugar daddy Harlan #Crow — to lord over their Red states, regardless of the will of those states’ citizens."

https://www.alternet.org/welfare-queens/