Yo, Howard! -- Why did Dean have to embrace the Confederate flag?

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Thursday, November 13, 2003 | SHELBY STEELE

[TroutStalker]

I do not like the Confederate flag. It excludes me, profoundly. And if many good people fought honorably to defend it, I still experience the sight of it as a little racial aggression against me. I imagine that whites feel this way at the sight of Louis Farrakhan -- excluded, helpless to ever win his goodwill.

[mhking]

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[stainlessbanner]

dupe

[Smogger]

ping to myself for later

[billorites]

"ping to myself for later "

Do that too much and you'll go blind.

[yoe]

Mr. Steel’s remarks are thought provoking, but I wonder about his expertise on the War Between the States as he takes a battle flag to more emotional heights than warranted. The “Civil War” was anything but – it was a war about tariffs; the South was paying some 80% and got a little tired of carrying the load for the rest of the nation at that time. After many eloquent requests and petitions for the North to make tariffs more equitable and were refused, the South wanted to secede. Slavery was brought into the picture later by Lincoln only to make the war more palatable.

[Zeppo]

No group in recent history has more aggressively seized power in the name of its racial superiority than Western whites.

Mr. Steele marred an otherwise excellent article by including that statement, which at best reeks of parochialism and over-simplification. For he ignores other shining examples from recent history, such as the Japanese experience. Japan was certainly a colonial power (ask the Chinese and Koreans, for example) driven to acts of barbarity and cruelty by their sense of racial identity and superiority. And, he also ignores the fact that no group in recent history has, to a greater degree than whites, more aggressively fought those people (including other whites) who would grab power in the name of racial superiority. I also have a vague recollection that it was predominantly white nations who fought against Naziism and against Japan, and who also fought against black slavery.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

"...white redemption," ?

[nathanbedford]

No group in recent history has more aggressively seized power in the name of its racial superiority than Western whites. This race illustrated for all time--through colonialism, slavery, white racism, Nazism--the extraordinary human evil that follows when great power is joined to an atavistic sense of superiority and destiny.

What crap.

What's the deal on Steele, is he a black pundit trying to find dry ground?

People of color still practice slavery and exploit the caste system. People of color who raped Nanking have no regard for people of their own color to this very day.

On the other hand,

"Western whites" are the reason you are sitting in a sanitary, heated, illuminated, comfortable...(place to read this)

Western whites are the reason your mother lives into her dotage and your father went nuts over the Packers. Western whites brought you democracy, art, capitalism, Christianity, the scientific method and bubble gum.

Western whites make the world work. Yes, we aggresively "seized power." Pity for the rest of the world that our values could not have better prevailed.

[sauropod]

"I do not like the Confederate flag. It excludes me, profoundly. And if many good people fought honorably to defend it, I still experience the sight of it as a little racial aggression against me. I imagine that whites feel this way at the sight of Louis Farrakhan -- excluded, helpless to ever win his goodwill."

Yes we do Mr. Steele. And it isn't only Screwy Louie. Include Charles Barron, Jesse Jacka@@, Julian Bond, Al "slap the donkey" Sharpton, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Sheila Jacka@@ Lee, Kerosene Maxine Waters, and the former Congresscritter and terrorist apologist Cynthia McKinney in your list.

[sauropod]

"White racism, black separatism, Islamic extremism and Nazism are all atavistic identities gone too far..."

Uh, Shelby. That would be BLACK RACISM. Do I really need to point out examples for you?

[sauropod]

:The underlying irony here is that white guilt has given America a liberalism that revives as virtue the precise moral formula at the core of fascism: power justified by race alone..."

Steele is wrong here. I recommend the Ominous Parallels by Peikoff for an intelligent discussion of this topic and the rise of phenomena such as Nazism.

[Restorer]

The “Civil War” was anything but – it was a war about tariffs; the South was paying some 80% and got a little tired of carrying the load for the rest of the nation at that time.

The trouble with this theory is that it is anachronistic. Sectional tariff disputes were greatest in the 1830s and 40s. They had pretty much disappeared by 1860, when the South was its absolute peak of prosperity, as compared with the North which was just recovering from a fairly severe recession.

The 80% theory is also ludicrous. As I understand it, it is based on the fact that about 80% of the exports of the US came from the South. Tariffs, however, were on imports, not on exports. It is ridiculous to assume that the 25% of the population in the South consumed 80% of the nation's imports.

The entire budget of the Union in 1860 was $60M, which included other sources of income such as land sales. Hardly a major taxation burden.

Every conflict between North and South for two decades before 1860 had slavery at its core. The "war over tariffs " idea was developed by Southern apologists after the war, when a war in defense of slavery didn't look so appealing. Before and during the war they were more than happy to state that they were fighting for their way of life, which was unfortunately based on slavery.

[Non-Sequitur]

Mr. Steel’s remarks are thought provoking, but I wonder about his expertise on the War Between the States as he takes a battle flag to more emotional heights than warranted.

Well let me set your mind at ease. Shelby Foote is a recognized expert on the Civil War, the author of possibly the definitive, three volume history of the war, and has never once signed on to that bullsh*t idea that the south paid 80% of the tariffs or that somehow the south carried the load for the rest of the country. Nor would he put his name to the foolish notion that defense of slavery was not the single most important cause for the southern rebellion

[Restorer]

Shelby Foote is a recognized expert on the Civil War, the author of possibly the definitive, three volume history of the war, and has never once signed on to that bullsh*t idea that the south paid 80% of the tariffs or that somehow the south carried the load for the rest of the country.

Unfortunately, the author of this article is Shelby Steele.

[Non-Sequitur]

I'm well aware of that.

[Restorer]

Sorry, misunderstood your post. My bad.

[Restorer]

You and Mr. Steele are both correct. Most of the good and most of the evil of the last 400 years was the result of actions by white western males. That much good has been done by whites does not change the fact that much evil has been done by them. And, of course, the reverse is also true.

On balance, the record is highly positive, as you point out.

[GOPJ]

.The next step is to turn white southern racists into a victim group in need of "services". Read "services" to mean a piece of other people's tax dollars -- an unearned piece in exchange for a vote.

Democrat's blatant manipulations used to create anger and dependence are obvious. The payoff is powerless, angry and loyal voters. White southern voters are in the crosshairs... They better run.

"I don't think he was letting slip a long repressed affection for white supremacy and the lost Confederacy. He was playing identity politics, the new "progressive" and "inclusive" politics of our age. In effect he was identifying a new race, a new neglected race and, thus, a new wellspring of political power and Democratic votes.

[junta]

The last paragraph is the most telling of the article and for purpose. Steele and many others see that the wheels are coming off the wagons of modern liberalism. Once "White Guilt" becomes passe amongst enough people any continued attempts at Mau Mau will be met not with gifts but with bullets.