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?

[helen crump]

I can't believe that this project would actually get off the ground. I am definitely interested in it but I can't believe it will be a fair representation. I think the inaccurate interpretations of people today is that of southerners and christians.

[wardaddy]

ARE U FROM MEMPHIS?

[Non-Sequitur]

Does this ring a bell? "And this Yankee has known for many years that the War of the Southern Rebellion wasn't about slavery. At least, not from the Northern side.

I stand by that statement. From the Union side it was always about combatting the rebellion. Actions taken against slavery were secondary and only to further the war effort. But from the southern side the single most important reason for their rebellion was defense of the institutuion of slavery.

[Non-Sequitur]

Maryland would have joined the South, had not the tyrant Linkum arrested the duly elected members of the State House, and replaced them with pro Union stooges, very Stalinesque.

A persistent southron myth, but a myth nevertheless. None of the Maryland legislature was ever arrested until September of 1861. By that time the rebellion was well underway and those who would have supported joining it were liable for arrest.

Being a Stalin prototype, he also rounded up any suspected sympathizers closed down any freee press that would not spew the Federal claptrap. No trials, so many dissenters and innocents were placed in concentration camps for the duration. The NY Slimes and Maureen Dowd would be apoplecetic.

You do have it bad, don't you? No myth too outrageous for you to swallow?

Please tell me again how the CSA during its 10 day forays into Maryland imported slaves through the blockade under its own banner. Any slave ships arriving anywhere during the war would have flown the flag of oppression and tyranny (Federal Flag).

During both the 1862 campaign and the 1863 campaign, soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia rounded up free blacks in Maryland and Pennsylvania and sent them back south into slavery. The total abducted runs into the hundreds, perhaps thousands. And you also have to remember that there were hundreds of blockade runners flying the flag of oppression and tyranny (confederate flag) on their runs from the southern state and places like Cuba. It would be highly unlikely if none of the captains of those ships didn't slip a slave or two through the blockade on their return run.

[Non-Sequitur]

What the South seceded over was the breach of contract of some States not abiding by parts of the compact they no longer liked, arbitrarily. The non enforcement of the fugitive slave act was in itself a breach of contract and under contract law the aggrieved party can elect to withdraw from said contract, as is just what the South legally did. The North had grown dependent on the wealth they were stealing from the South, and that is why they savagely attacked the South, as if it were solely a matter of slavery, they would have let them go and said good riddance, as the North would have "washed their hands over the issue of slavery.

ROTFLMAO

Another irony, is yes it was true that most Americans beleived blacks to be subcreatures, but it was the South that lobbied to count them a full human beings for the census, and the North that lobbied to ignore them totally as being only subcreatures. That is where the 3/5 compromise came about. This racist proportional human rating was not the Souths doing, but the best that they could do vs a racist North.

You manage to make it sound like the alutristic south vs. the intolerant North. What you forget is that the south wanted slaves counted in the census. Slaves, without any status in southern states other than property. Slaves, who couldn't vote and were not even considered citizens in southern states. And the reason why the southern states wanted them counted the same as a free person was for the purpose of padding the census count and gaining congressional representation. So the southern states wanted to use the slave population, not protect their rights. In the southern states they didn't have any.

[Non-Sequitur]

By calling the legally seceded States a "rebellion" one then can justify rounding up and arresting said opponents without establishing who is right.

Merriam-Webster defines a rebellion as "open, armed, and usually unsuccessful defiance of or resistance to an established government." That is an accurate description of the southern actions.

[cyborg]

It reminds me of how Yankees love to crow about Jim Crow while migratory blacks huddled in squalid ghettos every bit as segregated....still are actually unless NYC has changed since 88.

*** There still are squalid ghettos and that's how some people like to live, like pigs. I went to go to a holistic retreat today and the place where the event was located was DISGUSTING. Anyway, did anyone black move TO the South when there was Jim Crow? I imagine a lot of people left, and while there was white racism in the North, at least you could pee in the bathroom of your choosing. Not everywhere in the South was a hotbed of oppression either, especially some place called Storyville, Lousianna which according to the PBS documentary had so much interracial sex going on they couldnt' segregate it. See? PBS is useful for something :o)

[Non-Sequitur]

The War of Northern Aggression prevented any election of a CSA president.

Well, yes and no. True Davis was appointed president. But the fact that he almost immediately launched a war with the U.S. did not stop him from staging an election in the fall of 1861. He ran unopposed, which is fortunate since throughout his political career, Jefferson Davis didn't once win an election where he was opposed. So rebellion or no rebellion there was a kind of presidential election.

You really should try reading up on the Civil War some time.

[cyborg]

I'll bet the movie is good, better than a lot of freepers would expect. Malcolm X as hard as it was to watch was excellent, and instead of Training Day, Denzel should have gotten the Oscar for that film.

[cyborg]

Depends on the blue stater, and which portrayal would be realistic enough for Southerners to accept without having their feelings hurt or Northerners to watch and not feel it was 'realistic' enough?

[BullDawg28]

yes, you're right it's destined to be that type of rhetoric. And yet libs cite Bush and Republicans as the divisive ones..

[NewLand]

I'll bet the movie is good, better than a lot of freepers would expect.

I gotta disagree with you here, my dear! This will be another one-sided, historically inaccurate, agenda driven hatchet job against the Christian culture of The South.

Sorry...

[cyborg]

or Northerners to watch and not feel it was 'realistic' enough?

** That should say 'not realistic' enough...

[cyborg]

You could be right. Either way, I wouldn't watch it. I find civil war films to be either depressing or annoying to watch. I think I have be on muscle relaxers to watch this movie *LOL*

[NewLand]

We'll find out I suppose. Maybe some of the local theaters will take a pass on it.

Personally, I loved 'She's Gotta Have It'...after that, I lost interest in Spike Lee.