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."

[nolu chan]

[capitan_kerryfugio] Sure they do. The Laws of War applied when Lee rolled into Sharpsburg in 1862 and through the state on the way to defeat at Gettysburg in 1863. Just as they did in 1861. You can chant your mantra over and over again - it's not going to make your story any more thruthful.

You can chant your Blue State radical liberal judicial revisionism all you want, but the actual law, and the actual judicial opinion rendered in the case will continue to say you are full of crap. The opinion is quite specific in holding that the rules of war did not apply. Not even the government tried to maintain that line of B.S.

The chief justice then proceeded as follows:

'I ordered this attachment yesterday, because, upon the face of the return, the detention of the prisoner was unlawful, upon the grounds:

1. That the president, under the constitution of the United States, cannot suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, nor authorize a military officer to do it.

2. A military officer has no right to arrest and detain a person not subject to the rules and articles of war, for an offence against the laws of the United States, except in aid of the judicial authority, and subject to its control; and if the party be arrested by the military, it is the duty of the officer to deliver him over immediately to the civil authority, to be dealt with according to law. It is, therefore, very clear that John Merryman, the petitioner, is entitled to be set at liberty and discharged immediately from imprisonment. I forbore yesterday to state orally the provisions of the consitution of the United States, which make those principles the fundamental law of the Union, because an oral statement might be misunderstood in some portions of it, and I shall therefore put my opinion in writing, and file it in the office of the clerk of the circuit court, in the course of this week.'

[nolu chan]

[capitan_kerryfugio] The sad fact behind Lincoln's death was that the more radical Republicans were able to use the assassination to further punish the south, beyond the moderate Reconstruction advocated by the late President. Tough break, huh?

At a cabinet meeting on April 14, 1865, Lincoln advised the cabinet that wanted to return all the states back to normal relations before the Congress was able to come back into session. He instructed an irritated Stanton that Virginia was a special case and required special treatment. (Virginia was a special case because the U.S. government had recognized a Virginia government throughout the war.)

Naturally the insane, bloodthirsty radicals were incensed. After the bloodbath they had caused, one more life was cheap. Lincoln was shot that night. The radicals celebrated. Tough breah, huh?

[nolu chan]

Booth's originally intact diary after Edwin Stanton got done with it.

Pics of Booth's ladies removed from his diary. The New York Daily Tribune, April 24, 1865, reported: "Assassin's Coat Found ... A detective of the War Department returned from Virginia Sunday night with an ulsterette belonging to the assassin.... in the pockets were his personal papers." The glass plates of the women's photos, prepared at the Army Medical Museum photo laboratory and each with Dr. Edward Curtis's initials and the telltale date plainly visible.

John Wilkes.

[Non-Sequitur]

(N-S: I think you made a similar observation some time ago. Odd behavior, don't you think?)

Indeed. Jealousy, do you think?

[fortheDeclaration]

That resolution declares that the powers granted by the proposed Constitution are the gift of the people, and may be resumed by them when perverted to their oppression, and every power not granted thereby remains with the people, and at their will. James Madison, Virginia Ratifying convention 24 Jun 1788

So?

That is the right for revolution not secession.

I see you are battling strawman again.

[4CJ]

You seem to forget who lost, boy.

Your writing skills impress me. I'm awed.

[4CJ]

Booth got off easy, pithed like a laboratory frog.

Lincoln got off easy. He should have been tried and hung as a war criminal.

[4CJ]

After all, she didn't abort you when she had the chance.

Yours did. Se we can do it too. We can all go on slinging personal vindictives until the abuse button gets pushed again, and another 2000+ posts disappear. How 'bout we simply stick to honest debate?

[fortheDeclaration]

We are in total agreement. Oh, let us not get too carried away. We are in partial agreement, but that is progress. The People delegate power to the various Governments. Hence, the right of change any government is the right to revolution taking back that delegated power if it is being abused. About this, we disagree. The people met and reclaimed their delegated powers from the government under the Articles of Confederation. There was no revolution. There was no need to demonstrate any power being abused. If the people are the sovereigns, they do not need permission from anyone to exercise their sovereign power. >

Actually, they did have to demonstrate that the Articles of Confederation were a failure and thus the relationship between the States needed to be stronger if they were to survive as a People.

The argument by the anti-federalists was that the Articles could be modified but did not have to be scrapped.

As for a 'revolution'well it was certainly a radical change.

And not every revolution has to be violent, as shown by the glorious revolution.

The people in the aggregate do absolutely nothing under the Constitutional government. The constitutional government was formed after eleven ratifications were agreed upon. There were not millions of ratifications, but one for each state. The people organized themselves by state, and they acted by state. Each such group of people acted independently of the other twelve groups.

The People send representives of their states to Washington to represent them, and that is how their voice is heard at the Federal level.

The sovereigns have the right of change of their government. They do not need to stage a revolution to exercise their rights. They need not justify the exercise of their rights to anyone. If they have the right to do something, that have that right even if exercising it would be an act of gross stupidity. They can exericise their rights for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all.

Well, once agreed upon the People had commited themselves to a Union.

The People were now more strongly People of the United States, not only People of the various states.

One was important as the other and just as the People of the United States could not reject reject the People of any state or states, so the People of the states (in any combination) could not reject the People of United States as such.

Any other interpretation is simply anarchy, with the potential of every level of gov't seceding from one another (towns from counties, counties from States, States from the Federal gov't.)

[fortheDeclaration]

For what it's worth, here's the ticket I voted this year (major races): President: Bush/Cheney (Rep) - won Federal Senator: Bill Jones (Rep) - lost Representative: Elton Gallegly (Rep) - won State Senator: Tom McClintock (Rep) - won Statre Assembly: Audra Strickland (Rep) - won

Sounds conservative to me!

[rustbucket]

That is the right for revolution not secession.

Spoken like a true oppressor.

What part of distinct, independent sovereigns don't you understand? The colonists had just thrown off one oppressive central government (Britain). What makes you think they wanted to turn everything over to another central government without strong checks on its power? Why should they set it up so that they would have to go through another Revolutionary War in order to free themselves of central government oppression? They were smarter than that.

[Gianni]

Go figure. I wouldn't have figured now that Fumblepepper learned to hold onto the ball, he had to find a new and exciting way to give it away. Chicago D came up huge and won it.

[Gianni]

It was common practice in the day to name your children after political leaders, the chief justice of the supreme court being no exception.

I had no idea that my great-grandfather knew both Calvin Coolidge and Warren Harding personally. Nor did I know that both former presidents lived in Strawberry Point, IA.

[stand watie]

GOOD PIX!

we of the SCV plan to cover dixie with our battleflag. those DUMB enough to believe the LIARS on the left can stay home & good riddance!

FYI, i fly the 3d National 24/7/365 under lights.

free dixie,sw

[GOPcapitalist]

And so the bile oozes forth from El Capitan as his true colors (pink) show through.

Needless to say, I think we can all safely assert that El Capitan has a second "weekend" residence over a dyke bar in San Francisco. We know this because the fact that he doesn't live there most of the time does not preclude him from having one. We also know by example of his friends right here at FR (#3nazi and the horse named Wlat) that el capitan associates with the same social class as all the freaks and perverts of San Francisco. And most of all he certainly has not proven that he does not have this second residence!

Using el capitan's very own criteria by which he accused Taney, we may therefore safely assert that he takes weekend trips to Haight-Ashbury to fraternize with the Wlat Brigade's exiled members as the Indigo Girls perform at the homo bar below him.

Every criterion is met: (1) his current residence doesn't preclude him from having another, (2) he demonstrably participates in a social class of known freaks and deviants (#3 and Wlat) that he still pings months after they've been banned, (3) he cannot prove that he does not have a San Francisco residence, and (4) capitan and San Francisco are all in the same state of California. The only thing missing from the equation is (5) a cemetary, but I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find one of his own ancestors buried near a distant relative of Rosie O'Donnell so we might as well just assume that to be true like everything else!

[GOPcapitalist]

Is there something you two aren't telling use? About an old ex-military poofter and latest young fling?

PSSST! Methinks El Capitan is trying to summon Wlat again!

[capitan_refugio]

"And so the bile oozes forth from El Capitan as his true colors (pink) show through."

Another case of the pot calling the kettle black.

I'll take it easy on you guys today. I know you're all broken up about the Supreme Court ruling against the Klan.

[capitan_refugio]

You have to understand, just about anybody is "left" of guys in hoods, jackboots, and waving the old confederate flag.

[capitan_refugio]

"How 'bout we simply stick to honest debate?"

Fair enough. But, unfortunately, you can't speak for your comrades. I'll honor your offer, so far as you are concerned.

[GOPcapitalist]

You have to understand, just about anybody is "left" of guys in hoods, jackboots

How is your old neo-nazi buddy #3 doing these days, capitan? Has he made the visit with you to Wlat's stable yet?