Here's a pro-racism pro-heritage outfit lauding Mike Huckabee for his stand on treason state's rights:
Because nothing says "Christian leadership" quite like slavery heritage.
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More Flag
18 Jan 2008 09:49 am
Comments (84)
The equation of secession with treason is a very poor argument against the Confederacy and its battle flag.
It is their heritage. Their racist heritage.
Well, Hawkster, call me old fashioned, but I just don't think state government buildings should fly the flag of countries and wanna-be countries that have fought wars against the United States government.
Good grief, there isn't a single one of these Republican candidates who doesn't do something vomitworthy at least two or three times a week.
Don't let Respectable Conservative Daniel Larison hear you say that. He'll drop some knowledge on your ass, to wit:
"The humane and decent civilisation of the South that took root in the Southland, though of course it was never without flaws (as no earthly society could be lacking in them), informed and shaped the creation of that political structure in large measure and was the guarantor of its authentic form for several decades, both through political influence and through the cultivation of a classically educated body of men who rose to defend, first by the pen and oration and then by the sword, the true political inheritance of the Republic.
"The defeat of the Confederacy, though the Confederate political experiment does not exhaust the richness of Southern culture and identity, was a defining moment when the United States took its steps towards the abyss of the monstrous centralised state, rootless society and decadent culture that we have today. In sum, the Confederacy represented much of the Old America that was swept away, and with it went everything meaningful about the constitutional republican system, and the degeneration of that system in the next hundred years was the logical and ultimately unstoppable result of Lincoln’s victory. All of this is in recognition that we are beholden to our ancestors for who we are, and we honour and remember their struggles and accomplishments not only because they can be established as reasonable, good and true but because they are the struggles and accomplishments of our people, who have made this land ours and sanctified it with their blood in defense against the wanton aggression of a barbarous tyranny."
* * *
Ah, drink deeply of that sentiment -- that the slaveholding South was "never without flaws (as no earthly society could be lacking in them)" -- and remember that Larison is a guy whose views are warmly welcomed in our political discourse. God help us.
It is interesting to note that some of the most fervent confederate flag wavers were also the most adamant in calling Vietnam antiwar protesters, who displayed the Vietcong flag, traitors.
The equation of secession with treason is a very poor argument against the Confederacy and its battle flag.
The equation of secession with treason is a very poor argument against a group of slaveholders who refused to accept the results of a democratic election and the banner they carried into battles aimed at destroying the federal government.
Ironically, that symbol of white supremacy was probably manufactured in China.
Next, he'll embrace the Democratic Party, with their similar historical timeline of racism, treason, slavery, and the Ku Klux Klan.
Or, maybe, one might be open minded enough to realize that some things change over time.
On second thought, forget it. Once a racist symbol, always a racist symbol. It's a great thing to be open minded and tolerant, isn't it?
The humane and decent civilisation of the South
It's like Fox constantly having to remind its viewers that it is "fair and balanced".
Say it enough times and just maybe....
Man do I hope the Huckster wins the nomination!
Or, maybe, one might be open minded enough to realize that some things change over time.
On second thought, forget it. Once a racist symbol, always a racist symbol. It's a great thing to be open minded and tolerant, isn't it?
Because our collective revulsion to blackface is a product of our intolerance. And pal, those people carrying the Stars and Bars and watching civil rights protestors marching from Selma to Montgomery weren't doing it because of their "heritage." Not if the filth coming out of their mouths was any indication.
That sound you hear is Abraham Lincoln spinning in his grave.
Were he alive today, Lincoln would be a Democrat, undoubtedly.
I wonder if Larison and Macaca Allen have ever compared noose notes.
Were he alive today, Lincoln would be a Democrat, undoubtedly.
Were he alive today, Lincoln would be so exceedingly old and senile that his opinion on anything would likely be completely detached from reality. Thus, I surmise he'd be a Republican.
"Once a racist symbol, always a racist symbol. It's a great thing to be open minded and tolerant, isn't it?
Posted by rhinoman | January 18, 2008 10:10 AM"
For one thing, the Confederacy only exists in the past. Second of all, whenever such things have ever been on the ballot in the South, the majority of African-American voters end up voting against the Confederate flag. You notice how you never see the Confederate flag associated with black Southerners. White country singers wave the flag, yet you don't see OutKast doing so. It wasn't exactly a favored simple of Southern black civil rights leaders. Unless it becomes a symbol that black Southerners actually rally around in significant numbers, it will always in the end be a racist symbol. It also should come as no surprise this is happening in the state where McCain was smeared as having an illegitimate black child (instead of just being the adoptive father to a young girl he met in an orphanage in Bangladesh).
Lincoln would be a Democrat, undoubtedly.
Oh contraire, he would be a classical liberal fascist.
And rhinoman, please do tell us when the confederate flag was used as something other than a racist symbol.
"Oh contraire, he would be a classical liberal fascist."
Hee hee. Indeed, that is central to my point.
(Rhinoman is too busy working on rehabilitating the image of the swastika to respond.)
"Once a racist symbol, always a racist symbol. It's a great thing to be open minded and tolerant, isn't it?
Posted by rhinoman | January 18, 2008 10:10 AM"
Perhaps then we can rehabilitate the swastika, and all that is right and good about 1930s-era German culture that it stood for. No doubt they loved their children and the trains ran on time, and Jonah reminds us that they were very into healthy living.
That slavery is a bad thing is a good argument against the Confederacy, the equation of secession with treason is not.
Cribbed from a local DC comic: "Dude, the war's been over for about 140 years, I think you can stop supporting the troops. I don't see anyone with an Ottoman Empire flag on their truck."
Your argument was equally convincing and well-supported the second time around, Hawk.
BAHAHAHAHAH!!! I'm dyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyying...LOL!!!
jw:
That was a BEUAT of a quote.
Excellent comment, can't improve upon it. I've been reading David Blight, Race and Reunion, about Lost Caust Mythology, and man, you just nailed a great bit of
sweet talkin' apologetics.
jw:
That was a BEAUT of a quote.
Excellent comment, can't improve upon it. I've been reading David Blight, Race and Reunion, about Lost Caust Mythology, and man, you just nailed a great bit of
sweet talkin' apologetics.
This morning Joe Scarborough and fat cat racist Pat Buchanan defended Huckabee, saying that flying the flag is a state's right issue, which is bullshit.
No law is being passed to dictate that South Carolina (my home state) no longer fly the flag.
The question Huckabee needed to answer is given the fags history should the state voluntarily retire the flag to the dustbin of history.
"Or, maybe, one might be open minded enough to realize that some things change over time.
On second thought, forget it. Once a racist symbol, always a racist symbol. It's a great thing to be open minded and tolerant, isn't it?"-Posted by rhinoman
You've got it backwards. It started as a symbol of soldiers fighting for a dubious cause. It became a symbol of racism later, because that is what the people who displayed it wanted it to be. Southerners are welcome to try to make it be something other than a symbol of racism, but as of now, they have not done so.
Am I to understand that Daniel Larison finds the "rootless," "decadence" of premarital sex and women with full time jobs to be more objectionable than slavery?
That's not an elitism I can be comfortable with.
I usually really like him; that is not fun to read.
Southerners tried every gambit they could to defend slavery before the civil war. They argued against states rights and then for it, as their interests dictated.
When Lincoln won, they seceded. Their secession is an act representing their desire to maintain slavery at all costs, and nullificationism, the Missouri compromise etc - all of this - shows their long dedication to slavery and a rejection of the Declaration.
I would argue, then, that just because the flag was flown in the 60's as a rebellion against integration, it also represents in many Americans and Southerner's minds, the "War between the States" as well - and as such, certainly is a racist, traitorous symbol.
I was always a heretic when it came to my heritage.
A few years ago, on a visit to my parents down South, I went with them to a service at the church we'd attended throughout my childhood. In his sermon the pastor included an anecdote in which -- I could not believe my ears -- he compared the Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest to Christ. A thuggish mercenary, a murderer of dozens of innocents, the founder of the Ku Klux Klan -- yes, that Nathan Bedford Forrest. I almost walked out but somehow managed to stay in my seat out of respect for my mother and father.
Afterwards, my parents couldn't really understand why I was so upset. So you can imagine my relief when my plane landed back in New York -- I practically kissed the tarmac at LaGuardia.
You've got it backwards. It started as a symbol of soldiers fighting for a dubious cause. It became a symbol of racism later, because that is what the people who displayed it wanted it to be. Southerners are welcome to try to make it be something other than a symbol of racism, but as of now, they have not done so.
It's a symbol of whatever people who choose to display it want it to be a symbol of. The flag doesn't have some kind of fixed, objective content. It's a matter of perception and subjective intent. I suspect that for many, it has now become a symbol of anti-northern-condescension. Given the way in which self-congratulating northern liberals, with our own more subtle record of apathy towards racism, have acted for many years, that wouldn't surprise me.
Governments, of course, shouldn't be flying the flag, as it is a hurtful symbol to many. But we also shouldn't assume too much about the psychology and intentions of those who support its display.
And even if it wasn't racist, it would still be un-American and symbolically treasonous. You don't hear New Englanders wax poetic about when the Federalist Party operatives up North considered seceding at the end of the War of 1812 (the very thing that killed the party).
That slavery is a bad thing is a good argument against the Confederacy, the equation of secession with treason is not.
Your argument was equally convincing and well-supported the second time around, Hawk.
He's not phrasing it any better, but if he's trying to get at what I think he's trying to get at, he has a point. That slavery is a bad thing is a good argument against the Confederacy, the equation of secession with treason is not.
George Washington was a traitor, or, if that word is beyond the pale, a secessionist. So were Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and all other signers of the Declaration of Independence. Oliver Cromwell was a traitor. And let's not get started on Ghandi. The problem with treason in defense of slavery is the "in defense of slavery" part, not the "treason" part, except as it demonstrates the great depth of their resolve and commitment to abhorrent beliefs.
After watching John Ashcroft, erstwhile defender of the proud Southern states' rights position, show zero regard for states' rights as AG, with darn near zero conservative opposition, I came to the conclusion that no one cares about states' rights. They care about states' policies.
The flag stands was the symbol of a group of states who objected to federal efforts to impinge on their ability to enslave blacks. Then, in the 1960s, some southern states incorporated the Confederate flag into their state flags in order to show resistance to federal efforts to end segregation.
Even granting that there were aspects of Southern culture-- as there were aspects of Roman culture, Athenian culture, and 1700s Colonial culture-- worth preserving, that flag has been used in such a way to associate it predominantly with white supremacy.
Also, states don't have rights. People do.
. But we also shouldn't assume too much about the psychology and intentions of those who support its display.
Having grown up a white boy in South Carolina I don't have to assume anything. I know the people who hold the flag dearly and they are racist.
It's a symbol of whatever people who choose to display it want it to be a symbol of. The flag doesn't have some kind of fixed, objective content.
What?? It has stars. And Bars. And colors. And that configuration has a very specific history. It seems you want to follow Alice down the rabbit hole.
"'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'"
Great quote from Larison. I'm particularly taken with this bit:
"rootless society and decadent culture..."
That has a certain ring of echt-faszismus to it, no? I mean, he left out "cosmopolitan", but to my ears this sounds like a screed against mongrelized Jewish -American culture.
George Washington was a traitor, or, if that word is beyond the pale, a secessionist. So were Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and all other signers of the Declaration of Independence. Oliver Cromwell was a traitor. And let's not get started on Ghandi.
That's quite a grouping there. Should we take your point to be that all individuals in resistance to an established government are morally indistinguishable? Please advise.
It should also be noted that the flag and the debate surrounding it are symptoms of the complicated pathology of being Southern, the difficult, deeply troubled and unique place the South and its children, white and black, claim at the American table (even in 2008). Huckabee know this well and is pulling all the levers -- "heritage," "states' rights," etc. -- to stave off the press's coronation of McCain.
The pathology of Southern identity: I'd be curious to know MY's thoughts on this.
Yes, Cyrus, Washington was most definitely a traitor to the crown. But as he won the war, the Brits could not do much about it.
The banner of treason to United States should not be prominently displayed in the United States. The fact that the motive force of the treason was so noxious just makes the call easier.
"George Washington was a traitor, or, if that word is beyond the pale, a secessionist. So were Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and all other signers of the Declaration of Independence. Oliver Cromwell was a traitor. And let's not get started on Ghandi.
That's quite a grouping there. Should we take your point to be that all individuals in resistance to an established government are morally indistinguishable? Please advise.
Posted by James Gary | January 18, 2008 11:29 AM"
I think he meant that all people who secede are traitors by definition to someone. The question is what are you seceding from and hoping to create. Franklin and Gandhi sought to create something more just and democratic than the status quo. Calhoun and Davis wanted to keep an evil status quo.
"Should we take your point to be that all individuals in resistance to an established government are morally indistinguishable?"
The blindingly obvious point is that treason, per se, is a morally neutral act. What matters is the moral character of the cause for which one commits treason.
Betraying the United States to preserve a slave-based economy does not strike me as the sort of cause a decent human being would proudly hail.
What?? It has stars. And Bars. And colors. And that configuration has a very specific history. It seems you want to follow Alice down the rabbit hole.
That's fine, but my point is that people can embrace a symbol for reasons unrelated to its historical origins.
And since you brought it up, yeah, the same often holds true for words. (See, e.g., the well-traveled history of "the N word.")
"But we also shouldn't assume too much about the psychology and intentions of those who support its display."-Posted by RS
Of course we should. That is the whole point of flying flags! Why else would you fly a flag?
"But we also shouldn't assume too much about the psychology and intentions of those who support its display."-Posted by RS
Of course we should. That is the whole point of flying flags! Why else would you fly a flag?
That's an odd logical leap. The fact that people choose an indeterminate symbol to express something doesn't make the content of the expression incontrovertibly clear.
Lots of people fly the American flag to express lots of different sentiments, but you'd never know quite what unless you really knew them.
That's quite a grouping there. Should we take your point to be that all individuals in resistance to an established government are morally indistinguishable? Please advise.
Reality Man and LaFollette Progressive got it right. "Morally neutral" might not be 100 percent correct, depending on your view of violence in general and the importance of a social compact and other issues, but the fact that the Confederate States of America seceded is a much smaller problem than why they seceded.
I meant to edit Hawkster's line I quoted, but messed it up. I think he meant to say something like this, and if so, I agree with him. That slavery is a bad thing is a good argument against the Confederacy, that secession is a bad thing is not. There are good reasons to take treason seriously, but treating it as always an unpardonable evil shows (and reinforces) too much deference to authority and the status quo.
The thing about the Confederate flag is that it is linked not only to slavery, but to the revival of racism and segregation that lasted for almost a century after Reconstruction. That is, it has been widely used as a symbol of racism and segregation within the lifetime of many people still around today. In theory, words and symbols can be reinterpreted over time, though it tends to take a lot of work. In practice, the Confederate flag remains a symbol of a white supremacist, traitorous regime which, though defeated in battle, effectively won the peace and imposed its will on its black citizens for 100 years. It represents not the best, but the worst of the South -- a region which has, after all, given the rest of the nation many of its greatest citizens, from Washington to Martin Luther King. Huckabees decision to embrace it is shameless.
As a native-born white Southerner, allow me to say f*** the Confederacy, f*** its stupid flags, and f*** anyone who's more than historically interested in it.
Most of this Confederate flag and lost cause and memorial sh*t was a product of 1920s to 1950s celebrations of the overthrow of Reconstruction and the institution of segregation.
You will not find a photo of the Confderate battle flag flying in front of any state office before the start of serious integration in the early 50s. It was incorporated into a few state flags over the, but not flown alone. Its resurrection was the result of Federal attempt to integrate the South and its sense of links to a time when the blacks knew their place.
And treason is obviously only a problem for losers. Sure, as Ben Franklin said, Washington and the rest would have been hanged together if the British had won. The combination of a forgiving Lincoln and the southerner Johnson resulted in only one hanging after the war (Wirz), so apologists like to view secession as something more banal than treason, but treason it was. The South lost. Many more should have been hanged, starting with Jeferson Davis and the entire South Carolina legislature. They earned it.
My god, hasn't anyone taken a class in semiotics here?
A flag is a sign and it has no provable content, and any attempt to do so ends in futility. Any attempt can be deconstructed. So let's get that academic point out of the way.
But the American public doesn't give a damn about that.
Everyone knows state's rights was a shield to hid behind to keep slavery in place as long as possible for the south. The stars and bars represented those that sought to do so. South Carolina was the first state to secede, it fought viciously against integration. Everyone knows it.
No one should bother debating whether a given South Carolinian thinks the flag means racism or treachery to them - but it is indisputable that as a national symbol, it means treason and white supremacy. If it means heritage, then at the foundation of that heritage is racism. If it means states rights - then the goal of seeking those rights was clear to Southerners - to maintain slavery, and later, to prevent integration. There's no avoiding the sickening implications of that flag.
Forget its individual meanings. Its historical meanings are simpler and shouldn't be whitewashed, so to speak.
Lots of people fly the American flag to express lots of different sentiments, but you'd never know quite what unless you really knew them.
But that's just the point. One can never really know why a person displays a flag, or some other symbol. What matters is not the intent, but the perception. It's obvious that not everyone who flies the confederate flag is a frothing racist. What matters is that the flag is, justifiably, a symbol of virulent racism to millions of other people, including a large number of Southerners who happen to have been on the wrong end of the oh-so-precious Southern Heritage.
My in-laws live in South Carolina, and I've spent a fair amount of time there. There are moments when the casual, off-hand bigotry will shock you. But many of the white people there really do view the flag as a symbol of pride and defiance that has little to do with segregation or slavery... it's a symbol, basically, of not letting outsiders come in and tell them what to do. And it's easy to see why this attitude is popular, given that people in Chicago or NYC would not take kindly to people from Alabama coming into town and forcibly reorganizing their way of life.
But the fact of the matter is that those meddling Yankees kept coming down South to forcibly change institutions that were openly and viciously racist. Racism is the one common, defining trait of the Confederacy, the Klan, and Jim Crow, and the Battle Flag is the one symbol shared by all of those movements. Anyone who denies that the Confederate Battle Flag is strongly associated with racism is either engaged in self-delusion or willful dishonesty.
RS: Lots of people fly the American flag to express lots of different sentiments, but you'd never know quite what unless you really knew them.
LFP: But that's just the point. One can never really know why a person displays a flag, or some other symbol. What matters is not the intent, but the perception. It's obvious that not everyone who flies the confederate flag is a frothing racist. What matters is that the flag is, justifiably, a symbol of virulent racism to millions of other people, including a large number of Southerners who happen to have been on the wrong end of the oh-so-precious Southern Heritage.
I agree with you, which is why I think that a state government shouldn't fly the flag. Apologies if my comment was too mundane to rise to the level of "mattering" or being "just the point," but I thought it was worth noting all the same.
LFP: My in-laws live in South Carolina, and I've spent a fair amount of time there. There are moments when the casual, off-hand bigotry will shock you. But many of the white people there really do view the flag as a symbol of pride and defiance that has little to do with segregation or slavery... it's a symbol, basically, of not letting outsiders come in and tell them what to do. And it's easy to see why this attitude is popular, given that people in Chicago or NYC would not take kindly to people from Alabama coming into town and forcibly reorganizing their way of life.
But the fact of the matter is that those meddling Yankees kept coming down South to forcibly change institutions that were openly and viciously racist. Racism is the one common, defining trait of the Confederacy, the Klan, and Jim Crow, and the Battle Flag is the one symbol shared by all of those movements. Anyone who denies that the Confederate Battle Flag is strongly associated with racism is either engaged in self-delusion or willful dishonesty.
I agree with all that, thought it's also worth noting that some people rationally perceive other non-racist aspects of their Southern culture to be under siege by the forces of Northern/coastal elitism, be it religion, hunting, gas-guzzling trucks, or whatever. Of course, to the extent that there are policy issues implicated in all this culture business (church-state separation, gun control, energy efficiency, or whatever), I'm not suggesting that cultural sensitivity should trump sound policy. But my (no doubt trivial) point is that we should try to tamp down the kind of gross condescension and ridicule that you often see in these cultural discussions.
Whatever happened to State's Rights? It is their state they can fly whatever they choose.
That being said I would never fly one myself, and would look down upon people who do. But is it really our place to tell them they can't?
My god, hasn't anyone taken a class in semiotics here?
This is funny (unintentionally, I think) on a few levels.
A flag is a sign and it has no provable content, and any attempt to do so ends in futility. Any attempt can be deconstructed. So let's get that academic point out of the way.
Right.
No one should bother debating whether a given South Carolinian thinks the flag means racism or treachery to them. . . . Forget its individual meanings. Its historical meanings are simpler and shouldn't be whitewashed, so to speak.
I think this discussion of "individual meanings" is an interesting one with implications for how we conduct our political discourse and our ability to actually persuade people that the flag should come down from government buildings. I suppose we could stick to the "simpler" points. But that seems a bit ... well, simplistic.
Brian -- I think what you're witnessing is a whole lot of well justified "look[ing] down upon." I haven't heard anyone call for forcible removal of a state flag by the feds.
If trying to destroy the political integrity of the United States isn't treason, then I'm not sure that word has any meaning.
The Confederate battle flag was explicitly adopted as a symbol of resistance to the civil rights movement. Georgia added the Confederate battle flag to its state flag in 1956, to protest Brown v. Board of Education. South Carolina started flying the flag over its state house in 1962. University of Mississippi students stood around a Confederate flag and protested James Meredith's attempt to register in September 1962. Alabama Governor George "Segregation Forever" Wallace started flying the Confederate battle flag over the state capitol in (something he started in April 1963 in response to US Attorney General Robert Kennedy visiting Montgomery to urge Alabama to integrate the University of Alabama. Montgomery, Alabama was festooned with Confederate flags flown by people protesting the March 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march.
History professor Robert S. McElvaine sums it up pretty well:
The Confederate flag has never been a symbol of states' rights. The state powers it has represented during and since the Civil War--slavery, segregation, lynching, racism--are all states' wrongs. Many whites, particularly young whites in the South, say that they should not be blamed for what their ancestors did. Fair enough. But if they want to be emancipated from that legacy, they must reject it. The first symbolic step for the younger generation in separating itself from the wrongs of its forebears is not to apologize for slavery, but to stop venerating a heritage that was centered on slavery and a flag that came into existence in defense of slavery.
(What almost everyone calls "the Confederate flag" was the battle flag, not one of the national flags of the Confederacy.)
For one thing, the Confederacy only exists in the past.
"The past is never dead. It's not even past." -- William Faullkner
kirka - that's a pretty fuckin' great quote.
The people arguing for the fact that the battle flag was revived in opposition to the civil rights movement have the better argument, historically, but think of it this way. There are two possible states of mind for someone who supports flying that flag.
1.) They are racist, in which case, they are assholes.
2.) They are indifferent to the effect it has on others, especially minorities, in which case, they are assholes.
RE DaveL's comment "Great quote from Larison. I'm particularly taken with this bit:
"rootless society and decadent culture..."
That has a certain ring of echt-faszismus to it, no? I mean, he left out "cosmopolitan", but to my ears this sounds like a screed against mongrelized Jewish -American culture."
-----------
Probably not --given that defense of the Confederacy is a long and distinguished tradition among some American Jews.
Look at Bernard Baruch's autobiography "My Own Story" -- in which he recounts the delight he and his brothers felt upon discovering that their father belonged to the Ku Klux Klan.(p.32) Baruch argued that racial hate in the South was created by the Reconstruction -- by the manner in which Northern carpetbaggers exerted political dominance in the South by their control over the vote of the "Negro":
"This use of the ignorant Negro as a tool of oppression aggravated all the racial wounds and sores of slavery and the war."
Many senior Confederate Leaders were Jewish --
e.g, Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin .
See http://www.jewish-history.com/civilwar/judahpb.html
Or see this Deuteronomy-like curse laid upon the invading Federal Army by Rabbi Max Michelbacher of
Richmond: "Prayer for the Confederacy" at
http://www.jewish-history.com/civilwar/prayer.htm
Conversely, Bernard Baruch noted that he did not encounter anti-Semitism until he moved to New York City (p. 49)
"In South Carolina we never had suffered discrimination because we were Jews. We were one of five or six Jewish families who lived in Camden. The De Leons and Levys had settled there before the Revolution: The Baums and Wittkowskys came later. They were all respected citizens. The De Leons in particular were a numerous and distinguished clan which furnished the Confederacy with a surgeon-general and a diplomatic agent to France. Old General De Leon I never saw, for he was one of the Confederate officers who refused to accept the terms of surrender and fled to Mexico."
The anti-semitism came later, at end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century with rise of right wing populism and Tom Watson. See the Leo Frank case. By the 1920s the South the Klan was burning crosses at Blacks, Jews, and Catholics while waving the "Battle Flag."
Don Williams, those are interesting anecdotes, but they don't show (1) what the overall picture was at the time, or (2) what exactly Larison was getting at in the comment DaveL highlighted.
Re Elvis's comment "Don Williams, those are interesting anecdotes, but they don't show (1) what the overall picture was at the time "
------------
If you are interested in the subject, you might look at Robert Rosen's book "The Jewish Confederates" -- see
http://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Confederates-NS-Robert-Rosen/dp/1570033633/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200686233&sr=8-1
From Library Journal
A native of Charleston, SC, Rosen (Confederate Charleston: An Illustrated History of the Place and the People During the Civil War) uses his own background and experience to recount the lives of Southern Jews from the 1700s until well after the Civil War. Loyal Southerners, the Jews accepted living in a slaveholding society, and their young men flocked to enlist when war came. The author delves into the lives of a number of prominent individuals and families, among them two U.S. senators, Judah Philip Benjamin of Louisiana and David Levy Yulee of Florida. The experiences of many other enlisted men, officers, nurses, politicians, rabbis, doctors, and businessmen are also chronicled. Rosen also explains why so many Jews chose the South as their home and why they remained loyal to it, arguing that Southern society and the Confederate army and navy may have been more tolerant of Jews than the North.
See also the NY Times Review at
http://partners.nytimes.com/books/01/01/28/reviews/010128.28hoffmat.html
"But that's just the point. One can never really know why a person displays a flag, or some other symbol. What matters is not the intent, but the perception. It's obvious that not everyone who flies the confederate flag is a frothing racist. What matters is that the flag is, justifiably, a symbol of virulent racism to millions of other people, including a large number of Southerners who happen to have been on the wrong end of the oh-so-precious Southern Heritage."
"1.) They are racist, in which case, they are assholes.
2.) They are indifferent to the effect it has on others, especially minorities, in which case, they are assholes.
Posted by David B. | January 18, 2008 2:07 PM"
Both of these are very true. It reminds me of those skater Nazis out in LA from a few years ago that would decorate their skateboards with swastikas (they never did seem to be Hindus or Buddhists either) and yet somehow would wonder why people would call them anti-Semites.
1) I should note that Southern racism in the Confederacy was a vile system -- similar to the Nazis, as a scan of Southern newspapers in that period will reveal.
2) My ancestors stayed with the Union.
3) But I also understand why men fought and died to defend the Confederacy.
Only roughly 1 in 3 men in the Confederate Army had enough money to even own one slave. There was NO safety net in 1860 and damm little medical care. It made no sense for an entire generation of southern blue collar and middle class workers to give their lives --and certainly their life savings -- up for the defense of the property of a small, wealthy aristocracy which ,by and large, had fucked those same workers in the preceding decades.
4) Some men fought because they were told to by those in authority -- they could either do so or be hanged. Others fought to defend their land from a foreign invader. Many were racists --in the sense of thinking Blacks inferior. But I agree with Baruch that the occuptational government of Reconstruction probably created much of the racial hatred that became embedded in Southern culture.
5) I personally think the Declaration of Independence clearly establishes the right of secession. Although extermination of human slavery justified overriding that principle.
6) I also think a study of the Republican leaders shows that they were more interested in establishing national empires and fucking the workers without restraint than they were interested in defending human freedom. The post-Civil War history --the Robber Barons -- shows that. The Republican financiers only wanted one set of crooks to bribe in Washington -- vice several in state capitols. Slavery made an excellent propaganda tool for a semi-hidden agenda.
7) Today, we have 300 million Americans totally ruled --with no restraint -- by 550 demonstrated corrupt whores in Washington DC. By overturning the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, Lincoln enslaved all of us.
8) So I mention the Jewish Confederates not in defence of the Confederacy -- but to show the cartoonish nature of Matthew's propaganda.
9) There is no one in the South today who would defend human slavery. There are few under the age of 50 who would defend racism. But most people there would band together and refight the Civil War in the face of one-sided slurs, smears and contempt from outsiders.
Howard Dean argued that it's long past time for that to stop within the Democratic Party. I agree.
I was born of parents of the South and spent a lot of time there in my not-too-distant youth. The comments about the racist undercurrent of waving the Confederate flag are often true. Southern racists are often astute enough to know not to use racist language in the presence of outsiders but if you can speak the language with the accent as I can, the racist bile wells up in short order when they think you're "one of them."
Larison's comments about "decadence" are interesting, too, considering that incest (though certainly not unique to the South) with minor children continues to run rampant in the South even in this day and age. The only thing considered "wrong" about such abuse in many circles in the South is not that it happens, but that people sometimes acknowledge the sickness of it out loud. I've personally found many of these sickos to be fervent flag-wavers.
"Many senior Confederate Leaders were Jewish --"
Bullshit, Don. You named just one senior Confederate leader, and the website you link to shows no others.
In fact, their list of Jews in the Confederacy is made up of
1)a rabbi who signed a receipt for some gold bullion,
2)another rabbi who saw Columbus, SC burned by General Sherman's troops,
3)a woman who was arrested for some reason,
4)two majors, a corporal, a private, and four soldiers of unspecified rank,
5)a businessman who petitioned the Confederate government to allow Jewish soldiers time off for religious holidays, and was denied,
6)the rabbi you mentioned who composed a prayer for the Confederacy,
7)a cadet from VMI,
8)a woman who kept a diary,
9)a man who wrote a history of the Civil War in mock-Biblical prose,
10)a woman who acted as courier for Confederate officials, and
11)a rabbi who gave a popular sermon that was widely disseminated (not a pro-Confederacy sermon, either -- it enjoins the listener to pray for peace and the re-union of north and south).
Oh, and David Levy Yulee served in the Confederate Congress.
Pretty slim pickings, I must say.
The agitation is no different than the ACLU's war against visible aspects of the Christian Faith. The basic argument is that democracy must be byspassed and majority rule ignored if any vocal activist expresses "hurt and suffering" on behalf of themselves and their identity group.
And if "hurt" is established, even if it is just in their minds or imagination, manifestations of the majority culture must be wiped out while the minority culture is further celebrated and made further visible as good and noble.
And the Southerners are having the same reaction as "progressive" Northerners and people in the UK are now having to demands of new arrival Muslims and their lawyers that they scrap aspects of Western culture and civilization that are "hurtful and offensive" to ALL Muslims (actually just a fringe of professional grievance peddlers.)
What exactly is the obligation of a majority culture, or even a minority one, to agree to eradicate an element of their culture simply because an external group is "aggrieved" about a Confederate Flag, the Quebecois Fleur de Lis, a Scots St Andrew's Cross or the Crips wearing red bandanas?
In the name of tolerance, shall we tolerate Muslim taxi drivers showing intolerance for carrying dogs, unaccompanied women, alcohol in baggage, or passengers that openly display hated religious symbols like the star of david? Or Britons told they must reconsider having the nerve to eat pork in front of sensitive and angry and perpetually offended radical Muslim activists?
What to do?
Get rid of it pronto, then share PC hugs of understanding so the "healing process" can start?
And hope that appeasement of the Blind Mullah or Al Sharpton works with you agreeing to outlaw symbols and culture they are "hurt by". So that way, Al and the blind Mullah are happy and don't get in your face later about another part of your culture they wish to outlaw and eradicate?
What if it is instead the majority culture that presents a list of black or Muslim cultural symbols and practices that "angry, aggrieved, and highly offended white activists" find tremendously objectionable and offensive and which must be eradicated?
In South Carolina's case, the main agitation comes from the now openly racist NAACP (The Klan With The Tan) factions from mostly outside SC, New Black Panthers Party, far Left Southern Law Poverty Center, MSM, professional black grievance politicians of the Democrat Party, and elements of progressive academia.
When the voters of South Carolina went to the polls to see if the Battle Flag would stay up as part of Southern Heritage, a plurality of both black and white voters said it should. Southern white culture and heritage is every bit as important as Southern black culture and it's heritage, even some parts that might offend perpetually angry whites.
The whole business of words and symbols that must be banned by law as non-PC is completely alien to the Constitution. Especially "symbols" that mean entirely different things to different cultures.
The Conferate Flag is to Southern whites not a symbol of them sacrificing 1/3rd of their numbers for a slave system 1 in 10 white families had - it was about the right to rebel and resist domination by Northern political and economic interests.
Just as it was tough luck that Catholic missionaries were scandalized at Japanese Fertility Festivals by giant, painted sex organs crafted from wood and paper mache` by parade goers. None of the Nipponese cared in the slightest that the priests were "hurt" by it.
And similarly, people buying Native American Art, particularly Navaho, can become very upset it is festooned with good luck swastikas. The NA attitude is they invented it independently of the Nazis, invented it 600 years before the Nazis and basically tell people that say they must ban it because it was used by some other small group thus is now a "forbidden symbol", to - basically - fuck off.
Same with blacks that hawk grievances and hope for "compensatory" Federal money so much - they now claim they are reduced to quivering piles of victimized protoplasm whenever they see a Battle Flag, hear Dixie, notice objectionable rope knots, or are aware of a non-black anywhere saying "nigger".
I's now a quivering jellyfish, yassuh! I saws the Confederate flag and can't work now and it drove me to drugs and erectile dysfunction so's you got to give me lots of money...and outlaw that there Flag as hate Speech.
The Navaho reaction is the best.
I could give a hoot if you all claim you are hurt and emotionally crippled and so victimized by seeing or hearing a symbol or conjecturing hidden code words up. I could give a crap if you think that entitles you to tear down all the Christmas trees or ban how to tie nooses to fishing gear or tents. Or give a darn that you think you should be able to sue and seek people being arrested or fired because a white guy said "nigger" once on an album while Denzel gets an Oscar for saying it 37 times in a movie.
They are indifferent to the effect it has on others, especially minorities, in which case, they are assholes.
Posted by David B.
Well, David, I am pretty indifferent to the effect art, books, names, insignia and other symbols have on others. Even if it has a "hurtful impact" on minorities like white males being called "oppressors", art that mocks hip hop artists, sexually repressed Opus Dei revolted by porn, communists highly offended and hurt by the "malicious" Black Book of Communism and they scream for retribution, laws, government to pay their hurt feelings away, or more dumb noose and "N-word" bans.
People in the Cult of Victimology can fuck off.
That's why we have a 1st Amendment and why we are for the most part sitting back in amusement as Canadians and Europeans make asses out of themselves by trying to chase down "hate speech" constantly shifting with attitudes to somehow include anti-Muslim cartoons - but not to prosecute and shutdown Jihadi websites with bomb-making instructions and tips on learning where the Jews live and work..People are getting sick of Jews too, at the ACLU, claiming that Christmas trees and Christian symbology somehow threatens a 5,000 year-old culture.
Re Xboy's comment "Pretty slim pickings, I must say"
-----------
1) You overlooked General De Leon -- cited by Bernard Baruch. I believe this was David Camden DeLeon, Surgeon General of the Confederate Army
2) What about Salomon de Rothschild? From
http://www.jewish-history.com/Salomon/index.html
"His views on the conflict between the North and the South were decidedly pro-Confederate and his letters urged his cousin to use all his family's influence to gain the recognition of the Confederacy by the European powers."
I guess the goyim won Salomon over.
3) As I noted above, See "The Jewish Confederates" by Robert Rosen, which discusses
the Officials in the Confederate Government and Officers in the Confederate Army who were Jewish.
Men like:
a) Edwin DeLeon, leader of the Confederate propaganda effort in Europe and friend of Jeff Davis
b) Quartermaster General of the Confederacy Abraham Charles Myers (I believe Fort Myers, Florida was named after him )
c) General E W Moise, who I believe was appointed District Judge in Louisiana
d) Samuel Hyams - Provost Marshall (in charge of Martial Law in his area)
e) Jacob DeCordova -- Collector of taxes in Texas
f) Colonel Leon Dawson Marks
g) Adjutant Kursheedt of the Washington Artillery
h) Bernard Baruch's father was on General Robert E Lee's staff
There were, of course, numerous Jewish Captains ,Majors, Lieutenants etc.
4) It is worth noting that ante bellum South Carolina was the center of Judaism in North America --because its Charter from the very beginning specified freedom of religion. Its population of Jews was surpassed by New York only shortly before the Civil War -- although the decades long depression after the Civil War greatly reduced that.
South Carolina was first place in the western world to elect a Jew to public office and was the birthplace of Reform Judaism in the Americas.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Charleston%2C_South_Carolina
4) Don't your rabbis teach you anything?
South Carolina, for one, endorses the speech by putting the flag on the state grounds despite being obligated under law to provide equal protection of the laws to all of its citizens. So it's not quite the same as the other things you mention. For white people to claim to be victimized by the notion that blacks should get some respect is total horsepuckey, but that's your modern republican party.
Also, I'm pretty sure calling people assholes is the preferred first amendment response. People can fly the stars and bars. I can fly my third digit high. That's America.
The Jewish Encyclopedia has some VERY interesting info re Jewish settlement of South Carolina. From http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=989&letter=S :
---------
"Most of the early Jewish settlers of South Carolina seem to have come from London or the English colonies, and some of them appear to have been connected with the Barbados trade in rum and sugar.
In 1740,[NOTE!!] owing to the refusal of the trustees of Georgia to allow the introduction of slaves into that state, a number of Jews removed from Georgia to South Carolina,
and in 1748 some London Jews connected with the Da Costas and Salvadors, who had sent a number of Jews out to Georgia, proposed a plan for the acquition of a large tract of about 200,000 acres of land in South Carolina.
After considerable correspondence with the Colonial Office, through General Hamilton, the project was dropped as a concerted plan; but on Nov. 27, 1755, General Hamilton sold to Joseph Salvador 100,000 acres of land, situated near Fort Ninety-six, for £2,000.
Twenty years later Joseph Salvador sold to thirteen London Sephardic Jews 60,000 acres of land for £3,000, and transferred 20,000 acres of the remainder to Rebecca Mendes da Costa, in settlement of a claim which she had upon him. This land was known as the "Jews' lands."
Prior to this, Salvador's nephew Francis had arrived at Charleston (Dec., 1773), and purchased a great deal of landed property in the same neighborhood, some of it from his uncle and father-in-law. A Jew from London, Moses Lindo, was one of the chief instruments in increasing the indigo manufacture of the state. "
-----------
Hmmm. I wonder who picked the cotton and harvested the indigo on those vast plantations?
Ha ha ha. I haven't laughed this hard since I found out that Harvard's Endowment Fund got its start from the ..er.. "shipping" business.
I hadn't realized until now that the same person was posting as both "Don Williams" and "Chris Ford."
Hmmm. The 1860 Federal Census lists several people with a last name of Yglesias in Charleston, South Carolina. Wonder how many slaves they owned??
Matthew. Say it ain't so!
I'm all for treason, but only when it's done for the right reasons, i.e., something along the lines of "Smash the state!"
Don:
The statement I took issue with was (and these are your own words) "Many senior Confederate leaders were Jewish."
My response was "Bullshit."
I define "senior Confederate leader" as anyone who served as a Cabinet secretary, General or Admiral, state governor, or member of the Confederate House or Senate.
Let's look at your new list and see who's makes the grade.
1. Dr. David Camden DeLeon was indeed the first Surgeon General of the Confederacy. That's one for you, sir.
2. Salomon de Rothschild was not a senior Confederate official. He was not even a citizen of the Confederacy, or of the United States, at any time. He was a Frenchman.
3. Ah, The Jewish Confederates. Let's see what this has to offer:
a. Edwin DeLeon was a diplomat and spy for the Confederacy. No.
b. Colonel Abraham Charles Myers was Quartermaster General of the CSA. No.
c. I uncovered two E.W. Moises -- one a Confederate major (not general) and the other a civilian who was a judge of the Confederate States Court in Louisiana. Neither counts.
d. A provost marshal, a tax collector, a colonel, an adjutant (that is, an assistant to an officer of higher rank) -- no, no, no, and no.
e. Bernard Baruch's father, Dr. Simon Baruch, was, fresh out of med school, a military surgeon for the Confederacy. No.
By my reckoning, the number of senior Confederate leaders was three: Benjamin, Dr. DeLeon, and Yulee.
I'll say it again : pretty slim pickings.
Jewish senior Confederate leaders, I meant to write. (Note to self: Preview before post, always!)
Note: Many of the Jews who settled South Carolina were from Spain /Portugal -- the culmination of an exodus through the West Indies that started with the expulsion of Spanish-speaking Jews from Spain.
I believe this is Matthew's background also. So he may very well have some slaveholders in his ancestry --slavery was used in the West Indies as well.
Re Xbox's comment "I'll say it again : pretty slim pickings."
------------
Xbox is making a common mistake -- judging data in the light of today's environment --vice the world in which it occurred.
People don't realize that things occurred on a MUCH smaller scale in the past. Our population today is 300 MILLION -- the Confederate Army only had about 400,000 men in the field at any one moment. It is greatly magnified in our perception because of the huge volume of writing devoted to it.
Hence, the officers and officials I listed above certainly quality as "senior leaders".
Several sources indicated that there were about 10,000 Jews in the Confederate Army -- a strong show of support given the fact that Jews were small minority in the Confederacy.
Two things did depress the elevation of Jews to high military rank. One, a significant portion of CSA was devoted to cavalry. Two, the fact that field officers were ELECTED by the rank and file.
Cavalry had been instrumental in defeating Cornwallis in the Revolution and was still prized for good reasons: the South was a sparsely populated rural area with few roads and little infrastructure for transporting the huge quantities of food needed to feed large collections of infantry. Large quantities of fine livestock were available at the start of the war and supported Mongol tactics. It took a while for the South to catch on that the new rifled musket was greatly reducing the value of cavalry. Rosen notes that relatively few Jews served as cavalry officers because the urban ,mercantile class did not have the expert horsemanship needed for such service.
Election of officers worked against Jewish promotions -- not because of anti_Semitism (there were a number of well-respected Jewish officers at the lieutenant, captain and major level that i have not mentioned) but because Jews were a small minority and men elected officers that they knew personally.
It is interesting that a number of modern day Southern Jews have written in defense of their ancestors who served in the Confederate Army.
See http://www.jewishmag.com/112mag/confederates/confederates.htm
and
http://www.jewishpress.com/displayContent_new.cfm?mode=a§ionid=61&contentid=19897&contentName=Shame+of+the+Yankees+-+%3Ci%3EAmerica's+Worst+Anti-Jewish+Action%3C/i%3E
Again, the intent is not to defend the Confederacy --much less human slavery -- but to object to cartoonish distortions of history -- to ignorance.
I wonder if Matthew ever saw General Ulysses S Grant's Final Solution to the Jewish Question -- Grant's General Order 11. This order EXPELLED ALL JEWS (Northern or Southern) from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Order_%E2%84%96_11_%281862%29 and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Order_%E2%84%96_11_%281862%29#Text_of_Grant.27s_Order
Good snarks so early in the morning, Matt.
Posted by freddiemac | January 18, 2008 10:01 AM