Commentary: Truth blown away in sugarcoated 'Gone With the Wind'

sacbee ^ | 11-13-04

[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."

[justshutupandtakeit]

Equivalent in protecting American industry from competition. Or similiar if you would prefer. Not identical nor using the same methods but the exclusion of imports forced American consumers to buy American.

[justshutupandtakeit]

The first cities had the market, the citadel and the temple. Babylon had huge walls miles in circumference. Farming never could get far without the protection of the armies which cities generated. Raiders would just come and take everything without impunity until the cities developed.

Famines which produced widescale death were not common in Europe. Nor were they more common than war.

[justshutupandtakeit]

The Constitution was specifically designed to limit state sovereignty and control its damage to the Union.

[justshutupandtakeit]

The difference is that he was speaking of new formations from the territory purchased which might never even be admitted as states in the first place. Thus, it would have been perfectly constitutional had Arkansas organized as a territory and petitioned Congress to be allowed to form a separate nation and Congress agreed.

But to attempt to destroy and organic unity such as was created by the Union is like taking an arm off a body.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Ya think that enforcement might have been affected by having presidents who were: slave owners themselves, not hostile to slavery, indifferent to slavery or, on rare occasions, hostile to slavery? That might make a difference in enforcement.

[justshutupandtakeit]

It is false that the South received no slaves from Africa after 1820. The fact is that some were bought even up to the beginning of the Insurrection.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Jefferson Davis was not a political leader?

Judah Benjamin was not a political leaders?

Alexander Hamilton STephens was not a political leaders?

What is your definition of "political leader" if it doesn't include those men?

[justshutupandtakeit]

The Good Old Days of slavery?

[capitan_refugio]

"Is this the sort of thing that California Conservatives buy into?"

It is something any conservative should remember about crisis situations. The ultimate goal is the preservation of the peoples' liberties and of the Union.

[rustbucket]

There was a riot in Boston when the Federal Gov't took one slave back.

I've seen where he was supposedly the last slave returned from Massachusetts. And that was years before the war.

Lincoln told the South that they had nothing to fear from him that he would uphold the Constitution.

Now you've stated it more correctly. But I have seen a Southern paper argue that Lincoln said he would not enforce Dred Scott. I don't know whether that is correct or not. He certainly did not uphold the Constitution after the war started -- he did all but use it for a doormat.

So, if you can't win the vote, pull out?

They had that right if they chose to do so. They didn't have access to the Army to prevent Democrats from voting in key states like what happened in 1863-64. Maybe 1862 also.

I however, doubt that the North could have defeated the South in the Senate

I see GOPc has tried to enlighten you on this point already. I defer to his eloquence.

Well, the slavers wanted it both ways, having slaves counted as people for representation but in practice treating them as property. But consistency in thinking has never been a strong suit for defenders of the Confederacy.

Didn't Northern states agree to the representation question? As I've pointed out, without that compromise, the US as we know it would not have come to be.

[Gianni]

[ftd, quoting] The Southern sympathizers were a small minority. The Republicans had complete control of both houses of Congress. Of the 48 senators, 32 were Republicans, and of the 176 representatives, 106 were Republicans. The House quickly elected a pro-war speaker, Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania.

New Englanders now controlled the four powerful Senate committees that influenced war policy. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, still scarred from the murderous caning given him by Senator Brooks, was chairman of Foreign Relations, and his colleague, Henry Wilson, presided over Military Affairs. John P. Hale of New Hampshire was in charge of Naval Affairs, and William P. Fessenden of Maine led the Finance committee. These men and their associates, most prominently Senator Ben Wade of Ohio and Senator Zachariah Chandler of Michigan, were all radical Republicans, determined to punish the South and put an end to slavery once and for all. In the House, clubfooted old Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, a bitter enemy of the South and its "peculiar institution", ran the powerful Committee on Ways and Means, which exerted control on government appropriations.

The failure of this body to impeach and convict the president is practically a shock, I tell you! Why, the country must have been so solidly behind war that you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a rifle pointed South.

This clinches it for you guys, the "We win, because we won" argument simply cannot be refuted.

[Gianni]

I find it odd that most of the ships shown have a clipper stem (at least in the foreground), and yet clipper ships did not become common until after the slave trade had been outlawed.

Did you miss his point entirely, or are you just helping him make it?

[Gianni]

Does that statement come with a map?

Doesn't need one. I'm not making confusing statements indicating that Lincoln needed to violate the Constitution and its laws in order to defend the Constitution and its laws. That was you.

I just made note of the fact that you ascribe ownership of Congress and the People to Abraham Lincoln in your rants. The People of the United States had a bastardized version of a Congress solidly in the hands of radical partisans that failed to impeach their puppetmaster, which you and El Capitan have used as "proof" that his actions were in line with an objective outside criteria - the Constitution of the United States.

The argument has been debunked in about 40 ways now, but the two of you persist.

[Gianni]

At Bull run both sides were too exhausted to continue. The South gained the battlefield, but could not continue on to Washington.

Bump to a Jackson expert for an opinion.

[Gianni]

Davis indicated that slave owners were political leaders?

Quote him.

Did I say that slave interests were not a key factor?

No, I did not. Your red herring is starting to rot.

[Gianni]

[ftd, quoting on Davis] faithful to constitutional agreements

[ftd, opining] Sounds alot like Lincoln

Fred Lincoln? Jack Lincoln? or some other Lincoln that I've never heard of, I assume?

[Gianni]

Ahh, N-S missing the point yet again.

Slave ownership is not political leadership.

Slave owners could be politicians, and politicians could be slave owners, but the map is not one to one and onto. Tyrant carries a political connotation.

But as always, feel free to jump in whenever and divert the conversation as you please.