Confederate States Of America (2005)

Yahoo Movies ^ | 12/31/04 | Me

[Caipirabob]

What's wrong about this photo? Or if you're a true-born Southerner, what's right?

While scanning through some of the up and coming movies in 2005, I ran across this intriguing title; "CSA: Confederate States of America (2005)". It's an "alternate universe" take on what would the country be like had the South won the civil war.

Stars with bars:

Suffice to say anything from Hollywood on this topic is sure to to bring about all sorts of controversial ideas and discussions. I was surprised that they are approaching such subject matter, and I'm more than a little interested.

Some things are better left dead in the past:

For myself, I was more than pleased with the homage paid to General "Stonewall" Jackson in Turner's "Gods and Generals". Like him, I should have like to believe that the South would have been compelled to end slavery out of Christian dignity rather than continue to enslave their brothers of the freedom that belong equally to all men. Obviously it didn't happen that way.

Would I fight for a South that believed in Slavery today? I have to ask first, would I know any better back then? I don't know. I honestly don't know. My pride for my South and my heritage would have most likely doomed me as it did so many others. I won't skirt the issue, in all likelyhood, slavery may have been an afterthought. Had they been the staple of what I considered property, I possibly would have already been past the point of moral struggle on the point and preparing to kill Northern invaders.

Compelling story or KKK wet dream?:

So what do I feel about this? The photo above nearly brings me to tears, as I highly respect Abraham Lincoln. I don't care if they kick me out of the South. Imagine if GW was in prayer over what to do about a seperatist leftist California. That's how I imagine Lincoln. A great man. I wonder sometimes what my family would have been like today. How many more of us would there be? Would we have held onto the property and prosperity that sustained them before the war? Would I have double the amount of family in the area? How many would I have had to cook for last week for Christmas? Would I have needed to make more "Pate De Fois Gras"?

Well, dunno about that either. Depending on what the previous for this movie are like, I may or may not see it. If they portray it as the United Confederacy of the KKK I won't be attending.

This generation of our clan speaks some 5 languages in addition to English, those being of recent immigrants to this nation. All of them are good Americans. I believe the south would have succombed to the same forces that affected the North. Immigration, war, economics and other huma forces that have changed the map of the world since history began.

Whatever. At least in this alternate universe, it's safe for me to believe that we would have grown to be the benevolent and humane South that I know it is in my heart. I can believe that slavery would have died shortly before or after that lost victory. I can believe that Southern gentlemen would have served the world as the model for behavior. In my alternate universe, it's ok that Spock has a beard. It's my alternate universe after all, it can be what I want.

At any rate, I lived up North for many years. Wonderful people and difficult people. I will always sing their praises as a land full of beautiful Italian girls, maple syrup and Birch beer. My uncle ribbed us once before we left on how we were going up North to live "with all the Yankees". Afterwards I always refered to him as royalty. He is, really. He's "King of the Rednecks". I suppose I'm his court jester.

So what do you think of this movie?

[capitan_refugio]

"i've found NO damnyankee apologist on FR who is the slightest bit ASHAMED by the tens of thousands of ATROCITIES committed by the bluebelly army ..."

I can only speak for myself, but the reason you would get no apology from me is that I don't believe "tens of thousands" of atrocites were committed. Possibly, the difference amounts to a matter of definition, but I equate "atrocity" with "war crime." And when you talk about war crimes, you need to provide specificity, not just anecdotal evidence.

Is burning some Georgian famer's crops, or conficating some Tennessean's mule a war crime? No, not if those people were supplying the rebel war effort. Is shooting into a violent, hostile, and riotous mob a war crime? No. It is self defense.

So when you paint an entire population as war criminals, you lose credibility, because you have not differnetiated real war crimes (and they did happen - on both sides) from bogus war stories.

one of your group said: "i'm truly pleased that your family was killed, as they got exactly what they deserved."

Who?

[capitan_refugio]

"Abe Lincoln had to [invent phony political theories], in order to justify knocking them down."

Example?

[capitan_refugio]

The WebRoots Library has the "Chronicles of Baltimore" on line. The account Freeper stainlessbanner posted earlier about a "murdered" citizen of Baltimore is found there.

http://www.webroots.org/library/usahist/cobmd018.html

It is very clear from the "Chronicles" account, that the pro-secession mob was both violent and irrational, and that any armed response from the federal troops was justified.

[capitan_refugio]

"when the government becomes the OPPRESSOR, revolution or SECESSION is the HONORABLE choice of the states."

When the government becomes the oppressor, revolution is always justified. The fire-eating southern secessionists, however, could not justify "revolution due to oppression," as did their forefathers. So they purported to invoke a doubtful political theory with no constitutional basis.

Secession, as practiced in 1860-61, was merely racism disguised as political theory.

Do you want me to post more from Prof. Dew's Apostles of Disunion? It pains me to even type the foul words of the Secession Commissioners - southerners addressing other southerners about the real motivation for secession.

[capitan_refugio]

Oh, I recognized the temporal problem - even if you don't, in practice.

A little ice on that boo-boo should help.

[stand watie]

perhaps burning crops or stealing a mule (though the internationally-accepted Law of War says BOTH those acts ARE war crimes) is not an atrocity, BUT raping,robbing, looting & MURDERING POWs & civilians are both WAR CRIMES & ATROCITIES!

the damnyankee army's CRIMINAL MINORITY committed tens of thousands of such war crimes.

FEW of those crimes were ever punished, by the damnyankee high command (i have posted several times before with full documentation, the order of a yankee officer at Point Lookout that "unwarranted shootings of prisoners after this date are prohibited. such persons as may continue to do such will be fined the sum of one dollar."), thus i must assume that the high command either did not care and/or possibly encouraged such criminal behaviors against helpless POWs & civilians.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

of course the damnyankees said that.

CRIMINALS can always excuse their crimes against the innocent.

free dixie,sw

[stainlessbanner]

< snip >"A deep gloom was cast over the community by the wanton and brutal murder of Mr. Robert W. Davis, of the firm of Paynter, Davis & Co., dry-goods dealers on Baltimore street. It appears that Mr. Davis had gone out along the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad early in the morning, for the purpose of looking at some land which he contemplated purchasing. He was accompanied by Thos. W. Hall, Jr., and other gentlemen, and at the time of his murder he was standing at a point near the foot of Eutaw street, known as McPherson's. The train carrying the troops at about this point was greeted by some boys with cheers for the Southern Confederacy, when Mr. Davis laughingly shook his fist at the train as it passed, all unconscious of any difficulty having occurred in the city. One of the soldiers ran his gun out of the window, and taking deliberate aim at Mr. Davis, shot him.

"Upon the shot being fired, Mr. Hall asked him if he was hurt. His only reply was, "I am killed."< /snip>

Unarmed citizen gets killed by a potshot. Thanks for the link.

[stand watie]

dew is entitled to hold any opinion, no matter how far-fetched.

i think of dew as a REVISIONIST "on a mission" & thus his work, imVho, is SUSPECT.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

stainless, you "can't say things like that!"

it hurts the damnyankee apologists feelings to tell the TRUTH about the CRIMINAL filth in blue. (rotflmRao!)

free dixie,sw

[capitan_refugio]

"a coalition of SOVEREIGN STATES was PRECISELY what the 13 states had in mind. NONE of the states would have freely joined a government in the 18/19th century (after fighting GB for their FREEDOM), which they could not leave just as freely."

NO American state ever functioned in a fully sovereign manner. Prior to 1776, still as colonies, they had already formed an association. From July 1776 to the present, certain sovereign powers (such as making war or peace, maintaining an army or a navy, and conducting diplomacy, etc.) have been exercised by the general/national government. Those sovereign powers were denied to the states - ergo - the states were not fully sovereign.

Furthermore, more than a decade had passed since the United States had become a sovereign nation and operated under the form of government outlined in the Articles of Confederation (proposed 1776, ratified 1781). That form of government had proved to be unworkable, in part because individual states were abusing their powers. The point of Philadelphia Convention was to strengthen the general government - at the expense of the states - and to create a "more perfect Union." The people of all of the states, in convention, unconditionally ratified the new Constitution (even if Rhode Island was brought in by the narrowest of margins, late, and kicking and screaming).

What's more, the outgoing government peaceably provided for the incoming new government, to provide a seamless transition between the two. There was no secession, no revolution, here.

[capitan_refugio]

Thanks. Your snippet is from the link I provided. Now go back and read what had been transpiring for the previous few days, and earlier that day to those troops. The part about the mob attacking the cars being transferred, the part about pulling up the tracks and dump sand and anchors(!) on the tracks to prevent cars from being transferred, and attacking the soldiers as they marched from station to station, is especially interesting.

Although the "laughingly shaking his fist" part of the account sounds contrived, let's suppose for a moment it is accurate. Is it reasonable, given that these troops had been under attack by violent mobs, that they understood the gestures of more "civilians" to be hostile? If so, there was no murderous intent, but rather, that of self defense. I think the mob is culpable for all of the deaths that day.

[stainlessbanner]

Imagine getting gunned down just for being a bystander - he was not even participating in the mob, and according to the report, had no knowledge of prior events.

Ironically, and perhaps sadly, Gov. Hicks had gone directly to Lincoln pleading for help to avoid a situation like this.

More dead (from the link), though I have read the number of dead/wounded was never officially totaled:

The following is a complete list of killed and wounded in the riot: Citizens killed--Robert W. Davis, Philip S. Miles, John McCann, John McMahon, William R. Clark, James Cart, Francis Maloney, Sebastian Gill, William Maloney, William Reed, Michael Murphy. Patrick Griffith. Citizens wounded--F. X. Ward,--Coney, James Myers, boy name unknown. Soldiers killed--Addison O. Whitney, a young mechanic of Lowell, Mass.; Luther C. Ladd, another young mechanic from Lowell; Charles A. Taylor, a decorative painter of Boston; and Sumner H. Needham, a plasterer by trade. And many soldiers wounded.

[capitan_refugio]

Sorry stand, but that dog don't hunt. The "Chronicles" were a southern account (at the time).

[stand watie]

actually the states HAD operated as a coalition of separate states, up to the time the Constitution was ratified AND nobody THEN believed that they were bound to remain in a union, which they believed had ceased to protect their state's citizens from harm.

the writer's of the Constitution wanted "a more perfect union" but NOT a powerful central government, which would cede many powers of the states to that government, beyond those NECESSARY things like the postal service/coinage/limited taxation/general defense.

your post is an excellent example of the UNIONIST/REVISIONIST view of history BUT it does NOT make you/it any less INACCURATE.

sorry, but anything more than a scan of the founding father's writings on this subject indicates the REVISIONIST/unionist heresy is exactly that: heresy.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

the fact that the Cronicles were southern does NOT make thewm or Dew correct.

AT BEST, Dew's work is a MINORITY OPINION of a MINORITY of the south's population.

free dixie,sw

[stainlessbanner]

Reading now - correspondence between Hicks, Brown and Lincoln are particularly interesting.

[capitan_refugio]

If you ever get a chance to read Prof. Dew's book, you will find the Introduction interesting.

Dew recounts growing up as a young boy in Florida, how his gransmother was a "card-carying member of the UDC," how he was given a .22-caliber rifle and Freeman's Lee's Lieutenants on his 14th birthday, how he carried A Confederate Youth's Primer with him (a gift from one of his father's law partners), how he displayed the Confederate battle flag on his dorm room when he attended a private high school in Virginia.

Dew has impeccible southern credentials. He's no "scalawag." He just grew up and left the old lost cause myths behind - in favor of the truth.

[Non-Sequitur]

do you HAVE a point?

Yes. That your claim that states issued their own Letters of Marque is ridiculous. Such actions would have been illegal under both the Constitution and international agreements.

[capitan_refugio]

Of course he can say things like that. That is why I provided the link. But like every story, when you dig a little deeper, the facts become more apparent.