The Republican Confederate Party continues their celebration of Confederate History Month.
The AP reports on what Hayley Barbour–former GOP Chairman, current Mississippi Governor and 2012 Presidential Candidate–thought about including the issue of slavery when discussing the history of the Confederacy (emphasis added):
“To me, it’s a sort of feeling that it’s a nit, that it is not significant, that it’s not a — it’s trying to make a big deal out of something (that) doesn’t amount to diddly,” Barbour said in the interview aired on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Last year, Barbour issued a similar proclamation in his state that did not mention slavery. He also noted that his state has a holiday, Confederate Memorial Day, that has been maintained by Democratic and Republican governors and the state’s majority-Democrat legislature. The state also honors the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Confederate general Robert E. Lee on the same day in January.
In the Confederacy–and Barbour’s Mississippi–you can not celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. by himself, you need to include Bobby Lee to make the Federal Holiday all white right to celebrate. In his CNN interview, Barbour seemed to be annoyed that some folks would harsh the fun that he and many other Southern Republicans have celebrating the Confederacy by mentioning that whole buying and selling human beings thing. In fact, the fat bastard seemed a little pissed off to be asked about it.
Barbour’s proud dismissal of slavery as relevant to the history of the Confederacy shows that once again Mississippi is still the Confederacy’s heart of darkness. And that reminds me of the late great Phil Ochs. Back in the early Sixties he wrote “Here’s to the State of Mississippi” to describe the real evil of racism protected by the “good people of Mississippi”. You can listen to it here (I would post an audio link but FYWP).
Here are the opening lyrics:
Here’s to the state of Mississippi,
For Underneath her borders, the devil draws no lines,
If you drag her muddy river, nameless bodies you will find.
Whoa the fat trees of the forest have hid a thousand crimes,
The calender is lyin’ when it reads the present time.
Whoa here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of,
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of!
Later in the song Ochs’ writes about the Governor of Mississippi in words that are still true today:
And the speeches of the governor are the ravings of a clown
In the early Seventies, Ochs updated this song with new lyrics about Richard Nixon and a few years ago Pearl Jam did a similar update about the Bush II years. One could update this song again and almost keep Phil Ochs’ original lyrics intact. You would only need to swap Republican Party for ‘Mississippi’:
Here’s to the state of the Republican Party,
For Underneath her borders, the devil draws no lines,
If you drag her muddy river, nameless bodies you will find.
Whoa the fat trees of the forest have hid a thousand crimes,
The calender is lyin’ when it reads the present time.
Whoa here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of,
Republican Party find yourself another country to be part of!
I think celebrating Confederate History month with these fuckers might be a little fun.
Cheers
Mike Kay
Why would they celebrate it during april, the month when the confederacy fell?
Gotta love it: big fat slob Barbour – yet ANOTHER Vietnam chicken hawk – celebrates war.
Cat Lady
I wholeheartedly support the idea from the earlier thread that there should be an annual reenactment of Sherman’s March, but starting in Virginia and ending in West Texas.
joe from Lowell
I love that logo. I want to see it everywhere. I want to see Republicans scramble to figure out what to do. Is there a problem, Congressman? Hmm?
El Cid
For a group of people obsessed with talkin’ about the Civil War, the Neo-Confederate leadership of the Republican party sure ain’t much interested in the period 1877 – 1965.
Mike Kay
Someone should ask Romney how he feels about Confederate Spring Break.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24ZXWaYyM8U
Zuzu's Petals
My grandfather was born in Mississippi 20 years after the Civil War. His father was a slave owner. Tennessee Williams knew some of my distant cousins and wrote about ’em thinly disguised.
I’ve never been able to bring myself to go visit.
AxelFoley
@Cat Lady:
Co-signeth.
Dennis G.
@joe from Lowell:
Yes. Everyone of these weasels should be asked if the issue of slavery should be included in any discussion of the Confederacy and the causes of the Civil War. I’m betting that most will pull a Barbour and deny the relevance of slavery to history with pride.
beltane
What was the Confederacy, exactly, if nothing but a group of people who loved enslaving others more than they loved their country. There’s no amount of mint julep colored haze that can obscure the fact that a willingness to commit treason in defense of slavery is the main distinguishing feature of Southern history. The rest of it is just decoration.
parksideq
As a black dude from upstate NY who was always confused by northern hicks who flew the Rebel flag, let me say that it at least serves the purpose of letting me know which businesses not to give my hard-earned money to.
Back on topic, I’m not surprised that Barbour would pander to the lowest common denominator re: slavery. Of course it doesn’t amount to diddly to him; his ancestors didn’t have the same risk of enslavement in this country that others had.
GregB
The GOP believes in Confederate Political Correctness.
They can’t say anything bad about the rebels or they’ll hurt some feelings down South.
El Cid
I don’t as much think it’s the Civil War they’re nostalgic for, but those last couple decades of the 19th century when the Southern elites used violence and terrorism to turn back the gains of post-Civil War blacks & dissenting whites.
From their point of view, they were able to reverse most of the Civil War defeat once.
They aren’t bitter types grievously commemorating a loss, but hysterical types thinking of their victory of the 1890s.
eastriver
The dog whistle gets replaced every April with a fife and drums.
Jesus on a hot buttered biscuit, what’s the big deal?
All y’all’s Northern Aggression is still pretty peppery a 150 years later.
Happy Days
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Jon Meacham normally makes my skin crawl, but he penned an excellent piece on this topic, IMO
x
Dennis, please post that logo on photobucket. It needs wide distribution.
MattR
Wow. I just learned something about the 13th ammendment. It has now been ratified by all 36 states that were part of the USA when it was passed. The last two states to ratify it were:
TenguPhule
Yep, right on CNN you had white people arguing against black people that the Confederacy was not about Slavery (or at least not in Virigina) and that they just wanted to *honor* Confederate soldiers who fought “for their homes”. When host asks “then why not have a day of honor for soldiers of BOTH SIDES” the hypocritical fuck nut starts bitching that the Union boys don’t deserve it because they ATTACKED the South and Sherman’s March to the sea and-blah blah blah, Traitors are special or something.
Dennis G.
@x:
It is up on flickr right now. Please feel free to post it on photobucket.
Cheers
Dennis G.
@MattR:
Not a surprise
TenguPhule
Corrected for accuracy.
At this point, Black/Hispanic/Muslim/Minority Republicans are just a big ol bunch of Judas Goats.
Mickey Claus is sprouting the boner of joy.
Bret
Look, I completely understand Barbour’s position here. It’s a total non-issue.
I mean, I carry around at all times a big Nazi flag to celebrate my German heritage. People that say it’s “offensive” are just whining and making a big deal out of nothing.
Dennis G.
@TenguPhule:
Perhaps it is time to show up at the next Teabagger ralley with loudspeakers playing Marching Through Georgia.
That will make them happy as we would be helping them celebrate Confederate History month.
Cheers
MattR
@Dennis G.: Given that they made it to 1995, I am kinda surprised that Mississippi even bothered to ratify it at that point.
gbear
@parksideq:
I use the fish symbol as a filter in the same way. If there’s a fish anywhere on their signage, they don’t get my business.
rob!
Well, the emptiness is endless, cold as the clay
You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long–Bob Dylan
beltane
@MattR: They should not have been allowed to re-enter the Union without ratifying that. Nothing wrong with keeping them an occupied territory without the right to vote in federal elections. The reason the South has gotten a way with being such an albatross is that the rest of the country has done nothing but appease them over the years.
Quackosaur
@Mike Kay:
I imagine they chose April because it was the month that those brave American patriots freed the port of Charleston from the shackles of Northern Oppression. That April was also the month that patriotism in this country died, indicates that they wish to memorialize the heroes who valiantly tried to take their country back from those dirty soshulist abolitionists who just didn’t understand that letting the darkies run free would bring ruination and damnation upon their beloved America.
dnelson
To lighten up the topic, we were playing tennis at the socialist courts, and the baby boy came running up to his daddy; “Daddy , Daddy, I just saw an orange leprechaun in the park. My whole family broke out laughing. You had to be there. Another tag line might be, I saw an ORANGE leprechaun (said in the voice of a three year old.). If you love the animals, you gotta love the baby boys and girls. They are priceless. Not one child was hurt by the leprechauns at the socialist tennis courts, and the parents were safe as well. The story is too cute to keep to oneself.
Mike in NC
The combinations are just endless:
Barbour / DeMint 2012
Gingrich / Palin 2012
Romney / Rubio 2012
Jeb Bush / Liz Cheney 2012
Fred Thompson / Joe Wilson 2012
They live in a fantasy world all their own.
cs
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. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
–From “A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.”
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Yea, It’s been suppressed quite a bit, and folks from other parts of the country moving there has diluted it some. But the seeds of old south lifestyle with all the import of a bygone era still lives in the soil there, and throughout the deep south.
I lived in south Mississippi much of the 90’s, and while race relations on the surface are amiable, meaning no outbreaks of lynching, the racial tension you could cut with a knife.
Most of my time there was spent in Biloxi and along the Gulf Coast, which has been somewhat transformed with the Casino culture, but I did spend a year living in Hattiesburg, and it was one of the most uncomfortable years of my life. Weird and nervous atmosphere, all the time.
In Biloxi, I rented a small shack only a few hundred yards from one of Jefferson Davis’s homes on the beach. It is now a museum of sorts, that while I walked by it about every day going to work, I could not bring myself to go inside and check it out, in spite of great curiosity./
beltane
@cs: Thanks. Makes you just despise them all over again. The white Southern, Republican establishment are the ugliest of Americans and a never ending source of shame.
MattR
@cs: cs. Nice find. But you aren’t expecting facts to sway a Republican are you?
I would recommend that everyone follow the link and read the entire declaration.
EDIT: Why am I not surprised that Candy Crowley did not have this ready as a response to Barbour and that I have not seen anyone in the MSM point this out?
Mike G
@Dennis G.:
My grandmother related to me an experience when she was on a tour of Europe with a group of American seniors. They were staying at a hotel in Belgium having dinner, and the house brass band decided to entertain them with a selection of American marching songs.
Unaware of their historical context, the band launched into ‘Dixie’ and a string of other Confederate tunes, and all the Southerners beamed with joy. Their smiles quickly turned into cold scowls as the band struck up their next tune from the same era, “Marching Through Georgia”…
Brick Oven Bill
The data, reflecting the percentage of black people who support a President of their own race, has stopped being reported.
Here is the last known datapoint.
Suppression of data is not healthy in a democracy.
It is my theory that blacks are again, being used, this time by the Democratic Party, who seek to amass power.
GregB
Can we now officially re-dub the GOP as the Party of Jefferson Davis?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
somebody please release me from mod. pretty please.
GregB
Ah yes. The racist Democrats who chose as their leader an African-American.
Fucking brilliant BOB.
Keep drinking them mint juleps, the South is rising again, just like a Goddamn boil.
Roger Moore
@El Cid:
Fixt.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Brick Oven Bill:
Absolutely goddamn right. It’s called votes.
Brick Oven Bill
The Banker-Democrats, perhaps selected Barack because he is compromised, GregB. Barry wrote an article with noun-verb mismatches as an undergrad. Then he fell silent. His article has since been removed from the Internet.
These Bankers have access to the records of Columbia University. The American public does not.
Violet
@MattR:
Facts have a liberal bias. Just like truth.
They’ll claim they’re out there doing that investigative reporting and can’t be expected to know everything about history. I might be willing to give them more of a pass on the history part if they actually did any real investigative reporting. Unfortunately we get neither.
ksmiami
Well, that’s it then. The Repukes are not even trying to pretend to be civil and tolerant. Great, at least we can all be honest about what party wants to keep people down and what party is at least a bit interested in promoting the general welfare. The only thing that is wierd is that they keep crying that they want their country back, but the people who make up the current peons of the Republican party certainly never owned this country to begin with… Strange.
Hart Williams
Not at all surprising to find out that Haley Barbour was “palling around with White Supremacists” in 2004 and after, even though he was RNC Chair in 1998 when Trent Lott and Bob Barr got caught with the “Council of Conservative Citizens” (CCC, get it? Hyuck. Literally came out of the old kulture of the KKK.)
Crooks and Liars has a nice piece on it. It’s a testament to just how Good Ol’ Boy Barbour is that he didn’t even think for a moment before throwing gasoline on a fire that was dying down.
I guess they’re so used to Democrats backing down that he misjudged the silent anger that still exists all over America about their “lost cause” and a hundred years of American Apartheid.
From my perch in the blogosphere, THANK YOU, HALEY BARBOUR!
You’re as great a gift to investigative bloggers as George W. Bush was to comedians.
cs
@MattR:
You’d be surprised on the effect this quote (and others like it) have on modern Confederate sympathizers. Most of those people love to read the fun stuff about the battles and the sad stories of those who suffered in Sherman’s urban renewal projects. The sympathizers almost completely ignore what the politicians, other than Jeff Davis, said or did.
When they’re confronted with the direct ugly evidence, it will either make them completely shut up, or they’ll actually start talking about it starting with the words of “I had no idea…” and realizing their old heroes were fighting to defend something terribly evil.
JK
Pat Buchanan defends Confederate History Month
h/t http://wearerespectablenegroes.blogspot.com/2010/04/sunday-afternoon-not-so-funny-pat.html
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@JK:
Shocker
Hart Williams
Yeah. Pat completely melted down on MSNBC on Thursday. It was like watching Dr. Strangelove in real life, except that he didn’t try to strangle himself. The only thing missing from his conniption fit was the flecks of foam around his mouth.
Astonishing.
Buchanan melts down. Hardball, April 8, 2010.
FlipYrWhig
I think there may genuinely be people who see waving the Confederate flag as another version of flipping the middle finger. It’s not about slavery, it’s about stickin’ it… to the kind of person who would be bothered by a Confederate flag. And I sort of agree that it’s not “about” slavery; it’s about flipping off the civil rights movement and other “do-gooders” and “outside agitators.” In other words, it’s not that they support actual slavery, it’s just that they don’t care for uppity negroes and the white people who love them so much.
FlipYrWhig
Also, I think some of the Confederate enthusiasts think of them as the American equivalent of the Scottish Highlanders: they weren’t cut out for the modern world and went down fighting for something, probably, um, “freedom,” I guess.
db
Great post!
Urza
As i’m sure Brick Oven Bill knows, and I probably shouldn’t feed the local troll, black support for Obama is not much higher than it was for Clinton or any other democrat going back to the Civil Rights era when they showed that they were willing to actually help black people.
Whereas republicans have a fondness for taking funds away from programs that would help non whites. Harassing them for voting even in 2008. Destroying organizations like ACORN that help get poor and minorities registered and out to vote. Denying slavery was an issue like jew haters deny the holocaust. I could go on of course, but a 50 page layout of bullet points won’t matter much to the willfully ignorant.
Hart Williams
After ten years of a kind of successful Reconstruction (remember, Grant squashed the original Klan), the Republican, Hayes, sold everything down the river to steal an election, and then, as Reconstruction was abandoned, the Old South was allowed to rationalize its loss away, and ENABLED by the North, abandoning the Blacks the way that we abandoned the southern Iraqis after Gulf War I.
We never should have let them: a hundred years of horror followed, and we STILL had to face the national stain, which we’re still doing. The only tragedy here is if we decide to forget it with the next news cycle and move on.
This is really the moment to take the whole “Lost Cause” guitar out of their hands and bust it right over their ‘noble’ and ‘chivalrous’ heads. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
PanAmerican
From the GoS:
I suspect that goes to explain them cranking it up to 11 and breaking off the knob.
sven
Totally off topic but the inevitable has been published…
The Top 25 Centrist Columnists
well, according to (who else) the Daily Beast.
C’mon, make it like a game, how many can you guess without even looking.
MattR
@cs: I guess I should have differentiated between Republican politicians/talking heads and Republican citizens. The first group wont change their mind no matter what the facts are. The second group is definitely a more mixed bag and it is definitely worth the effort to try and educate them and hope they learn from it.
Mike Kay
@PanAmerican:
It actually goes both ways. The firebag/hippies hate obama so much, they eat glass and pound nails into their forehead every time a positive story comes out. In their dreams, he’s defeated in New Hampshire in 2012 by the return of the populist golden boy John Edwards.
Citizen_X
@Brick Oven Bill:
Hmm. A little too dog-whistley for us non-native-Wingnut-speakers, BoB. You’re hiding your meaning somewhat.
There. Much clearer.
Mike Kay
@Citizen_X: Damn Jew bankers, didn’t they know The President is a secret muslim socialist!
JK
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
The real shocker is that MSNBC hasn’t fired Pat Buchanan for his extremist views.
Citizen_X
BTW, I saw three meatheads driving by today in a beat-up old pickup with “WHITE TRASH” written across the windshield, flying a big (~3′ X 4″) Confederate flag from the bed.
So what? This was in western Ohio.
Idiots.
mai naem
@Citizen_X: It actually said “White Trash” and not “Vyte Trahche?”
JasonF
Slavery is important, and shouldn’t be allowed to be swept under the rug, but here is the real question that needs to be put to every one of these SOBs:
Why do you want to celebrate treason against the United States?
Calouste
The Constitution of the CSA was almost a verbatim copy of the Constitution of the USA. 90-95% the same. A lot of the changes weren’t even that significant, like limiting the President to one six-year term.
What the CSA did however, was expand the article that doesn’t allow passing a bill of attainder or a ex post facto law to also forbid passing laws that abolish or even limit black slavery. Yep, slavery was equated with two basic tenents of modern law. Therefore, everyone who think that slavery isn’t the crux of the Confederacy, like Barbour, can go fuck themselves with a rusty chainsaw.
Zuzu's Petals
Wrong.
And … wrong.
Per usual.
Mark S.
@sven:
Dear god, are you trying to give John and Doug aneurysms? I mean, I expected Bobo and Broder, but Harold Ford, Jr and Peggy Noonan?
rikyrah
he’s from MISSISSIPPI.
why does this surprise anyone?
it simply can’t shock anyone.
TuiMel
@MattR:
I plan to fax a copy to Govenor Barbour’s office tomorrow and personalize it with something like:
Diddly. Have fun trying to reconcile this with your comments to CNN’s Candy Crowley if you ever try to run for national office. Maybe I will spend some tourism dollars in your fine state this July when I come to celebrate the anniversary of the surrender of Vicksburg to General Grant.
TuiMel
@Hart Williams:
I have wondered in the past whether their is no shark big enough for Pat Buchanon to hurdle while doing back flips that would cause MSNBC to spurn him. He is a canker on the political discourse in this country. Yet, he is given major platforms from which to promote his beliefs. I give Chris Matthews credit; he ridiculed Buchanon at every turn while Pat was spinning more madly then Rumplestiltskin.
Joey Maloney
For those on Facebook, I say we start one of those campaigns to have everyone change their profile pic to “celebrate” Confederate History Month.
Linda Featheringill
@Zuzu’s Petals:
We are not responsible for what our great grandparents did. Peace.
Hart Williams
@TuiMel
As near as I can figure it, he must know where the bodies are buried.
I always believed that he was inserted into the 1992 Republican primaries because David Duke was getting the 25% protest vote, BTW. Then, after another bizarro world run in 1996 (maybe for the same reason — can’t have the true “Reagan coalition” show its true face), he was sent out to destroy the “Reform” party, which he did.
His columns are regularly featured on David Duke’s site and on WorldNutDeli, but nobody ever calls him on that one.
SOMEBODY is pulling strings for him. When CNN didn’t rehire him, he ends up at MSNBC. For his charm?
I can’t explain why the newsrooms are being emptied through layoffs, this guy who would make Genghis Khan look like a flaming liberal keeps getting hired. Kind of like James J. Kilpatrick, who was to the right of Hitler, but kept being syndicated in crappy newspapers throughout the land until he mercifully died. Or Bob Novak, who must be swapping stories with Wild Bill Rehnquist at their bunkroom in Hell.
Linda Featheringill
@Brick Oven Bill:
And you think that your grammar is always perfect? It isn’t.
dslak
That’s not fair to Genghis Khan. Although he used brutal methods of conquest, Genghis Khan’s administration was one of the most tolerant of the time (maybe even more tolerant than Buchanan’s preferred government would be).
Hart Williams
@dslak
True. “Pat Buchanan” and “tolerance” can barely stand to occupy the same sentence, let alone the actual Universe.
El Cid
National Review‘s John Derbyshire, in his own words, explaining to black law school students on the question of continuing racial disparities in education & employment that blacks are known to be intellectually inferior, they just are, everybody knows it, and only he is bold enough to say it to the assembled black law school students.
Derbyshire is not a sociologist. There is no “speed of light” assumption in social science that blacks are just well known to be proven dumber.
You see, this is the problem with Democrats and race. They just don’t have enough brave people like Derbyshire standing up in front of a bunch of black law students and telling them that Africans are dumber but they do much better at Olympics and such.
kid bitzer
cs @30, 45–
thanks for introducing this document. it is crucial to have the conferacy represented by it’s own words. equally good are Alexander stephens “cornerstone speech” and commissioner williamson’s address from louisiana to texas, asking them to secede for the sake of “african slavery”.
the propaganda about the confederates cannot survive the first encounter with the documentary evidence of their policies and aims.
i am proud to be an american, and a lot of that pride comes from pride over our founding documents. the declaration and constitution, for all their flaws, are brilliant expressions of our ideals, and worthy subjects of study and veneration. they are why we have a big marble tourist-trap down on the mall, called “the national archives.”
if pat buchanan and gov’s barbour and mcconell are so proud of the confederacy, why don’t they celebrate it’s founding documents? why don’t they make every school child in their state read the csa constitution, to see how it made almost no changes other than explicitly entrenching a “right” to slavery? why don’t they make every child read their states declaration of secession, like the one you gave us in 30?
somebody needs to create a csa archive on-line, cataloguing every racist, white supremacist document that the csa promulgated and endorsed. make this stuff part of the national awareness, and we won’t have to listen to their neo-confederate bleating much longer.
i was heartened to see one wa-po columnist cite stephen’s cornerstone speech. that’s progress.
but the word needs to get spread further, until everyone can see what the confederacy stood for, in its own words.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Since southern Republicans like to celebrate losers, here’s hoping they have a LOT to celebrate during the next election cycle.
JD Rhoades
If I may be permitted a rare bit of blogwhoring, here’s a Southerner’s take on the issue .
El Cid
@JD Rhoades: I agree with much said on your post. I’m just typically struck by (as a Southerner myself) a failure to be interested in people other than Confederate leaders and troops, and also a complete non-interest in learning about the quarter-century of terrorism Southern elites unleashed right after federal troops were withdrawn to reconquer the South for white supremacists of wealth.
A whole cultural war was waged, and won, by Southern white supremist elites, to redefine the South and the Civil War and the Lost Cause, and that victory held from the 1880s right up until 1954 with Brown and/or 1965 with CR/VR acts.
Johnny B
Could someone please ask our Confederate Senators and Governors two questions:
First, are you glad that President Lincoln saved the Union and defeated the Confederacy?
Second, do you think that John Wilkes Booth was justified in assassinating President Lincoln, the first Republican President of the United States?
If it’s alright for Southerners to celebrate the Confederacy and its act of treason against the United States, can Northerners celebrate General Grant and his willingness to allow Sherman to go on an arson spree from Richmond to Atlanta? Or is it politically incorrect to celebrate Grant’s efforts to save the Union?
I think it’s time to break out my “Northern Pride” bumper sticker with the Union flag from 1865.
kay
@Johnny B:
Nah. The modern confederates are just starting this fight to rally their racist base for the midterms. They’re fat and happy under Union “rule”.
Imagine Virginia without DC. Uh-oh. There goes the tax revenue!
ChrisS
@FlipYrWhig:
This. At least outside of the south in my experience.
By flying the confederate flag, they’re being rebels. Outlaws. It’s about, in Atrios’s words, “hippie punchin’.”
Although, in most cases, they know damn well it includes hatin’ blacks.
Remember November
The party of antiquated antebellum values.
Meme and pass on. “Confederate Party” That’s a Southern Strategy you can believe in!
rickstersherpa
My thanks to Governors McDonnell and Barbour for allowing us to reflect on the following facts (and April is the appropriate month), about the perfidy of the Southern Pro-Slavery party, and their descendants continued dedication to racialism.
April 1860 – W. L. Yancey, Ruffin, DeBow and the other Southern extremists lead a walk out at the Democratic Convention over the failure of the National Democratic Party to insert the call for a Federal Slave Code in its platform. The split of the Democratic Party, confirmed in June 1860 in Baltimore, practically guaranteed the election of a Republican. Prior ot the convention, on 24 Feb 1860, Yancey had already had the Alabama Legislature pass a law authorizing the Governor to call a convention for the purpose of secession if a Republican was elected. During the 1860 campaign, Yancey made many speeches and one of his lines was “We stand upon the dark platform of southern slavery, and all we ask is to be allowed to keep it to ourselves. Let us do that, and we will not let the negro [sic] insult you by coming here and marrying your daughters.” Nice stuff.
April 1861 – Lincoln, sends a note to the South Carolina Governor informing him that an unarmed ship, “the Star of the West” is being sent to resupply, but not reinforce Ft. Sumter (he also directs that back up military force if the Governor refuses). In response, Jefferson Davis directs Confederate forces to fire on Ft. Sumter, flying the flag of the United States, and which had been constructed at the expense of all taxpayers in the United States, initiating the Civil War. Davis and most of the officers in the Confederacy, as former Federal officers and office holders, had all sworn oaths “to defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
June-July 1863 – Lee’s Army invades Pennsylvania. Hundreds of African-Americans citizens are captured and enslaved, the City of Chamberburg is burned, and much other private property is despoiled and taken. At Gettysburg, Lee has the opportunity to destroy the Army of the Potomac in detail (Lee’s forces out number Federal forces 2-1 on the first day, and has a numerical superiority on the second day as the Union VI Corps, the largest Union Corps, does not arrive on the field until late on the evening of July 2). He comes very close to achieving a least a major defeat of the Army of Potomac by the evening of 2 July. On July 3, he launches Pickett’s charge and suffers an outright retreat. But stubbornly, in that retreat, carries many captured Blacks back into VirgInia and slavery.
April 1865 – Lee’s Army surrenders to Grant at Appomatox. Lincoln is killed on Good Friday by a Confederate secret agent, James W. Boothe, as part of wide ranging plot designed to decapitate the Federal Government. (Booth’s assaination plot was his own initiative, but he was an agent of the Confederate Secret Service and their appears to have been plot to kidnap Lincoln to force a negotiated peace and recognition of hte Confederacy). Booth’s diaries make it clear that he was a radical white supremacist.
kay
It is absolutely amazing to me that the attorney general of Virginia seeks to establish himself politically as a tea bagger.
How many freaking federal employees and retirees live in Virginia? The lawyer for on the state payroll plans to establish his career in opposition to the entity signing their paychecks? He’s going to rail against federal employees? Virginians are going along meekly with this politically calculated personal career move?
This takes cognitive dissonance to a whole new level.
He’s starting a fight with his own state’s revenue-raiser.
catclub
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
About Jefferson Davis’s house in Biloxi.
Just remember, Ol Jeff Davis was captured trying to escape Union soldiers by dressing up as a girl.
BobS
@MattR:
“Why am I not surprised that Candy Crowley did not have this ready as a response to Barbour and that I have not seen anyone in the MSM point this out?”
Given the quality of reporting in the corporate media, particularly the electronic variety, I’m not surprised this hasn’t been more widely reported.
What’s more surprising is that it hasn’t been ‘reported’ in one of the several threads on the subject here.
I expect more from you people than I do from CNN.
Randy P
@Brick Oven Bill: Barry wrote an article with noun-verb mismatches as an undergrad.
OK, I’ll play. Anybody know where BoB’s “noun-verb mismatches” are in that article?
Edit: Googling has turned up the claim, repeated here and there. But nobody ever cites a single one of these supposedly egregious grammatical errors. I guess BoB is just passing on the claim. He doesn’t actually know or care if it’s true.
phoebes-in-santa fe
Just to add a little levity, a link to the Onion 2000 article about how the South will wise again. Hope the link works. It’s very funny.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/south-postpones-rising-again-for-yet-another-year,377/
frankdawg
Glad to see I am not the only person to remember Phil Ochs. Lucky bastard died during a time when it was possible to believe we might be maturing as a country.
And can anyone explain to me why they bother to respond to Brick Head Bill? I have never seen any comment from him that deserves any response.
I used to do some volunteer work with mentally challenged kids. Occasionally one would come out with a totally off the wall statement like: “My boogers are orange”. For a while I struggled with trying to get to why they would say that or to explain to them that it was not true. But eventually I realized it was pointless as they didn’t really understand what they were saying and reason, logic and the real world facts wouldn’t change their mind. It ended up that the best reaction to these statements, as it is to BhB, was to ignore them.
Randy P
@frankdawg:
Guilty. I dunno. But I do get curious sometimes about particular right-wing memes for some reason. In this case I thought BoB might actually be talking about some sentences he had read that he thought were ungrammatical. As something of a grammar nazi myself, I was curious what they were. There are cases (like the combination of a singular and a plural subject) where it can be difficult to decide what form of the verb to use.
But after a little Googling, unfortunately all I got was evidence that BoB was obviously just passing on a claim from someone else, and that someone else as far as I could tell hadn’t put forth the actual examples. He did talk about how there were an appalling “five noun-verb disagreements” in an 1800 word article. That doesn’t sound very appalling to me. Also, this was a newspaper article which presumably passed through the hands of an editor, so if there are errors we don’t necessarily know whose they were.
End result: I’m still curious about the origin of these claims and hoping somebody has actually laid the examples out and discussed them.
Death Panel Truck
Here’s what Hard-Drinkin’ Lincoln would have to say about Confederate History Month:
We whipped all of your redneck asses
from Antietam to Manassas
you’re in graves
with no slaves
Atlanta Braves
really suck!
(sung to the tune of “Dixie”)
Honus
@Brick Oven Bill: I”t is my theory that blacks are again, being used, this time by the Democratic Party, who seek to amass power.”
It’s not a theor, Brick, it’s a fact. We use African-Americans to amass power by representing their interests.
stevie avebury
Can we ask every republican running for office everywhere in America at every public chance we get “As a republican, do you support the leader of the republican governors associations statement, while celebrating the confederacy, that slavery was less important than the egg of a lice?” Every republican running for office should be forced to publicly refute haley barbour’s statement or explain why they will not. He is part of their leadership and speaks for them or if not they would remove him from his leadership position.
dj spellchecka
in ’08, mississippi was only one of three states where a larger percentage of voters under 30 voted for mccain than had voted for bush…anyone who things racism is go bye-bye when my generation kicks the bucket [i’m 60] is sadly mistaken…
momus
To the celebrants:
It was 150 years ago. You lost. Get over it.
Cyrus
@JasonF:
Meh, treason isn’t all that big a deal. Washington and Jefferson were traitors. The CSA’s motivation in the Civil War is the problem.
ricky
What is the percentage of seats the Confederate Party has in Congress outside its homeland base?
ricky
@catclub:
He was just trying to copy Genralissimo Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón.
Also known to Texicans as “Santy Anny.” He tried to flee dressed as a Private, but was still wearing fancy undies on his privates.
The Succubus
@MattR:
I remember this vividly. I have issues with Michael Moore, but I’ll always love the story he did when this happened. He sent a black correspondent, Rusty Cundieff, to Mississippi to purchase 4 out-of-work men while it was still legal. Then, asserting a slave owner’s prerogative, he re-named after leading Repubs. So the last legally owned slaves in America were 4 white guys named Billy Bob Dole Cundieff, Newt Gingrich Cundieff, Jesse Helms Cundieff, and damned if I can remember the fourth.
Ben
A national study conducted by Mediacurves.com explored opinions of 600 Americans regarding Virginia’s reinstatement of Confederate History Month. Results found that Among political parties, the majority of Republicans (62%) indicated that confederate history should be honored, while the same proportion of Democrats (62%) reported that confederate history should not be honored. In addition, nearly half of the respondents (48%) reported that celebrating Confederate History Month promotes racist ideals.
More results can be seen at http://www.mediacurves.com/NationalMediaFocus/J7798-ConfederateHistoryMonth/Index.cfm
Honus
@rickstersherpa: Don’t you mean John W. Booth?
sparky
all this latest kerfluffle seems to suggest is that the Rs have formally given up any hope of attracting anyone outside of the white zone, so to speak. consequently there is no downside for them in these kinds of promotions.
as far as the cognitive dissonance goes, IMO the connector is the military, as exemplified by the power of the armed forces in VA. one can thus stay loyal to any army so long as that army is aligned with the state’s interests.
and those of us from the north have nothing to brag about in respect to racial matters.
MoeLarryAndJesus
“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” –
they didn’t drive it down hard enough. Fuck the Confederacy and all those who (still) sail with it.