Time magazine ran this graphic as a symbol of problems with our economy. Good image but wrong issue.
Andrew Jackson, Seventh US President, The First Republican
Arthur Chu at the Daily Beast calls for the Democratic party to stop celebrating the Jefferson Jackson Day. Let the Republicans, with their worship of them confederacy, take credit for this monster .
Thousands died on the death marches. Thousands more died in the concentration camps that were their destination. Still more thousands were killed because they refused to leave. Soldiers were given direct orders to gun down children in cold blood. Natives who fled into the wilderness were hunted by civilians for sport.
Like a modern day candidate of Fox News, Jackson ran as a “man of the people,” ridiculing egg heads like John Quincy Adams and Walt Whitman. The Jacksonian media portrayed Adams, a highly educated statesman as a limp-wristed, out-of-touch elitist you wouldn’t want to have a beer with. Jackson’s victory denigrated some of America’s best leading to a succession foreign wars and, ultimately, the Civil War.
Jackson’s achievements:
- Ethnic Cleansing and Mass Murder. Cleansed the tribal peoples of the American South. The Trail of Tears ricals the Nazi Holocaust bith for tis size and its racism. Treaties with the Five Civilized Tribes were abrogated the name of convenient access to cheap land.
- Slavery. Supported slavery and the right of ree pople to own human beings as long as the latter were Black.,
- Spoiling. Created the patronage system”, leading to the quote “to the victors belong the spoils”. Jackson removed qualified employees of all levels in the federal government, rewarding the party work of political hacks with federal jobs enriched by favors, bribes and embezzlement that are now criminal offenses.
- Conquest of Florida. Anyone who is upset with Putin’s invasion of Crimea should celebrate Jackson’s unprovoked, illegal nvasion fo Florida.
- Dismantling the US Central Bank Like his Republican heirs today, Jackson was a goldbug, wanting to privatize our money supply. His “wildcat” banks made profits by issuing worthless financial instruments leading to the the Panic of 1837, eighty years of depression, bankruptcy of these banks, and soaring unemployment reminiscent of our own recent Bush recession.
Which brings me to my last point. When I tell fellow lefties I want Reagan on the $20 bill instead of Jackson they argue that Reagan is a potent political symbol for the Right whereas Jackson’s legacy is forgotten and therefore “harmless.”
I call bullshit on that. Jackson’s forgotten legacy is all the more harmful for being forgotten. The biggest reason I’d like it if Reagan ended up replacing Jackson is that we’d have to talk about both men’s legacies, instead of just taking them for granted.
And yes, I’d love to talk about Iran-Contra and the Libya bombing, I’d love to talk about the air traffic controllers and the savings and loan crisis.
But I’d also like to talk about the Seminole Wars and the Trail of Tears, the Specie Circular and the Panic of 1837. I’d like to talk about a legacy of lawlessness and catastrophe against which the reign of George W. Bush is a pale shadow. .. Atthur Chu