Posted on 11/13/2004 11:12:00 AM PST by LouAvul
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Based on Margaret Mitchell's hugely popular novel, producer David O. Selznick's four-hour epic tale of the American South during slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction is the all-time box-office champion.
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Considering its financial success and critical acclaim, "Gone With the Wind" may be the most famous movie ever made.
It's also a lie.
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Along with D.W. Griffith's technically innovative but ethically reprehensible "The Birth of a Nation" (from 1915), which portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as heroic, "GWTW" presents a picture of the pre-Civil War South in which slavery is a noble institution and slaves are content with their status.
Furthermore, it puts forth an image of Reconstruction as one in which freed blacks, the occupying Union army, Southern "scalawags" and Northern "carpetbaggers" inflict great harm on the defeated South, which is saved - along with the honor of Southern womanhood - by the bravery of KKK-like vigilantes.
To his credit, Selznick did eliminate some of the most egregious racism in Mitchell's novel, including the frequent use of the N-word, and downplayed the role of the KKK, compared with "Birth of a Nation," by showing no hooded vigilantes.
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One can say that "GWTW" was a product of its times, when racial segregation was still the law of the South and a common practice in the North, and shouldn't be judged by today's political and moral standards. And it's true that most historical scholarship prior to the 1950s, like the movie, also portrayed slavery as a relatively benign institution and Reconstruction as unequivocally evil.
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Or as William L. Patterson of the Chicago Defender succinctly wrote: "('Gone With the Wind' is a) weapon of terror against black America."
(Excerpt) Read more at sacticket.com ...
War time conditions have never been recognized as a basis to usurp the power of another branch of government in violation of the separation of powers. The Supreme Court recently reiterated this principle in the Hamdi case:
We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation’s citizens. Youngstown Sheet & Tube, 343 U.S., at 587. Whatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its exchanges with other nations or with enemy organizations in times of conflict, it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake. Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 380 (1989) (it was “the central judgment of the Framers of the Constitution that, within our political scheme, the separation of governmental powers into three coordinate Branches is essential to the preservation of liberty”); Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 426 (1934) (The war power “is a power to wage war successfully, and thus it permits the harnessing of the entire energies of the people in a supreme cooperative effort to preserve the nation. But even the war power does not remove constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties”). Likewise, we have made clear that, unless Congress acts to suspend it, the Great Writ of habeas corpus allows the Judicial Branch to play a necessary role in maintaining this delicate balance of governance, serving as an important judicial check on the Executive’s discretion in the realm of detentions. See St. Cyr, 533 U.S., at 301 (“At its historical core, the writ of habeas corpus has served as a means of reviewing the legality of Executive detention, and it is in that context that its protections have been strongest”). Thus, while we do not question that our due process assessment must pay keen attention to the particular burdens faced by the Executive in the context of military action, it would turn our system of checks and balances on its head to suggest that a citizen could not make his way to court with a challenge to the factual basis for his detention by his government, simply because the Executive opposes making available such a challenge. Absent suspension of the writ by Congress, a citizen detained as an enemy combatant is entitled to this process.
Davis also suspended the writ.
Wrong. The Confederate Congress suspended the writ in limited designations, allowing Davis to detain persons there on federal counts. The suspension did not apply to the state court systems, which continued to issue writs, and was not unilaterally declared for two whole years without congressional approval like Lincoln's was.
LG - "Then you'd damn well better prove it before you go around accusing people of it, boy. You'll never accuse me of that crap. So knock it off
This, coming from the person who speculated that John Wilkes Booth may have "heaven-sent."
The southern slave interests not only proposed the continued enslavement of nearly 4 million human beings (although they did not recognize them as fully human, and legally treated then as property), they also sought to deny the most fundamental of rights, as defined by the foundation documents of the United States, to almost all of the people under their control.
Their actions are, by definition, both racist and anti-American. It is entirely up to you to decide whether you identify with those practices.
Why don't you do it because you know it's the right thing to do?
"And I don't accept homework assignments any more, not since I wised up, anyway, to that particular eye-gouging technique."
I see no evidence you have "wised up." Unless, of course, "wised up" means becoming increasing strident and vulgar.
"I suspect [Gordon S. Wood] is a liberal who feels challenged by George W. Bush's vision and is scrambling to answer and compete in terms and themes he knows from his training the People are responding to in Bush's ideational platform."
I suspect you don't know very much about Gordon S. Wood.
The 10th Amendment simply made explicit what was already implicit in the document. Madison could, and did, repeat his understanding of the function of federal and state government in the 1st Congress, which he had made in the Philadelphia Convention, and during the ratification phase.
Not only did the 10th Amendment not provide anything new ideas, it further limited the states' autonomy by removing any reference to "expressly delegated" powers of the federal government, and to state's "sovereignty, freedom, and independence." The Anti-federalists had lost on that point in the Convention, during the ratification debates, and now in the Congress which proposed the Bill of Rights.
Very good point. I vote for "free".
How about you Industrial Corporofascist Empire trolls?
You like to quote the secessionist mantra, but it is of no consequence. In nearly 215 years there has never been an authoritative interpretation of the 10th Amendment which suggests that it authorizes or permits the states to leave the Union - or do do anything remotely related to that.
The "all powers" argument is for the intellectually weak.
Personally, I think he got off easy.
Some southern states purported to secede. They had no right to do so, and this was confirmed in Texas v White: "The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final."
ftD - this is typical confederate cabal bluster. You will find that they tend to classify any poster who disagrees with their pet theories becomes a "liar," a "marxist," or whatever the insult-of-the-day might be. It is classic "Big Lie" propaganda technique, and an admission that they don't have the ability to participate in rational discussion. It is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between the cabal and assorted brown-shirted thugs.
Some people like to strut around in jackboots, too.
Yes. Does the shoe fit?
And if the righteous southerners refused to buy slaves, there would have been no slave trade.
Crack addicts aren't "victims." They are just as culpable as their dealers. So too were the slavers.
There was no insurgency. But you knew that.
The Confederate States were not recognized as a legitimate government by the nations of the world,.....
Band wagon fallacy (argumentum ad populum). The young United States fought alone nearly as long as the Confederacy did, until France recognized our flag and began to offer concrete help.
....they were unable to defend the territory they claimed, and they were never able to govern many of the people they claimed as citizens.
Appeal to force -- another fallacy -- and teleology.
They were unable to make good on their claims and were forced to capitulate.
Restatement of the teleological fallacy and appeal to force.
Davis's actions, and those who led the failed rebellion, were treasonable.
Teleology again. Now prove treason. But then, you knew you couldn't when you wrote it, so -- add libel and slander to the pile.
A steaming pile. That turkey must have been good -- and big.
Just checking to see that you're the same slanderer you were back then. And no, the shoe doesn't fit.
I've noticed that. Did someone tell you you looked good in them, or something?
Oh, wait -- well, yes, maybe so, if you'd been over at Wlat's stable, ogling at the revues.
People who know how to read black letters on white paper don't need shysters and mountebanks to tell them what's there.
People who possess a mind don't need "authorities" to speak to them in the language of direction.
You sound so much like Winston Smith, it's sickening. Listen to yourself -- and you call yourself an American. An American flatworm, is more like it. Not even a notochord.
The "all powers" argument is for the intellectually weak.
You mean, the militarily weak. Appeal to teleology again: "argumentum ex we won!"
Your discourse is nakedly corrupt -- intellectually and morally. But then, cynics like you get off on being told that. You think of it as styling, an upscale version of what street thugs going nowhere like to do. They show off their blings and their Lorcins; you strut your one-liners and your cynical quotes from compromising authors. Sick, all of you.
Ex post facto legislation again.
Personally, I think he got off easy.
I'm glad you pointed that out. It shows the moral gulf that separates guys like you from the men who actually fought Davis's armies.
Now, the fact is that Congress did support the Presidents actions at least implicity by not attempting to impeach him for what he did.
And in 1863 protecting him from any legal actions.
While Habeas Corpus was used sparingly, I am sure there were abuses of it by both the Union and Confederates.
But Lincoln can not in any stretch of the imigination be considered a tyrant for his use of it during a crises of the magnitude of the Civil War.
Jefferson Davis took some heat for his use of it as well.
Wow, this is French Revolution stuff.
Lets have each generation just start over again with a new system of government, throw out the old.
Lincoln's wasn't.
Moreover, Davis was still critized for his use of that power, who felt he was overreaching the authority of his office.
Take the legal double talk somewhere else.
Presidents have to make decisions to protect the Constitution that stretch the limits of what the Consitution may have intended, but that is the responsiblity of the President has.
Lincoln defense of his actions was a sound one, based on the practial demands of the time.
That is why the ability to suspend the writ was written into the Consitution for times such as those.
Had any truely horrible abuse had occurred, the Congress could have just as easily impeached Lincoln.
In fact, many in the Congress felt Lincoln was going to easy and wanted stronger measures taken.
Now, all of these noise that you are generating is suppose to prove what?
Were their abuses on both sides, yes there were.
That has been conceded by historians.
What you are attempting to really prove is that Lincoln was a tyrant bent on the destruction of the Rule of Law.
That is simply false.
Had not the South not fired on the U.S. flag and refused to obey the laws that it was obligated to obey under the Constitution, Lincoln would have faded away as probably a one term President.
He said as much at his first Inagural Address.
It was the South's arrogrance that made Lincoln the great President that he was.
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