Exclusive: By defending “beautiful” Confederate statues, President Trump shows how little he understands about the evils of slavery and the cruelty on lynchings and segregation, but he is by no means alone, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
The blindness of President Trump regarding racial bigotry – and indeed that of many white Americans – is that whatever they say to the contrary, they really don’t appreciate the evils of slavery or the ensuing century of lynchings and segregation.
A photograph showing the whipping scars on the back of an African-American slave.
And, much of that ignorance comes from the systematic rationalizing and romanticizing of the ante-bellum South while shielding from criticism many of slavery’s historical apologists, including both Confederate “heroes” and earlier icons such as Thomas Jefferson who became a staunch advocate for expanding slavery all the better to increase his financial bottom line.
Although I grew up in Massachusetts in the 1950s and 1960s, our “history” textbooks could easily have passed muster in the Deep South. They treated slavery as an unfortunate feature of America’s past but not really all that bad, an institution in which most slave owners were kindly masters but a few employed cruel overseers who committed some isolated abuses like whippings.
And, if that recollection of my grade-school experience sounds hard to believe, just watch the 1939 movie classic “Gone with the Wind,” which presents Tara’s plantation slaves as mostly content with their enslavement and loyal to their masters. That was pretty much what Americans were taught for generations and explains why the 1977 TV miniseries “Roots” was such a shocking event, because it showed the systematic cruelty of slavery from the perspective of the slaves.
By 1980, the decades-old “conventional wisdom” about the quaint-and-misguided-but-mostly-okay institution of human bondage was shattered not only by TV’s dramatic portrayal of slavery but also by sound historic scholarship, which gained greater attention due to the Civil Rights Movement and growing popular resistance to “patriotic” propaganda.
Reagan’s Dog Whistle
Still, many white Americans rejected the notion of white guilt for those past crimes and rallied to Ronald Reagan’s crude caricatures about “welfare queens” and people who used food stamps to buy vodka and other luxuries. While Reagan was careful not to say outright that he was referring to blacks, he didn’t have to because his listeners understood the coded messages.
Ronald Reagan and his 1980 vice-presidential running mate George H.W. Bush.
Similarly, when Reagan’s Vice President George H.W. Bush ran for and won the presidency in 1988, he exploited the story of Willie Horton, a black convict who raped a white woman while on a Massachusetts prison furlough that Bush blamed on his Democratic rival, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.
Indeed, the Republican Party had been playing the race card since Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy of 1968. It’s not a coincidence that this racial messaging swung the Democrats’ once-solid South overwhelmingly into the Republican electoral column.
So, it’s a bit ironic when the U.S. mainstream media cites Republicans who have benefited from these race-baiting dog whistles as responsible leaders when they decry Trump’s slightly more overt appeals to white nationalists and other racists. On the immediate issue of Confederate statues and other honors, the Republicans have long led the way in protecting these tributes to white supremacy under the guise of “defending history.”
On Thursday, Trump retreated to that safer GOP position after days of criticism for his rhetorical excuse-making and moral equivalence following last Saturday’s violent rally by neo-Nazis, the KKK and white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in defense of a Confederate monument to Gen. Robert E. Lee, which the local government had voted to remove.
Trump tweeted: “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You can’t change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson – who’s next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish!”
Neo-Confederate Thinking
But that is the classic defense of neo-Confederate racist thinking. The pretense is that these monuments and other honors are simply a recognition of history when they were clearly intended to glorify the Confederacy and its rebellion against the United States over the Southern fear that slavery would be abolished and the wealth of plantation owners effectively negated.
Post card photo of the lynching of Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie in Duluth, Minnesota, June 15. 1920.
Most of these monuments were erected in the Twentieth Century, often as symbolic rebukes to progress being made by the descendants of African-American slaves. These were monuments to white supremacy — and for Trump and other white Americans to pretend otherwise is anti-historical nonsense.
Beyond monuments, other public spaces were named after Confederate leaders. For instance, in the 1920s – at the height of the Jim Crow era as lynchings were used to terrorize black communities energized by the return of African-American soldiers from World War I – the Daughters of the Confederacy succeeded in attaching the name of Confederate President Jefferson Davis to sections of Route 1, including in Arlington County, Virginia, near predominately black neighborhoods.
In 1964, as Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement gained passage of a landmark civil rights law, the Virginia legislature added Jefferson Davis’s name to a section of Route 110 that passed by the Pentagon and near Arlington National Cemetery, which was begun in the Civil War to bury dead Union soldiers, including black troops who joined the Army to fight for their freedom.
On Jefferson Davis’s authority, Confederate soldiers were permitted to summarily execute African-American Union soldiers upon their surrender, a practice that was carried out in several notorious massacres, such as at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, on April 12, 1864; the Battle of Poison Springs, Arkansas, in April 1864; and the Battle of the Crater in Virginia. Scores of black prisoners were executed in Saltville, Virginia, on Oct. 2, 1864. It should be noted that the Confederate troops of Virginia were under the command of the esteemed Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Democratic Cowardice
A few years back, I wrote to the five members of the Arlington County Board and urged them to rename Jefferson Davis Highway. When my letter went public, it was treated with some amusement by the local paper, the Sun-Gazette, which described me as “rankled,” and prompted some hate mail.
Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
One angry letter from an Arlington resident declared that it was now her turn to be “RANKLED by outsiders like Mr. Parry who want to change history because it is not to his liking. I am very proud of my Commonwealth’s history, but not of the current times, as I’m sure many others are.” Those current times included the election of Barack Obama, the first African-American president.
I was even confronted by a senior Democratic county official at a meeting about a different topic and urged to desist in my proposal to give the highway a new name because the idea would alienate state politicians in Richmond who would think that “liberal” Arlington County had gone crazy.
However, since a number of Arlington residents apparently shared my disgust over Jefferson Davis Highway, the county board eventually agreed to send a request to the state legislature that the road’s name be changed, but it was clearly not a priority for the board or for other Virginia Democratic officials who feared offending pro-Confederate voters (although in the wake of the bloody Charlottesville riot, Gov. Terry McAuliffe has finally come out in favor of removing the monuments honoring the Confederacy).
Honoring Treason
The dishonesty of Trump’s “history” argument – and its well-worn use by Confederate apologists – is underscored by the obvious fact that statues and other honors are meant to transform historical figures into icons to be emulated. Governments do not bestow these honors on criminals or traitors just because they are historical figures.
President Donald Trump delivering his inaugural address on Jan. 20, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)
You don’t see many government statues to Al Capone or Benedict Arnold. And, Americans would be rightly alarmed if Germany began erecting statues to Adolf Hitler and his Nazi henchmen. So, to pretend that these Confederate statues are not meant to glorify the South’s battle to protect the institution (or industry) of slavery is simply a lie.
Arguably, Trump does have a point about the historical ambiguity surrounding the nation’s Founders, many of whom owned slaves although Trump’s argument amounts to another rhetorical dodge. There is a distinct difference between George Washington who led the War for Independence, presided at the Constitutional Convention and served as the first President (and who grew increasingly uncomfortable with slavery) and the Confederates who turned their guns against the United States in a disastrous war to protect the interests of slaveholders.
In any evaluation of history, distinctions must be made. Nobody is perfect. Even Founders who were opposed to slavery, such as Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, can be rightly criticized for other political positions that they took as the United States sought to find its footing in its early years.
Jefferson’s Hypocrisy
More troubling is the legacy of Thomas Jefferson, who is hailed for penning the Declaration of Independence and its noble words that “all men are created equal” – although Jefferson in his other writings, such as Notes on the State of Virginia, made clear that he did not believe that at all. Jefferson was a hypocrite of the first order.
Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States.(in a 1788 portrait by John Trumbull, credit: Thomas Jefferson Foundation)
Recent historical revelations also reveal Jefferson to have been a much more ruthless slave master than his admirers have wanted to believe. He countenanced the whipping of boys, calculated the financial value of child-bearing females, and apparently helped the “breeding” along by imposing himself sexually on one and likely more of his slave girls.
Also, left out of many Jefferson biographies is why he established the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. It wasn’t simply his devotion to learning; he feared that young Southern aristocrats going north to school would be contaminated by the arguments against slavery and in favor of a strong national government, twin evils that the erudite Jefferson called “‘anti-Missourism,’” and “Consolidationism.”
Further contributing to the nation’s divisions, Jefferson propounded theories about state secession and pushed for expansion of slavery throughout the Louisiana Territories. In his later years, he became what you might call a pre-Confederate. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Thomas Jefferson: America’s Founding Sociopath.”]
Still, even in his hypocrisy, Jefferson deserves credit for enunciating what would become an important American contribution to global human rights, the proposition that governments should treat all citizens equally, a principle that Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders wielded in their own battles against racial injustice.
Despite their faults, to put Washington and Jefferson on the same historical plane as Jefferson Davis and the Confederates makes a mockery of historical distinctions.
That the United States would honor people responsible for a horrific war designed to perpetuate slavery – leaders who authorized the outright murder of unarmed soldiers just because of the color of their skin – should shock the conscience of any moral human being although apparently not President Trump.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
Here is a Paul Craig Roberts essay for the KKK boys and girls to swoon over. For several years I’ve been laboring under the misconception the old guy was sort of reformed from the rightwingnut stuff. I was wrong, and I won’t be reading his output anymore except under exceptional circumstances. Like so many others of his type, he DOES have a good collection of historical odds-and-ends which appear to support his blinkered viewpoint. But like those others, he cannot see the forest for all the darned trees blocking the view.
For the first time ever I located his wiki to find out that he was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1939. The man was raised in the glorious Lost Cause and never saw any reason whatever to change.
Title: How We Know The So-Called “Civil War” Was Not Over Slavery
“Blaming the war on slavery was the way the northern court historians used morality to cover up Lincoln’s naked aggression and the war crimes of his generals.”
“How can it be that a “Southern racist” was offered command of the Union Army if the union was going to war to free black slaves?” {This is PCR “logic” at age 78}
“Once people become brainwashed, especially if it is by propaganda that serves power, they are more or less lost forever. It is extremely difficult to bring them to truth. Just look at the pain and suffering inflicted on historian David Irving for documenting the truth about the war crimes committed by the allies against the Germans. There is no doubt that he is correct, but the truth is unacceptable.”
Yes, the old fart actually brings in the “pain and suffering” of a neo-nazi who devoted his life to minimizing the misdeeds of Hitler’s WW2 Germany. PCR clearly shares the loosey-goosey affection for the Nazis – a feature which seems to be characteristic of the Lost Cause true believers. The European Jews didn’t really suffer much – if at all. Hitler wasn’t really all that bad, and may have been a misunderstood good-guy after all. And like with Lincoln’s War of Northern Aggression, Roosevelt’s unprovoked attacks on poor Nazi Germany are never reported by the dirty hippy historians.
So here is the link for the rightwingnuts to savor. They can use it to bulwark their righteousness about the lying liberals who endlessly besmirch the good name of the Confederacy and its noble cause.
h**p://thesaker.is/how-we-know-the-so-called-civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/
Finally I want to draw attention to the site which published this tripe. As soon as this post is finished the Saker bookmark gets relocated to the bottom in its subject folder. And it’s on the bubble now for becoming a no-go place for me.
The White House was built by slaves.
Get that racist building torn down NOW!!!
If freeing the slaves was what the Civil Wat was about why did they not just buy them as was done in England ? Then impose a blockade.
On the face of it this seems like a reasonable proposal. Closer examination makes me suspect it wasn’t. I made a search and very near the top of the result list was this:
“No, Lincoln Could Not Have ‘Bought the Slaves'”
“For one thing, there wasn’t enough money.”
The Atlantic Jun 20, 2013
h**ps://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/no-lincoln-could-not-have-bought-the-slaves/277073/
I’ve remarked how the slave-markets seemed to be a frothy bubble, and announcing a “buy-out” of the Slavers would have kicked it into an even higher gear. The sums involved were truly enormous, and recall that the US of A was a tightfisted society back then far more than it is even today.
The transfers of ownership couldn’t have just been happened on some bright and preset October day no more than most modern home or car purchasers can pay cash and instantly take title. This left the Big Slave Breeders all kinds of room – and incentive! – to increase their profits. Every Black woman of child-bearing age would have been instantly made pregnant and kept pregnant. I’m not sure if the buyout could have ever caught up.
There were other pitfalls involved here. In the first place, I doubt if Northern voters would have agreed. Besides the increased taxes and enlarged national debt, the very idea of giving THEIR money to the Slave Industry would have irked them to no end.
On the other side, the Slave Industry was looking at the end of a very profitable gravy train. There was a nice bit of cash on the immediate horizon, but then it was all over. This would have been a huge incentive to start using all the excuses they had already crafted – that Slavery was really God’s Will and they (the Southern Slavers) were better Christians than anybody else. That Society couldn’t handle the coming floods of the subhuman darkies on ‘welfare’ for the rest of time. Etc, etc.
Finally, nobody used the ‘Libertarian’ calculation that the buyout was cheaper than the coming war. The North couldn’t imagine the South was crazy enough to leave the Union, and the South thought the North would fold on the issue without a fight.
My conclusion mirrors that of the article’s author – the proposal just wouldn’t have worked.
History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
— James Joyce
Historically, only two social groups have not waged war on their fellow man – The Hopis and the Tibetans. The Hopis did defend themselves against the Navajo and the Tibetans were warlike until 1000 AD.
Tell me which nation does not have blood on its hands? Tell me which nation can claim a noble past?
I wonder if this person even read the essay. And the comparison between commemorating traitors and criminals like Nathan Bedford Forrest with the vandalism of the Taliban and ISIS is just unbelievable.
The so called civil war was not about the abolition of slavery and Lincoln was no slave lover. But that aside your arguments regarding the preservation of confederate statues suggest that you would support the Taliban and ISIS in the destruction of statues which were antithetical to their religious beliefs. Perhaps you would like to see all American flags burned as a symbol of American imperialism . Rather than focus on the symbolism you should have asked Obama to do something to stop police brutality against black men and women. But then again maybe you would have been satisfied with him burning an effigy of a policeman.
‘Despite their faults, to put Washington and Jefferson on the same historical plane as Jefferson Davis and the Confederates makes a mockery of historical distinctions.’
First Nations people called Washington ‘Town Destroyer’; they said when women and children heard his name their faces would turn pale and they would look over their shoulders to see if it was time to flee. He and his troops were a major part of the founding theft and genocide. They murdered, looted and raped because they wanted things other people had.
Washington was also a land speculator and drug dealer. Many if not all of the ‘founders’ were drunk almost all their waking hours.
Jefferson admitted that he knew slavery was wrong, yet continued to breed and rape people and force them to work at gunpoint, because he loved luxury and power. He was also a supporter of the theft of the continent and genocide against the ‘merciless Indian savages’, his Protocols of the Elders of Zion style reference to the people he was, to use his (and many many other ‘leaders” term), ‘exterminating’.
‘The crazed worship of people like Washington, [Jefferson,], JFK, Reagan, would impress Kim Il-Sung.’ – Noam Chomsky
You’re rather “truth challenged”, aren’t you. And mighty shy of links and sources. The “town destroyer” I looked up first.
h**p://tinyurl.com/yaawvqu4
If readers look at the context, there was a freaking war on – the US in Rebellion against Great Britain. The Indians in question were on the side of the British. I can’t personally blame them for that stance, but the fighting was on all sides ferocious.
You are claiming that ‘land speculation’ is an evil which paints a scarlet letter on a person? I personally know a great many “real estate speculators”. They buy houses cheap, do a bit of work on them, and try to make a profit. Ought these people go to their Priest and make a confession for their Sin?
Drug dealer. Search terms “george washington” and “drug dealer” turned up this at mountvernon.org:
“George Washington Grew Hemp”
Do you have any freaking idea how they made ROPE back then? They needed a supply of hemp which was raised on their farms. Good Lord!
Thomas Jefferson was a dishonest and hypocritical and cowardly asshole. Why not tell us something which isn’t already well known here. Taking his ugly mug off the nickels would be a great start. Taking down his statues can happen with my blessing.
Three out of four isn’t bad, for I agree that Kennedy was a rich spoiled brat like GWB, and Reagan was a right-wing jerk. One wonders who Chomsky WOULD be impressed by – the founders of Israel who stole and murdered to take the property of others?
I guess we will have to tear down every statue in America.
And what about the currency?
Dear Mary,
This isn’t the half of it.
I heard that Washington and Jefferson were also into witchcraft and cannibalism.
Washington used to cheat at cards, and Jefferson used to steal from the collection plate in church.
They were both copper bottomed, chromium plated bounders.
Get those statues torn down NOW !!!!!! To hell with the pigeons!
The majority of civil war slaves were under black slave owners !
Take you ultra liberal crap and bury it with the dog shit
I nominate this for the most ignorant remark I’ve seen in months.
Read it again. Your “interpretation” is NOT what it says.
“many white Americans rejected the notion of white guilt for those past crimes”
Robert Perry is a respectable journalist, and for the most part he gets it right. However, here is one of the stupidest notions ever uttered. What, EVERY white American living in the country today is guilty of crimes committed 150 years ago? Come on! Stalin would sympathize with this idea; although he once said that a son is not responsible for his father, the regime continued to punish families of its opponents. Collective punishment was also practiced like punishing the whole nation for the sins of some of its members. I’d rather the white as well as any other color American were horrified by what their country is doing TODAY – in distant lands to other peoples. It’s bad enough, believe me.
The American history is quite bloody from its interception to this day. If you want to keep monuments or names of only people with clean hands, you’ll end up with no history whatsoever.
In the Constitutional United States, included in the Constitution was a clause prohibiting ex post facto law. Ex post facto law is law made after a fact. Law making an act, or acts, not prohibited and so legal at the time of action illegal retroactively.
Also included in the Constitution was a clause prohibiting corruption of blood. Corruption of blood is taint from an unlawful act extending to non-actors connected to the actor by blood.
The law of today’s United States derives not from the United States Constitution, but from a new “international” law system to be developed, agreed to between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, and their staffs at The Yalta Conference, in 1944. The Yalta Conference birthed and thereafter newly devised system of international law was applied first in the Nürmberg Trials, where it was used as “Victors’ Law” to try the losers of WWII.
Making Aggressive War was one of the primary allegations, and capital verdicts. Making Aggressive War became a “crime” after Yalta, long after the Axis “war criminals” in the dock “started” the Second World War. Thus, right out of the gate the new law violated ex post facto, which was before then a basic tenet of civilized non-imperial non-arbitrary law.
Since its inception and arbitrary first use for Victors’ Law the Yalta born system of “law” has been “nursemaided” by Israel and the United States, corrupting it still more. Israel added corruption through insisting on a “right” to “try” Adolf Eichmann, although Israel could in no legal way have any kind of legitimate and legal jurisdiction, since there was no State of Israel in existence for Eichmann’s actions, all before 1948, to have violated laws, rights or prerogatives of. The United States next signally “modified”, or corrupted, this system of international “law” when it justified its aggressive invasion of Viet Nam on grounds that its invasion was not an aggression since, having invaded, the United States was already there and entitled, under the law to defend its invasionary forces and emplacements. In other words, the United States justified itself by asserting that a precedent was set for the action it took in invading Viet Nam by its action of invading Viet Nam.
This system of “International Law” that is whatever any power powerful enough to insist it to be is the “International Law” that is depended on today by nations powerful enough to assert their definitions of “the law”, and so is the “International Law” that is “controlling” in the world today where powerful nations are parties, or patrons. Hence, any “law” the powerful may wish to be “law” is “the law”.
Realist – Sorry I did not get back to you sooner, amazingly I have other complications in my life than trying to express ideas here…….OK I tried to find my long answer to you back on this thread, which I just wrote and was put in moderation. I now find it was deleted. Nothing any more inflammatory than my usual rants. Moderation is a mystery on this blog. Sorry, but I got a crick in my neck with writing my lengthy response, so I won’t redo it now. But please understand that I respect your views, and have learned a lot from you, and in no way intend to insult or disrespect you. I try to hit a civil tone in disagreeing with people, but perhaps don’t always succeed. Sorry if you felt offended by my remarks. People get really touchy around these north/south conflict issues, I’ll try to keep that in mind.
Could the quote below apply to today?
———————————————————————
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” – George Orwell, 1984
Stephen J. – wow, we have arrived on Orwell’s doorstep. Good one, Stephen.
article of interest at link below:
————————————————————————–
FINIAN CUNNINGHAM | 18.08.2017 | OPINION
As Russia-Gate Story Stalls, Cue Trump Neo-Nazi Scandal
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/08/18/as-russia-gate-story-stalls-cue-trump-neo-nazi-scandal.html
I think the citizens of Georgia should try General Sherman posthumously, find him guilty of war crimes for burning the city of Atlanta, and demand that his body be exhumed, brought to Georgia and re-buried in a state prison in Atlanta. If you want to “reconstruct history”, that is what should be done.
Ah, like Pope Formosus was posthumously tried in the year 897 by one of his successors in the infamous “Cadaver Synod” which retroactively stripped him of the papacy. His rotting corpse, dressed in papal garb, was actually seated in the dock during the trial.
“Formosus was accused of transmigrating sees in violation of canon law, of perjury, and of serving as a bishop while actually a layman. Eventually, the corpse was found guilty. Liutprand and other sources say that, after having the corpse stripped of its papal vestments, Stephen then cut off the three fingers of the right hand that it had used in life for blessings, next formally invalidating all of Formosus’ acts and ordinations (including, ironically, his ordination of Stephen VI as bishop of Anagni). The body was finally interred in a graveyard for foreigners, only to be dug up once again, tied to weights, and cast into the Tiber River.”
Back then, they knew how to get vengeance.
Paul Craig Roberts:
“The very designation, “Civil War,” is a lie. A civil war is when two sides fight for control of the government. The South was not fighting for control of the US government. It was fighting because the North had invaded.
Lincoln did not free the slaves. Moreover, had Lincoln not been assassinated, his plan was to send the blacks, whom he regarded as inferior to whites, back to Africa. This is not a “conspiracy theory.” It is the documented fact. It is totally impossible to refute this documented fact. […]
Lincoln issued the proclamation intended to produce a slave rebellion because he had run through countless generals, and although the Union army in its engagements with Robert E. Lee always outnumbered the Southerns by two or three to one, and sometimes more, the Army of Northern Virginia did not lose a battle for the first two years of the War. If the South had had more people, a number of Southern battle victories would have ended in the capture of Washington and the end of the war. But the South never had the number of soldiers sufficient to have a reserve to capitalize on its military victories. In contrast, the North had an endless supply of immigrants from Ireland, most of whom died for the American Empire.
Opposition to the war in the North was high. Lincoln had to arrest and imprison 300 northern newspaper owners and editors and exile a US Congressman.”
Link to the above article:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/08/15/america-propaganda-vanquished-truth/
So true about the Northern conscripts. A number of my ancestors who migrated from West Prussia to Minnesota in the 1850’s were mustered into Minnesota regiments. Poor Minnesota had just become a state in 1858, yet many of the monuments at Gettysburg are dedicated to their losses.
The “war to free the slaves” was like today’s wars to “bring freedom and democracy” to Iraq, Libya, Iran, Venezuela and anywhere else there happens to be a lot of oil.
Your comments imply that the civil war started and was motivated for the emancipation of slaves. The historical evidence does not support that. The civil war started in April of 1861. Lincolns declaration was issued in January of 1863, almost two years later, when the war was not going very well for the Union in the battle field, and a moral component was felt necessary. It is a historic fact that on Sept. 11 of 1861 General Freemont Issued an emancipation declaration in Missouri, which was DEBUKED AND REVOKED by Pres. Lincoln. If slavery was the primary motive for the civil war why was not that declaration accepted and legalized? It has also been suggested that a motive for anti slavery in the north was the fact that the north was being industrialized and needed cheap labor The wealthy northerners hoped that freedom of the slaves would allow them to move north and provide slave labor for them. Exploitation of their workers is the corner stone of capitalism. Workers fought long and hard to organize and fight for their rights. They still do.
As for General Lee, he had nothing to do with the secession and the start of the war, He was a Virginian. When the war started do you think he could join the north and fight against his relatives in Virginia. Put yourself in his shoes. If you place yourself in the year of 1861, you would admit that you would join the army of Virginia, your birth state. Allegiance to state was stronger than to union at that time, I believe. The general who should be condemned is Sherman. He burned American cities.War criminal.
Demetri – great comments.
“It has also been suggested that a motive for anti slavery in the north was the fact that the north was being industrialized and needed cheap labor The wealthy northerners hoped that freedom of the slaves would allow them to move north and provide slave labor for them.”
Very plausible explanation. Thanks for posting, Demetri.
You believe wrong. People enlisted on the side most comfortable to their political beliefs. Maryland citizens enlisted mostly in the Union Army, but a third as many went South. Kentucky infantry was mostly Union, but the numbers may have been reversed for the horse soldiers. Even in Virginia the surge of disgust in the north-west part of the state caused West Virgina to entirely break away.
Admiral David Farragut was a Southerner who stayed loyal and didn’t fight for Slavery. General George Thomas was a Virginian I’ve already mentioned. And as I’ve said, both a better man and a better General than the traitor Lee. The reason he isn’t more widely known is that Grant missed no opportunities to dump on him, even after the early death of Thomas.
The “Birth State” defense is some puny BS for the likes of Lee.
I’m not commenting on the first part of your post because it is both incoherent and nonsensical.
“Incoherent and nonsensical”? It is just facts. Pres. Lincoln rebuked and revoked the emancipation declaration of Gen. Freeman in 1861, and issued his two years later. What is incoherent about that?
Just hard to argue with facts. Wars are never fought for moral reasons. There is always a financial/economic issue involved.
Read the book “War is a racket” by a Marine general. I can give you his name if you want.
How come I don’t like the sound of this, Robert Parry? … this, this … what shall I even call it?
(1) I know you call it “historical ambiguity”, but I don’t like History-in-Ambiguity!
(2) The thing of it, too, it’s put sooner than later in a Grand Parenthesis as if to whisper, for instance, of the meaning of “(and {George Washington} grew increasingly uncomfortable with slavery). Which really is that he was “(de)creasingly uncomfortable with slavery” before that point in time all the way back to the very first time he mastered blacks – but mum’s the word, mind. This is why I never like this thing – “( )” – though I use it myself.
(3) And then, of course, the Grand Disclaimer-on-Demand can cover it all, while covering it all up, whatever that “it” is that has gotten me all perplexed and everything as I read this otherwise wonderful, wonderful piece of writing, as always: “History (shows) nobody is perfect”, referring, with a vengeance and a pointing finger, to “Thomas Jefferson”, of all people! See, I know, I know “nobody is perfect”, but I don’t like history when its history lesson is “nobody is perfect”!
Finally, (4) I don’t like the sound of whatever this is, looking like an Armchair Philosophical Ruse I mean Rule: “To put Washington and Jefferson on the same historical plane as Jefferson Davis and the Confederates makes a mockery of historical distinctions.” OK so let’s just mock all the US presidents, then, every single one of them, from Washington to Trump. To be fair and all that. Now that idea I kind of like. Isn’t that what you’re getting at here?
THIS IS CRAP, ROBERT.
dennis morrisseau – when I saw your succinct, one-line response, I had a big laugh. Reminded me of what Bette Davis once said: “What a dump!” Perfect in its simplicity. Can’t say I disagree with you.
Stephen J. – the article you linked above speaks of the Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe:
“Two years ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe called the giant statues of Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson on Richmond’s Monument Avenue “parts of our heritage.” After Charlottesville, New York-born-and-bred McAuliffe, entertaining higher ambitions, went full scalawag, demanding the statues be pulled down as “flashpoints for hatred, division, and violence.”
McAuliffe was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2001 to 2005, was co-chairman of President Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, and was chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
But look at the outright lies he tells (which were quickly disproven by the Virginia State Police) in the following article:
“In an interview Monday on the Pod Save the People podcast, hosted by Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson, McAuliffe claimed the white nationalists who streamed into Charlottesville that weekend hid weapons throughout the town.
“They had battering rams and we had picked up different weapons that they had stashed around the city,” McAuliffe told Mckesson.
McAuliffe claimed in an interview with The New York Times that law enforcement arrived to find a line of militia members who “had better equipment than our State Police had.” In longer comments that were later edited out of the Times’ story, McAuliffe said that up to 80 percent of the rally attendees were carrying semi-automatic weapons. “You saw the militia walking down the street, you would have thought they were an army,” he said.”
http://reason.com/blog/2017/08/16/virginia-state-police-say-they-didnt-fin
Tell me why this guy shouldn’t be charged and locked up for spreading false rumors and lies. Battering rams? Militia? 80% had semi-automatic weapons?
Why is lying like this condoned?
Talk about inciting hatred!
Interesting info, backwardsevolution. Thanks for posting. I have not seen any of the corporate media exposing this or the atrocious comment by a senator, that could incite violence. Some of them and their followers are research challenged, I believe, and can only reply with insults.
Stephen J. – yeah, Governor McAuliffe should be brought up on charges of lying and blatant incitement, and Missouri Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal should resign.
Corporate media are not going to uncover the truth. They abhor the truth. Why cover both sides of an issue when one side works so much better. We need only look at the lies of Russiagate and MH-17 to see this in action.
Thankfully, there are good people like you here who are capable of good research and are more interested in the truth. Thanks, Stephen.
This is disgusting: where is the outrage?
——————————————–
Missouri Senator: ‘I Hope Trump Is Assassinated!’
12:46 PM 08/17/2017
http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/17/missouri-senator-i-hope-trump-is-assassinated/
This person ought to be removed from the State Senate by her fellow Senators.
February 13, 2013
“The True State of the Union” for those that are interested:
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2013/02/the-true-state-of-union.html
Your author was doing well until he allowed his Fundie religious beliefs to intrude.
Silly. Ban abortion totally and almost the same number of “babies”? “children”? will die. But then there will be additional thousands or tens of thousands of “pregnant women” also die. Of course men – and especially Church Men don’t get pregnant. On the positive side the unwanted children as well as their siblings for whom the parent or parents can no longer provide proper care will boost earnings in For-Profit Prisons.
Still more on Trump at link below:
———————————————————-
America’s Second Civil War
By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN • August 18, 2017, 12:01 AM
…
Like ISIS, which smashed the storied ruins of Palmyra, and the al-Qaida rebels who ravaged the fabled Saharan city of Timbuktu, the new barbarism has come to America. This is going to become a blazing issue, not only between but within the parties….
[read more at link below]
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/americas-second-civil-war/
Buchanan is full of shit comparing the take down of these statues to ISIS. These protesters of Nazism are the same as violent terrorists? Some of Patrick’s true colors coming out…..
The one thing Charlottesville has done is serve as a litmus test to ascertain some folks true colors.
I read the link. It was embarrassing. Hadn’t heard Buchanan’s name for several years. Time for him to go back into his cave, IMO.
Another “moderation”. The software must be flagging anything more than a couple of sentences.
Question? – When will the United States transcend White Supremacy??
http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/17/when-will-the-united-states-transcend-white-supremacy/
Donald Trump = Fascist Reform of Gov’t. If the below doesn’t provide a fundamental clue vis-a-vis Authoritarian Control, – you are living in darkness and/or denial.
()
Nate Cardozo is senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. His group is assisting the website host DreamHost in its opposition to the government’s search warrant for its records about its website, DisruptJ20.org.
The Justice Department is demanding web hosting provider DreamHost turn over 1.3 million IP addresses of people who visited the website DisruptJ20.org, which was used to organize the protests against President Trump’s inauguration.
The Justice Department is also seeking names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and other information about the owners and subscribers of the website.
More than 200 protesters were arrested during the Inauguration Day protests and are now facing decades in prison on trumped-up charges.
()
“Civil Rights” ??? – when they begin taking them away from the ordinary/every day citizen – then you will know the bitterness felt by Native Americans and “emancipated” blacks.
If Trump is allowed to imprison D.C. protesters – as well as demand national voter ID’s, we’ll all recognize The End is Near… .
According to descendants of Robert E. Lee (and presumably historians who may or may not already be part of this discussion), Lee himself argued against statues and memorials to himself and other Confederate figures.
This is correct. More generally, he argued against memorializing the Civil War at all. Here’s a direct quote:
“I think it wiser, moreover, not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”
goo.gl/91GW6q
… slavery slavery slavery … go fucking fuck u self in u fucking fucked up slavery mind u fucking fuck …***
Typical skinhead vocabulary.
More on Trump at link below:
—————————————————–
AUGUST 18, 2017
Giving Trump Credit When He’s Right
by STEVE BROWN
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/18/giving-trump-credit-when-hes-right/
I don’t know when I’ve seen such a blend of great writing and totally crappy writing. Mr. Steve Brown really ought to work on his essays more carefully. And maybe put them out for helpful criticism before sending them off to the publisher.
Mr. Parry…thank you for the brilliant analysis
The danger lies in the greater intolerance that’s being exhibited in the way the statues are being removed by gangs of the self-righteous. The idiots on the other side marching with signs bigotry are not to be admired but they whole no sway over the majority
This is fast becoming a feeding frenzy. Too bad the following news article only appeared in Breitbart :
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/16/protesters-atlanta-tear-peace-monument-mistaking-confederate-symbol/
What are you trying to say by linking to this altright outlet?
Yes, I read the brief article. It was meaningless unsubstantiated drivel.
Forget it, Jake- it’s Breitbart.
Greater intolerance? Than the Nazis? You sound like Trump now.
Climate Change as Genocide
(21st Century Holocaust, under Trump)?
http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/04/22/climate-change-as-genocide/
This reply of mine, like so many on this site was not put below the comment I intended to answer.
Decent people all agree racism is evil.
The “News” Channel has been changed from Russia, North Korea, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and the media has a new issue to pursue. Meanwhile the war criminals that slaughtered millions are getting a free ride.
Trump, Trump, Trump
Trump, Trump, Trump, the media are marching
Attacking Donald Trump, they sound like dogs barking
Snarling, showing their teeth, growling and angry too
Have you ever seen such a howling biased crew?
Day and night and on the hour
The media “presstitutes” continually glower
Trump said this, and Trump said that,
Have the media become like dirty rats?
Scurrying and making squealing sounds
Believing their own B.S. and hypocrisy abounds
Their hate for Trump is a sight to behold
Their nasty propaganda is totally uncontrolled
Interviewing each other with partners in bias
They pretend they are the ones that are totally pious
Duplicity and deceit is surely their forte
Has truth become a victim of the media today?
Whether people like Trump or not
The media’s personal vendetta says a lot
Do they decide who should rule?
Or will the people ignore these raving fools
How will it end, one might ask?
Will the establishment’s media be taken to task?
The solution is in Donald Trump’s hands
Expose all the evidence of corruption in the land
“And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.” Oscar Wilde…
[more info at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/08/trump-trump-trump.html
When Trump is wrong, I approve of anyone calling attention to that. The only thing Trump was not wrong about initially was his overture to Russia. He has been falsely accused of treason in that instance. I strongly oppose that. However this does not mean that I am now going to accuse the media or anyone else for Mr. Trump’s fatal faults. Nor do I support his continuation in the Presidency. He needs to go from that position, the sooner the better.
Good one! Perry jumps on Trump for making comparisons of Confederate soldiers with Washington and Jefferson. Well Trump’s comparison was the warning question “What is the next step?” Parry then gives us many arguments and reason’s why removing Jefferson from the statue list is justified and many on the left, Black and White have already made such moves. Jefferson is a terrible man we are told because he loved a black women and had children with her. Well that was an interracial couple and in the South when most Blacks were slaves and when a man loves a women things naturally happen.
It took us over 150 years ago to end Slavery in the most deadly war for Americans the US ever fought. For those of us who understand that all this old and new resentment is not going to help get us a better America we see this as another upcoming political Civil War. The American Revolution continues along with the new Cold War, endless Wars as America is a country always it seems involved in many wars and it is a method to keep us divided so that building a better civil life for all is forever on the back burner out in the back yard in the rain. I bet that most of the people on both sides of this fight are living in neighborhoods that are unofficially segregated as the old adage Birds of a feather stay together is for the majority, political reality. By Law we have equal rights as Jefferson saw to it yet he knew that the ideal for a just constitution is not a copy of the ugly reality of life and struggle, it is a process by which we can continue the American Revolution towards a better future.
Jefferson did try to keep his home and plantation and died in Debt when there was not much money in being President in those old days. My guess is that now the establishment in it’s attempt to impeach Trump will take the next step and we will see the demonization of our Forefathers and some will want to change the name of Washington DC to something else… What else? That remains to be seen. Any suggestions?
I guess I was right.
CNN Commentator Says Washington, Jefferson Statues Should Come Down
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBSLY9iSIhU
What this poor woman doesn’t realize is that at one time owning slaves was nearly universal for those with power and money. I’d wager that a majority of the Popes of Rome were slave-owners.
The late Southern Propagandists enjoyed pointing out the hypocrisy of the Northerners selling their slaves instead of freeing them when state emancipation laws took effect.
Wealthy American Indians owned black slaves. American Free Blacks owned slaves – in the relatively rare cases the had the money to buy them. Slavery happened on a “retail” and a “wholesale” level. The people with a small number of slaves are not to be admired. But to put them in the same moral category as the Slave Breeding Industry cannot be justified.
CNN’s Angela Rye really does need to try to get some actual knowledge before she opens her mouth on the I-box.
I suggest that we acknowledge the horrible widespread endemic racism in this country and work to eliminate it. And quit trying to whitewash African human beings being kidnapped and sold as slaves. The American South was the focus of this evil inhuman practice, and they are still the center of continuing abuse of the descendants of these innocent people.
Removing Trump from office is most certainly the goal of the “establishment”. I doubt if it’ll be impeachment. IMO the man will either resign or be declared incompetent by the 25th amendment.
Considering how the net result will be President Pence I cannot approve of the “establishment’s” crusade. But their efforts are easy because Trump’s behavior continues to be ever more bizarre, and on the racial issue the wounds are entirely self-inflicted.
As for renaming Washington, D.C. I’d be in favor of that. Change it to Washington, D.C. Only the “DC” would now mean “District of the Capital”
Thank you so much, Robert Parry, for this statement! When Trump asked if we remove the statues of Lee, Davis and other Confederate icons how soon before people want to take down statues of Jefferson, Washington and such? My son said “Yes! It’s time humans stop telling history as a series of wars of conquest!” You know? He’s correct. In this life’s journey of humanity are there no greater accomplishments of our species nor any greater heroes than winning battles? Columbus, we are taught, discovered this “new world.” How can that be when he “discovered” an already occupied and thriving continent?
Also, Parry mentioned, “Gone with the Wind” and I remember enjoying that novel and movie. So, I was surprised recently to learn than many black citizens did not like the message, but now I get it. That novel promoted the false idea that slaves and masters lived and worked together in symbiotic society which benefited both slave and master. Now i see this tale is told from the white person’s perspective and we must learn to see from the view of the slave, kidnapped and brought against his will and brought shackled to this continent to serve as slaves.
Well . . . okay, we should give credit where due, but I wonder, ‘did Jefferson really believe that all are created equal? Thomas Jefferson once stated that he felt black should and could be self-governing, but could never live harmoniously in an integrated society. I do disagree! Our DNA proves without a doubt that we are one race–the human race. When the slaves held on Haiti rebelled against the masters and set up a working government, Jefferson buckled to the popular political rhetoric of fear that the success of Haiti might inspire rebellion in this new nation. Also, in a private note to Thomas Paine, Jefferson indicated his agreement with Paine that women should be treated as equals, but cautioned Paine about declaring this politically unpopular viewpoint openly. Alas, Jefferson had so many good ideas about justice and democracy, (I often quote some of his better statements myself), but he chose to maintain his wealth, status and political power, failing to live according to his better instincts. Gee, politics! Sometimes it’s more like liars poker.
Thanks for your comments. Finally someone who sees our situation clearly. I used to be pretty good at liars poker in my drinking days; don’t play anymore. Don’t miss it either.
Life is complex and often contradictory. Individuals are like that too, but we like to over simplify things, and that leads to racism, religious intolerance, political dogmatism – and generally to only seeing what we want to see. Jefferson was like that – a many sided paradox.
Jeez. The trolls flock to this site over this one. Wonder why? I guess they are eager to make a case for ignoring Fascism and homegrown hate. And especially to give cover to their fellow traveler that David Duke is so fond of, President Donald Trump – fascist sympathizer.
Well, if you would stop writing that would eliminate one troll
The only proven way to eliminate trolls is not to feed them. Bye bye baby.
In the UK this same fascist/ racist/ anti-Semitic smear was thrown up to try to get rid of Corbyn, who was elected leader of the Labour/ socialist party. The Deep State wanted him out and cooked this up to try to get him out. They were hoping he’d just fold under the pressure and resign, but it didn’t work.
We see the same thing in the US, with the Left allied to the MSM, Deep State , the Spooks, and Military Industrial complex. They just want him out, and will do anything to try to achieve that. Fascist Left Riots, Russia Hacking fairy stories, allegations of mental illness from shrinks who’ve never even spoken to him, Racist tropes, anything will do to undermine him and go for impeachment, no matter what damage it causes to society and the institutions of the state.
I don’t think it is correct or fair to equate Lee and Hitler. They were of a different era and culture
You’re right.
Hitler wasn’t a traitor.
Neither was Lee. He fought defending his state, North Virgina.
Neither was Lee. He resigned his commission before fighting for the Confederacy.
“You don’t see many government statues to Al Capone or Benedict Arnold. And, Americans would be rightly alarmed if Germany began erecting statues to Adolf Hitler and his Nazi henchmen.”
I don’t think it is correct or fair to equate Lee and Hitler. They were of a different era and cultural.
I read everything Robert Parry writes and agree with him 98% of the time, but I have a few problems with this article.
First of all Confederate soldiers were not slave owners. They fought because their homeland had been invaded by the north. I also don’t think the North fought the South was to free the slaves. And Robert E. Lee himself fought not for slavery but to defend Virginia from decimation by the north. There were economic reasons such as the North’s fear that the South would compete with them in the western expansion.
The North fought the war largely with Irish immigrants who were themselves slaves of a sort – debt slaves and indentured servants forced to live in abject poverty. Let’s not forget, also, that Lincoln’s wanted to send the slaves back to Africa and that the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t really free the slaves. Carpetbaggers took over the south. When Jim Crow came along it was as bad as slavery. And FDR, arguably our greatest president, ignored it.
Back in the 60s I was a civil rights worker. And today I see racism where ever I look. I totally agree that the Republicans have been playing the race card for decades. I oppose police oppression of Blacks in our large cities. I am angry that our prisons are full of people of color. I am angry that driving while Black is apparently a crime. And so on.
Though I despise Donald Trump, I see the recent hysteria over Charlottesville as a new component of the illegal and immoral silent coup that is taking place. Why everyone wants Pence to be president puzzles me.
You don’t see the point of the “hysteria”? Are you some kind of business as usual fan?
For the sake of argument, Mike, say the monuments all come down tomorrow, including Stone Mountain. How will that really change anything? You know, the way people personally interact and think about each other. Might it even make things worse, by stirring up resentments? They say never get into a war (or fight) unless you can see a way out.
I see a lot of comments here that basically say “the statues are irrelevant, this is a distraction” and then immediately jump to the conclusion that the only people who are getting “distracted” are the ones protesting Confederate memorials. So I’d like to flip the question around: if the statues really ARE an irrelevant distraction why not take them all down now? Problem solved.
Drogon, I did not say the statues were the distraction, rather the ginned up conflict between the defenders and opponents of the statues are the tragic distraction. The statues per se were basically just pigeon roosts for most of their existence.
Are you saying “better not poke the American Nazis, they might poke us back”? I say lets send them a clear message that their bs is not welcome in America. And that goes for the monument loving President too.
Mike, you have no intention of understanding a bit of what I said about Southern culture and what the statues may represent to a lot of people that have nothing to do with slavery or Nazis. You are basically saying that every Southerner who identifies with their regional culture and symbolizes it with totems like the battle flag and monuments to the confederacy, notions that have been passed down for generations, are all racists and Nazis. That’s absolute rubbish. Try getting to know some Southern folks, should be easy as you claim to live in Kentucky.
Did you even read the long respectful response I wrote specifically to you up above, Mike? One gets the impression you didn’t even take the time, because you did not respond to it. Rather you come up with this (typical of you these days) terse non-sequitur. You’ve become a one trick pony, Mike. Your every entry amounts simply to “Trump is a racist and a Nazi.” And, apparently so is everyone who does not reflexively equate his every vapid statement to racism and Nazism. Right?
That was a deep analysis. I hope those looking for easy popular answers try to fathom your remarks.
You’re correct that poor boys fight rich men’s wars.
After that, you get quickly off track.
While the north was not (initially) fighting to abolish slavery, southern secession and fighting was to defend (and extend) the institution. You should review The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States and the Confederate Constitution, as well as statements by Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens, among others.
You’re also incorrect with your assertion that “Carpetbaggers took over the south”. “Carpetbagger” was a pejorative term used by southern white supremacists to refer to just about any northerner who joined the Republican Party and/or defended the rights of blacks. That they “took over the south” is pretty much disproven by the subsequent history. There would have been no Jim Crow if “Carpetbaggers took over the south”.
It’s almost hard to believe that someone with the civil rights background you proclaim would be so unacquainted with southern history.
Similarly, it’s just as hard to believe that a person with that background would refer to the tacit approbation Trump gave to neo-Nazi and KKK white supremacists as “recent hysteria over Charlottesville”.
I always thought the main reason they fought was because the economic underpinning of “southern culture” or “homeland” ie: slavery was threatened.
I guess that would underline Robert Parry’s continuing narrative of US “regime change wars” essentially fought for American corporate interests. So, these areas either work for the plantation or else.
Because of the style with which you’ve written your post I’m not going to question your sincerity. But most of what you say is wrong. A little wrong to horribly wrong. I made a quick duckduckgo search for the remark above, and found a site titled
“The Civil War Was Won By Immigrant Soldiers”
But within it was this:
Even a site hyping the foreign fighters doesn’t claim more than one in four! And by no means were all of them Irish. Germans, Swedes, and many others also enlisted.
On this particular point we’re in full agreement. The behavior of the North before, during, and after the Civil war shows the citizens didn’t give a damn about the Negro. But they did fight, and it is my belief that it was the Institution of slavery which compelled the Northern citizens to continue the fight till victory. They were afraid of Slavery, and wanted the Institution destroyed. Now when I speak of “citizens”, I’m excluding the wealthy. They were as ethically elastic as the Rich in any age. Free – Slave – they would have been OK with either one. But mostly they avoided dying because of a neat little program where they could buy them themselves a replacement.
By the way, Robert Lee was a traitor to the US. He was a slaver, and more than unusually nasty. A better General than Lee left Virginia and fought for the Union. George Thomas was a better man man than Lee in every way I can think of, and he fought for a good cause. Not to defend a State with a huge Slave Breeding Industry as Lee did.
I would like to reinforce the question and observation of Realist and BE above. I was born in the Northeast US to parents born and raised in New Orleans. I spent formative years in both Southern and NE locales. From the perspective of a white guy with a foot in both worlds, Realist’s distillation seems accurate.
Racism is of course not unique to the South (Boston, anyone?), and I have seen and experienced it in both areas and in both directions. (For examples, I had to leave my grandmothers 70th birthday celebration because of the number of mouths with “Jesus/PraiseBe” and “it’s the niggers and the Jews doncha know” spewing out in quick succession. Being held at knifepoint in the high school restroom ” ’cause all you white guys got money” made a lasting impression on me. And for what it’s worth, when I was the only white man in a 5 man crew, some of whom had been chased by the Klan through the woods, I was eventually told I was an “honorary nigger”. I emphasize that was their term, not mine.) l’m not trying to pat myself on the back, and not in the least trying to discount the impacts or the importance of race relations in this country and the historical lack of successfully dealing with them. I am offering background as to why I see it as legitimate to be asking ‘ Why now?’
Why the sudden near hysteria, the dramatic uptick in urgency about a problem – a set of problems -that can not be dealt with by clubs and shields and groups of people yelling past each other. You can easily make the case that this country was built by racists, founded on racism ( All men are created equal. Uh, except those 3/5ths guys, because they aren’t really men.) The situation this longstanding will not be effectively altered by whacking each other with flagpoles. So why the increase in opportunities to whack each other?
As BE points out, it is distraction. It is making circus out of what is one of many serious long term problems. It is the current something dramatic to look at so we don’t notice the only functioning part of government seems to be that which is alternately robbing us and planning for the next regime change, a government controlled by the monied rather than controlling the monied.
I know its cliche, but it’s divide and conquer. And it is used because it works.
Please look the other way so fascism can proceed in America unheeded. “It Can’t Happen Here”, sorry folks, if you can’t see it, you need to change your glasses.
Nowhere did I say “It can’t happen here”. In fact, I believe it was Mussolini himself who described fascism as corporate control of government. I refer you to the last line of my next to last paragraph: ” a government controlled by the monied.” Did you not read that far, or not understand the reference?
Often noted as another component of fascism is a singular, narrow line of thought or vision. “The way I see it is the way it is.” Full stop. Your “sorry folks, if you can’t see it” seems quite close to what you purport to condemn.
Looking at something that does not specifically focus on your favorite trope doesn’t mean we don’t see what you see or are ignoring its importance. This is supposed to be a place for discussion, and the limits of time and space here will have people bringing up facets of complex problems that may not put your fixation at the forefront.
But since you have been willing to “forgive them for they know not what they do”, and see the need for others to “change their glasses”, I suppose we have bow to your superior knowledge and wisdom.
“it is distraction. It is making circus out of what is one of many serious long term problems.”
Nothing to see here, just keep moving?
Some people find to possible to walk while chewing gum.
If the South fought for slavery, the North was fighting for control.
To put it another way, even if the South WAS fighting on the issue of slavery, it does not follow that the North was.
Don’t forget that the shipping companies that transported the slaves were largely based in the North. Manhattan has the largest cemetery of dead slaves in North America. The slave market stood at the bottom of Wall Street.
If you want to hear my take on what was happening in the North, here it is. The Rich Bastards were going to make tons of money selling supplies to the Union Army and Navy. The Poor Bastards were fighting for their way of life, and Slavery threatened that.
Almost nobody in the North had any concern for the plight of the slaves; they worried about the effect of Slavery on themselves. After the Union Victory in 1865 Andrew Johnson began the process of giving away that victory. This was temporarily interrupted by Grant, but a crooked Presidential Election ended Reconstruction and threw away the victory. AND it stabbed the freed negro slaves in the backs.
The North didn’t care about the negro because he was no longer any kind of threat to their way of life. The Northern citizens began to hate and lynch almost as vigorously as did the South.
You do know that Ulysses Grant was a slave owner, freeing his slave in 1859. He supervised his wife’s, Julia Grant, slaves until 1865. They came from Julia’s father.
Robert E. Lee freed his slaves (inherited from his father) in 1862, before the Emancipation proclamation, and three years before his counterpart in the north did his.
The civil war was not about slavery, it was about political and economic independence for the southern states in a loose confederation similar to the EU today. The imperialist unionists in Washington felt otherwise. The immediate cause was a crippling agricultural tariff imposed on the south by the Union. Slavery wasn’t given a passing thought in the North until it became a tactical ploy to foment a revolt of the slaves in the South.
As for your context of the time for Washington and Jefferson, I would not disagree. After all, the British Parliament abolitshed slavery only in 1833 afterWilliam Wilberforce and the anti-slavery society spent 58 years sponsoring anti-slavery legistlation. Slavery in the South (and North) was inherited from the British before the revolution.
As for racism, the US, north and south has long been racist. It even took America’s favorite pastime 80+ years before Major League Baseball admitted “blacks” on the same playing field in major league games as “whites”. All Major league teams during those years of racial discrimination were located in the North Eastern US, the Union in the Civil War.
I also recall the racisim of the 60s represented by race riots in northern cities like Detroit and Baltimore. Somehow, I do not think the civil war or Robert E. Lee can be held responsible for that.
As for Charlottesville, the situation was clearly an attack on free speech. Had the legal demonstration run its course, and the statue been brought down, there would have been no news. The “news” was instigated by the illegal confrontation of the “anti-racists” with the legal demonstrators. The question is why were they there, and who organized them? If they had not been there, there would not have been violence, injuries and three deaths. This only aids those that wish to divide US society for their own interests. And we have seen from the corporate media who “those” are.
Blue
‘But whatabout…?’
Donald, is that you?
Despite your “pleasant” solicitations, Bob, I think you know those were not the words of Donald Trump (they were far too accurate and coherent), but they were a very good representation of how Southern scholars view events which can be corroborated in actual historical records.
You get an A for knowing your talking points. You could have been a featured speaker at Charlottesville, except your audience were too busy doing what they do best, chanting anti Black and Jewish slogans and hitting people.
I hope you decide to find some real history books and really read them. If you ever do, you’ll disavow 85% of your post here.
“You can’t change history, but you can learn from it.”
The U.S is learning from the removal of the statues.
It’s learning that the fact they were erected initially was a result of revisionist history celebrating the Lost Cause and white (mostly) southern racists protesting federal civil rights legislation.
It’s learning that the Republican Party grew increasingly dependent on that white racial resentment in the decades since the 1960’s.
And it’s learning that neo-Nazis and the KKK are increasingly emboldened by the approbation of President Trump, the most recent iteration of that white racial resentment in the Republican Party.
Exactly. Too bad many choose not to see this.
In 1834 in the UK the cost paid by the Government for the abolition of slavery was the equivalent of about $30 billion …
This total was paid in compensation. Not to the slaves, but to the slave-owners.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02wr1lc
Thus goes capitalism…….
“Trump tweeted: “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You can’t change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson – who’s next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish!”
Well, isn’t what Trump said true. Where does it stop? When Stanton et all wanted to punish the South after the Civil War it was Lincoln who said enough.
Does this Abolitionist mentality help us to heal or create deeper wounds? We know the answer.
I under stand the lady who wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic, when she saw the horrors of war, came to regret writing it when she viewed the carnage it helped create.
Time to let go, Mr. Parry et al. Take a lesson from the recent war on terror. Did it result in less or more terrorism. We know the answer to that, too. We generated more terrorism and a whole flock of parasites who profited from it beyond the terrorists. We just happen to have a whole flock who benefit from keeping the racism issue alive. In this case a gaggle of hapless folks calling for white supremacy or whatever became manna from heaven for those folks. In turn, we created more folks who play on the other side. On and on and for what.
And Backwardsevolution makes the point, it is a diversion, a diversion that started with anti-Trump demonstrations before he took office. Whether Trump would have acted on his campaign promises is problematical, but there was that chance and neutering him made it impossible.
.
Move on folks, nothing to see here…. Another diversion and distractionist is heard from. Please don’t look at racial hatred in America, especially our beloved President…..
Mike, add something instead of dismissal of comments. It seems the only racism today beyond what people think is our interpretation of racism when a white cop kills a black person. That immediately is called racism even when the police force has a proportionate or even disproportionate number of black policemen. I’m sure you know what is racism because you know white Americans are racists in their hearts and you know that has to change. The answer seems to finger racists and put the mark of hate on them, knowing that public ridicule is a powerful weapon. And it works. Ordinary people can be frightened. We rightly condemn racist acts but remember it was the “real”Nazi practice to finger Jews with yellow signs. In your society, it might be tried where white folks who don’t recant openly might be tagged. We are pretty close to that now. Think of the guy who said his life was ruined because he was tagged.
You might be considered an agent of such a society in trolling the cite looking for racists. I trust you are not taking names.
Your understanding is flawed. Fort Sumter was attacked by the Confederates April 12, 1861 and this started the shooting war. Julia Ward Howe wrote the song November 1861, and first published it in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. No conceivable reason for her to “regret” anything whatever.
Nonsense. What it is time to do is finish the job with the statues to the traitors and criminals. They’re a poke in the eye to Black citizens as well as those of us who have read non KKK history books about the era and the actual war. When I was in high school a local punk took some colored cardboard and cut out a silhoutte of a fist with a raised middle finger and put it in his hat band. That’s what these statues are to far too many Americans, a deliberate “**** you” to the rest of society. Childish. Rude. And the perps just love to whine about their “heritage” when anybody objects.
Yeah. Right.
By the Bye, I don’t object to statues of the ordinary soldiers. The PFCs of the Civil War – both sides – were more victims than anything else. They ought to be pitied for what the Slave Traders and Slave Breeders forced them into – not condemned.
All statues of “heroes” are stupid, especially military ones. Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Lee, Jackson, Jackson, Pershing, Teddybear Roosevelt, Bedford Forest, Patton? You can’t be serious!
Why do only pigeons understand this?
I agree. And why are most of the statues of generals and politicians? Did no one else contribute to the “progress” of humankind?
Well they erected a statue of Martin Luther King. But I think it was done in white. How significant…
i agree.
that’s not the point. the point is that people do have strong feelings about them. there are so many around the world commemorating something or other. many in place for centuries. i think we all have visceral feelings about isis destroying symbols. this really is no different.
religion is the same to me. i think it stupid but i don’t want to keep anyone from practicing it and i try to show respect to their beliefs.
Robert,
Intriguing article. Thanks. Google the DRAFT of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote that:
“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobium of INFIDEL Powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injuries.
Good article and necessary conversation, many thoughtful posts, especially Realist and backwardsevolution reminders that the intent of focusing on this latest chaos is for those in control to distract. The power structure does not address the causes of unhappiness in this country, caused by their decisions to support war and to do nothing for inequality, including all of the government actors, not just Trump.
Zero Hedge this morning ran an article from Strategic Culture Foundation by James Jatras titled “The Death of A Nation”, comparing Russia’s acceptance of symbols of their past yet recognition that those are symbols representing history that has to be acknowledged.
If You are distracted from the racist uproar in AMERICA NOW, YOU ARE MISSING SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT – THE BEGINNING AWAKENING OF MANY PEOPLE TO OUR SLIDE INTO FASCISM, UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF OUR PRESIDENT AND HIS UNHOLY CREW. (my pc does this caps thing, I won’t correct this time)
The idea that Charlottesville is the work of the “deep state” is bs in my opinion. Your fellow Americans were fully capable of this entire operation on their own. How some people might try to use or ignore this American born and bred racism for their own purposes is another question for another time…..
history doesn’t repeat itself as much as it rhymes…..
no sir, fascism isn’t coming to america in the shape it came to the rest of the world in the 1930’s. people are hip to that, it’s here now in the shape of fighting it. that way they can’t see what’s coming…..just like the 30’s.
But Mr. Parry, your points about Presidents Washington and Jefferson only serve to bolster Mr. Trumps arguments. Do you think Washington or Jefferson would have not put down a slave insurrection with the harshest of means? The crimes of the Revolutionaries were not less than those of the Confederates by today’s standards, but in any event who are you to tell us “Washington, Jefferson, OKAY. Davis BAD”. But I digress because we will never know the truth with any degree of accuracy anyways. So, where do you (we) stop? Should we then tear down monuments to slavery like Mount Vernon and Monticello along with thousands of statues? How about the White House itself? White House was built with plenty of slave labor. Do we then admit the whole US of A was largely grown on the backs of slaves and seek the destruction of the whole corrupt, rotten system? It would seem logical to just nuke ourselves, would it not?
jsinton,
your comment is what many are saying but the voices of protest wont hear it. they want what they want and you and i have no say. even if our arguments come from a place of logic and respect, we are racist by their standards.
this is not going to a good place.
in germany last week, two chinese tourists were thrown in jail for making the sieg hiel salute for a selfie.
this denial of history can only lead to things like this. or holocaust denial laws. or the banning of displays of nazi symbols.
even though all these things sound somewhat reasonable, america used to defend such things as a small price to pay for freedom.
hate crimes laws are already here(more severe punishments of already established laws based on beliefs)
and speaking up to defend ones belief in not removing monuments is now tantamount to being a nazi.
just look at the posts here. you can see that some believe this.
speech is next.
god help us.(it’s just a saying….i’m not actually sure if there is an imaginary playmate in the sky. not that there is anything wrong with that)
hatedbyu: very good comments.
“Do we then admit the whole US of A was largely grown on the backs of slaves…”
Be a good start.
yes..we do
and those that want monuments to such or street names or what not.
why not admit what was and what was not and not try to hide from any of it.
The backs of slaves and dead Indians.
yes, the backs of every dead person that every american killed.
put up monuiments in their honor and memory. just not at the expense of the feelings of others.
honor all.
DFTT – Don’t feed the trolls.
An excellent article. Perhaps Mr Trump and his apologists should give it a scan. However, as has been proved century after century bigots rarely listen.
Playing the “why do they hate us card” John?
Divide and conquer. Identity politics.
Fine, smash all the statues you want (and don’t forget to confiscate Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize statue while you’re at it), but do it later, not when the country is circling the drain.
This is like cleaning out your closet while your house is burning down. Talk about getting distracted.
“God damn Internet! It’s exposing us for the crooks that we are. Some people are even talking about charging us with war crimes! We’ve got to do something, anything. Hey, I know, let’s pull out past grievances. Yeah, get them angry over the statues! And then after that we can pull out reparations. Set up some anti-semitic false flags. Just keep the hate cranked up. Whatever we do, we mustn’t let them look our way.”
It’s perfect. It’s just what the elite want, for you to take your eyes off the ball. They must laugh at how easy it is to jerk you around, manipulate you. That’s why they set up these organizations, pay the protesters (no, not all of them). Create chaos, get people distracted, foment anger, divide and false flag you, tighten the grip, stall, regroup, re-brand, slap a new coat of paint on the pig, and sell it all over again.
And you buy it. You buy it because you get distracted.
The elite could care less whether there’s a statue there or not. They were only put up in the first place to distract you, buy your votes, placate you. Pull it down if you want; just don’t look their way.
While you keep fighting, cops will continue to be told to stand down, and you’ll tear each other to shreds. They don’t care how many are killed; just don’t look their way.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, AIPAC owns your Congress. AIPAC love to see you fighting. They’ve got you by the balls and they’re not about to let go. So do the corporations. The media, intelligence agencies, the politicians and the rest of the government agencies keep the wars going and the money flowing in.
These are the same guys who brought you Libya, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, MH-17, Russiagate. You know, the liars. Yeah, they’ve really got your back (not)!
“1984” is staring you in the face, but you can’t see it. You’ve become distracted – again.
Very true, good points.
Yes, yes.
Boy, did you nail it Backwards ! All the posts here are a remarkable Talent. May I add one to your post ? In 2016 the UN had a referendum on Glorifying Fascism and Nazsiism I’ll say. 110 countries voted to ” outlaw” it in their countries. Two countries voted to keep it Glorified – the US and Ukraine voted to keep the Glorification alive and well. Oh, and did you notice the Zionist President Poroshenko from Ukraine has 2 US funded real Nazi battalions fighting for him against Donbass and Crimea ? I guess that blows the Holocaust story to hell.
GMC – very interesting post. Thanks for that.
Wow, backwardsevolution you make a good argument for your point. Every American should at least hear, and consider what your saying, as a possibility that we are being divided from the top down. Good comment.
You would like us to be distracted from racism in America? I don’t buy it. Your remarks about distraction are a distraction from a live and important issue of fascism in America and it’s President.
Right on the mark, backwardsevolution, The channel has been changed and the war criminals are free.
You hit the nail on its head just as Realist did above in referring to the current social unrest distracting us “from more significant and dangerous things going on.” Unfortunately, the evil ones are succeeding.
backwardsevolution: Very true. Well said.
In a recent discussion between Mark Windows and Gilad Atzmon both of them actually provided the name of an organization that started this entire mess in the 1940s. It is called the Tavistock Institute and it is still very much alive and kicking the crap out of everyone around the globe. See… https://www.amazon.com/Tavistock-Institute-Social-Engineering-Masses/dp/163424043X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1503078088&sr=1-1&keywords=Tavistock
This organization is what aided in the development of Cultural Marxism in the 1950s, which in turn created “Political Correctness”, which in turn morphed into the highly destructive “Identity Politics” that everyone is immersed in within this thread as well as throughout the United States; Nazis bad, Left good! Well, while everyone is now having a hate-fest over the Nazis in Charlottesville let’s remember that not too long ago the Left was aligned with Soviet Communism in the view of many. Only staunch American conservatism was acceptable in the American public commons…
We should consider that there are two distinct ways to inculcate prejudice in someone; either through continual exposure to negative experiences by one person to people in a specific group or through indoctrination such as with familial indoctrination that we all undergo. While the first may have legitimacy for a person as a result of inter-relational experiences the other is symptomatic of sociopathology (not psychopathology). You can work with the former but not the latter, since the latter is symptomatic of a severe personality disorder, which cannot cured except through re-indoctrination, which is very timely and the results are never guaranteed.
While everyone here is hoping for a positive future in the US if we can confront these inherent negatives in US society I can tell you that it is never going to happen. A lot of this has been part and parcel of the American psyche since the inception of the United States in 1783. It is a sociopathic symptom that after such a long time cannot be reversed by confronting it as the counter-protesters foolishly and naively attempted in Charlottesville. It can be reversed over time by opening the immigration gates to the US for vetted people from all stratas of society and from all different backgrounds. However, as we have seen this has its own issues and has caused a lot of problems not only in the blue-collar professions but in the white collar ones as well.
Such sociology certainly affects how Americans view history, which is often through a lens of their own distorted understandings. And the Internet does not make such understandings any easier since so much of what is on the Internet is inaccurate anyway.
For example, George Washington has no real right to be called the “father of our country”. What did he do to deserve such a title? Not much more than just simply show up at the right time. He was a slave owner and had a near genocidal hatred for the indigenous peoples in this country.
If anyone has the right to such a title, it may be better appropriated to Samuel Adams, who was according to one history on the matter (a history that I have subsequently found to be rather inaccurate as well), nothing more than a radically oriented supporter of independence who was actually the catalyst for the American Revolution. And all he gets is a beer named after him.
What I am trying to say is that what you believe you know, you probably don’t. And to the posters who have taken the time to describe southern intentions for the conflict in 1861-1865, the leaders were providing documentation but certainly weren’t representative of everyone in the South as many southerners fought for different reasons, not all of which involved the protection of the institution of slavery. To claim otherwise, is to charge all of the South’s people’s with a collective form of guilt\punishment.
Not all slave-owners were monsters, despite the hideousness of the institution just as not all northerners wanted to associate themselves in any way with Africans. Lincoln certainly didn’t give a rat’s ass about the slaves and his Emancipation Proclamation was a military tactic to inflame the slaves of the border states and had nothing to do with any compassion on his part. He wanted to transport most of the Africans out of the country if they ever gained their freedoms.
So while everyone is digesting this, let’s also remember that in a few weeks we will be talking about another but similar tragedy in some other town in the US. It has already happened in Portugal… And will most definitely happen again here in the US…
Steve – great post. “Lincoln certainly didn’t give a rat’s ass about the slaves…” I agree with you, but the progressives want to eradicate this thought from your mind. Until you can repeat the correct history, “Lincoln wanted only to free the slaves,” they will not be happy.
All free thought must be erased, all free speech stifled, all culture eradicated, except theirs. They want a new religion, their religion. And it is a religion, a new “our way or the highway” religion. Get ready to walk a very narrow line or be ostracized.
backwardsevolution; “. . .don’t forget to confiscate Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize statue while you’re at it . . .”
This is the best suggestion I have read. It will do much more good to do it first.
I am not a Southerner by birth or upbringing (born and raised from the 40’s through the 60’s on the streets of Chicago.. and not the burbs) but I know their arguments for defending secession and respecting their historical forefathers which are not being represented in a rather one-sided debate here. (I am not saying that theirs are MY positions.)
White Southerners basically claim the constitution did not preclude secession and they say they were championing “states’ rights” as they still do to this day, slavery is generally omitted from the discussion, but since a full third of all Southerners owned slaves (most only a few) it cannot be discounted as a critical factor. They claim that their leaders, such as Robert E. Lee were not betraying their country but defending their state, which in a confederation takes precedence over the nation. They would say Lee’s decision was more a political act than a defense of slavery.
As to their continued reverence for Confederate totems, such as the Confederate battle flag, the song “Dixieland,” re-enactments of famous Civil War battles in full costume, and homage to their leaders from that period, like Lee, Jackson and Davis in the form of statues and the huge Stone Mountain Relief, they tell me that it is a celebration of their regional “culture” not an endorsement of slavery, racism, or even a lingering urge to secede from the Union. If one cares to look he will see that there, in fact, are cultural constants in religion, ethnicity, cuisine, accents, etc that run throughout the region… and they ARE a lot more conservative than you are, if you are what they call a “Yankee” (anyone born North of some imaginary line in every Southern state). There IS a Southern culture and it was founded by mostly poor Scotch-Irish Christian fundamentalist (largely Baptist) farming immigrants rather than the predominantly working class German/Irish/Italian Catholic laboring immigrants to the Northeast.
Irrespective of their provincialism, these people today consider themselves to be the most loyal patriotic Americans within our borders. They constitute the largest percentage of those who serve in today’s volunteer military. They mostly conflate patriotism with nationalism and extreme political conservatism, which used to mean Democratic conservatism but has now transmogrified totally to Republican conservatism. What they have in common with the folks in the Northern Great Plains to bind them politically, I have no idea, but it’s a reality this nation is stuck with at the voting booth.
If you were to ask, many, if not most, of them would claim to feel persecuted that their cultural icons are considered anathema to the rest of the country. In spite of that, and maybe because of that, they are reluctant to betray their identity. In fact, because they have lagged behind all other sections of the country economically since before the Civil War, many feel the “North” (rest of the country) has never stopped kicking them while down. So they are not inclined to happily follow “Yankee” directives and erase what they embrace as their cultural history from their courthouse squares.
All that may be true or totally bogus. It’s my (highly distilled) take from living a significant period of time in the South (and I’m not counting my retirement in South Florida, which is a whole ‘nother world). Whether you accept any, all or none of that, it still leaves the question: Why in 2017, over 150 years after the end of the Civil War does the removal of these monuments suddenly become an urgent issue? If they were so heinous, why were they allowed to stand for such a long time? Or, as Historicvs notes, built as recently as the mid-20th century? Why were they not removed under orders of the first black president if they were such an offense? (And offensive they most certainly are to many, for completely understandable reasons which I would never seek to disabuse.) Why right now? Is some other purpose perhaps tied in? Might that have to do with causing social unrest which would distract the public from more significant and dangerous things going on? Why are obvious conflicts not foreseen by municipal planners and troubleshooters? For example, why would concurrent demonstrations by factions promoting the removal of these monuments and others opposing their removal be allowed to happen? And, once they got under way, why did the police extract themselves from the scene rather than insert themselves between the two parties? Make no sense to me if one truly wants to ensure “domestic tranquility.” Moreover, if Lee, S. Jackson and Davis must go because they owned slaves why should Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, A. Jackson and other presidents who owned slaves be allowed to remain in the public square? Just some things to chew over by those who care to look from all the angles rather than just rubber stamp the conventional wisdom (which varies with geography, and obviously with the time).
“What they have in common with the folks in the Northern Great Plains to bind them politically, I have no idea…”
White skin, mostly, with a few guns thrown in. Plus sex/religion, i.e. abortion/women’s reproductive rights & LGBT rights and anti-Muslim sentiment. But mostly white skin, which also drives much of their hysteria over immigration from our southern border. It’s supposed to be a white Christian nation, you know, always and forever.
“why did the police extract themselves from the scene”
Two possible reasons. The police might have felt they were outnumbered &, more importantly, outgunned. Or, they were expecting/hoping for the ‘dirty hippies/BLM’ protesters to get a beating.
You know, Bob, in all my 70 years I’ve always been a Democratic-voting liberal and a gadfly of all the things you say you don’t like about the people in the majority of U.S. states. I still don’t like any of that, but eight deceitful and dysfunctional years of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have won me over to the role of being their gadfly as well. We will see what candidates and what parties present themselves in the next couple rounds of elections. All I can say is that I will not be voting for either the “D’s” or the “R’s.” But it’s your right to continue supporting one while condemning the other as they both trend rightward together on the political spectrum. As I said in response to another of your posts, you are a good follower.
I see, you abhor perceived racism in others (even absent evidence), but not ageism in yourself. No, I don’t yell at anyone, Bob. I TRY to reason with them, but you are obviously a personality who simply likes to rant. Your accusation of my asking a question in bad faith is illogical and unfounded. I asked why such voting patterns. You offered your interpretation, which I did not dispute and merely said I have disliked those traits myself, essentially all of my life (that’s what being a gadfly of them means, and FYI the entire South coupled with the Great Plains constitutes the majority of the United States, at least in terms of square miles, though only 25–half–the number of states). You need to start thinking clearly and stop trying so hard to insult people, Bob.
Now you are not making any sense whatsoever, Bob. Are you trying to put together some sort of logical argument here? None of this follows from my previous post or from the one before that. Who said anything about clouds other than you? I yell at no one, certainly not at clouds. I analyse and criticise public figures and their ill-advised policies. You like to take issue with other posters here. I’ve noticed you arguing with others heatedly and often. Try ragging on Trump or Putin, they can’t answer back and make you look dumb.
This would be immoderate, BobS. Most readers here are moved by calm reflection, not ad hominem remarks.
There are no victories in reasoning but over our emotions and the lack of knowledge.
I think that Realist will be fair with you if you are fair with others.
i liked your post realist.
i was blessed with southern birth and resided there till i was 16 when i happily moved to the heart of yankee oppression, nyc.(i thought this sentence was funny, not serious)
i miss southern culture. not all of it mind you but i miss it non the less.
23 years ago i was working in south carolina and there was a big brewhaha over what some african american kids had worn to school. it was a shirt with the confederate battle flag whose colors had been changed to the red gold and green of africa.
i thought it was brilliant. you see, blacks in the south have a southern culture too.
unfortuately it never caught on.
the point is two fold. we southerners hold on to symbols of our culture. it’s all we have in the eastern dominated media. we southerners are depicted as backwards, stupid, racist and violent.
personally i think monuments are a waste no matter what it’s for, but i understand where this is coming from.
in short, this latest action by social justice warriors is just the latest cultural fashion. well meaning people can be manipulated to hate just about anything. it is also the perfect wedge to drive between people. because southerners are being asked to trade their own feelings for the feelings of others.
this will become much more apparent to everyone when the protest du jour comes to the symbols or thoughts that you hold dear. just wait. it’s coming.
all i can say about the march to condem southerners for wanting to keep these monuments is just….”you don’t understand”
“all i can say about the march to condem southerners for wanting to keep these monuments is just….”you don’t understand””
You do understand, of course, that those statues were erected 50-100 years after the end of The War of Treason in Defense of Slavery, as explicit comment on the Lost Cause/Jim Crow and federal civil rights legislation, right?
You have sure convinced yourself, Bob, that the only motivating factor for a really huge chunk of the country is nothing but race. You see nothing else affecting their group self-identity even when pointed out to you. BTW, the folks you deem guilty of “treason” (though they violated no provisions within the constitution) all died nearly 100 years ago. You are not going to make friends or win votes from their descendants with that hostile rhetoric.
“You have sure convinced yourself, Bob, that the only motivating factor for a really huge chunk of the country is nothing but race.”
Yeah, you’ve got a point. There’s probably some other reason the electoral map of the south went from solid blue to solid red beginning in the 1960’s.
So you only want to focus on race and on election results. All the discussion of Southern culture and Southern regional identity isn’t worth a flying fig in your book, Bob. Okay, got that, Mr. Peace, Love & Tolerance. You’re winning more converts to the Hillary Party every moment.
bobs, bobster, bobini, bobkins,
\
i stand by what i said.
and you graciously proved my point.
and for that, i thank you and your sockpuppery.
in short, i say potato and you say…..RACIST
I lived in the South and understand your catch phrases, h. Southerners always call the Civil War the “War of Northern Aggression” with a wink in their eye. They know it’s in the past and can’t be changed even if we all signed a petition to make it so.
“the “War of Northern Aggression” ” = “The War of Treason in Defense of Slavery”
You say tomato, I say tomatoe.
Maybe it’s our accents.
The difference is they say it while smiling and trying to remain friendly in spite of the historical rift. You could be smiling, but I doubt it, and you’re certainly not using that descriptor to win Southern friends or influence them.
“I lived in the South..”
Like in Savannah, Georgia in the 1960’s?
I can assure you “The War of Northern Aggression” was not said with a smile then, despite the rose-colored lens you like to view the south through.
With such a charming personality and know-it-all attitude such as yours, Bob, it’s no wonder many Southerners tend to consider the Northeast, California, or wherever you are from, to be a province of Mordor.
I’ll bet it was guys like you who lost Hillary North Carolina.
With such an empty-headed, shit-eating grin understanding of what lies behind “War of Northern Aggression”, it’s no wonder the revisionist history of the Lost Cause got traction.
“I’ll bet it was guys like you who lost Hillary North Carolina.”
More likely voter suppression efforts of the Republican Party.
But whatever keeps that shit-eating grin on your face.
it WAS a war of northern aggression. i dont say it with a wink. matters not what you think the motivations were, even, as you have repeatedly contended that slavery was the driving factor, it was a war of aggression by the north.
lincoln was sending ships to blockade charleston harbor. blockades are an act of war.
slavery or no, aggressive acts of war are what they are. the us government still uses such tactics today.
Oh, my, I see you reverted to purely ad hominem attacks in my absence, Bob. You must be so proud of that insult, you make Trump look like a choir boy in comparison.
Why now?? Are you kidding Realist? When we have a President who is pushing the country deeper into fascism? And just because we have never really dealt with the incredible level of white supremacist thinking existing in this country today, does not mean that we should let the ever present ghosts of the past sleep not only in monuments but in people’s hearts. The American Mind finds itself in great crisis now which presents us with a great opportunity to make some much needed changes. Let’s not sweep this opportunity under the rug once again.
The lame old southern apologetics really don’t need refreshing at this time. They are self serving lies nothing more.
Full disclosure: I was born in Ky 86 years ago, and have lived most of my life here. I have lived in Eastern Ky for the last 40+ years. I never bought the racism I grew up in – it was too transparently unjust and false.
Number one, Trump isn’t pushing this country anywhere. They took the car keys away from him and he’s determining no policy. He’s basically reduced to stewing in Mar-a-Lago and making empty threats at North Korea and Iran.
Second, let’s just be clear, I never said anything to support racism and at the same time I never said that a great many people in the South are not racists. Many are, just as many people outside the region are racists. (I also am not saying you called me a racist, so let that also be clear.)
I said that there are other factors besides simple racism that bind Southerners together in a common culture, comradery and sense of shared history which are all important as to the totems and icons they embrace like the battle flag, their war heroes and their monuments. I’m not going to recapitulate it all again. Besides, Blue said it much better. Go read him
Also, I never said that “Antifa” didn’t have a right to protest these symbols which they perceive as symbols of oppression.
Neither can one say that, in a country with free speech guaranteed by the constitution, the right wing group did not have the right to protest the removal of those statues.
What I am questioning is the wisdom and even the motives of those who would approve that all three actors (removal contractors and the two protest groups) be allowed to converge at the same spot on the same day, and then order the police to stand down rather than keep the peace when marchers armed with clubs in both groups started mixing it up. It was a mixture sure to result in violence and provide fodder for a media that delights in distracting the public from other important news.
I have restated the same analysis several times in posts to different articles on this blog, so my point ought to be clear to anyone willing to consider explanations beyond the knee jerk interpretations provided by the corporate media that have the simple agenda of creating chaos and blaming it on Trump. Or, implying that he is a racist because he was slow to condemn the KKK. He may or may not be a racist, but not because of his response time to this incident. He may or may not be fit to be president, but that is not the topic of this discussion. This is a limited subset of that question, so let us confine ourselves to it.
It’s a diverse country we live in. Nice to know you are from Kentucky. I can’t tell if you are proud of that or not from your comment. The famous Russian studies scholar Stephen F. Cohen is also from Kentucky and he has had a rather different assessment of President Trump than you–much more positive, which you can read about elsewhere if so inclined.
Realist: ” Number one, Trump isn’t pushing this country anywhere. They took the car keys away from him and he’s determining no policy. He’s basically reduced to stewing in Mar-a-Lago and making empty threats at North Korea and Iran.”
You are right on spot on that.
I lived for three years there in Bayou State. There are lot of nice folks out there, no different than the people in North. As you said, they share a different history.
Realist, I consider Donald Trump to be a crypto-fascist. The US has been on a slide towards fascism for a long time now. Capitalism itself is a fascist doctrine of elite rule, and glorifying war and conquest. The neocons, Trump, and the oligarchs who control America as a hidden deep state are all fascists. Whether they openly accept such a designation is irrelevant.
My point of view on these things is far from gaining popular support. What is apparent to me is definitely not to very many others.
With regard to all this civil war rehashing, I never had any detailed interest in that period at all. I consider all the post mortems on that affair to be boring and pointless. And yet I realize that many are endlessly fascinated by it all, do elaborate re-enactments, write books, etc. So be it, may they have their fun. The fatal trajectory of the USA and the world is my concern. Let the dead bury the dead. Our chance to have a meaningful and beautiful life on this planet is my concern.
As far as whether I am proud of being born in Kentucky? I am not proud about anything. I consider pride to be one of our most dangerous enemies. How do I feel about being born on this suffering planet that is lurching into every conceivable depth of evil and suffering? Whatever it is, it isn’t pride.
Mr. Cohen is excellent on Russia, he has been a favorite of mine for many years. I went into Russian studies in graduate school at the U. of Chicago years ago. I think Cohen’s positive feeling about Russia may influence his urge to go to Trump’s defense in the false Russiagate affair. Any friend to Russia may be a friend to him. Some friend, I wonder how he feels about Trump’s hard line against Russia now, and his march toward nuclear confrontation? I doubt if he is cheering for Trump now, whether the neocons, MSM etc. made him do it or not. Trump has no moral compass, he is a turncoat by nature.
mike,
the expression “deeper into fascism” suggests an understanding that groundwork was laid prior to Trump’s arrival on the political scene that allows us to consider the term a relevant (or perhaps precise) descriptor of the socio-political reality in America today.
Fascism is commonly equated with images of police-state style repression…jackboots and all. All very overt. Such a state of affairs, such a slide “deeper into fascism” is certainly something we should be wary of and resist.
The groundwork needs careful study. If we agree that fascism is the melding of state-corporate interests marked by an overbearing “security” apparatus, nationalistic fervor, warring tendencies, economic regimentation, and the repression of dissent, then we might agree that Trump may be more of a symptom than a cause.
Trump’s supposed (in some quarters) fascist leanings are at least somewhat belied by his positioning on the TPP, a corporate aggrandizement. I am also not afraid of his purported dictatorial leanings because it is shown that his “power” is on a short leash. Besides, he’s not the impetus for the aforementioned characteristics of fascism that really concern me.
Realist: You make good points there. Go to New Delhi, the Capitol of India. In that largely Hindu Nation, just about all the monuments in the Capitol, and elsewhere all over North and Central India are of Mogul (Mongol/Turkic) Emperors and others of similar background. Most of these Emperors were very cruel and killed millions of people, and inflicted untold violence over the Hindu population for more than six centuries. Should they start pulling all these beautiful monuments, including Taj Mahal, down and start the clean slate all over. I do not believe it is a good idea. We must learn from history, not try to erase it.
The new rulers in Washington, and the Neo-Con Oligarchy who owns and runs the country are causing million times more death and destruction all over the World than those slave owning Founding Fathers did. And the Newspapers, Media, and the brainwashed masses – white, brown, and blacks – are cheering and supporting this carnage being inflicted on the Earth by these New Rulers.
Good words Realist. That group thing they do, Historical Anachronism, of the Civil War is strange. I’ve never been Down South. Not even to New Orleans. Doesn’t seems appealing to me. The film Easy Rider must have traumatized me.
An emotional but very illogical point of view. To take just one obvious set of figures: in 1860 the slave population of the USA was 3.9 million (there were also 500,000 free Blacks). This number is roughly comparable with the number of Jews said to have been killed in The Holocaust. Whether being enslaved for your whole life, and your children after you, is better, worse or about the same as being worked to death or gassed is another question.
Since WW2, the US government has been directly responsible for, at the very minimum, 10 million violent deaths of foreign civilians. Murders, strictly speaking. At least 3 million each in Korea and South-East Asia, and at least 3 million in Iraq, plus a very modest estimate of another 1 million for the dead of dozens of other countries the USA has attacked, illegally and without provocation.
The deaths of all those people are the responsibility of successive US administrations. It has beencorrectly observed that, under the Nuremberg rules, every US president since FDR should have been hanged, along with many of their staff and other accomplices.
It’s typical of psychopathic murderers to be foolishly sentimental. Concentration camp commandants went home in the evening to listen to their small children playing Bach and Brahms.
But really – getting all worked up over slavery, which formally ended over 150 years ago, with all those recent murders conveniently ignored, is taking things too far.
This site has certainly not ignored the murders in US foreign wars as you imply, and in fact rarely visits the slavery issue. Are you not asking that the wrongs of slavery and the Civil War be ignored as “sentimental” when these are very relevant to the present issue?
But that said, one cannot object to your greater concern with larger and more immediate wrongs.
The whole point here that is being ignored is that the civil war is an emotional issue for many. The historical facts have been consistently ignored or misrepresented and many have a completely false view of teh war. But you’ll get absolutely nowhere in this part of rural Virginia if you tell the descendants of confederate soldiers that their ancestors were despicable human beings who fought for slavery. They know better; their ancestors fought the invaders for freedom of themselves and their beloved state. That’s their story and they’re sticking to it. It’s called the ‘war of northern aggression’ for a reason after all. The only thing that surprises me is that the post-war mythology doesn’t include something about being stabbed in the back by an ethnic minority.
I agree with what Mr Parry has written but I don’t think reason and logic are going anywhere in this contretemps.
You practice ‘whataboutism’ on the big scale, don’t you?
It’s not ” taking things too far” to want this country to acknowledge and atone for (as opposed to adulating) it’s ‘original sins’ of genocide and slavery. Had it learned lessons from it’s past earlier, some of those other crimes might not have been committed.
I disagree – only with your last sentence. I think people getting all worked up over slavery, which is being practiced especially in the South by forced labor camps euphemistically called prisons, and apartheid conditions that ensure that “blacks” can only expect slave wages barely adequate for survival, is a very healthy sign for America. Pointing attention to the Middle Est or other US atrocities is detracting from the teachable moment that is happening for sleeping Americans due to the Nazi/Klan attack on Charlottesville, and the President’s shameful support of those fascist groups. Some intellectual commenters are ignoring the vibrant ferment in progress in America triggered by this ominous event.
Tom Welsh : yes, very well said.
The death of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville is an unfortunate event, and there will be hundreds of bouquets of flowers laid at the site in next few days. And there will be articles in the newspapers and magazines, and the media coverage of all this. But do the people here in the country know or care that more than 24,000 bombs have been dropped during the last six months in Syria and Iraq, and thousands of people including children have been killed in that carnage with cities reduced to rubble. And there is even a bigger carnage going on in Yemen right now. And this carnage had been going on for quite a while now, under Obama and before.
You can judge for yourself whether those white supremacists marching over there in Charlottesville are more dangerous or the Leaders and their cohorts who have been killing all those brown men. women, and children all over in ME, and elsewhere, and causing all this destruction and suffering. When people, especially those in power, come to feel for the human suffering whether it is here at home or some other place in the World, only then they will have the moral authority to criticize the actions of white supremacists. Otherwise they are nothing but bunch of hypocrites.
You know Dave you make a good point. I’m sure that there are many citizens of the world who do view our U.S. presence in their sovereign lands, as being representative of a totalitarian Nazi inspired occupation. Every U.S. Citizen ought to question to where our government has gone on to promote this PNAC/ Yinon plan our government leaders seem all too consumed with, and do everything in our power as good human beings to change this warring nature which has overwhelmed our U.S. Foreign Policy.
I find it more than ironic that just after I pointed out earlier today, commenting on a different article, that Robert had not authored any articles condemning racism, or misogyny – he now takes a belated half hearted swipe at it. Almost like Trump did on his 1st statement after Charlottesville.
I say half hearted because well let’s see. Robert describes T thus: little understanding, blindness, shock the conscience of any moral human being although apparently not President Trump.
Good grief – Robert can’t even spit it out – T is a full blown racist. 100%. White supremacist. His political advisors and AG are exactly the same. Chosen for those exact reasons. How pathetic that Robert now speaks of ‘shocking the conscience’ How incredibly pathetic. Birtherism didn’t shock you? Attacking US born judges of Hispanic descent didn’t shock you? My daughter is a ‘nice piece of a– didn’t shock you. Prosecution by DOJ for racial discrimination didn’t? $25 million in fraud didn’t?
Instead Robert veers off into this little history lesson for us uneducated. I have an idea for an article. How about giving us all a history lesson on the racist words and deeds our illustrious leader. Give us a rundown on the ‘man with a plan’ for white America. Now I realize that if you have been paying attention at all, if you have been alive the last 30-40 yrs this is not news. This has been very well documented. Forests have been cleared documenting this. He has been a degenerate person his whole life. That is not me being mean, nasty, opposed to T, whatever. It is a FACT. It has been a FACT. Nothing new here at all.
But T’s very core racist outlook, his core belief system, was and has been alibied, enabled, and massively supported. Meanwhile Robert and many others have conveniently said little, or nothing, or outright defended. And many continue.
And now Robert is ‘shocked’. How incredibly pathetic.
To now, finally, even halfheartedly, write that T ‘shocks the conscience’ says way more of the writer than the target.
Here is a real easy principle, a simple moral standard which would avoid Robert from being ‘shocked’ in the future.
Any person who is racist is automatically disqualified to hold a position in govt at any level. When a racist runs for office, campaigns to serve everyone, you as a decent minded moral ethical person yourself immediately disqualify them. That’s it. Bingo!
You are either for it or against. No gray area here. No ridiculous dishonest false equivalencies. There is no equivalency to racism and misogyny.
I give Robert Parry plenty of credit in trying to be as objective as possible and not hysterical and engaging in the hateful rhetoric you’re displaying.
Yes I do hate racism. I hate enablers of racism. I will call those who enable every chance I get.
You are once again the making excuses. CYA for Robert and others who did not denounce Trump the minute he announced his candidacy.
To write, or say, at this point in time a pathetic ridiculous statement about Trump like ‘shocks the conscience’ – quite frankly shocks the conscience of any person who is not racist. Not an enabler. This column should have been written the day Trump announced – and in much more starker and harsher words.
Are you shocked when a lion attacks a deer? Are you shocked when Neocons propose more wars?
Where was Robert, and you, and all the enablers and appeasers 2 years ago?
Please look in the mirror, and attack Trump and racism and mysogyny.
Instead of me – the person pointing out this abomination.
Mr. Parry has never been half-hearted about racism, but he has been rational, the only way to fight extremism. If anger is expressed angrily, as you are doing with Trump. no one is persuaded, and differences grow.
I agree that Trump does not deserve kid gloves treatment. Maybe it’s up to us free wheeling commenters to supply the vitriol and naked realism about Trump that Robert politely (wisely?) practices. I think he may be avoiding leaving incendiary quotes for his censorship loving detractors to shoot his site down with? Some of us have less concern about that, and more of a need to say what others are not saying.
Surely you have learned to use internet search engines, so you ought to use one of them for a search. Mr. Parry has written a great many articles about racism. Add to that the guest authors here, and the total may be more than on any other single topic.
This piece had a guest editor. The prose still sounds very much like Mr. Robert Parry.
From an outside perspective the statue that should really be torn down is The Statue of Liberty. Racially segregated Liberty (not for Mexians and Muslims) is indefensible. The Statue of Liberty is just an ugly decoy to hide the aggressive American War Machine that has rolled over the World these past decades, a Big Lie greeting the refugees from the Nations the US helps destroy. A bit more empathy and a little less primitive primate politics, eg a statue to remember the victims and untold suffering of war instead of glorifying the killers who caused the mess could help balance the discussion. This will however never happen in a Society built on genocide against the Native Indian population, racial conflict, greed and outdated Darwinist theory .
I salute your suggestion, as long as we put up in her place something better.
This must be a really sensitive thread, for a short post without a functioning link just got “moderated”.
You are not alone Zach. I got the same treatment. I think there is a screw loose in the moderation system.
Most Americans, like Obama himself, speak of America as an exceptional nation, an exceptional people, which places this country and it’s people above others on a global level. Americans in general don’t own up to the fact that this mindset has been used to justify wars, exploit people globally, overturn elected governments, which has cost the lives of millions, and is all profit driven. In a broader context the antebellum South is US. So, I really can’t get that upset about Trump’s lack of sensitivity, or that it might imply he is insensitive to the horrors of slavery, when I’m living in a country that tries to enslave much of the world if there is a profit to be made.
Annie, very well said. i agree with you completely. Also, Obama loved being admired by the Whites in Europe, especially women. He loved their attention. He did not do one good thing for Africa except put some more bases there to enslave them again. It is good to start cleaning up things right at hand in the present. It will be much more useful than cleaning up the distance past.
I bet if Trump starts a war with Russia tomorrow in Ukraine or gives an order to march into Syria with troops and tanks, these very people who are denouncing him now will be cheering for his decisive leadership and presidential qualities, and all that. And Trump might do just that.
I am not a supporter of Trump, but nonetheless what is very disturbing is the ongoing attempt to undo Trump’s election. A coup. What is equally disturbing is that all through the Obama years many who are so vocal now, were deafeningly silent during his presidency. In their attacks on Trump even recent history plays no role in their assessment of things. They maintain a narrow minded focus, Trump must go! You referenced UKraine where under the Obama administration the ultra right and pro Nazi sympathizers were used to unseat a democratically elected president. No outrage among his supporters, or the mainstream media, nor was there any realization, or concern that during his administration the cold war truly got underway. Of course Thrump would be applauded by government and non government officials and the multiple groups that influence them to continue our aggressive behavior in this world, and all to the benefit of a very few.
I agree with you Annie. But there are degrees of white racist stupidity among us. Do we really need a president so deep in this dangerous state of racial delusion? Let’s not let the Donald off the hook just because “well, we are all guilty after all.” We need a President who is at least one notch above the common American racist.
I don’t believe that the the”deplorables” he courted during his campaign were white supremacists, but mostly ordinary white folk, from the north and south who live from paycheck to paycheck in a country who cares little about them. Yes he is careless with his words, but the country for centuries has been quite careless about the well being of it’s citizenry.
Annie, I agree with you.
Annie, I agree with you somewhat. I do not believe he campaigned to just ordinary “white folk”. I believe he campaigned to ordinary “folk”. He campaigned in black communities. Went to black churches. Invited black community leaders to discuss issues relating to the black community. Oh but the outrage was geared at every mis step. He was and is not a polished politician. Perhaps that may have appealed to some. It did for me. This PC culture with its microagresssions and redefinition of terms such as Cisgender-why is this happening? Is there a longer game at play here? Is the vitriol shown to POTUS (mind you only since he declared his candidacy) a means to a more important agenda? Since when did these statues become that important? I find the pictures used I this article much more disturbing. Where was this outrage when BHO was president? And before then? It seems to me the media is attempting to inflate this incident into more than what it was. Counter protestors? They came with masks and weapons. Seems to me however only one side of this story is being told. It also seems mighty conspicuous that every news outlet seemed to be waiting for something to happen. Do you find this odd? Perhaps we are getting force fed a perspective that may or may not represent the truth. As an AA I never felt “rage” because of an inanimate object – this seems contrived. I’ve never thought the statues dimished any accomplishments of blacks in the US. I’ve also never thought “white people” look at the statutes in awe and reminisce about “the good old days”. So I Ask myself, how can one man have such an influence on dividing this country over the past 8 months? Truth is he cannot. I, dare I say, think this is all a distraction. From what Truth it detracts from I am not certain. I’m not the sharpest tool in the toolbox, but this outrage sure feels manufactured to me. (Please forgive typos etc. typing from cell and Siri hates me).
Occasional lurker – “I’m not the sharpest tool in the toolbox.” You could have fooled me because I thought your post was excellent.
The Native Americans said the White Man is crazy, and they were right. This country has descended into madness. Whom the Gods would destroy they first drive mad.
Exactly. Planet earth is preparing our extinction, and we prepare to re-fight the Civil War. Madness.
If only the insane of our culture (all of us) would diagnose themselves honestly, they would be on the road to recovery. Fat chance. The problem is that chronic hubris blinds it’s sufferers to their condition, and they take their worst symptoms as signs of personal excellence. D. Trump can serve as an outstanding example of this for all of us.
Mr. Parry, this is from memory but it is a clear recollection of mine that the primary target of the executions was the White Union Officers who commanded the Black Soldiers. Lots of wink-and-nod stuff went on, for this wasn’t something you wanted on paper for discovery later in the event of a Confederate war loss. Or maybe not for retelling in the event of a Confederate war victory. Murdering the Black Union Soldiers certainly happened, but I don’t recall that being as desirable as killing their captured officers. In the end the technique seems to have been to take the officers out of sight of everybody, execute them, then declare they’d tried to escape. I’d have to research this again to be sure, but that’s how I remember the story.
Where should I start? Nixon did not turn the South away from the Democrats. look at the Electoral Maps. It was Kennedy and Johnson who betrayed their Southern Constituents by advancing the Civil Rights Act that alienated the South. The South elected Kennedy and Johnson. . L.B.Johnson was originally elected as a Segregationist in Texas and his boys didn’t steal the election in Texas in 1960 to be betrayed in the manner in which they were and he would never have stood a rat’s chance of being re-elected in 1968 because of it. This is a fact, ignoring this fact is historical revisionism . The Kennedy and Johnson Administration turned the South Republican it wasn’t Nixon. That is putting the cart before the horse. Now let’s talk Genocide. Jefferson may have stated that all humans should be treated equally ( And by the way I have read that Jefferson fathered dozens of illegitimate ‘half breeds ‘ and had several black mistresses) under the Law but wasn’t it Marshall Field, the Supreme Court Justice who ruled that Law under the Constitution also should apply to American Indians. This led directly to the Andrew Jackson and people like Custer launching into an extralegal eradication campaign. Black Slaves had value but we Americans should always remember the historic American Axiom that , ‘The only Good Indian is a Dead Indian’. Indians had none and they were hunted like animals and murdered everywhere in this nation including California. That is even more disgraceful than slavery in terms of our nations history. This seems to have disappeared from our nation’s hip hop consciousness . It’s dated and irrelevant like Chief Thunderthud and “Kowabunga” from The Howdy-Doody Show. In a similar vein, many if not most, of the white indentured servants who were shipped to this nation because they were poor and in debt and were sold to repay their creditors didn’t lived long enough to be released from the terms of their servitude. Summary: History, all human history , displays a single constant and that is man’s inhumanity to man. Confederate statues are just that, statues from the past. Statutes or busts of Caligula or paintings of Hitler should be destroyed because history has judged them? It’s a good thing they didn’t win I guess. I think,,, nobody alive is responsible for what happened a couple centuries ago. I do not believe I bare a responsibility to descendants of Black Slaves ipso facto anymore than I should have to give tax money to Israel because of Hitler in Germany or that I was born with Original Sin because Romans crucified Jesus Christ at the behest of the Jewish Sanhedrin. Maybe it’s a little off point to write that Mao once said ” Communism is a 1000 years away on this planet”. What I’m getting at is we have bigger fish to fry and should deal with the matters at hand like Global Warming, etc. that laying all blame at the feet of Trump for past Human inadequacies. It’s beer ; thirty. Peace.
Well put, you deserve that beer.
If they’re in American Public Places, the answer is a most emphatic “yes”. I would personally set up a “balance” sheet – did the life of a particular person leave the nation in a better or worse overall condition? Hold a debate on the “iffy” folks, then have an up/down vote in the Congress/Legislature/Town Council on that person after some set period for public discussion. Maybe a year later.
I’d give a “thumbs down” on Jefferson, and several others, but wouldn’t whine if I lost. Nobody keeps $2 bills anymore, and the man is overdue to be taken off the 5 cent coin. (although I’ve been known to say Jefferson is already off the nickel) Christopher Columbus and Andrew Jackson are beyond the pale with me. I’d continue to agitate about their getting any kind of respectful treatment and would try hard to get a new vote.
“A better or worse overall condition” for who ?
Are you factoring in the Native Americans ?
You “factor in” everything during the discussions leading up to a vote. There may be jurisdictions which remove statues of Washington. That’s their call.
“where should I start?” Start with a new name for DC, and a state that bears a slave owners name. Then and only then can I/you/we/have peace. Enjoy your beer, hope it’s not a Coors. Cheers to your voice of sanity.
it’s not ‘just’ slavery and the war to spread and perpetuate it, lost by the south. it’s the genocide of the aboriginal population of the continent. when ‘the west was won’ imperialiam began in earnest … muscular christianity, as teddy would say … the conquest of cuba, hawaii, the philippines. and it’s just gone on from there. hiroshima, nagasaki, korea, indonesia, south and central america, vietnam, lao, cambodia, iran, afghanistan, iraq, lybia, syria, ukraine …. our usa is bad to the bone.
if we cannot face up to our history, we cannot control our future. those of us alive today have, for the most part, not been the authors of those crimes. we need not take on some mystical personal burden of guilt for them. but if we cannot accept our nation’s criminal past and use the knowledge of our own history to put right our future … then will come the time for our tears.
I find the U.S. Guano Island Act of 1856 to be very telling to the U.S. Hegemony mindset, that this country had developed, and the reason we are all struggling to understand to just why it means so much to the U.S. Government to dominate as it appears it does. Not to push blame on our Forefathers, but uprooting and ravishing whole societies, does seem to be in our American DNA. What we could do, as America becomes more integrated and respectful to minority’s, is change the assumption of rightful ownership, and return as much as we can to the indigenous from where we took it. Remember, united we stand, divided we fall.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano_Islands_Act
Very well said. Let us put right our future, recognizing and eliminating the the corruption by money of government, mass media, elections, public debate, and even public morality. The historical meaning of our lives depends upon our achieving that.
Amen. Exactly right, and beautifully expressed.
The greatest genocide in history was that of the Native Americans, in Mexico, the Caribbean, North and South America. The estimate for the number of victims was well in excess of 100 million. The Transatlantic Slave Trade involved another 20-30 million. The Jewish Holocaust of the 1940s was fairly small scale by comparison. Every country has got a few genocide skeletons rattling in the closet. Even tiny Belgium, with its Heart of Darkness. In 20 years of rule in the Belgian Congo, 1891 – 1911, they killed 10 million. Italy slaughtered half the population of Libya in the 1920s/ 30s. France committed genocide in Algeria. Germany committed genocide in Tanzania and Namibia. Britain committed genocide in Australia against the aborigines, who were hunted down and shot for sport like rabbits with women holding picnics to watch the fun. The Turks and the Armenians. The Japanese in China in the 1930s. The Mongols in the 13th century, rampaging across Asia and Europe, slaughtering all before them. Or going further back in history, the Romans in Gaul, who massacred and enslaved 5 million, having done the same in Carthage and going on to do the same in Dacia. We should recognise the past for what it was, a bloodbath. Only then can we stop the similar horrors that are in the planning stage for our currnt rulers..
It would be far more presidential to conciliate the young men of the South who feel emasculated by its Civil War loss, by simply acknowledging that, while slavery was plainly wrong, the fault for the war lay on both sides.
1. The southern slaveowners could not unilaterally pay farmworker wages and add that to the price;
2. A federal program of slave product taxes and wage subsidies, and assistance to former slaves, was essential;
3. Neither the North nor the South ever discussed such essential programs; both retreated into self-righteousness;
4. The Constitution provides for just compensation upon taking of private property, so emancipation was a legal matter;
5. The Supreme Court could have decided that Dred Scott was free but that the liberating state owed the consequent damages;
Citizens need to understand the legitimate concerns of both North and South, why these were not considered, and how conflict could have been avoided. The conflict was caused by a general lack of recognition of the needs of the other parties, which would have led to the major programs needed for a smooth emancipation. That was due to a Congress consisting of regional demagogues rather than statesmen, caused by the gradual passing of the founders and with them the spirit of reconciliation of regional differences. Perhaps that was due after 1815 to the lost sense that unity for common defense was essential. Compromises were sought rather than solutions, in part because the solutions required unprecedented federal powers and agencies of unprecedented size. They were “unthinkable” in 1810-1860 even though essential to avoid the unthinkable war, and this lack of thinking caused the war.
The lesson is that Congress simply doesn’t work as the primary means of policy debate. We need an independent college of policy analysis, to textually debate all policy matters among thousands of experts in all disciplines and regions, preserving all points of view, and not forcing any consensus. It must produce debate summaries commented by all sides, available to the public and to Congress.with automatic quizzes and proficiency scores. Only such broader processes can properly inform congressional debate.
The president must express the interests of conflicting parties and regions so that all are respected, all problems are understood, and necessary efforts are made, In such a context, the principles of human rights can be agreed by everyone, and the prejudice of the few cannot command respect and will gradually disappear.
I doubt if this is true, but in any case it is (in my opinon) not a bit relevant. It has been my understanding the big money was in what I’m going to call the “Slave Bubble”. Like with all other economic bubbles you need to keep expanding. Expanding into the western territories. Expanding into South and Central America. And Justice Taney was (again in my opinion) going to throw out the northern laws forbidding slavery .
Look at what has happened to US manufacturing when factories went first to Mexico, then to China. American workers simply cannot compete and maintain any kind of decent standard of living.
It’s my opinion the citizens in the north understood what would happen to them if Taney got what he was aiming for. They would be totally screwed – how can you compete against workers who had no rights at all and had no wages whatever. This is as valid now as it was back then – why are Trump supporters against open borders? On the other hand, why are Hillary types for them? The Hillary voters tend to be more prosperous and don’t see a flood off migrants as a threat to THEM. Unfortunately, they’re also suckers for a slick corporate line about Human Rights. Big Corporations value cheap and fearful workers above all else.
Getting back to the Civil War, the textile workers in Great Britain were staunch Union supporters despite their suffering from the Cotton Drought. They knew full well that bad as conditions were for them in the dangerous factories, it would be worse if they had to compete against slave labor. There would be about as many British textile workers as there are now automobile workers in Detroit.
So I suppose I must disagree with most if not all of your suppositions.
I think we are looking at two sides of the same problem. Generally I agree with your observations.
1. The northern workers were not threatened by slave labor because it was outlawed in the North;
2. Northern industry other than farming did not move West, and westward migrants from the North went to free states.
3. The slave economy moved westward mostly for fertile land; it did not require market expansion like a financial bubble. The cotton market would have expanded to meet demand with wage labor if required, after a bump in the transition to wage-labor cotton pricing.
But plantations paying wage labor could not sell cotton in competition with slave cotton prices. So they needed a program to boost the price to cover wages.
Regarding point 1, Justice Taney almost had an opportunity to change that.
h**ps://civilwartalk.com/threads/lemmon-vs-new-york-taney-court-ruling.13808/
Lemmon vs the people of New York was almost to the Supreme Court when the Civil War broke out, and there were many people expecting Taney and his buddies to massively expand Dred Scott when he had the chance.
Book: The Dred Scott Case: Fehrenbacher p445.
“It does in fact seem very likely that a majority of the Taney Court Justices would have rendered a proslavery decision if they had gotten their hands on on the case.”
People in the north were worried about this and many more things. They were really paying attention to what was going on in the South. I was surprised to find in the 1860 Republican Platform mention of reopening of the African Slave Trade. The fire-eaters in the South wanted this to happen, and the northerners noticed. It wasn’t something the Rich Slave Breeders in the South wanted, and so that wasn’t enacted even after the Civil War began, but the Northerners didn’t understand that kind of detail. That it was under discussion at all was enough to spook them. Ditto for Taney invalidating Northern Slave Laws. IMO this was a much more valid threat.
Regarding your point 3, negro slaves were already doing factory and other technical work in the South. They could have done it equally well in the North. Moving slaves from agriculture into industry was already happening, and I believe this was threatening to the Northern workers.
lincoln did not abolish slavery in the north. read your history. he only “did it on paper” for the south.
Nor did I say that.
sam f.
your quote….”The northern workers were not threatened by slave labor because it was outlawed in the North;”
seems like you did say it.
Slavery was indeed outlawed in the North, though discrimination against the Free Blacks was hardly less bad than in the South.
Taney, the SOB Supreme Court Justice, was intent on “fixing” the situation for all time. I and a lot of others believe he meant to invalidate the Northern laws. The Supreme Court can throw out state laws, you know.
semantical error….i now see you were speaking of “strictly” northern states. i was speaking of the “north” as in the war between the north and the south.
there were slave states in the “union”. lincoln’s emancipation was only for the confederate states some of which are also not generally referred to as “the south” in the same way you were speaking.
i think we can sort of agree that we were both right and both wrong here. i hope you see my point now.
I’m all for a independent college of policy analysis Sam, but I would only hope that such an institution would be isolated away from the government bribe system. I might add, that over the years at times the GAO had recommendations for various projects, and as sound and reassuring these GAO assessments were, our congress and executive branchs just simply ignored the GAO advice. So I think, why does our government even have such an entity if they are not going to use it. I’m not attempting to rain on your parade Sam, I like the independent college of policy analysis idea, but how do you keep such a thing clean and pristine in such a dirty slimy creature infested swamp, to accomplish such a safeguard it is mind boggling to say the least…but, yeah let’s do it.
Very good points: thanks, Joe. The ignoring of good advice by policymakers will certainly be a problems at times, so the policy college is only part of the solution. Congress (and the executive and judicial branches) must still be purged and monitored for corruption, and we still need amendments to restrict funding of mass media and elections to limited individual contributions.
Corruption of the college administration is a real issue, as the motives and means are plentiful. A culture of dedication to truth is necessary, as are monitoring of finances and oaths of contacts, allegiances, obligations, memberships, and financial promises. Then the use of rotating responsibilities, group decisions, and group measures of individual bias are needed. An administrator with major bias would be removed, whereas a debater would simply be sorted where he/she belongs.
Within the debate management, a process of declaring and voting on the apparent policy positions and bias of individuals may be used to qualify participants and moderators, and to balance teams. A simpler process can select and review moderators of the public access section, which allows the public to read and study the commented debate summaries and take quizzes if desired. So I hope to identify and remove or sort biased participants.
Sam, remember there was a time when ‘the Bill of Rights’ & ‘the US Constitution’ were but somebody’s dream, so don’t lose faith in your idea, and suggestions. Hey, maybe squeeze in a ‘part time legislature’ to boot.
That’s a very interesting idea. A model legislature picked to represent each state according to polls of its citizens, but composed of well informed and impartial representatives from the college, considering overall national and international interests. That would separate the process of reaching a consensus from the debate process. Keeping that assembly otherwise de-politicized would be an interesting design process.
Sam, you are looking at past history and asking “why can’t folks be rational, and just get along” (echoes of Rodney King).
We do not base our group behavior primarily on rationality, never have, and don’t now, and probably will not into the foreseeable future. We have to deal with the mostly irrational emotion based mayhem that was the civil war (with all the elaborate post event analyses trying to explain it in rational terms) as it happened.
My point is what Freud’s nephew expounded, men are not primarily rational actors, but respond on unconscious emotional bases to the events around them. You can best change their behavior by addressing these unconscious emotional currents within them. Racism is not a rational affair. Recognizing this, we need to use people’s positive emotional biases by shaping a narrative of history of the past and present that moves them to more positive and constructive behaviors. You can call this manipulation if you will, but this has been the method of great orators, Hitler and Gandhi alike, to move people in a given direction. Often our profound intellectual analyses on sites like CN go totally over the heads of those we seek to change, missing the emotional marks we should be hitting by a mile or more.
We need to be more like MLK, and less like Emanuel Kant.
Agreed, the public will not soon be quite rational because most are still learning and many are misled; and many forms of education are needed to address these “unconscious emotional currents” including “shaping a narrative of history” so long as that is instructional and results from and leads to understanding of the more complex underlying truths.
The arts and their display are a major part of the narrative of moral education. For those reasons I suggest major reforms of mass media. A college of policy analysis can only appeal to those seeking truth quite actively, who can reference its debates in broader appeals to reason. It can also support comment boards for interpersonal debate.
Also agree that oratory and political activism are more powerful influences upon much greater numbers. A populist politician would be assisted by reference to accessible debate summaries to ground policy positions and deflect unsupported views.
People from the south were fighting to defend their communities against a tyrannical Washington elite who couldn’t give a rat’s arse about slavery or black people, any more than Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Blair were fighting to promote “democracy” and “human rights.” The war had very little to do with anything noble like abolishing slavery. This was at best an unintended by product of a war of aggression. Wars are fought for land, resources, power. Nobody ever fought a war for human rights. If they did, we’d all be bombing Saudi Arabia or Israel right now. The south wanted free trade, the north tariffs. The war was fought for this and similar reasons.
R.E. Lee strongly opposed slavery, like Stonewall Jackson, but refused the command of the Union Army when Lincoln offered it to him because he couldn’t bring himself to fight against his own state. He had to take charge of his family’s finances earlier in his life, and pay off extensive debts that had been run up, following a death in his family. As soon as this had been done, he freed the 3 slaves from the family estate and provided for them financially. By the standards of his time, he was a liberal, and mixed with black people who attended his church. During the war he showed superb leadership, courage and resilience in fighting against impossible odds. He worked miracles with limited resources, like at Chancellorsville in May 1863 when he smashed a Union Army of 130,000 with his army of 60,000. He worked hard for reconciliation after the war. He is one of the outstanding figures of US history.
Maybe the statues of all DWEMs/ dead white European males should be taken down. They were all white, so they must be guilty. Even if they weren’t racist, they were probably sexist or homophobic anyway. Best make a clean sweep. Best be on the safe side. Washington owned 300 slaves and had a slave concubine. Better find new names for Washington DC and Washington State pronto. And find someone else’s face to put on the dollar bill. James Madison only owned 100 slaves, but best find another name for Madison Avenue fast. When you throw in all the other slave owners like Thomas Jefferson the iconoclasts are going to be working overtime. Better take a few hammers along to Mount Rushmore and get rid of the statues there. Toss in people like Andrew Jackson, who went in for a spot of ethnic cleansing against the Redskins. As did about every other president until the Injuns were more or less finally wiped out around 1890. No statues to anybody should be allowed unless they have been certified as anti racist, anti sexist and anti homophobic by a special committee. J.F. Kennedy was pretty sexist towards women. Best find another name for the Kennedy Space Centre. And don’t even mention the J. Edgar Hoover building.
Across the pond, we’d better get Winston Churchill’s statue out of the Houses of Parliament. He was a notorious imperialist and racist who called Arabs and moslems camel dung eaters and was years ahead of Saddam Hussein in bombing Iraqis with poison gas. Charles Darwin wrote a book called “The Origin of Species or The Superiority of the White Race.” So all copies of his book need to be burnt (probably ecologically incorrect) or at least shredded and recycled forthwith. Also, his head needs to be removed from the English £10 note and replaced, like Washington and the dollar bill.
If we got cracking and devoted enough resources to the problem, we could get rid of all the DWEMS and sanitise our history in a few years. Erect new statues, find new street/ city/ state names, and print off new currency with impeccably politically correct figures.
But this can’t be limited to just these areas. A US school called the Lynch Secondary School has been renamed to avoid any association with the rather unfortunate practice of bumping off black people in the past by stringing them up. The school was originally so named after the man who donated the land to build it on. So anyone with that surname will be required to change their name to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings, like Loretta Lynch, Clinton’s (black) attorney general.
I don’t know if we need to widen the net further. Julius Caesar bragged about killing or enslaving 5 million Gauls, so maybe we need to scour Rome for classical statues that need this treatment. Perhaps central Asians need to display some contrition for the somewhat bloodthirsty antics of their ancestor Genghis Khan. Perhaps we need to find another name for Mongolia. The Ottomans went in for a spot of slavery themselves (2 million or so western Europeans and one or two black Africans as well) so I don’t know if there are any statues of Suleiman the Magnificent that need to be pulled down. But with a bit of imagination I’m sure this can all be sorted out.
Let’s get beavering away. Get all these racist statues torn down NOW. Change all sexist street names. Get rid of all homophobic town/ city/ state names straightaway. Let’s get on it.
I found that a clarion call. Sign me up. That’s what America should do, full court press expose the CONplete ridiculousness of this. Guess I’m a racist, The idea that any of this name changing, icon destroying will change anything is wrong headed IMO. Attacking symptoms while ignoring causes, is like constantly pumping air into a tire with a hole. A whole lot of people are gorging on yellow cake from Nigeria and it’s not healthy. Obviously makes them ‘feel’ good, too bad they don’t realize they are still in the same place and not any better for it.
It may be that when three clansmen get together two of them are from the FBI.
“Gorging on Yellowcake” is an apt description !
This frenzy does seem to have elements of Ray Bradbury’s classic short story “Fahrenheit 451” to it.
“I’m a racist”
I tried to tell you.
Ave you always misquoted people to drive your beliefs postulated as truth’s? bobs?
But whatabout?….&whatabout?…..&howabout?
Lee was a particularly cruel slaveowner who tried to renege on his promise to free his slaves. He was also traitor and war criminal who should have been executed after the war along with Jefferson Davis, Nathan Bedford Forrest, et al.
He additionally an overrated military tactician & strategist who had the good fortune to have George McLellan as an adversary.
What do you suggest we rename the Mississippi river bobs? I mean my lord friends it’s named after a state that had slave owners. At the very least it should be straitened out. What about DC? And OH Noooooooo a whole state named after a slave owner. By a lot of accounts he wasn’t very nice either. Maybe racism is a no go for you but genocide …..Idindonufin
You make some points but the Civil War was inevitable. The Dred Scott decision bought a little time but when the first Republican President , Lincoln, was elected , the fight was on. The different rules for the North and the South had to be straightened out. “Now we are engaged in a great Civil War testing whether that nation or any other nation so conceived can long endure”…,, Either a Confederacy or a Union and the North was stronger. Lincoln was not DC elite . There was no Beltway like there is today and if someone challenged Lincoln personally the way politicians are challenged and slandered today he would have kicked there ass. He was by all accounts a man of integrity and a large man with freakish strength who enjoyed brawling and exerting his physical dominance .I agree about the creeping institutionalization of Political Correctness. It seems whitey is to blame and this must be made obvious as our nation goes through a huge demographic shift.. Things always change. This nation will not stay unchallenged as leader of the world for long. Our reign will be much shorter than Britain’s Interestingly enough we are faced with challenges from China, Persia, Russia, cultures that are older than ours and have strong racial identities. Ancient countries like Turkey and Germany will still have their identities intact when we lose ours. Maybe we already have. I suggest an IPA and a pizza or something equivalently distracting. . Things are already much farther along than we should admit except in private company.
Germany will disappear within a generation. Thanks to Mama Merkel (2 million muzzie rapefugees in 2015) there are now almost as many 3rd World immigrant males aged 18-34 in Germany as there are Germans. Germany won’t retain its identity. It will be a 3rd World cesspit with Sharia law. Sweden (200,000 rapefugees in 2015 in a population of 9 million) is now the rape capital of the world thanks to muzzie cultural enrichment. It is just an archipelago of scores of ever expanding No Go Areas the police have given up even trying to control. Swedish women had better check out the latest fashions in burkas. France is even further down the line. Paris is just one big 3rd World slum. Ditto Denmark. Ditto Norway. Ditto Finland. Ditto Belgium. Ditto Austria. Cities like Brussels and Malmo are already over 25% muzzie. London is now officially less than 45% white. All white countries have to be diversified. All white countries. Only white countries. European countries are being destroyed through uncontrolled mass 3rd World immigration. They are being transformed into 3rd World sewers ruled by Sharia law. This is all deliberate policy. Sarkozy said the most important thing he wanted to bring about was complete miscegenation. His friend Levy wants to bring in 2 million black Africans a year. Spectre in Sweden is agitating to do the same there.
F Germany . My father used to say about Germans, like my mother when they were arguing, , “Play a march and they start doing the goosestep”. OK got me there. The EU has been great fro Europe hasn’t it?
The US is now undergoing a cleansing process to remove Confederate symbols. So far it has been statues and also tombstones. A lot of anger is going around. Where does the process end and where is the line drawn? Who decides what is politically correct? Polls show that the majority of people in the US don’t support removing the statues. Does that make them racist neo-Nazis? No it does not.
No line. Get rid of all of it. Germany survives without statues of Nazi’s. Black citizens should not have to be constantly reminded of how little they have been value in our history and white citizens should not be led to believe that racism is ok because these people are publically honored.
Should the books be burned too?
Poles showed that Hillary Clinton would be the one sworn in January 20 of this year. I believed it myself, and never met a single person who thought otherwise. The numbers of authors on the Internet Tubes who predicted a Hillary Victory can surely be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Point is, polls aren’t always useful. People lie to the people asking questions if they feel it’s desirable. Pollsters can finagle their numbers if they want, or fiddle with the nature of the people to whom they’ll ask their questions. The famous 1936 prediction of a big win for Alf Landon was based on a poll of Well-off People who subscribed to a pricey magazine when nobody else had any money. Landon by a landslide – not!
I had a relative frothing at the mouth about the statues because as a strict viewer of Fox News, he had no idea about what was really going on. After a brief explanation, he subsided. That’s another problem with Polls – badly informed citizens. That’s because Big Media treats us like mushroom growers do their crop – “keep ’em in the dark and feed ’em horse****”
Anyone would think from reading ‘Bill’s” comment that taking down the statue of the vain, alcoholic and general asshole Lee, was a central government imposed decision when it is quite clearly the wish of the citizens of Charlottesville as enacted by their representatives. While I might have my doubts that at least some of those citizens are racists who prefer to keep their lack of mental hygiene concealed, the busing in of redneck thugs from across amerika was hypocrisy at its worst If Lee was indeed butchering blackfellas because he believed it was in the interest of ‘states rights’ WTF are these outsiders doing when they try to impose their twisted POV on the local democratic process?
I think under the segregated mindset of their time when these statues were so enthusiastically erected as a racist statement, their fate was only a matter of time until the karma would circle around to demand their destruction. Garbage in, is garbage out. Those confederate statues weren’t put up under any compromise towards equality, such as for every Robert E Lee & Stonewall Jackson there would be an equal amount of Frederick Douglass or Booker T Washington statues to take their respective place, was like even a qualifier. No, it was racism boosting of it’s superiority to the town lessor who had no savings so much, as to establish any thing so artistically close as a suitable rival. These statues of their day, were reminders to the lower classes to remember who’s the boss.
Another thing, if we are too have statues, why not craft together memorials of other great people of history, other than just military? If it is a soldier, my favorite are the unknown soldier/sailor statues…just say’n.
Joe, I always respect your wise comments. But the issues and these so called White Supermacists problems are way more deeper than just removing these statues. There is a very good article in today’s Counterpunch by Ajamu Baraka on this issue.
The link is :
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/17/the-story-of-charlottesville-was-written-in-blood-in-the-ukraine/
My comment is awaiting moderation for some time now. So, I will post it again.
Joe, I always respect your wise comments. But the issues and these so called White Supermacists problems are way more deeper than just removing these statues. There is a very good article in today’s Counterpunch by Ajamu Baraka on this issue.
The link is :
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/17/the-story-of-charlottesville-was-written-in-blood-in-the-ukraine/
I realize that, and I read the Ajamu Baraja article earlier. And thanks.
Without going to deep, one of the aspects of this multiplexing White male problem in my view, and from what I’m still learning, is these guys feel left out. What I think I’m hearing, is that the white male revolution is basically a revolution against being rolled over on by raising minority’s. Dave I’m still kind of still learning from what all is starting to come out on this subject, so my comments are no doubt trite sounding.
I do find it interesting thought, that for all of what these bigotry and hate filled segregated seeking white power men are known to be, that we even entertain the thought to allow them to march down our main streets advocating for their cause. I know that’s probably not right I feel this way, but in my head it does just seem redundant if nothing more to petition for something that hopefully could never be, but no one ever thought samesex marriage would be legal, so no harm in trying..I guess. I hate violence.
See ya down the road Dave Joe
Barak’s article is right to point out the deep endemic white racism underlying our society. However, paradoxically his saying the Nazi/Klan attack is a distraction from the real problem operates as a distraction from dealing with the immediate problems emanating from that group and it’s open endorsement by our President. Also in saying that Donald Trump alone is not responsible for the long pervasive history of racism in America, he is stating the obvious, but this in no way excuses our having a racist supporting President at this crucial time in our history. In addition his confused final paragraph offers no viable solutions to the endemic racism we face.
TO “MIKE K”:
Your points on Barak’s article in COUNTERPUNCH are well taken.
To get deeper, James Foreman Jr.’s book which I mentioned before,
LOCKING UP OUR OWN, not only provides the context (mostly
state and local rather than national).
After reading the final pages, I looked back over my own experiences.
No, I was never a “public defender” and the law was not my beat.
In my early twenties I got a position with a part of the anti-poverty
program called “The Neighborhood Youth Corps” (unsure of the correct
name after all these years!). As a social worker (unlicensed…social
work licenses were not in use then) I supervised 55 out-of-work
teens placed in 5 settlement houses in the Southeast
Bronx (NYC). I was promoted to “supervisor” for a brief period prior
to the program’s defunding.
.
As in the SE Bronx, giving opportunities to kids who have
been in jail is extremely unpopular. The Neighborhood Youth Corps
was one of the first parts of the so-called “war” on poverty to be
discontinued.
I well recall running around all of New York City trying desperately
to find new placements for kids who had been in jail and who
made the upper- class execs of the settlement houses “uncomfortable.”
I particularly remember one kid who was so much like the last
client described by Foreman, “Dante” (not his real name), for
whom Foreman said he became a social worker.
My kid like Dante loved carpentry, working with his hands.
I found a place for him in a workshop out of the SE Bronx.
I cannot report that I changed the world or even his life.
I felt that I had given him what I could. He was happy
in his new place.The guy who ran the workshop(of Italian
ancestry) was a master and loved kids.
More generally, Foreman Jr’s descriptions of variations
within the black community and for those affected in
(parts of) the black community are more than believable.
(Is the black commjunity itself responsible for much of the
mass incarceration of their own?)
Many of us with privilege (white or black) know the
difficulties of making something out of nothing
in this life.
—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
It would be wonderful to match a statue of one or more prominent African Americans to every statue of confederate leaders, designed to point out the historic limitations of perspective.
What if we put a statue of Fred Hampton next to Robert E. Lee? That’s part of American history, isn’t it?
Thanks for your truth telling about Thomas Jefferson Mr. Parry. The bigger the lie, the more people exert themselves to defend it. Our Founding Fathers indeed. The truth is precious no matter how tightly and with what vehemence people defend their lies. Our President is a liar and a racist and a lover of fascism. Until Americans begin to seek the truth, no matter how shocking it turns out to be to their cherished illusions, our national life will proceed on a issue of lies, and we will have to face the consequences for having abandoned the truth. Those who have learned to lie about everything are capable of the most atrocious evil, and relabel it as good. For an example look at our vicious inhuman wars, that are then glorified.
You are 100% mike, before we may go forward we Americans must face the consequences of our country’s pass, and rectify that to better ourselves as a fair and equatable people.
THE LESSONS OF HISTORY
I am amazed at the number of historians expressing their views.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am white (or if you prefer “pink”). Neither I,
my little sister, nor a relative was murdered. None of us were
commanded to “assume position” by (black) police. No one
was raped. And on and on. (Note males are also raped, something
quite forgotten, by most.)
Agreed that there are many persons of color today who
while not sharing my color also have lived without
constant bloodshed in their lives, without continued
threats….
Yet, while we have these “discussions” about history
important as they may be, such gruesome lives are
everyday stuff for millions. (They also obtain
for others in other places in the world. The US is
not unique.)
These well-informed comments about history are
interesting. They do not even begin to change the
realities for what goes on in our
ojur midst every day. Today, tomorrow and…
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
I love reading Consortium News for the different perspective it brings. Never forget that history belongs to the victor. It was the Union side that made slavery an issue for propaganda purposes. What they really wanted was control. The Confederates fought for independence over a range of issues. They would have abolished slavery soon enough because that’s the way the world was going. If anything, the Union victory slowed down real emancipation because it took away ownership of the problem from the South. Lee was considered an honorable general even by the Unionists and to now conflate the existence of his statue with white supremacy is indeed warping history. I salute Trump for daring to have a contrary opinion.
You really can’t handle the truth, can you Mr. Wright?
Actual truth must be demonstrable to all as such. Fact’s are, yours isn’t so it ain’t. Sorry.
Good Lord, but you need to find some actual history books not written by the KKK types. As Mr. Parry said, the textbooks in the US had been completely taken over by the Glorious Lost Cause types. It’s rather like today with climate change or evolution, if you plan to sell a school book in Texas, it better meet the expectations of the school board peckerheads there.
I’m not going to claim you’re guilty of mendacity here, for the odds are extremely high you actually believe this nonsense. I’m now going to repost part of what I wrote on another site a good while back. This is easier for me than replicating the links.
The South had no intention of abolishing slavery – ever. Theirs was a “holy cause” according to Jefferson Davis. Subhuman black slaves were a ‘white man’s burden’ – they had to be continually nurtured and cared for because they WERE childish subhumans.
I had to leave that site because there was no point in my staying. The site owner was a true believer, and also getting up in years. If he ever gets educated about the causes of the Civil War it’ll be somebody other than myself who will be breaking the bad news to him.
He was a particularly cruel slaveowner, a traitor to this country, and a war criminal (familiarize yourself with his treatment of black Union POW’s) who should have been executed, the same as most of the Confederate civilian and military leadership.
I think that more was needed than time for the South to abolish slavery. England had done that about 1835 on a much smaller scale. Please see my comment below.
The South needed to see no disruption of its farm economy, either for individuals or the region, and to agree, it would have to be fairly treated with compensation for loss of domestic assistants. This was quite feasible because:
1. The Constitution provides for payment for property taken by government;
2. The centers of abolitionism in the North and England were also the primary buyers of slave product and would therefore pay the wages and assistance of former slaves one way or another;
3. A system of taxes of cotton, levied upon wholesale buyers not producers, would not impact producers at all, and would support slave wages, town construction, education, social work, etc during the transition. That could have been phased out with the tax as controlled prices were kept constant, passing the difference to the producers as they began to pay wages. Then transition the whole system to an ordinary wage economy with independent towns, and integrate those over several generations.
None of this was done for the reasons I note in my comment below.
E, Wright – Sorry, but I am all for the movement to get rid of all the CSA statues and memorials. Basically people are now FINALLY coming face to face with their country and seeing it for what it really is. As Mr Trump jokes, “who’s next, Washington, Jefferson?’ – he’s goddamn right!!! This should not end with the CSA!!!
For sure, we should be for removing anything to do with Thomas Jefferson, he was a massive slave holder and “proven rapist” and we should not abide by his memorials. (Neither can Charlie Rose & Al Sharpton) Think about it, Al Sharpton, a US Congressman has to come into Washington DC and go to work surrounded by monuments to racial genocide. And now Trump is living in the White House, built by black slaves. They ought to rename it the Black House, for what it really is, or tear it down. Now is high time, when we have a true racist in office, that we ferret all the filth out of America history. The fact that Jefferson was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and had input into the United States Constitution should also give everyone concern. Are we to really trust in a document drafted by a man who said “all men are created equal” but then whipped and raped his slaves? These documents are a product of a diseased mind.
Then we have Andrew Jackson on the US $20 Dollar Bill. This man was even more evil than Jefferson. He was a brutal slave holder and deported the Cherokee on the “Trail of Tears”, actually defying the SCOTUS. And to add insult to injury, Trump is his buddy.
And then there is the questionable history of George Washington, which ought to be fully examined as well. The fact that he was a slave holder leads me to believe that there were probably whippings and rapes on his estates too.
The American people should really think about how Washington & Jefferson came to be memorialized in stone in one of the greatest memorials ever created, Mt Rushmore. The 3rd is Theodore Roosevelt, the man was without question an imperialist and probably a racist. He was actually followed in office by Woodrow Wilson a guy who actually said blacks would be better off segregated in Federal positions, including the army, and he was backed by the corrupt SCOTUS in the Plessy v. Ferguson, (1896). I suspect when this all finally comes out we will discover Roosevelt’s generation was full of racists and that Dred Scott SCOTUS was equally as vile.
The only solution is for Congress to stop the silly investigations they are doing now and open up a panel that thoroughly sifts through American history, especially to deal with the more difficult cases. There are rumors swirling that Abraham Lincoln was not acting morally when he freed the slaves, but did it for expediency’s sake. This just came out in the Huffington Post:
And since I’m destroying illusions, I hate to tell you this, I really do, but Abraham Lincoln was, like many white men of his day, a stone-cold racist.
At the fourth Lincoln-Douglas debate, held in Charleston, South Carolina, the “Great Emancipator” began with the following [transcript courtesy of the National Park Service]:
“While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. [Great Laughter.] While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. [Cheers and laughter.]
And this guy is on Mount Rushmore and has a HUGE monument in the Washington DC Mall. Given the statement above, if Trump said it, he would be immediately gone, within 24 hours, think about that. We should not give a free pass to Lincoln here at all, what he said was even more DISGUSTING than Trump. And just as I am writing this I realized that the capitol of our country is named after George Washington!!! Can you see how deep this all goes! Everywhere you turn there is something, it is truly incredible!
People really need to start thinking hard about what a truly vile country we live in. These realizations are new to me as I wake up also. It was not too long ago that I was upset that the Taliban was blowing up the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan. I was so upset at that, but if you really think about the Taliban, Buddhism is an atheist religion, and those statues were an affront to Allah and every true and pious believer in Islam that passed by them. They also drew in thousands of non-Islamic tourists to Afghanistan each year, thus bringing in tons of foreigners with non-Islamic values. They should not have been tolerated, I was wrong.
With his completely offensive joke, Trump has finally lit the fuse, that will finally clean up our vile country and I can guarantee you, Trump won’t recognize the country after the forces he has unleashed start to clean it up. He ought to take his whole family back to Germany, the founders of Nazi-ism, maybe there he can live happily ever after!
The debate was in Charleston, Illinois, not Charleston, South Carolina. The quotation, however, is accurate
Though I have no use for Trump and did not vote for him, your thoughts on the subject of South vs North are from someone who has a very good historical perspective on the War for Southern Independence. It is such as it was a war between two defined nation states that both had equivalent political infrastructures. The fact that the North defined it as a civil war does not make it so.
As to Trump, he is hardly a white supremacist or a racist. This does not mean that he does not exhibit distinct symptoms of being either or both. However, the man is seriously mentally ill and now several professional analysts are beginning to view him as suffering from brain damage. According to one analyst he had a much better command of language years ago where now he views Trump as having the speech patterns of a child. Such a person wouldn’t know if he was a racist or not.
Regarding the north-south conflict in 1861 through 1865, the South had what they saw as legitimate reasons to secede and not all of them had to do with slavery. For example, there is some evidence that the Lincoln administration’s new import tariffs would have harmed the southern economy disproportionately increasing tensions for secession significantly. Further, southerners did not approve of the industrialization of the North as they saw it as an affront to their perception of life, which in reality, despite their predilections for the forced servitude of people some sociologists have come to view as a far healthier outlook. Look at US society today, which is a direct outgrowth of the North’s victory in 1865.
The North also had no concern over slavery any more than most southern plantation owners did; both saw African Americans and newly imported Africans as simply a means to an end; in the South they were looked upon as property and slave labor for the large cotton plantations while in the North they were looked upon as a source of cheap labor since slave ownership was not nearly as feasible since few northerners had the tracts of lands that could support large forced labor populations. And northerners didn’t treat escaped or freed slaves any better than their southern counterparts. They were still very much discriminated against and also for the additional threat they posed to taking jobs from white Americans.
Though the American Right’s violence in Charlottesville cannot in any way be condoned let us not begin glorifying the counter-protesters either. Though they were not the catalyst for violence they certainly didn’t help things and their appearance on the scene gave the right winged protesters every excuse they needed to cause mayhem and tragedy. The Left side of this equation likes to view themselves as complete innocents in all cases but they aren’t. Their appearance in front of a large group that was explicitly prepared to cause trouble by their own dress demonstrates a naivety that is astounding and got a young lady tragically killed.
Protesting such groups as the violent Right Wing in this country will get no one anywhere in terms of developing a better society it only adds to the problem and gives Lefties a suave for their incompetence on the political scene.
The Left in the United States is massively dysfunctional because of what has now been defined as “Identity Politics”, which is a severe outgrowth of its forerunner, “Political Correctness”.
As a result, the Left has just as much hatred and animosities within its ranks as the Right promotes outside of theirs And analysts are beginning to demonstrate the very thing that the Left has been promoting for years; its us against them…
For the Left you are no longer part of a greater whole but you are a Black, a Jew, Catholic, a Lesbian, etc, etc. Well the violent Right has taken up the Left’s mantle and claiming they are speaking as Whites…
Everyone claims to support change in this country but they keep on voting in the same trash year in and year out in local, state, and federal elections. If this was not the case we wouldn’t have a loony tunes Congress headed by a mentally ill fruit-cake.
Everyone claims there was no choice in 2016. There was! Good, bad, or indifferent, Jill Stein of the Green Party had the only inclusive platform of any of the political candidates and much of it was based on sound economic thinking. However, too many Americans just like to complain but are too lazy to do a little research on their own because so many have forgotten how to read, glued to their stupid smart phones as they are.
Steve: “. . .According to one analyst he had a much better command of language years ago where now he views Trump as having the speech patterns of a child. . .”
We had very smart presidents in their speech patterns like Obama and Clinton. It did not do any good to the country, and it did lot of damage to the World. Trump is better for the World to have, for all there to see what kind of democracy and freedom we have been spreading.
You can claim that preserving slavery wasn’t a central issue for the Confederacy all you want, but that doesn’t make it true. You don’t need to take my word for it, many Confederate states issued “Declarations of Causes” explaining their decision to leave the Union. Without exception, these all place a strong focus on defending the institution of slavery.
Georgia: “For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic.”
Mississippi: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.”
South Carolina: “But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.”
“We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.”
Texas: “In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color– a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law.”
https://www.civilwar.org/learn/articles/reasons-secession
The United States was founded on slavery and genocide. The truth about our history, including the Civil War, needs to be taught to our children, but I am sure this will never happen.
Thank you, Nancy for acknowledging this simple truth, I separated the last eight words, because I do hope the day may come that truth triumphs over self-aggrandizing propaganda. Recently, in response to a Chris Hedges interview about getting justice back into our judicial system I wrote that considering slavery and genocide against first settlers, “the American justice system came on the heels of a great injustice!”
Perhaps . . . a slim chance, I know . . . some good can come from the Trump reign if the majority of us can no longer languish in the myth of “post-racial America,” This is a much needed conversation and the shock of seeing the actions and hearing the hateful rhetoric of the KKK, Neo-Nazis and assorted white supremacists might encourage some soul searching. Frankly, I mistrust the political backlash against Trump’s overt racism, misogyny and all. I do suspect that many are themselves closet racists protecting an image with politically correct platitudes.
“CONVERSATION”?
With all due respect to Lin Cleveland above (and so many others),
I have come to hate the words “have a conversation”. As well as
“to dialogue.” I choke!
There have been so many “conversations”, so many “dialogues”
in high places and low.
I just want to sing. “We shall not be moved”. Or “Which
side are you on?” (Depression song).
We are being manipulated by armed forces. As are
the Palestinians by Israeli armed forces.
(While we mock such actions in foreign nations
we have decided to hate crying.”How undemocratic?”
to other to supposed “superior” others.)
“Conversations” and their like never seem to lead to
any meaningful change. I am sick and tired
of “conversations”. Are you???
And still the horrors go on. Read James Foreman Jr.’s
recent book, LOCKING UP OUR OWN”. This is
US, whatever beautiful (sometimes eloquent?)
statements we may make about human kindness.
There doesn’t seem much of human kindness around.
As in Israel, the brutality of everyday life and death goes on
and on and on.
Does this need a “conversation”? A “dialogue”? While
people are being shot and disrespected in our
streets? (AsForeman Jr. notes “Guilty until
proven innocent.”
(PS Foreman Jr’s book is easy to read.)
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
As a rare book dealer with forty-odd years of experience studying original civil war era periodicals and documents, a fact stands out for me about these statues: none is from the civil war period. The wave of Confederate memorializing came years after the war, which most initially wanted to forget ever happened. Civil War nostalgia begins in both regions around 1880, as men approaching middle age began to wistfully reshape the needless horror that stole their youth into something noble and purposeful.
Most extant memorials, like the Lee statue in Charlottesville, date to the 1920’s. This was the era of the second Ku Klux Klan, whose nationwide revival was inspired by the infamous racist movie “Birth of a Nation.”.The year after that statue was dedicated, hundreds of thousands of Klansmen paraded in full regalia on the streets of Washington and other major American cities. Also in 1925, the United States Mint struck commemorative half dollars with Lee and Stonewall on one side, and Stone Mountain, the site of the annual Klan rally, on the other.
The children and grandchildren of the men who had taken up arms against the United States had by the Twenties completed a very flattering fable about 1861 – 1865. Romanticized lost cause mythology was integral to the regional spirit long before the rebellion. The Scots and Irish refugees who settled the American south carried with them the long memory their forebears’ defeats at the Boyne and Culloden by the English – the ancestors of the hated Yankees living in the north of their new homeland.
Note also that many more CSA memorials went up in the 1950s and 1960s, specifically as symbols of defiance of the civil rights movement. The War for the Union was necessary only because the southern oligarchy refused to accept the outcome of a free and fair democratic national election (even though they still controlled Congress and the Supreme Court!), but for those who came after, defending white supremacy against “Black Republicans” became the comforting myth that glossed over their ancestors’ suicidally foolish treason.
Removing the memorials is not Stalinist historical revisionism, as some claim. The memorials have come to be symbols of something other, and more sinister, than what they nominally commemorate. Expunging them now is merely setting the record straight.
Despite my own comments, those are good points you make. But even if KKK types were originally responsible for the Lee Memorial, Lee himself is not. The CSA had a rationale agenda and fought a campaign with conviction. The Unionist side re-wrote the history after the war to give themselves the moral high ground – something they never deserved, given the atrocities committed.
He was a traitor in the cause of preserving slavery. He was an inspiration to the KKK. I’m sure a lot of the followers of Hitler also had conviction. And slavery and Jim Crow and the race laws that followed also served as inspiration to the Third Reich. Why should the perpetrators be honored? It doesn’t make sense.
This.
This is also true for Israel in every single one of its Land Grab Wars. Also for the Japanese and Germans in WW2. I doubt if you can find many examples of a war for which your statement isn’t true.
The Union states hung in to the end in the Civil War, and triumphed, so I suppose we can describe their fight was one involving “conviction”.
As for your claim the “Unionist side re-wrote the history”, where is your evidence. The exact reverse is true if all the actual evidence I’ve ever read is indeed the truth. The revisionists of the South turned a filthy slavery cause for war into a noble “States Rights” one. As I said, the exact opposite of what really happened.
The book isn’t very expensive, but most people will prefer to get a copy via interlibrary loan as I did. That’s because virtually every part of it can be found online if a person pokes around. Those “Southern Secession Commissioners” were truly missionaries, and the texts of their sermons were slavery, slavery, and slavery. From a 2001 book review:
The rest of it and two other highly relevant reviews is at
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2001/04/12/southern-comfort/
Thank you
Special thanks to Zachary S, as usual.
—Peter Loeb
Thank you!
Just now in 2017 historian Nancy MacLean has written a marvelous book “Democracy in Chains”, mainly on the life, work and influence of University of Virginia/Virginian Tech/George Mason University/1986 “Nobel” Prizewinner James M. Buchanan. His ideas on “public choice” by removal of public education, of voting rights for as many as possible,of regulations on clean air, clean water, and all the previous wins for the people have been stealthily overturned and the process is continuing, state by state, and affecting the SCOTUS and many federal and state courts. It is well worth reading and is excitingly told, and of course Charles Koch is one of the main promoters of this process, with ALEC and the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity and many other underminers of what remains of US democracy.
I agree historicvs, it’s like I said in my comment below, ‘garbage in, is garbage out.
You know historicvs to how much I always enjoy reading your historical accounts, your history telling fascinates me. After Trump’s General Pershing tweets today, I’d like your version of the Philippine-American war, and Pershing’s role in it. That is, if your up to it, but setting the record straight these days, does seem mighty important enough to get the truth out there. At your leisure, if not a problem. Respectfully Joe
http://theduran.com/donald-trump-insults-philippines-tweet-terrorism/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-ditz/remembering-a-forgotten-o_b_3447598.html
Excellent post.
Great Post – I live in Russia and travel the country and there are many statues and memorials to the past. Some are probably what some Americans would call Confederate statues and maybe worse. I look at Lenin, Stalin etc. everywhere I go and understand his past well enough to have asked many Russians ” Why do you keep his statues around ? They know where I’m headed and explain that it is our history and some is bad and some is great but that was yesterday , so we read about it – and accept it. Let’s not forget that in 2016 the UN had a vote whether to Glorify Nazism and Fascism in the World . 110 countries voted to “outlaw”it and Ukraine and the US voted to Glorify Nazism and Fascism. The War between the States was History and much of that history has been twisted many times for all purposes – Slavery was the most twisted one. Most Americans actually think Slavery was the Main Agenda when it really – wasn’t. Spacibo
Great post historicvs. It’s interesting to note that even Robert E. Lee opposed public memorials commemorating the Civil War, albeit for different reasons than modern protestors. In a letter declining to participate in a meeting at Gettysburg to mark troop positions with granite memorials, Lee wrote:
“I think it wiser, moreover, not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”
“HATE CRIMES”???
The response to oppression is not a “hate crime”.
Should Jews victimized by the Third Reich have
been charged with “hate crimes” because they
strongly—very strongly—opposed being eliminated?
Perhaps one should have insisted that they “negotiate”
with their oppressors with love in their hearts. As
“equals”.
The process of victimization is a central part of
Zionist tactics which they apply to ALL Jews (all
of whom are NOT “Zionists”). According to this
strategy, orthodox belief in Israel and among
other Jews, the victimizer—Israel (with US-EU support)
can pursue its oppression with guaranteed impunity.
Palestinian homes can be demolished, Palestinians themselves
can be murdered, Palestinians can be arrested and tortured.
The goal (by any means) is to eliminate all those who
oppose official (and often not precisely “official”) policies
of terror and chaos. Palestinians—the “oppressed”, the
real victims—must peacefully accept their extermination.
Similarly,must persons of color in the US peacefully
accept their discrimination in area after area.? They
are evidently to “learn” to adjust to their enslavement.
They are never permitted to dissent.
The words currently (post Charlottesville et al) are
that the white supremacists are “activists”. Just
like those who are oppressed and are fighting for
justice.
I am uncertain that events in the Ukraine were as pivotal
in the minds of protesters against injustice as the author
whose article follows does.But the central roles of
oppressor-oppressed, victim-victimizer etc.are relevant.
For an analysis of victimization of Jews in context
of the US see Norman Fiknkelstein’s THE HOLOCAUST
INDUSTRY especially pp.32-38.
—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
CORRECTION:
Norman Finckelstein
Peter
Very good!
This has nothing to do with the correct version of history or “doing the right thing”.
It has everything to do with “anti-trump” photo-ops (electio) and media rally cries (increases in reader/viewership, profits)
Your government doesn’t care about the history of slavery. one side found a hot button issue to manipulate half of the activist population while the other half is being manipulated by notions of heritage.
At the end of the day 25% of the black population is still incarcerated. Slavery didnt go anywhere, they just dont have any statues up commemorating the privatization of prisons.
The usa has murdered 30 million people since ww2 (and continues). But we only hear about one holocaust, so that’s as bad as it gets. Forget about the Palestinians or the slave trade happening RIGHT NOW in libya.
Corporations and government continue to push the boundaries of power regardless of who’s in the whitehouse.
The lcoal and national media give you the option of voting for:
SJWA=slavery is bad, government should protect its citizens, with more regulations, the military needs more money to fight russia and R2P.
OR SJWB=slavery is just an unfortunate part of AMERICAN heritage, corporate power should be absolute, the military needs more money to fight terrorism and spread democracy.
So whatever, put up statues, take them down..personally I don’t give a shit. Either way it’s an empty gesture and ultimately doesn’t amount to anything. People with still drive by those statues (or no statues) on their way to work to put in 60 hours a week to pay for whatever the latest consumer fad with an over inflated dollar.
Trumps a tv star who got elected because he said the opposite of the status quo, promised jobs and no regime change. Now that he’s in there everything remains the same. Just like the hope and change guy. (Lesbians and gays can file their taxes jointly now though, so that’s something I guess).
At least the left could lie to us or is a stance on the civil war enough to get elected? We’ll see…
“25% of the black population is still incarcerated”
9 million black people incarcerated?
“The usa has murdered 30 million people since ww2”
Korea+Vietnam+Indonesia+Laos+Cambodia+Chile+Nicaragua+Panama+Iraq+Balkans+Afghanistan+Iraq+ Libya+Somalia+Syria+assistance to various bad actors in Latin America, the Middle East, etc, has certainly resulted in a lot of casualties, but 30 million people?
You can probably make your points without the added hyperbole.
30mil is probably on the conservative side bobs.
So math is another of your weak points?
A conservative number since WW2 is over 20 million, but likely considerably higher.
Definitely higher when all the ‘sanctioned’ populations (e.g. Iraq in the 1990’s) are factored in.
http://www.countercurrents.org/lucas240407.htm
A good article by Lucy:
http://original.antiwar.com/lucy/2017/08/18/moral-superiority-among-neocons-nazis/