Greetings Otterites,
Here’s hoping you are having a contemplative and restorative Juneteeth, the day we celebrate the extinction of human bondage on this continent. The day makes me wonder how over the millennia such a condition became normal and accepted. Enslaving those who were unlike you, through purchase, conquest or whatever means has long been a part of the human condition. And the degree of difference didn’t have to be much. Greeks enslaved other Greeks. Romans enslaved everybody. If you could find a reason to consider another human different from you, then there was suddenly a justification for holding that someone in bondage. Finally though, Europeans found a race so alien to them slavery could be industrialized. Eventually a triangle would form. Money to Africa to buy the slaves, slaves to the New World to work labor intensive agriculture, and finally those agricultural products back to Europe. It made the world go around. Until brave people, who looked around and finally realized all that high minded idealistic business from two thousand years of Christianity and hundreds of years of political enlightenment meant nothing if it didn’t apply to everyone. It took time, and blood, but finally it happened.
Lots to think about. Talk to you soon Otterites. Much doings with the Brotherhood, can’t wait for you to hear about them.
