According to D.W. Griffith, it is based on events that he himself, or family members and others know to him, witnessed during Reconstruction and its immediate aftermath.
Posted on 08/15/2017 5:05:05 PM PDT by Kaslin
MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews was back and firing on all cylinders Monday night, overseeing a show devoid of reason as it linked conservatives, Republicans, and anyone in the “right-wing” to the KKK, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists associated with Saturday’s Charlottesville terrorism.
Matthews also showed ineptitude in not knowing until very recently that progressive heartthrob and President Woodrow Wilson loved the KKK film Birth of a Nation so much that he had it shown at the White House.
Out of Control ‘Hardball’ Lumps GOP in with Neo-Nazis, Shocked Wilson Loved ‘Birth of a Nation’
He began his show with a personal summation of racism in America:
There’s been an historic evil in this country. It’s an evil that began with slavery, of course, an institution that subjugated millions of human beings with whips and shackles until it ended in the blood of a civil war. It’s an evil that reemerged as the Ku Klux Klan, founded in the spirit of slavery, which terrorized the country in the decades after that war, nor was it limited to the South. A full half century after the Civil War’s end, the 1915 film Birth of a Nation found a national audience, stirring and refueling a resurgence of the Klan for decades thereafter. Well, the events of this weekend in beautiful, historic Charlottesville, Virginia, show that the KKK may have been suppressed but not extinguished. We saw that the evil whose seeds were in slavery remains still in the American soil, still waiting for its moment to rise again.
After highlighting the violence in Charlottesville, Matthews suggested the violence “may have matched the horror” of what President Trump was unable to do on Saturday, which was condemn the KKK, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists by name.
“It’s the same man who built his national following on his original sin of charging the country’s first African-American President of being foreign born, therefore, in his telling, not constitutional. Well, rather than hold them responsible, Trump instead blamed ‘many sides,’ drawing a moral equivalency between the white supremacists and the counter-protesters demonstrating against them,” Matthews added.
NAACP president Derrick Johnson continued to prove that nothing the President said could have satisfied him and even extended conservative principles like voter ID to be examples of pro-Nazi policies:
Well, words don’t matter in this case. Actions speak. This President should have made these comments during his campaign season. He set a tone that allowed for individuals to feel as if it’s OK to spout racial hatred, individuals who feel it’s OK to hold up Nazism in a way in which they murdered a woman this week....If he wanted to take real action, he really should take a look at the policies he is establishing dealing with affirmative action, the policies he’s establishing deal with voting, the fact that he has a white supremacist as his adviser. So his words mean little. His actions will speak loud.
The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson continued to link those who have denounced that Charlottesville hate to those people anyway because, as expected, leftists like Robinson aren’t interested in uniting people across various ideologies.
It’s difficult to do that when you’re lumping millions of people in with neo-Nazis:
[T]he silence on Saturday was disgraceful, I thought. I mean, it’s not what, you know, you want to hear from the President of the United States. You want to hear the President come out forcefully in defense of American values, in defense of the better angels of our nature, in defense of what we aspire to be and this nonsense about "many sides" was, you know, a sop to the right wing, alt-right, white supremacists who formed, you know, part of his support base. I mean, let’s be honest. They supported him.
In the latest installment of Matthews showing cluelessness, Matthews revealed that he didn’t know Wilson held a White House screening of a pro-KKK filming. Seconds earlier, Johnson spread fake news that Republicans haven’t denounced Trump’s tepid Charlottesville response:
JOHNSON: Well, this is the equivalent to Woodrow Wilson showing Birth of a Nation in the White House. He’s pandering to a -- the lower denomination of this nation is not the values that we should hold. If this is what it means to make America great again, it’s the 1950 versions of it, and (INAUDIBLE) not great during that time. We have to decide, are we going to be an America that’s looking forward, that’s inclusive? And I call on his colleagues, his Republican Party colleagues, to denounce his actions. This is something that has been taking place for a while. We started with dog whistle politics. Now we are open and notorious (ph) with supporting individuals who espouse white supremacist notions. It should not be accepted in this America.
MATTHEWS: Yes, you’re so right about Birth of a Nation. I just saw a documentary on it the other night, and it’s about -- you know, this guy, Griffith, D.W. Griffith, puts out a movie that glorifies the Ku Klux Klan, makes them the heroes of our time. And it goes out across the country and people — white people all go see it and cheer it. This is 1915. I didn’t realize that Wilson had had the thing played in the White House. But it was outrageous. And we’re seeing — we don’t know the total reaction -- everyone on this show knows. We don’t know the total reaction of what happened in Charlottesville. We’re hearing the outcry against it. But what’s happening out in the country? We don’t know yet if they’re not picking up recruits.
Later, guest and former FBI agent Mike German also conflated Trump’s failures and rhetoric with policies being put forth by not only the White House but Republicans as “discriminatory, that are having disparate impacts on Muslim communities, on Latino communities and communities of color across the country.” Here’s the relevant portions of the transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on August 14:
MSNBC’s Hardball
August 14, 2017
7:00 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Silence is consent. Let’s play Hardball. [HARDBALL OPENING SEQUENCE] Good evening. I’m Chris Matthews back in Washington. There’s been an historic evil in this country. It’s an evil that began with slavery, of course, an institution that subjugated millions of human beings with whips and shackles until it ended in the blood of a civil war. It’s an evil that reemerged as the Ku Klux Klan, founded in the spirit of slavery, which terrorized the country in the decades after that war, nor was it limited to the South. A full half century after the Civil War’s end, the 1915 film Birth of a Nation found a national audience, stirring and refueling a resurgence of the Klan for decades thereafter. Well, the events of this weekend in beautiful, historic Charlottesville, Virginia, show that the KKK may have been suppressed but not extinguished. We saw that the evil whose seeds were in slavery remains still in the American soil, still waiting for its moment to rise again. Starting on Friday night, white supremacists, including the KKK, neo-Nazis and members of the alt-right descended on Charlottesville to join in a weekend of provocation and violence that culminated with the death of 32- year-old Heather Heyer. What came next may have matched the horror itself. For two days, the President of our country not only refused to condemn this rising up of America’s ancient evil by name but dared by his strategic silence to side with it. It’s the same man who built his national following on his original sin of charging the country’s first African-American President of being foreign born, therefore, in his telling, not constitutional. Well, rather than hold them responsible, Trump instead blamed “many sides,” drawing a moral equivalency between the white supremacists and the counter-protesters demonstrating against them.
(....)
DERRICK JOHNSON: Well, words don’t matter in this case. Actions speak. This President should have made these comments during his campaign season. He set a tone that allowed for individuals to feel as if it’s OK to spout racial hatred, individuals who feel it’s OK to hold up Nazism in a way in which they murdered a woman this week. It wasn’t an African-American woman, it was a white woman, who was simply saying that all citizens of this country should be treated with respect, and racial hatred should not be tolerated. So his words today only came after pressure. If he wanted to take real action, he really should take a look at the policies he is establishing dealing with affirmative action, the policies he’s establishing deal with voting, the fact that he has a white supremacist as his adviser. So his words mean little. His actions will speak loud.
MATTHEWS: Gene, let me talk to about how do we interpret what happened this weekend of silence?
EUGENE ROBINSON: Well —
MATTHEWS: In common law, I believe, silence is approval, but I don’t know how to read —
ROBINSON: — the silence on Saturday was disgraceful, I thought. I mean, it’s not what, you know, you want to hear from the President of the United States. You want to hear the President come out forcefully in defense of American values, in defense of the better angels of our nature, in defense of what we aspire to be and this nonsense about "many sides" was, you know, a sop to the right wing, alt-right, white supremacists who formed, you know, part of his support base. I mean, let’s be honest. They supported him. They’ve been cheering him on in their march. They, after his remarks, applauded the remarks and say, Gee, he wasn’t — he wasn’t bad on us, you know?
(....)
CATHERINE RAMPELL: But as to the point that we were discussing earlier about the long-term consequences of the President normalizing racial animus in some respect, whether it’s Woodrow Wilson and Birth of a Nation or Trump — I mean, one thing that really terrified me about the events this weekend is how many of the people there were young white men, not like old racist grandpas who you can sort of write off their bigotry as, Oh, well, no, no, that was -- they’re a product of their time. These are young people who are going to be with us for a very long time who have seen someone who has embraced racial prejudice use that to pave his way to the White House and see him as a hero. The lasting legacy of Trump is not only going to be the kinds of policies that are abhorrent that his administration is pursuing on many of these issues. It’s not just going to be the fact that he has disgraced himself on many levels. But it’s the fact that he has encouraged and emboldened a new generation of people to pursue racial bigotry, or at least to think that they can get away with it if they profess it openly.
(....)
MATTHEWS: Do they vote? Do they tend to vote? In other words, do they get the most right-wing candidate they can get and vote for what’s there, even if they don’t go the full route to their right-wing position? do they vote? Did David Duke vote for Trump? I mean, that kind of thing, does go on?
MIKE GERMAN: Sure. Of course it does and I think Trump was a candidate that was very different. This was no longer a dog whistle. This was a bullhorn that he was talking to these communities through when he made the types of comments that you showed at the beginning of this segment. I think they realized this was going to be a very different Presidential candidate, and were happy to publicly support him, when typically that would not be the way they reacted. And, in fact, if you look early, they were very skeptical of him being somebody who would support the causes and the policies they’re interested in and that’s what I find most troubling, not just the rhetoric, but that actual policies are being put in place that are discriminatory, that are having disparate impacts on Muslim communities, on Latino communities and communities of color across the country.
(....)
GERMAN: And I think that’s — it was very relieving to hear so many Republicans come out and strongly denounce the violence and strongly denounce Trump’s refusal to denounce the violence. But, you know, when we talk about immigration, I would hope that they look at their own language and how they talk about other people and when they talk about terrorism and the way they talk about Muslim communities, that they would realize how much that rhetoric divides our society in ways that become dangerous and provide fuel for these hate groups that they live on.
Many people who disagree with the KKK might like the movie, having been directed by the best director at the time. Woodrow Wilson was a more paternalistic racist, not a KKK guy.
What an idiot, he who worked for Carter all those years as a speechwriter and still had no idea that Wilson very much enjoyed that film. I recall reading or hearing somewhere that “Birth of a Nation” is required viewing and studying by students of film studies programs at respected institutions because it was the first modern screenplay produced.
Well they do seem to be enjoying themselves aren’t they? Unfortunately, so-called Republicans and conservatives that are out there defending the disgraced confederate flag and these hero worshiping statues give credence to the attempt to link neo-Nazis, the KKK , and white supremacists to Republicans in general. That is the problem. Those of us who did not grow up in the deep South have no history, no interest in, your tolerance for all of this racist and white supremacist BS. That is the comical aspect of this when the media try to link President Trump to this. He’s a New York Republican, he is very cosmopolitan, and I doubt he has a racist bone in his body. Nothing about him, and most Republicans from anywhere in the US except the south can be legitimately tied to any of this BS.
Don’t punch right.
Doesn’t matter.
Don’t you remember Bushitler?
To them if you are not a communist, you are a Nazi. The middle is vanishing.
Wilson also segregated the Navy. If I remember this right, it was roughly 25% enlisted blacks. Again if I remember this right there were a fair number of black clerks in federal offices in DC, Wilson ended that!
According to D.W. Griffith, it is based on events that he himself, or family members and others know to him, witnessed during Reconstruction and its immediate aftermath.
Griffith might have said that to give himself cover, but the film was based on a novel: The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan.
I find Chrissie Matthews to be an extremist Fascist. The sooner he is removed from the Media, the fast this nation will heal and eliminate Fascism
That’s why, as per my earlier post, that if you are a film studies student at most decent universities and colleges, “Birth of a Nation” is one of the most important and compulsory movies to be viewed and studied because of the items mentioned in your comment.
New under 6 minute video about the events of the last 6 months or so:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8cRBUo0bE
And FDR didn’t apologize for putting a Klansman on the Supreme Court.
#DemocratsAreFascistThugs
Do you have to read the first novel to learn to write a novel?
Birth of a Nation may have historical or trivial significance but it is not compulsory viewing to have a working grasp of the craft of film-making or story telling.
The whole language of film has changed (and not just inter-titles and sound). The visual language has changed.
Compulsory was probably not the appropriate term to use, but it is probably fair to say that that film is widely studied for it’s historical significance (in terms of modern filmmaking as opposed to it’s viewpoint). In a vein not too dissimilar from English students studying Chaucer and how his works influenced the development of modern English language and literature.
I’d recommend studying the films of Roger Corman and later New World Pictures (LA film students and grads working for Roger’s production company) to learn the economy of film making (getting the maximum results with minimal resources at hand). How to focus on character and dialogue driven narratives. How to focus on staging a scene.
Martin Scorcese said he probably learned more by watching a bad movie than a good one.
Thanks for outing yourself as an ignorant, arrogant, Anti-Southern bigot who knows nothing about history.
There was plenty of racism & segregation in your precious North. It was called “De-facto segregation” & was a way of life in the North.
You also might want to read up on the race riots in Boston in the ‘60’s & ‘70’s due to school desegregation, especially at South Boston High School.
Let’s not forget the L.A. race riots of the 90’s. The last I heard, Los Angeles is not the South.
I grew up in a small North Alabama town in the 70’s & 80’s and there were no racial tensions. The races got along just fine.
I’ve also spoken to several Black people I know who had lived in the North. They stated that they experienced more racism in the North than they ever did in the South. There goes your ignorant little theory.
This may shock you but it’s 2017. Please try to educate yourself so you won’t make such a fool of yourself next time.
You can cease your phony virtue signaling; No one is impressed. I’m honestly embarrassed for you.
Whatever... While we can, unfortunately, find racism pretty much everywhere if we look hard enough, it takes on clearer meaning when done under the banner of White supremacy, neo-Nazis, and the KKK. Flying the Confederate flag, the Nazi flag, etc. make undeniable statements. This is wrong regardless of where it occurs.
I not surprised that doofus Tweety bird is ignorant of Wilson’s racism.
America will never be Great Again, so long as these genes infect our pool. Until Patriots come together to rid ourselves of this refuse we will never have nice things again.
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