Powerful and Obnoxious Odor of Mendacity...

...wafting forth from Arizona.

Have a look at the latest sewage spewing forth from that otherwise lovely state...

Connie Chastain Is Right
Posted on August 24, 2013 by Brooks D. Simpson
 
I bet you never thought you would see that post heading.
 
Over at her little blog, which Connie has rendered as “Backsass” and “Backass” (the second rendering coming in her frequent visits to the comments section of various articles last week), (which Simpson knows about because he has poured over the same comments sections) she has a practice of writing lengthy, long-winded posts about people she does not like, (actually, I write about the critics of Southern heritage and their attacks, hypocrisy, motives, lies, etc.) and, as you might imagine, I’m a special target. (Because of his attacks, hypocrisy, motives, lies, etc.) 

Some people who have discovered her blog have circulated it widely to those people who want a better understanding of the person who manages the blog of the Virginia Flaggers, and, to channel Kevin Levin, I couldn’t be more pleased at the response. Sometimes you have to see something to believe it. (I'm fine with people visiting my blogs so they can see the truth, and not the distortions of the floggers.)
 
Most recently Connie has taken exception to how some people in the comments section in an online article at Richmond’s Style Weekly have characterized southerners. Not satisfied with that, she rants: “A Challenge for Brooks Simpson.  Defend these vacuous, history-deficient, hate-filled comments from Flagger opponents posted to Style Weekly.”
 
I won’t. I think they are wrong-headed, and for a very good reason: a good number of them mistake the Virginia Flaggers and their supporters for representative southerners. Nothing could be further from the truth … and many southerners will second that observation. (You won't defend them because you agree with them, as you have repeatedly demonstrated on your blog, particularly with attacks on people's intelligence that means the same thing as "numbskull, idiocy, half-wit," etc.
 
http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2013/06/fun-with-comments.html
http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2013/06/more-fun-with-comments.html
http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2013/02/more-lies-and-insults-flogger-style.html
http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2013/02/because-i-posted-about-al-mackeys.html)
 
The present burden of southern history and heritage happens to be the Virginia Flaggers and their supporters. Most southerners know that flying the very flag embraced not only by the KKK in recent memory but also by forces of white supremacy, racism, segregation, and massive resistance in the 1950s and 1960s sends a message of hate as well as heritage, and in some cases that heritage is one of hate. (And one of the clearly discernable effects of the Virginia Flaggers is the very visual, visible distinction between them and the uses/people Simpson is attempting to smear them with. Since he doesn't want that positive aspect of Southern heritage to receive any attention at all, he is furious at the distinction, and is doing what he can to blur and obliterate it. And he's smearing good, decent folks in order to do it -- but what does he care about that/them?)
 
The South I know today is much more tolerant than the South I entered in 1975 in my first year at the University of Virginia, when the university president defended his membership in a whites-only private club and the house of the Afro-American dean came under attack. I know that the South is a diverse region (Virginia, Tennessee, and South Carolina are very different), and, as someone who has family that is southern (including Texas and Louisiana), that education continues. (All of which has nothing to do with the VaFlaggers or decent and sincere Confederate heritage advocates, whom Simpson is doing his best to smear.)
 
It is one of the sad aspects of the Virginia Flaggers’ project to fly a Confederate navy jack along 1-95 south of Richmond that it attempts to define the South (and Richmond in particular) by an event that lasted four years out of the centuries of the rich history of the region and the Old Dominion. (Ah, no. That is NOT true.  It is not an attempt to define the South at all. Try to find that in ANY of their literature, Facebook groups, emails, blog posts. The entire point is to preserve and protect one aspect of Southern heritage that is under attack by forces determined to purge every aspect of  it from the South.** What Simpson is doing is what one HAS to do to successfully smear people -- lie about not only what they say but their motives. But don't take my word for it. Check out what the Flaggers themselves say -- but first, learn to tell the difference between genuine heritage people and plants/infiltrators.)  

It’s a banner that explicitly excludes the enslaved African Americans who welcomed the entry of Old Glory into Richmond on April 3, 1865, and cheered as the national colors were placed atop the state capital. As a native Richmonder recently told me, the Flagger proposal is nothing more than a middle finger thrust at the rest of the world. (Well, it doesn't explicitly exclude anybody. That's an interpretation not everyone shares. It certainly isn't universal truth. Besides, Old Glory, which ubiquitous in Richmond and across the South, is claimed to explicitly include everyone, so what's the problem? The oh,-so-inclusive Stars and Stripes won't miraculously dissolve on their poles when one [count it, one, (1), o-n-e] battle flag goes up. Although the battle flag is not exclusive as Simpson wants to claim, it is nevertheless true that not every symbol can or does include everybody. Next thing you know, he will be complaining that the Cross of Languedoc excludes Catholics....)
 
Many Richmonders oppose the Flaggers’ project, even as they concede the right of the Flaggers to do as they wish. The opponents clearly outnumber the supporters. Flaggers claim that this is a move of people from out of state, but then Flaggers welcome support from non-Virginians such as Florida’s Chastain and the pride of Chester, South Carolina, Carl Roden (the romance writer wing of the movement). (The difference is that the out-of-staters supporting the flag aren't signing petitions to be given to the government with the hope that it will ignore private property rights and force the flaggers to abandon the project. I'm certain a man of Simpson's intelligence and education can see the difference. Acknowledging it, though... different story. Besides, better to have a romance writer wing, which involves love, than to BE the hate-smear wing that the floggers are.)

Some Flaggers and their supporters say that if people in Richmond don’t like the flag, they should move, which suggests that they really aren’t anxious to welcome people to Virginia, and that they aren’t tolerant of free speech for anyone but themselves. (But the vast majority of them DON'T say that, so look at what Simpson chooses to focus, and what he's ignoring. Besides, we don't know it is Flaggers saying that; or their supporters, really, since the comments are anonymous. In any case, it's tit for tat, which Simpson will also voluntarily blind himself to. It's the response to outlanders coming in and trying to tell Richmonders what they may and may not do. It just seems logical, if you don't like the place you move to, leave it. However, as noted, there's a problem with his "Some Flaggers" term in this claim. Read on...)

Much like their intellectual ancestors, the proponents of the Gag Rule barring the reception of antislavery petitions by Congress in the 1830s and 1840s, Flaggers want to silence discussion and bar dissent, signs of their own uncertain commitment to democratic values. (Egregiously misleading to attribute anonymous statements on a news report comment thread to the Flaggers, who are specific people with specific identities, without identifying them. If you know which one made posts advocating silence and dissent, name them, Simpson. Otherwise, acknowledge that anybody could have said it, including Flagger opponents wishing to smear them, much the way you wish to. And finally, acknowledge that people already living in a place, and particularly those whose ancestors also lived there, have as much reason to tell newcomers who don't like how it is to leave, as the newcomers have to tell existing residents what they can and cannot do. )
 
Folks, the Flaggers and their supporters aren’t representative of southerners or southern values. They represent a thread of thought and sentiment that was once the fabric of a slaveowning society grounded upon white supremacy that subdued opposition through terrorism and violence. TOTAL, UTTER UNTRUTH. COMPLETE LIE. THAT IS NOT WHAT THEY REPRESENT.  YOUR PERCEPTION, SIMPSON, NOT THEIR INTENTION. STOP LYING about it.
 
That fabric is no more, and flying a piece of that fabric won’t change that fact. Don’t blame southerners, white and black, native and recent arrivals, for the actions of the Flaggers and their supporters. Don’t mistake their views for the views of all southerners. After all, Virginia is for lovers … not haters.
FOLKS, UNDERSTAND THAT SIMPSON'S DELIBERATE MIS-STATEMENT OF THE FLAGGERS' INTENTIONS -- MADE TO CHARACTERIZE THEM AS HATERS -- IS ITSELF A SHOW OF FAR MORE HATRED THAN ANYTHING THEY HAVE DONE.
 
Note: Chastain declares: “If you want to know the truth about a person, do you really think you’ll get it from someone at enmity with them? Nobody with common sense would do that. Only those wishing to have their prejudices confirmed.” Read her postings at Back[s]ass with that in mind.
Yes, do. Read me. Then read his blog. See what he has said about me, about other Southern heritage advocates, and the movement in general. Go over Crossroads, and then my blogs, websites, Facebook posts, novels, short stories -- any and all my writings -- with a fine-toothed comb. And when you're finished, ask yourself why a professor of history at a major state university would bother himself about the little niche blogs of a retired insurance secretary half a continent away. Ask yourself why he would characterize as "hate" that which is not. What stake has he got in all this?

___________________
**Remembering and honoring Confederate soldiers and their bravery, endurance and sacrifice.