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 ...
No they show that the main reason they stayed was because of family and familiarity. This map would show the same thing for most white families. Mine for example three of my brothers stayed in Arkansas, three went to Georgia.
I am a Hamiltonian, about as far from Marxism as one could get.
You mean Hyman Rothstein was NOT an SS man fighting for the 3d Reich? My illusions are shattered!
Is your stock of absurdities limitless?
Some cannot see that the Slavers were the ultimate contradiction to the Constitution which could not even bring itself to mention the abomination by name. But their fantasies are apparently genetic.
The content of Sen. Benton's work is not at issue. It was an example used to refute the notion that no one cared about the Dred Scott decision for a year after it was released.
"Again, the Congress had the power to impeach any of the justices, yet none were impeached."
I like the form of your argument here. Congress, too, had the power to impeach Lincoln for alleged "violations of the Constitution," yet they didn't even think about it. It seems, then, your conclusion must necessarily follow that Lincoln did nothing wrong.
"Millions of yankees did not secede, nor threaten secession because of the [Dred Scott] decision."
Now you're catching on. Millions of 1850's/60's Yankees (or as I like to call them ... Americans) didn't pout or feel their honor was impugned every time the issue of slavery was discussed.
Slaves in Haiti were essentially worked to death and died the in the tens of thousands every year from the brutality. As bad as conditions were in the South they were nowhere as bad as in Haiti and they didn't outnumber the whites ten to one as there.
However, you apologists are not going to admit that conditions on the plantations could provoke MEN to revolt are you? Must have been the abolitionists fault tempting the weak-minded again.
That was your misfortune and hardly representative. My Yankee wife was a gem in every sense of the word and my brothers had the greatest time trying to get the best of that "yankee woman" and wound up loving her as well because she was beautiful, fun and a great sport.
Six justices (Taney, Catron, Cambell, Daniel, Grier, and Wayne) held that the slavery restrictions in the Missouri Compromise were invalid, but there was no consensus on why. Each justice submitted a separate opinion. Taney's discussion regarding the territorial question took about 21 pages. (This question is thoroughly reviewed in Chapter 16 of Fehrenbacher's case study.)
10 of Taney's 21 pages on the Territorial question were dedicated to the odd idea that the "Territory clause" in the Constitution applied only to "land owned or claimed by the United States in 1789. In all areas subsequently acquired, such as Louisiana, the law had no force of any kind." As Taney wrote, the Territory Clause "was a special provision for a known and particular territory, and to meet a present emergency, and nothing more." That interpretation did not have the support of the majority of the Court, as three other justices reasoned differently on the question, coming to the same conclusion with regard to its validity. Taney's odd construction of that constitutional clause has never been upheld by later Courts.
The power of Congress to regulate and make rules for territories was already established before the Constitution was proposed for ratification. The context of the Territory Clause was readily apparent. Taney chose to misrepresent the history and misinterpret the original meaning of the Clause to suit his own activist purposes.
Apples and oranges. Neither President Buchanan nor the federal Congress arrested dissidents. Lincoln had a habit of arresting/interfering with justices of the US Supreme and Circuit courts, state legislators, editors and newspapermen, preachers that refused to pray for him, and anyone else he desired to imprision.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
what a STUPID/BIGOTED post.
free dixie,sw
don't you wish i was wrong about lincoln, the tyrant???
his OWN letters show him to be just another CHEAP politician.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
my experience with yankee women is that they are anything but TRADITIONAL in morals/education/attitude/outlook.
free dixie,sw
UNLIKE most of the unionists on FR, N-S has both a brain & an education.
nonetheless, i also know him to be the "Damnyankee Minister of Propaganda."
free dixie,sw
TOO BAD we couldn't afford more scoped WHITWORTH's!
free dixie,sw
Lincoln was one of the greatest men in history and is second only to Shakespeare in his ability to coin a well-remembered phrase. His ability to provoke sheer insanity in those dedicated to defending treason is also admirible.
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