The 150th anniversary of the American Civil War is fast approaching and history buffs (or, as the race pimps in Georgia call them, racists) are starting to look around to see which battle sites they are going to visit, which reenactments they will attend, where there will be special events and generally where they will spend their money. Thus, SB 27 and HR 103 are making their way through the General Assembly.
This move by our legislators (perceived as horrific by the race pimps) brought swift reaction from the Chicago Tribune, which immediately dispatched a reporter who filed his story last Friday.
In a cultural war that has pitted Old South against new, defenders of the Confederate legacy have opened a new front in their campaign to polish an image tarnished, they said, by people who do not respect Southern values.
With the 150th anniversary of the War Between the States in 2011, efforts are under way in statehouses, small towns and counties across the South to push for proclamations or legislation promoting Confederate history.
Alabama, Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and Florida traditionally observe Confederate History Month in April. Georgia, which has recognized it by proclamation since 1995, recently passed a bill in the state Senate making it official.
And nothing makes a story about the Civil War complete without a few quotes from at least one race pimp. Getting the call this time was State Rep. Tyrone Brooks (D-Dullardville).
Brooks, who already has established himself as an enemy of law enforcement officers in Georgia, wasted no time in slamming Georgia and making sure, by innuendo, that he thinks we’re all…big surprise…racist and bigoted (shocking, I know).
State Rep. Tyrone Brooks, a Georgia Democrat and longtime civil rights leader, said the South has lagged behind the nation by trying to hold on to the past. He said the bill will face opposition in Georgia’s more diverse House.
“These Southern states really still have not come back into the Union,” he said. “That is why it’s been so difficult over the years to get the states to recognize that flying the Confederate emblem on the flag, holding reenactments and pushing these calendar events as a matter of law is a reflection … of their Confederate mentality.”
“This is a new day. The Confederacy lost, and the majority of the American people will not accept these ideas about a renegade group of folks.”
See how easy this is? Some people want to join tours about the Civil War throughout Georgia and it’s actually a reflection of their “Confederate mentality.” Groups want to hold special events surrounding battles that may have taken place where they live and it isn’t to promote tourism or just to spend some time immersed in a period of history they find fascinating…they’re actually closet racists just pistol-packin’ and itchin’ to pull out their pillowcase and cut two eye holes out! Take that!
For a conflict where the underlying issue was not slavery but federalism, Brooks again has been given an opportunity by the Chicago Tribune to parrot the only thing he knows how to do anymore: push the myth of massive white racism around the racetrack yet again.
Just a few months ago 47% of Georgians voted for the Republic’s first half-black president. The Mayor of Atlanta and a goodly portion of the Georgia General Assembly is black. Georgia also sends a black representative to the United States House of Representatives. Why, I can even turn on my television and see blacks presenting the evening news! And is the sky falling because of this? Nope…and no one has any problem with that! To that I say: GOOD!
The only people who are mentality incapable of living in the present with our “equal opportunity” society are the ones like Brooks, State Senator Robert Brown, State Rep. Al Williams and Joesph Lowery who, as the latter has clearly suggested, prefer to wallow in intellectual bankruptcy and the vapid and unfounded cries of racism in every corner of every community…by whites only, you see.
Did I mention that Atlanta is also about to break ground on a massive civil rights museum? It must be a plot by all those racist whites to lull minorities into a false sense of security, right Tyrone?
Of course, the racism that Tyrone Brooks thinks is everywhere just does not exist. These efforts to increase tourism and knowledge of the Confederacy are both timely and appropriate.
Oh, and someone should point out to Tyrone that if he was all huffy about our old State Flag, why doesn’t he seem to care that our present flag is a modified version of the First National Flag of the Confederacy? Maybe because he and his ilk got their fifteen minutes crying about perceived racism and now have moved on to the next perceived slight?
Alas, that is what these race pimps do and, frankly, do so well regardless of the truth.
{ 18 comments }
I’m sure Vincent is angry that Tyrone got to it before he did.
And there you have the face of democrat leadership. Roy Barnes appreciates Rep. Brooks opening his mouth.
Preach on Rogue!
I have to ask how much is enough to these people but then I realize nothing short of complete cowing to each demand will satisfy these racist bigots.
And just so I’m not misunderstood:
racist–one who has a strong preference for one race over another sometimes to the detriment of the non-preferred race
bigot–one who believes that their way is always best and trumps all other viewpoints notwithstanding evidence and debate to the contrary
In my opinion, Mr. Brooks and his ilk most certainly meet both criteria and would be best served to be ignored and marginalized until they treat those they disagree with more respect (fat chance of that happening, however).
“The 150th anniversary of the American Civil War”
America never had a civil war…
“For a conflict where the underlying issue was not slavery but federalism…”
Not so fast Rogue! Everyone has heard the term “the winners write history”. But before you say you know who won the Civil War, check out Prof. James Loewen’s interesting theory. After reconstrucion ends in the late 1870′s, we see history text books attempting to salvage the South’s reputation by writing lies that make the former Confederate states appear less racially motivated to secede. One of the distortions makes Southerners appear as if they are fighting for their own freedom from government, while the idea of fighting to keep blacks chained up is hardly mentioned. Many Confederates may very well have been fighting their own form of oppression, but they had to know what the real fight was about– slavery! So at least according to history, we know who the real Civil War winners are.
Anyone who is still fighting the civil war after 150 years, or glorifying either side in that national embarrassment needs to get a life. The South decided to sacrifice the concept of state’s rights for the defense of slavery and the north trampled the Constitution to oblige them.
“That is why it’s been so difficult over the years to get the states to recognize that flying the Confederate emblem on the flag, holding reenactments and pushing these calendar events as a matter of law is a reflection … of their Confederate mentality.”
————————————–
I guess if the Civil War re-enactors have to move on, will the same folks who hold the re-enactment of the lynchings, sit-ins, and other 1960′s marches have to move on as well?
Like it or not, outside the Old South this sort of movement appears as nutty as Germans pushing for Nazi Heritage legislation. The “Party of Lincoln” is doing everything it can to encourage businesses to relocate to Georgia while at the same time scaring the crap out of them with legislation like this. No one would care if this legislation had been on the books forever, but creating newly minted anachronisms that suggest a “South Will Rise Again!” mentality is bad for business. In a session in which the Rs have been blatantly whoring in favor of business interests, this symbolic, do-nothing “flagger”-type legislation seems misguided at best.
“For a conflict where the underlying issue was not slavery but federalism,”
This again? Look, if there is any doubt as to what the Confederate cause was in seceding, Georgia’s own Confederate leaders make it abundantly clear.
On December 7, 1860, Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown delivered an open letter to the people of Georgia, endorsing secession solely
because of the threat of abolition. He said that Georgians “can never
again live in peace with the Northern abolitionists, unless we can
have new constitutional guarantees, which will…effectively stop the
discussion of slavery in Congress.” Since slavery was widely seen as
benefiting only the rich, fully half of the letter was directed at
poor non-slaveholding whites. “May our kind Heavenly Father avert the evil, and deliver the poor from such a fate,” he prayed, warning
whites of the various consequences if blacks were made their equals.
Upon their secession, four Confederate states issued declarations of
causes, formally explaining their reasons for leaving the Union. Each
identified slavery as its motivation. Georgia’s began “The people of
Georgia [present] the causes which have led to the separation. For the
last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint
against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the
subject of African slavery.” Mississippi was blunter: “[I]t is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world.”
Henry Benning was Georgia’s Commissioner to the Virginia Secession
Convention, and on Feb. 18, 1861, he encouraged Virginia to secede as
Georgia had: “What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the
step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. This conviction, sir, was
the main cause.”
Georgia’s Robert Toombs resigned from the U.S. Senate on January 7,
1861, and gave a farewell speech in which he identified four Southern
demands. All four involved protecting the right of slave ownership.
The month prior, Toombs had proposed a similar seven-point
Constitutional compromise to avoid secession; all seven points were
concerned with slavery.
In his Corner-Stone Speech of March 21, 1861, Confederate
Vice-President Alexander Stephens told his Savannah audience, “[O]ur
peculiar institution – African slavery as it exists among us – the proper status of the negro in our civilization,…was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.” He further explained that the Confederacy’s “foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon this great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
(Incidentally, Senator Bulloch’s original draft of SB 27, incidentally, specifically identified Toombs and Stephens as two of “Georgia’s greatest statemen” who “served the Confederate government in high positions.” And this is what THEY said the Confederacy was about.)
Here you have Georgia’s governor, Georgia’s US Senator, Georgia’s official commissioner to Virginia, the Georgia-born Confederate Vice-President, and Georgia’s formal declaration of cause for secession ALL stating, unequivocally, that the primary Confederate motivation in seceding was slavery, plain and simple.
Great post Loren!
Re-enacting Civil War battles and recognizing your family members that perished in the battle for what they believed in at the time is wonderful, but pretending or ignoring the FACTS of what they were fighting for and glossing it over to make it sound as if it was only about states rights is not the truth. The economic benefits of slavery to the South were very important. The Civil War was fought for money and power, nothing more and nothing less.
Thank you, Loren.
I’d rather that our legislators simply pass a 10th Amendment resolution similar to those being proposed around the country than to spend so much time dredging up one of the most hypocritical conflicts of our past.
Having said that, being wrong in the past should not keep us from moving forward in the correct direction.
As for secession:
Washington, D.C. left the union a long time ago. I’d support any and all efforts to bring them back under the Constitutional rule of limited federal government.
Loren, griftdrift & onthefence:
I don’t think our positions are in disagreement. I stated that “the underlying issue was not slavery but federalism.” In Loren’s missive, he even notes Governor Brown’s disgust about the discussion of slavery on the federal level.
We are all saying the same thing but giving different valuations to contributing factors.
I do not for a minute deny that slavery was a contributing factor in the Civil War. But the arguments from the Southerns was that they were not going to be told what to do with their slaves…in effect, they wanted federalism to rule the day.
As I am confident that y’all aren’t saying that slavery was the ONLY issue that started the Civil War, and as I admit that slavery was a goodly part of the spark that instigated that conflict but falls under the giant umbrella of federalism, I am left to suspect that all we disagree on is if slavery falls within the arena of federalism or is separate. As the federal government was making strides to tell certain states what they could and could not do, I feel that the proverbial “big picture” problem was as I identified: federalism.
Sorry I haven’t had time to read all the comments lately. I’ve just been posting and running! Later.
Loren- Awesome post! I generally skim those really long posts, but I read all of that. Big A.
Seenbetrdayz- precisely. This distracts from our current cause for state sovereignty and resurrecting the Constitution.
Loved your statement about DC leaving the Union. LOL. Good stuff.
“I do not for a minute deny that slavery was a contributing factor in the Civil War…”
America never had a civil war…
Taft- Hi, how are you? Glad to see you, again. Agreed. America never had a civil war.
Rogue109,
Slavery was a “contributing factor” to the South’s secession in the same way that 9/11 was a “contributing factor” to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Were there other, more minor issues involved in the decision-making? Sure; but remove that single issue, and the secession (or invasion) simply never happens.
To the extent that the South was concerned with the principles of federalism, it was almost exclusively for the purposes that federalism served their interests in protecting slavery. There’s not a shortage of Southern rhetoric propounding the virtues of federalism and states’ rights, but whenever they were pressed to name the specific rights they were concerned about, the conversation inevitably turned back to slavery. There is an abundance of contemporary accounts of Southern leaders promoting secession saying ‘We should secede to protect our slavery interests’; by contrast, there’s a remarkable shortage of contemporary arguments where they focused on any issues other than slavery. (Not to say there’s none, but they tend to be short and cursory and somewhat vague and generalized, and followed by much longer arguments based on protecting slavery.) It wasn’t until a decade or longer after the war that retrospective accounts start attributing the primary cause of secession to anything other than slavery.
And when the principles of federalism conflicted with the South’s interest in slavery, the South did not hesitate to abandon even the pretense of federalism and states’ rights. The Fugitive Slave Act was a HUGE imposition on states’ rights, obliging free states to prioritize slave states’ view of a man’s free status over their own. For instance, Robert Toombs’ fourth and final demand to the Senate was that free states should be required to surrender fugitive slaves back to slave states without habeas corpus or trial by jury or any other legal procedure the free state may want to follow. Whether the South was pro-federalism or anti-federalism, the common thread was that they always did what was in the best interests of protecting slavery.
Rogue,
You said this: We are all saying the same thing but giving different valuations to contributing factors.
No, Rogue, screaming “federalism” is QUITE a bit different than screaming “I have a right to own slaves. EFF-YOU!”
Try to be less obvious in your intellectual fraud, will you? It smacks of Socialists redefining themselves as “kind people with good intentions…”
Comments on this entry are closed.
{ 1 trackback }