Paul Greenberg: Call Us Ishmael (Neo-Confederates and Arabs – brothers under the skin)

Tribune Media Services ^ | May 28, 2004 | Paul Greenberg

[quidnunc]

Dear History Professor,

It was wholly a pleasure to get your thoughtful letter, and read your response to my comparing the bitter remnants of the old Confederacy and the new terrorists of the Arab world. You seem to have thought this thing through.

Yes, both old guards, Arab and Southern, represent a reaction against modernity and all its works — and both are heirs of a once great civilization that brought on its own ruin. Neither can come to terms with its own history. ("Forget, Hell!")

As you note, "Both are/were led by cultured elites representing traditional, agrarian societies in which one knew his (and especially her) place. They feel their old order under attack by capitalist, industrial, urban, mongrelized, immigrant, uncouth people who promote too much social and racial mixing, freedom for women, pursuit of money, devilish dancing, etc., etc. Sometimes the pronouncements of bin Laden and company seem to echo those from our own threatened old society."

You might note this difference: Being Muslim and essentially back in the 14th century, their prejudices are based not so much on race as religion.

But the rest of your letter rings true, with its comprehensive list of the pet hates that Arab terrorists share with our own, homegrown kluxers.

The South traditionally resisted Americanization, which is now called globalization, for the same reasons the Islamic world now resists: in order to keep its Way of Life uncontaminated by alien ideas like democracy and equality. In short, modernity.

-snip-

[CWOJackson]

You had to go there?

[Petronski]

[quidnunc]

CWOJackson wrote: You had to go there?

It's been a while… and besides it's been rather slow lately.

[CWOJackson]

Something tells me you're in for a Rebel Jihad. Any last words?

[right way right]

Whats your motivation here? To stir the pot or expose the baboon author of this POS article?

A little of both maybe?

[quidnunc]

CWOJackson wrote: Something tells me you're in for a Rebel Jihad. Any last words?

Illinois boys whupped 'em at Shiloh, I'll whup 'em here.

[CWOJackson]

Okay everybody...I'm stepping away from the Yankee...hold you fire!

[Texasforever]

Illinois boys whupped 'em at Shiloh, I'll whup 'em here.

well Quid you may not want to burn your bridge to the red states. It may be the only place for a blue state conservative to escape to.

[Capriole]

I detest having to say this, but he makes some good points. That acknowledged, there is a very substantial difference between a culture like that of the South, that seeks to preserve the beauty of the past, that cherishes family and honors women, and a culture like that of Osama, which chops off the hands of people who dare to step out of line and keeps women locked up. There is a difference between a culture that wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and that which seeks to murder everyone on earth who does not worship Allah and Mohammed. There is a difference between a culture that defends its homes and boundaries and that which sends men thousands of miles away from their birthplace to murder innocents in the most cruel way possible, for no good reason.

We Southerners do not seek to restore the wrong of the past, as the Arabs do. We want only to preserve and restore the good, the beautiful, the honorable.

And if I may say so, we need Sherman again to take down that sad modern disgrace in Georgia.

[MissAmericanPie]

What a load. Just what is this idiots definition of "modernazation"? Liberalism, no doubt.

[CWOJackson]

"And if I may say so, we need Sherman again..."

Now I am getting confused.

[Billthedrill]

Aw, come on - it's after midnight Confederate time and most of the boys will be safely abed. I'll bump this one about, oh, say, ten in the AM in Atlanta and see how it goes over. Good luck.

I do think this is taking moral equivalency to a new, rarified atmospheric level, but what do I know? While both parties under discussion might be yearning for a past that some of us would consider in part oppressive, only one of them murdered 3000 innocent people pursuing it. (Of course, the fellers who ran airliners into the WTC weren't actually Shi'a yearning for a lost cause, you know, they were lunatic Sunni asswipes looking for a ticket to paradise). But don't let that little detail stand between you and...say...do I see a firing squad lining up?

[Klaus D. Deore]

Hey... Republicans set the troglodytes straight in 1865, and we'll do so again!

[wardaddy]

he can stay in his own briar patch....


what a piece of excrement (the article)

[Klaus D. Deore]

While both parties under discussion might be yearning for a past that some of us would consider in part oppressive, only one of them murdered 3000 innocent people pursuing it.

I guess you don't count lynchings...

[bluecollarman]

"I guess you don't count lynchings"

Or burning out wommen and childr....Oh wait, That was a Northern guy that did the war crimes.

To compare neo-confederates (if there really is such a thing) to those wacky Arabs, is just crapola.

[Billthedrill]

Well, not 3000 at a time, at least. The difference is (if we actually have to be serious for a moment about this most un-serious argument) that the South wasn't trying to carry their millenarian fantasies to the North, and to the world at large, at the point of a sword. Let's just say that in my opinion the historical parallelism is inflammatory, amusing, and doesn't actually go very far, sort of like the railroad tracks out of Atlanta when Sherman got through wrapping them around trees.

[BenLurkin]

Just what is this idiots definition of "modernazation"? Liberalism, no doubt.

Exactly. And that is why this screed goes way off the cliff.

[familyop]

"CWOJackson wrote: You had to go there?"

"It's been a while… and besides it's been rather slow lately."

ROFL!