It is easy to downplay the extreme rhetoric of Wingnutopia as crazy stuff that will never catch on and yet it is becoming the mainstream rhetoric in the conservative movement. One doesn’t need to look far to see examples.
It is also not a surprise that most of the extreme ideas and rhetoric is rooted in the treason of the Confederacy. From Birtherism to calls to end birthright citizenship to nullification of Federal laws to states rights to calls for secession and more it seems the only flag Wingnuts respect is the old Confederate battle flag. And weaving these ideas together–just as it wove the Confederacy together–is racism, fear and deep, deep ignorance.
Case in point is the growing call for armed rebellion if voters and policy makers fail to place teabagger neo-Confederates in control of our Nation. From Palin to the lowliest wingnut blogger in his stars and bars boxers–and everywhere in-between–the threat of violence is repeatedly mentioned with varying degrees of subtlety.
The unsurprisingly named blog “Confederate Yankee” is a small–but typical–hub for the barely concealed racism of the Right. And naturally the site advises its readers to prepare for the ‘rebellion’:
I’ll lay it out bluntly for you; either the American people—not extremists, but good and decent patriots like your neighbors and yourselves—will revolt and destroy the ruling class and reform our government based upon first principles, or the United States we know as our forefather conceived it is dead.
I do not state this as hyperbole. I do not state this to incite violence. I state this as nothing more or less than an observation of both history and current events. [snip]
Revolution is a brutish, nasty business. Innocents will fall along with patriots and the corrupt, and success is not assured. [snip]
The question for you, my fellow Americans, is simple.
Will you fight, or will you surrender your liberties?
I pray for peace.
But I prepare for war.
Reading the CY is a bit like wading in a verbal sewer, not as vile as Stormfront but that may only be because the site still wants to pretend that their careful wording of some statements provides them a cloak deniability when it comes to their hatemongering. And I’m sure that like teabaggers Williams and Breitbart they will use their word parsing to cry reverse racism and white victimhood whenever somebody points out their racist neo-Confederate bile.
These folks would be jokes, except that their ilk has killed before and their fellow travelers will kill again. Therefore, the violence they advocate should be taken seriously as the rhetoric of nascent domestic terrorist cell groups–because that is what it is. And while I know that we are suppose to be understanding of their feelings, it really is time to call these neo-Confederate assholes what they are: traitors.
Instead, these American Confederate traitors are treated as a serious group of folks in our political discourse who need to be catered to by a lazy media and politicians lacking the integrity and courage to call out these thugs (see McCain, John; Graham, Lindsey; Gingrich, Newt; etc for examples).
It is very clear that these Confederates wankers do not believe in America, Our Constitution, Our Elections, Our Laws or anything that might be in the way of restoring the grand Confederacy of their fevered imaginations.
I noticed the other day that Jesus’ General has called for a special way to ‘honor’ all these wingnuts on Glenn Beck’s magic day of September 12 with a call for Burn The Confederate Flag Day. He offers some ways to get involved:
Ways to get involved:
- Host a flag-burning party on Sept. 12.
- Tell us where and when you’re holding it, and we’ll publish a list of events.
- Send us photos of the event. We’ll post them here.
- Upload a video of the event onto YouTube. We’ll embed it or link to it.
- Let them know we’re watching. Dress up like a clown and take a partially burned flag to a local tea party event (Don’t burn a flag at the event unless local laws allow it.)
- Spread the word via Facebook (here’s our Facebook group), Twitter, and other social media.
- Submit your own ideas, below in the comments. We’ll use them to update this list.
- Place a banner on your blog, website, or social media profile.
This sounds like a fine idea to me. It is way past time for the Confederacy and all it represents to be turn to ashes.
Cheers
Yutsano
I say let them do it. Let them try to get off their fat lazy asses and try to revolt. Let them overplay their hand and get defeated yet again. If the 27%ers are really so convinced that the rest of the country is willing to follow them into insurrection then let them get off their tails and walk the walk. But you and I both know it won’t happen. It’s easy to type words with a keyboard and hit submit, it’s totally different to organize factions enough to cause a revolution in this country. So forgive me for being unimpressed.
As a side note, thanks for the warm welcome for E.D. Hopefully he’s not too gunshy now.
JohnR
@Yutsano:
It’s not the “rebellion” from the fat, lazy Erick Ericksons of the world that’s the terrible risk – it’s the shootings and bombings from the insane individuals who become convinced that revolution is just around the corner and all it needs is a spark to set it off. These guys really ought to be called out – they love to casually throw around the labels, but just as Obama should have from the beginning called out the GOP for their deliberate and pre-announced obstruction – hurting the country to hurt the Democrats – these fools need to be identified for what they are doing by everyone at every opportunity. Fomenting armed insurrection is not exercising free speech.
MTiffany
Secession? Please don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, because I don’t want greasy ass prints on my door.
Dennis G.
@Yutsano:
Their revolution ain’t happening, but their are enough of them to do some real damage, especially if when the elections and/or the Republican corruptionists they back fail to produce the fantasy they seek. Then it will be more angry nuts with guns and bombs shooting folks, beating folks and blowing stuff up. Their proven capacity to resort to violence is the thing to keep an eye on.
The restoration of the Confederacy, their fantasized race war and their dreams of Wingnutopia on earth–not so much.
Cheers
And on the side note: I look forward to E.D.’s posts. I think it will make for a more interesting site.
soonergrunt
One thing you have to remember is that they have this fantasy that the military will revolt and stage a coup to remove ‘the usurper’ from power. They really do believe that they US Army is going to save the country from that guy in the White House who is -a ni**er- er -blackity black black- ummm, not native born, that’s it!
Bob Owens and his ilk can claim all they want that they aren’t racists, but one need only read the comments on their blogs and the writings of the bloggers they link to see that Owens is the polite front to the ugliness that is confederate thinking.
The confederacy was about one state right in particular, the right of the state to allow one man to hold another in bondage because of the color of his skin. Anyone who states otherwise is either lying or fucking stupid or a stupid fucking liar.
MNPundit
The thing I pointed out at DKos is that the airforce is riddled with Christianists. How bad are the other services? It may well be that when they do rise the military will split too.
If they do rise…. Every liberal they have ever murdered, whose life they destroyed, who was humiliated. All the people who struggled their entire lives to move this country forward into the modern world, who had compassion for those life hated. There will be a reckoning.
The only way for the Confederacy to burn to ashes is to burn the people who long for it to ashes themselves.
Uloborus
Revolution, of course, is not going to happen. It’s not even remotely in the cards. The huge much-hyped April 19th gun-toting event made that abundantly clear. The turnout was feeble. They talk the talk but absolutely, positively will not walk the walk. They have a huge tendency to be overweight seniors generally unsuited to the physical stresses of rebellion, and they are utterly unorganized and squabble with each other like children deciding who gets to wear the General Hat.
Unfortunately, DennisG alluded to the actual danger. This inflammatory and paranoid rhetoric is going to push a few individual or small groups of already dangerous fruitcakes over the cliff. You get crap like the IRS plane crash and the Oklahoma City Bomber. That latter shows that one psychotic ‘rebel’ is enough to cause a gruesome tragedy, even though they’re no threat to civil order as a whole.
Evolved Deep Southerner
There are enough people down in these parts who’d take this shit to heart enough to make an amateurishly spectacular mess in their own locales. They’d go Postal and not realize, until it was all over, that their “army” consisted of just them and their seriously addled brother-in-law. And even as they and their brother-in-law were being toted off, they’d believe they represented a much larger movement.
Thing is, how much damage could a crazy redneck and his brother-in-law do before they got toted off?
I pray we don’t find the answer to this question. Or, more to the point, I hope we don’t have to go there to find that answer.
You people really, really are clueless how it is down here.
Martin
@MNPundit: The other services aren’t half as bad as the Air Force. The Air Force was specifically targeted, as far as I can tell – they ran SAC, SAC had most of the nukes, and planes have small contingents with short chains of command, unlike boomers and other nuke deployments.
Uloborus
@MNPundit:
Not a shot in Hell. First, they ain’t going to rise. It’s not going to happen. They lack the will, the manpower, and the organization. They’re bitchy old people, not an actual rebellion. Assuming they somehow vote for secession – unlikely but at least imaginable – they have no military to enforce it.
Second, the military will not support them. Period. The military will tell them to go fuck themselves. Ask John Cole how enthusiastic the military is about overthrowing the civilian government. Those batty Christianists themselves are going to be battling years of conditioning to the absolute supremacy of the chain of command and loyalty to the nation, not to any political group or movement. And every military person around them will consider anyone who rebels a traitor and be less than sympathetic about it. We really, *really* worked hard to create a military that is not a threat to the civilian government.
Quaker in a Basement
You mean Confederate Yankee, si? One of Sadly, No‘s favorite sources for wingnut entertainment.
Mogden
When you look at the illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional actions that represent 90% of what the Federal Government does, it is really not too hard to understand these reactions.
– 2 undeclared, illegal wars
– war on drugs
– massive invasions of privacy / surveillance state
– bailout of every failed aristocrat and union boss in sight
– unchecked, unlimited federal power
– all of the above supported by debasement of the currency and borrowing money from the Chinese
freelancer (itouch)
Yeah, I’m loving this idea.
Found out from an uncle last week that my grandfather’s grandfather marched with Sherman.
Heard that and was all smiles. Burn it down great-great-greatgrandmofo!
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Mogden: Well, you had me until you dragged the Chinese into it.
Yutsano
I’m thinking a Miscegenation Kiss-Off, like in a public area somewhere. Get as many interracial couples together and lock lips over and over. Nothing can express a better counterpoint to hatred and violence than expressions of love and cooperation. Thoughts?
soonergrunt
@MNPundit:
We prosecute our birfers and racists in the Army.
Xenos
@Martin:
If this is the case, they should have looked to see what has happened in other countries where the local air force has attempted coups. It can be damned hard to run a rebellion from an air base when the guys with tanks decide to drive them through the front gates at 40 mph. And good luck stopping an armored column without any intelligence on the ground.
What else are they going to do, seize a radio station?
And nuclear blackmail, as suggested? Even rapture-ready wingnuts must not be that deluded.
aamchaz
Sometime I think tea parties forget in urban areas we have guns too. I’m so sick of fake conservatism, I’ve been spending more time at the shooting range.
Oh yeah I live in Chicago!
Yutsano
@Xenos: We, of course, are not dealing with entirely rational actors here. They are suffering from a delusion of a US that never really existed, but they cling to that because otherwise they have to admit they did truly lose. Rather than adapt, they choose to resist. The resistance is futile. But they will have to come to that realization.
Joe Lisboa
it is really not too hard to understand these reactions.
Try harder. You are part of the problem.
ruemara
@Yutsano:
I and the mr would be down for this.
Xenos
@Evolved Deep Southerner: Indeed. We sell bonds to anyone who wants to buy them. The Chinese have been collecting lots of dollars, and want somewhere to invest them, and so they buy T-Bills and Treasury Bonds. They idea that someone, somewhere, chooses to sell the bonds to The Chinese (a/k/a the Red Menace) is ridiculous.
soonergrunt
@Yutsano: And the thing that they do not dare to allow themselves to believe is that the President of the United States of America is a black man.
Thus, he can’t possibly have won an election, he has to be a usurper who isn’t eligible, because as we all know, the blacks can’t possibly win election.
The thing is this–I didn’t fight tours in Iraq and Afghanistan in the service of my country just so guys like Bob Owens could tear my country apart.
Joe Lisboa
soonergrunt for Congress. Seriously. Ya got my vote, sir.
Yutsano
@soonergrunt:
We give them too much credit by even entertaining this as a possibility. Dengre is correct in that we need to keep a close watch on their activities, but they are not in a position of power where they can even come close to tearing us apart. The demographics are not on their side, and they are dying. But they are not going gentle into that good night. We just need to expedite the process of their demise. We do that by simply remembering that we are more and stronger than they are.
@Joe Lisboa: Co-signed in extremis!
Uloborus
@soonergrunt:
I still say the blackness part only has a tiny part. A) Obama is a Democrat. THAT makes him illegitimate and he must have stolen the election. B) George Bush stoked these people hard, very hard, from the moment of 9/11. He made it abundantly clear that the nation was in imminent danger of destruction and that anyone who disagreed with him in any way was on the side of the terrorists. By now they believe it.
Or to put it another way, sure they don’t like him because he’s black, but being a Democrat is worse.
eco2geek
@Martin: Is that a “Christians invade the Air Force in order to gain access to nuclear weapons” conspiracy theory you’re advancing? Sorry, not buying it.
Eric U.
@eco2geek: they watched Dr. Strangelove and thought it was an instructional film
redoubt
Sherman tried to warn them and so did Dr. King. They were defeated twice; they will not tear this country apart a third time.
James E. Powell
There won’t be a revolution, but there may well be acts of violence. I dread another Oklahoma City.
What will happen is that the ruling class will continue to use them to beat the Democrats in congressional elections.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Dennis G.: Is it me or is Charles Manson having the last laugh?
eco2geek
@Eric U.: Next thing you know, they’ll be trying to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
Cacti
My question, as always, for those who believe there is some sort of inherent right of rebellion in the Second Amendment…
If such is the case, why have there always been laws against sedition and insurrection?
asiangrrlMN
@Joe Lisboa: I will campaign for soonergrunt tirelessly. This would be so freaking awesome.
dengre,you continue to move me with your writing and fill me with despair at the same time. This shit is gonna get so ugly before it gets any better. Frankly, right now, I am too tired to fight. I am tired of this bullshit and the keyboard commando dicking off over their supposed real ‘Murika. If they only did damage to each other and themselves, I wouldn’t give a fuck, but they are going to take out many many innocents before they are done. I grieve.
@Uloborus: I would flip that. They don’t like him because he’s a Democrat, and the fact that he’s black makes it that much worse. It’s adding insult to injury.
@Yutsano: I’d be down for that. A miscegenation/omnisexual kiss-off.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Something akin to this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zixQYDeRtzI
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: I KNEW it was going to be that vid. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I, ah, have to check on that thing….
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Hey if the video fits…plus it was the only one I could think of off the top of my head. I’m thinking this is FH #1’s influence.
IM
TIDOS Yankee. Treason in defense of slavery. I think LGM – but perhaps it was sadly no – coined the term. You should adopt it, especially at burn the TIDOS flag day. The miscegenation kiss is a good idea too.
El Cid
I like the fact that in all this discussion of repealing the 14th Amendment, I don’t see anyone prominently discussing the specifically anti-Confederacy nature of the amendment in question.
The last 4 sections explicitly focus on destroying the political powers of the Confederacy.
Removing House representation based on the number of people former Confederate states bar eligible votes; barring former insurrectionists from federal office; and barring the US from being responsible for any insurrectionist debts.
You’re talking about repealing the 14th Amendment while the majority of the amendment concerns barring the power of groups which engage in insurrection.
Insurrection, a term which would apply beyond the Confederacy.
El Cid
And on the Confederate Yankee himself, he can be disabled when a stiff wind blows over his barbecue grill.
Doctor Science
What continues to astound me is people who say they’ll revolt and destroy the ruling class and *don’t* mean the rich. How can you even think the phrase “ruling class” and not mean good, old-fashioned, torches and pitchforks, class warfare?
I’m not exactly endorsing calls for armed assaults on the wealthy, but at least it would make *sense*. It’s as though there’s a mental block preventing them from recognizing the eternal cross-cultural truth: “the ruling class has the money.”
mclaren
This actually sounds sensible and is almost certainly true.
The key point of contention, of course, involves the meaning of the word “revolt.”
The American people revolted against the misrule of the top 1% in November 2008. The revolt was non-violent and took the form of sweeping electoral changes. Unfortunately, those electoral changes have not resulted in correspondingly sweeping policy changes. Obama seems partly to blame for that, congress partly to blame, the massive propaganda machine run by the Republicans (Fox News/Washington Times/Wall Street Journal/intellectual-whore far-right think tanks, etc.) are partly to blame. Regardless, America is not dealing with its crises, and the crises keep getting worse.
We cannot continue the War on Drugs, the endless unwinnable foreign Vietnams parts deux, 3, 4, etc., the limitless cost increases in our broken medical-industrial complex, America’s insatiable oil addiction, the dissolution of the constitution (Obama’s order to assassinate a U.S. citizen without charges and without a trial is so grossly illegal that it constitutes grounds for impeachment), the continued brutality and casual murders of innocent bystanders by unaccountable militarized muggers with badges misnamed “cops,” the infinite expansion of the “Show me your papers, mein Herr!” Surveillance State, the continued offshoring of America’s high-wage high-skilled jobs to PhDs in China and the third world.
If we continue these trends, America as we have known it will cease to exist. What will replace the America we know will be a combination of East Germany, Brazil and Mexico.
It will be a country where the top 1% exist beyond the law, where the police are more dangerous to the average person than the criminals, where the rule of law does not exist and where people who say the wrong thing about the government get “disappeared,” where the majority of the population subsists in squalid favelas working as maids and chauffeurs and gardeners for the top 1%.
“Revolt” could mean many things. It might mean a general strike that shuts the entire economy down until the constitution is restored. It might mean non-violent protests that force Washington to end our foreign wars and scale back the military-industrial-surveillance complex. It might mean the formation of a new third party in a massive electoral landslide that sweeps the Democrats and the Republicans out of power at the ballot box.
It seems inarguable that America’s current unsustainable trends cannot continue into the indefinite future. There will come a breaking point. Whether that breaking point involves default on U.S. treasury bills, or a Dien Bien Phu type defeat of an American army in some third-world hellhole, or mass refusal by Americans to go along with continued surveillance-state harassment and intimidation by the government (we’ve already seen this with the mass revolt against REAL ID), or a widespread pushback at the state level against crazy federal policies (we’re already seeing that with intitatives to legalize marijuana in CA and OR), no one can say. A tax revolt is a form of revolt. Massive universal violation of federal statutes until they become dead letter laws, as in the speakeasies under Prohibition, is another form of revolt. States refusing to send tax monies to the federal government for the endless expansion of a useless military and a worthless anti-American surveillance states would be another kind of revolt.
We don’t know what form the eventual break with these unsustainable trends will take. We do know that trends like the endless expansion of the US military budget and limitless erasure of basic provisions of the constitution like habeas corpus and the prohibition against murdering U.S. citizens without charges, a trial, and due process are unsustainable, and as Nixon economist Herb Stein remarked, “Trends that are unsustainable have a tendency to end.”
The current misrule of America by an unaccountable corporate oligarchy controlled by the top economic 1% is not sustainable and as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in today’s essay, is already leading to the collapse of American society. Either the top 1% of America will be destroyed by taxing ’em into submission or removing ’em from the reins of power or some other method, or America as we have known it will cease to exist and will turn into something like Chile under General Pinochet.
Therefore the quote from Yankee Confederate seems accurate and verifiably true.
El Cid
@Doctor Science: The good old early 20th century fashist movements (sp sic in case there’s a moderation ban) popularly targeted ‘the ruling class,’ by which they meant things like Jews, soshullists, ethnic groups, the like. Some of whom were in rich positions; but it wasn’t the wealthy as a class.
Remember that Mussolini used his former soshullism to reverse its Marxian associations — there could be no class struggle within one nation, but class struggles between nations as if nations were one coherent organism. Class struggles within nations were like infections of a functioning body.
The teatard neo-Confederates look at the USA the same way. There’s no class war between the workers and the rich, but between the workers and the parasites, the ethnic foreigners who refuse Americanization, and it’s because of these sticking-out parts that the USA is no longer a functioning national organism but akin to a body suffering a cancer.
Sly
Can I dress up like William T. Sherman instead? I’d have to grow my beard out a bit, but I think I can capture that rebel-killing glare of his. I just think the symbolism works better, considering that Sherman’s strategy literally entailed burning the Confederacy to the ground.
aimai
@Doctor Science:
Doctor Science makes a great point. This “ruling class” stuff is coming from Rush,too, in this recent attacks on Michelle Obama as “Michelle Antoinette…” and yet he doesn’t mean rich people like himself, or large corporations, when he preaches class warfare. Its been fascinating watching the rhetorical jump they’ve made since the very appearance of Obama on the national stage from “Obama and black people are affirmative action ghetto trash who don’t deserve to be in our elite” to “Obama and all black people are already our rulers/elite/wealthy class and need to be thrown out of power.”
aimai
Cacti
@aimai:
Rush is just your average, working stiff…
With a 44 million dollar Palm Beach mansion, repleat with a life-size oil painting of himself.
Michael
@MNPundit:
You echo my concerns. My money is on the Army and Navy breaking that attempt.
Michael
@Uloborus:
Every redneck in Peapatch, Mississippi was sure that Sharia was coming there. It was a goofy atmosphere.
kommrade reproductive vigor
War! War! War!
Fap! Fap! Fap!
Yawn. I’m a D.C. native and grew up thinking the Ruskies were going to reduce my ass to radioactive twinkle-dust. The thought of some cretins rolling into D.C. in a minivan full of guns n’ ammo just doesn’t do it for me.
Plus, they seem to think the 2d Am prohibits Lieburul Hippies from buying guns. Odd that.
jon
Owens regretfully can’t go on any rebellious crusade, he’s got a solidarity meeting to attend with his fellow bloggers.
Solidarity!
Frank
@Mogden:
But the problem is that these people are in favor of these 2 undeclared illegal wars. If anything, they also want to attack Iran.
The thing instead they are angry about are entitlements programs and other non-defense spending.
jon
@Sly: Get an orange Dodge Charger, paint an American flag on top (with however many stars it would have had in 1865,) put in a horn that plays “Yankee Doodle”, and call it the General Sherman. Just don’t drive it anywhere south of DC.
grandpajohn
About that Sherman bit, I don’t think he is the best of role models for fighting insurgencies since along with his burning the homes of women and children to the ground , his policy also included a lot of unsupervised raping and looting of women and children who had no men around to try to protect them, the kind of things that our present day military forces are encouraged not to do.
And before the zealots attack for defending the rebels, let me just say that for all those who want the history to be correct, Shermans marauders actions as described above are clearly a part of history and will be found in the history books of the time.
As in the way Iraqi people responded to invasion of their homeland and the occupation of their country, people of the south reacted in the same way to the treatment they received from the carpetbaggers and scalawags , political hacks and thieves that were given control of the occupied states with little or no control from the federal government, done in a mindset of revenge. Think of the reconstruction period in the south in terms of the last 8 years of bush, except it was several times worse,where all branchs of governing was controlled political hacks and cronies. competence was not a factor in the appointments , only how much they could steal and pass on as payola. it was the reaction to this type of rule once reconstruction was overturned that caused the conditions to arise that existed in the south in terms of segregation, an over reaction to be sure, sort of in the same mode as I see here of over reaction by elements that label everything southern as evil with out regard to the Around 40% of who vote democratic and yet you discard us as stupid rednecks. From reading this thread, if I didn’t know better, I would assume that all tea parties are in southern states, and all acts of racism and bigotry occur only in southern states. WE see the actions that the republicans take against Latinos that are converting their voters into a democratic bloc, and yet we forget Deans proven workable strategy of the 50 state approach, so why are some you so intent on destroying the state democratic party that exist in the minority here in the south instead of working to increase them from minority to majority? Every time I read on blogs slurs and slams against southerners it is waving a red flag in our faces, just like the repubs are doing to the Latinos
thalarctos
@jon:
Top Gear explored just that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoqr1cpeRHc
“They shot their own sign–what’re they going to do to us?”
“I’m not gay; I’m married and have 3 children.” (the British accent does not, to the Alabaman ears, reinforce the message.)
“We decided to scamper.”
soonergrunt
@Michael: The Army doesn’t like the Air Force anyway. The AF as an institution has long forgotten the very reason for their existence, which is to support the Army. Add in the fact that the Army is a LOT less religious than the AF–that right wing takeover shit failed with the Army in the 1990s, and as someone else noted it gets very hard to protect your air base against a battalion of tanks.
Jack The Second
The 1865 flag had 36 stars: picture.
Fun fact: the Union did not remove stars from their flag during the Civil War.
soonergrunt
@grandpajohn: because you don’t see the Minnesota republican party, as disgusting as republicans generally are, calling for the destruction of the union, or haven’t you been paying attention?
because the state of New Jersey never engaged in treason and sedition in support of enslaving black people, and the modern New Jersey republican party, dirtbags that they are, has never advocated a return to those glorious days of New Jersey history as far as I can tell.
Shall I go on?
Maxwel
Ok…
This time let’s not repeat the mistake of 1865. Hang the traitors.
soonergrunt
@Maxwel: Damn straight.
If they’d done that to every confed field grade officer and above, there never would’ve been any of this shit about the romantic lost cause or any of that other nonsense.
Michael
@soonergrunt:
The Talibangelicals tended toward the Air Force because Armying is hard. In the Air Force, its all clean and air conditioned, with lots of ribbons.
PS – what is the difference between the Air Force and the Coast Guard?
In times of war, the Coast Guard becomes part of the armed forces.
Dennis G.
@Quaker in a Basement:
Yep. Thanks for the catch. I’ve fixed it.
Cheers
Michael
@soonergrunt:
The mass hanging of Jefferson Davis, Andrew Stevens, Judah Benjamin, Nathan Bedford Forrest and Robert E Lee would have sent an unmistakable message. You sure in shit wouldn’t see any Southern monuments to the Confederacy today.
valdivia
Amen. That is all.
sylvainsylvain
I live in OK too, and unfortunately soonergrunt wouldn’t make it out of the primary. The folks round here have bought into the ‘Mooslims are coming to get you…and Dems are helping!!’ lie REALLY hard.
I think it’s because they’re so used to being lied to, pandered to, that anything outside of what they already believe scares them so much that they run back to Beck, Rush, and their local whip-em-up preacher to be lied to some more.
Makes it tough to be here in OK though.
JGabriel
Sly:
Why is Sherman playing with his nipple in that photograph?
I mean, okay, sure, he’s playing with his nipple because it’s fun, but why get himself photographed doing it? It’s not like he had access to Facebook.
.
Dennis G.
@mclaren:
Nope. His quote and his logic are deeply flawed. In everything you cite are things CY celebrates as long as it is Confederate oligarchs at the top.
His reading of the Constitution, and yours, are wrong IMHO. And so is your effort to evenly assign blame/responsibility for the current state of affairs to Obama, Congress and media propaganda. Nice way to let the Wingnuts completely off the hook. So you expect to sell the notion that it is the Black guy’s fault and those damn Democrats and that damn liberal media. What epic fail bullshit. The mess we live was created by the modern conservative movement. You give them no credit for fucking things up at all and you give them a complete pass for any accountability.
CY’s ideas are bullshit and so is your defense of them.
Cheers
JGabriel
@sylvainsylvain:
It could be worse. You could be in…
Umm. All right, you win. I can’t really think of anyplace worse. Many that are just as bad, yes, but none worse.
Of course, I could be biased. I live in NYC and have never been to Oklahoma. But when I think of OK, it’s as a Boschian nightmare of dust bowls, plains, fields of grain, racists, midwestern politeness, Christian TV, and jello with marshmellows – a sort of Twin Peaks version of Little House on the Prairie.
I could be wrong.
.
soonergrunt
@sylvainsylvain:
Did somebody suggest I run for something when I wasn’t looking? Cause I sure as hell don’t want to run for anything except the border. The moment my wife’s pension vests, we’re out of here. I’m sick and tired of these fucked up people.
soonergrunt
@Dennis G.: Much more polite, shorter, and concise version of what I was going to say. Thank you, Sir.
Dennis G.
@grandpajohn:
You really need to read the history of Reconstruction. The Birth of a Nation was a racist propaganda film, not a documentary. If more Southerners knew their history then the Confederacy would have all the appeal that Nazism has in modern Germany. One can honor the South and Southern heritage without celebrating a hateful racist ideology like the Confederacy.
As the Drive By Truckers sang of the old battle flag: “…it’s the only flag I want to drag [behind my pick-up]”.
Reconstruction is an era with many, many great stories, successes and events. Most have been buried in a Confederate rewrite of history. You cite the myth as fact. It is not.
Cheers
wag
This is the song I’ll be blasting while I burn my stars and bars. I love me some zevon.
Sly
@JGabriel:
In that picture, he’s looking at a plantation mansion outside Savannah slowly burning to the ground. A group of Confederates stand by, their fits of anguish and tears grief unable to stop the blaze, but it is the only option they have as their way of life is crumbling before their very eyes.
This image, of course, was an immense turn-on for Sherman. Nipple-tweaking thus ensued.
Allan
@grandpajohn: War is hell, and the South started it. Fuck you.
Tim Connor
@mclaren: Very coherent, and almost irrefutably correct.
Thank you.
alix
I heard a man (acquaintance) going on and on about how the US in the fifties was “free”and full of liberty, and I finally broke in and said, “You might think differently about how free the 50s were if you were non-white or a woman.”
Well, he went off on a rant about how “freedom” has been so damaging to women, and then branched off into a paean to his mother, who graduated from college in 1926 (and “never worked,” which he seemed to think somehow proved how lucky and “free” she was).
Someone had taken me aside and said that my “tone” was harsh, to which of course I replied that it certainly wasn’t as harsh as HIS. But let’s not be childish. I smiled at this man and said, “You must be so proud of your mother! What an accomplishment, especially in that time! What did she study?”
This kind of perplexed him, but he finally said she’d studied library science, and they had 10K books in their house when he grew up.
I repeated that he was lucky to have such a mother, and asked a few more questions about her education. Just being nice and trying to ignore the fact that he would, if he could, return us to a time when most women weren’t even admitted to colleges. I just tried to find out more about his mother.
You know, I really hate to say it, but this nicey-niceness kind of worked. At the end of the conversation, he said to the group at large that “Freedom” was something that he knew wasn’t fully allowed to everyone in the 50s, so maybe we could have today’s sense of civil rights combined with the 50s capitalism.
I didn’t point out that Eisenhower’s tax rates were much higher than now, but just gravely agreed that we wouldn’t want to give up the widespread freedom we have now.
It sort of annoys me– he wasn’t nice to me, certainly, in his pronouncements that second-class citizenship was enough for me (I’m sure that’s not what he thought he was saying when he loved up the 50s). But I know if I would have just battered him with reality in a straight way, he would have just yelled back. But then again, liberals do tend to be always thinking, “What’s the other guy feeling?” Trouble is, it kind of works. At least he’s opened a bit to other versions of reality.
JGabriel
@Sly: Ah. Fair enough. Thanks for the explanation. That clears it up.
.
Michael
@Sly:
Sweet – although for sheer eroticism I like the idea of him also seeing all of the aristocrat’s family china being propped up on logs and used for needed target practice….
Michael
@alix:
Wen you’ve locked 20% of eligible workers from the total demographic into working for about 15% of the money you make, I’m sure that economic times seem great and you are free to make lots and lots of choices. Combine with having the cops devoting their rage and patrolling time to stomping all over that minority, then it is real easy to love and respect law enforcement, too. When you have a military that is overwhelmingly consisting of and led by folks in your demographic, it is easy to proclaim your fealty to them and to know they’re keeping you “free”.
alix
@grandpajohn:
Well, yeah, but you know, the Confederates started a war against the Union (also known as The United States, you know, the nation). 19th C warfare was pretty brutal.
alix
@Michael:
Can you be more specific? I’m not sure who the 20% are, or who the minority is, or who my demographic is? Or who I am in this?
I’m a teacher (yes, with 2 X chromosomes :) and make about $40K a year, so if anyone’s only making 15% of MY wages, well, you’re right. That’s really rotten.
I’m just not sure what you mean, or more who you mean?
Uloborus
@Tim Connor:
Irrefutably correct? I stopped reading when he started making up stuff that hasn’t happened.
demimondian
By any reasonable standard, the March to the Sea constituted collective punishment. Yes, the Army of the Tennessee was foraging, and, yes, that’s allowed under the Laws of War, but the width of the swathe of destruction was clearly intended to starve the civilians during the following winter.
That said, the visual benefit of marching, unsupported, through hundreds of miles of enemy territory was huge. It showed how militarily hollow the traitors’ claims were — yes, they had armies, but they had nothing else. The last possibility that any other nation (say, “Great” Britain, which very much wanted to see the United States divided and neutered) would try to step in and politely offer to “negotiate a just settlement respecting both sides” evaporated on Christmas Day, 1864, when the traitors who ran Savannah were ejected from power.
Gus
@soonergrunt: You do see Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial candidate calling for ratification of any federal statute in the state. Nevada is hardly a confederate state, and Sharon Angle is essentially calling for armed insurrection. No, it’s a Republican thing, not just a Southern Republican thing.
Kiril
@thalarctos: Holy Shit!
In a moment of incredibly bad timing (and judgement), I moved to Alabama just before Sept. 11. So glad to be out of there now.
When I started watching the video, I was thinking that the slogans weren’t strong enough to provoke a reaction and the boys would drive through and find the only cool Alabamite in town and there would be a lesson that Alabama isn’t as scary as people think. But my redneck brothers and sisters came through.
Kiril
@alix: He’s talking about Southern apartheid in the 50s.
JGabriel
demimondian:
Err, um, I won’t argue the collective punishment or the swath of destruction, but a tactic to starve them in winter? We’re talking Geogia, are the winters really that bad?
I’m probably wrong on this, but it seems like it would be hard to recover from that type of damage at any time of the year. I’m not sure seasonality was a factor.
.
Mike in NC
When his troops entered South Carolina, one of Sherman’s commanders is said to have told them, “Boys, this is where treason began, and by God this is where it will end!”
Many “good Germans” suffered terribly when the Red Army advanced on Berlin in 1945. Trouble was, most of them were quite happy and content living in the Third Reich for the previous decade. Payback’s a bitch.
soonergrunt
@demimondian: The march to the sea was more about strategic warfare than anything else. Destroying the breadbasket of the Confederacy probably shortened the war by a six months to a year. It was the first practice of total war in the modern era, where the destrcution of the industrial and agricultural base of the Confederate war economy was the feature and not a bug. Those people were supporting the war effort and just because they were not in uniform does not excuse them.
Pardon if I have absolutely no sympathy for people, among them blood relatives, who comitted treason in defense of slavery.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Maxwel:
Are you willing to tie the knot yourself? Or pull the lever? Or decide who the “traitors” are?
Are you willing to come down to Texas, bodily pull me out of my house, and string me up from the nearest tree with your own two hands? Or shoot me with your own gun? How about you, soonergrunt?
If so, come on down and get it over with. If not, shut the fuck up. That goes for the rest of you assholes.
Every dengre thread devolves into this bullshit.
jake the snake
@Xenos:
Do the view “Dr. Strangelove” as a guidebook rather than a warning?
frosty
@soonergrunt: I Just finished a book called “Cataclysm” about Hap Arnold and the XXth Air Force in the Pacific. Arnold ramrodded development of the $3 billion B-29 (for comparison, the Manhattan project was $2 billion), fought Nimitz and MacArthur to keep his strategic bombing force out from under the theater commanders, and was instrumental in splitting off the Air Force because the strategic bombing role didn’t belong with the Army or Navy.
The Army got to keep helicopters for air support, and the USAF got everything else, most of which ended up on the bottom of their priority list. I’m of the opinion that the A-10 Warthog and other ground-attack aircraft ought to be Army and not AF.
Nicole
@JGabriel: My husband and I, like you, live in NYC; unlike you, my husband was born and raised in Oklahoma.
And he says your description is spot on. One of many reasons he now lives in NYC.
demimondian
@soonergrunt: Um, dude. I frequently point that I had relatives on both sides of the war. The difference is that the folks in the Grey viewed the ones in Blue as their property. I have no sympathy for the traitors.
The laws and standards of war have changed. The March to the Sea was legal by the standards of that time, but it would now be (correctly) viewed as a war crime. It was collective punishment — go listen to the words of _Marching Through Georgia_ if you need proof.
demimondian
@JGabriel: The march happened in the fall and early winter, after the harvest, for the most part, and involved destroying stores as well as crops — guaranteeing starvation.
soonergrunt
@Grumpy Code Monkey: That depends. Are you going to commit treason by taking up arms against the government of the United States, or assisting those who do so?
If you are, you really don’t have much space to whine about the appropriate treatment should you get caught.
If you aren’t, and I mean, if you’re not running around in the uniform or acoutrements of the enemy, then you probably have nothing to worry about.
So are you hyperventilating over nothing, or are you planning treason?
soonergrunt
@demimondian: If taking the war to the enemy’s war-making capacity is a war crime, then war itself is a crime.
With which, FWIW, I have no problem really.
As far as the concept of War Crimes go, it always seemed to me that the very idea that there were some things in war that aren’t done because they’re inhumane is nothing more than a sick joke that is part of the system by which warfare is made the norm and not the exception.
We can go to war with clean conscience because we only kill and maim certain members of the enemy’s population and not others?
What the fuck have the laws of land warfare ever accomplished except to make war more palatable as a policy option than it should ever be?
soonergrunt
@frosty:
I’m of the opinion that the Air Force ought to be disestablished as a unique military branch and the strategic assets placed under the operational control of the Navy and the tactical assets placed under operation control of the Army.
demimondian
@soonergrunt: I agree, for what it’s worth — and so did Cump Sherman: “Some say war is all glory. I say it is all Hell.” Nevertheless, the Fourth Geneva Convention clearly holds that collective punishment and the targeting of civilians are war crimes. Now, there may well be reason to reinterpret those clauses. I suspect that the Fourth Convention “really meant to ban” mass executions and reprisals against captive populations, but the wording, as interpreted, is unambiguous.
grandpajohn
Well as I expected, the reaction from the enlightened folks here is just as I expected.You know, I get damned tired of reading all the posts here about we in the South should quit living in the past , well it time for you flamers to live up to what you preach. AS exactly none of you seemed to notice , I did not try to justify any of the action of the confederacy, rather I was trying to open some very closed minds that now is the time we need to work to heal wounds and expand the 50 state strategy, and you don’t do that by insulting the people who you are trying to win over, To Label all southerners as red necked racist, is exactly the same kind of bullshit tarring everyone with the same brush you people piss and moan about republicans doing to you. so man up, either cut the shit or quit bitching
And as for the history of reconstruction, I am well aware of it, I live in the middle of its effects. So all residents of the southern states were traitors huh? even the women and children? this excused the raping of women who were not combatants and There was no resistance to secession? none of the men of southern states went to fight in the union army? Don’ t talk to me about studying history .. but again the point is for those we claim to possess tolerance of others is, Do what you ask us to do, quit living in the past, and work for the future, use ideas and persuasion to change minds, insults and slurs certainly wont do, or maybe you folks are just here to be like bush all hat and no cattle.
rf80412
@Doctor Science: It is an article of faith for conservatives that the rich have no power in our society. Ever since the New Deal, they’ve been told that we live in some Soviet-style system where bureaucrats and liberal politicians have all the power, and use it in order to oppress and impoverish the rich. How can the rich possibly be the ruling class when we’re teetering on the brink of socialism?
soonergrunt
@grandpajohn:
And who the hell, pray, said these things?
I’m not interested in winning over people who hold the beliefs that have been ascribed to them here. I’m interested in defeating them at the ballot box when possible and on the battlefield if necessary.
Those who do not hold those beliefs (and I assume that would include you and the grumpy code monkey) are supposed to be the ones fighting against Bob Owens and his ilk from there. How’s that working out by the way? You might want to make sure that your car/truck has been serviced recently and google map a couple of escape routes if your plans don’t work out, cause you’re in the minority in your part of the country.
Comrade Kevin
@grandpajohn:
If you can’t argue without making stuff up, just give up.
frosty
@soonergrunt: Hmm. Interesting approach. Navy’s got some experience in projecting power over some distance, and it’s also got those boomers.
What are your thoughts on breaking up the DoD and going back to the Navy Department and War Department? I’d always assumed the DoD came about because there was nowhere else to put an independent USAF.
thalarctos
@Kiril:
Good on you for getting out. I grew up there, and I cannot recall one moment, since becoming sentient, that I wasn’t planning my escape. I now divide my time between England and Seattle, and am much happier as a result.
I had the honour of meeting Morris Dees once, and I thanked him for–unlike me–staying there, and fighting the good fight.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@soonergrunt:
I am hyperventilating about a bunch of assholes who sound EXACTLY like the people dengre is bitching about. Seriously, right now you sound no different from Bachman or Malkin or Beck or Special Ed.
No, I don’t intend on taking up arms against the government, nor assisting those who do. I do get nervous when I hear people say things like “hang all traitors”; the definition of “traitor” tends to be distressingly fluid. For some people posting here, the simple fact that I am a Texan makes me suspect.
Funny how all dengre threads tend to take the same trajectory. Balloon Juice might as well add a new tag called “Fuck The South”.
I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with Internet Tough Guy Syndrome. “Taking up arms against traitors” is about the worst manifestation of it.
soonergrunt
@Grumpy Code Monkey: Believe it or not, I actually do sympathize with you on that. It can be distressing to be tarred with a broad brush. Happens to members of the military quite a lot.
And not ten miles from where I sit is a monument to the largest incident of antigovernment right-wing terrorism in the history of the North American continent, and all of his victims were Oklahomans.
But from listening to people from around these and other parts these days sound like they think McVeigh’s primary crimes were doing it here and thinking too small. Surely you don’t deny that this is a problem that bears watching?
soonergrunt
@frosty: I have no problem at all with keeping one unified DoD. We could pretty severely curtail the DoD civilian/contractor workforce by eliminating an entire service and its’ bureaucratic infrastructure as well. Keeping one DoD means there’s only one cabinet level secretary instead of two whose brief is military/naval matters.
Of course, I think the civilian side of DoD needs to be cut down. It’s the most wasteful part of the government that there is.
All intelligence capabilities that are not security/counterintelligence and tactical intelligence need to be removed from the military as well.
Bill Murray
@frosty I think the DOD was an attempt to gloss over holes in organization that happen when you have different branches of service. Not that they aren’t still there.
Quiddity
Anybody know why Confederate Yankee is named that? Is it someone up north (Yankee) who likes the Confederacy?
Emma
GrandpaJohn: Nothing justifies the rape of women and the killing of children. Now show me where the Southern soldiers were all perfect gentlemen to Northern women and black female slaves and always made sure Northern children and boy slaves were safe…. and I’ll try not to burst into hysterical laughter. EVERY time there’s war, there’s rape and abuse and both sides do it. So stop trying to throw the women and children at our heads.
Nevertheless I agree with you that it’s time to heal the wounds. The problem is, your co-citizens keep preaching treason. And there’s very little accommodation that can be made with that.But if you’re telling me you’re fighting that fight in your neck of the woods, tell me how I can help. And I do mean that.
grandpajohn
MY mistake was in assuming that the morality police here had a reading comprehension level at higher than a 4th grade level, obviously a wrong assumption on my part unless the detractors here willfully took my comments out of context.
As to my points does anyone here think that a military officer with the same philosophy and using the same tactics that Sherman used would in todays military be given command over troops fighting an insurgency?
As to my remarks about raping and pillaging, the reference I made was to during the so called reconstruction period which reference to a history book will tell you occurred after the war was over not during actual periods of combat, so was raping and stealing still valid and proper to be carried out?
And If one took the time to actually read all my remarks , the commenting on Shermans tactics and the travesty called reconstruction was for purposes of identifying causes and motives of why southern people acted as they did after the end of reconstruction, You know sort of like the way the Iraqui people reacted to their country being occupied and pillaged a point seemed to be totally over looked as were all my other points Once I made the mistake of mentioning Sherman and reconstruction lthe red maeat was thrown to the wolves and every thing else ignored.
Never did I say that segregation the associated acts that went with it was justified but since I am a lonely voice here all the moral do gooders immediately knew that in my heart I was another racist red necked southerner, even if I did vote for Obama.
And once again the final point You can all continue to dwell on the past, an act that we in the south are accused but you are doing the same its called hypocrisy, and you flame people for any reasons you wish , but you sure as hell won’t win their votes that way . Deans 50 state strategy don’t have a chance if you continually demean the 35-40 % of the people that are currently on your side.
And thank you grumpy code monkey, you alone seem to have an idea of where I am coming from, You know I am 73 years old and have lived through and seen many things that most of the posters here can only read in history books. I saw the end of WWII and how we as a country treated the losers of that conflict and how that treatment made new friends instead of continued enemies. I saw the conflict in the south and the extremes and violence to which people would go to avoid change, I saw the effects of the civil rights legislation and how it changed the south and the country I taught at a high school at the time we were going through school integration and I saw how the kids, the great majority of them calmly accepted it and went on with the business of learning, even the adults, there were no riots or demonstrations against integration in the town where I lived. We accepted change and went on with our lives and surprise many of us discovered that we were the better for it.
Yes there are still red necks and racists here, but the majority of the people at least in my town have learned that life goes on and change can be for the better, But they will not change their politics and vote for people who slander and belittle them just as the blacks and hispanics will not vote for republicans for that reason, At age 73I long ago learned the lesson of that old addage, You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Jerrimandered
Wow,
what a thread. I’m from southern WV, where one saying was that after a shift underground, everyone was black. Not that there wasn’t some segregation and racial hatred around, but the water fountains never said “Whites Only”. When my family drove down south on vacation in the 50s, I saw the signs, and asked what they meant.
My Mom said “We’ll have to talk about it later, hush for now.”
When I lived down south in the 1970s while in the service, I saw a liquor store in town that had a sign that said “All proceeds from sales to N****** will be donated to the Klan!” Pretty tasteless, maybe not even illegal at the time, he wasn’t refusing to do business with black people, just promising to mess with them.
The rules of war were very different in the 1800s. I’m thinking there should have been more hanging of the leadership of Treason in the name of slavery. It should probably still be illegal to display signs in favor of Treason in the name of slavery, after all shouting Fire in a crowded theater is a bad thing.
But there are civilized folks down south, if only because big companies continue to transfer civilized folks to their southern operations. Well, I’m joshing a little. There are even native born civilized folks down south, and some of them stay to be with family, help Mom with Grandma, and try to spread enlightenment.
But if there are Republicans, like Rush, who think that talking about Treason in support of the wealthy Republicans because they can’t win elections is a good thing – well I’ve got news for them. The FBI is listening.
If there are christenists who think they can take control of even small parts of the nation using strategic or even tactical aircraft, well, tank divisions are pretty tough, and our ground to air defense is much better than the AF has ever had to deal with. The military security folks are listening to them too.
I know folks who collect guns, and the biggest non-professional collector I know is a “dirty hippy” in management clothes, suit and tie M-F and living in the country, shooting at a professional level, on Sat and Sun.
So, yeah, I don’t understand the Repugs who forget that the 2nd amendment applies to everyone. I recommend that everyone learn to use short guns and long guns well, it isn’t hard, and America is proud of its reputation as a country of sharp-shooters. After all, who would want to invade a country where everyone is armed and trained to shoot well?
Last time Switzerland was invaded? Like just over 2000 year ago, by Hannibal with elephants, to attack Rome. In Switzerland, everyone is in the Army, and they all have real attack weapons (as opposed to hunting rifles that look bad) in a closet at home, and practice with government issued ammo!
On vacation, near Camp Lejeune, on rainy days we regularly visit a very professional weapons range and burn several hundred rounds up in personally owned weapons and rented weapons. Glocks and Berettas rented for $6. Advice from professional range masters who are either recently discharged or currently serving Marines.
My buddy’s wife is a grown up Southern Belle who never shot a pistol before, but hunted birds over dogs from her youth. Her first magazine through a .45 was a group you could cover with a coin. Her Mom was a military wife who fought off communist terrorists overseas with her .45 just after the end of WW II, protecting her family as they came over the garden wall. That would have been a sight to see!!
She’s no racist, and works hard to bring enlightenment to everyone she meets, as we all do I hope.
No, the Republicans are talking hate to influence voters who can be swayed by that kind of talk. Some folks seem to like it, while I despise it. I hope most folks despise it as much as I do, then we will still have a democracy we can be proud of in December.
Maybe we’ll see some arrests if there are any untoward events – it wouldn’t surprise me. President Obama doesn’t seem to be a guy who would allow crazy talk to morph into crazy action. After all , the FBI has already arrested a few of the crazies. Now if they would only go for the people talking them into it…
Hang in there boyz and gurls! We’re all working for a better tomorrow, one where hate isn’t tolerated. I don’t even hate those poor deluded haters, just what they don’t understand they stand for.
Best to all,
J
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Unfortunately, DennisG alluded to the actual danger. This inflammatory and paranoid rhetoric is going to push a few individual or small groups of already dangerous fruitcakes over the cliff. You get crap like the IRS plane crash and the Oklahoma City Bomber.
Let them. Let the small number of terrorists show themselves, that the larger number of numbnuts can have the same laws they’ve been supporting rabidly for years can apply to them.
Let every regular commentator at Cy get hunted down, hauled in and interrogated. How can they complain – are they pro-terrorist?
Dennis G.
@grandpajohn:
It is a mistake these days to equate the modern Confederacy movement with The South. These are very different things. The Confederacy started in the South but ever since The Birth of a Nation turn the ‘lost cause’ into a pop culture phenomenon it is a political and cultural movement that can be found in all 50 states. When it comes to the worst racist bile of the modern Confederacy much of it, like the Confederate Yankee or Williams or Brietbart, comes from outside of the South.
To advocate against the neo-Confederate movement is not an attack on The South any more than to advocate against neo-Nazis is an attack on modern Germany.
All that said I appreciate your input into these threads.
Be well and cheers.
Wile E. Quixote
@soonergrunt:
Amen brother!
Wile E. Quixote
@Dennis G.
Isn’t Bob Owens just another chickenshit punk-ass bitch conservative who never bothered to get off of his ass and actually join the military. You know, like Jonah Goldberg, Andrew Breitbart, Erick Erickson, James O’Keefe, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Dick Cheney’s retarded fuckspawn, Lil’ Jimmy Demented, Zach Wamp, Willy Romney, Willy Romney’s idiot fuckspawn, Sarah Palin, Todd Palin, Jon Voight, Rudy Guiliani, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Rich Lowry, Andrew McCarthy, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Michael
WeinerSavage, etc, etc, etc?I have to wonder just who is going to lead this supposed revolt given the fact that most of the prominent conservatives in America are worthless, lazy cowards who never served in the military. The only way that conservatives can threaten anyone is if they use terrorist tactics like Timothy McVeigh or the Birmingham bombers or if 50 or 60 of them gang up on a black man and lynch him. Other than that they’re too stupid, too lazy, too undisciplined and too worthless to actually form any kind of credible military force. I guess they’re hoping that the military will rise up and do all of the hard work for them, good luck with that.
Honus
@efgoldman: That was “Connecticut Yankee”
Honus
@grandpajohn:
“As to my points does anyone here think that a military officer with the same philosophy and using the same tactics that Sherman used would in todays military be given command over troops fighting an insurgency?”
after watching the Wikileaks video of that helicopter attack, and looking at the Abu Ghraib photos, uh yes…
grandpajohn
Dennis; exactly this, and in my own I will admit rather rambling way , was the point I was trying to make, and since there are 35 to 40 % of us southerners who agree with this, this it is discouraging to see the reverse bigotry of those who still tend to blame all of us for the sins of our forefathers. Especially since many of those same people are the ones who proudly proclaim their tolerance.
and my main point again is you can revile and slander and ridicule any one from any part of the country as you wish, but lit is stupidity of the highest degree if you think you can win their hearts and votes by doing this
Allan
@grandpajohn: We don’t expect to win the hearts and minds of your generations’ racists, bigots and fascists.
We expect you all to die in short order.
Wilson
@Allan
That’s a great strategy, good thing that generation didn’t raise children to carry on their religious, moral and cultural beliefs, so once these idiots are dead, we’re free at last…
I think the anonymity of the internet which allows people to circumscribe their normal moral conduct in public and write outrageous, shocking or provoking statements without repercussions just degrades the conversation and debate. Easy to do, much harder to justify in a reasoned and intelligent manner.