Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

No one could have predicted…

“But what about the lurkers?”

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

This fight is for everything.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Fables Of The Reconstruction / Halloween Revenants Open Thread: “Compromise” in Blood

Halloween Revenants Open Thread: “Compromise” in Blood

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Revenant, “a visible ghost or animated corpse that is believed to have revived from death to haunt the living”. Oval Office occupants embracing this undead lie is the scariest story I’ve seen all season…


When the going gets tough, revert to your base. “States’ RAGHTS!”

Reader Interactions

164Comments

  3. 3.

    Cermet

    LOL- there was still slavery in 1978 – forced prison labor for no money was still done in tex-ass; then it was finally outlawed. Still, they get next to nothing. Funny how the history of the chain gangs (forced slave labor in cola mines, steel mills and cotton farms) went on for nearly `eighty years after the civil war and was actually slavery – black teens were routinely arrested for no cause (no proof of work papers) and forced into those labor gangs for a year or more. History not in the text books …

  4. 4.

    Anne Laurie

    @JPL:

    Does Sanders realize that Lee wasn’t a leader of the USA?

    She said “our leaders”. I think her allegiance to Tha Glor-yus Saouth outranks American citizenship, in her tiny vicious mind.

  5. 5.

    Corner Stone

    Speaking of “revenants”. Are we not supposed to say anything about the lack of ABC mentions? Or did I miss something.

  6. 6.

    BBA

    William Lloyd Garrison burned the Constitution for its “compromises.” We should put up more statues of him.

    And Nat Turner, of course.

  7. 7.

    Cpl. Cam

    Because you don’t like history, doesn’t mean you can erase it and it didn’t happen” – Sarah Sanders

    You just have to wash it real good and make it pretty and sparkling clean. Maybe use a little bleach…

  9. 9.

    trollhattan

    @JPL:

    Does Sanders realize that Lee wasn’t a leader of the USA?

    He had a uniform so to this administration, that’s game, set and match, pilgrim.

    As to what Sanders actually realizes….

  12. 12.

    Corner Stone

    I think J Kelly is just acting in all this. He has to stay in the good graces of trump so he can be there to tackle him if/as needed when the football comes into play. He doesn’t really believe these things. His refusal to apologize is just in keeping with what his boss demands. He’s got this, y’all.

  13. 13.

    Rjm

    Jonathan Chait has a piece in New York Magazine just now on Sarah Sanders claim that Kelly learned his Civil War history from the Ken Burns documentary, and that he pretty accurately mirrored Shelby Foote.

    I remember a discussion here about that just a couple weeks ago and the egregious lost cause narrative Foote conveyed. Seems to me though but a four-star career officer should have a little better grasp on that history, and a little better grasp of the oath that Lee took as an officer.

    And there’s no hiding behind any documentary for his dishonorable refusal to apologize for his outrageous misrepresentation of the congresswoman’s actions at the FBI building dedication.

  15. 15.

    lamh36

    Reposting my comment from previous thread on the subject of Kelly…

    Obvious to me that John Kelly likely has been a racist bigot his entire military career, but couldn’t let his racist freak flag fly in uniform. you don’t just turn at the drop of a long career and “suddenly” become a xenophobic, racist P.O.S. nah, that shit been gestating. We know the “current” military frowns upon overt/open bigotry, so Kelly surely had to let all that hate simmer until he left service. So of course, the Chump admin speaks to him.

    What I’d like to know, is how did that simmering bigotry affect his interactions with soldiers of color under his leadership. I suspect tho if not OVERT actions, Kelly like many “simmering” bigots are able to hide it, or just compartmentalize the “good” P.O.C. from “THOSE PEOPLE

  17. 17.

    sigaba

    Seems to me though but a four-star career officer should have a little better grasp on that history, and a little better grasp of the oath that Lee took as an officer.

    Why? The plurality of Americans believe that the civil war was fought over some abstraction known as “states’ rights.” Most military histories record as fact the plain myth that Lee was a brilliant general who was stabbed in the back by feckless politicians. Lee woulda won.

  21. 21.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    My theory is that Kelly was able to keep his bigotry on a leash while he was in the military because there are lots of very strict rules about how you have to behave, but once he was set free from those rules, his inner bigot came storming free.

  22. 22.

    bystander

    I’m so glad I wasn’t at that press conference. I would have started screaming at Sarah. “Our leaders”?

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Fuck Kelly. I will no longer refer to him by a rank in the US Armed Forces he has disgraced by coming out in the open as white supremacist scum.

  25. 25.

    Yarrow

    @JPL: Isn’t Sarah Huckabee Sanders from Arkansas? And wasn’t Arkansas a traitor state? So, maybe she meant the Confederate States of America when she said of Kelly, “All of our leaders have flaws, that doesn’t diminish their contributions to our country.”

  27. 27.

    Barbara

    Lost cause nostalgia is especially despicable when espoused by a historian who has knowledge of what it would have meant for slaves.

  28. 28.

    hueyplong

    It takes a lot of nerve for Jethrene to spout off about how we have to acknowledge all of history when she won’t fucking recognize the surrender at Appomattox, and that before doing so, Lee was fighting against the United States.

    You know, like ISIS, or Donald Trump.

  29. 29.

    trollhattan

    @Yarrow:
    I keep telling Possum Queen if she’d just tote a bass to the dais everybody would love her like her “aw-shucks” daddy. She reeks of home-skewling.

  31. 31.

    Yarrow

    @lamh36: The Spacey stuff is so awful. I’ve always liked him as an actor. Thought it was kind of an open secret that he was gay. But he’s a pedo? So awful. Was that a well known “secret” in Hollywood too?

  33. 33.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    Speaking of horror…

    John Kelly
    @GenJohnKelly
    ·
    41m
    Getting a history lessons from MSNBC is like getting advice on safe sex from Charlie Sheen

    John Kelly
    @GenJohnKelly
    ·
    1h
    I don’t take advice on history from liberals because they’re always trying to destroy & rewrite it

    For some reason, I never imagined he was this unhinged. It’s like a Fox News commenter in real life.

  36. 36.

    Rjm

    @sigaba: The military folks I’ve interacted with professionally (r&d situations) have all been smart, well educated and interested in good results… I perhaps naively assume that they’re exposed to somewhat better military history lessons than the general public. Of course even if thats true, and our military has been a progressive force in some ways, its a huge group of people thats skews conservative politically.

  42. 42.

    lamh36

    @Yarrow: His sexuality was a “well known secret” and his taste for men younger than him was also an “open secret” about Spacey and 2 other well known Hollywood bigwigs. The fact that at 26, he had the same taste for younger guys, wouldn’t be a surprised, EXCEPT at 26, younger can only be so many years before it’s a minor. In the case of Anthony Rapp’s revelations, the open secret about Spacey wasn’t the big reveal, but that Rapp was 14 at the time of the alleged incident.

  44. 44.

    germy

    WASHINGTON — Sam Clovis, the former top Trump campaign official who supervised a man now cooperating with the FBI’s Russia investigation, was questioned last week by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team and testified before the investigating grand jury, a person with first-hand knowledge of the matter told NBC News.

    Clovis, who is President Donald Trump’s pick to be the Department of Agriculture’s chief scientist, could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, Victoria Toensing, would neither confirm nor deny his interactions with the Mueller team.

    “I’m not going to get into that,” she said in an interview.

  47. 47.

    jl

    The Trumpsters are trying to revive the racist Dunning School of US History, and in such a blatant way, I don’t understand why they just don’t have weekly showings of Birth of Nation at the WH.

    It is possible to say that Robert E. Lee showed some honor to the US, I suppose. I can think of only two things: at the end of the Civil War, he firmly told his generals and soldiers that the South had lost and they were to go home and learn to be loyal citizens of the US, and not start a guerrilla war of insurgency. He also discouraged use of martial symbols, like the Confederate battle flag, to commemorate the war dead.

    That kind of statement might be useful to make. It might help communities reach a consensus on how to commemorate the Civil War and its place in our history.

    But the Trumpster can’t say anything like that. Because the only ways I can think of that Robert E. Lee was honorable in the context of US history and US civic values, is explicitly OPPOSED to what is deemed honorable among the racist Trumpsters. And that honor lies in asserting that they do have the right to commit violence and various forms of intimidation to support their belief in ethnic and race based rule. The Trumpsters from the Trump himself on down want to continue the use of martial symbols to commemorate the Civil War, and preserve a dishonest view of US history.

    Trump, Kelly, Miller, all of the Trumpster white bigots and supremacists are spouting poison that threatens our nation. No two ways about it.

  48. 48.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: thing Ioved about the Obamas & even GWB and others before them, was that they DIDN’T use their children or grandchildren as political props

  56. 56.

    Gin & Tonic

    @lamh36: I don’t get this “open secret” stuff. If everybody knows, then everybody knows. Like some bullshit I read about Manafort’s work for odious dictators being an “open secret” in Washington. No, it wasn’t an open secret, it was common knowledge.

  57. 57.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Baud:
    I don’t know why I hate him most of all out of Trump’s merry band of crony fascists. Maybe I naively expect better out of him because of the uniform he wore. Perhaps it’s the arrogant and authoritarian auora he oozes. Or his racist disregard for the rule of law. It’s all those reasons probably.

  62. 62.

    lamh36

    @germy: yes…I esp love that sooo many LGBTQ writers and bloggers, celebs, etc…have been calling out Spacey and his PR team for that bullshit, “I was drunk, but it sounds like something I’d do”/”CHOSE TO LIVE AS A GAY MAN”, PR statement.

    Even my fav gay male fashion bloggers, who try to steer clear of political posts on their fashion blog, devoted an entire post to Spacey’s statement.

    On Behalf of The LGBT Community, Fuck Off, Kevin Spacey | Tom Lorenzo via @tomandlorenzo

  63. 63.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Baud:

    Deleted

    Nah. He’s had that one pinned on his Twitter page since Aug 26. He’s not removing that anytime soon just like he’s not apologizing to some uppity negress.

  65. 65.

    smintheus

    Lee was so honorable that around 5 years after he took the following oath in 1855, he violated it:

    “I, Robert E. Lee, appointed a Lieutenant Colonel of the Second Regt. of Cavalry in the Army of the United States, do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and articles for the government of the Armies of the United States.”

    It’s a fact, not an opinion. You could look it up.

  67. 67.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Baud:
    The question is, why did he take this long to let it out? Was he purposefully building up an image of himself as an honorable man?

  70. 70.

    Aleta

    How about a “compromise” where from now on police keep their fucking hands off the people they are bringing in, keep their fucking guns in their holsters and acknowledge that their job is not to judge but to bring a person before a court and keep them safe in the meantime. Oh wait, that’s not a compromise, it’s their responsibility under the legal system isn’t it?

  71. 71.

    Corner Stone

    Uh-oh. That NYC guy was from Uzbeki Beki Beki Stan. That Pizza Guy that ran for President tried to warn us!!

  78. 78.

    Roger Moore

    @Gin & Tonic:
    I think the idea of an “open secret” is that it’s something that’s common knowledge within a community but is kept secret from people outside that community. As an example, just about everyone in the Village media knew that Obama had problems giving up smoking, but they avoided reporting on it. That made it an open secret within the Village.

  79. 79.

    Mike in NC

    Kelly and Trump are clearly birds of a feather who were introduced because of their mutual white nationalist sentiments. Hoping we see more indictments this week.

  81. 81.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    “Robert E. Lee is an honorable man, but POWs are cowards.” ~ Martin Bormann John Kelly

  82. 82.

    jl

    Also, interesting to note that there were a few Confederate generals who were truly loyal to the US after the Civil War, in the sense that they actively worked to promote an inter racial equal society after the Civil War was over. These Confederate Generals have one thing in common: they are slandered and ignored by the Southern Heritage racists. But of course, the Civil War wasn’t really about slavery, was it?

    Interesting that both Sherman and Grant and their civilian leadership knew that the war was all about slavery and really nothing else. I think it explains their rather odd attitude about what should happen to the Confederate leadership. As long as the Confederate leadership did not try to foment continued insurgent guerrilla war, they could flee the country, they could go home and live what public life was allowed them until they were rehabilitated, they could go into hiding. Who cared?

    Why did the Union leadership think that? Because it was a plain and obvious, and irreversible, fact that the only cause that united them, race based chattel slavery, was utterly obliterated. There were no principles or any ideas, states rights, alternate Constitutional interpretation, any coherent economic way of life or political or regional identity (other than what directly arose from race based chattel slavery) that bound them together. So, they were no threat unless they decided to hide out and plot insurgent civil violence.

    From reading Grant’s and Sherman’s memoirs and following references to other contemporary sources (thank you Project Gutenberg!) it was very clear at the time that race based chattel slavery was the whole cause and the only cause. Everyone knew it at the time. The Union leadership wasn’t quite correct, since a close substitute was developed, in Jim Crow, but that took twenty years or so to develop, and could take place only when the South learned to subvert federal government policies. And even then the project took decades to complete. Hence the rash of bogus Confederate statues celebrating restoration of white rule from 1890s through first decade of the 20th Century.

    So, Trumpster are liars, they want to revive a Big Lie about US History. They need to be (rhetorically) punched in the face and called Big Liars. Nothing else is an adequate response.

  83. 83.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @MisterForkbeard:
    Oh shit you’re right.
    Here’s a real tweet by him:

    Pinned Tweet
    John F. Kelly
    John F. Kelly
    @realJohnFKelly
    ·
    Sep 25
    I stand with @POTUS’s, no one should ever disrespect the country/flag that has given you everything, the people who have fought and died

    Still really bad and clearly shows he doesn’t understand what real American values like freedom of expression are about.

  84. 84.

    Matt McIrvin

    @jl: The Dunning School never died in high-school US History curricula in the South. It’s why for many Americans it’s still just the common-sense truth about the Civil War and Reconstruction, even though real historians mostly abandoned it in the middle of the 20th century.

  86. 86.

    Mike in NC

    Hours of Cards really went a couple of seasons longer than it should have, so if they cancel it no big deal.

  87. 87.

    J R in WV

    @Baud:

    I’m looking forward to coming out as gay next time I mess up.

    I would try it, but the 45 y o marriage and my wife might make it harder for me than for some folks.

  88. 88.

    mai naem mobile

    I think Kelly is just saying all this crap to distract from the very bad news from Mueller. I’m not saying he doesn’t believe it but there is no sane reason to be saying this crap out loud especially from a former general . I tired of people and the media falling for these distractions. Keep your eye on the ball.

  90. 90.

    Peej01

    @Mnemosyne: Kelly was a Marine. He wouldn’t have gone to West Point. According to his Wikipedia entry, he didn’t attend any of the service academies.

  91. 91.

    Aleta

    @Gin & Tonic: I also don’t buy the idea behind “why didn’t anyone speak out?” More likely that there were some women and men who spoke up and walked out, or were asked to leave and did, or were told by a superior to let it go or that it would be handled. Only a few people have told their stories.

  93. 93.

    jl

    @Matt McIrvin: General Longstreet was severely wounded and captured by a small white supremacist army of insurgents while he was leading a inter-racial militia defending government property after the Civil War.

    General Longstreet is branded a traitor to the Confederacy and completely ignored by the Southern Heritage movement, and racists like Trump and Kelly. I think the story of General Longstreet and his white and black militia is interesting history. Won’t find it mentioned anywhere by these racists who are so concerned about remembering important and interesting US history with important lessons for our precious youth.

    Statues of General Longstreet in the South: 0.
    (one was recently put up in Gettysburg battle site, though)

    All they want to do is continue racist fairy tales to further racism and authoritarianism in the US.

  94. 94.

    Shana

    Just had my first two trick-or-treaters. A couple of 10 year old girls, adorable costumes. I gave them two candy bars each since they were first, and possibly only.

  95. 95.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @jl:

    So, Trumpster are liars, they want to revive a Big Lie about US History. They need to be (rhetorically) punched in the face and called Big Liars. Nothing else is an adequate response.

    Why just rhetorically?

  96. 96.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @lamh36:

    or just compartmentalize the “good” P.O.C. from “THOSE PEOPLE

    Having watched how some officers who directly stated at time that they did not like black people interacted with black soldiers, this is exactly correct.

  98. 98.

    Tenar Arha

    @Mnemosyne: The thing that makes me headdesk the most is that Kelly probably learned Dunning School history in Boston, often considered the home of abolition. Some of the most radical Republicans came from here, and yet by the time Kelly went through high school history, he learned a Southern Secessionist mythology.

  99. 99.

    Mary G

    @lamh36:

    I need to take a Silkwood shower after deleting all the "ALMOST EVERYONE hits on kids after they get drunk" pro-Spacey comments today.— Tom & Lorenzo (@tomandlorenzo) October 31, 2017

    Love TLo too.

  100. 100.

    Elizabelle

    Not into double digits w Trick or Treaters yet. $20 of candy. We hear they’re running rampant 2 blocks over. Go figure.

  103. 103.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @SiubhanDuinne: Last night, while on my way to the car, I was accosted by a specimen of Didelphis virginiana, who asked me to convey to you that the loathsome Jethrene has, in fact, no power, honorary title, or office of trust among his species, inasmuch as they are anarchists one and all, and he would appreciate not being associated with an individual he referred to as being as vicious as a cottonmouth and more depraved than an entire pack of weasels.

    It’s amazing how much meaning can be conveyed in a few hisses.

  104. 104.

    jl

    Someone should ask Kelly what kind of compromise he suggests with our current ‘Blood and Soil’ movement. Surely he has some thoughts on what lessons the failure of compromise before the Civil War has for us today.

    I myself cannot think of any compromise I can accept with the slogan ‘Blood and Soil’. I need some leadership on how to handle that problem from the Trumpsters. Why won’t they say out loud what we should do? It’s a simple request.

  105. 105.

    lgerard

    Lee himself had no sympathy for the lost cause mythology. He thought the Confederacy should be forgotten, not memorialized.

  106. 106.

    jl

    @Mary G: When I get drunk (and it doesn’t take much) I either fall asleep or throw up. I guess I am lucky and don’t face some of the dilemmas of life.

    But seriously, really? Hitting on kids because you are drunk is excusable in any way? It’s a ‘thing’. What BS.

    Edit: maybe I am old fashioned, but I think even wandering around drunk, to the point you are losing control, in front of kids is problematic to begin with.

  107. 107.

    NotMax

    Les Revenants (“The Returned”) was a darned good series* from France. Season 2 did make some sharp turns onto bumpy terrain, however.    trailer

    *So long as one could dismiss a small yet obvious weakness involving the layout of the town.

  110. 110.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @jl:
    The best solution is to oppose them at every turn. Drown them out.

  112. 112.

    J R in WV

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I learned how bad Arkansas was when I was driving through there and wanted to see what hotels were in Forest City, Arkansas to stop for the night.

    Can’t be done!!

    It’s Forrest City, named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, founder of the KKK.

  114. 114.

    Gvg

    @lamh36: our troops had to salute him and obey him. I think that made him like them. Now a civilian, nobody has to salute and few have to obey him. Everyone gets to question his orders because he is now a public servant. I speculate that is driving him around the bend.
    If so he may have had problems with superior officers who were not white. That is something to look at.
    Of course he might have abused his power as you suggest, but I am making a guess as to why he didn’t’ previously have this reputation.
    Total guess.

  119. 119.

    Mary G

    Obligatory go Dodgers comment from me. I hope they win today because Game 7 is always intense.

  120. 120.

    JGabriel

    Sanders on Robert E Lee: “All of our leaders have flaws, that doesn’t diminish their contributions to our country”

    Arrgh!!! Robert E. Lee was NOT one of our leaders! Seceding from the country was high treason, and Lee was a fucking traitor!

    ARRGH!

    These people fucking disgust me.

    Okay, okay, done with rant. Preaching to the choir here I know, and belatedly too at comment 120, but I just had to get that off my chest.

  121. 121.

    Hoodie

    @jl: I grew up in Gainesville GA, the town the Longstreet settled down in after the war. I think there is a statue of him there. North Georgia did have unionist leanings, however.

  123. 123.

    lgerard

    I think baseball players should have to dress in costume for Halloween games.

    The Dodgers already have a Wolfman

  124. 124.

    Wapiti

    @lamh36:

    What I’d like to know, is how did that simmering bigotry affect his interactions with soldiers of color under his leadership. I suspect tho if not OVERT actions, Kelly like many “simmering” bigots are able to hide it, or just compartmentalize the “good” P.O.C. from “THOSE PEOPLE

    And Kelly is Exhibit A why we continue to need equal opportunity in the services, especially in promotion boards. Even if he wasn’t overtly prejudicial, if he was just 5% harder on minority officers or 5% easier on white men, that adds up to affect people’s careers.

  125. 125.

    JPL

    @Hoodie: Most Georgians didn’t own slaves and recruitment was scarce, so Governor Brown explained that the war was to prevent the blacks from taking their territory from them.

  127. 127.

    PST

    Kelly is the efficient, competent authoritarian white supremacist that we are lucky not to have as president. He makes this clearer every day. I finally got around today to doing something I should have done years ago. I canceled the office subscription to the Wall Street Journal and told them that it was because of the Mueller Should Resign editorial and the Pardon Everyone op-ed. I hope 50,000 others do the same, but I guess I’d settle for a couple of thousand.

  128. 128.

    Peale

    @Roger Moore: yep. Spacey was not out. When asked about his sexuality in the past, he was evasive, misleading, and lied. But it really doesn’t shock me that he was, nor that the allegations against him that he molests underaged teens all that shocking. That that thing goes on in the media industry hasn’t even been covered up so much as not covered with blaring horns. I’ve read innuendo allegations about spacey before. There will be others if this starts the avalanche that I’ve been expecting for awhile.

  129. 129.

    lgerard

    @danielx:

    The idea that there could have been a compromise over slavery….is ludicrous.

    I just hope someone asks him what he thinks that compromise could have been.

  130. 130.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Wapiti: It can also go the other way, where he might not have expected as much from his AA subordinates and therefore did not help them to develop their skills as much as they should have. This then puts them at a disadvantage when they move on to their next position.

  131. 131.

    lamh36

    WW1 antisemitism WW2 antisemitism, today… neo Nazi rallying in America…fascist history repeating itself #findingyourroots

  133. 133.

    Steve in the ATL

    @jl: shorter version of your post: all the articles of succession stated specifically that preserving slavery was the reason for seceding

  135. 135.

    Roger Moore

    @danielx:

    The idea that there could have been a compromise over slavery….is ludicrous.

    There were plenty of compromises over slavery: the 3/5th compromise, the Missouri compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, etc. The problem was that compromise wasn’t enough for the Southerners. They demanded expansion of slavery through the whole country.

  136. 136.

    JGabriel

    @via ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    John Kelly
    @GenJohnKelly
    ·
    1h
    I don’t take advice on history from liberals because they’re always trying to destroy & rewrite it

    (Rolls eyes.)

    Kelly isn’t going to wrestle the nuclear football away from Trump to avert nuclear war – Kelly’s gonna wrestle it away because he wants to be the one to push the button.

  137. 137.

    cmorenc

    Chief of Staff John Kelly praises Robert E Lee as “honorable man,” says “lack of an ability to compromise led to the civil war,” not slavery

    Well, it is true that “lack of an ability to compromise” was a substantial cause of the Civil War. It’s also true that slavery was the key issue the parties lacked ability to compromise upon. Kelly falsely presents the situation as binary (compromise vs slavery, pick just one) – many folks tend to see too many things in pure binary terms which are not that at all.

  139. 139.

    TenguPhule

    I’ll reiterate what I said yesterday, John Kelly needs a library, a stiff drink and a loaded revolver with one bullet in the chamber.

  140. 140.

    TenguPhule

    @PST:

    Kelly is the efficient, competent authoritarian white supremacist that we are lucky not to have as president.

    Military coup has sadly not been ruled out yet.

  141. 141.

    jl

    @Hoodie: @Steve in the ATL: @Major Major Major Major: Should be able to find it on internet then. I read a short piece about the Confederate generals who made substantial contributions to Reconstruction after the Civil War. All of them were reviled or ignored by the racist schools of Southern history.

    I distinctly remember reading about no statues to any of them anywhere in the South. There might be a street or square, or a small memorial to Longstreet in his home town or Gainsville. When I have time I’ll double check. Anyway, points I wanted to make are that there are many separate and independent lines of evidence that the Civil War was about slavery, and the politicized Southern Heritage history that is being peddled is about white supremacy, and nothing else.

    And Jefferson wrote immediately after his famous quote about the tree of liberty, that any insurrectionists had to be sanctioned by the government, and corrected. Otherwise a peaceful civil society would be impossible.

    @JGabriel: I won’t be able to suppress some heckling if I cross paths with that guy. Hope the Secret Service keeps a wide protection zone around him if he ever travels near where I am. That is a disgusting statement. Hard to believe the jerk actually wrote that. I’ll hope to find out it is a hoax, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

  143. 143.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Roger Moore: Very true. As the video by the West Point colonel someone linked to earlier points out southerners were really pissed off when New York exercised its States Rights by preventing them from bringing their slaves along when they visited.

  144. 144.

    TenguPhule

    @Corner Stone:

    He has to stay in the good graces of trump so he can be there to tackle him if/as needed when the football comes into play. He doesn’t really believe these things.

    Sorry, Kelly choose to suck that elephant’s dick of his own free will.

  145. 145.

    Sloane Ranger

    Further to above that video should be required viewing by every politician, civil servant and member of the armed forces in the US. It demolishes all of the crap arguments swiftly, pointedly and decisively.

  146. 146.

    TS

    @lamh36:

    Disgusting Don Jr. using his kid as a political shield to say some stupid shit!

    Learned that from Sarah Palin – she did it all the time

  147. 147.

    mike in dc

    As upsetting as these comments are, it’s a perverse sign of cultural progress that the comments are at least reported as “controversial”. 80 years ago, they would have been considered “conventional wisdom” or an agreed upon narrative. Maybe by the bicentennial of the CW they’ll be regarded as entirely outre’.

  149. 149.

    zhena gogolia

    @lamh36:

    I don’t think there was ever a post on it, and since I get all my news from BJ, I was in the dark until yesterday morning when somebody mentioned it in the comments.

  150. 150.

    Elie

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:

    My guess is that he is prepping himself for a battle — a no holds barred political battle that he sees coming to protect Trump and Trump’s goals for a white supremacist nation — or one largely so. I don’t think Kelly’s goals are not also present in some in the Republican Congress and in some of our agencies (to some extent). As a nurse, I sometimes sense when a patient has something bad coming on that is not fully manifest yet. I feel this… something very rotten and we are gonna have to be ready to fight it — not necessarily physically, but through political action and engagement. Kelly’s changed behavior and the silence of the other two is important to note. Lots of things are going to happen. Oh superficially, things are going along as usual — but my gut is telling me to prepare…

  153. 153.

    Ruckus

    Kelly is a racist piece of shit.
    First he took a job from drumpf. That should have been at least a clue.
    Second he had DHS go all rambo. That should have been a bigger clue.
    Third he’s just proven beyond a shadow of doubt that he’s a racist piece of shit.
    He’s a disgrace to the uniform he wore, he should lose his pension and any other benefits he has. As someone up thread stated he didn’t get this way over the last few months, he’s been this way a long time. And he’s been in high command of men and women, men and women of all colors, ethnicities, religions, men and women who died while serving under him. He’s a disgrace as a human being. Of course that’s a requirement for “working” for who he does.
    I’m ashamed that my country made him a Maine 4 star. I’m ashamed for the Marine Corp. If he reflects the values of the Marine Corp, then a top to bottom overhaul is necessary.

  160. 160.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @J R in WV: I lived in AR for about a year, when I was 2-3. Still have relatives there; it’s where my dad hailed from. Visited many times.

  161. 161.

    Rob in Hawaii

    Does Gen. Kelly know that the “honorable” Gen. Bobby Lee, led the side that killed US Marines?

  163. 163.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    Jesus, people, that @GenJohnKelly account says it’s a parody right in the goddamn profile of the account.

    Kudos to Goku for fanning the flames. Yet another case where a link to the actual source would have been useful.

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