Rick Perry is running for President, but it is worth asking: President of what?.
His campaign rhetoric, policy solutions, views of American history, the Constitution and our laws are all distinctly Confederate. He finds Federal spending on education, infrastructure, and a safety net to be outside of his understanding of the Constitution. Rights for workers, environmental protection and any regulations that interfere in the God given right of our Galtian Overlords to take whatever they want, whenever they want it are also at odds with his views. It is the CSA Constitution that frames Perry’s understanding of Constitutional law and his founding fathers are more Davis, Forrest and Lee than those fellas from 1776. This is why it is fair to ask which Country does Perry want to be President of: the CSA or the USA? I think the answer is pretty clear.
Perry talks in neo-Confederate code and a majority of Wingnutopia loves that shit. The majority of voters in any Republican Primary will be Tea-Party-Neo-Confederates. They are the base that will choose the nominee and Perry has them in his pocket.
In the footsteps of the Confederate elites of old, Perry uses code words–and sometimes blunt language–to pump up fear that minorities are threatening to steal the privileges of white people. He uses this fear as tool to bamboozle the gullible into supporting policies that hurt them. Look at Texas with all those low wage jobs, bad schools and laws designed to help oligarchs steal your labor, savings and health. Folks should be in revolt, but instead they line up to buy the shit sandwich. The wingnut base of the Republican Party will support almost anything if it is presented with some White privilege protection code-talking and wrapped up with a Jesus-loves-this-shit-too pretty ribbon. Telling fools what they want to hear is Perry’s special skill–and he is pretty good at it.
Rick Perry has won the Modern Confederate Party Primary. And he has won the “Who will save us from that Black Man in the White House” primary. These wins give him majority support of the Republican Party base.
Winning the Republican Party Nomination for President is now his to lose.
Old Jeff Davis must be smiling.
Cheers
Warren Terra
Well done to use one of the eight tags Cole specifically abhorred in the previous post – but surely you could have used more than one? Or created a new one?
Davis X. Machina
Faulkner was right — the past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.
The Civil War isn’t even half as far back in our national rear-view mirror as the Plantation of Ulster. And that still has a certain hold on people.
Conservatism in England, and Unionism in Ireland, are joined at the hip, and have a shared party. So too the GOP with the CSA.
Dee Loralei
Good post Dennis, keep em coming.
And as Warren said, keep the tags coming too.
SensesFail
Bob Cesca came up with the best description of Rick Perry on today’s episode of his internet radio show:
George W. Bush in a Sears mannequin wig
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
No wonder you left here.
Jeffro
just a please for “JefferSON”, if you don’t mind
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
Good post.
But please, all you FP’ers, it’s time to retire the phrase “Galtian Overlords”. Do you know how few people there are who’ve ever heard of John Galt, or Ayn Rand? And Overlords was OK when it referred to insects, but it’s been overdone.
How about “Robber Barons”? Works for me. “Capitalist Pigs” has a nice historic ring, too. “Running Dogs”? (Sorry Lily). “Captains of Industry (sic)” You have to have the (sic) with that one.
Maybe someone here can work “Sociopath” into a good phrase.
ETA: I’ll leave you with George Orwell’s First Rule of Writing: Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Dennis G.
@Warren Terra: I don’t create categories. Never have. WP does not allow me that kind of access. I do use the ones that are there is they fit. I always assumed that other Front Pages could not make tags as well, which is why I was glad when Doug made the “Fables of the Reconstruction” on for my Civil War related posts. It looks like I was wrong.
Cheers
jrg
O/T: This is What Happens When You Photoshop an Overweight Cat Into Art
lamh32
hey guys, this is way OT, but I just saw Josh Marshall post this:
TPM Hacked After Posting Mugshots Of Alleged ‘Anonymous’ Members
Is this serious enough to keep TPM site down for some time? Right now JM says they are posting through a temporary tumblr account.
MikeJ
@lamh32: Any reason for us to believe that belongs to them?
Frankly once those fuckers started spamming me I don’t give a shit what happens to them as a corporate entity. Wouldn’t bother me if anonymous burned down their office as long as nobody was in it. Spammers are scum, and they spam.
Jebediah
@jrg:
I fail to see how that is off topic anywhere, anytime.
Martin
@MikeJ:
Other than Josh linking to it in Twitter?
El Cid
If the Confederacy was so bad, then how come it’s in the Constitution? I’m pretty sure it is. I haven’t read it to make sure, but I believe it comes after the 2nd Amendment somewhere. Maybe near the 10th. It’d have to be, because there’s nothing between those two anyone gives a shit about.
Warren Terra
@MikeJ:
I’ve never known TPM to be spammers. I’ve emailed them a time or two, and never signed up for any lists. It’s possible they’ve nonetheless sold my email account to someone else, but I have no particular reason to think so.
Warren Terra
@El Cid:
I think even the Teahaddists would stand up for the Third Amendment.
Jennifer
I put up another Perry post with yet another corndog picture. You haven’t seen this one. He looks like he’s longing for that corndog.
Omnes Omnibus
@Warren Terra: “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy?” Or “Do not take the name of the Lord in vain?”
El Cid
@Warren Terra: Maybe, if like so many things, they (a) knew about it, and (b) had the misfortune to experience it. Maybe. It depends on how much they were imminently skeert of a brown person uprisin’.
Martin
@El Cid: Bill of Rights != Constitution, btw.
But you’re sorta right. The 3rd Amendment:
“No Patriot shall, in time of peace or war, be required to use energy-efficient light bulbs.”
And the 5th:
“No person shall be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation, unless your governor wants to look like a bad-ass.”
Dee Loralei
Don’t DDOS attackers generally get bored pretty quickly and move on? I mean unless there is a vengeance thing going on like they had with AmEx when they wouldn’t send money to Julien Assange? Is this why M_C is so quiet tonight? LOL
Gin & Tonic
@jrg: Never has the phrase “too much time on one’s hands” seemed more apt.
Martin
@efgoldman: So, she’s performing her distributed denial of sanity act over there then, eh?
El Cid
The main problem is that Article I of the Constushun is un-Conshtushull.
The idea that Congress can pass laws other than just re-quoting sections of the Constushun is un-Constushull.
Every law we ever need is already wrote down in the Constushun. The only thing we need to do is make sure and quote it right whenever we need a law. When necessary we can make sure and do it louder.
But not the librul parts, which were just stuck in there because the North hated the South.0
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: I just went over and poked the anthill with a stick. Couldn’t help myself. Sorry.
Dennis G.
@lamh32: Wow. That explains why I’ve been unable to pull TPM up all evening. I had been wondering.
El Cid
@efgoldman:
They sure as hell wouldn’t be them types when it came to bein’ in my home, gol-dammit! The 2nd Amendment protects us from all that!
El Cid
@efgoldman: Same thing, right?
Dennis G.
@efgoldman: I made it. Feel free to use it.
Cheers
Elizabelle
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Good points. I think “Robber Barons” is both helpful and accurate.
Even a wingnut will have heard of the Robber Barons. (Wondering now if the term made it into Texas schoolbooks, but that’s fodder for another thread.)
Would avoid “Capitalist Pigs” like the plague because why bring up the whole “socia***st” kafuffle?
Elizabelle
@efgoldman:
Did you mean “Old Testament”?
Today’s Christianists would find the New Testament awfully uncomfortable reading.
TooManyJens
@Warren Terra: Same here. I have an account at TPM, and I can’t remember ever getting any email from them besides the initial sign-up stuff.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Plus, why insult pigs in that gratuitous way?
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: Nosferatu. Would that work?
asiangrrlMN
Spot on as usual, Dennis. Keep writing about the travesty that is the New Confederate Party. I don’t want W. lite to be our next prez.
@SiubhanDuinne: Pigs rock. I was born in the Year of the Pig/Boar, so I brook no argument on this front.
Reality Check
The Rick Perry juggernaut rolls onto the District of Colombia. And “progressives” are shitting their pants!
MikeJ
@Warren Terra:
from TPM Breaking News [email protected] via talkingpointsmemo.ccsend.com
reply-to [email protected]
to xxxxxxx
date Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 1:37 PM
subject BREAKING: Hazmat Crews Respond To Utah IRS Office
signed-by talkingpointsmemo.ccsend.com
BREAKING AT 4:17 P.M.: Hazmat crews are responding to IRS offices in Utah, where two people have been removed on stretchers and others are undergoing decontamination showers due to hazardous materials, according to MSNBC
Read the full story and breaking updates at Talking Points Memo.
————-
I never signed up for anything from them. After that spam I switched my email addy on tpm com to [email protected]. I hope a meteor hits their (empty) office.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Omnes Omnibus: Nosferatu is good but pretty much as obscure as Galt and Rand.
Oh, and apologies to pigs. And dogs, running or not.
Oh, and I learned something tonight from Wikipedia, which was that the original Robber Barons were unscrupulous feudal lords that collected tolls on the Rhine without the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor. Tsk tsk.
This is interesting:
Rusty pitchforks anyone?
Omnes Omnibus
@asiangrrlMN: So does that mean I should feel strongly about dragons, or just lizards in general?
asiangrrlMN
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: I have them well-seasoned. Just say the word, and I’m there.
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re a dragon? That’s a good year in which to be born. And, only dragons, I think, though I suppose you can throw in geckos and iguanas if you so desire.
@Violet: Joe Biden. Sonia Sotomayor. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar. And, I only know Snooki because she was mentioned on this website. What do I win?
Violet
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
I like the phrase ‘Galtian Overlords’. It sums up who they are – people who think they are “producers” who, if they vanished, would shut down the economy. Essential only in their own minds. As for not knowing who John Galt or Ayn Rand is, most people who read this blog probably know who they are. As for everyone else, well, can they even name the Vice President? How about a Supreme Court judge or both their Senators? People don’t know stuff like that. Bet they know who Snooki is, though.
fleeting expletive
Oh way OT, but i’d like to see a thread about the worst best b-movies we’ve ever seen. Right now I’ve got “Lake Placid” (It’s got Oliver Platt! and Betty White, and Bill Pullman, and Bridget Fonda!). And still it is a fucky sucky movie. Also First Knight, although it may be a bit more respectable it is still sucky, of course, since it is Richard Gere and Sean Connery.
Does anyone else revel in crappy movies in the wee hours?
Little Boots
let the fucking confederacy die already. stop reviving it, bitches, just stop.
asiangrrlMN
@fleeting expletive: I only watch the MST3K versions like Manos: The Hands of Fate.
@Little Boots: We’re not the ones reviving it!
Dennis SGMM
The Civil War occurred seven to eight centuries after the end of the era where I do most of my amateur-historian studies. I did spend a couple of years on it though. My take is that is was ginned up by Southern landed elites under the rubric of states rights. The actual meaning of “states rights” was, to them, “We should be able to do whatever we damned well please and fuck the Federal government.”
Slavery was, for those elites, a side issue. It was even less of an issue for most Confederate troops. At the opening of hostilities only 6% of southerners owned slaves. The vast majority of slaves was owned by less than 3% of southerners. Slave owners were over-represented in the Confederate forces with a bit more than 10% of enlistees being slave owners.
What were the other 90% of southern enlistees fighting for? As near as I could tell, they were sold a mixture of states’ rights, protecting home and hearth, dislike of central government in an agrarian society, and pure pride, all leavened with a version of Old Time Religion that insisted that God was on their side.
As the war dragged on, it became a common saying among southern enlisted men that it was “A rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”
Everything old is new again.
Omnes Omnibus
@asiangrrlMN: Both a dragon and a leo. Geckos, huh? My car insurance is through Geico.
Little Boots
@asiangrrlMN:
oh, I know, I’m just so sick of that whole thing. let it go, people who aren’t here! it’s like getting all caught up in the viking raids and being sure that the vikings are coming back if only we wish it hard it enough. just stop, already, goobers.
asiangrrlMN
@Omnes Omnibus: Damn. Double royalty for you! I’m a pig and a ram. Stubborn? Mebbe. And, that’s just TOO funny about Geico!
P.S. I collect pigs.
@Little Boots: Agreed. And, I’m from the state of the Vikings. Who are gonna suck this year. Sigh.
@fleeting expletive: I’m proud that they are from Minnesota.
fleeting expletive
I do so miss MST3K in our current discourse.
MariedeGournay
One of the truly horrifying aspects about the CSA for me was Davis’ dreams of extending its borders into central and South America. It was never about ‘freedom.’The CSA never wanted to be a republic, but a tropical empire coasting along on the sweat and labor of as many dark skins as they could grab. *shivers*
Violet
@asiangrrlMN:
You’re not “everyone else” because you’re a reader of this blog. I knew you’d know those things!
Dennis, forgot to say that I really appreciate your posts. Equating the GOP with the Confederacy is a smart thing to do. The more the two are shown to be the same, the less most people will want to be associated with them.
Mark S.
@asiangrrlMN:
You have failed us, Torgo.
Little Boots
@Dennis SGMM:
do you read ta-nehisi coates?
Elizabelle
Dengre: terrific post (yeah, as usual), and a reminder why the CSA has to be beaten back.
Maybe just me, but I don’t think Rick Perry will wear that well over the primaries. Except this is a weirder year than usual …
Now: what to call those Galtians/Robber Barons:
Vampire Squid Overlords is Juiceian language, but I think it translates very well. You only have to say “Lloyd Blankfein” or “Goldman Sachs” once or twice for people to remember it. Maybe you’ll work in some subliminal Squidward and Crabby Patty corporate ethos into the mix too.
Nosferatu: great flick (even though it looks like the vampire’s running around in daylight since they couldn’t film in the dark then) BUT (a) European and thus suspect and (b) sounds like an acronym for some foreign free trade pact/economic alliance, whatever.
Or some fancy foreign car you can never get to start.
Again: European. Freedom fries. The land of bidets and soc****sm. Furriners.
Little Boots
they’ll have to go for mitt. there’s a curse on that party. they have to pick the guy they just don’t like, in the end. who the hell wanted to vote for McCain, or Dole? and yet they did. it’s the curse.
Elizabelle
@MariedeGournay:
Marie: welcome. Enjoyed reading your comments last night. Perceptive.
Little Boots
love Nosferatu.
asiangrrlMN
@Mark S.: It’s the first one I ever watched. Sadly, the actor who played Torgo committed suicide, though apparently not because of the movie.
@Violet: I know. I’m just tweaking ya. I’m a bit loopy right now.
Dennis SGMM
@Little Boots:
He’s an estimable blogger. I used to read him a lot but I only read him occasionally now. That isn’t a knock on him. Two years ago I concluded that I was spending too much time reading and commenting on blogs so I cut down to this one.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mark S.: I love that movie is a weird and twisted way.
OGLiberal
@Dennis SGMM: Reading “American Slavery, American Freedom”, by Edmund Morgan, you find that well before there even was a United States, the “landed gentry” in the colonies felt it was in their best interest to promote the fear of the darker races. Why? Because they knew that if the slaves they owned and the poor/working class folks (many, indentured servants) they regularly exploited ever teamed up with each other, they’d be in a world of shit. So they promoted the idea that freedom for the nigras would result in less jobs for hard working whites and/or young bucks raping/screwing their precious white wives/daughters. They played on the white man’s paranoia, while ensuring that they could continue screwing both the slaves and the poor white folks, who had much more in common with each other than either did with the landed gentry.
That was like 350-400 years ago. Is it any different today?
Little Boots
@Dennis SGMM:
understandable, he just has so many interesting things to say about the civil war, and this whole revivalist thing. but hey, ya got your own blog.
Mark S.
@Omnes Omnibus:
I walk around in the same outfit that the Master wears.
asiangrrlMN
@Mark S.: TMI! TMI!
And, according to IMDB, had the movie been a hit, there would have been a sequel about Torgo.
Dennis SGMM
@Little Boots:
Thank you for the tip. I wasn’t retired then so I can now spare some time out of my busy day (snark) to start reading him again.
trollhattan
Going back to the R debate video,the raucus applause at the very mention of the Texas execution toll is perhaps the most chilling thing I’ve heard this year. These are the people who think they know best and would rule us. With zeal.
Cheney’s 1% doctrine implies we should nuke them to save our country. Arguments against?
Elie
@Dennis SGMM:
“Side Issue”
Maybe in some intellectual way.
I am in no way promoting this movie, but have you seen “The Help”?
You make it sound like slavery was a construct and way of life that was “off to the side” of life in the south.
I know you are white, not black and not from the south. If you were from the south, whether white or black, you would know of how the centrality of slavery was to the reality of the south.
It is the bitter wound that will not heal. slave owners bound in deep ways they cannot resolve. slaves resenting yet loving. How many white southeners were loved and held in the arms of a black woman they later despised?
Elie
@trollhattan:
Agree with you there…
I was speechless..
Little Boots
@Dennis SGMM:
I just think he’s awesome.
Not Balloon Juice awesome, but still …
Jebediah
@asiangrrlMN:
They do, so much so that I am unable to eat them, despite their magical deliciousness.
Reality Check
@trollhattn
Someone’s scared of President-Elect Perry, I see.
MariedeGournay
@Elizabelle: Thanks for the welcome. Reading for awhile, but never had the nerve to comment. Figured, ‘what the hell?’
Little Boots
@Reality Check:
well yeah, who wouldn’t be?
although it will be romney in the end. they always get the one they hate. it’s a rule. and a curse.
Reality Check
@Little Boots
Perry is already the nominee, and already the President-Elect. You fools just don’t know it yet. Jesus CHRIST I can’t wait until the whining I’ll hear here late November next year!
asiangrrlMN
@Jebediah: I rarely eat them, either. Fowl, on the other hand, I have no problem gobbing them down.
@MariedeGournay: That’s pretty much what we all figure when we jump in. Welcome!
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I’m a Scorpio and a Rat. No you may not warn the New York Dawg. Who’s a Leo. Yes I know what that means.
Little Boots
@Reality Check:
it’ll be the mormon. sorry. god hates that party, as well He should. it’s the mormon when all is said and done.
Little Boots
and there shall be gnashing of coffee-stained teeth!
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@OGLiberal: If you haven’t read it yet, pick up “Albion’s Seed”. The Virginia gentry started with indentured servants and moved on to slavery so they could keep their exalted positions on the top of the heap.
I used to mock the Balkans for holding grudges for 400 years. After reading this book I realized the US is still fighting the English Civil War from the 1600s. Puritans vs. Cavaliers, leavened with the Quakers and Scots-Irish.
Despite immigration of Germans, Irish, Southern Europeans, Asians, South and Central Americans, most of US history seems to be encompassed by how coalitions shifted among these four cultures.
nellcote
Rick Perry and Orly Taintz:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/09/09/315743/rick-perrys-newest-fan-birther-queen-orly-taitz/
Dennis SGMM
@OGLiberal:
Going back to Sparta, if not further, there was always a fear of slave rebellion by slave owners. One of the longstanding techniques that the slave owners used was to portray the slaves as less than human. This took advantage of the sadly natural human proclivity to want someone upon whom to look down upon and in so doing it enabled slave owners to treat any slave who objected to his or her status to be treated in the most harsh possible manner with no fear of censure.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: EXPLOSIVE sex!
piratedan
@asiangrrlMN: well you can’t swing a dead cat in these threads without finding some Republican troll (Reality Check) trying to overhaul the threads. Note to self, next time, bring more life sustaining fluids…… hit the button, Frank.
asiangrrlMN
@piratedan: That’s why we talk around ’em about much more important matters–like whether a Torgo-led sequel to Manos would have signaled the end of time.
Little Boots
@Dennis SGMM:
worse, a spartan wasn’t truly a man until he’d killed one of the helots, also known as the slave population.
Little Boots
@Reality Check:
and you keep clinging to that neo-confederate hope, lover. the south shall rise again, and rise, and rise, and maybe even thrust.
apikoros
I have to ask… if Perry wins, will he be inaugurated in Jeff Davis’ gown?
trollhattan
@Reality Check:
Okay, I’ll bite: who?
Reality Check
“That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.”-Abraham Lincoln
Jebediah
@Reality Check:
If you think Perry will win the general, you’re as big an idiot as you seem.
He may get the nomination, despite the gooper establishment trying to derail him. Your party contains enough of your fellow fuckwits and mushbrains to nominate a willfully ignorant Yosemite Sam wanna-be, but when he has to run against an intelligent man with actual accomplishments, he’s toast.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: We don’t fight, mostly because we don’t have much to argue about. And that’s mostly intentional on my part. When I want to wound, I strike deep. I control that power very well.
@Reality Check: Teh stupid, it burns.
El Cid
@Reality Check:
In fairness, I think a lot of people would be really nervous if Rick Perry were surging in the polls in Medellin and la Magdalena.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: I hear ya. I have that power as well. It can make things really ugly.
@El Cid: Hey, how the hell are ya? Haven’t seen ya in agens!
BillinGlendaleCA(aka 10amla)
@asiangrrlMN:
Ima pig too, and the wife’s kid’s one as well. The wife is a dog, that’s why our dogs like her better.
Reality Check
@El Cid
Those who can’t argue, spellcheck.
asiangrrlMN
@BillinGlendaleCA(aka 10amla): Pigs, unite! Who else out there was born in the Year of the Pig?
Elizabelle
@OGLiberal:
Have you been discussing it on Ta Nehisi Coates’ blog?
American Slavery, American Freedom. Great book!
Dennis SGMM
@Elie:
I respectfully disagree. I lived in one of the reddest parts of a red state for a few years. My late mother was from Winchester, Indiana. Neither of those things makes me a southerner or an expert on the south. My point was that slavery was a side issue for most southern soldiers and sailors in the Civil War, or the War Between the States, or the War of Northern Aggression (Chose one)because 94% of them did not own slaves. My reading of those few of the diaries of southern soldiers didn’t include many mentions of their regard for slavery. Maybe some of them fought because, like today’s Republicans, they felt that doing so would enhance their chances of joining the elite. I don’t know.
I would refer you to Mary Boykin Chesnut’s superb A Diary from Dixie for an insight into the real attitudes of the southern elite planter class toward slavery.
The war between Americans has been overlaid with so much myth (Some of which influenced historians) over the years that it takes considerable digging to get to the realities of people’s attitudes at the time. That it continues to influence contemporary thought on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line contributes to our nation’s woes.
jwb
@Little Boots: Agree that Romney is likely nominee. Perry is likely VP. Not that I think it matters all that much. Either would be a disaster for the country.
Little Boots
@Reality Check:
would you get up to the new thread so you can be mocked more efficiently?
Little Boots
@jwb:
and I think the tea party is spent. this country is stupid as hell, but I suspect it’s not stupid enough to put either of those clowns in charge. maybe I’m optimistic.
Little Boots
one of these days I have to read Mary B. Chesnut. I hear it’s really fascinating.
Dennis SGMM
@Little Boots:
Sure was. It was the culmination of Spartan boys spending years beating the shit out of each other and being beaten by nearly anyone who cared to raise a stick. If you want to read some really bizarre shit, look into what constituted a Spartan marriage. After spending some years on the history of the “Glory that was Greece,” I concluded that the Spartans’ many military victories stemmed from the fact that a Spartan foot soldier had nothing to live for.
piratedan
@asiangrrlMN: time has no end, I swear it stopped for me while watching Sidehackers, also affectionately known as the “movie that would not end”.
Dennis SGMM
@Little Boots:
It’s definitely worth a read if only as a testament to a very insightful woman who recorded, in detail, being swept up in terrible events beyond her control.
I believe that there are more than one edition of her edited diary. I read one of the most original ones and it was, at times, for me a hard slog. Mrs. Chestnut was, like most of us, a person of her times and so it took some re-reading and additional research to understand the context of some parts of her work. That said, A Diary from Dixie is insightful, intelligent and honest. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Dennis SGMM
@Dennis SGMM:
“…there are more than one edition”
Right. Time for bed.
asiangrrlMN
@piratedan: Oh my god. Worst movie EVER!
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I still find “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” detestable. OO has assured me the book is better. As with all things, YMMV.
Anne Laurie
@Yutsano:
Loved the book, never seen the movie, because the reviews made it clear it was a hot mess.
For instance, in the book, the “invisible dog” is purely a metaphor — the elderly servant was bequeathed a life-preserving pension “to take care of his late employer’s dog”. Eventually, the dog dies, and the old man goes to report this to the lawyer in charge of the trust, who responds “I don’t know why you’re telling me that, when I can still see that dog right there!” The author tells the story as an example of the weird Sir-Walter-Scott “courtliness” he perceives as holding Savannah in its grip… it would have been considered unseemly to leave the man a pension, but deliberately extending payment-for-services past the need for such services, well, that’s just taking thought for what the deceased would’ve wanted.
In hierarchal societies, the more rigid the caste system, the more elaborate the “workarounds” that are (a)invented and (b) admired.
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie: It’s my understanding the book has much more subtlety and emotion than the movie. Which honestly for me is quite a low bar. When I went to Atlanta for my friend’s wedding, I wanted to do a side trip to Savannah. It never did come together. Now I have a friend there who wants me to come visit. The movie hammers the hypocrisy in everyone pretty much to death, which destroys any enjoyment for me. He’s told me Savannah is still full of these contradictions.
Mino
@SensesFail: Oooh, that gotta hurt.
Dollared
@MariedeGournay: Funny thing, that. If Jefferson Davis had only invented the Top Ten MBA, he could have colonized the entire Western Hemisphere in a generation, and the only bloodshed woould have been foreclosures gone awry and the occasional assassination of a labor union leader.
Dollared
@El Cid: Yeah, he’s got a bit of the “Colonel XXXXX-ez of Las Fuerzas Armadas, leader of the coup attempt,” in his general demeanor. The analogies to Saddam are really far too apt for any of us to be comfortable. Let’s see, leaders with sidearms publicly displayed: Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Hugo Chavez, Rick Perry. Carlos Castano, of course. All sides of the spectrum, one thing in common: such great vision and leadership skills that Democracy itself was a hindrance to execution of their vision.
Yutsano
@Dollared:
He’s welcome to become El Presidente for Life of Texas if he so chooses. I don’t see much of a path to victory outside of the South though. He’ll win Idaho, I say that from personal experience.
greenergood
@jrg: Thanks for brightening a dull Saturday morning!
drkrick
@Dennis SGMM:
This is probably true, as soldiers in any conflict fight for many reasons once the battle has been joined. But those who actually made the choice to secede and to fight a war to make the secession they had been agitating for since shortly after the ratification of the Constitution stick were quite clear that their decision was about slavery exclusively. The statements of the various secession conventions and the inaugural address of the CSA’s vice president are standard resources about that, but the literature of the disunion movement’s seven decade history is full of examples, too.
The South had, over time, become not a society with slaves, but a society based on slavery. Even those who didn’t own slaves themselves had a stake in the culture that fact produced. Rationalizations like “state’s rights” were trotted out for an alleged country that honored few of them, but slavery was at the heart of the rebellion, not a side issue.
Mary
@MikeJ: I have this to say about TPM. I did a security check on my gmail accounts last night and 2 entities had given themselves permission to access my accounts–Facebook and TPM. They suck.
OGLiberal
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: Have not read it yet but have it on the shelf. My best friend gave it rave reviews. I believe part of Hackett’s thesis is that the immigration/settlement patterns established way back then still hold, for the more part, true today. At least East of the Mississippi, you can take an presidential electoral map in modern times and map the GOP votes (or, pre-Nixon, the nigra hating Southern Dem votes) to Scotch-Irish immgration regions. It’s pretty frightening.
Omnes Omnibus
@OGLiberal: I don’t know if it is pure confirmation bias, but after treading that book I cannot help but see echoes of it everywhere in the US political landscape.
harlana
@jrg #9:
Good lord, funniest damn thing I have seen in a long time! I encourage everyone to check it out, esp Mr. Cole!
celticragonchick
@trollhattan:
Nuke ’em from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
celticragonchick
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
I will look for that on Amazon.
celticragonchick
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
I will look for that on Amazon.
OGLiberal
@OGLiberal: Of course, it’s “Hackett Fischer”, not “Hackett”.
Scott Supak
Having grown up in Arkansas, I’m extremely familiar with the lost cause, but it always surprises me when I hear someone say, as I did recently, that the Civil War “had nothing to do with slavery.” I always think of this quote when I hear that:
“My own convictions as to negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses…We recognize the negro as God and God’s Book and God’s Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him – our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude…You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be.” — Jefferson Davis
So, when I hear Perry talk about God, I can’t help but think about the Biblical roots of slavery, and how the Bible was used to defend the abomination. Thanks, Dennis.
mclaren
At this point in the last presidential election cycle, the polls firmly predicted Giuliani would be the Republican nominee.
Perry is unelectable because of his extremism and Perry will not be the Republican nominee.
Kerr Lockhart
One should never underestimate the modern Democratic Party’s ability to screw things up. Nevertheless, most of you chilluns is not old enough to remember 1964, when the Republican party decided to stop pussyfooting around and be its true self. When sane Americans got a good look at the “only rich white people should have comfort and security and everybody else can go suck eggs” party, they bombed the Republicans back to the stone age and it was impossible to admit you were even thinking about voting Republican until the debacle in Chicago in 1968.
But it was a pretty sweet 3-1/2 years or so.