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?

[cyborg]

Spike Lee's personality is pretty distasteful IMHO. It's going to be a limited release. If they show it on Long Island I'll be SHOCKED. I'd wait for it to be on cable. I'd rather watch Gods and Generals than watch this film. I've not seen the Gods and Generals film but movies likes CSA would personally bother me.

[R. Scott]

The cotton gin was patented in 1794…

Yes, but along with other innovations the writing was on the wall. Machines were cheaper and more efficient to use than slaves. Some realized this, other preferred to live in the past.

You would be hard-pressed to find a quote from southern leadership of the time indicating a belief that slavery was on its way out.

Just as politicians today will use “the children” or “the poor” for their appeal. They used what they thought would work, and at the time sticking with the current (conservative?) way of life is what they thought would work.
I will admit to being biased on the whole subject of that war. It is often brought up as a way to castigate the South and Southerners.
I lived in North Carolina in 1960 – 1963, at the beginning of the integration movement as a viable force. When we returned to Pennsylvania I continually heard about how Southerners tried to keep the Blacks down; this – from the people of a town who refused to allow Blacks to live among them. At that time Crawford County, Pennsylvania was effectively segregated. There were no “whites only” or “Blacks only” signs, but there were exclusively white neighborhoods – in fact, entire towns – and schools as well as white only businesses.
I remember the school integration riots. Yes, federal troops were called in to Little Rock, but the worst riots and demonstrations were in Boston, Cleveland and other Northern cities, not the South. The Southern problems were mild in comparison. Even into the late 20th Century the KKK was more active in the North than in the South. To this day I hear the term “nigger” used derogatorily more often in the North.
Maybe I just have a dislike for the sanctimonious hypocrites.

[Blood of Tyrants]

If they'd had their way, the Confederates might have waited generations before freeing all the slaves on their territory, and you complain that three years elapsed between the Emancipation Proclamation and the final emancipation of the last slaves. That looks cockeyed.

You want to talk hypocricy? Then tell me why the 13th Amendment was accepted yet when the 14th Amendment was constitutionally rejected, that the northern states refused to seat the 1869 southern representatives, suddenly declaring them illegitimate? If they were illegitimate, then the 13th Amendment was illegitimate, too, was it not?

[wardaddy]

I actually liked Training Day....depressing though.

BTW...the North had separate but equal stuff too.

Remember how Jewish FReepers like to harp on Country Club and Co-Op discrimination.

I guess non Jewish whites are basically the Resident Evil of the world and for all time since we were amino stew.. hell, I'll say it....Spike is right ....I am a "DEVIL".

I long ago learned to live with it. Being evil has it's good points......

[cyborg]

Yes but you're a cute devil.

[Caipirabob]

ARE U FROM MEMPHIS?

Actually, I am...Don't know about Helen.

[Non-Sequitur]

Yes, but along with other innovations the writing was on the wall. Machines were cheaper and more efficient to use than slaves. Some realized this, other preferred to live in the past.

And just who among the southern leadership realized this?

[wardaddy]

y voce e um "redneck" verdaje?


voce fala portugese do Brasil o do atraz el Atlantico?

Eu soy um capirabon tamben...de Mississippi eton depois do Nashville mas eu vivio quasi todo mundo.

y eu escrivo espanol mejor que portugese

eu falo Portunol...mal, eu confesso...mas eu trato.

[wardaddy]

Obrigado

[cyborg]

You're welcome hehehe.

[Non-Sequitur]

So which is it, was Davis "selected" or elected".

Are you that ill-informed of the period which you have been flapping your gums over? Have you so little knowledge of history that you are not aware that Davis was selected in February 1861 by the representatives of the so-called provisional confederate government? And that he later ran, unopposed, in a sham election that fall? Haven't you read any history of the time?

[Caipirabob]

Muito bom, Senhor!

Aprende como falar portuguese desde algumas Brasileiras aqui na Sur Florida.

O nome "Caipira" e uma brincadeira pra mim. Sou de Memphis, sou Americano, mas Eu gosto de falando Portuguese e Espanol. Tenho que usar cada dia aqui.

O mesmo pra mim, meu "Portanol" e melhor que minhas otras linguas tambem...

[onyx]

The solid South means the white Solid South obviously...and a handful of brave blacks. Course 40% of them voted to keep the MISS flag....I think they resent Yankees too a bit..lol






I think you're right!
A damn yankee is a damn yankee.

[Ohioan]

Happy New Year!

I think that our Southern friends--and I certainly consider you one--make a major mistake, when they accept the implied premise of the South haters, that they need to be defensive about an institution, which was accepted throughout most of human history, in one form or another.

It is not that slavery is a good system. I would agree that in most cases, it has deleterious effects on both Master and Servant, the extent of those effects depending upon the particular individuals involved. But the phoney moral outrage that the Left feign on the subject should be understood for what it is. The Left has certainly been as cavalier in ordering the futures and present activities of those under its control as even the worst slave master. On the other hand, there were many compassionate slave masters, whose histories show genuine empathy for those for whom they were responsible. There was more of a sense of "Noblesse Oblige" in the South than in the North.

On your main point, I believe that the practice was common in Ohio counties bordering the Ohio river, for the farmers to rent farm hands from Kentucky slave owners at harvest time. The center of Abolitionist sentiment in the State was in the Western Reserve--the Northern 11 Counties, which had once been claimed by Connecticut--although they had some support in other parts of the State as well.

As for the moral question of whom--if anyone--was breaking the compact between the States? Clearly, the Abolitionists bore a greater blame than the Southern Firebrands, who were simply reacting to a fanatic attack. The agreement to keep slavery off the table as a Federal issue after 1808, was an essential part of the Constitutional compact, and should have been respected. It is a strange morality, which claims a right to break a solemn undertaking, because you want to mind the morals of the people to whom you gave that undertaking. If slavery was indeed an evil (and if so, some of the fundaments of Western Religion would also be evil), the excesses of the Abolitionist movement were a greater evil.

He may have been seen as a foe by the South for a long time, but read anew what Daniel Webster, a lifetime critic of slavery, but one of the Senatorial immortals, actually had to say about the Abolitionist movement: Daniel Webster Address

The idea that you can break solemn compacts for a "greater good," is the stuff of Communist and Nazi revolutions. It should not be just accepted without challenge when applied to American History. It would be a real tragedy if rooted Southerners became cowed by the contrived "hue and cry" over Slavery, and lost sight of the real issue. Slavery ended 139 years ago in America, but the issue of the sacredness of the Constitutional compact remains as current today as it was in 1787, 1850, 1861, or in any of the years in between.

William Flax

[wardaddy]

Eu se exactamente que voce gosta Gaton!

Eu tamben antes cuando mas joven,

Meu esposa primera fue do Rio....uma Cariocaca, bem linda mas bem loca tamben....ahhh...hormones.

Eu tenho dois hijas con ella. Ellas voltan por Nova Yorke ayer. Ellas estaban aqui para semana do Natal.

Voce ta Miami? Eu tenia residencia alli por pocos anos....como diez anos pasado. Brickell, Coral Gables y South Miami (perto do los Botas do Cartagena)

Fez negocio de todo Brasil con minas y piedras y para procura las mujeres claro...lol

Agora, casado con mi esposa segunda ..uma Southern Belle do Nashville y vivo aqui con ella and mis dos hijos que fue de ella.

Y ella no se permiten que eu vo para Brasil mas soltero....ella nao confia me...lol

[wardaddy]

We get defensive because the onslaught is relentless....even on this forum....so you know it's bad culture wide. The race baitors really found an appetite for sanctimony and self righteousness when they tapped this one. Folks can't resist the impulse to swell with moral superiority...it's an addiction for many. Anytime around here when someone doesn't like simply a plain observation...qualified as always is the custom thse days, than the racist!, bigot!, or anti-Semite! (a misnomer) longknives come out pronto. Candid discourse is futile.

I try to just assume a "so what?" attitude and don't let being slammed as a racist bug me. Defiant.....like that Reb prisoner in Winslow Homer's sketch...I love that drawing...I'll look for it.

[dixiechick2000]

That's very true. I know some very nice,
although misguided, Kerry voters. ;o)
I'll reserve judgement until it's released.

http://www.reel.com/movie.asp?MID=138890&Tab=reviews&CID=13

Confederate States of America (2004)
What fate would have befallen the United States had the South won the Civil War? That is the provocative question writer/director Kevin Wilmott attempts to answer in his brilliantly conceived faux documentary, CSA: Confederate States of America. While at 91 minutes that include an incendiary collection of phony commercials, this deadly serious satire continues long after it's made its point, there is no denying its power to provoke thought and, hopefully, a dialogue among the races in this country that is long overdue.

Modeled after a Ken Burns-style documentary, Wilmott presents his fictional doc as a British product making its controversial TV debut in the Confederate State of America. This is a country where the Gray side proved triumphant, where the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln, instead of dying by an assassin's bullet at Ford's Theater, fled in surrender to Canada. Slavery is so enshrined that slaves are bought and sold over the Internet, the country sided with Hitler during World War II, and there's an ongoing cold war with Canada, the country to which escaping slaves and abolitionists have traditionally fled. CSA's power extends to Central and South America where a system of apartheid separates the white, North American ruling class from the region's indigenous population. And in the 21st century, CSA's women still don't have the right to vote.

Wilmott leaves nothing out of his perfectly realized re-creation of this alternate history. As talking-head historians explain the events of the past 140 years, there are archival photos, old newspaper accounts and editorial cartoons, and dramatized scenes. There are clips from a fiction D.W. Griffith movie, The Hunt for Dishonest Abe and '50s-era sitcom, Leave It to Beulah. Interspersed throughout are ads for such products as Darkie toothpaste, Coon Chicken Inn and others, most of which were at one time actual products sold in the United States.

At a time when so many people still defend the Confederate flag and insist on putting the Civil War in terms of "states' rights," CSA explicates the full implications of those positions. In satirizing history, Wilmott lays down a gauntlet, indicting ingrained attitudes and prejudices, and daring us all to do something about it.


— JAMES PLATH



Here's a link to some reviews.

http://www.csathemovie.com/press.html

I came across this while I was googling.
Those folks remind me of FReepers. ;o)

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=307001