Posted on 11/13/2004 11:12:00 AM PST by LouAvul
....snip......
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.
.......snip........
Considering its financial success and critical acclaim, "Gone With the Wind" may be the most famous movie ever made.
It's also a lie.
......snip.........
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.
......snip.........
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.
.....snip.........
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 ...
You're exaggerating wildly. Slaves were allowed to accumulate savings and could and did redeem themselves or family members. Their ability to do so was vitiated by the master's right of property in them, but most masters weren't Simon Legree types. Marriage was out, but working for the former master after emancipation wasn't.
Oh, its a response alright and an appropriate one.
today i don't have time to refute each & every one of your points, BUT do some research on what i have written about "collaboration with the enemy" on other threads.
i have posted the documentation to back up my claims (including MANY letters from high-ranking US officers offering PERMANENT protection for slavers/slavery, who DID collaborate with the invader.), much of which is in publicly available venues.
btw, IF the WBTS had been to preserve slavery, why would have 100,000+ FREE black men fought for the south??? (one hopes you aren't one of those here, who say that, "they were too stupid to know what the war was about.")
could it be that we southrons were/are CORRECT & that the damnyankees here are still LIARS, fools & HATERS?
btw, as to my PEASANT REVOLT theory, over 90% of dixie's hero-martyrs in tattered gray had GROSS ASSETS of less than $ 25.00;the average southron servicemember had NET personal assets of less than $ 10.00 in 1861! (just one of the several reasons that we didn't WIN was a lack of $$$$ and EVERYTHING else, except VALOR.)
free dixie,sw
In order to exaggerate wildly any incorrectness in my comment you must ignore much of it and selectively misquote from the rest. Typical.
Wonder if we could rustle up a presidential-size tornado to go with it?
I've gotta go, back later.
Do you think heaping one lie on top of another will build a stairway to the truth? It won't. Many masters took their valets with them to the war and many blacks were hired to work for the army but there were very few who FOUGHT for the Cornfederacy. It is an complete falsehood that 100,000 free blacks or ANY blacks fought for the South. There may have been a few but about 1% of your claim.
Peasant revolt led by the aristocracy? Oh, yeah riiiight.
In every war the poor make up the majority of those fighting and dying and you think that PROVES something? All the Germans killed in WWII were not Nazis and some were even Jewish to you that proves the Jews fought for the Nazis I presume.
If your "documentation" is such as I suspect it is not worth my time to examine and PROPERLY interprete. Those trying to defend the RAT Revolt have consistently shown a inclination to ignore facts even after they have been repeatedly pointed out.
Did you stumble into a Faulkner discussion?
Sounded like something one would hear from Jeanine Garafolo
or other Anti-Americans.
What sort of idiotic response is that? Watie has stated many times that "slavery was dying." The data suggests otherwise. Keep your eugenics ideas to your self.
The statement was made that there were NO slaves in New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory in 1860. That is wrong. In fact there was a low level of aftican slavery in both territories, and a greater level of indentured servitude (peonage) in the former Spanish/Mexican areas.
And if you had read Rhett's broadside about the subject, you would see that he envisioned large slave populations in both areas due to mining - because slaves were just perfectly suited to mining! The reason for refuting the post was that, after the Dred Scott decision, anywhere that slavery had a foothold in a territory, it automatically became a point of contention. Those territories, and including the Kansas and Nebraska Territories, represented a huge area open to potential slavery. The southern leadership was not to be denied their slave territories and expansionist goals.
If that was their desire, they already had that while remaining a member of the union. Abraham Lincoln supported the Corwin Amendment which guaranteed the permanence of slavery.
You mischaracterize the argument as badly as 'gracchus. I don't make the "slavery was all" argument. You provide that as a strawman to beat up, because you are unable to address the points that I actually make.
My position is simple to understand. The protection and expansion of slavery was the primary motivating interest of the ruling southern oligarchy in their attempt as secession.
This does not speak to Northern motivation, nor does it exclude other, secondary southern motivations. As for the "radical left" - if your refer to the likes of Foner or McPherson - I can tell you, like I have told others, I don't know the body of their work because I do not own anything by them. When it comes to "revisionist" history, you, who had studied history in your younger years, should realize it was the J. G. Randall school of historians who were themselves "revisionists!"
Here is a short except from an article by Dee Sparling, "SECOND-GUESSING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR: A Reassessment of Revisionism and Repressibility," available online, in reference to the Revisionists:
"Only a year before America's entry into World War II, James G. Randall published "The Blundering Generation," an article condemning military conflict in general and the Civil War in particular. Essentially a judgment of ineptitude levied at political, economic, and religious elites of the 1850s, this view undeniably reflected his own frustration with Europe's plunge into yet another military holocaust. He attacked the positions of economic and cultural 'determinism' as being far too forgiving of 'bogus leadership,' choosing instead to stress psychosocial causes of war. His criticism of the slavery- culturalists was direct:
"Scholars in the field of history tend more and more to speak in terms of culture . . . . Historians are doing their age a disservice if these factors of culture are carried over, as they often are, whether by historians or others, into justifications or "explanations" of war. . . . It may be seriously doubted whether war rises from fundamental motives of culture or economics so much as from the lack of cultural restraint or economic inhibition upon militaristic megalomania.
"Despite its fuzzy logic, the essence of Randall's message remains a worthwhile warning to historians too readily forgiving of a people's blind descent into war. (Ironically, a mere four years after the writing of this piece, the Allies would be holding the German people accountable for riding a Hitlerian wave rendered so 'warm' and welcoming by the propaganda of Joseph Goebbels.) He expanded upon the Craven position, reaffirming the responsibility of various antebellum leaders for concocting and perpetuating myths, but also extending accountability to an entire generation that allowed itself to be 'misled in its unctuary fury.' As such, Randall went beyond conspiracy theory, reproaching an entire generation for engaging in a costly, 'needless war.' "The Beardian and Revisionist challenges to the old Unionist interpretation enjoyed considerable success for some time. No doubt two world wars served their arguments well. The respectability of Revisionism in particular lasted well into the 1960s, for the continuing efforts of Ramsdell, Craven, and Randall were buttressed by a new generation of historians sceptical of an 'optimistic philosophy' of Civil War causation. The works of Henry H. Simms, David H. Donald, David Potter, Elbert B. Smith, and Robert W. Johannsen (to name but a few) developed variations on these themes. But other than filing a few rough edges, exposed by predominantly slavery-culturalist critics, the essential position of the Revisionist school remained that the war at least might have been avoided, and the haste with which moderate voices were dismissed had been unwarranted."
I believe a couple of the historians mentioned you have referred to as "traditional historiographers." Correct me if I am wrong.
The fate of plutocrats. Those who would exploit and extort their countrymen, will always suffer a similar fate.
Honor and $3.85 will buy you a Starbucks cup of coffee.
Running headlong into war, in 1860-61, one wonders why the southern leadership, at such a materiel and manpower disadvantage, chose to "call the North's bluff." Perhaps they believed their own propaganda.
Thank you for posting the address. It can be found Epperson's site here:
http://members.aol.com/%20jfepperson/rhett.html
I don't know where you got that misguided idea. I simply compared the statistics to watie's contention. The answer is obvious and carries with it no other conclusions.
correction: nc's post was #238
Convincing me of that is a bit easier than convincing the fanatics who led the South into its disaster. Lincoln would have done nothing against slavery not allowed by the constitution. While it did not protect slavery it also did not ban it and a constitutional amendment would have been required and probably would have been impossible to achieve.
They realized that without a fedgov which was pro-Slavery and which would allow expansion their system was doomed. The only question was how long it would take. That is why they tried so desperately to force a pro-slavery constitution on Kansas.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.