A Note for Disgrunted Commenters

(h/t to a fellow historian)

Two Letters: 150 Years Ago

Long-time readers of this blog will recall this post, which appeared one year ago today. For others, it’s a useful read.

Virginia Flaggers Offer Robert E. Lee Half-Hearted Support

You knew it would be only a matter of time before the Virginia Flaggers would express themselves on the recent kerfuffle about how Washington & Lee University handles issues of Confederate heritage in the wake of a protest by several law students about the presence of Confederate symbols on campus.

And so they have … it’s another fabulous “Call to Action!”

Surely the Flaggers will mount up and go to Lexington and flag the Lee Chapel to make their opinions known, right? After all, the Lee Chapel’s not the VMFA, so Susan Hathaway can make the trip … and speaking of trips, Tripp Lewis can model his new shades in the spring weather.

What’s that, you say? All they want people to do is to send e-mails and letters? THAT’S ALL?

So much for restoring the honor.

This, frankly, is a disgrace. If Susan can travel across the South spreading the word, she can go to Lexington. If Tripp can get arrested in Richmond, he can get arrested in Lexington. If the Flaggers can gather in a trailer park to celebrate the erection of a flag pole that will soon be obscured by spring foliage, they can go to Lexington. But they won’t.

Robert E. Lee deserves better. Really. What a shame.

 

News and Notes, April 29, 2014

Spanning the globe … and finding little minds. Please skip if you don’t like reading about Confederate heritage hypocrisy … we’ll have something else to whet your appetite soon.

• I always found the ranting at the Facebook version of Backsass to be amusing. However, Since Connie Chastain’s abandoned her efforts to maintain that page, the placeholder blog for certain Confederate heritage folks, now called Dixie News and Talk, is struggling. Moderator David Grove attempted at first to cut and past the contents of blogs that he didn’t like to make sure that his readers didn’t have to contribute to those blogs’ hit counts, but, as he recently confessed, “I can’t do it anymore. It has caused me to get behind and untimely with posts from their blogs. I have not had the time to add new members.” I’m sure there are many people rushing to join that page … which has taken on a far more political tone now, reinforcing the impression that fans of Confederate heritage are overwhelmingly conservative. No surprise there. Foil hats optional.
• It also didn’t surprise me that David Tatum on his attack blog had a problem with reading comprehension … or honesty … in his latest hit piece, in which he called a woman “a mutt.” Anyone who goes to the comment in question can see that I reacted to the comment, which I thought was, to use the words of Ms. Chastain, “inappropriate.” As to whether David’s simply stupid, illiterate, dishonest, or some combination thereof, I leave to others to determine. At least we now know he compares women to dogs. Wonder what that tells us about him.
• I note that over at Connie’s blog that they’re demonstrating how liars play with statistics. For the record, in my zip code, 68.2 percent of the population is white (2010 US census). Moreover, anyone with a lick of sense knows that in the American Southwest, racial diversity is not simply a matter of black and white, although I understand that Connie and her fans are obsessed about black people. By the way, for Connie’s zip code, the population is 73.4% white, so, if you are going to claim I’m a racist by the racial demography where I live, then the same reasoning suggests that Connie’s an even more intense racist … right, “Austin”? Of course, “Austin” is afraid to reveal his identity, lest we discover just how much a white supremacist he is … just like all those white people who comment on Connie’s blog (which to “Austin” is another sign of racism, so, once more, he’s calling Connie a racist). Connie knows where he lives, but she won’t say because she knows I’m right (she has no problem discussing where other people who visit her blog live, so she’s just shielding him). But that’s life in the bizarro world of Connie Chastain and friends, real and fictional.
• Oh, and yes, Connie did defend Michael Hill and his FB friends. She apparently likes Cliven Bundy, too. Maybe she can figure out a way to get into the big time … as opposed to when she wrote “usually about off-the-wall subjects
  like Bigfoot hunters in the South, Mobile Bay’s jubilees, and photos of Area 51 snapped by Soviet spy satellites.” You heard it here first.

That’s enough for now. I’m sure I’ve given someone the inspiration to rant away once more. 🙂

Confederate Heritage and Southern Nationalism: One View

This Monday is Confederate Memorial Day in certain parts of the country (the date varies from state to state). Consider this speech, delivered in Alabama today, to mark the occasion:

—-

Good morning my fellow Alabamians and my fellow Southrons from across Dixie. Thank you for making the effort to be here today.

On behalf of Dr Michael Hill, president of the League of the South, and Rev. David Jones, Chairman of the Southern National Congress, I would like to extend to you their greetings and kind regards on this momentous occasion.

I would also like to thank Mrs Patricia Godwin of the United Daughters of the Confederacy for inviting me here, and thereby giving me the honour of speaking to you as we remember our brave and glorious Southern forebears on this Confederate Memorial Day. Memorial…… a word which comes from the Latin memoria, meaning a remembrance of some person or thing.

But my intention today is not so much to dwell in our ancestors’ past, as it is to link their past to our present and our future. Given the make-up and level of historical knowledge of this audience, there is no need to waste time recounting the deeds of Lee and Jackson, nor of restating the principles and liberties for which they fought. And given the make-up of this audience, what I have to say should receive a warm reception.

However, reconstruction marches on, and I have no doubts that some of you will find my remarks controversial, even offensive.

But if that’s what it takes to awaken you from your stupor, then so be it. For we are at a critical juncture in the history of our countries and our conquered and occupied Republic, so the time for gentle words and tactics is over. And yes, you heard me correctly. As a true and patriotic Southron, I refuse to speak of that political fiction, that foreign invader and occupier of our lands known as the united states of America as a country – much less OUR country. For true Southrons, our country is Alabama, or Arkansas, or Louisiana, or Georgia, or whatever State in which we were born or call home. And our Republic is the collection of States that we affectionately call The South.

No, my friends, my purpose here today is to urge you, to prod you, to do more than merely remember the herculean deeds and heroic struggle of our Confederate ancestors for their liberty and independence. I want you to do your duty to them, yourselves, and your posterity and honour their sacrifices and their memory by becoming what they once were – patriotic Southern nationalists – and by once again taking up and actively working for their Cause, which by right is now OUR Cause – a free and independent Southern Republic.

So what must you do to become a patriotic, Southern Nationalist? First, you must reject and despise modern America and Americanism. Both of those things are the creation of yankees post 1865. Both of those things are what have been presented to the world as ‘america’ and being an ‘american’ since 1865. Neither of those things is compatible with the South or being Southern, because, as I like to phrase it, they just ain’t like us. They never have been, and they never will be.

The great Southern philosopher, Richard Weaver, drew the eternal distinction and enmity between us and them in his 1957 essay, The South and the American Union. Weaver described Southrons as classical men. Men who love fixed limits in all things. Who recognise the inscrutability of creation, and that some things will ever be beyond our understanding. Who reject ceaseless becoming for accepted, statuesque becomeness. Who are tolerant and hospitable by nature, and who recognise the irremediability of a certain amount of evil in the world, fencing it in, rather than stamping on it a spreading it.

This type is wholly incompatible with its rival – the Faustian man, i.e. the yankee. Weaver tells us that, ‘Faustian man is essentially a restless striver, a yearner after the infinite, a hater of stasis, a man who is unhappy unless he feels that he is making the world over. He may talk much of tolerance, but for him tolerance is an exponent of power. His tolerance tolerates only the dogmatic idea of tolerance, as anyone can discover for himself by getting to know the modern humanitarian liberal. For different opinions and ways of life he has not respect, but hostility or contemptuous indifference, until the day when they can be brought around to conform with his own.’

This is why they look down upon us and despise us and everything we believe. This is why they ridicule us and treat us as subhumans that must be watched and controlled. In their politically correct universe, we are the only subjects fit for derision, opprobrium, and eradication. Why would any proud Southron in his right mind want to be associated with them much less be like them?

You must also reject and despise the symbol of America and Americanism – that execrable, striped, star-spangled yankee rag. How can we salute, much less pledge allegiance to, a symbol that represents everything against which our Southern ancestors fought and died? Does it even matter to you that the so-called pledge of allegiance was the brainchild of the socialist Francis Bellamy? That his stated reason for concocting and foisting that marxist clap-trap upon innocent school children was to, ‘teach loyalty to the state as a virtue’? Look around you. Has he not been successful beyond imagining? Our ancestors rightly rejected such nonsense, and so should we.

Allow me to cite but two examples of how we Southrons should rightly view their striped banner.

Jefferson Davis, a great man, who stood on the steps of this capitol building and took the oath of office as our first president once said, while viewing a u.s. flag, ‘There is the gridiron we have been fried upon’ .

Admiral Raphael Semmes, whose name graces one of Alabama’s towns, and whose statue stands in silent vigil over the City of Mobile, wrote in his memoirs, ‘The flag, too, had a charm which it was difficult to resist. It had long been the emblem of the principle that all just governments are founded on the consent of the governed ….. and it was difficult to realize the fact that it no longer represented this principle, but had become the emblem of its opposite; that of coercing unwilling States to remain under a government which they deemed unjust and oppressive.

Many bearded men were affected almost to tears as they saw this once hallowed emblem hauled down from the flag-staves of Southern forts and arsenals. They were in the condition of one who had been forced, in spite of himself, to realize the perfidy of a friend, and to be obliged to give him up as no longer worthy of his confidence or affection.’

In 1906, General Stephen D Lee said this to the newly formed Sons of Confederate Veterans, ‘To your strength will be given ….. the emulation of his (Confederate soldier’s) virtues, the perpetuation of those principles which he loved and which you love also, and those ideals which made him glorious and which you also cherish.’

I’ve been an SCV member since 1997, and from that time to now, it has never ceased to amaze me how so many Camps begin their meetings by doing two things – (1) pledging allegiance to the u.s. flag, then (2) saluting the Confederate flag with affection, reverence, and undying devotion to the Cause for which it stands. It is difficult to imagine anything more absurd than this ridiculous and demoralizing display of cognitive dissonance – which is a psychological disorder defined as the excessive mental stress and discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time.

Practice cognitive dissonance enough, and you become schizophrenic, which is a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality.

My friends, this describes too many of our contemporary Southrons!! Our Lord Jesus Christ made it plain, my friends, no man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other; or he will sustain the one and despise the other.

Imagine how ridiculous it would have been to suggest to the French people under Nazi occupation, that they could still be patriotic Frenchmen by saluting the Nazi swastika and singing Deutchland euber alles while shedding sentimental tears over being so fortunate as to live in the great and free Third Reich!

Well it is equally stupid to think that you can be a patriotic, loyal Southron by saluting the u.s. flag and singing the star spangled banner through teary eyes, so grateful that you live in the greatest and most free country in the history of the world. Newsflash! You don’t, and it’s not. Choose a side, but for God’s sake, and yours, stop this foolish attempt to straddle the proverbial fence. At least then, those of us who are loyal Southrons will surely know whose side you’re on.

The corollary to the foregoing is this – stop sacrificing your Southern children to the pagan god of imperialistic, yankee militarism, and stop worshiping all their high tech gadgets of death and destruction and how they use them on folks half way around the world with whom we have no real quarrel. Oh, and in case you haven’t noticed, they are beginning to use them on US here, too.

There is no honour in serving or dying for an evil regime and its immoral acts. And the u.s. regime is evil. Can we continue to ignore the opinions of the rest of the world’s nations when they consistently declare that the u.s. is the most hated regime on the planet? What a contrast it is when you see Vladimir Putin celebrating a national holiday in honour of Russia’s conversion to the Catholic Faith over 1000 years ago, in a cathedral, before a portrait of Christ, surrounded by Orthodox Bishops versus Barak Obama celebrating sodomy at the white house, or speaking at Georgetown University but only on the condition that the Crucifix and Christ’s name were covered with a pall.

It is sickening to see the repeated displays of state worship at every sporting, school, and civic event we attend; accompanied by the praises for ‘our troops’ who are ‘fighting for our freedoms’. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those men and women are hired mercenaries, duped into fighting for the international bankers and corporations who truly own and control the u.s. regime. And when they come home maimed, mentally disturbed, and otherwise broken, what thanks do they get from the regime that used them like so much cannon fodder? None.

They are committing suicide in untold numbers every day. Why do you think that is? Could it be the guilt they carry for having seen the truth of what they were sent to do? Are they victims of what Bishop Jacques Bossuet called the greatest derangement of the spirit – having believed something because they wanted it to be that way rather than having seen it for what it truly was? We should spare Southrons the pain of such an experience.

Besides, if those soldiers were truly fighting for our freedoms, they would not be in Afghanistan or Iraq or any of the other 150 countries around the world where the yankee empire has bases. They would be massing themselves around Baltimore, and then sweep all those tyrants and miscreants in Washington City into the Potomac River.

So let us resolve, from this day forward, that Southrons will no longer fight or die for anyone else’s liberty and independence but our own! Southrons don’t let Southrons join the yankee military!!

We must also give up on the fool’s errand of ‘reforming’ the u.s. system. I’ve been watching this process for over thirty years and all it’s done is get steadily worse. And it matters not which faction of the one, indivisible marxist party is in power. Stop listening to what they say and watch what they do. Admittedly, the democrats are the radical marxists, but the republicans are the moderate marxists. Neither has ever met a plank of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto they didn’t like. All they argue about is to what degree those planks will be implemented. Income tax? Check. Only argument – what’s the rate going to be. Central bank? Check. Only argument – how much monopoly money do we borrow from that privately owned/controlled banking cartel? Public schools? Check. Only argument – what perversions will be crammed into the heads of those little cherubs every day.

The South has fallen under the spell of electing ‘good, conservative republicans’. But to what end? They’re just the moderate wing of the marxist party. So will you be happy with a kinder, gentler form of marxism? And what do they conserve? Nothing. As Reverend R. L. Dabney wrote of them long ago, Republicans are, ‘…a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. …. The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind”, and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip.’

For some time now, they’ve been apologizing for their ‘southern strategy’, and they’re now openly courting hispanics, negroes, and sodomites. They are pushing to sell us down the river on third world immigration and amnesty for the millions of illegals already here. Still think they are your friends? Still think they won’t stab you in the back first chance they get? Let me tell you what they really think of you.

My friend Thomas Moore, first Chairman of the Southern National Congress, was once a republican insider – a mover and shaker who rubbed elbows with folks like Ronald Reagan & Collin Powell. In 1996, he was on the RNC platform committee, and he went to San Diego early that year to work on writing the platform. While at a dinner party one evening, all the republican big wigs were standing around, drinking and talking freely about lots of things. They went on a 45-minute tirade about we lowly Southerners, expressing some pretty vulgar things about us, what we believe, and how we live. Finally, someone posed the question, ‘Given how we really feel about the South and Southerners, I wonder why they keep voting for us?’ Tom said, that without hardly a moment’s pause for reflection, the answer came – Because they’re our niggers. How do you like the republicans now? Oh, and need I remind anyone here that it was they who mustered an army of conquest and subjugation against our ancestors in 1861?

Besides, the system doesn’t belong to us anymore anyway. It is wholly owned and controlled by special interests, or what I like to call the ‘men behind the curtain’, like in the Wizard of Oz. At the national level, only those candidates that they have hand-picked and vetted before hand are allowed to run for office. At election time, they hand you a list of preselected candidates. There’s no real choice. It’s Tweedel Dum or Tweedle Dee. Oh every now and then a Ron Paul slips through the cracks, but what has he been able to do, practically alone? No, no meaningful opposition is allowed; therefore, reform is impossible.

What we must do is put our faith and efforts into our own countries – our States – and our local governments. We have to work to stem the trickle down effect from Washington by electing county sheriffs, county commissioners, State representatives and Senators, Governors, and Attorney Generals who are truly dedicated to the Southern principles of State powers and State interposition in the short term, and ultimately secession and independence. The correct position on those issues must be the litmus test for our support of them. Nothing else matters. Where do you stand, Mr Candidate, on the Southern question?

Obviously, we need better men than the limp-wristed, panty waists that occupy the buildings hereabouts. When our immigration law was challenged, Luther Strange and Robert Bentley should have sent a letter to Eric Holder saying, ‘Thanks for your recent invitation to join you in court; however, we must decline pursuant to the 11th amendment to the u.s. constitution. Oh, and like Georgia said when they helped us get that amendment, any federal agents coming into Alabama to try and make trouble over this will be hanged by the neck until dead without benefit of clergy.’

But why have to waste time and energy over and over again in dealing with and nullifying the encroachments of that majority of ‘americans’ who will still outvote us, and who will still agitate against our dearest rights, interests, and way of life as long as we are pinned to this cursed ‘union’ by those bloody bayonets of old? Who needs all that aggravation and expense?

The real goal, my fellow Southrons, is an independent Southern Republic. A country of our own, where the cultural, social, economic, and political principles that we as Southrons hold dear can be peacefully enjoyed by ourselves and our posterity. To think that this can not be done is, as the contributors to I’ll Take My Stand wrote, simply cowardly and indicative of a lack of political imagination. Such an attitude simply dooms us to impotence, and we will deserve the ultimate extinction that the yankee empire has planned for us. Forbid it Almighty God!! No! Let us adopt the attitude of Edmund Ruffin, Southern patriot from Virginia, and say, ‘I here declare my unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule — to all political, social and business connection with the Yankees and to the Yankee race. Would that I could impress these sentiments, in their full force, on every living Southerner and bequeath them to every one yet to be born!’

A country of our own – that is what our Confederate ancestors, who we remember here today, were fighting for in the 1860’s. If we want to be worthy of their names, that is what we should be fighting for today.

Thank you. May God bless you, and may He grant us a name and place among the nations of the earth!

—-

But, of course, it’s heritage, not hate … right?

Happy Birthday, General Grant

April 27 is the birthday of Ulysses S. Grant.

This is my favorite photograph of him. It was taken in 1868. A clearer print shows his eyes off to best advantage.

Then there is my favorite monument to him … the equestrian monument west of the U. S. Capitol in Washington, DC:

It captures the grim, silent, determined warrior rather well.

And here he is on May 21, 1864, smoking and thinking about what to do next.

We have only one image of Grant and Lincoln together … thanks to Winslow Homer’s pencil:

Occasionally I wonder what it would be like to discuss matters with the general:

 

I’d even let George McClellan join in the conversation. Notice I’m the only one not drinking.

 

Quote of the Week: April 20-26, 2014

This week’s quote comes to us courtesy of Valerie Protopapas of Huntington Station, New York:

Frankly, MLK was right (for once) when he said (at least to his WHITE audiences) that it was not the color of skin that mattered but the content of character. Problem is, using that criteria alone, blacks have a BIG problem these days.

Now, some here might say that this isn’t racist, but I beg to disagree. No worries: next time someone reminds you that racism is not simply a southern thing, you can agree by citing this quote from a Long Islander who just happens to be a Confederate heritage advocate.

Wonder what she thinks when she walks down Main Street in Huntington and sees this:

Trashing George Thomas

Oh my. I didn’t know Thomas swore an oath of loyalty to Virginia …I always thought it was to the United States.

It’s also hard to see how this strained argument does not make the concession that Lee and Jackson were in fact traitors. One could argue that while Lee and Jackson were traitors, Thomas was not. However, if you argue that Thomas was a traitor, you have to concede that Lee and Jackson were traitors. So there is a silver lining here.

 

Embracing Racism

During the past week we saw some folks rush to embrace a fellow in Nevada  who wanted to graze his cattle on someone else’s property without paying for it. Supposedly, he was a hero for standing up to the evil federal government.

That sounded all fine and good for those folks who like that sort of thing … that is, until the rancher in question began sharing his thoughts about blacks and slavery. Then the ranks of the cheerleaders thinned quickly. Those folks didn’t want to be associated with racism.

Not everyone responds to racism in the same way, however. Take this example from the president of the League of the South, Michael Hill, as featured on Andy Hall’s Dead Confederates blog:

Michael Hill … via Dead Confederates.

Oh my.

You would think that high-minded advocates of Confederate heritage, people who argue that they aren’t racists, would drop Mr. Hill like a hot potato. So let’s see who he counts among his Facebook friends this morning:

Come on … no surprises there. Heimbach, Hall, and Hines are all like-minded fellows when it comes to race.

But wait … there’s more …

David Tatum! Tsk, tsk, David.

And just as amusing …

Why, Carl! Didn’t expect to see you here (sarcasm alert). After all, didn’t you just declare …

I guess Mr. Hill isn’t really the enemy, eh, Carl? Talk about being a Denier …

You can pretty much guess who comes next … the person who says she really doesn’t like the League of the South really likes Mr. Hill … twice, in fact …

Sweet, sweet Connie …

And, back from the missing at the VMFA sidewalk, we find a familiar face in Mr. Hill’s friends list …

Right there, is also the head of the nation’s leading Confederate heritage group (no, not you, Susan) …

So y’all continue to stand by your man, folks. Just like you did with Matthew Heimbach.

UPDATE: Someone asked where Billy Bearden was. Right where you would expect him to be:

Note: Several commenters seem transfixed by the Bundy case. Reread what I said. I note no one has stood up and defended Mr. Hill and his friends, however. Let’s keep our eye on the ball.

Gettysburg, November 1963

Here’s a brief but interesting newsreel covering the commemoration of the centennial of the Gettysburg Address in November 1963.

President John F. Kennedy had been invited to speak at Gettysburg that day, but he decided instead to go to Texas to mend some political fences in anticipation of running for reelection in 1964.

(h/t Chuck Teague)