"Southern Discomfort"-Jon Meacham NYT Op-Ed (short great read)

[underpants]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/opinion/11meacham.html

Advertently or not, Mr. McDonnell is working in a long and dispiriting tradition. Efforts to rehabilitate the Southern rebellion frequently come at moments of racial and social stress, and it is revealing that Virginia’s neo-Confederates are refighting the Civil War in 2010. Whitewashing the war is one way for the right — alienated, anxious and angry about the president, health care reform and all manner of threats, mostly imaginary — to express its unease with the Age of Obama, disguising hate as heritage.

If neo-Confederates are interested in history, let’s talk history. Since Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Confederate symbols have tended to be more about white resistance to black advances than about commemoration. In the 1880s and 1890s, after fighting Reconstruction with terrorism and after the Supreme Court struck down the 1875 Civil Rights Act, states began to legalize segregation. For white supremacists, iconography of the “Lost Cause” was central to their fight; Mississippi even grafted the Confederate battle emblem onto its state flag.


As the sesquicentennial of Fort Sumter approaches in 2011, the enduring problem for neo-Confederates endures: anyone who seeks an Edenic Southern past in which the war was principally about states’ rights and not slavery is searching in vain, for the Confederacy and slavery are inextricably and forever linked.

That has not, however, stopped Lost Causers who supported Mr. McDonnell’s proclamation from trying to recast the war in more respectable terms. They would like what Lincoln called our “fiery trial” to be seen in a political, not a moral, light. If the slaves are erased from the picture, then what took place between Sumter and Appomattox is not about the fate of human chattel, or a battle between good and evil. It is, instead, more of an ancestral skirmish in the Reagan revolution, a contest between big and small government.

We cannot allow the story of the emancipation of a people and the expiation of America’s original sin to become fodder for conservative politicians playing to their right-wing base. That, to say the very least, is a jump backward we do not need.

[polichick]

1. Welll said! k&r

[underpants]

2. I have to say that I was not aware that the Ga. flag was changed as late as 1956

In the aftermath of World War II, however, the rebel flag and other Confederate symbolism resurfaced as the civil rights movement spread. In 1948, supporters of Strom Thurmond’s pro-segregation Dixiecrat ticket waved the battle flag at campaign stops.

Then came the school-integration rulings of the 1950s. Georgia changed its flag to include the battle emblem in 1956, and South Carolina hoisted the colors over its Capitol in 1962 as part of its centennial celebrations of the war.


We had a discussion with friends of ours while waiting for our daughters' ballet class to get out. I tried to impress upon them that all of the excuses for the Civil War were just that excuses. You can't take slavery out of the picture when it was the cornerstone and the foundation of the entire Southern economic, financial, social, and cultural world. They are not supporters of the confederacy and we all agreed that Bobblehead McDonnell stepped in it with his declaration which was mostly due to the request of the SCV. I didn't mention "Lost Cause" but I am glad that Meacham did-that is the emphasis and the mechanism that the entire southern excuse industry is built upon.

[polichick]

5. I didn't know that either, but it sure makes sense - fear makes these people...

...want to recreate a time when the white man ruled without question or justice.

I'll bet many Virginians are disgusted with their new governor!

[underpants]

6. Bobblehead has disappeared for the last week

he is dug in like Pemberton at Vicksburg-but like that case you can't win just sitting and letting the troops rot in the hot summer sun.

If you haven't I highly recommend "The State of Jones" it will give you a completely different view of the war. Reading it I realized that much of what I know of the war comes from the Southern excusers. Most southerners did not support secession or slavery. One of the great excuses is that "most Confederates didn't even OWN slaves" which should illustrate that this (like most) was a rich man's war and the Southerners saw it as such. The corp of the officer class is what did in the CSA as they mostly attained that position due to their position in pre-War society and they acted as such which created incredible animosity from the troops and their were as incompetent as you might expect from someone whose only talent was birthright. The "20 Negro Rule" did more to end the CSA than the Emancipation Proclamation did and it was from the inside. Newton Knight is the center of "State of Jones" a truly remarkable individual.

ON EDIT- the 1950's is when GOD got onto our money and into the pledge. That was a time of illusion through official rhetoric and symbolism.

[SoCalDem]

19. It' sno accident that so many "biblical" movies came out of Hollywood in the same era

In fact the whole "Ten Commandments in public buildings/spaces" came from a PUBLICITY STUNT for the damned movie..

Movies have always shaped public opinion. ..and have glossed over the "icky parts", and glamorized/sanitized facts into myth.

[my2sense]

3. K&R

[Stuart G]

4. K and R

[HughMoran]

7. K&R

[underpants]

8. .

my horrifically shameless :kick:

[WillyT]

9. HUGE K & R !!!

"...disguising hate as heritage."

And...

That has not, however, stopped Lost Causers who supported Mr. McDonnell’s proclamation from trying to recast the war in more respectable terms. They would like what Lincoln called our “fiery trial” to be seen in a political, not a moral, light. If the slaves are erased from the picture, then what took place between Sumter and Appomattox is not about the fate of human chattel, or a battle between good and evil. It is, instead, more of an ancestral skirmish in the Reagan revolution, a contest between big and small government.

We cannot allow the story of the emancipation of a people and the expiation of America’s original sin to become fodder for conservative politicians playing to their right-wing base. That, to say the very least, is a jump backward we do not need.

:patriot:

:kick:

[Ishoutandscream2]

10. Big K and R. Jon does a brilliant job

The apologists need to get over the "states' rights" garbage. The rebellion by the south will always be remembered as a fight to maintain slavery.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Speaking of history and "Southern Discomfort"

What is the back story behind Plessy vs Ferguson?

Which Presidents appointed these Justices and from where did they; come from, both Presidents and Justices?

If neo-Confederates are interested in history, let’s talk history. Since Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Confederate symbols have tended to be more about white resistance to black advances than about commemoration. In the 1880s and 1890s, after fighting Reconstruction with terrorism and after the Supreme Court struck down the 1875 Civil Rights Act, states began to legalize segregation. For white supremacists, iconography of the “Lost Cause” was central to their fight; Mississippi even grafted the Confederate battle emblem onto its state flag.

But after the Supreme Court allowed segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Jim Crow was basically secure. There was less need to rally the troops, and Confederate imagery became associated with the most extreme of the extreme: the Ku Klux Klan.


http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0163_0537_ZO.html

Thanks for the thread, underpants.

[CTyankee]

12. I hope Meachem is on Morning Joe tomorrow (he often is) and gets to talk about

this. That show could use his take on this...esp. if they have on Buchanan. I think Joe likes Jon and wouldn't really go after him...

Jon is often too soft spoken for me but he has done a good job here. Maybe he is trying to break out of his timid shell. If so, I encourage him heartily!

[Uncle Joe]

13. Well I did find information on a couple of them, life is full of irony.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_vs_Ferguson

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of racial segregation even in public accommodations (particularly railroads), under the doctrine of "separate but equal".

The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1 (Justice David Josiah Brewer did not participate in the decision), with the majority opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the dissent written by Justice John Marshall Harlan. "Separate but equal" remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until its repudiation in the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Billings_Brown

Henry Billings Brown (born South Lee, Massachusetts, March 2, 1836; died Bronxville, New York, September 4, 1913) was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from January 5, 1891 to May 28, 1906. He is perhaps best known today as the author of the opinion for the Court in Plessy v. Ferguson, the famous decision that upheld the legality of racial segregation in public transportation.

Brown grew up in a New England merchant's family. He graduated from Yale in 1856, and received some formal legal training both at Yale and at Harvard, although he did not earn a law degree. His early law practice was in Detroit, where he specialized in admiralty law (i.e., shipping law on the Great Lakes). Brown hired a substitute to take his place in the Union Army during the Civil War, and served as United States Attorney.

On March 17, 1875, Brown was nominated by President Ulysses Grant to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan vacated by John Wesley Longyear. Brown was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 19, 1875, and received his commission the same day. He edited a collection of rulings and orders in important admiralty cases from inland waters,<2> which is still used as a reference in Black's Law Dictionary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan

John Marshall Harlan (June 1, 1833 – October 14, 1911) was a Kentucky lawyer and politician who served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court. He is most notable as the lone dissenter in the infamous Civil Rights Cases (1883), and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which, respectively, struck down as unconstitutional federal antidiscrimination legislation and upheld Southern segregation statutes.

Harlan was born into a prominent Kentucky slaveholding family whose presence in the region dated back to 1779. Harlan's father was James Harlan, a lawyer and politician; his mother, Elizabeth, née Davenport, was the daughter of a pioneer from Virginia. After attending school in Frankfort, Harlan enrolled at Centre College, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi and graduated with honors. Though his mother wanted Harlan to become a merchant, James insisted that his son follow him into the legal profession, and Harlan joined his father's law practice in 1852. Yet while James Harlan could have trained his son in the office as was the norm in that era, he sent John to attend law school at Transylvania University in 1853, where George Robertson and Thomas Alexander Marshall were among his instructors.<3>

Though considered for a number of positions in the new administration, most notably for Attorney General, initially the only job Harlan was offered was as a member of a commission sent to Louisiana to resolved disputed statewide elections there. Justice David Davis, however, had resigned from the Supreme Court in January 1877 after being selected as a United States Senator by the Illinois General Assembly. Seeking a replacement, Hayes settled on Harlan, and formally submitted his name to the Senate on October 16. Though Harlan's nomination prompted some criticism from Republican stalwarts, he was confirmed unanimously on November 29, 1877.<8>

In 1896, the Supreme Court handed down one of the most infamous decisions in U.S. history, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which established the doctrine of "separate but equal" as it legitimized both Southern and Northern segregation practices. The Court, speaking through Justice Henry B. Brown, held that separation of the races was not inherently unequal, and any inferiority felt by blacks at having to use separate facilities was an illusion: "We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of any-thing found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it."<13> (While the Court held that separate facilities had to be equal, in practice the facilities designated for blacks were invariably inferior.)

Alone in dissent, Harlan argued that the Louisiana law at issue, which forced separation of white and black passengers on railway cars, was a "badge of servitude"<13> that degraded African-Americans, and correctly predicted that the Court's ruling would become as infamous as its ruling in the Dred Scott case.

[Paladin]

14. K & R

[Solly Mack]

15. K&R

[Martin Eden]

16. "the Confederacy and slavery are inextricably and forever linked"

That, in a nutshell, is the basic truth the "neo-Confederates" are trying to erase from history.

[MadMaddie]

18. and that leads you right to the Texas schoolbook fiasco

glossing over things that make the south look bad......t

[moondust]

17. Rehabilitation

is what much of the South has needed for a long, long time, though not rehabilitation of the Southern rebellion. Germany's approach in banning all Nazi activities and paraphernalia has been very successful but it requires vigilance and enforcement perhaps for decades. I don't know who would have enforced something that broad and intrusive in the U.S. South after the Civil War. Making matters even worse are Republicans who have used their "Southern Strategy" which amounts to feeding liquor to a "recovering" alcoholic in exchange for votes.