I found the following speech by Dr. J. Michael Hill, president of the League of the South, interesting, especially these sections:
WE are not made to live in isolation; rather, we here in the South are a people. Our ancestors came from Europe, but we long ago ceased to be Europeans. We are in a sense Westerners (to differentiate us from the various peoples of the Orient), but that designation is too loose and amorphous. For the last four centuries we have been becoming Southerners. The South is where we make our stand. It is our home.
As African Americans came from Africa, not Europe, I gather Dr. Hill does not think they are southerners.
Sadly, our true interests were compromised and sold for a mess of pottage by our so-called leaders a long time ago. For instance, if the South had had real leaders of the people there would have been no second reconstruction known as the civil rights movement.
I guess we’ve found someone else who agrees with Trent Lott that if Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948 things would have been different.
The mantra “Violence [or the serious threat thereof] never settles anything” is patently false. History shows that it indeed does settle many things. Please don’t forget this—your enemy hasn’t.
Hmmm. Is someone advocating violence?
We are already at war—we just don’t know it. One instance: Immigration. This is not just a matter of policy. It’s a matter of our very survival as white men and women of European Christian stock on this land we call the South. It is a zero sum game—we win or they win. There is no middle ground for compromise. Losing means that my grandchildren will grow up in a third world country. Multiculturalism and diversity means “we” cease to exist as a viable and prosperous people. Another instance: the criminal banksters—led by Bernanke and Geithner–and their politician-whores in Washington, DC, are in the process of stealing the wealth of the Southern middle and working class. We should have already considered this a declaration of war against us, for how can a man survive if he is robbed of his very sustenance. And the whole scheme is being pulled off under color of law. If this does not make you want to fight, then you don’t belong in our organization.
So now I’m to understand that if you aren’t of European Christian descent, you can’t be a southerner? Wonder what those people who celebrate a multicultural Confederacy think of that observation. I also guess that even black Confederates weren’t really southerners, according to Dr. Hill’s definition.
Corey Meyer pointed me to a YouTube version of the speech, which contains some interesting variations:
Now, if this were yesterday, I might ask for responses from certain folks who proudly proclaim that they, too, defend southern heritage … or Confederate heritage … whatever. But I’m sure they’ll react one way or another in their own groups and on their own blogs … that is, unless they really aren’t interested in southern heritage … or are too afraid to speak out … or maybe they agree … who knows? Stand up for the South, indeed.
But, having set them aside, I turn to the rest of you and ask … what do you think?
Crossroads 
I think it is disgusting, and confirms everything I have suspected about the League of the South for many years.
You asked in the previous post, who makes one embarrassed to be a Southerner?
J. Michael Hill and the League of the South, that’s who. They just cannot not talk about race as central to their self-identification.
You also ponder, “wonder what those people who celebrate a multicultural Confederacy think of that observation.” Ask Connie — she links to both the LoS and the LoS blog on her site.
It will be interesting to see whether Ms. Chastain openly avows her support for the views expressed by Dr. Hill. My guess is that the usually verbose one will be silent, and you can draw your own conclusions as to why.
Oh, she supports the LOSers, make no mistake. I would bet she won’t be silent in her support.
This rhetoric certainly conforms to what I saw of the League of the South. I went to the Mississippi Capital building to protest the rally the LOS held for the old flag. I was immediately harassed and hounded by a crowd of rednecks shouting “jewboy” at me (no, I’m not jewish). What could have drawn such ire? Apparently my sign, which read “Your Revision Is Racism. Stop the hate.” I doubt they ever realized the irony of their reaction to the sign.
The mantra of the LOS during the flag debate in Mississippi was “Heritage not hate.” At least now they appear to have dropped the facade.
Tony-Be careful in doing stuff like that. Mickey Schwerner was the target of the assassins who murdered him, Chaney, and Goodman. He enraged the Klan because he was Jewish and from New York City and had come to help black Mississippians register to vote among other civil rights actions.
That doesn’t happen these days thankfully. The South just isn’t the same place it once was.
It sounds like a Klan recruiting speech
I’m sure he thinks Southerners are a distinct race,
Confederate-Americans.
it is tempting to dismiss them as nuts and cranks but they are getting louder and their numbers might not be growing but the internet allows them to find each other and in packs they can be dangerous.
“I’m sure he thinks Southerners are a distinct race, Confederate-Americans.”
There was a big push by various heritage groups during last year’s census to claim exactly that.
This video works.
Pitiful creature…!
Heritage not Hate indeed!
Very flagrant in espousing hatred and bigotry, isn’t he? At least he’s honest about his motives. I have to give him that.
I guess we will see what the other Lost Causers have to say…….
Eric
Well, think what you will about Dr. Hill, but his candor and his acceptance of what his beliefs mean in terms of action stands in contrast to people who claim that they live in “Virginia, CSA” or who are still fighting the “good” fight against “Yankee domination,” but who don’t act on their proclaimed convictions. For them, those claims are just a fashion statement.
I met Mike Hill twenty years ago, before there was a LoS. He seemed a likeable guy who wanted nothing more than a full-time academic position. The demagogue in that video, the one who ten years ago really did “blame America” for 9/11, bears so little resemblance to my former acquaintance that these videos always leave me both sad and perplexed.
Chicken fried know nothingism. It’s the Klan message without the secrecy or terror. Bah… he’s a minority.
I also hope Mississippi will have another vote on their flag in a few years.
I think he’s a member of that unrepresentative fringe, too, but he does lay bare his thinking for all to see. He’s not southern heritage, but then neither are they.
I agree, his candor is commendable. I’d love to sit and talk with him.
I think the setting of the convention is telling. Looks like a smal gym compared to the fancy hotel banquet rooms they have occupied in the past. I think that tells of the dwindling influence of the leauge and may explain the movement towards the more extreme.
If he had spoken of “illegal immigration,” I would agree that it represents an invasion that no country should tolerate, but which the ruling elites, Democrat and Republican, seem willing to avoid dealing with. If Dr. Hill means legal immigration, I disagree. The governors of South Carolina and Louisiana are of south Asian origin, and they’re as good Southerners as Dr. Hill.
I agree with his statement, “Multiculturalism and diversity means ‘we’ cease to exist as a viable and prosperous people.” However, the “we” for me is the American people, not white Christian Southerners.
It makes me sad to hear someone who should know better condemn the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. This was one of the best things that ever happened to the South and to the United States. Dr. Hill should be happy that you can be a good Southerner and not feel required to defend an unjust social system.
The North saved the country in the 19th century, and the South may have to do it in the 21st. However, it’s not going to be the South of Dr. Hill.
“The governors of South Carolina and Louisiana are of south Asian origin, and they’re as good Southerners as Dr. Hill.”
I beg to disagree, Terry. They are much better Southerners than Dr. Hill !
Didn’t this yahoo teach at Stillman, a HBCU, for years?
Why, yes he did.
Just listen to the first one minute, “…what would it take to turn you into a Bedford Forrest…?”
In other words: What would it take to turn you into the most evil and violent terrorist that America has ever produced?
Spin chilling, to say the least.
It’s interesting that his opening lines are heavily dependent on the idea of a “Celtic South” – the mention of Wallace and Bruce as heroes is perhaps not surprising, but I was surprised by the presence of two IRA (1920s version) leaders.
If I remember correctly, Hill worked with Grady McWhiney at the University of Alabama who advanced the Celtic South thesis. (Disclosure-I too am a UA graduate but over 30 years later and I have never met Hill).
Grady was rather unhappy with where Dr. Hill took his arguments on behalf of southern identity.