Posted on 11/08/2015 9:36:32 AM PST by yoe
LOUISVILLE, Miss. — In single strokes after the massacre of nine black churchgoers in Charleston in June, Confederate battle flags were taken from statehouse grounds in South Carolina and Alabama, pulled from shelves at major retailers like Walmart and declared unwelcome, if to (limited effect), at Nascar races.
What happened so swiftly elsewhere is not so simple in Mississippi. The Confederate battle flag is not simply flying in one hotly disputed spot at the State Capitol but occupying the upper left corner of the state flag, which has been flying since 1894. (And as recently as 2001), Mississippians voted by a nearly two-to-one ratio to keep it. Recent ( polling) suggests the majority have not changed their minds.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Similarly, you could find inflexibility and fanaticism among abolitionists, but that wasn't the whole picture either. For a long time, some historians took the abolitionists as villains who (very often together with Southern fire-eaters) caused the war. The other side of the coin, both in regard to abolitionism and Reconstruction, got ignored.
That wasn't the original, unrevised history, though. It took a lot of effort by lost cause propagandists to make that picture dominate for as long as it did. I remember reading Profiles in Courage (whoever wrote it) and the portrait of Reconstruction was very different from what historians are writing about it today -- and most likely different as well from what many people who lived at the time experienced.
I don’t hate the South. And all you got left is ad hominems and that leaves you all washed up.
That “south hater” crap is a lame canard - but then it’s coming from a limp richard so what do you expect?
The past is so often unknowable not because it is befogged now but because it was befogged then, too, back when it was still the present. - Adam Gopnik
It is not worth getting into the gutter and debating pond scum. The good thing is that you are a very small minority on FR. However, if it makes you feel better, you can babble to yourself in the mirror.
Actually that's not true. Most Americans got over the WBTS decades, even generations ago. The same is true for FReepers. To them the struggles and the animosities are largely ancient history. In fact, the tiny minority of FReepers that express such venomous hostility and antipathy toward their fellow FReepers when it comes to The Great Unpleasantness is what drew me to these threads in the first place. In all of my travels I had never before encountered the lost causers.
That is also why I find it so amusing when I see FReepers argue in a fashion identical to liberals - the use of logical fallacies and especially the rich employment of ad homs - when defending what they (mis)perceive as slights or insults.
I won't deny that there is a cottage industry in the south which aims to perpetuate the old feuds, but go most places in this nation and mention the Civil War and you're more than likely going to encounter a blank stare. Most people just don't care.
By the way, the phrase is "in the interests of," not "in the interest to."
"Bollocks", you say? Now there is irony. Isn't it always the way, that when you try to correct someone, you make a mistake. Just when did the South begin rewriting history to spell "Sumter" the wrong way?
You are in the minority on Fr. It’s just a flag honoring Southern Heritage. To the average Joe in the South, no one will ever take that away.
No one here wants to take it away. Get over yourself.
“People who were ready to kill each other for four years weren’t exactly best buddies. There was much ill-feeling and animosity at the time that was covered up by later writers.”
You are mistaken to imagine that it was “covered up.”
“There definitely were efforts in the South after the Civil War to rewrite history to paint slavery out of the picture and to deny its role as a cause of the war.”
No, the first draft of history had it right. It was the first rewriting that called slavery the primary cause of the war.
“That’s where people get the bizarre idea that the war was fought over tariffs or over a purely abstract idea of state’s rights.”
As long as you continue to believe liars and repeat their lies, no one can help you.
“Gary Gallagher or Edward Ayers, both historians with the highest reputations”
Been on Google, have you? But by all means, let’s rely on today’s academia. They are so reliable. Not more than 99% anti-American leftards. Especially one who would accept the National Humanities Medal from the Kenyan Commie.
“rather than just rely on what Granny remembers.”
My maternal grandmother died in the 1950s, when she was in her late eighties. Her parents, my great-grandparents, were adults during the civil war. What Granny remembered was more than you will ever hear.
“The history of Reconstruction was likewise rewritten to portray White Southerners as victims of the evil carpetbaggers and scalawags and African-Americans as savages incapable of governing themselves.”
And, again, it is the rewritten history that you preach. Lies, damn lies, and probably some fake statistics to prop them up.
The vast majority of freed slaves were not, in fact, capable of running their own lives. How could they have been? It doesn’t matter how many self-loathing honkeys want to flagellate themselves, you can’t just dump people with no education or skills out into the streets and expect things to go well.
“Northern progressives joined in the rewriting campaign as a way of striking out at capitalists, corporations, and Republicans. Charles and Mary Beard: Ring a bell?”
A couple of decades back I noticed that, in the eternal battle among informed, uninformed, and misinformed, the ratio of misinformed people is higher than ever before. I don’t recall, though, ever encountering anyone who was so thoroughly misinformed in such great detail.
“You can’t seriously deny all that.”
I wish I could say you can’t seriously believe it; however, it seems that you do. With disinformation succeeding at such a clip, I don’t know how this country can be saved.
“You’re far less civil than I remember you being.”
It is possible to lose one’s claim on civility.
“It sounds like I really touched a nerve.”
Offending people with lies is nothing to brag about.
“Or maybe you’re just showing the normal wear-and-tear that comes from turning out propaganda day in and day out for months.”
It’s the normal wear and tear that comes from contradicting purveyors of falsehood, though I certainly don’t do it “day in and day out for months.”
I think we’re done. You will never take the steps necessary to confront your errors. Most people lack the moral courage.
“Bollocks”, you say?”
Bollocks I say, and Bollocks it is.
“Just when did the South begin rewriting history to spell “Sumter” the wrong way?”
I made a rare typographical error, a slip of the finger. “In the interest to” is the same kind of error as seen on “The IT Crowd,” where one character uses the phrase “pedal stool” instead of pedestal, and another says “damp squid” instead of “damp squib.”
The distinction is not even a subtle one.
Then today this story: Black Lives Matter activists at Princeton University have taken over the president’s office and say they won’t leave until the school acknowledges former U.S. president Woodrow Wilson as a racist and renames all buildings currently honoring him on campus. Members of a group calling themselves the Black Justice League walked out of their classes late Wednesday morning and assembled at Nassau Hall, where they were met by Princeton president Christopher Eisgruber. The students presented a list of demands inspired by similar lists that have been seen at Yale University, the University of Missouri, and elsewhere.
Note to self: rockrr is right in one respect, most people just don't care. And some, like rockrr, who might care, do not understand the purpose of the attacks on Southerners like Lee, Washington, even unionist Andrew Jackson. The attacks, when successful, fuel the next wave of attacks. The goal is not just to banish Confederate flags - but the 50-star American flag. And the reason: it's all bad. Confederate bad; Wilson bad; Reagan bad.
Our public schools, universities and arts communities are in agreement: Obama’s election was the first time any American had a right to be proud of the country.
No FReeper I've read about supports such thought; but some FReepers don't have the schemata to recognize tainted bait, or calculate distant consequences.
I understand - obviously far more that would would ever lend credit. That's why I have consistently sided with those who are opposed to the elimination of the CBF (even though I have no interest in flying it myself).
The distinction you make is that his error is commonplace and yours is rare?
I like your post because it is the first one that I have seen on this thread that mentions the word “heritage”. Because that is what this is all about really. American Heritage. The Stars and Bars is part of American Heritage. Don’t mess with it. The greatest, most honorable and noble foes the Americans ever had, were, ........each other.
“That’s why I have consistently sided with those who are opposed to the elimination of the CBF (even though I have no interest in flying it myself).”
I did not know that was your position. It is an entirely defensible posture. Somehow I missed that you are on my side. Welcome.
Get real. The use of the Rebel flag is what this entire argument is about.
Your words are spot on. I have met many military and non-military from all over the country who think the same way. It is part of our shared heritage.
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