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 ...
I am sure your judgment on women is as valueless as it is wrt most subjects I have seen you comment on. In fact, you ex probably couldn't take the nitwittery any more.
There were no states prior to the Declaration, thus there were no state constitutions. Whatever the documents the colonies compiled were made contrary to the sovereign authority at the time - the British Government.
"If anything, the Declaration itself "followed upon" the declaration of rights in the preexisting act of independence on June 12th by Virginia."
The Virginia Declaration of Rights was just what its title says - a declaration of the Virginians' point of view. It was not intended to be a declaration of independence from British rule, but to call attention to British oppression. From constitution.org: "On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention "resolved unanimously that the delegates appointed to represent this colony in General Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent states . . . [and] that a committee be appointed to prepare a DECLARATION OF RIGHTS and . . . plan of government." R. H. Lee's resolution of June 7, 1776, implemented the first of these resolutions and precipitated the appointment of the committee to draw up the Declaration of Independence; the second proposal was carried out by the framing of Virginia's first state constitution, of which this declaration was an integral part. It is notable for containing an authoritative definition of the term militia in Section 13.
"As passed, the Virginia Declaration was largely the work of George Mason; the committee and the Convention made some verbal changes and added Sections 10 and 14. This declaration served as a model for bills of rights in several other state constitutions and was a source of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, though its degree of influence upon the latter document is a highly controversial question. The reference to "property" in Section I may be compared with the use of the word by John Locke, its omission by Thomas Jefferson from the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, and its use in the Constitution, Amendments V and XIV.
"George Mason (1725-92), one of Virginia's wealthiest planters, a neighbor and friend of Washington, is best remembered for his part in drafting the Virginia constitution of 1776. In 1787 he was a leader in the Federal Convention. Refusing to sign the completed document, Mason, along with Patrick Henry and others, opposed its ratification in the Virginia Convention of 1788."
Say, do you need Dr. Lubar's e-mail address?
I'm sure he will be happy to hear that ;^)
Do you think Howell Cobb was a nutcase too?!
You implicitly argue that because the Justices of the Supreme Court weren't impeached because of the DSD, it must be because they did nothing wrong. Frankly, at least one of them should have been impeached for judicial misconduct by 1861, but there were more important things on the minds of the wartime Congress.
he was just a man, no better & frequently WORSE than most.
free dixie,sw
i just wish we'd had MORE of them as snipers. then there would have been many more DEAD bluebelly officers!
free dixie,sw
check your mail.
it has been my experience that damnyankees/LIBS/REVISIONISTS & FOOLS call people names like nitwit/crackpot/traitor/neo-reb/etc. when they are DEFEATED & finally REALIZE that they have been exposed as FOOLS, who have NOTHING of import to say.
free dixie,sw
I am saying that it is a Universal Right in a free nation, that innocent people have Rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. This supercedes whatever otherwise complex and well-supported edifice of competing rights may be built --below, upon, and above the 10th Amendment, etc.
Pretty basic stuff, basic rights. And the United States Constitution was built squarely upon the UNQUESTIONED FACT of that our Declaration of Independence, provided its own basis.
You are free to call that "Declarationism." It is historical, ontological fact.
A: Whaddya do, when the Constitution contradicts itself?
jsuati: 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.
A: Whaddya do, when the Constitution contradicts itself?
Q: Why, refer to higher authority of course. That is the only thing one can do.
This is one reason why very few Negro served in the ranks of the confederate army as soldiers. There is abundant evidence of the use of slaves and freemen as cooks, laborers, teamsters, body servant, etc.. And there is good historical evidence for Negro units being used in secondary duty, such as the Louisiana Native Guard.
However, the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of black confederate combatants sometimes claimed is without a solid foundation.
in point of fact, no matter how much the REVISIONISTS & damnyankee apologists may wish it were NOT so, the 100,000+ FREE black men (and NOT a few women),who served in the dixie armed forces, were SOLDIERS,SAILORS & CS MARINES, whose character of service was EXACTLY analogous to that of white CSA service-members.
trying to change the subject to what slavers were afraid of/were not afraid of (in dixie or Haiti or anywhere else) does NOT change the character of their BRAVE service of those FREE black men to their native southland.
give it up. you've LOST this argument.as you've said: one of your goats is missing.
free dixie,sw
my original point was that the damnyankees were/ARE HYPOCRYTES!
free dixie,sw
But we do know how to spell "Hypocrites." And "original," too.
You are simply wrong as usual. The first constitution of Virginia, adopted in June of 1776, refers to the government it creates as a "State" at least four times and as a "Commonwealth" at least five times. Official commissions granted by the state are also to read "In the name of the Commonwealth of Virginia."
The Virginia Declaration of Rights was just what its title says - a declaration of the Virginians' point of view.
Wrong. It was also written into the Virginia Constitution, adopted in full on June 29th, which repeatedly refers to Virginia as both a "State" and a "Commonwealth."
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