Posted on 12/27/2002 10:10:58 AM PST by Chi-townChief
I don't see why there's so much trouble about poor Trent Lott. After all, the South won the Civil War--oops, the War Between the States--and they're entitled to enjoy their victory. It's their right to fly the Stars and Bars over the Georgia capital, to celebrate the ''Confederate Heritage,'' to speak at the racist, anti-Catholic Bob Jones University, to lecture to white supremacy groups, to venerate the Dixiecrat Party and its founder Strom Thurmond for his wisdom, to proclaim always their mantra of ''states' rights,'' to trim black voters off the polling lists.
Admittedly, racial segregation in the South isn't what it used to be. Blacks can ride anywhere on a bus that they want to, their kids can go to integrated schools, they can vote in elections, they can work at jobs formerly off-limits to them. They're still poor for the most part and not all that well-educated (in Mississippi no one is), but that's not the fault of white Southerners.
Does someone say that the Stars and Bars is the flag of a racist revolution to keep black people in slavery? Does someone argue that the ''Confederate Heritage'' is a heritage of racial oppression, rape and murder? The answer is simple: ''Hey, boys in blue, we whupped y'all fair and square. Y'all ain't nothing but bad losers.''
My ''damn Yankee'' prejudice is to say that ole Marse Abe made a mistake. He should have let the rebel states go. We didn't need them, and we'd be better off without them.
The South didn't win the war, you say? Who's running the country now? Texans (or pseudo-Texans) like Bush and Cheney and DeLay, and crackers like Trent Lott, and until recently carpetbaggers like Newt Gingrich. When was the last time a Yankee was elected president? In 1960, the only Northerner since Roosevelt. Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon don't count; Orange County is Confederate country.
Nixon was the one who had the brilliant idea of incorporating Strom's Dixiecrat Party into the GOP in his notorious ''Southern strategy.'' Most of the newspaper accounts of the turn of the Solid South from Democratic to Republican don't mention that the change was inspired by anger in the South at the Democratic support for civil rights and racial integration. The Democrats won the campaign but lost the war. Gettysburg was not the decisive battle of the war between the states. The 1968 and 1972 campaigns were. The ''reform'' wing of the Democratic Party threw out the unions and the Catholics and gave away the game to the Dixiecrat wing of the Republican Party. They've never figured out how to win against the descendants of Strom and Tricky Dicky.
I'm not saying that all Southerners are racist (there are a lot of racists in Yankee land too--most of them Republicans). Nor do I contend that all Republicans are racists. However, the current Republican near-majority has its origins in racism. Many of the present causes of Southern Republicans--the Stars and Bars, the Confederate Heritage, Bob Jones University--are clearly causes of the antebellum South.
I'm willing to accept the song ''Dixie,'' both because ole Marse Abe ordered it played for the big victory march in Washington when the war was over and because it was written by Bing Crosby, a notorious Yankee who never set foot in Dixie (actually by New Yorker Dan Emmet, whom Crosby portrayed in film).
However, if the Republicans really want to break free of the Old South and become once again the party of ole Marse Abe (which they clearly don't), then they have to do more than merely drop redneck bigots like Trent Lott. They must loudly disown Bob Jones University and the battle flag over the Georgia capital and the Confederate heritage, and Jeb Bush's elimination of black voters from Florida registration rolls.
I concede that the Dimmycrats (as Mr. Dooley called them) are not without faults of their own--most notably the anti-Catholicism that affects some of the leadership level, their enslavement to the teachers unions and their stand on some life issues. Yet, whatever their failings, they're not storming the Little Round Top at Gettysburg with the Stars and Bars waving and loud rebel yells.
History says that Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the 20th Maine triumphed in that skirmish. A look at the Beltway today makes me wonder if they really did.
He was charged with two counts of battery for getting into racially motivated fights in high school. Can you imagine if a white athlete had a hate crime on his record for beating up blacks?
Let's hope Murray's next. She comes up in 2004.
Same here. Union members especially.
The people are waking up!
Too bad it took a mugging to do it.
Sadly, yes. But there is hope for the future.
Yes, there were.
LOL
The South wins the war and Lee eventually becomes president of the CSA. Interesting idea and Turtledove knows how to tell a story.
Can you imagine the fighting that would've went on for years over the western territories. Or maybe there would've been a parallel established. But then again, being that the United States had such an advantage industrially, the CSA may not have had much say in the matter.
Interesting.
I've enjoyed this afternoon's exchanges.
Sorry if I was a bit cantankerous, I usually get attacked vehemently by the neoConfederates on these threads and so I was in flame mode. The attacks never materialized amazingly. It's been a while since I've been on one, I don't know who's who. :^)
No prob. As for the "600,000 dead for nothing" comment, I'm afraid that I have to agree with it. The Civil War was eminently preventable by both sides.
Note that the Civil War very nearly began in 1832-1833 with South Carolina's nullification of federal tariffs. At the time, slavery wasn't that much of an issue in either the north or the south. Jackson sent naval gunships to South Carolina harbors and South Carolina began preparations for battle but a compromise was reached in the nick of time.
The north benefited from cheap slave-grown southern cotton and the tariffs it collected were spent primarily on the north's railroad, riverway, and manufacturing infrastructure. Southern resentment of tariffs remained high until the Civil War even though, ironically, by the late 1850s tariffs had dropped considerably. Lincoln's support of increased tariffs didn't help the political climate at all.
In summary, slavery was quite possibly the primary reason for the war but it was by no means the only reason. Plus, the institution of slavery was so tightly interwoven into the economic and social fabric of both the north and the south that the various causes of the war kind of blur together. The war could have been prevented by either side -- Lincoln didn't have to taunt the south by fortifying Ft. Sumter and the south didn't have to fire upon it -- but it would have entailed numerous changes in the economy and society of both the north and the south.
That's how far I got into this guy's silly tantrum. (What? A quarter of the way?)
This scumbag Greeley is a bald-faced liar.
See ya on another thread!
Regards,
LH
The real problem would have been one sided with the Axis and the other with the Allies.
Looks like I was right the first time, you are a fringer. The "slavery had nothing to do with it" speech is on the way I have a feeling.
Note that the Civil War very nearly began in 1832-1833 with South Carolina's nullification of federal tariffs. At the time, slavery wasn't that much of an issue in either the north or the south. Jackson sent naval gunships to South Carolina harbors and South Carolina began preparations for battle but a compromise was reached in the nick of time.
Because Jackson threatened to whoop ass.
The north benefited from cheap slave-grown southern cotton and the tariffs it collected were spent primarily on the north's railroad, riverway, and manufacturing infrastructure.
Of course. The Southern state's trade paid for everything, ain't that right. The industrialism of the northern states didn't pay for anything?
Southern resentment of tariffs remained high until the Civil War even though, ironically, by the late 1850s tariffs had dropped considerably. Lincoln's support of increased tariffs didn't help the political climate at all. In summary, slavery was quite possibly the primary reason for the war but it was by no means the only reason.
Well, you're not as bad as some of your brethren. They have the "slavery had nothing to do with it" revisionism in rote.
Plus, the institution of slavery was so tightly interwoven into the economic and social fabric of both the north and the south that the various causes of the war kind of blur together.
So the Republican Party didn't care about slavery?
The war could have been prevented by either side --
Especially if the southern slaveholders would've attempted to give up their filthy lucre instead of swearing to take slavery into perpetuity.
Lincoln didn't have to taunt the south by fortifying Ft. Sumter and the south didn't have to fire upon it.
Taunt the South? It was federal property. Are we taunting Cuba by keeping Guantanamo fortified? Diego Garcia? South Korea's parallel?
-- but it would have entailed numerous changes in the economy and society of both the north and the south.
Bull. There were people getting rich off of it and that was the motivating factor. They had no intention of ever ramping it down, they loved the system of 4 million slaves making a few plantation owners rich.
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