Promoting a revision of history?

Mobile Register ^ | 10.19.03 | Ronald F. Maxwell

[metesky]

Nor do you hear that about 85% of black Africans shipped from West Africa ended up in South and Central America.

[norton]

Reading through to post 40 leaves me with the same distaste as every other CW related FR discussion - otherwise (most likely) rational people demanding that their simplistic and politically correct concepts be accepted and approved by each and all.

So: Slavery was bad, slavery was not limited to the American South, slavery was benign at times and places and cruelly malignant at others, secession was the result of economic and political events and NOT as a means to assure enslavement of anyone, opposing slavery (as a pre war southener) did NOT itself create an opportunity to free slaves or end the practice (like today - wanting readily availability of medical care to all does not mean I can make it happen), opposition to slavery (in the north) did not assign enlightenment or sainthood to a single soul (although some who held those views may well have been both).

The majority of southern military leaders had careers in the US Army prior to war, they gave up that security to defend their homes at a time when 'home' was local and not "freeway close" to every other neighborhood in the USA.

The War of Secession took place less than a hundred years after great debates, largely papered over as an expedient, raged over states rights and states status within the Union. In a similar manner, the civil rights movement (anti-war movement, popularization of the socialist agenda movement) needed another hundred years to light off.

Secession and the war that followed decided the status of states versus the central government, for better or worse. It did NOT resolve slavery apart from the issue of humans as chattel property. Today we have unions to fill that particular role in the economic engine.

My own view of Lee is that he was a great man, a good man, a fine leader but a limited general. Grant waas probably more interesting to be around, a fine general, and a limited president. Lincoln had a self driven mandate to hold the union together and to revise common understanding of the constitution, he succeded in that and little more. (John Brown was a flaming loon AND an icon to the north)

Finally, it amazes me that americans today can respect Rommel, Giap, the art of blitzkrieg and planning for Pearl Harbor, "we" are allowed to look with awe on the losses suffered in defending Stalingrad. But, we are not allowed to respect, admire, or even speak the names of men who led a losing fight to retain the original constitution, who died in huge numbers to defend their homeland, or who talked funny in doing so.

[x]

That's because nobody's telling us that Rommel or Giap or Zhukov or Yamamoto was right or fighting for a just cause or defending the real America, just that they were capable or even brilliant commanders. Most people would have to admit that Confederate soldiers fought bravely, sometimes had great generals, and believed in their cause. When you say that they were fighting to "retain the original Constitution" of course you'll get into an argument. "I can respect their courage and dedication" is one thing, "They were right" is another.

[Coleus]

we are not allowed to respect, admire, or even speak the names of men who led a losing fight to retain the original constitution, who died in huge numbers to defend their homeland, or who talked funny in doing so. >>

and for trying to save the 10th amendment.

[norton]

Interesting to note that I DO believe that they were defending the original intent of the constitution AND that they were defending the commonly held belief of the time - north and south - regarding a federation of sovereign states.

The interesting part is that I also believe that by actually allowing states to behave at least in large part as sovereigns ("Texas troops" versus ""Confederate States Troops" and state militia under state appointed officers, short term enlistments, and troops that stopped fighting for the Confederacy and stayed behind to fight for Virginia, Etc.) - they lost the war.

That and Lee's absurd belief that quality and motivation might trump good generalship.

(Regarding staying behind to fight for Virginia, according to US records, one of my ancestors did just that, and got busted as a "bushwhacker" instead of a Confederate officer; poor choice, good motives, lost cause.)

[norton]

Oh, and there is a good reason that "nobody's telling us that Rommel or Giap or Zhukov or Yamamoto was right or fighting for a just cause or defending the real America.."

They were not doing that thing.

On the other hand, what I'd like to see is a cessation of the demonizing of everything southern based on a 20/21st century reinterpretation of what is just and what is not just. Soldiers fight for things that do not reflect after-the-event philosophical self abuse.

[x]

The founders were a pretty heterogenous lot running from Federalists like Washington and Hamilton to outright anti-Federalists like Sam Adams and Patrick Henry. But the framers of the Constitution clearly wanted something more than a loose alliance of sovereign and independent states. Certainly, that was the understanding of a majority of Americans in the 1860s. The feeling was stronger in the North, than in the South, but it wasn't dead there either.

Looking back from the present day, some people mistake the separation of powers between federal and state government and the state and local control of most types of legislation for a more radical and absolute kind of state sovereignty. The are reacting much more to the great growth of government in recent years, than responding to the actual situation of the 1860s.

I'm not out of sympathy with those who want us to recognize or acknowledge that the rebels were fighting for what they understood to be right. But spend enough time among today's hard core neo-Confederates, and you'll see that they are as intolerant as anyone else, and as unwilling to concede the virtues and goodwill of those on the other side as anyone they attack or criticize. So I don't see much point in the attacks by Southern separatists and Confederate apologists on unionists for failing to show a chivalry that they themselves lack.

[rdb3]

But spend enough time among today's hard core neo-Confederates, and you'll see that they are as intolerant as anyone else, and as unwilling to concede the virtues and goodwill of those on the other side as anyone they attack or criticize. So I don't see much point in the attacks by Southern separatists and Confederate apologists on unionists for failing to show a chivalry that they themselves lack.

You can say that again.

[norton]

Problem is that you are not attacking 'hard core' anybody; if you want to jump on the KKK or Skin-head biker wannabes, I'll join in on your side.

The stars and bars used to stand for a lost cause, the displacements caused by that loss, and coming together of all Americans after the debate was settled on the field of battle. It also stood for rebellion of any sort, generalized and widely experienced by normal folks at some time or another in their lives. It also stood for Dixie, a place lost but in theory brought back into the fold - but still a place and a reference for black and white Americans alike.

Correctness and bone-headedness have shifted that into the standard 'disagree with me and be damned' 1960's crap while a very small segment of society morphs one version of the Confederate flag into a hate crime.

Remember that the swastika was a proud American symbol, and a common design throughout history, until a socialist with an attitude and convenient scapegoats at hand turned it into what it is perceived to be today. (It flew on US warplanes in WW1 before Germans abandoned the iron cross and their between the wars republic.)

The 'hard core lincolnites' are attacking me and mine. People who simply believe that the root cause of the war was not the candy coated PC version of 'rightness' that is ingrained in textbooks ...and in the cortex of several FR posters who constantly hijack any discussion with 'slavery-bad, ergo you-bad' inuendo. When 99.9999% of the people on this forum agree that slavery was and is bad - what kind of discussion or debate in that?

Do I sound like a romantic or a 'victim'? I don't see it that way. I do think that there is a whole lot of re-direction going on around here, just as I think that most people who tell me they 'really respect Vietnam veterans' really mean they pi**ed in my wheaties in '73 and feel a bit unproud about it today.

Why are these same people not pounding a drum TODAY about ending slavery as it exists TODAY across the globe?

What is all this I hear about low wages and illegal aliens if not slavery TODAY?

What is involuntary membership in a union that can tell you when and how you are allowed to work, or to withold your labor, and to do it at a wage THEY set if not slavery TODAY?

(Too long for a tag line: I'm through with CW posts, it's over, you won, CART is way better than NASCAR and all the really good presidents came from Masscituc...Massich...the north.)

[x]

Sounds about right on Maxwell. He's got his cheering section, more for political than artistic ones though.

BTW, you might like this site: The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Site. I haven't found any relatives, but maybe others will have more luck. (For the higher-ups, there's still US Civil War Generals.

[cyborg]

stand watie you're losing your touch... you forgot to call the propagandist a scalawag.

[WhiskeyPapa]

BTW, you might like this site: The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Site. I haven't found any relatives, but maybe others will have more luck. (For the higher-ups, there's still US Civil War Generals.

That's pretty wild. I easily pulled up my one relation from the 25th Ala Inf, Wilson Parks Howell.

Walt

[stand watie]

LOL!

he's NOT a scalawag, but rather a damnyankee.

scalawags are southernborns, who have turned their back on their native south & colloborate with the enemy.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

LOL!

don't leave. we southrons appreciate the intelligence & reasoning in your posts. the HATERS from the socialist/statist/imperialist north, otoh, don't.

free dixie,sw