Rebel Blood

38 thoughts on “Rebel Blood”

1. >Let us now imagine that one day something in our greengrocer snaps and he stops putting up the slogans merely to ingratiate himself. He stops voting in elections he knows are a farce. He begins to say what he really thinks at political meetings. And he even finds the strength in himself to express solidarity with those whom his conscience commands him to support. In this revolt the greengrocer steps out of living within the lie. He rejects the ritual and breaks the rules of the game. He discovers once more his suppressed identity and dignity. He gives his freedom a concrete significance. His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth. . . .

   {15}The bill is not long in coming. He will be relieved of his post as manager of the shop and transferred to the warehouse. His pay will be reduced. His hopes for a holiday in Bulgaria will evaporate. His children’s access to higher education will be threatened. His superiors will harass him and his fellow workers will wonder about him. Most of those who apply these sanctions, however, will not do so from any authentic inner conviction but simply under pressure from conditions, the same conditions that once pressured the greengrocer to display the official slogans. They will persecute the greengrocer either because it is expected of them, or to demonstrate their loyalty, or simply as part of the general panorama, to which belongs an awareness that this is how situations of this sort are dealt with, that this, in fact, is how things are always done, particularly if one is not to become suspect oneself. The executors, therefore, behave essentially like everyone else, to a greater or lesser degree: as components of the post-totalitarian system, as agents of its automatism, as petty instruments of the social auto-totality.

   {16}Thus the power structure, through the agency of those who carry out the sanctions, those anonymous components of the system, will spew the greengrocer from its mouth. The system, through its alienating presence in people, will punish him for his rebellion. It must do so because the logic of its automatism and self-defense dictate it. The greengrocer has not committed a simple, individual offense, isolated in its own uniqueness, but something incomparably more serious. By breaking the rules of the game, he has disrupted the game as such. He has exposed it as a mere game. He has shattered the world of appearances, the fundamental pillar of the system. He has upset the power structure by tearing apart what holds it together. He has demonstrated that living a lie is living a lie. He has broken through the exalted facade of the system and exposed the real, base foundations of power. He has said that the emperor is naked. And because the emperor is in fact naked, something extremely dangerous has happened: by his action, the greengrocer has addressed the world. He has enabled everyone to peer behind the curtain. He has shown everyone that it is possible to live within the truth. Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal. The principle must embrace and permeate everything. There are no terms whatsoever on which it can co-exist with living within the truth, and therefore everyone who steps out of line denies it in principle and threatens it in its entirety. . . .

   {17}The original and most important sphere of activity, one that predetermines all the others, is simply an attempt to create and support the independent life of society as an articulated expression of living within the truth. In other words, serving truth consistently, purposefully, and articulately, and organizing this service. This is only natural, after all: if living within the truth is an elementary starting point for every attempt made by people to oppose the alienating pressure of the system, if it is the only meaningful basis of any independent act of political import, and if, ultimately, it is also the most intrinsic existential source of the “dissident” attitude, then it is difficult to imagine that even manifest “dissent” could have any other basis than the service of truth, the truthful life, and the attempt to make room for the genuine aims of life. <

   http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/165havel.html

2. First, a couple of quibbles. The flag referred to as “the Stars and Bars” was the Confederate First National Flag, and not the Battle Flag with the white stars on a blue St. Andrews Cross on a red field. Most Leftists would not recognize it if it bit them.

   http://tinyurl.com/nq4oegj

   The arrangement of the Battle Flag came about because from a distance the US and Confederate national colors could be mistaken for each other, which could cause . . . difficulties and misunderstandings.

   Second, “Slavery was over in this country with the end of that war.”. Actually, slavery was legal in Union controlled territory until December 6, 1865; the date of ratification of the 13th Amendment, 8 months after the Confederate surrender. The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to territories in rebellion and not to other territories controlled by the Federal government. Slavery was legal throughout the Union, and indeed Ulysses Grant and his wife Julia owned 4 slaves [inherited from Julia’s father] and rotated them so that one attended General Grant throughout the war. Either slavery was not the sole cause of the war, or the Unionists were hypocrites. I lean towards mostly the former, but with no small admixture of the latter.

   After those notes, I have to agree that there will be more and more efforts to make the concept of “thoughtcrime” real. Since the day after the election the Democrats and the Republicans have functionally merged and there is no “opposition party” resisting anything the government wants regardless of the Constitution.

   And I take note of Karl Rove’s statement on the last FOX News Sunday that the only way to get rid of gun violence is to repeal the Second Amendment. While his apologists tried to claim he was misunderstood, he is the master of weasel-words. And he is the mouthpiece of the Republican Nomenklatura and makes no public statements accidentally or without their approval. Especially considering the presidential candidate the Nomenklatura wants [JEB!] was on the Board of Directors of the Bloomberg Foundation, expect betrayal.

3. “While his apologists tried to claim he was misunderstood,”

   I was watching when he said that and it was clear to me that he was posing an impossible hypothesis; that only by repealing the Second Amendment could guns be confiscated. I do not believe he was advocating such an action: merely stating the impossibility.

   The left is hysterical as Kevin Williamson artfully points out.

   If it seems to you that the Left has, collectively, lost its damned mind as the curtain rises on the last act of the Obama administration, you are not imagining things. Barack Obama has been extraordinarily successful in his desire to ”” what was that phrase? ”” fundamentally transform the country, but the metamorphosis is nonetheless a good deal less than his congregation wanted and expected. We may have gone from being up to our knees in welfare-statism to being up to our hips in it, and from having a bushel of banana-republic corruption and incompetence to having a bushel and a peck of it, but the United States of America remains, to the Left’s dismay, plainly recognizable as herself beneath the muck.

   As usual, he is right on point.

4. The fact that this charming young psychopath burned an American flag on whatever personal media outpost he posted on would seem a point. South Carolina has voted in an African American senator (the first in the old Confederacy in modern times), another observation. The governor of the state is both female and Asian. I can’t imagine my mid-western lack of decorum would fit well with the genteel Wednesday nights at church and soft southern accents (though my great grandparents coming up from Kentucky & Virginia understood that and my grandparents mourned the loss). But the gentle loving kindness of that influence can lead to the generous forgiveness we’ve seen in those most hurt. I’m more a bitter revenge type, but I recognize respect for others and virtue when I see it. If the left’s comments in the blogosphere are any indication of their hearts, it would seem they could learn much from that strain in the deep south.

   And with that kindness comes both acceptance and assimilation; VDH notes. The ironies pile up.

   I love Williamson.

5. And with that kindness comes both acceptance and assimilation

   We used to call that, in another age of the world – but not so long ago really, e pluribus unum, from many – one. You melted in and became American. Multiculturalism, identity politics, class warfare, gender warfare, is stirred up continuously with two goals in mind:
   1. Divide and conquer.
   2. The destruction of the American Idea and it’s replacement with some sort of corrupt, semi-socialist oligarchy.

   The Left has become a tornado of destruction and self destructive behaviors. It needs a stake driven through its heart, lest like Nosferatu it rises again.

6. I’ve been spreading the meme around that the coming distributed manufacturing revolution is going to make these SJW gatekeeping efforts ultimately useless and are a real competitive threat over time to the Walmarts and Amazons of the world who knuckle under. It’s the exact same dynamic the major networks and the daily newspapers are in, except that the news industry is much further along in the cycle and it’s likely that the dynamic will peel off bigger chunks with each iteration where goods are boycotted.

   In a world of electrolooms and 3D printers, the only penalty the SJW types can extract is the convenience and cost savings of mass production. They can’t actually memory hole things for people who are aware and participating in distributed manufacturing.

7. Mary Leaky discovered the first homo sapiens women in the Olduvai Gorge in Africa. Leaky named the first woman “Lucy”. Everyone who lives or has lived on this planet has Lucy’s blood in their veins. We are all Africans. We are all ‘blacks, even if our skins may not have that treasured ebony hue – a fault easily remedied with tanning beds, cosmetics, or paint.

   Every person alive today has an ancestor who was a slave. In some cases you have to trace back to Lucy to find the slave. Slavery has existed for all of human history. People who lost battles became slaves. So did people who could not pay their debts.

   More recently in America, People who came over as slaves got a free boat ride. Others paid for the boat ride by agreeing to an indenture that lasted the rest of their lives. Both types were slaves – some were black, some were white, some were yellow. The redskins were alreay here.

   All this skin color slavery stuff is stupid nonsense.

8. I’m sorry to hear that you are unsound on liver and onions. Sgt Mom. Have you been omitting the bacon?

9. “Every person alive today has an ancestor who was a slave.” Presumably every person alive today has an ancestor who was a slave-owner too.

10. “There is no one alive today in the United States who owned a slave (bar a small number of perverts and social deviants) . . . ”

    I would quibble with that a bit. From time to time, you hear of cases of slavery in the United States. Typically, both the slave owner and the slave are immigrants, often from Muslim countries. (If you follow the British papers at all, you’ll see similar cases there from time to time.)

    The West may have given up slavery — but much of the world has not.

    These cases are one of the many reasons I think we should pay more attention to values, when we are deciding who to let into this country.

11. A infamous Chicago-area bigot and anti-Semite was recently quoted as saying he did not understand what all the fuss was about the battle flag. His interest is in taking down the U.S. flag. It seems that the left often shows their hand rather soon. It’s widely acknowledged that we now live in a 24/7 surveillance state, every email, phone call and text monitored. With the current regime, it’s reported that the FBI and associated agencies are no longer monitoring certain groups and locations. Given their sympathies, many of us can understand that strategy. Open borders, etc. What I can’t understand is how they could have missed monitoring an individual who they have continuously referred to as the “real problem” the root cause of it all?

12. “Slavery was legal throughout the Union, and indeed Ulysses Grant and his wife Julia owned 4 slaves”

    Lincoln famously (and supposedly) said about the border states, “I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky.”

    Grant lived in Missouri, which was contested ground in the early days of the war. In Illinois from 1863 to 1866, the state legislature was dissolved in order to prevent them from passing resolutions to withdraw from the war effort. After the Emancipation Proclamation was passed, there were even occasional skirmishes with Confederate sympathizers in the southern half of the state.

    “Either slavery was not the sole cause of the war, or the Unionists were hypocrites”

    I’m sure there were more than enough hypocrites to go around. However, when Sherman’s army was marching through Georgia singing ‘John Brown’s soul goes marching on’ with specific moral imperatives, there was no doubt in their minds what they were fighting for.

13. The War began with the preservation of the Union foremost.

    “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.” Letter to Horace Greeley” (August 22, 1862), p. 388.

    Emancipation became the sole purpose after it was apparent that the Union could not be saved without a horrendous cost. The justification of that cost became emancipation. His initial intent was to limit it to the south.

    “I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

    Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.

    The South would not accept that olive branch.

14. Has Apple banned all Civil War, WW2, and Cold War games because of offensive Confederate, Nazi. or Communist flags?

15. The Left hates the American flag at least as much as the Confederate flag. I expect to see a new flag, new anthem, new constitution in my lifetime.

16. The War began with the shelling of Fort Sumter by rebels who feared the United States would end slavery. How Lincoln reacted for political purposes is irrelevant. What is relevant is what the rebels thought and recorded. Here is a collection of their thoughts. Whatever cover they may have put over it, the core intention of the rebels was to perpetuate slavery. And that is why they could never find a foreign ally to support their effort; no one in the civilized world wanted to ally with slavers by 1861.

    I grew up in a household with a background similar to Sgt. Mom at about the same time, even to the liver and onions. I remember the dogs on the bridge and the fire hoses. Watching it on TV. Here in the country I thought was the USA. I remember which side was waving that execrable flag. And I remember klansmen in robes burning crosses for all to see.

    In the 50 years since then, much has changed in our country. Now the klansmen equivalents fear to show their faces in public anywhere, let alone don the regalia for a lawn party. The flag has been dispatched from poles on capitals to poles in capital yards. Now it is being dispatched from public buildings. It is a process of cultural cleansing, not a test balloon or experiment for some nefarious attempt to reduce our freedom or impose thought crimes. It is simply something that proper people don’t do. Like using spittoons or ashtrays. They’re still legal, just as the flag is still legal. And some people still use them. But fewer and fewer will as what they are associated with becomes less and less socially acceptable, just as we see fewer and fewer flags with hammers and sickles. Not everyone will change their mind at the same time, and some will never change their minds. But fewer and fewer will want to be associated with the flag and what it truly stood for. That is why it will continue to disappear.

17. The Civil War was fundamentally about slavery, not because it was always and everywhere central to Union war aims, but because it was the reason that the South attempted to secede. All of the revisionist clap-trap about the war being about States’ rights was just an effort to mask the fact that right in question was the right to own slaves. Whether or not the North was fighting to abolish slavery, the South certainly seceded to preserve it.

    But beyond that, the Union was always fighting against slavery, what changed was what that actually meant. While most Republicans were not Abolitionists, the party did oppose the extension of slavery into new territory, a policy explicitly intended to lead to slavery’s ultimate extinction. Secession was the South’s response to Lincoln’s election because that election was effectively the North’s declaration that slavery would not be permitted to expand, and that new slave states would not admitted. Had the South surrendered before the Emancipation Proclamation the 13th Amendment wouldn’t have been passed immediately after – but the South would have abandoned any hope of new slave states being formed, and sooner or later it would have been.

    Slavery was the issue that divided the country and that could not be solved politically. Without slavery, there is no Civil War.

18. And sometimes sticking to your principles destroys a country and sometimes it heads off a future of great pain – in this case over 600,000 dead and seventy years of enslavement and Jim Crow afterwards. If the founders, who we should admire and cherish and look at with gratitude for so many things, had found a way out, well, much would have been better. They clearly could not see a solution, knew it was a problem. We are not as wise as they; there may have been no solution but bloodshed. Slavery, like Munich, shows us what we know – you can’t pretend there isn’t a problem when there is. Our fiscal ones are not likely to have as deathly consequences, but not fixing them doesn’t just postpone but gives a space for growth and entanglement hard to easily solve. Just saying.

19. I am coming to suspect that the rebel flag now is morphing into meaning something other than the Confederacy, and Jim Crow – I think it is changing into a symbol of just plain old rebellion, just like the Gadsden flag became associated with the Tea Party in the last few years. My daughter just did a check on the availability of the Confederate flag at a local company – Dixie Flag Co. (http://www.dixieflag.com/ ) and it seems that the Stars & Bars flags are back-ordered. Same at Tractor Supply – also back-ordered. Somehow, they became really, really popular in the last 24 hours. It will be interesting, if Walmart and Amazon quietly let the matter drop in a few weeks.

    Dearie, dding bacon does not change the essential vileness of liver and onions in any appreciable way.

20. Lincoln also said in one of the debates with Douglas

    Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political evil, having due regard for its actual existence amongst us and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the Constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it; but, nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a wrong it may come to an end.

    Besides the obvious obstacle of the hostile Southern states, the other legal problem with abolition was the Dred Scott ruling. This is what motivated Lincoln’s ‘House Divided’ speech. Illinois had been officially free for long time, but there was growing concern that since the Supreme Court had just ruled Blacks could never be citizens that emancipation could be rolled back in free states.

    In what cases the power of the states is so restrained by the U.S. Constitution, is left an open question, precisely as the same question, as to the restraint on the power of the territories was left open in the Nebraska act. Put that and that together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a state to exclude slavery from its limits.

    And this may especially be expected if the doctrine of “care not whether slavery be voted down or voted up, shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision an be maintained when made.

    Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the States.

    Welcome, or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown.

    We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State.

    To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty, is the work now before all those who would prevent that consummation.

    This is what we have to do.

    The South feared Lincoln would end slavery and with good reason.

21. There do seem to be an increasing number of hysterical temper tantrums on all sorts of subjects. We have become a nation of petulant children. I’m not a big fan of the stars and bars ;however, taking them down won’t stop crimes from happening. We probably should focus on more important problems.

22. >>>>>>
    ErisGuy Says:
    June 25th, 2015 at 11:07 am
    Has Apple banned all Civil War, WW2, and Cold War games because of offensive Confederate, Nazi. or Communist flags?

    <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

    NorbSoftDev, the developer of a Civil War game on the Apple platform posted the following announcement on their Facebook page earlier today:

    https://www.facebook.com/sowgb

    Scourge of War
    4 hrs ·

    We wrote a Civil War Tower Defense Game. It's been for sale on the App Store for a number of years. Yesterday they forcibly removed it from the store with this explanation. Guess political correctness overthrows historical accuracy every time.

    I only post this here because many that visit this page are players of our Gettysburg game. That game features very prominently the flags of both armies, which of course includes the confederate flag. So I thought you might be interested in seeing what happens when censorship goes out of control.

    Civil War Defense and Civil War Battle Defense are our two games that got banned, but by no means are they the only ones. Most Civil War games are no longer on iTunes.

    Hello,

    We are writing to notify you that your app has been removed from the App Store because it includes images of the confederate flag used in offensive and mean-spirited ways.
    Specifically, your app does not comply with section 19.1 of the App Store Review Guidelines:

    “Apps containing references or commentary about a religious, cultural or ethnic group that are defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited or likely to expose the targeted group to harm or violence will be rejected”

    At this time, your app has been removed from the App Store. We encourage you to review your app concept and incorporate different content and features that are in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.

    Best Regards,
    App Store Review

    ———————-

    So in answer your question, the purging (a sort of digital book burning) has begun, at least with regards to the Civil War.

23. I think that a lot of us are just getting sick and tired of being told what to do. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if we’re reaching the point where maybe some sizable portion of humanity shouldn’t just “fork the project” (to use a techie term) and build some rockets and go colonize the moon. I have the plans drafted already and we could just leave the idiots on Earth…

    — G.K.

24. >an experiment, I might venture to wonder, on behalf of the Inner Party and intended to otherize and demoralize a segment of the body politic

    Bingo. Read this:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us/tally-of-attacks-in-us-challenges-perceptions-of-top-terror-threat.html?_r=0

    Then skim through the comments. Most inspire horror and disbelief. Here’s a sample from ‘sfpk’ in San Fran:

    ‘Homegrown radicals, right-wing Evangelicals, and Tea Party activists in the US are no different from the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They all share a desire to take our country backwards to a “better” time (read: a completely homogenous one with strict enforcement of religious law), where intolerance of any other ideas is the norm, and the way to solve problems is by violence.’

    This is Soviet-style agitprop, and it is being propagated in a receptive environment. The shoe is being made and held up in the public’s face for them to study and nod at. Soon it will be fitted to whatever foot Der Staat and Der Party please.

    We live in dark times, and we did not drift into them. The darkness was and is being engineered in a spirit of ideologically-inspired malice.

25. G.K. Masterson
    let’s build the rocket, take up a collection to get the latest iwhatever toss it in with a box of skinny jeans and Che Guevara shirts, when the lemmings rush in to get their freebies, we shut the door after them, light the fuse and call it a job well done.

26. Yes, indeedy – it does look like Civil War games have been dumped from Apple Apps – http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/06/25/apple-pulls-civil-war-games-from-app-store-in-ongoing-controversy-over-confederate-flags

    I await with breathless interest for the news that they are also dumping those games based on WWII battles which feature Nazi German and Imperial Japanese flags. Purely in the interests of consistency, mind.

27. “it does look like Civil War games have been dumped from Apple Apps ”

    Only temporarily… apparently all the apps have to do is replace the battle standard with the Confederate flag and they’re good to go.

    Because the witch hunters are stupid.

28. The time between the establishment of a constitutional republic in 1787 and the outbreak of civil war was 70 some years. So it was the third generation after a fundamental realignment of the relationship between man and state.

    We are now 70 some years and three generations removed from the last major realignment, ie WWII.

    I imagine that both founding father and GI would look 70 years on and have a similar sentiment – this is not what we fought for.

29. “Guess political correctness overthrows historical accuracy every time.”

    Well, yes. It’s a mark of totalitarianism. America has a variety of totalitarian movements: homosexual rights, Democrat Party, feminism, socialism which cannot tolerate anyone thinking, speaking, writing, associating, or worshipping except in state-approved, party-approved, activist-approved manners. And giant corporations, contrary to propaganda, have been willing and eager toadies in the end of liberty.

30. Given the apparent number of confederate political symbols with Clinton’s name on them, perhaps this is a dual attack with Hilary as one of the intended targets. Bill Clinton was from the South, and well-hated by the Left.

31. I like RonaldF’s comment above. For the most part, I believe that this latest blowup about the Stars and Bars is more for pretty political photo-ops than anything.

32. Fear not. Someday all these restrictions will be enforced in code, created at the whim of corporate CEOs.

33. The Southern leadership favored a social structure based on aristocracy. They would have probably been quite happy to use a compliant white peasantry in the manner that such peasantries have traditionally been employed in feudal systems, however, no such peasantry was available, and black slaves were their alternative.

    Somewhere (( can’t find the book) there is a quote from a Southern plantation owner about why his way of life was superior to that of the Northen factory owner. The factory owner, he said, had to be *polite* to people he might not really like…customers, bankers, etc….whereas he, the plantation owner, was free from any such forced amiability. (Although I would think that in practice the customer of *dueling* might have limited this freedom a bit.)

    Northern and Western workers and farmers were well aware of the Southern leadership’s desire to create an aristocratic environment, and didn’t like it much. They also feared direct economic competition from slave labor, especially if slavery was expanded to other states.

34. I’m glad to hear that the NYT isn’t too bothered about moslem attacks.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3140454/Tourists-run-lives-Tunisian-beach-gunman-carries-attack-outside-hotel-packed-Britons.html

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3140304/Decapitated-body-Islamist-flag-industrial-estate-France.html

35. Well, naturally, Dearie – those two incidents happened in foreign lands to foreign people, about which their readers know little and care even less. (insert sarc tags, if required)

36. Morgan’s American Slavery American Freedom argues Foster’s point, I think, though starting earlier. He spends initial chunks describing Southern culture before slavery was widespread. They used indentured servants because they couldn’t afford slaves – there was less investment in an individual and when the mortality rate was as high as it was in the 17th century in the southern colonies, indentured servitude was a better bargain. When mortality rates decreased, slavery became economic. He discusses the “freedom” that came with this culture – for the aristocracy. Of course, as he observes, they, too, were dying a good deal faster than the northerners. There’s much that’s unattractive about that culture. But it speaks to traits we breed out of us at some peril. The north and south are not unlike the tensions in Scotland Hermann describes.

37. About ten years ago I toured Italy with a group; one of the areas we passed through was the south side of Naples. And there I saw a remarkable [I don’t know a word for it: a flat carving in relief with some parts completely cut out; made of painted wood], the size of a small billboard. It was a snorting bull in front of a rippling Confederate flag, with the motto “Southern Pride” (in English).

    Northern Italians have a nearly racial dislike of southern Italians; my guess is that some confused south Italians responded by adopting the Confederate flag.

    Also: County Cork in Ireland is “the Rebel County”: note what this supporter of the Cork Rebels hurling club is waving.

38. I’m now 65 and a southerner by choice. In my early twenties I spent some months in the south. I went back home and began to feel a bit oppressed in Cook County and did feel the party apparatus there was somewhat arbitrary and oppressive. It felt, and it feels now, less oppressive in the South than it did in my home area. I believe that now, and for some time (if not exactly in the mid/late 70s, when I pulled up stakes) that this has been generally true – no matter what skin color a person has.

    “The past is a foreign country”. To be critical of individuals in a culture (or sympathetic, for that matter) eight generations after the reality of the time has passed us by borders on absurdity. One might as well be critical of a French man for eating snails or speaking French.

    Slavery was the marble under the mattress, “states rights” was the mattress the south tried to move (at least I, 8 gens. gone, think moving the marble would have been easier). Dissolution of the bond of the state(s) from the federal government was not illegal, Lincoln and the larger state was tyrannical. Realistically one needs to accept that this tyranny was a good thing if slavery was worth the experience of the civil war. If there had been legal grounds the Lincoln admin. and the north would have used them at South Carolina’s secession.

    Logically slavery, an important issue, is a sub-issue. It seems that to ban CSA flags is to prohibit the above thoughts or label them as unacceptable.

Comments are closed.