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?

[lentulusgracchus]

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.

Or of tenure.

Kinda tough to get tenure these days as an unreconstructed Southerner or an unapologetic white male advocate of DOMA, fast cars, cigarettes, and missionary sex.

But then, I'm just being catty. I'm sure all those Southerners who came up in the world licking the hands of New York Times editors and PBS and NPR producers have done so out of an abundance of conviction rather than a calculation of advantage.

[lentulusgracchus]

But you can't, can you? Because you've made it up.

No, he didn't. I saw it -- I wasn't part of that conversation, but I remember seeing that post, or words to that effect. It was part of a very tough exchange. About bushwhackers and rangers and confiscations, if I remember right.

[lentulusgracchus]

Hemingway supposedly went out hunting U-Boats, although it was more likely just another excuse to get out on the boat and drink. He wrote a novel about it, the posthumously published (and so-so) "Islands in the Stream."

I read a couple of excerpts from it -- one in high school, one published as a short story somewhere. Hemingway kept a Thompson on board for killing sharks (there was an episode in which he nailed a hammerhead), so at least his "patrol" was armed with something stouter than a quart of British Navy rum.

[lentulusgracchus]

A little ice on that boo-boo should help.

Ever know anyone named Juanita Broaddrick?

[capitan_refugio]

"The relevant section has been posted to one of our threads, I think by nolu chan, whom one of your amigos thoughtfully got banned."

The lyricist?

My guess is that he not banned, but only suspended. His posts are still around, unlike a couple of others who have apparently been purged. From what I can tell, posters have been banned or suspended only for the content of their own posts. But I don't want to speak ill of the dead.

[fortheDeclaration]

exactly right.

The problem with the Articles was that the states were acting too independently and were putting up trade barriors between one another and printing their own money etc.

What the constitution did was remove those elements of sovereignty, to create a more perfect union, with free trade among the states and the federal government responsible for the coining of money.

[capitan_refugio]

"[Lincoln's] theory, which I referred to, that the Union antedated the Constitution, and that the first principles of government should be discovered in the Declaration of Independence."

Why do you think that is a phony political theory? The Union most certainly pre-dated the Constitution of 1787. I believe Lincoln suggested, at one time, that the Union began with the Articles of Association. I happen to believe that American nationalism goes back even further than that. The "United States of America" began, as a legal entity, with our Declaration of Independence (which one could date as July 4, or as July 2, 1776, depending on how one accepts Lee's resolution).

"You will notice the irony, that Lincoln the Hamiltonian had to militate against Hamilton's child, the Constitution, in favor of Jefferson's Declaration ..."

For Lincoln, and other right-minded Americans, the Declaration and the Constitution were simpatico.

[capitan_refugio]

And you are still wrong.

[capitan_refugio]

Pardon me. I'll try to get it right next time.

damnyankee_refugio

[capitan_refugio]

Dew cites 41 addresses by the Secession Commissioners that have been preserved in their entirety. Many of them were printed up and circulated an pamphlet form. They provide a valuable resource, for those with open minds, to discover the underlying motivation of the secession movement.

Dew received his PhD from Johns Hopkins in 1964. This book was published in 2001. If he hadn't received tenure by then, he wasn't going to get it.

Obviously you, and your neo-reb comrades, have not read the book. And it doesn't even surprise me that you would resort to ad hominem attacks on the author, when you know nothing about his academic history or motivation for writing the book. I believe your tactic is one of obfuscation - a tried and true neo-reb method.

[stand watie]

i SERIOUSLY doubt that there would have been a civil war over ANY of the problems that faced the states under the AOC.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

what BOTH you & Dr. Dew are missing is that the opinions (and that is ALL they were) expressed by the "commissioners" were, even when they were written, nothing more than the thoughts (i would call them rantings) of a FEW slaveowners, who represented not more than 5-6% of southerners.

they were not then & ARE NOT now a majority opinion, in the southland.

frankly, i suspect Dew knows that, as he is no fool BUT he does have to keep his JOB.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

as usual "Hey,worthLESS, the HATEFILLED" is "blowing smoke", dissembling and/or LYING, as is his bent.

that's what HATERS & BIGOTS do. furthermore, that's why i don't bother to read/respond to his bilge/ignorance/personal attacks any more.

the rest of you are welcome to read/respond/ignore him at your pleasure, but without me.

free dixie,sw

[fortheDeclaration]

The concept that the Declaration was not a founding document was a recent development of the Secession/popular sovereignty Democratic party.

But an increasing number of men, who, for the sake of perpetuating slavery, are beginning to assail and to ridicule...the declaration that 'all men are created free and equal'. So far as I have learned, the first American of any note to do or attempt this, was the late John C. Calhoun; and if I mistake not, it was soon found its way into some of the messages of the Governors of South Carolina.(Lincolns writings, Vol.2, p.130)

As for the Declaration not being the root of this nation's political philosphy, Lincoln wrote,

What I do say, is that no man is good enough to govern another without that other's consent. I say this is the leading principle-the sheet anchor of American republicanism. Our Declaration of Independence says: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. I have quoted so much at this time merely to show that according to our ancient faith, the just powers of derived from the consent of the governed (Ibid, p.266)

[fortheDeclaration]

Yes, I will admit that there was a great tension in keeping their own soverignty and balancing that with a need for unity.

They did however, agree to give up a great measure of that sovereignty, for the benefits of a strong, lasting union.

And history has shown the wisdom of doing so.

[M. Espinola]

"ANY PRO-dixie scholar"

How about trying 'pro-American' for a change.

You do recall this is the flag of the United States?

[M. Espinola]

"Now pay attention Lou, I'm going to teach you all about Confederate history."

[lentulusgracchus]

My guess is that he not banned, but only suspended.

His understanding, as he told me, was that it was capital punishment, eternal damnation, and no explanation. Best guess was the Lincoln quote in extenso, after which he interjected something sardonic like "jeez, Abe dropped the n-bomb four times in one paragraph -- way to go!"

Problem was, all this material had been posted before in threads about Lincoln and colonization, Lincoln and racial relations, and so on. But posts to nolu chan and the others don't get the "banned" flag (see above), so go figure -- ? It was a less-than-clueful banning.

Still haven't figured out what CSSFlorida did, other than to annoy you guys, and bushpilot posted a lot of graphics which take up bandwidth, but then so has M. Espinola without remonstrance or other penalty. Bushpilot told me he's still guessing.

[lentulusgracchus]

What the constitution did was remove those elements of sovereignty.....

No, it didn't -- it transferred them on a perpetual, i.e. perpetually renewing, basis to the federal government in trust, to exercise in behalf of all the States.

Ultimate sovereignty still belongs to the People, who can call a constitutional convention at any time to do away with the entire structure of the federal government, subdivide the United States into smaller majorities, or do whatever will promote better government and the People's satisfaction with same.

The People really are the 60-trillion-gigaton gorilla. Talk down to them, and you'd better be named Y_h_w_h.

[lentulusgracchus]

Obviously you, and your neo-reb comrades, have not read the book.

No, and you haven't read my favorite book......so obviously you're an unlettered mountebank and pretender......and no, I don't have to tell you what my favorite book really is, because then you might go out and read it just to be spiteful, and unfairly slip the sign I've hung round your neck, which looks so good there: UNLETTERED WANNABE AND IMPOSTOR: PLEASE KICK ME. I DIDN'T READ THE BOOK.

Hey, I told you I was just being catty.

But there is a pattern, I'm sorry to say, of Southerners leaving home and ingratiating themselves in cold, heartless cities by licking the hands of their brutish enemies.