[BroJoeK]

HangUpNow's Alinskyite-rant: "As you remind us, the record certainly indicts a post CW Union (specifically, vampires from the North, more specifically, New England's cadre of olde monied elites) of rampant profiteering and opportunistic crooks...."

I'm no expert on Reconstruction, but it does seem that Lincoln's "better angels of our nature" somewhat deserted the country for a time.
So why would any non-Marxist focus on things like "rampant profiteering" when more serious post-Civil War problems in the South are represented by the KKK, lynchings & disenfranchisement of black voters, segregation and discrimination against African-Americans?

[DiogenesLamp]

So why would any non-Marxist focus on things like "rampant profiteering" when more serious post-Civil War problems in the South are represented by the KKK, lynchings & disenfranchisement of black voters, segregation and discrimination against African-Americans?

This is called "deflection." You don't like where this "follow the money" line of discussion is going, so now you are trying to wave the bloody shirt.

I think i'll stay focused on this money issue. It has all the markings of being the larger moral question regarding the launching of the attack against the Southern states.