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

sacbee ^ | 11-13-04

[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."

[GOPcapitalist]

I try to keep the ideas simple for you, considering your educational background, and your obvious lack of cognitive skills.

...says the Black Knight, "I have too got arms left! See! They're right here! It's only a flesh wound!"

[capitan_refugio]

"Bold words from such a small man."

Don't you have a Bund meeting to attend?

[lentulusgracchus]

He understood that the economic world was not a zero sum game and that limiting an economy to the gold supply would not work in America.

Hamilton would face tough sledding with those Chicago School hard-money boys (including Milton Friedman and, almost incredibly, Alan Greenspan, who once wrote a paper advocating a return to the gold standard), who delight in pointing out that periods of national and global prosperity tend to follow the delivery to market of large new bullion supplies.

Our current prosperity, in their view, owes much to the invention of heap-leaching techniques, which are sufficiently superior to older milling techniques that some small companies have actually begun to rework old mine tailings. In their view, central bankers have been able to get away with reflating the money supply precisely because of the influx of metals to the market.

[GOPcapitalist]

Typical southern bluster.

Try me. Go to Williamsburg and see what happens. Heck, write to Williamsburg telling them how they're all "wrong" and see what they say.

Of course you won't because you're an obnoxious little sh*tkicker who is afraid of the inescapable fact that he will be called to task for his falsehood yet desires to save face and perpetuate it without having to take responsibility.

[GOPcapitalist]

Don't you have a Bund meeting to attend?

Don't you have an appointment at one of those Californy bathhouses you're late for?

[lentulusgracchus]

Those who go out of their way to defend the Slavers' insurrection will be called that by me when I feel inclined to do so.

Yeah, well, cool your jets, because your name-calling gets my "abuse" finger all jumpy -- and I still haven't forgotten that remark about my mother.

[GOPcapitalist]

Do you secessionists have an extra chromosome, by any chance?

No, but I can see from here that your limbs are missing despite your insistence otherwise.

[lentulusgracchus]

Separate and apart from the Declaration of American Independence, five states set up independent governments as follows....

Funny, nc, I don't remember being taught that in school!!! Are you sure you've cleared that statement with the Mystical Union Committee of the NEA?

[Leatherneck_MT]

Or that the Treasonous SOB in the whitehouse at the time was a Republican?

[fortheDeclaration]

Hey Capitan, isn't that how the South ended up-on her knees begging for mercy?

[capitan_refugio]

"And that is different from establishing oneself as an independent state exactly how?"

You have made the statement, that despite the fact a clear and concise declaration of independence is missing from the Virginia document, and no mention is made of severing "ties," (as compared to the unambiguous language in the real Declaration of Independence), that the Virginia Declaration Rights and Constitution of 29 June 1776 amounts to a declaration of independence. The onus is on you, who makes the unorthodox and historically unsupported claim, to show how they are the same.

To date, your argument, outside of name-calling, has been either, "Can't you read?" or "Totally dissolved." As such, you have failed to make your case. Frankly, I don't think you even have the ability to make a reasoned case, so I don't expect to see one.

[lentulusgracchus]

Aren't you the guy who, just a few posts back, said John Wilkes Booth was heaven-sent?

Quote me, don't misrepresent me.

I said that Booth's assassination of Lincoln may have been divine intervention to save Lincoln's reputation: if he had lived to attempt the colonization initiative, he'd be remembered as the author of a Trail of Tears 1000 times bigger than the one laid against the account of Andrew Jackson.

Snarky little fella, aren't you, ankle-biter?

[fortheDeclaration]

Hey GOP how come the Confederate Constitution has that their intention was to form a permanent federal government?

Now, that is funny!

[lentulusgracchus]

The 10th merely stated that the states retained their local police powers and the power to regulate certain local and state concerns it did not empower states to take any action that would affect the Nation.

I'm sure he can see through your squid ink, but you really shouldn't try to micturate into rustbucket's ear like that.

Quote the Tenth -- don't just sit there mischaracterizing it.

[lentulusgracchus]

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was re-authorized in 1789 by the 1st Constitutional Congress with the appropriate edits and other minor changes to reflect the structure of the new form of government.

That's all well and good, but reauthorization wouldn't rescue its unconstitutional sections from the attention of the Supreme Court.

The exclusion of slave ownership from the Northwest Territories was unconstitutional.

[capitan_refugio]

"Quote me, don't misrepresent me."

I am quite sure you are sincerely concerned about Lincoln's reputation.

Do you think the Lincoln assassination was a "positive good"?

[GOPcapitalist]

Glad to see you're a fan of a fraud. Rather than recognizing the obvious and inescapable fact that El Capitan is arguing an absurd and fraudulent position you prefer to sit back and take unprovoked and unsubstantiated jabs at the south.

If you have any intellectual honesty the company you are presently keeping would concern you greatly. Capitan has committed enough fraud on threads such as this one to get him kicked out of even a bottom tier community college a dozen times over. I'm not talking about simple differences of opinion either, which I can and do recognize that both he and you have - i'm talking about acts of fraud. In our previous discussion over the Bollman case he posted a lengthy excerpt from the dissent and attempted to pass it off as the majority ruling. A few days later he did the exact same thing with Hamdi, and that after being thoroughly exposed for his previous fraud. Not long after that he was doing it with another case. And another. I pinged NC, who has copies of the links if you desire to see it all for yourself.

I mention this because you appear relatively new to threads of this nature and, despite uncalled for comments such as the above, you seem to have a willingness to contribute to the discussion. That said, you are also drifting dangerously close to the path chosen by El Capitan, who has no interest in any honest or substantive discussion (as most recently evidenced by his downright incorrigible refusal to acknowledge the commonly accepted fact that Virginia "totally dissolved" its ties with the british crown in June of 1776) and only posts here for the purpose of flaming, insulting, and obstructing any discussion that would otherwise take place.

[fortheDeclaration]

Hey GOP, is a noble part of the Confederate Constitution, that document that represented true American values.

The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens of the several states, and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.(Art.4,Sec.1)

My, what a noble document!

What a noble cause to fight for!

To be able to take your property-other human beings- into any State of the union!

Freedom people of the world unite behind the glorious confederacy, the true keepers of the ideals of the American Revolution!

[GOPcapitalist]

Hey GOP how come the Confederate Constitution has that their intention was to form a permanent federal government?

It is the intention of any government to perpetuate itself, thus a true libertarian will always recognize that the state - no matter what state it is - is irrepairably separated from the good. That it may be tolerated as an existing evil is a necessary act of pragmatism, but it should never be embraced or worshipped or assigned a status of perpetual goodness. That is why I support the act of secession that the confederacy took even though I am no big fan of the confederate's national government or any government for that matter.

[capitan_refugio]

There is a good reason you weren't taught that in school. It is the result of tortured reasoning (and I use that term very loosely) like that exhibited by your comrad GOPc, trying to make the point for Virginia alone.

The source for this "revelation"? A lawyer associated with the League of the South.