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 ...
So according to GOP, the Supreme Court ruled definitively in Bollman that only Congress can suspend habeas corpus, thus establishing the interesting legal theory that the Supreme Court can rule on something that hadn't happened yet. Yet other legal scholars, like the current Chief Justice, say that it has never been established that the President cannot suspend habeas corpus which classifies Chief Justice Marshall's opinion an obiter dictum. So who to believe on this weighty legal matter? GOPcapitalist or Chief Justice of the United States William Rehnquist? Hmmmm. GOP or Rehnquist, Rehnquist or GOP? That is a hard one, isn't it? </sarcasm>
Yeah, the Lincoln congress was real big on constitutional responsibility. You must've skipped nolu chan's post concerning ratification of the 14th. Perhaps you might notice that roughly half the country was denied suffrage in the Senate. Please, continue to lecture us on the constitutional responsibilities of the Congress during the 1860s (and '70s).
Does that statement come with a map?
Slave owners were not political leaders.
Interesting... He had... That phrase is a standout.
Your interpretation of 1st Manassas is that the Confederates were driven back?
Leaders such as Lincoln understood it.
Does that statement come with a map?
The South gained the battlefield, but could not continue on to Washington.
They weren't?
The slave interests weren't the key factor in the war?
According to Davis they were.
He didn't happen to own any slaves did he?
Perhaps you should have read upthread enough to know what we are talking about.
forthedeclaration indicated that the ability to defend its independence was the only criterion for nationhood.
But wait! In flies El Capitan with a laundry list of other criteria. forthedeclaration may not know you as well as I do, so he should probably be apprised that once evidence of your given criteria is presented, tha bar is raised. Further evidence will only raise it higher, until the task before us is to jump out of a bottomless pit over the Sears tower.
Apparently, the two of you should duke it out.
I did find this on Davis.
Sounds alot like Lincoln
Sorry, I quit reading after this... was there anything worthwhile in the rest of the passage?
Is this the sort of thing that California Conservatives buy into?
Haven't seen backslapping like this since the 'good old days.'
Blatant distortion again. At issue is not whether or not Justice Taney lived in Maryland, at issue is whether or not Merryman was his close, personal friend.
The 1850 population of Baltimore was approximately 169,000. I take it they were all close, personal friends of the Chief Justice. </sarcasm>
Interesting statement, considering virtually every member of the Davis regime were slave owners. And if the statistics can be found, I would wager that the majority of confederate representatives and governors and legislators were slave owners as well.
I'll bet he was kind to his dog, too. Faithfulness to the constitution apparently did not extend to a supreme court or, if tales be true, protection of slavery and supporter of popular liberties apparently did not include those with Unionist tendencies. Quite a guy. Toss in his socialist leanings and it's probably a good thing for the confederacy that they were defeated.
But only after the war had started, with no prior authorizing resolution, and passing a bill later than demands witdrawl of the US from Iraq.
I never said HE said that. That was my opinion.
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