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December 01, 2010

Southern Civil War lies continue

And, with the sesquicentennial on us, and wingnuts all about it, stuff like this will surely only continue.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans continues the lie that the war wasn't ultimately about slavery:
“We in the South, who have been kicked around for an awfully long time and are accused of being racist, we would just like the truth to be known,” said Michael Givens, commander-in-chief of the Sons, explaining the reason for the television ads. While there were many causes of the war, he said, “our people were only fighting to protect themselves from an invasion and for their independence.”

Let's count the most obvious untruths.

1. No invasion was ever threatened. All Lincoln did was to protect federal property at Fort Sumter and elsewhere.

2. You weren't independent in 1860-61.

3. You were, overall, more racist than the North. (Not that there wasn't plenty to go around.)

Givens isn't alone:
“Many people in the South still believe that is a just and honorable cause. Do I believe they were right in what they did? Absolutely,” said Jeff Antley, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, noting that he spoke for himself and not any organization. “There’s no shame or regret over the action those men took.”

Mr. Antley said he was not defending slavery, which he called an abomination. “But defending the South’s right to secede, the soldiers’ right to defend their homes and the right to self-government doesn’t mean your arguments are without weight because of slavery.”

Well, they are without weight if you're dishonest.

The truth? From historian James W. Loewen.
“The North did not go to war to end slavery, it went to war to hold the country together and only gradually did it become anti-slavery — but slavery is why the South seceded.”

And, that's not all.

Here's a rejoinder to the SCV:
“I can only imagine what kind of celebration they would have if they had won,” said Lonnie Randolph, president of the South Carolina N.A.A.C.P.
He said he was dumbfounded by “all of this glamorization and sanitization of what really happened.” When Southerners refer to states’ rights, he said, “they are really talking about their idea of one right — to buy and sell human beings.”

Well, they act like they DID win.

Is this still important? Hell, yes:
“These battles of memory are not only academic,” said Mark Potok, the director of intelligence at the Southern Poverty Law Cente r. “They are really about present-day attitudes. I don’t think the neo-Confederate movement is growing, but it’s gotten a new shot of life because of the sesquicentennial.”

Need I say Tea Party, Preznit Kumbaya?

2 comments:

  1. It is aweful funny that the "winners" tend to write the history here and now that we are on the other side of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments along with reconstruction, radical reconstruction and 145 yrs since the end of the war its easy to pass judgements.
    But I must encourage you all to read and read well, don't be ready to demonize an entire population you could not dare understand in this present time...

    Facts are these...
    Slavery was the main issue that the south chose to seceed from the union but it was a lot more complicated than just that... years of tariffs placed on the south by the north, the arguement between states rights to govern themselves and the federal government stepping in...

    The north chose aggression to force the union to stay together...

    The anti slavery movement in the north was not a matter of policy until passage of the emancipation proclomation and finally the end of the war...

    Once lincoln was killed, radical republicans in congress replaced local governments with northern ones in the south...
    Laws were passed in congress that punished white people in the south by taking away wealth and land from them and giving it to blacks... blacks were reimbursed more than whites for military service following the war and this built a lot of resentment and tension between the races in the south... more than already existed...

    The north used the south as the great racial experiment and our countries people have paid for it for generations... Radical reconstruction lead to Jim Crow laws in the south as those who fought for the south were forced to switch roles with the blacks they once enslaved... Confederates lost property while the blacks were given it... they lost their right to vote as blacks were given it...

    The racial tensions in this country are owed to the federal governments experiments in the south... their absolute need to punish the states that seceeded from the union...

    The civil war freed an entire race of people in the south, but it enslaved an entire country under federal rule...

    These sir are the facts for which you cannot dispute if you do the research... our modern version of the war between the states is one that is "politically correct, and dumbed down for modern consumption...
    It's easier to condemn the Confederacy and the people in the south than it would be to realize the entire country had been partaking in the guilt for a long long time...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Per Richard Feynman, what you've posted is so far off that "it's not even wrong."

    Not only is it all refutable, it's all been refuted before. So, knowing that you wouldn't accept that anyway, I shan't waste any time on you.

    ReplyDelete

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