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?

[Non-Sequitur]

I'm probably better at it than you are, pal. And if you look closely, you'll notice a blue line on the map, denoting the canal that connects the Chicago River to a tributary of the Mississippi River system: the Des Plaines River rises near the small town of Bristol, Wisconsin and falls into the Illinois River at Joliet; the Illinois in turn falls into the Mississippi a few miles upriver of St. Louis. The Chicago River used to be the outfall of Lake Michigan, before isostatic rebound began rearranging some of the northern rivers. Even before the canal was dug, the overland portage from the Chicago to the Des Plaines amounted to all of about six miles along Cermak Road through Cicero and Berwyn.

The I and M? Yeah, heck of a replacement for the Mississippi River, wasn't it? Move a fraction of the cargo and many times the cost of a Mississippi riverboat. A

[Non-Sequitur]

Really? Explain why. Step right up.

An objective reading of you posts would explain that.

[Non-Sequitur]

Does that mean we can't kick the U.N. out of their comfy digs on the East River if they hack us off?

A strawman of your own.

[Non-Sequitur]

No, they invaded because Abraham Lincoln ordered them to.

No, they didn't invade at all. One does not invade ones own country.

[Non-Sequitur]

Both W.Virgina and the blockade were Constitutionally problematic, to say the least.

West Virginia was possibly problematic, but more because of the Virginia constitution rather than the U.S. Constitution. Had that been taken to a court of law it's possible that they would have ruled against it. But the blockade? I'm not aware of any constitutional problems with that.

[Non-Sequitur]

Revolt is what we hear sometimes on this board, people want to take over the government and change it to their liking.

The more appropriate term would be rebellion, which is an open, armed, and usually unsuccessful defiance of or resistance to an established government.

For even Lincoln himself had delivered a speech in 1848 that declared that the people could throw off the shackles of government and reinstitute a more proper one.

Lincoln was speaking of the fundimental right of revolution. Are you back on that?

OH BOY is NS going to make up all sorts of law and such.

I don't have to. I'm not aware of any law in any society which makes rebellion or revolution legal. It is outside the bounds of law, just ask the Founding Father's. They were not under any illusions that their actions were legal, and they knew that they would have to fight.

But if he were really a conservative who belonged on this board he wouldn't be arguing.

So only southron supporters are conservatives? One has to swallow the confederate line completely or someone is a liberal? Where is that laid out?

If the mood of this country can be so outraged as to call for secession after one peaceful presidential election in 2004, how is it that Non-Sequiter and his ilk are so sure of themselves about what happened a hundred and 45 years ago?

A couple of individuals talk of secession and you call it 'the mood of the country'? What country do you live in?

[M. Espinola]

What you said was correct.

The vast numbers involved in the NYC draft riots were right of the boat from Ireland, or in the various gangs which fought for control of portions of the Lower East Side.

It terms of not liking Blacks, the numerous gangs would bump off each other. It was common practice ...and still is. The NY gangs, like all lawless gangs, had the same type of mind set as the Southern rebels, which was to have no regard for any laws, in fact they attempted to carve out enclaves for themselves made up of rebellious lawbreakers.

The draft riots were the result of a mob mentality, very similar to how the KKK operates. The mob was quelled by Federal troops ordered in by the White House when it became evident local NYC police would be unable to stop the rampaging gangs. Recall in the 1860's communications of that period did not include the split second Internet & cell phones conversations.

In terms of the foolish comment "Lincoln (the racist)", the only racists around here are the ones still fighting for their Lost Cause of rebellion & treason, and still promoting the era of the failed Slave Empire & segregation, which lasted up until the mid-1960's.

This news item from Australia's Herald Sun (1-8-05)

'Mississippi burning still'

"PHILADELPHIA, Mississippi -- More than 40 years after one of the most notorious crimes of the turbulent civil rights era -- the "freedom summer" slayings of three young civil rights workers -- a reputed Ku Klux Klansman has been charged with murder.

Edgar Ray Killen, 79, a 'preacher', was arrested at his home, and police said there would be more arrests over the killings, dramatised in the 1988 movie Mississippi Burning'.

Newsday, on 1-13-04 reported the following: 'Killen posted the $250,000 bond using family lands as collateral. Area residents said the bond had been set too low and that Killen's release would support the area's image as an outpost of state-sanctioned intolerance.'

"I just can't believe it," said Jewel McDonald, a member of the Philadelphia Coalition, a group that advocated for Killen's arrest. "Lives were lost. But we have to remember, this is Mississippi."

Killen was one of 19 suspected Klan members arrested for their participation in the murders geared to prevent Blacks from voting.

In a nation based on the principle that everyone is equal and no one is above the law, the flouting of the law in Mississippi and elsewhere during the civil rights struggle was an injustice to the people who were abused and to the entire nation.

Killen admits racial hatred. In 1968, Killen told FBI agents he wanted to know who killed Martin Luther King, Jr. so that he could shake the killer's hand. In 1999 Killen told the Associated Press, "I'm as strong for social separation as I ever was."

'Four decades after her son and two other voter-registration volunteers were abducted and killed in Mississippi, Carolyn Goodman's desire has not changed. "I'm only looking for justice," she said from her Upper West Side apartment Friday after the arrest of a longtime leader of the Ku Klux Klan on charges of killing the three." "I'm not looking for any revenge. I am not," Goodman, 89, said. "This man should be off the street ... he should be behind bars, but that's it, period."

USA Today reported on 1-10-05: 'The very light court sentences handed out in the orginal Klan trail was due to Mississippi federal Judge William Cox who stated at the time: "They killed one nigger, one Jew and a white man. I gave them all what I thought they deserved."

'Three of the four Klan members the FBI believe bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in 1963, a blast that killed four young black girls — Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley — were belatedly convicted in an Alabama state court. Only Herman Cash was never charged in the case, and he died in 1994. Robert Chambliss was found guilty of the murders in 1977 and sentenced to life in prison. Thomas Blanton Jr. was convicted in 2001 and sent to prison for life. A year later, Bobby Frank Cherry was convicted after feigning insanity. He died in November at age 74.'

Byron De La Beckwith, the gunman who shot Medgar Evers in {the back} as he walked in the driveway of his home in June 1963, was finally convicted by a state jury in 1994. He died in 2001 while serving a life sentence.

Also in 2002, 73-year-old Samuel Bowers, a Klan imperial wizard, was found guilty of ordering the 1966 firebombing that took the life of Vernon Dahmer Sr., a Mississippi civil rights leader.

The purpose of the trials of now old men for an old murder case is to make sure history does not repeat itself.

[Non-Sequitur]

So you wouldn't attack if a foreign force had fortifications in your back yard? What kind of soldier are you?

So by that reasoning Cuba would be well within it's rights to shell and occupy Guantanamo Bay, and you would support such actions?

[Non-Sequitur]

If it was the key issue, then why did so many Christians fight for its continuation?

What problem did the Christians in the south have with slavrey? Southern churches saw it as their duty to bring Christ to the slaves but had no problem with slavery itself. Thomas Jackson, constantly held up here as a Christian and a gentleman and an outstanding general, was also a slave owner who had no problem reconciling his faith and his property.

[fortheDeclaration]

The problem with a blockade (as I understand it) is that one can only blockade another power (as Stephens put it), not ones own ports.

If a nation declares a blockade it is an act of war against another power and we were claiming that the South was still in the Union.

It was like declaring war on oneself.

[Non-Sequitur]

IMHO, it was Lincoln's election and his dedication to protectionist tarrifs and the Morril Tarrif that were the final nail in the coffin that caused the seccessation of the Southern states.

The Morill Tariff act was first passed in the House in 1860, and was killed in the Senate. The south had more than enough numbers to do it again in 1861. And if it was the tariff rather than slavery, why is there literally dozens of mentions of slavery as the cause in southern speeches and writings to every mention of tariff. Slavery was by far the single most often mentioned reason for the rebellion. To say that the rebellion was about tariff is ignoring the words of the southern leaders of the time.

Lincoln promised that he would send in troops and FORCE states to pay the tariff if they refused.

When did he promise that?

[Non-Sequitur]

The problem with a blockade (as I understand it) is that one can only blockade another power (as Stephens put it), not ones own ports.

The southron contingent love to trot that out as sort of a left-handed recognition of confederate sovereignty by the Lincoln Administration, but I'm not aware of any international treaty or Constitutional clause that prevents it. Nor am I aware of anything that equates a blockade of one's own borders with war. We weren't blockading France after all. And are we not in effect blockading our own borders today by throwing out drug interdiction screens and border patrols?

[fortheDeclaration]

No, they invaded because Abraham Lincoln ordered them to. No, they didn't invade at all. One does not invade ones own country.

Exactly correct.

And you see the problem with declaring a blockade?

One cannot blockade ones own country either.

Maybe Capitan can provide some more information on the issue.

[fortheDeclaration]

I think in terms of international law it is a bit more complicated.

We are forbidding sovereign nations the right to trade with particular states.

I would not think it constituted recognition since the British had blockaded the colonies also.

[Non-Sequitur]

And you see the problem with declaring a blockade? One cannot blockade ones own country either.

No, I'm afraid I don't. While blockades are subject to some international law, I'm not aware of any international law or treaty in effect at the time that said blockades were only allowed on sovereign nations. The U.S. had the right to control its own ports in any way it determined was necessary. Lincoln made clear the reasons for his actions, as a tool to combat the rebellion. He did nothing illegal.

[fortheDeclaration]

If it was the key issue, then why did so many Christians fight for its continuation? What problem did the Christians in the south have with slavrey? Southern churches saw it as their duty to bring Christ to the slaves but had no problem with slavery itself. Thomas Jackson, constantly held up here as a Christian and a gentleman and an outstanding general, was also a slave owner who had no problem reconciling his faith and his property.

They used a misreading of Gen.9 and the curse of Canaan (Gen.9:24) not Ham as justification for slavery

[justshutupandtakeit]

"The People" of the United States exercising their sovereignty determined FOR ALL TIME how their government could be lawfully changed. Through amendment or convention called by TWO THIRDS OF THE STATES.

Unlawful attempts to change the Union are NOT exercises of popular sovereignty and are subject to lawful retribution. Abe provided that lawful retribution thank God.

"Unmen" from a deluded ahole like you is laughable in the extreme. As is most everything else the DSs try and shovel.

[Casloy]

Without the Big Bang, there would never have been a Civil War, either. Slavery was a factor in the Civil War, which was nevertheless a leadership struggle and a battle among proud and ruthless men over political power and which States got to stick it to which other States. The triumph of Republicanism put the whole country on a timeclock and made its people thralls, in one way or another, to the private interests of the few, and the political power that rested on those interests.

That is of course the view of southern apologists who can't accept that the south was fighting to preserve a way of life which at it's core was about slavery. Without slavery the southern culture would not have existed as it was and there would not have been the sectionalism that existed. Read primary source material from the time and the issue of slavery was always on the forefront. Northern Whigs and Republicans didn't need to make slavery a wedge issue. People were as passionate about slavery as they are today about abortion. People who wanted slavery abolished didn't want more slave states in the union because it would shift the balance of power toward slave states, vice versa for the people who supported slavery. They were driven by their support or opposition to slavery, not some revisionist, southern apologist agrarian issues.

[4CJ]

I doubt that they would have hanged him. Jail in Fort Jefferson, something like that.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
That if any person or persons, owing allegiance to the United States of America, shall levy war against them, or shall adhere to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, and shall be thereof convicted, on confession in open court, or on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act of the treason whereof he or they shall stand indicted, such person or persons shall be adjudged guilty of treason against the United States, and shall suffer death.
1 Stat. 112 (30 Apr 1790)

The penalty for treason was death, not imprisonment. Secondly, the federal government would have to prove the Davis' allegiance was to the US, not to the Confederacy. That's why he was never tried for treason.

[Non-Sequitur]

The penalty for treason was death, not imprisonment. Secondly, the federal government would have to prove the Davis' allegiance was to the US, not to the Confederacy.

OK, so if they tried Davis they might have hanged him. Lucky for him that 14th Amendment was passed, wasn't it?