This week's featured article at the Sobel Wiki is on the Mexican state of Mexico del Norte. Mexico del Norte is unusual for a Mexican state in that it actually makes sense. The neighboring state of Arizona, for instance, is basically one big rotten borough, having almost no white settlers at the time Andrew Jackson created it in 1819 (as well as being anachronistically named). The state of Chiapas is equally problematic, being the mother of all gerrymanders -- ninety percent of Mexico's population concentrated in a single state -- as well as being anachronistically named. By contrast, Mexico del Norte actually had a majority of white settlers, almost 30,000 of them, and was already a long-established Mexican province. The only odd thing about making it a state of the new United States of Mexico was the decision to change the name from Nuevo Mexico to Mexico del Norte.
Unlike Jefferson, the home state of the U.S.M.'s Anglo minority, or California, the birthplace of Kramer Associates, or the Hispanic states of Chiapas and Durango, Mexico del Norte was always just sort of there in Sobel's U.S.M. It was one of the main battlegrounds of the Rocky Mountain War, but after that Mexico del Norte was basically a cypher. It was like a second Arizona, except that it didn't even produce any notable political leaders to compare with Arizona's Arthur Conroy and Thomas Rogers. After a while, even Sobel seemed to forget it was there; after 1926, he forgot to include Mexico del Norte's vote tallies in his tables of presidential election results.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
How to repeal Obamacare
Repealing Obamacare has become the Holy Grail of the Republican Party. Every week or so, the House GOP caucus ritually votes to repeal or defund Obamacare. There is a dangerously large faction within the House GOP caucus that wants to default on the United States' debt obligations in order to blackmail the Democrats into agreeing to repeal Obamacare.
However, that won't be necessary, because the means to achieve their goal will soon be within the Republicans' grasp. And it was none other than Paul Krugman, the Shrill One himself, who has pointed the way.
Last week, Krugman pointed to this story from the Huffington Post about government health care workers touting Kentucky's new health care exchange at the State Fair. The story opens with a middle-aged Kentucky man listening to the pitch, then saying, "This beats Obamacare I hope." The next day, Krgthulhu pointed out that 39 percent of Americans agree that the government should stay out of Medicare. "This at least suggests," the Shrill One continues, "that many voters will never realize that the regulated, subsidized health exchanges that have become a vital part of their security are in fact the very same Obamacare they were taught to hate and fear."
And that's how the Republicans can repeal Obamacare. Once the plan goes into effect next year, all they have to do is spread a bunch of bullshit horror stories about death panels in action, and voters who don't realize that the health care exchanges they like and rely on are Obamacare will elect candidates who promise to repeal it. The result will be another Republican midterm landslide, giving them control of Congress. Come January 2015, the GOP, along with their Blue Dog Democrat allies, will repeal Obamacare with a veto-proof supermajority.
And then? Well, naturally, the people will be outraged at losing their health care exchanges. Who will they blame? Who else but Barack Obama, the man who created the vile, tyrannical Obamacare that took their health care away. Republican presidential nominee Rand Paul will ride the wave of anger to victory in November by promising to restore the health care exchanges. But first, of course, he'll have to restore the gold standard, abolish the Federal Reserve, privatize Social Security . . .
However, that won't be necessary, because the means to achieve their goal will soon be within the Republicans' grasp. And it was none other than Paul Krugman, the Shrill One himself, who has pointed the way.
Last week, Krugman pointed to this story from the Huffington Post about government health care workers touting Kentucky's new health care exchange at the State Fair. The story opens with a middle-aged Kentucky man listening to the pitch, then saying, "This beats Obamacare I hope." The next day, Krgthulhu pointed out that 39 percent of Americans agree that the government should stay out of Medicare. "This at least suggests," the Shrill One continues, "that many voters will never realize that the regulated, subsidized health exchanges that have become a vital part of their security are in fact the very same Obamacare they were taught to hate and fear."
And that's how the Republicans can repeal Obamacare. Once the plan goes into effect next year, all they have to do is spread a bunch of bullshit horror stories about death panels in action, and voters who don't realize that the health care exchanges they like and rely on are Obamacare will elect candidates who promise to repeal it. The result will be another Republican midterm landslide, giving them control of Congress. Come January 2015, the GOP, along with their Blue Dog Democrat allies, will repeal Obamacare with a veto-proof supermajority.
And then? Well, naturally, the people will be outraged at losing their health care exchanges. Who will they blame? Who else but Barack Obama, the man who created the vile, tyrannical Obamacare that took their health care away. Republican presidential nominee Rand Paul will ride the wave of anger to victory in November by promising to restore the health care exchanges. But first, of course, he'll have to restore the gold standard, abolish the Federal Reserve, privatize Social Security . . .
Monday, August 5, 2013
Sobel Wiki: No Funds Available
This week's featured article at the Sobel Wiki is on the National Financial Administration. The N.F.A. was the brainchild of Governor-General John McDowell, who created it in 1880 to deal with an economic crisis that Sobel calls the Great Depression. The N.F.A. was designed to bail out businesses that were, if not too big to fail, then too young to die. It was only in the 1870s that the first large corporations began to appear in the C.N.A. Sobel mentions the North American Steel Corporation, Consolidated Petroleum of North America, Imperial Dry Goods, Thomas Edison's National Electric, and the Grand National, North American United, and Indiana Northern Railroads. When a credit crunch struck the C.N.A. in 1880, and National Electric went bankrupt, it seemed that the rest of the new giant corporations might follow. McDowell responded by creating the N.F.A., which in four years made 354 loans totalling more than N.A. £3.5 million.
But while bailing out large corporations may have been good enough for McDowell, it wasn't good enough for his successor, Ezra Gallivan of the People's Coalition. In his inaugural address in February 1888, Gallivan announced that "new means will be found for the people to . . . share more fully in the profits their work made possible." The new means turned out to be the N.F.A., which would no longer be loaning money to established businesses. Instead, under its new administrator, Julius Nelson, the agency would go into the venture capital business, offering loans to people who wanted to start new businesses, and accepting shares in the newly-founded companies. By 1904, thirty-nine of the hundred biggest companies in the C.N.A. owed their founding to the N.F.A.
However, as Sobel himself admitted, the N.F.A. financed only those individuals who showed an excellent chance of success, ignoring the others. Samuel Frier of the Textile Union claimed that, "The N.F.A. was not supposed to be a money-making operation, but a service to the people. A commercial bank might be pleased to show a failure rate of 13.3%. To us it indicates that Mr. Nelson has not been taking the kind of risks he should. In 1899 the N.F.A. granted 314 loans and financings, nine more than the previous year. Mr. Nelson does not tell us that the N.F.A. processed 2,539 applications and culled the 314 from that amount. What of the other 2,225 men who failed Mr. Nelson's test? These are the people the Governor-General told us were to be helped, and these are the men the N.F.A. ignores." Don't be surprised if a future For All Nails vignette reveals that there's an old joke in the C.N.A. that "N.F.A." really stands for No Funds Available.
The N.F.A. eventually fell victim, not to its own success, but to that of the Mexican industrial monolith Kramer Associates. When K.A. moved its headquarters from San Francisco to Manila in February 1934, the result was a global financial panic that brought about the bankruptcy of the N.F.A. Although the agency was revived in 1950, it never again played its former role as the engine of North American prosperity. By the end of ''For Want of a Nail'', Governor-General Carter Monaghan -- of the People's Coalition -- had disbanded the N.F.A.
But while bailing out large corporations may have been good enough for McDowell, it wasn't good enough for his successor, Ezra Gallivan of the People's Coalition. In his inaugural address in February 1888, Gallivan announced that "new means will be found for the people to . . . share more fully in the profits their work made possible." The new means turned out to be the N.F.A., which would no longer be loaning money to established businesses. Instead, under its new administrator, Julius Nelson, the agency would go into the venture capital business, offering loans to people who wanted to start new businesses, and accepting shares in the newly-founded companies. By 1904, thirty-nine of the hundred biggest companies in the C.N.A. owed their founding to the N.F.A.
However, as Sobel himself admitted, the N.F.A. financed only those individuals who showed an excellent chance of success, ignoring the others. Samuel Frier of the Textile Union claimed that, "The N.F.A. was not supposed to be a money-making operation, but a service to the people. A commercial bank might be pleased to show a failure rate of 13.3%. To us it indicates that Mr. Nelson has not been taking the kind of risks he should. In 1899 the N.F.A. granted 314 loans and financings, nine more than the previous year. Mr. Nelson does not tell us that the N.F.A. processed 2,539 applications and culled the 314 from that amount. What of the other 2,225 men who failed Mr. Nelson's test? These are the people the Governor-General told us were to be helped, and these are the men the N.F.A. ignores." Don't be surprised if a future For All Nails vignette reveals that there's an old joke in the C.N.A. that "N.F.A." really stands for No Funds Available.
The N.F.A. eventually fell victim, not to its own success, but to that of the Mexican industrial monolith Kramer Associates. When K.A. moved its headquarters from San Francisco to Manila in February 1934, the result was a global financial panic that brought about the bankruptcy of the N.F.A. Although the agency was revived in 1950, it never again played its former role as the engine of North American prosperity. By the end of ''For Want of a Nail'', Governor-General Carter Monaghan -- of the People's Coalition -- had disbanded the N.F.A.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Sobel Wiki: shibboleth
This week's featured article at the Sobel Wiki is on Carlos Conceptión, the 19th century Mexican politician-turned-revolutionary. Although Sobel never explicitly says so, it is clear from Conceptión's rhetoric that his ideology has been heavily influenced by the Sobel Timeline's alt-Karl Marx. As I've noted before, Sobel includes a number of historical people who were born several decades after his point-of-divergence in 1777, and Marx is one of them. In the case of Conceptión, Sobel begins by describing his rhetoric and actions in the 1870s in Chapter 16. Its not until Chapter 19 that Sobel provides us with a long quote from Marx's 1869 second edition of On the Coming Revolution in Mexico, to show us the source of Conceptión's ideology.
It's hard not to sympathize with Conceptión. The United States of Mexico had been dominated since its creation in 1819 by its Anglo minority. Of the country's first six presidents, four were Anglos, one was a Hispanicized Anglo, and only one was a native Hispanic. The U.S.M.'s economy is also dominated by Anglos, and is clearly becoming more so as the California consortium Kramer Associates becomes ever more powerful and influential.
(A question that Sobel never addresses is whether K.A. founder Bernard Kramer can really be considered an Anglo. Kramer is a German immigrant, and Sobel notes at one point that one of his business partners in K.A. is his Hispano brother-in-law, which implies that he married into San Francisco's Hispano community, and which implies further that Kramer is Catholic. Sobel always uses Bernard as Kramer's first name, but of course his original German name would have been Bernhard; and Sobel always quotes Kramer speaking English, but Kramer is, as Sobel admits, the product of a polyglot culture who presumably spoke several languages, including Spanish. It can be argued that Kramer actually straddled the U.S.M.'s racial divide; I can imagine him going by Bernard and speaking English in his business dealings with the country's Anglo business elite, then going home to his Hispano family, and speaking Spanish and going by Bernardo when he's among them.)
A more intersting aspect of Conceptión is his surname. You would expect him to be named Concepción, but Sobel always uses a weird fusion of the Spanish Concepción and the English Conception. This is one of several instances of Sobel using nonstandard variant spellings of Spanish names: Cuatros Hombres rather than Quatros Hombres, Guatamala rather than Guatemala, and Chapultapec rather than Chapultepec. Presumably the idea he's trying to get across is that the U.S.M.'s Anglo elite occasionally mangles the spelling of Mexican placenames. However, Carlos Yu of the For All Nails project had a more sinister interpretation: the variant spellings are shibboleths, a way for the Anglos to maintain a group identity, and denigrate the country's other racial groups, by deliberately misspelling certain names, much the way modern conservatives do by using the grammatically incorrect "Democrat Party".
Under that interpretation, Sobel's use of "Chapultapec", "Guatamala", and especially "Conceptión", are his way of siding with Mexico's Anglos in the country's historical culture war. In the Sobel Wiki, I've chosen to adopt this interpretation, so that the entries use the correct Spanish spellings, and note the existence of the variant spellings.
It's hard not to sympathize with Conceptión. The United States of Mexico had been dominated since its creation in 1819 by its Anglo minority. Of the country's first six presidents, four were Anglos, one was a Hispanicized Anglo, and only one was a native Hispanic. The U.S.M.'s economy is also dominated by Anglos, and is clearly becoming more so as the California consortium Kramer Associates becomes ever more powerful and influential.
(A question that Sobel never addresses is whether K.A. founder Bernard Kramer can really be considered an Anglo. Kramer is a German immigrant, and Sobel notes at one point that one of his business partners in K.A. is his Hispano brother-in-law, which implies that he married into San Francisco's Hispano community, and which implies further that Kramer is Catholic. Sobel always uses Bernard as Kramer's first name, but of course his original German name would have been Bernhard; and Sobel always quotes Kramer speaking English, but Kramer is, as Sobel admits, the product of a polyglot culture who presumably spoke several languages, including Spanish. It can be argued that Kramer actually straddled the U.S.M.'s racial divide; I can imagine him going by Bernard and speaking English in his business dealings with the country's Anglo business elite, then going home to his Hispano family, and speaking Spanish and going by Bernardo when he's among them.)
A more intersting aspect of Conceptión is his surname. You would expect him to be named Concepción, but Sobel always uses a weird fusion of the Spanish Concepción and the English Conception. This is one of several instances of Sobel using nonstandard variant spellings of Spanish names: Cuatros Hombres rather than Quatros Hombres, Guatamala rather than Guatemala, and Chapultapec rather than Chapultepec. Presumably the idea he's trying to get across is that the U.S.M.'s Anglo elite occasionally mangles the spelling of Mexican placenames. However, Carlos Yu of the For All Nails project had a more sinister interpretation: the variant spellings are shibboleths, a way for the Anglos to maintain a group identity, and denigrate the country's other racial groups, by deliberately misspelling certain names, much the way modern conservatives do by using the grammatically incorrect "Democrat Party".
Under that interpretation, Sobel's use of "Chapultapec", "Guatamala", and especially "Conceptión", are his way of siding with Mexico's Anglos in the country's historical culture war. In the Sobel Wiki, I've chosen to adopt this interpretation, so that the entries use the correct Spanish spellings, and note the existence of the variant spellings.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Sobel Wiki: the dictatorship of the plutocracy
This week's featured article at the Sobel Wiki is on Benito Hermión, dictator of the United States of Mexico, and first (and only) Emperor of Mexico.
For Want of a Nail has two central characters, one for each of the nations it features: Ezra Gallivan of the Confederation of North America, and Benito Hermión of the United States of Mexico. Fittingly, the two are contemporaries, and their periods of power overlap: Hermión rules the U.S.M. from 1881 to 1901, and Gallivan governs the C.N.A. from 1888 to 1901. Gallivan is a moderate reformer who leads a newly-formed populist political party to its first electoral triumph. Hermión is an aristocratic reactionary who subverts democracy on behalf of his corporate backers.
As I've noted before, Nail can be seen (and in some quarters, is seen) as a work of propaganda aimed at convincing the people of the C.N.A. to ally themselves with Kramer Associates, the nuclear-armed supercorporation, against the U.S.M. In this view, alt-Sobel, the Australian business historian who is the nominal author of Nail, slants his narrative to present K.A. in as positive a light as possible. Thus, when he writes about Hermión's seizure of power, he de-emphasizes the extent to which Hermión is acting on behalf of K.A. founder Bernard Kramer. For instance, it is only in a footnote at the bottom of page 208 that we learn that it was Kramer who prevented the Senate from appointing a successor to President George Vining after the latter's death in September 1881. It is left to the reader to deduce that Hermión's maneuvers to have himself appointed "Chief of State" over the next five days were also done at Kramer's behest.
By contrast, alt-Sobel goes into great detail in recounting the role of Kramer's successor, Diego Cortez, in removing Hermión from power in October 1901. We see Cortez attempt in vain to persuade Hermión to give up his dreams of empire. We see Cortez slowly and surely draw his plans against Hermión. We are even treated to a lengthy description of a meeting between Cortez and the anti-Hermión opposition. Finally, we are assured that it was Cortez, acting almost single-handed, who made certain that democratic government was restored in Mexico after Hermión's ouster.
Throughout Nail, alt-Sobel emphasizes the U.S.M.'s heritage as the stepchild of the American rebels of 1776, and fixes on this heritage as the reason for the country's troubled political culture. He ignores the role that Kramer Associates played in corrupting Mexican politics, though the narrative makes it clear just how important that role was, in spite of his attempts to downplay it. It's a subtle demonstration of how the historian's biases can subvert the facts he relates.
For Want of a Nail has two central characters, one for each of the nations it features: Ezra Gallivan of the Confederation of North America, and Benito Hermión of the United States of Mexico. Fittingly, the two are contemporaries, and their periods of power overlap: Hermión rules the U.S.M. from 1881 to 1901, and Gallivan governs the C.N.A. from 1888 to 1901. Gallivan is a moderate reformer who leads a newly-formed populist political party to its first electoral triumph. Hermión is an aristocratic reactionary who subverts democracy on behalf of his corporate backers.
As I've noted before, Nail can be seen (and in some quarters, is seen) as a work of propaganda aimed at convincing the people of the C.N.A. to ally themselves with Kramer Associates, the nuclear-armed supercorporation, against the U.S.M. In this view, alt-Sobel, the Australian business historian who is the nominal author of Nail, slants his narrative to present K.A. in as positive a light as possible. Thus, when he writes about Hermión's seizure of power, he de-emphasizes the extent to which Hermión is acting on behalf of K.A. founder Bernard Kramer. For instance, it is only in a footnote at the bottom of page 208 that we learn that it was Kramer who prevented the Senate from appointing a successor to President George Vining after the latter's death in September 1881. It is left to the reader to deduce that Hermión's maneuvers to have himself appointed "Chief of State" over the next five days were also done at Kramer's behest.
By contrast, alt-Sobel goes into great detail in recounting the role of Kramer's successor, Diego Cortez, in removing Hermión from power in October 1901. We see Cortez attempt in vain to persuade Hermión to give up his dreams of empire. We see Cortez slowly and surely draw his plans against Hermión. We are even treated to a lengthy description of a meeting between Cortez and the anti-Hermión opposition. Finally, we are assured that it was Cortez, acting almost single-handed, who made certain that democratic government was restored in Mexico after Hermión's ouster.
Throughout Nail, alt-Sobel emphasizes the U.S.M.'s heritage as the stepchild of the American rebels of 1776, and fixes on this heritage as the reason for the country's troubled political culture. He ignores the role that Kramer Associates played in corrupting Mexican politics, though the narrative makes it clear just how important that role was, in spite of his attempts to downplay it. It's a subtle demonstration of how the historian's biases can subvert the facts he relates.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Sobel Wiki: impeachy
This week's featured article at the Sobel Wiki is on Bruce Hogg, the fifteenth Governor-General of the Confederation of North America, and an ardent isolationist.
Being an isolationist was not unusual for a North American politician of Hogg's generation. The backlash against the Starkist Terror of 1899-1901 had made isolationism the bipartisan consensus position in the C.N.A. It was Hogg's main opponent, Douglas Watson of the Liberal Party, who was the outlier in calling for increased military spending and closer ties to Great Britain. So, when North American business mogul Owen Galloway announced his opposition to Watson's military spending bill in July 1934, Hogg was prepared, if you'll pardon the expression, to go hog-wild. He even went so far as to introduce an impeachment measure against Watson in January 1935.
Which was a rather odd thing to do, given the way the C.N.A.'s government was organized. The C.N.A. was basically a parliamentary democracy, with the Governor-General, the head of government, appointed by the majority party in the Grand Council, the legislature. Sobel even specifically says on page 85 that the Governor-General "would serve so long as he retained the confidence of that body." And to prove it, the C.N.A.'s very first Governor-General, Winfield Scott, fell from power after losing a confidence vote in April 1849. So what's with all this "impeachment" stuff? If Hogg wants to stop Watson, all he has to do is introduce a no-confidence vote, and if a majority of the Council disapproves of Watson's foreign policy (and Sobel makes it pretty clear that they do), then Watson is gone, and the Grand Council "goes to the country" as the British say: there's a snap election, and the voters decide which policy they prefer.
The problem here, I think, is that Sobel can't stop thinking like an American. He wants the drama of an impeachment fight, but in the headlong rush to finish the book, he's lost sight of the fact that the C.N.A. doesn't have impeachment fights. Chapter 23, which deals with the Starkist Terror at the turn of the 20th century, suffers from the same problem. Sobel wants Governor-General Ezra Gallivan to bravely battle against the war hysteria that grips the C.N.A. in 1899, but Gallivan spends two years fighting to stay in office before he finally resigns. If Gallivan was as unpopular as Sobel says he was, he should have been gone in a week.
For Want of a Nail was a work of great imagination, but there's no denying that Sobel wasn't always as careful with his world-building as he should have been.
Being an isolationist was not unusual for a North American politician of Hogg's generation. The backlash against the Starkist Terror of 1899-1901 had made isolationism the bipartisan consensus position in the C.N.A. It was Hogg's main opponent, Douglas Watson of the Liberal Party, who was the outlier in calling for increased military spending and closer ties to Great Britain. So, when North American business mogul Owen Galloway announced his opposition to Watson's military spending bill in July 1934, Hogg was prepared, if you'll pardon the expression, to go hog-wild. He even went so far as to introduce an impeachment measure against Watson in January 1935.
Which was a rather odd thing to do, given the way the C.N.A.'s government was organized. The C.N.A. was basically a parliamentary democracy, with the Governor-General, the head of government, appointed by the majority party in the Grand Council, the legislature. Sobel even specifically says on page 85 that the Governor-General "would serve so long as he retained the confidence of that body." And to prove it, the C.N.A.'s very first Governor-General, Winfield Scott, fell from power after losing a confidence vote in April 1849. So what's with all this "impeachment" stuff? If Hogg wants to stop Watson, all he has to do is introduce a no-confidence vote, and if a majority of the Council disapproves of Watson's foreign policy (and Sobel makes it pretty clear that they do), then Watson is gone, and the Grand Council "goes to the country" as the British say: there's a snap election, and the voters decide which policy they prefer.
The problem here, I think, is that Sobel can't stop thinking like an American. He wants the drama of an impeachment fight, but in the headlong rush to finish the book, he's lost sight of the fact that the C.N.A. doesn't have impeachment fights. Chapter 23, which deals with the Starkist Terror at the turn of the 20th century, suffers from the same problem. Sobel wants Governor-General Ezra Gallivan to bravely battle against the war hysteria that grips the C.N.A. in 1899, but Gallivan spends two years fighting to stay in office before he finally resigns. If Gallivan was as unpopular as Sobel says he was, he should have been gone in a week.
For Want of a Nail was a work of great imagination, but there's no denying that Sobel wasn't always as careful with his world-building as he should have been.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Sobel Wiki: The old switcheroo
This week's featured article at the Sobel Wiki is on Alvin Silva, the last democratically-elected President of the United States of Mexico.
Silva is an example of a phenomenon that we see a fair amount of in For Want of a Nail, where two political parties swap programs over the course of a fairly brief period of time. We've seen that happen in our own history, with the Democrats and the Republicans swapping support for and opposition to civil rights. In our own history, though, the change took a century. In the Sobel Timeline, the C.N.A.'s Liberal Party and People's Coalition swap positions on isolationism and military spending very quickly, between the 1938 and 1953 Grand Council elections. Of course, in the Sobel Timeline, this is the result of the rest of the world being wrecked by a world war that the C.N.A. stays out of. For that matter we are told that even in the 1930s there was a significant faction among the Liberals that opposed their leader's military spending program, so it seems to be the case that this faction became the majority over the course of the Global War, while the isolationist majority in the People's Coalition became a minority there.
In the U.S.M., a similar policy swap took place over the interrelated issues of slavery, isolationism, and business regulation between 1920 and 1932. After the restoration of democracy in the U.S.M. in 1902, two major parties appeared: the Liberty Party, which was revived after being driven underground during the Hermión dictatorship, and the United Mexican Party, which took the place of the pre-Hermión Continentalist Party. The Libertarians were strongly isolationist, opposed to slavery, and sought greater regulation of Kramer Associates, the One Big Zaibatsu that dominated the economy of post-Hermión Mexico. The U.M.P. was only mildly isolationist, was content to allow slavery to remain in existence, and was basically in K.A.'s pocket, though Sobel goes to considerable lengths to deny this.
The Chapultepec Incident of 1916 suddenly brought slavery to the forefront of Mexican politics. Even though there were only 103,000 slaves in a nation of 132 million people, most Mexicans were opposed to freeing them. The Mexican political establishment was paralysed: the institution had become intolerable, but it would be political suicide to try to end it. The impass was finally broken in 1920 with the election of Libertarian candidate Emiliano Calles, an army general who had defeated the French in the Hundred Day War and was consequently the most popular man in Mexico. Calles was able to persuade Douglas Benedict, the head of K.A., to support ending slavery, and Benedict was able to use his financial control of the United Mexican Party to ensure passage of Calles' Manumission Act.
U.M.P. supporters, who tended to oppose manumission, were outraged. It was made clear to them that the U.M.P.'s leaders obeyed K.A. rather than the people who voted for them. Assemblyman Pedro Fuentes, a U.M.P. member who had refused to obey orders from Benedict, took advantage of this public outrage to make himself the leader of the U.M.P., and he was able to ride popular resentment of K.A. to victory in the 1926 presidential election. Fuentes spent his entire term attempting to bring K.A. under control, only to find that its control of Mexican politics made it invincible.
This set the stage for the rise of Alvin Silva. Silva was a Libertarian Senator who had faithfully supported the manumission effort. Along with the rest of the Liberty Party, he had accepted Calles' grand bargain with Kramer Associates: the Libertarians would cease attempting to regulate K.A. in exchange for the company's support for manumission. As a result, Silva was a persistent critic of Fuentes' attack on the company. When Silva was elected President in his turn in 1932, he ended Fuentes' attempts to bring K.A. to heel. Instead, he devoted himself to a new cause: bringing unity to the people of the U.S.M. by pursuing an aggressive foreign policy (and thus abandoning the Liberty Party's traditional isolationism along with its traditional hostility to Kramer Associates).
Silva is an example of a phenomenon that we see a fair amount of in For Want of a Nail, where two political parties swap programs over the course of a fairly brief period of time. We've seen that happen in our own history, with the Democrats and the Republicans swapping support for and opposition to civil rights. In our own history, though, the change took a century. In the Sobel Timeline, the C.N.A.'s Liberal Party and People's Coalition swap positions on isolationism and military spending very quickly, between the 1938 and 1953 Grand Council elections. Of course, in the Sobel Timeline, this is the result of the rest of the world being wrecked by a world war that the C.N.A. stays out of. For that matter we are told that even in the 1930s there was a significant faction among the Liberals that opposed their leader's military spending program, so it seems to be the case that this faction became the majority over the course of the Global War, while the isolationist majority in the People's Coalition became a minority there.
In the U.S.M., a similar policy swap took place over the interrelated issues of slavery, isolationism, and business regulation between 1920 and 1932. After the restoration of democracy in the U.S.M. in 1902, two major parties appeared: the Liberty Party, which was revived after being driven underground during the Hermión dictatorship, and the United Mexican Party, which took the place of the pre-Hermión Continentalist Party. The Libertarians were strongly isolationist, opposed to slavery, and sought greater regulation of Kramer Associates, the One Big Zaibatsu that dominated the economy of post-Hermión Mexico. The U.M.P. was only mildly isolationist, was content to allow slavery to remain in existence, and was basically in K.A.'s pocket, though Sobel goes to considerable lengths to deny this.
The Chapultepec Incident of 1916 suddenly brought slavery to the forefront of Mexican politics. Even though there were only 103,000 slaves in a nation of 132 million people, most Mexicans were opposed to freeing them. The Mexican political establishment was paralysed: the institution had become intolerable, but it would be political suicide to try to end it. The impass was finally broken in 1920 with the election of Libertarian candidate Emiliano Calles, an army general who had defeated the French in the Hundred Day War and was consequently the most popular man in Mexico. Calles was able to persuade Douglas Benedict, the head of K.A., to support ending slavery, and Benedict was able to use his financial control of the United Mexican Party to ensure passage of Calles' Manumission Act.
U.M.P. supporters, who tended to oppose manumission, were outraged. It was made clear to them that the U.M.P.'s leaders obeyed K.A. rather than the people who voted for them. Assemblyman Pedro Fuentes, a U.M.P. member who had refused to obey orders from Benedict, took advantage of this public outrage to make himself the leader of the U.M.P., and he was able to ride popular resentment of K.A. to victory in the 1926 presidential election. Fuentes spent his entire term attempting to bring K.A. under control, only to find that its control of Mexican politics made it invincible.
This set the stage for the rise of Alvin Silva. Silva was a Libertarian Senator who had faithfully supported the manumission effort. Along with the rest of the Liberty Party, he had accepted Calles' grand bargain with Kramer Associates: the Libertarians would cease attempting to regulate K.A. in exchange for the company's support for manumission. As a result, Silva was a persistent critic of Fuentes' attack on the company. When Silva was elected President in his turn in 1932, he ended Fuentes' attempts to bring K.A. to heel. Instead, he devoted himself to a new cause: bringing unity to the people of the U.S.M. by pursuing an aggressive foreign policy (and thus abandoning the Liberty Party's traditional isolationism along with its traditional hostility to Kramer Associates).
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
The internet talks to itself
Monday, May 13, 2013
Sobel Wiki: point of divergence
This week's featured article at the Sobel Wiki is on the Battle of Saratoga, the event that serves as the point of divergence for the Sobel Timeline.
Historically, the Battle of Saratoga was a rather drawn-out affair, lasting from the initial contact between the British and American armies on September 19, 1777 to Burgoyne's final surrender on October 17 (or, in the Sobel Timeline, Burgoyne's final victory on October 25). The question naturally arises, then: when, during that period, did the actual point of divergence take place, and what was it?
Here's Sobel, pp. 30-31: "Burgyone attacked on on September 18, but was forced to retreat before Gates' withering fire. Then the Army of Nations advanced toward Freeman's Farm, and once again was repulsed. Decimated and battered, the Army of Nations regrouped to hear Burgoyne's plan. Caution would have dictated retreat into the woods, but he held fast.
"Awakening on the morning of October 8, Burgoyne learned his force was all but surrounded, and would have to fight its way out of a cordon of rebels. Still morale held. As one survivor later wrote, 'The men were willing and ready to face any danger, when led by officers whom they loved and respected and who shared with them in every toil and hardship.'
"Rallying his men, Burgoyne took them to Schuyler's Farm, and the next morning crossed the Fishkill River. Had Gates attacked then, he could have destroyed the Army of Nations. But he hesitated at that crucial moment, spending his time arguing with Arnold, regrouping his forces, and considering his next move. Meanwhile, unknown to the rebels, Clinton's force moved swiftly up the Hudson, and prepared to attack Gates from the rear. Time was working for the British. Burgoyne knew this; Gates did not.
"On October 13, Burgoyne sent a delegation to ask Gates his terms for a truce. The answer was 'unconditional surrender.' Burgoyne replied that he was not unwilling to admit defeat, but insisted his men be allowed to march from the field with all honors. Gates wavered; he wanted the satisfaction of receiving Burgoyne's sword on the field of battle. At the time Gates had ambitions to succeed Washington, who was in bad grace in Philadelphia. Such a victory, conceded on the field, would assure him of supreme command.
"As Gates hesitated, Clinton's force smashed Israel Putnam's rebel army and continued toward Saratoga. Putnam sent messengers with news of his defeat to Gates, but the men were lost in the woods, and never appeared at headquarters. By the time Gates learned of Clinton's imminent appearance, it was too late to do much about it. The rebel general was now obliged to act in an impromptu fashion. His plan was simple. The rebels would attack Burgoyne's position in force, massacring all, and then turn to face Clinton's army, which was expected in a matter of hours.
"The attack came on the morning of October 21. Wave upon wave of rebels advanced on the weakened Army of Nations, and each time they were repulsed. Then, on October 22, Clinton's men broke through Gates' rear."
Historically, after the battle of Freeman's Farm on September 19, Burgyone was considering making another attack on the Americans. However, he received word of Clinton's planned advance up the Hudson to Albany, and chose to sit tight and wait until word reached him that Clinton was near. When he wrote Burgoyne on September 12, Clinton had anticipated launching his attack in ten days. However, it was not until October 3, three weeks after sending his message, that Clinton began his move up the Hudson. Clinton was able to force Putnam to withdraw due to a well-conducted feint, then took Forts Montgomery and Clinton on October 6, leaving the way clear to continue north up the Hudson. Clinton then fell ill, and returned to New York City, leaving General John Vaughan in charge. Clinton ordered Vaughan to "proceed up Hudson's river, to feel for General Burgoyne, to assist his operations", but Vaughan was delayed, and didn't set out until October 15. On October 17, Clinton received orders from General Howe to send 3000 men to support the occupation of Philadelphia, and Clinton ordered Vaughan to turn back.
Meanwhile, at Saratoga, Burgoyne learned that Clinton had been delayed, and on October 3 he put his army on short rations. The next day, Burgoyne called a war council, but it was not until the 5th that he decided to attack the Americans on October 7th. The attack, known as the Battle of Bemis Heights, went badly for the British almost from the beginning, and by the time night fell the British lines had been breached and Burgyone had lost nearly 900 men.
The next day, Burgoyne began to retreat north across the Fishkill River, completing the crossing on October 10. On the 11th, he attempted to lure the Americans into a trap by sending a double agent to tell Gates that he was retreating up the river. The plan failed when a deserter from Burgoyne's army warned the Americans about the trap. On the 12th, Burgoyne and his officers agreed that they had no choice except to surrender, and on the 13th an officer came to Gates to request terms. Gates initially insisted on unconditional surrender, but soon reconsidered. Surrender terms were agreed on the 16th, and Burgoyne surrendered to Gates the following day.
Comparing Sobel with actual history, it seems as though the actual point of divergence must be Clinton setting out from New York City on schedule on September 22. Burgoyne continues to act as he did in our history, retreating north across the Fishkill River on October 9. Sobel doesn't mention the Battle of Bemis Heights, which might mean that it never took place. However, based on Burgoyne's retreat across the Fishkill, it seems likely that it did take place and Sobel simply chose not to mention it. By the time Burgoyne is offering to negotiate his surrender to Gates on October 13, as he did in our history, Clinton is closing in on Albany, and "smashes" an American army under Israel Putnam. Burgoyne by this time has received word of Clinton's approach, and instead of surrendering, he continues to sit tight. When Gates attacks on October 21, Burgoyne is able to drive him off, then attack in his turn the next day after Clinton attacks Gates from behind:
"Heartened by the sound of their comrades' bullets, Burgoyne's ragged force, now numbering less than 2,000, staged its final assault, in this way placing the now-panicky rebels in the jaws of a pincer movement. It was now Gates' turn to flee, and so he did. Within two days the rebels were on the outskirts of Albany, vulnerable to attack, unable to respond. On the afternoon of October 25, Burgoyne offered Gates a generous peace. All his troops could return to their homes, while Gates himself would be free to leave, upon his pledge never to fight again. The proposal was accepted; Gates had no choice but to do so. So ended one of the most glorious episodes in the history of eighteenth century warfare."
Historically, the Battle of Saratoga was a rather drawn-out affair, lasting from the initial contact between the British and American armies on September 19, 1777 to Burgoyne's final surrender on October 17 (or, in the Sobel Timeline, Burgoyne's final victory on October 25). The question naturally arises, then: when, during that period, did the actual point of divergence take place, and what was it?
Here's Sobel, pp. 30-31: "Burgyone attacked on on September 18, but was forced to retreat before Gates' withering fire. Then the Army of Nations advanced toward Freeman's Farm, and once again was repulsed. Decimated and battered, the Army of Nations regrouped to hear Burgoyne's plan. Caution would have dictated retreat into the woods, but he held fast.
"Awakening on the morning of October 8, Burgoyne learned his force was all but surrounded, and would have to fight its way out of a cordon of rebels. Still morale held. As one survivor later wrote, 'The men were willing and ready to face any danger, when led by officers whom they loved and respected and who shared with them in every toil and hardship.'
"Rallying his men, Burgoyne took them to Schuyler's Farm, and the next morning crossed the Fishkill River. Had Gates attacked then, he could have destroyed the Army of Nations. But he hesitated at that crucial moment, spending his time arguing with Arnold, regrouping his forces, and considering his next move. Meanwhile, unknown to the rebels, Clinton's force moved swiftly up the Hudson, and prepared to attack Gates from the rear. Time was working for the British. Burgoyne knew this; Gates did not.
"On October 13, Burgoyne sent a delegation to ask Gates his terms for a truce. The answer was 'unconditional surrender.' Burgoyne replied that he was not unwilling to admit defeat, but insisted his men be allowed to march from the field with all honors. Gates wavered; he wanted the satisfaction of receiving Burgoyne's sword on the field of battle. At the time Gates had ambitions to succeed Washington, who was in bad grace in Philadelphia. Such a victory, conceded on the field, would assure him of supreme command.
"As Gates hesitated, Clinton's force smashed Israel Putnam's rebel army and continued toward Saratoga. Putnam sent messengers with news of his defeat to Gates, but the men were lost in the woods, and never appeared at headquarters. By the time Gates learned of Clinton's imminent appearance, it was too late to do much about it. The rebel general was now obliged to act in an impromptu fashion. His plan was simple. The rebels would attack Burgoyne's position in force, massacring all, and then turn to face Clinton's army, which was expected in a matter of hours.
"The attack came on the morning of October 21. Wave upon wave of rebels advanced on the weakened Army of Nations, and each time they were repulsed. Then, on October 22, Clinton's men broke through Gates' rear."
Historically, after the battle of Freeman's Farm on September 19, Burgyone was considering making another attack on the Americans. However, he received word of Clinton's planned advance up the Hudson to Albany, and chose to sit tight and wait until word reached him that Clinton was near. When he wrote Burgoyne on September 12, Clinton had anticipated launching his attack in ten days. However, it was not until October 3, three weeks after sending his message, that Clinton began his move up the Hudson. Clinton was able to force Putnam to withdraw due to a well-conducted feint, then took Forts Montgomery and Clinton on October 6, leaving the way clear to continue north up the Hudson. Clinton then fell ill, and returned to New York City, leaving General John Vaughan in charge. Clinton ordered Vaughan to "proceed up Hudson's river, to feel for General Burgoyne, to assist his operations", but Vaughan was delayed, and didn't set out until October 15. On October 17, Clinton received orders from General Howe to send 3000 men to support the occupation of Philadelphia, and Clinton ordered Vaughan to turn back.
Meanwhile, at Saratoga, Burgoyne learned that Clinton had been delayed, and on October 3 he put his army on short rations. The next day, Burgoyne called a war council, but it was not until the 5th that he decided to attack the Americans on October 7th. The attack, known as the Battle of Bemis Heights, went badly for the British almost from the beginning, and by the time night fell the British lines had been breached and Burgyone had lost nearly 900 men.
The next day, Burgoyne began to retreat north across the Fishkill River, completing the crossing on October 10. On the 11th, he attempted to lure the Americans into a trap by sending a double agent to tell Gates that he was retreating up the river. The plan failed when a deserter from Burgoyne's army warned the Americans about the trap. On the 12th, Burgoyne and his officers agreed that they had no choice except to surrender, and on the 13th an officer came to Gates to request terms. Gates initially insisted on unconditional surrender, but soon reconsidered. Surrender terms were agreed on the 16th, and Burgoyne surrendered to Gates the following day.
Comparing Sobel with actual history, it seems as though the actual point of divergence must be Clinton setting out from New York City on schedule on September 22. Burgoyne continues to act as he did in our history, retreating north across the Fishkill River on October 9. Sobel doesn't mention the Battle of Bemis Heights, which might mean that it never took place. However, based on Burgoyne's retreat across the Fishkill, it seems likely that it did take place and Sobel simply chose not to mention it. By the time Burgoyne is offering to negotiate his surrender to Gates on October 13, as he did in our history, Clinton is closing in on Albany, and "smashes" an American army under Israel Putnam. Burgoyne by this time has received word of Clinton's approach, and instead of surrendering, he continues to sit tight. When Gates attacks on October 21, Burgoyne is able to drive him off, then attack in his turn the next day after Clinton attacks Gates from behind:
"Heartened by the sound of their comrades' bullets, Burgoyne's ragged force, now numbering less than 2,000, staged its final assault, in this way placing the now-panicky rebels in the jaws of a pincer movement. It was now Gates' turn to flee, and so he did. Within two days the rebels were on the outskirts of Albany, vulnerable to attack, unable to respond. On the afternoon of October 25, Burgoyne offered Gates a generous peace. All his troops could return to their homes, while Gates himself would be free to leave, upon his pledge never to fight again. The proposal was accepted; Gates had no choice but to do so. So ended one of the most glorious episodes in the history of eighteenth century warfare."
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Sobel Wiki: the king on a string
This week's featured article at the Sobel Wiki is on France. As I've noted before, France suffers an even more unpleasant history in the Sobel Timeline than in our own, which may well reflect Sobel's annoyance at Charles de Gaulle's nationalist policies during the 1960s.
One of the minor puzzles of For Want of a Nail is trying to figure out the family relationships between the various French kings that Sobel mentions. We start off with the historical Louis XVI in the 1770s, but things become uncertain after Louis' accidental death in 1793. He is succeeded by his son Louis XVII, who is a minor at the time, and initially under a regency headed by his mother, Marie Antoinette. In our own history, all of Louis and Marie Antoinette's children were born after the October 1777 point of divergence, so the same children might not be born in the Sobel Timeline. However, all of the other royal families mentioned in Nail tracked closely with their counterparts from our world. Great Britain had a Queen Victoria and a Prince Albert in the 19th century, and Russia had a Tsar Nicholas II at the turn of the 20th century, so it seems reasonable to suppose that Louis and Marie Antoinette would have had the same four children they did in our history.
In our history, Louis's eldest son, Louis Joseph, died in infancy in June 1789 after a sudden illness, but it's anybody's guess whether the same would have happened in the Sobel Timeline. If it was Louis Joseph who succeeded to the throne, then he would have been just under twelve years old at the time of his accession. There is no further mention made of Marie Antoinette's regency after 1795, which suggests that Louis XVII reached his majority and ended his mother's regency during the course of the Trans-Oceanic War. Sobel's source for Louis XVII's reign after the end of the war is called The King on a String: The Last Years of Louis XVII, which suggests that Louis XVII did not make it very far into the 19th century.
The next French king to be mentioned is Louis XVIII, whose dislike of the British was shared by Mexican President Andrew Jackson in the 1820s. It is possible that Louis XVIII was a son of Louis XVII, but it is also possible that he was Louis Joseph's historical younger brother, Louis-Charles, born in 1785. It's even possible that he is our history's Louis XVIII, the younger brother of Louis XVI. Louis XVIII's Anglophobia suggests that he was an adult at the time of the Anglo-German occupation of Paris in the early 1800s, and thus was not the son of Louis XVII. All things considered, he was most likely the historical Louis-Charles.
The next French king is Henry V, who in 1845 was unable to provide aid to the Mexicans during the Rocky Mountain War due to France's "difficulties" with the Germanic Confederation. After him is Louis XIX, who looked upon the United States of Mexico as his protege and was willing to offer the Mexican government long-term loans in the late 1850s. Next is Louis XX, an older man who abdicated in early December 1879, and his son Louis XXI, who ruled for three weeks before being killed along with his siblings and parents by the Paris mob. Finally, there was the pretender Charles X, who sparked a civil war by landing at Calais in 1895 and claiming the French throne.
For those of you following along at home, that's six kings between 1793 and 1879, five of them named Louis. Apart from Louis XVI and his son Louis XVII, and Louis XX and his son Louis XXI, no family relationships are mentioned. Henry V may be the son of Louis XVIII; if so, he was probably born between 1810 and 1820; and based on his name, he was almost certainly a younger son who survived an older brother named Louis who died in infancy. Louis XIX is almost certainly a cousin who succeeded a childless Henry; he was probably a grandson of our history's Charles X, and would have been born around the same time as his cousin Henry, or perhaps as much as ten years earlier. Louis XX was probably the son of Louis XIX, but he might have been his younger brother. The pretender Charles X was probably a nephew of Louis XX and a first cousin of Louis XXI.
One of the minor puzzles of For Want of a Nail is trying to figure out the family relationships between the various French kings that Sobel mentions. We start off with the historical Louis XVI in the 1770s, but things become uncertain after Louis' accidental death in 1793. He is succeeded by his son Louis XVII, who is a minor at the time, and initially under a regency headed by his mother, Marie Antoinette. In our own history, all of Louis and Marie Antoinette's children were born after the October 1777 point of divergence, so the same children might not be born in the Sobel Timeline. However, all of the other royal families mentioned in Nail tracked closely with their counterparts from our world. Great Britain had a Queen Victoria and a Prince Albert in the 19th century, and Russia had a Tsar Nicholas II at the turn of the 20th century, so it seems reasonable to suppose that Louis and Marie Antoinette would have had the same four children they did in our history.
In our history, Louis's eldest son, Louis Joseph, died in infancy in June 1789 after a sudden illness, but it's anybody's guess whether the same would have happened in the Sobel Timeline. If it was Louis Joseph who succeeded to the throne, then he would have been just under twelve years old at the time of his accession. There is no further mention made of Marie Antoinette's regency after 1795, which suggests that Louis XVII reached his majority and ended his mother's regency during the course of the Trans-Oceanic War. Sobel's source for Louis XVII's reign after the end of the war is called The King on a String: The Last Years of Louis XVII, which suggests that Louis XVII did not make it very far into the 19th century.
The next French king to be mentioned is Louis XVIII, whose dislike of the British was shared by Mexican President Andrew Jackson in the 1820s. It is possible that Louis XVIII was a son of Louis XVII, but it is also possible that he was Louis Joseph's historical younger brother, Louis-Charles, born in 1785. It's even possible that he is our history's Louis XVIII, the younger brother of Louis XVI. Louis XVIII's Anglophobia suggests that he was an adult at the time of the Anglo-German occupation of Paris in the early 1800s, and thus was not the son of Louis XVII. All things considered, he was most likely the historical Louis-Charles.
The next French king is Henry V, who in 1845 was unable to provide aid to the Mexicans during the Rocky Mountain War due to France's "difficulties" with the Germanic Confederation. After him is Louis XIX, who looked upon the United States of Mexico as his protege and was willing to offer the Mexican government long-term loans in the late 1850s. Next is Louis XX, an older man who abdicated in early December 1879, and his son Louis XXI, who ruled for three weeks before being killed along with his siblings and parents by the Paris mob. Finally, there was the pretender Charles X, who sparked a civil war by landing at Calais in 1895 and claiming the French throne.
For those of you following along at home, that's six kings between 1793 and 1879, five of them named Louis. Apart from Louis XVI and his son Louis XVII, and Louis XX and his son Louis XXI, no family relationships are mentioned. Henry V may be the son of Louis XVIII; if so, he was probably born between 1810 and 1820; and based on his name, he was almost certainly a younger son who survived an older brother named Louis who died in infancy. Louis XIX is almost certainly a cousin who succeeded a childless Henry; he was probably a grandson of our history's Charles X, and would have been born around the same time as his cousin Henry, or perhaps as much as ten years earlier. Louis XX was probably the son of Louis XIX, but he might have been his younger brother. The pretender Charles X was probably a nephew of Louis XX and a first cousin of Louis XXI.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
The gift that keeps on giving
Tragedy struck a Kentucky home after a father gave his five-year-old son a pack of matches and a bucket of oily rags for his birthday...
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Sobel Wiki: last in the hearts of his countrymen
I'm back from my enforced hiatus in the land of inner-ear malfunctions with a new featured article at the Sobel Wiki on George Washington.
One of the original reviews of For Want of a Nail when it was first published forty years ago was called "If Washington Hadn't Been The Father of His Country", and alt-Sobel's treatment of the rebel general in the opening chapters helped set the book's tone. He spares no pains in giving the reader a negative portrait of Washington, writing, "A man of little talent and less imagination, though of great pride, Washington saw in the Rebellion a chance to make a career for himself, and so deserted his class for the sake of his ambition. Needless to say, his selection was the greatest mistake the rebels could have made."
This is the real Sobel showing us that alt-Sobel isn't entirely reliable as a narrator of his world's history. In fact, Washington's generalship in the period before Nail's point-of-divergence in October 1777 gained him considerable respect among Europeans who followed the American rebellion. Frederick the Great of Prussia spoke of Washington's victories at Trenton and Princeton thus: "The achievements of Washington and his little band of compatriots between the 25th of December and the 4th of January, a space of ten days, were the most brilliant of any recorded in the annals of military achievements." Washington's attack at Germantown, although unsuccessful, prompted the French foreign minister, the Count de Vergennes, to write, "Nothing has struck me so much as Gen. Washington's attacking and giving battle to Gen. Howe's army. To bring troops, raised within the year, to do this, promises everything."
The real Sobel highlighted alt-Sobel's bias by having his Mexican critic, Frank Dana, write, "The most serious problem is his presentation of the North American Rebellion, in which the loyalists could do no wrong, while the rebels are presented as fools, clowns, traitors, and knaves." The portrait alt-Sobel's draws of George Washington is probably Nail's clearest example of this.
The point, of course, is to let Sobel's readers know that this is not the American history they has been trained to expect. This is a loyalist perspective on the American Revolution from a world where the loyalist perspective is the priveleged one. In its way, Sobel's retelling of the American Revolution is a lesson on the unperceived biases that color our view of history.
One of the original reviews of For Want of a Nail when it was first published forty years ago was called "If Washington Hadn't Been The Father of His Country", and alt-Sobel's treatment of the rebel general in the opening chapters helped set the book's tone. He spares no pains in giving the reader a negative portrait of Washington, writing, "A man of little talent and less imagination, though of great pride, Washington saw in the Rebellion a chance to make a career for himself, and so deserted his class for the sake of his ambition. Needless to say, his selection was the greatest mistake the rebels could have made."
This is the real Sobel showing us that alt-Sobel isn't entirely reliable as a narrator of his world's history. In fact, Washington's generalship in the period before Nail's point-of-divergence in October 1777 gained him considerable respect among Europeans who followed the American rebellion. Frederick the Great of Prussia spoke of Washington's victories at Trenton and Princeton thus: "The achievements of Washington and his little band of compatriots between the 25th of December and the 4th of January, a space of ten days, were the most brilliant of any recorded in the annals of military achievements." Washington's attack at Germantown, although unsuccessful, prompted the French foreign minister, the Count de Vergennes, to write, "Nothing has struck me so much as Gen. Washington's attacking and giving battle to Gen. Howe's army. To bring troops, raised within the year, to do this, promises everything."
The real Sobel highlighted alt-Sobel's bias by having his Mexican critic, Frank Dana, write, "The most serious problem is his presentation of the North American Rebellion, in which the loyalists could do no wrong, while the rebels are presented as fools, clowns, traitors, and knaves." The portrait alt-Sobel's draws of George Washington is probably Nail's clearest example of this.
The point, of course, is to let Sobel's readers know that this is not the American history they has been trained to expect. This is a loyalist perspective on the American Revolution from a world where the loyalist perspective is the priveleged one. In its way, Sobel's retelling of the American Revolution is a lesson on the unperceived biases that color our view of history.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Vertigo
I recently suffered an attack of vertigo that has made it difficult for me to use a computer, so my appearances online will be few and far between. I'll be back if and when I recover.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Sobel Wiki: Don't mourn, organize!
The major articles in the Sobel Wiki can be roughly divided into two categories, which might be called longitudinal and latitudinal. Latitudinal articles are generally about people or events, such as Ezra Gallivan or the Rocky Mountain War, and go into great detail (preferably as much detail as Sobel provides) on a limited period of time. Longitudinal articles are generally about places or organizations, such as Manitoba or the National Financial Administration, that are woven through For Want of a Nail like threads through a tapestry. This week's featured article is a longitudinal one on the labor union.
As I note in the article, all of the labor unions that Sobel mentions by name arise in the Confederation of North America. Partly this is due to the fact that the C.N.A. industrializes earlier, and to a much greater extent, than the United States of Mexico. Partly it is also due to the fact that Kramer Associates' control of the political system in the U.S.M. after 1869 would have ensured that no labor unions would develop there (Sobel specifically states that by the 1890s Mexico had no labor unions). Alt-Sobel, who tends to both glorify and whitewash K.A., never specifically connects K.A.'s political and economic power to the absence of unions in the U.S.M., but it isn't hard to imagine Bernard Kramer and Diego Cortez y Catalán engaging in union-busting, the former with his characteristic ruthlessness, the latter relying on Benito Hermión's Constabulary agents.
In the C.N.A., Sobel mentions textile workers organizing a union in Massachusetts in 1826, and the mill owners quickly crushing it. The first union to be mentioned by name is the Grand Consolidated Union, an early one-big-union established in 1835 and ruthlessly crushed by Henry Gilpin in the winter of 1840-41. Sobel then mentions three more unions being established after the Rocky Mountain War and gaining considerable political influence. A union official is elected to the Grand Council in 1893 and becomes the leader of the radical wing of the People's Coalition. An organization called the Workers' Army forms part of the League for Brotherhood in the early 1920s.
And that's it. Apart from that one brief reference to the Workers' Army, all of Sobel's labor history is confined to the 19th century. A comparable history of the USA would mention the United Autoworkers sit-down strike against G.M. in 1937, the A.F.L.'s split with the C.I.O. in 1938, and the merger of the two in 1955. Of course, both Sobel and alt-Sobel were business historians, and Nail reflects that, with much more space being given over to business history and the N.F.A. than to labor history.
As I note in the article, all of the labor unions that Sobel mentions by name arise in the Confederation of North America. Partly this is due to the fact that the C.N.A. industrializes earlier, and to a much greater extent, than the United States of Mexico. Partly it is also due to the fact that Kramer Associates' control of the political system in the U.S.M. after 1869 would have ensured that no labor unions would develop there (Sobel specifically states that by the 1890s Mexico had no labor unions). Alt-Sobel, who tends to both glorify and whitewash K.A., never specifically connects K.A.'s political and economic power to the absence of unions in the U.S.M., but it isn't hard to imagine Bernard Kramer and Diego Cortez y Catalán engaging in union-busting, the former with his characteristic ruthlessness, the latter relying on Benito Hermión's Constabulary agents.
In the C.N.A., Sobel mentions textile workers organizing a union in Massachusetts in 1826, and the mill owners quickly crushing it. The first union to be mentioned by name is the Grand Consolidated Union, an early one-big-union established in 1835 and ruthlessly crushed by Henry Gilpin in the winter of 1840-41. Sobel then mentions three more unions being established after the Rocky Mountain War and gaining considerable political influence. A union official is elected to the Grand Council in 1893 and becomes the leader of the radical wing of the People's Coalition. An organization called the Workers' Army forms part of the League for Brotherhood in the early 1920s.
And that's it. Apart from that one brief reference to the Workers' Army, all of Sobel's labor history is confined to the 19th century. A comparable history of the USA would mention the United Autoworkers sit-down strike against G.M. in 1937, the A.F.L.'s split with the C.I.O. in 1938, and the merger of the two in 1955. Of course, both Sobel and alt-Sobel were business historians, and Nail reflects that, with much more space being given over to business history and the N.F.A. than to labor history.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Sobel Wiki: power to the people
This week's featured article at the Sobel Wiki is on the People's Coalition, a populist political party in the C.N.A. that managed to do what our own history's Populists didn't: gain power. The People's Coalition is created in 1869 out of disparate groups of discontented people who are alienated from the existing political system by the corruption of the two major parties. The Coalition receives a major boost when the C.N.A.'s economy suffers a recession in the early 1880s. This enables Ezra Gallivan, the estranged son of a railroad tycoon, to win election as Mayor of Michigan City (our own world's Chicago). Gallivan proves to have a gift for political organization, and under his leadership the Coalition gains a plurality of seats in the Grand Council nineteen years after its founding.
Robert Sobel, the Australian business historian who is the nominal author of For Want of a Nail, is careful to avoid noting the strong ties between the founders of the Coalition and the leaders of the North American Rebellion of a hundred years earlier. The reason is clear enough: Sobel is utterly contemptuous of the rebels of '75, which he readily admits to at one point in the book, and which Professor Frank Dana of the United States of Mexico emphasizes in his critique of Nail. The last thing Sobel wants to do is admit that the Coalition, which has become thoroughly respectable at the time he is writing, drew its inspiration from the despised rebels.
Thus, Sobel mentions without comment the fact that the Coalition's founding document was called the Norfolk Resolves. He ignores the obvious implication of the Coalition winning control of the most pro-Rebellion areas of the C.N.A., the provinces of New Hampshire, Virginia, and North Carolina. He lays no stress upon the fact that Gallivan thoroughly distances the C.N.A. from Great Britain, in sharp contrast to his predecessor John McDowell's attempts to bring the two closer together.
Eventually, the People's Coalition falls victim to its own success. After thirty-five years of uninterrupted power, the Coalition becomes complacent. When a new protest movement appears in the early 1920s, its target is the same mechanized, industrialized, modern society that the Coalition had helped to create. Calvin Wagner, the fifth successive Coalitionist head of the C.N.A., is baffled by the challenge. Wagner becomes the first Governor-General to lose a re-election campaign since John McDowell, the man Ezra Gallivan defeated in 1888.
Robert Sobel, the Australian business historian who is the nominal author of For Want of a Nail, is careful to avoid noting the strong ties between the founders of the Coalition and the leaders of the North American Rebellion of a hundred years earlier. The reason is clear enough: Sobel is utterly contemptuous of the rebels of '75, which he readily admits to at one point in the book, and which Professor Frank Dana of the United States of Mexico emphasizes in his critique of Nail. The last thing Sobel wants to do is admit that the Coalition, which has become thoroughly respectable at the time he is writing, drew its inspiration from the despised rebels.
Thus, Sobel mentions without comment the fact that the Coalition's founding document was called the Norfolk Resolves. He ignores the obvious implication of the Coalition winning control of the most pro-Rebellion areas of the C.N.A., the provinces of New Hampshire, Virginia, and North Carolina. He lays no stress upon the fact that Gallivan thoroughly distances the C.N.A. from Great Britain, in sharp contrast to his predecessor John McDowell's attempts to bring the two closer together.
Eventually, the People's Coalition falls victim to its own success. After thirty-five years of uninterrupted power, the Coalition becomes complacent. When a new protest movement appears in the early 1920s, its target is the same mechanized, industrialized, modern society that the Coalition had helped to create. Calvin Wagner, the fifth successive Coalitionist head of the C.N.A., is baffled by the challenge. Wagner becomes the first Governor-General to lose a re-election campaign since John McDowell, the man Ezra Gallivan defeated in 1888.
The new Iraq
The Obama administration has officially released a budget plan that calls for cutting Social Security benefits, making him the first Democratic president to put Social Security cuts "on the table" as they say. Why? There are no good reasons, only several bad ones.
I think cutting Social Security is Barack Obama's version of invading Iraq. That is to say, it's a very harmful, very stupid, very unpopular policy that he has nevertheless been determined to pursue, by whatever means necessary, since the day he entered office.
I think cutting Social Security is Barack Obama's version of invading Iraq. That is to say, it's a very harmful, very stupid, very unpopular policy that he has nevertheless been determined to pursue, by whatever means necessary, since the day he entered office.
Monday, April 8, 2013
The wages of sanctity
Roy Edroso's latest column in the Village Voice is about conservatives' sudden desire to scold straight people for not getting married. A factoid that most of the wingnuts mention is that married people tend to be wealthier than single people. Needless to say, they know as well as you and I do that the chain of cause-to-effect there runs from money to marriage. Nevertheless, all the wingnuts pretend to believe that it's the other way around, that getting married causes people to become wealthier.
It isn't hard to see why they prefer to lie about the cause and effect. Given their insistence that marriage is a Good Thing, then if they admitted that financial security encourages marriage, they would have to embrace the idea that the way to get more people to marry would not be scolding them, but bribing them.
Since the wingnuts won't go there, I will. I hereby declare that marriage is a Good Thing, and that the government ought to encourage marriage by offering married couples a guaranteed annual income of $50,000. And since wingnuts are so insistent that the point of marriage is procreation, I further propose that the guaranteed annual income be doubled if the couple has a child, and doubled again for each subsequent child. The salary continues for as long as the couple is married; if they get divorced, it not only ends, but each person has to pay an annual divorce tax. (However, if the marriage ends with one spouse surviving the other's death, the surviving spouse continues to receive the full income.) Furthermore, in order to encourage couples to remain married to their original spouses, a second marriage does not result in resumption of the guaranteed income. And just to hammer home the fact that Divorce Is Bad, a second marriage that ends in divorce results in a doubling of the divorce tax.
And since I believe in rewarding past good behavior as well as future good behavior, I propose that couples who are already married should get their income retroactive to the year they were married. For instance, since I just celebrated my 15th wedding anniversary last week, my wife and I ought to receive a lump-sum payment of $750,000. And my parents, who will be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary next year, ought to be getting . . . well, actually, this is going to be complicated. They married in 1954, and had six children over the next ten years, so their lump-sum payment would be:
1954: $50,000
1955 - one child: $100,000
1956 - two children: $200,000
1957 - three children: $400,000
1958 - three children: $400,000
1959 - four children: $800,000
1960 - four children: $800,000
1961 - four children: $800,000
1962 - five children: $1.6 million
1963 - six children: $3.2 million
and an additional $3.2 million dollars for every year from 1964 to 2012, which works out to $161.95 million dollars total.
Wingnuts, if you want to encourage marriage, that's the way to do it. No need to thank me, I'm happy to help, but you can contact me by email to offer me my Heritage Foundation fellowship.
It isn't hard to see why they prefer to lie about the cause and effect. Given their insistence that marriage is a Good Thing, then if they admitted that financial security encourages marriage, they would have to embrace the idea that the way to get more people to marry would not be scolding them, but bribing them.
Since the wingnuts won't go there, I will. I hereby declare that marriage is a Good Thing, and that the government ought to encourage marriage by offering married couples a guaranteed annual income of $50,000. And since wingnuts are so insistent that the point of marriage is procreation, I further propose that the guaranteed annual income be doubled if the couple has a child, and doubled again for each subsequent child. The salary continues for as long as the couple is married; if they get divorced, it not only ends, but each person has to pay an annual divorce tax. (However, if the marriage ends with one spouse surviving the other's death, the surviving spouse continues to receive the full income.) Furthermore, in order to encourage couples to remain married to their original spouses, a second marriage does not result in resumption of the guaranteed income. And just to hammer home the fact that Divorce Is Bad, a second marriage that ends in divorce results in a doubling of the divorce tax.
And since I believe in rewarding past good behavior as well as future good behavior, I propose that couples who are already married should get their income retroactive to the year they were married. For instance, since I just celebrated my 15th wedding anniversary last week, my wife and I ought to receive a lump-sum payment of $750,000. And my parents, who will be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary next year, ought to be getting . . . well, actually, this is going to be complicated. They married in 1954, and had six children over the next ten years, so their lump-sum payment would be:
1954: $50,000
1955 - one child: $100,000
1956 - two children: $200,000
1957 - three children: $400,000
1958 - three children: $400,000
1959 - four children: $800,000
1960 - four children: $800,000
1961 - four children: $800,000
1962 - five children: $1.6 million
1963 - six children: $3.2 million
and an additional $3.2 million dollars for every year from 1964 to 2012, which works out to $161.95 million dollars total.
Wingnuts, if you want to encourage marriage, that's the way to do it. No need to thank me, I'm happy to help, but you can contact me by email to offer me my Heritage Foundation fellowship.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Sobel Wiki: release the hounds
This week's featured article at the Sobel Wiki is Henry Gilpin, the second Governor-General of the C.N.A. and the architect of the Rocky Mountain War.
As I've noted before, Robert Sobel had a tendency to allow people from our own history to play roles in For Want of a Nail despite having been born decades after his history branched away from ours. Gilpin is a rather extreme example. His parents were born 3,000 miles apart, and only met because Gilpin's father was visiting Lancaster, England in the 1790s.
On the other hand, the prominent role Gilpin plays in the history of the C.N.A. makes Gilpin the obverse to people like James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln, major figures from our history who play minor roles in the Sobel Timeline. In our own history, Gilpin's most notable accomplishment was being named Attorney General under President Martin van Buren in 1840. In the Sobel Timeline, he serves as Governor of the Northern Confederation for three years, a leading delegate to the Concordia Convention of 1841 and the Burgoyne Conference of 1842, one of the founders of the Unified Liberal Party, Minister of War under Governor-General Winfield Scott from 1843 to 1849, and Governor-General himself from 1849 to 1853, after engineering Scott's fall.
Gilpin is also one of the major villains of the Sobel Timeline, though alt-Sobel goes to some lengths to whitewash his actions. Gilpin's rule of the Northern Confederation in the early 1840s is dictatorial, as he oversees the suppression of the N.C.'s leading labor union during a bloody purge that costs the lives of over 40,000 people. As Minister of War, he maneuvers the C.N.A. into a war with the United States of Mexico, and as Governor-General, he sacrifices the lives of over a hundred thousand North American troops in a disastrous campaign aimed at capturing San Francisco, a city of no strategic value.
Writing Nail in the summer of 1971, Sobel happened to name two of the North American generals involved in Gilpin's ill-fated campaign David Homer and FitzJohn Smithers. Thirty years later, when I became involved in the For All Nails project, I found the coincidence irresistable, and I ended up writing a series of Rocky Mountain War-era vignettes with a definite Simpsons flavor in which Gilpin was modeled on Mr. Burns.
As I've noted before, Robert Sobel had a tendency to allow people from our own history to play roles in For Want of a Nail despite having been born decades after his history branched away from ours. Gilpin is a rather extreme example. His parents were born 3,000 miles apart, and only met because Gilpin's father was visiting Lancaster, England in the 1790s.
On the other hand, the prominent role Gilpin plays in the history of the C.N.A. makes Gilpin the obverse to people like James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln, major figures from our history who play minor roles in the Sobel Timeline. In our own history, Gilpin's most notable accomplishment was being named Attorney General under President Martin van Buren in 1840. In the Sobel Timeline, he serves as Governor of the Northern Confederation for three years, a leading delegate to the Concordia Convention of 1841 and the Burgoyne Conference of 1842, one of the founders of the Unified Liberal Party, Minister of War under Governor-General Winfield Scott from 1843 to 1849, and Governor-General himself from 1849 to 1853, after engineering Scott's fall.
Gilpin is also one of the major villains of the Sobel Timeline, though alt-Sobel goes to some lengths to whitewash his actions. Gilpin's rule of the Northern Confederation in the early 1840s is dictatorial, as he oversees the suppression of the N.C.'s leading labor union during a bloody purge that costs the lives of over 40,000 people. As Minister of War, he maneuvers the C.N.A. into a war with the United States of Mexico, and as Governor-General, he sacrifices the lives of over a hundred thousand North American troops in a disastrous campaign aimed at capturing San Francisco, a city of no strategic value.
Writing Nail in the summer of 1971, Sobel happened to name two of the North American generals involved in Gilpin's ill-fated campaign David Homer and FitzJohn Smithers. Thirty years later, when I became involved in the For All Nails project, I found the coincidence irresistable, and I ended up writing a series of Rocky Mountain War-era vignettes with a definite Simpsons flavor in which Gilpin was modeled on Mr. Burns.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Sobel Wiki: a word from our sponsor
This week's featured article on the Sobel Wiki is Owen Galloway, locomobile magnate, philanthropist, pacifist, and a direct descendant of noted Loyalist Joseph Galloway. This presents a problem, because none of Joseph Galloway's sons survived to adulthood. When the fighting broke out in 1775, his only surviving child was his daughter Elizabeth. In our history, Galloway's wife Grace died in 1782, and we can only assume that she died around the same time in Sobel's history, and that Galloway remarried and had at least one son by his second wife.
In the Sobel Timeline, Owen Galloway played a similar role to that of our own history's Henry Ford, hitting on the idea of building low-cost cars for a mass market. He also dispayed a touch of William C. Durant by acquiring seven other locomobile companies and combining them into North American Motors, the world's largest car company. He then started up a subsidiary oil company to provide fuel for his cars, a subsidiary financial company to offer loans to car buyers, and a subsidiary motel chain to give motorists a place to stay the night.
Galloway's most significant accomplishment, though, had nothing to do with his car company. At a time when society in the C.N.A. was undergoing a major social disturbance, Galloway hit upon the idea of forming a trust fund to subsidize emigration by North Americans. This made Galloway the most popular public figure in the C.N.A., and his weekly vitavision addresses attracted larger audiences than any of the entertainment programs (except possibly his own Galloway Playhouse). Galloway wasn't interested in a political career, but Sobel reports that a whole generation of North American politicians courted popularity by imitating Galloway's wooden delivery.
In the Sobel Timeline, Owen Galloway played a similar role to that of our own history's Henry Ford, hitting on the idea of building low-cost cars for a mass market. He also dispayed a touch of William C. Durant by acquiring seven other locomobile companies and combining them into North American Motors, the world's largest car company. He then started up a subsidiary oil company to provide fuel for his cars, a subsidiary financial company to offer loans to car buyers, and a subsidiary motel chain to give motorists a place to stay the night.
Galloway's most significant accomplishment, though, had nothing to do with his car company. At a time when society in the C.N.A. was undergoing a major social disturbance, Galloway hit upon the idea of forming a trust fund to subsidize emigration by North Americans. This made Galloway the most popular public figure in the C.N.A., and his weekly vitavision addresses attracted larger audiences than any of the entertainment programs (except possibly his own Galloway Playhouse). Galloway wasn't interested in a political career, but Sobel reports that a whole generation of North American politicians courted popularity by imitating Galloway's wooden delivery.
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