So, today the Grand Wingnut Senator of South Carolina proclaimed that the astroturf Teatards are a spiritual movement. Jim DeMint is channelling a deep Confederate meme that their view of the world is the only view blessed by God. Sure, it is an idea straight from the crazy store that can not withstand a fact-check, …
Confederate History Month: God on Our SidePost + Comments (68)
This week is yet another with stories of wingnuts and their hate-filled rhetoric and easy propensity to violence. It is an expected part of any celebration of CHM as this has been a tradition for the group since at least 1856 when South Carolinian Preston Brooks beat the shit out of Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the US Senate–ever since (and really long before that beating) whenever these Confederates feel that they are losing control they lash out. Joe Wilson was channeling Brooks when he yelled “You Lie” last summer and when you watch the clip you can see that he wished that he had a cane. Violence of word and deed are as Confederate as grits.
This year is the sesquicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s election and next year will be the 150th Anniversary of the start of the Civil War. This coming five years of remembrance is filling some folks with a sense of dread.
The Alternative Newsweeklies in the South have been doing some fine work to capture that dread and in turn help folks to celebrate CHM. For example, the Metro Pulse out of Knoxville Tennessee has a fine essay up today about CHM and slyly folds in the fact that East Tennessee did not secede from the Union and that Knoxville was a Union stronghold. It is a fun read.
More astounding is an item in a column, Separating history from hysteria, by Courtney Haden in the Birmingham Weekly. After pointing out that most folks in Alabama have accepted that celebrating the Confederacy is just a fact of life, the author begins to worry about the coming sesquicentennial. The main cause of the worry is a quote from the ‘Chaplain’ of the Sons of Confederate Veterans Army of Trans-Mississippi about why the South lost the war (emphasis added):
Here in Alabama, where every month is Confederate History Month and state employees still get the day off for Jefferson Davis’s birthday, we tend to be more sanguine. Heck, Bob Riley even mentioned slavery straight up in our state’s official Confederate History Month proclamation. Most of us have come to terms with the fact that our ancestors’ insistence on defending the right to traffic in human lives was a big cog in the creaky machine that was the CSA. I’d like to think our intellects are broad enough to accept that a Black History Month and a Confederate History Month can co-exist, separate but equal, on our calendars.
Then I happened upon a quotation in the current issue of The Alabama Confederate from Chaplain Len Patterson, asking the theological question, “if God is on the side of what is right, true, Christian, and Godly, and we know that He is, then, why did the South lose? There is one, and only one, possible answer, and to me it seems obvious. It’s not over!”
It’s gonna be a long sesquicentennial.
See, they never lost because the war goes on. Linking to the original post from ‘Chaplain’ Patterson is a window into the hate filled fantasy world of these treasonous scoundrels. Here is more from the ‘Chaplain’ of hate:
There is one, and only one, possible answer, and to me it seems obvious. It’s not over! Oh, the shooting war may have ended long ago, but the battle rages on. The struggle for what is right, true, and Godly has not ended. Our Southern heritage and the principles of our founding fathers are still under attack. And we, like those brave Confederates who faced the barbaric Union invaders, are still being forced to defend what is true and Godly against deceitful and demonic oppressors. [snip]
Consider also our Lord. He was executed as a criminal with criminals. His followers were in fear and despair. They had believed Him. Trusted Him. And now, He was dead. The Romans who crucified Him, thought it was over. The Jewish leaders who sought His death, thought it was over. Even His disciples and friends, thought it was over. But, it wasn’t over. Three days later Jesus arose from a cold grave turning death into victory, and despair into joy.
The Bible tells us, “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?” The South’s Cause of truth, freedom, justice, and Christian Godliness is not lost. It’s just not over. And I know it’s not over because we haven’t won yet. We may not know God’s plan, or exactly what He is going to do. But this we can know: It may take nineteen hundred years or just a few days, but God’s side always wins.
I am reminded of Bob Dylan’s classic “With God on Our Side“, but that is way too kind to these fuckwads.
If the Teatards and the Republican Confederate Party are leading a spiritual awakening it must mean that they are worshiping nameless deities of evil. Of course, they could just be a bunch of selfish, hate-filled picks who use references to God to fool the gullible.
I would go with the latter choice, but what do I know.
Cheers
dengre
ps. THC was spot on today (as always).