I Talk Back To Kos

Just posted this on Kos: "The Vietnam analogy is tendentious

because we know the outcome in Vietnam, and the dominant view among historians is that it couldn't realistically have gone down another way.

The better analogy is to the Reconstruction South in 1868. That's the year that so-called Radical Reconstruction kicked in, the new Southern state constitutions went into effect, and African Americans got to vote for the first time. That, like the elections yesterday, was also heartening. "It is the hardest thing in the world to keep a negro away from the polls," noted one white Southerner ruefully. "That is the one thing he will do, to vote."

Well, we know how Reconstruction turned out too. But the chance for a different outcome was better, especially at an early stage like 1868, though major riots and political violence already had shown that change in the old order would meet lethal resistance.

A stronger federal gov't commitment to the new state governments in the South could have made a difference. So could a tougher stance by those state governments toward the KKK and other white conservatives that. Point is, the outcome in 1868 was still up for grabs. Just so in Iraq."