Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> "By the eve of the Civil War," says Horton, "the dollar
> 
> value of slaves was greater than the dollar value of all
> 
> of America's banks, railroads, and manufacturing combined


I was in the Home Despot this afternoon and went to check the price on 
hardwood dowels.  Sure enough, the 5/8" dowels were a shocking $2.59 each.  I 
had 
hoped that the price I'd seen in Lowe's was a fluke, but it wasn't.  Oh well, 
another project required a quantity of small softwood slats such as the 
spline 
used to tack on screen to wooden screen door frames.  The 9 1/2' piece was 
priced at 32 cents.  Great!  No, on second glance that was 32 cents a FOOT.  
What 
was going on, the last dowels I bought not a year ago were 59 cents.    

It turns out that something was went afoul of with the milling contracts with 
China and all those milled products were from the USA and Canada.

How many of the antebellum slaves and the people who profited by their 
exploitation looked about themselves and though anything but that the status 
quo was 
the normal way of things?   Indentured servatitude in the North was as bad as 
slavery with the added feature that the master felt no compunction at kicking 
out the sick and old an injured to die in the streets.

Like my dowels, how much of what we have cheaply today is due to slave labor? 
 A great deal of it, I am thining.  Cut off the Chinese imports and almost 
manufatured good  will go up in price as much as the dowels did.  Food is 
fighting hard to get into that situation as well.

Then we have the modern phenomenon of cubicle dwelling.  Servitude comes in 
many forms and the best servant is the one who thinks there is no alternative.


James