Communist-flavored Haters

Found on Facebook. Photo of communists giving the world the finger. Classy, aren't they? They are suspected of participating in, if not instigating, the destruction of Confederate monuments in North Carolina.

This is the kind of people Kevin Levin and his ilk admire and consider heroes.

Just a reminder of what communism does best....

These are real people, not granite and bronze.

THIS is why the school boys memorialized by Silent Sam and the men that Confederate monuments memorialize were morally and intellectually superior to the communists responsible for the mountains of dead bodies, and the knaves in the top photo ...

Just a reminder why the thugs have to pull down monuments and the commies of the last century had to murder tens of millions. Igor Shafarevich, Soviet mathemetician and dissident, wrote The Socialist Phenomenon (which is available online free). This is a recap of his views written by Tom Bethell:

"...socialism had endured throughout history, usually in the form of one or another Christian heresy. It gives expression to the gnostic urge to rebel — the rebellion of the educated against the constraints imposed by Creation and by God. In earlier periods, when of course the socialist label was not used, it could be identified by its insistent, unvarying emphasis on certain goals: the destruction of private property and of the traditional or 'nuclear' family; and above all, the dismemberment of traditional, or orthodox religion. Throughout history, the phenomenon has been obsessed with material equality, and with the eradication of individual and gender distinctions. It wars incessantly against the normal. A 'striving for self-destruction,' for nothingness, for the “death of mankind,” is the true goal of socialism. Instinctively, without stating it or even seeing it as the conscious goal, the socialist phenomenon seeks the death of the human race."

 Destruction is their ideology. The Raleigh-Durham commies can't play Mass Murder, so they have to settle for destroying monuments, and murdering existing culture.

And to lazy "anti-racists" they're heroes.

(Note, photo of the North Carolina commies has not been authenticated; so sue me.)

Levin's Lazy Anti-Racism

Levin and his self-back-patting followers exude great approval of the "laziest anti-racist campaign" ever. See, you don't have to do anything about the miserable lives of so many black folks in N'waluns, Baltimore, Dallas, Memphis, etc., as long as you applaud the removal of Confederate monuments. You don't even have to acknowledge it. You don't have to write a blog about it... you can write a blog about "memory" that lets you express your hatred of Southern white folks, and that's just as good as helping inner city blacks....


Take 'Em Downers know removing monuments doesn't help anything, and Levin admits that the removal of a monument "has value for those who supported it regardless of these larger issues."

Yeah, those who supported it -- like him. Not necessarily the miserable black folks in monumentless cities.

"What has changed," Levin sez, "is that the parents of a five-year old black girl never have to try to explain why such a man continues to enjoy this honor."

Which means that NOW all those parents have explain -- increasingly --  to the five year old girl is why her brothers died in a hail of bullets on the sidewalk in front of their house...

Thank goodness, that's all they have to do, huh, Levin? 'Cuz it sure could be worse. They might have to explain Robert E. Lee to her....

The Self-deluded Civil War Left

So the statue had barely hit the ground, viciously pulled down by domestic terrorists, when Kevin Levin went into Quick Gloat mode and posted about it on his flog. Of course, we can easily see his obvious motives by a perfunctory look-see at his whole flog ... I mean, he's not coy about it, and it's pretty standard fair for leftist judgmentalness.

But now and then, he betrays his deeper views, his less often revealed motivations. I've written before about my observations of these deeper views and motives, and my conclusions about them.

What he wrote about the terrorist activity at the U of NC again brings these usually soft-pedaled views to the forefront. Sometimes, civil war leftists make it so obvious,  you have to amputate half your brain to not see it....

F'rinstance, he can't get through the first paragraph sticking with the subject -- he has to deviate into Charlottesville and the recent dud of an anniversary march in D.C. This has nothing whatever to do with Silent Sam. In fact, the Unite the Right rally in 2017 had nothing to do with the monuments in Charlottesville; the rallygoers didn't care about those monuments, so the connection is a media concoction -- a hoax -- beginnig to end.

But here's the kicker. Sez Levin:

Silent Sam didn’t feel anything while being toppled over by students nor did he feel anything while the crowd kicked and spit on him. The same could not be said for the African American woman, who Julian Carr referenced in his dedication speech for the statue in 1913.

What Levin mule-headedly ignores is that Silent Sam represents and commemorates UNC students WHO DIED defending the Old North State. They weren't horsewhipped. They DIED. You know, as in DEAD.

But this comment of Levin's shows the convoluted thinking that feeds his desperate need for SOMETHING to justify his hatred of Southern white folks. Julian Carr's mistreatment of a black woman reflects on Julian Carr and nobody else. It does not reflect on the UNC students who became soldiers to defend their state from an invasion of barbarians wearing military uniforms. It does not reflect on Southern heritage folks today. But Levin is nothing if he is not a peddler of guilt-by-association (even when it is isn't true).

His current comments also illustrate his apparent belief that black misery existed in inverse proportion to Southern white evil. So, in his determination to paint white Southerners as evil as he possibly can, he paints blacks as miserable as possible. You see this motive all through Levin's writing.

I left a comment, knowing he wouldn't post it. Having my comment show up in the comment thread wasn't why I left it, anyway. I simply wanted him read it, so he would know he isn't fooling some of us. To my surprise, he let it through:

Wow! You went into Quick Gloat mode, didn’t cha? Oh, how you love anti-Confederate lawlessness…. The only person responsible for mistreating the African American woman was the person who did it. Dylann Roof is a crazy person, nothing he did should validate any sane person’s thoughts.

I’ll bet you think this rise of lawlessness indicates a “retreat” of Confederate heritage, don’t you?

Do you know how utterly dishonest your stands and pronouncements look to sane, well-adjusted people?

In a hilarious turn, the first comment following mine was from the repetition-bot Dimmy Jick....the first grader in an old man's body.  I had forgotten just how kneejerk and infantile Dimmy is; he can repeat "racist" "racism" "white supremacy" and all the phony buzzwords without a single neuron firing. Honestly, folks, I cannot figure how how Dimmy got a college degree, served in the military, and got a teaching job.

I won't post Dimmy's comment. If you've ever read one of his comments, you've read them all.

CliosFanBoy wants to know, "if these statues mark “heritage” where are the statues to the southern Union units and the USCTs??" Most monuments were put up by RELATIVES of Confederate soldiers.  If he wants to put some up to somebody else, nobody is stopping him.

Claudia Gibson (Confederate descendant) sez, "I think every Reconstruction era statue should be pulled down." As far as I know, few if any monuments were raised during reconstruction. Claudia further sez, "The point of these statues was to enforce the disenfranchisement of southern African Americans." Not according to the people who put them up, so I wonder how she knows this. Does find out by talking to the dead? Does she hold seances? Throw chicken bones? Claudia finishes, "The speech made at this particular statue’s dedication only enforces that." The speech made at the dedication reflects on the speaker and his beliefs, nobody else's.  What you are seeing here, folks, is the effect of leftist group-think. They are incapable of seeing individual responsibility. What one person does reflects on his whole "group" -- whatever the accuser conceptualizes that to be.

Brad sez, "Sometimes popular action is the only way to redress a problem." Thereby approving of mob violence.... (The statue wasn't the only thing these thugs attacked. Levin didn't mention that.)

Rob Baker shares an episode of anti-Confederate indoctrination he subjected his students to.

Sez Jerry McKenzie, "Silent Sam let a lot of injustice pass without a word." Thereby showcasing his own ignorance of the purpose of war memorials....

Ewan Wardle thinks connections with tyrannical rule has been dissolved. He must have gone to school with Dimmy.

But that's enough. These people do not have the moral high ground. They don't have moral ground at all. Their hatred of the Confederacy, the South and white Southerners is based on lies and self-delusion. It is most unfortunate that in once-free America, these dolts and deluders hold sway in government, the media, education and the popular culture. The country cannot survive their gut-deep dishonesty.

After the Stars Fell

Prologue

Valhalla Farm
Near Mobile, Alabama
November 13, 1833

At the back of the farmhouse, in a room he pretentiously called the library, Morgan Walraven waited for the notes in his journal to dry. He wasn't going to write any more tonight, so he gently swished his quill pen in a small bowl of water and laid it aside to dry.

Several feet away, stretched out on a braided rug near the fireplace, a yellow feist named Jupiter -- Morgan's faithful friend since his teenage years -- was deep in  sleep.

It was so still and quiet, he almost jumped when the clock on the mantle chimed the first of twelve strikes, marking a cold November midnight, like so many others. Nevertheless, tonight there was a ripple of anticipation in the air.

It was always that way on the day -- or night -- that babies came.

None of the babies that had come to Valhalla in the past were his -- they were siblings or nieces or nephews -- but that little surge of anticipation accompanied them all.

This time, though, it was his baby and the ripple was supercharged.

He grew still, straining to hear any sound coming from upstairs. Tedious silence settled over him. He slid his chair back from the desk -- plain but sturdy items, built by his grandfather -- took the base of the lamp in hand and stepped to the settee next to the fireplace, where low flames crackled softly.

His current book sat on a nearby table. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. He had read it before, once as a boy, and once as a young adult. He put the lamp on the table, sat down and got comfortable, and reached for the book.

Tales of the sea and faraway places appealed to him. It seemed that he had inherited the sometimes bewildering conflict other Walraven men had undergone -- a devotion to the land, to what grew and lived there, but also a fascination with the sea, an allure that drew them as the moon draws the tides, whether they could indulge it or not.

It didn't help that he lived no more than a stone's throw from the upper edge of the brackish estuary of Mobile Bay, which emptied into the Gulf of Mexico, which itself opened onto the Atlantic Ocean ... and the entire world. In daylight, from the house, he had a distant but clear view of a strip of sawgrass marsh and sparkling blue water beyond.

But his world had already been decided. His destiny was the land, the forests, the fertile fields of Valhalla Farm.

He had not read half a page before the text blurred and disappeared and his breathing grew deep and regular -- until something, some noise awakened him. He was surprised to see that an hour had passed. His grogginess left him in an instant when he remembered why he was not in bed and he sat up, listening intently for the sound of Olivia, the midwife, calling to him.

Instead, he heard urgent knocking at the door to the back veranda. Jupiter raised his head and his ears pricked as the soft but frantic voice of Isaac, the farm's foreman, quavered, "Mast' Morgan! Please, come quick! The end of the world comin'!

Morgan strode to the door and opened it to see the terrified faces of Isaac and young Wiley as they motioned him outside.

"The sky falling!" Wiley shrieked, clutching the porch rail and pointing upward. "The stars, they comin' down like rain!"

"It's the tribilation!" Isaac said.

"Y'all quiet down," Morgan said sotto voce. "You'll wake everybody."

He stifled a smile at the silly thought of leaving his family in the arms of Morpheus through the Second Coming. Glancing to the side, he saw Jupiter lay his head back down and fall into instant slumber. How bad could it be if Jupe was sleeping through it?

But as he stepped through the doorway, levity deserted him. The frosty air that wrapped around him didn't register because his attention was caught by something else -- the eerie, almost other-worldly glow that illuminated the countryside, giving him a brief chill unrelated to the temperature.

He walked across the veranda, steadied himself against the bannister rail, and leaned forward to look up beyond the edge of the roof. Evergreen live oaks blocked out the sky but through gaps in the foliage, he could see pinpricks of light. Moving.

"See Mast'?" Wiley had lowered his voice but his tone was as urgent as before.

"Come with me," Morgan murmured. "Let's go out front. We can see better there."

He led the two frightened servants inside, calling softly, "Wiley, shut the door." They hurried down the hallway to the front door, which Morgan swung wide. The trio scurried down the steps to the yard.

The trees here grew along the sides of the lawn, leaving the sky open above it. What Morgan saw when he looked up took his breath away.

Meteors, hundreds of them -- no, thousands of them -- lighting up the countryside far more brightly than a full moon, and falling to earth just as Wiley had said, constantly, like rain. But not like rain, either, since few actually reach the earth. And they were completely silent.

Morgan stared upward, transfixed by sheer awe and a fragment of delight -- both tempered with a sizeable measure of the same fear that rattled Isaac and Wiley.

"Mast', please, you gotta do something!" Wiley pleaded. "Maybe you pray and the Lawd, he hear you and stop this!"

"Y'all think, now. It's not the tribulation -- no earthquakes, the moon hasn't turned to blood, none of the other signs are happening. Of course I'll pray, but it will stop on its own, anyway. The Leonid meteors occur this time every year."

"Nawsuh!" Isaac said adamantly. "I ain't never seen nothing like this."

"Yes, it isn't usually this grand -- not usually this many of them. Well ... never this many of them, so something uncommon is going on. But not the end of the world. Regardless of how many we see, there's no need to worry. They burn up before they reach earth. That's why they're so bright. They're on fire."

"Oh, Lawd!" Wiley wailed. "They ain't stars! They fire! Please, Mast' Morgan, please pray for the Lawd to save us!"

"All right, but calm down. How is everybody in the reserve?"

"Skeered," Wiley said.

"And Milly," Isaac added, "she in ... she in the travail. She skeered the child will die." Distress threaded Isaac's tone; Milly was his wife.

"I forgot about y'all's baby coming." Morgan's forehead buckled with mild chagrin. "I've had another baby on my mind tonight. Here, let's kneel and pray."

He dropped to one knee, his hands on the shoulders of the trembling servants, who knelt with him.

"Heavenly Father, please protect us from this spectacular display of the power and beauty of nature thou hast created. Remove from us the spirit of fear, and keep us in thy holy protection, that we may serve thee all our days. We especially pray thy blessings on the little bairns who are on their way to us, and for their mothers and fathers. In the name of thy son Jesus, amen."

"Amen," echoed the two servants, who were calmer now but still unwilling to look upward.

The prayer had calmed Morgan, too. He stood and said, "You go on back and tell everyone its not the end of the world, and tomorrow will arrive like always. Tell them I told you this happens every year -- it's just never been this intense -- and tell them we prayed and the Lord will watch over us all, especially Milly and her little one."

"Yessuh," Isaac said dubiously. He and Wiley loped across the lawn and around the corner of the house, disappearing in the shadows.

Morgan resumed his riveting contemplation of the heavens. At that moment he heard the faint sound of a baby's cry coming through the open door.  The wondrous phenomenon unfolding above him was instantly forgotten as he streaked up the steps and inside the foyer, and fairly flew up the staircase.

The baby's lusty cries grew louder.

Morgan paused at the door to the bedroom he and Julia shared, met by an object that was surely unmovable.

"You can see them in a little while," Olivia said. "Not right now."

"Is she all right? Is the baby all right?" He tried to look past her but could see only his sister-in-law, Eliza, smoothing the bed covers.

"They fine." Olivia side-stepped to block his view. "We'll get 'em both fixed up for you to see but it'll take a few minutes. You wait."

"Livvy, since you're here, who's with Milly?"

"Betsy taking care of Milly."

"Betsy? She's just a kid."

"She know what she doing. Now you g'wan outta here."

Too keyed up to sit, he ignored the deacon's bench in the upstairs hallway and paced the floor, wondering how long Olivia's little while would last, until he heard her say, "You can come now, Mast' Morgan."

Entering the room lit with a golden glow from a single lamp, he met Eliza headed for the door, carrying a basket full of clothing and rags. He caught a glimpse of bloodstains, which jolted him, but it dissipated with Eliza's happy visage beaming at him. "Congratulations, Morgan. You have a son!"

"A son...."

Julia was reclining on a mound of pillows, looking wan but serene, staring down at the face of the baby in her arms.

At Morgan's approach, she looked up and her peaked face was transformed by a radiant smile. "Oh, look at him, Morgan! Isn't he beautiful?"

Morgan bent to gently stroke the baby's cheek with a forefinger. Dressed in a white batiste gown with delicate tatting around the sleeves, bald, red-faced and scowling, the baby nevertheless was indeed beautiful.

"Yes, he is. And so are you." He kissed her forehead, straightened to look at his son and basked in this moment of joy. "Born as the stars are falling. His life will be charmed."

Julia gave him a quizzical look.

He stroked her hair back from her forehead and said, "I'll tell you later. You get some sleep now."

She nodded before resting her head against the pillows and closing her eyes. Olivia tiptoed to the bed to take the baby from his mother's arms and lay him in his cradle.

As Morgan walked back toward the doorway, he heard other doors opening and urgent whispers in the hallway. Judging by the occasional word that reached him, the spectacular display in the heavens had become so bright, it had awakened his siblings. He stepped into the hall and said, "Y'all go outside and look. You don't get the full effect looking through the windows."

They stared at him, Rachel in mild alarm, Carson and Noah disheveled and bleary-eyed with sleep.

"The full effect of what?" said Rachel. "What's that strange light outside?"

"Falling stars, thousands of them." He shook his head and held up a hand. "No, it's not the tribulation, just a meteors raining down out of the sky. A magnificent sight and maybe a charm, a good omen --" he gave a little laugh "-- on the night of my son's birth!"

"Son? The little one has come?" Rachel cried "Oh, Morgan, how wonderful!" She wheeled around and reached toward him. He returned her quick embrace.

"Y'all go on outside," he repeated. "The babe's asleep. You can see him when he wakes. But we don't know if we will ever again see such a spectacular display in the heavens. Not until the end of time."

The mention of thousands of meteors had knocked the drowsiness off his brothers' faces. They trooped downstairs with Rachel to see this wonder in the sky.

Nobody saw Olivia lurking in the bedroom doorway, or heard her low-voiced, "Charm? Or curse?"

She clasped her hands before her breast and raised her face, eyes closed, and silently beseeched the Deity to protect the little one from whatever evil the stars might portend. "All his days, amen and amen," she ended in whisper.

Copyright © 2018 by Connie Chastain. All rights reserved.

Memes Inspired by Domestic Terrorism at UNC

 

 

Time for the Haters to Get This Through Their Heads

I'm Not Impressed with Take 'Em Downer Claims

Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead

Joy is ringing out in Dixie's corner of cyberspace today. The blogger who lied and called himself RBLee, titled his attack blog (well...one of them) after the Virginia Flaggers motto, has disappeared. The blog was titled Restoring the Honor, but I called it Destroying the Honor, because that was his purpose. My nickname for him was DeStroy

Well, the blog is no longer there and his twitter account (or one of them) , Don Chump, has vanished.

See, what happened is that *Brad Griffin of the League of the South finally had enough and turned into an internet Super Sleuth, and found a page online where this chump, who had successfully hidden behind anonimity for years, slipped up and used his actual name, which is (drum roll)....

And here he is.

This man has the voice of the classic Trickster. He was clever with the language, and if you didn't know the people he was talking about -- if you didn't know he was lying egregiously -- you might be tempted to believe. He combed the internet constantly for comments, events and photos he could misrepresent on his blog. One wonders how he could have held down a job when he spent so much time online ... but maybe he didn't work...

He was obsessed with race, racial matters and racism. He focused on white nationalists, the alt-right, conservatives and Confederate heritage, particularly the Virginia Flaggers. He strove mightily to show the Flaggers as the equivalent of racist groups, or connected to them. He never proved it, because you can't prove what ain't so.

One of his activities was to urge the media to look into these groups, particularly the Flaggers, and he expressed disappointment several times that the press didn't ask them the "hard questions." If memory serves, I posted a comment at his blog once explaining that the press in Virginia likely knew the Flaggers much better than he did, and knew there was nothing to question. But his animosity for the Flaggers could not be dissuaded.

But with the rise of the alt.right, his focus shifted. He was always quite unbalanced but after the Charlottesville brouhaha, he approached the edge of straitjacket territory. He filed FOIA requests, he reported on court procedings ... and was still at it when the blog disappeared.

I frequented his blog quite a bit when he was harassing the Flaggers but when he started focusing on white nationalism, I lost interest. It's a boring subject and has nothing to do with Confederate heritage support. Nevertheless, I am delighted that the blog and Twitter accounts have >poofed< into nothingness.  For one thing, it proves what we always knew about him, from his hunkering down behind anonimity -- he's a colossal coward.

But I don't think for a minute we've heard the last of him. He gets too much of his identity from harassing and bullying others. He is the kind of person who, given the slightest bit of power, would cause as much trouble, distress and pain as he possibly could. For no reason.

So we will celebrate and rejoice that this wicked witch -- at least, its blog and twitter feed -- has gone where the goblins go, below, below, below ... and pray it stays that way.

________________

*I have made it clear how I feel about the League since it radicalized and abandoned Southern nationalism for white nationalism -- but for this accomplishment, Griffin deserves kudos.
** Breen's photo courtesy Occidental Dissent, via Fair Use Doctrine.

Abstract Andy

Andy doesn't display his animosity for the heritage community on his own blog the way he does on the comment threads of other Flogger blogs.  It might be interesting to know why.... Nah, strike that. I don't think examining Andy's motives would be interesting at all, since they mirror the motives of other floggers, and have done so for years. It would just be boring repetition.

But it can be instructive to examine his digs and smears, like the one below. Not sure why he uses the "trademark" superscript after the words Confederate Heritage. He's done it for years. I'm sure he means for it to convey ridicule.  But that little mystery is as boring as why he doesn't use his own blog for his hatemongering.

In any case, in the comment, which came from Levin's Flog (if memory serves) he says heritage folks "set there hair on fire" over the possibility that Tim Kaine might become vice president in the last election. Well, of course that's not true. Despite Kaine's loathing of decent Americans and Virginians and his delusional approbation of socialism, one of the most destructive ideologies to come from the mind of man, Kaine and his possible effects paled to nothing compared to the possibility of Hillary Clinton becoming president.

Andy sez the heritage folks circulated a meme blaming Kaine for removal of the flags from the VMFA, "even though," he further sez, "he'd left the governor's office months before."

Andy, Andy, Andy, are you playing dumb, or do you really not know that an elected official's political influence and power doesn't all magically dissipate just because a term  in office ends?

No, Randy-Andy, they don't wonder why they're not taken more seriously than they are, because the only people who don't take them seriously are people like you -- haters and slanderers, whose opinions don't matter to them.

I guess you haven't notice but the Virginia Flaggers are becoming the go-to group for the media regarding heritage issues.

Confederate Heritage consists mostly of memes, these days? Only to people like you, who see the memes and think that's all their is.

I make a lot of memes. I post them on Facebook and here on my blog. Now and then, one of them will strike a chord, and they get widely shared. But there is no shortage of text on my Facebook page. I'm sure you slink and slime around the heritage corner of Facebook enough to know that. But why let truth and fact get in the way if your aim is to smear and trash?

Andy, stop embarrassing yourself. I'm sure you know, everyone uses memes these days. The heritage community is hardly unique in that manner. Graphic memes have become a huge part of cyberspace.

Let me suggest you stick with your maritime mem-- photos and leave off your petty attempts to embarrass and ridicule heritage folks. You evidently don't know how it makes you look so I'll tell you. It makes you look no better than your distorted view of those you are attempting to smear. Get it?

Rest In Peace

Charles Krauthammer. I didn't agree with you about everything, but you were right about so many things. You will be missed.

It Ain't Comin' Down

Monument staying put in Lamar County, Texas.

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2017/06/16/move-lamar-county-confederate-monument-fails/

Cue flogger outrage ... and verbal flogging of officials in the county...

No Such Thing As Equality

Objective, natural equality does not exist. It cannot exist. That would require identicality.

Everyone would have exactly the same color and texture of skin -- the same number of skin cells, pores, hair follicles. The exact came hair color, the same number of strands, the same amount of straightness or curliness. Same height, weight, same muscle strength (or weakness). The same mental capacity. The same level of immunity, the same level of susceptibility. Same genes and chromosomes, same organs. That means everyone would be either male or female, because male AND female would mean differences and that is unequal.

Objective, natural equality is impossible. And that is a wonderful thing... Because equality/identicality is horrifying. Everyone else is exactly like you... You are exactly like everyone else -- because you MUST be. You can't be anything else.

Inequality is freedom. It is being different. It is being you -- unique. And we are all free and unique because of our inequality -- our un-identicality.

Isn't it ironic that the people who carp on equality also carp on diversity? But diversity is what makes equality impossible. And equality (if it could exist, which it can't) would make diversity impossible.

Then there is equality under law ... but that is a totally different subject.

Truth that Needs to be Said

But Levin doesn't care about Truth. He has a crusade to carry on.

Levin's Ongoing Lie

He contends that support for the Confederate flag is "eroding" in the South.

Dictionary.com defines erode thusly:

verb (used with object), e·rod·ed, e·rod·ing.
    to eat into or away; destroy by slow consumption or disintegration:
    to form (a gully, butte, or the like) by erosion.

That makes erosion sound like a natural physical process. In school, we learned that rain on soil where there was little vegetation would erode the land, wash it away.

But Levin's choice of words is wrong, like so many of his other claims.  If someone takes an excavator and digs a trench, that is not erosion.  If they take a bulldozer and scrape the soil away, that is not erosion.

He contends that the Virginia Flagger track record of placing Confederate battleflags beside busy thoroughfares is somehow a failure, because flags are still being removed from public locations. He passes off the private-property flags with a forced laugh.  In fact, the people who get enraged about flags on  public property are also enraged about flags on private property.

Levin can interpret it as failure if he wishes. But a lot of nutcases in Virginia are so enraged they are apparently willing to jettison America's bedrock belief in private property to assuage their steaming hatred.

The equivalent of excavators tearing up the land is what's happening with the Confederate flag in particular and Southern heritage in general. It is deliberate.  The destruction is coming from Levin, who then lies about it and claims it's "just happening" -- and others join him; the usual flogger suspects plus the creaky denizens of the decayed halls of academia. It is orchestrated by the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center. Their "Whose Heritage" campaign provides bulldozers and excavators used in the attacks.

If they weren't attacking, flags and monuments would not be targeted for removal. It is that simple. The public would not be working to remove the artifacts of the Confederacy. Sixty-two percent of Americans polled want Confederate monuments left alone. It is leftist activists who are running this show, not the people. Ordinary people may be hesitant to protest the removals because they fear being called racists -- even though they aren't racists -- because a charge of racism doesn't have to be true or proven these days in order to lose your job or get expelled from school.

But they surely aren't behind it and they are getting tired of the left's bulldozing of Confederate heritage, a precursor to bulldozing U.S. heritage. Already statues of  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, even Teddy Roosevelt, have been caught in the left's crosshairs because ... white supremacy -- as looney as that is.  And Americans who admire and honor their country, its history and its heroes grow sicker of it every day.

One outcome of that disgust with the left's hatred and destruction of America is -- the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency.  Unsurprisingly, all the leftists, the floggers and other Confederacy haters also viscerally hate Trump.

When you have Antifa rioting, arsoning, and pepper spraying old people, but the media and leftist commentators pretend they played no role at Charlottesville, only the alt-right and white supes deserve the blame -- well, don't be surprised when the people elect Corey Stewart... 

Enjoy your little fantasies that Confederate commemoration is "eroding," Levin. When the bulldozers and excavators are made to malfunction ... when they are destroyed and go still and silent, the "erosion" will stop, and the flags and monuments will return.

Waiting for Usefulness

Kevin Levin posts a historic photograph of Confederate soldiers on his flog. Sez people have always thought it was that, but now somebody has come along and sez it's this.

Sez Levin, "I am going to leave it to others to debate whether this new interpretation is valid."

Translation: "This is not yet useful to me for smearing Confederates and trashing heritage folks, so I'm putting it on the bottom shelf for the time being..."

I'm Thinking of Writing a Non-Fiction Book....

How do you like the tentative cover design?

Here's an illustration that might be used:

New Flyers ....

....answering the SPLC....

Disagree?

Doesn't matter if you do. This is right:

I'm Designing a Little Catboat ... and a Travel Trailer

When I finish the design, I want to build it. Husband says I can't. We'll see about that.

Coquina -- a little clam of a boat for an old geezer and gezette -- 

not a Cape Codder catboat with its deep keel but flat bottomed, like the

catboats that oystered on the upper Gulf Coast in the 19th century

Alas, I have no design software, so this was done in a drawing program. Forget precision. But it gets the idea across. LOD, 17 feet; beam, 8 feet; draft, approximately 10-11 inches; board down, about 30 inches. Hull weight, ballast weight, sail area, etc., still to be determined. I'm getting lots of encouragement and advice from my boat groups....

Maybe someday, we can do the Florida 120, the Mississippi 110 and the Texas 200...

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Years ago I bought a little vintage travel trailer to refurbish (an activity that has become even more popular today). The onset of arthritis in my knees stopped my project after I got it down to the bare chassis, got it sandblasted, primed and painted. Lo, these many years later, with new knees, I have revisited the trailer and finished the design.

 

 Valerie -- The Happy Wanderer (more correctly, Valderi, but I prefer the other spelling).
Basically a tent with hard sides and air conditioning. And wifi. And video streaming.
Because most, but not all, camping is done outside.

Twelve foot by eight foot cabin built on the chassis of a 1972 Aristocrat Lo-Liner. I'm using as much as possible from the Lo-Liner in the design -- the aluminum-framed awning windows, the door and screen, possibly some of the "blond oak" finished plywood -- but not likely. Two full length sofa-bunks inside (so nobody will have to crawl over somebody to get in or out of bed), a dedicated computer work station, tiny porta potty room, tiny corner kitchen with dorm fridge and two-burner induction cooktop. No propane. If I have to cook with gas, we'll have a chuck box with Coleman camp stove for cooking outside.

Husband says I can't build this, either. We'll see....

Can't wait to take her to Confederate events!

There are some previous projects and commitments to do first. A plywood Stevenson Project's sewing center ... some bath and kitchen repairs and updates ... and a screened porch for the cat babies.

All my life I've wanted to build things, and I had to get by with sewing clothes and curtains and stuff. Now -- it's power tools, here I come. (I have a whole workshop of power and hand tools -- still need to get a power planer and one or two other things... Oh goody.)

Confederates Don't Need Validation by Their Enemy's Government

Kevin "South-hater" Levin has a blog, Civil War Memory Is What I Say It Is.  He recently made a post about the claim made by some heritage folks that Confederates were recognized by Congressional legislation as U.S. veterans. I had to leave a response, and like most of my comments, it will not be printed....

Since researching this subject several years ago, I frequently dispute this claim that Confederates were "made" U.S. vets "by an act of Congress" when I encounter it online.

Some of the legislation most people cite for this claim recognizes veterans of the military forces of the Confederate States of America as "civil war veterans," the same as union veterans.

(Most veterans legislation that I encountered in my research [which was admittedly limited considering the total volume of vcterans legislation] doesn't use the terms American veterans or U.S. veterans even for its own vets, though some may. Most of it identifies veterans by the war they served in -- Korean War veterans, Mexican War veterans, etc.)

Other legislation clearly says that members of the Confederate military are recognized (as civil war veterans) "for the purposes of this section" or some such language. The purposes are (1) funding for headstones and (2) funding for widows pensions, and that's all.

Since the graves and widows existed because of the barbarous invasion of the South by the union army, I think it is fitting that the U.S. government appropriated funds, paltry as they were, for headstones and widows pensions. It has certainly funded far more generous payments for many more purposes (physical rebuilding, economic rebuilding, educational, medical, technological rebuilding, etc.) to countries and people its military defeated in other wars. With the exception of paying for a few widows pensions and grave markers, the United States and its government did exactly the opposite to the South -- purposely kept it economically and culturally oppressed -- for several generations post war. 

Neveretheless I vehemently disagree with the notion that Confederate soldiers need recognition as veterans of their enemy's government to validate them. They do not. They validated themselves and their cause (which was not slavery).

In the comment thread following the post (where my submission above will NOT show up, assuredly), somebody named "London John" made a comment with this as the first sentence: "The idea that Confederate veterans, who fought to destry (sic) the United States, are US veterans is obviously absurd."

What's even more absurd is the claim that Confederates fought to destroy the United States. They fought to get away from the United States -- to depart, scram, take a powder, skedaddle, make like a banana and split,  make like a tree and leave. Did it peacefully and democratically, via secession, and the epic tantrum-throwing union sent a flippin' army South to kill them for it.

Read the documents -- secession declaration, editorials, legislation at the state or general government level. There is nothing there to indicate they were all hot to destroy the union -- the Confederate Army didn't even march against D.C. when it had a golden opportunity to. You cannot possibly conclude that's what the South seceded and fought for ... unless you think that the mere act of its leaving the USA would have destroyed it -- in other words, that the north was not capable of being a nation on its own, without Dixie.

Nevertheless, the fear of looming national extinction should the South successfully depart is what goaded so many northerners to join Lincoln's army to "preserve the union." It was a far more urgent motivation for them than freeing slaves, which wasn't much of a motivation at all.

This explains why the union army visited such barbarism upon the Southern people -- not because they were indignant about slaveholding -- they weren't -- but because they were fearful that these slaveholders and dirt farmers held their country's future existence in their hands. And there was also a bit of woman-scorned type indignation that a bunch of slaveholders and dirt farmers wished to no longer be politically affiliated with the elevated and enlightened north.

After it was over, union realized that the savagery with which they and their army brutes prosecuted the war made them look uncomfortably like bad guys. "They wanted to leave, and we were afraid that would have destroyed us, so they had to be punished, severely." So they changed the narrative to, "These people had to be brutally warred upon because they were evil slaveholders, and we, the strong and good, were just the people to do it."

Yes, there had been a lot of talk about slavery during the sectionalism era... But that was not what caused the bad blood between north and South (that still exists on certain levels today). But it is ludicrous to imagine the barbarians in blue uniforms invaded the CSA and killed Southerners to free slaves. That didn't "become" a reason for the war until two years into the fighting.

And, of course, keeping slavery was not what the Confederates were fighting for. It was one of the causes of secession, but secession is not war, and there are different reasons for each. Bottom line -- you cannot fight to keep what nobody is trying to take away from you.

Would the departure of the Southern states have destroyed the union, even though that was not their purpose in leaving? You cannot say Confederates fought to destroy the United States. And obviously, the USA was not destroyed by the South's separation. It remained a viable nation, even while fighting a war. But the mostly unspoken fear of national oblivion nevertheless permeated the union's cause, its fight, its Victor Fables, and to this day, causes people like London Johon to claim, without a scintilla of evidence, that Confederates wanted to destroy the United States.

Claims that the South fought to preserve slavery AND to destroy the USA are equally spurious.

Getting Back in the Swing....

For the past couple of years or so, my time has been claimed by a number of things beyond my control. I've been unable to regularly update my blog or do much other writing on behalf of our heritage.

I had four major surgeries in the past 21 months with lengthy recovery and rehab.

To complicate matters, in July 2016 I was diagnosed with severe iron deficiency anemia. Due to gastric surgery in 2011, I cannot absorb dietary iron, not from food or supplements. It took about five years to use up my iron stores; thus, my anemia diagnosis in 2016. My hemoglobin level was 7 (should be 12 to 15) and my ferritin level was 3; normal level is 100.  Seeing my blood test results, blood doctor said, "I don't know how you're walking around."

It required two transfusions and two infusions to return my numbers to normal levels, alleviate the fatigue and restore energy. Since I cannot absorb dietary iron, my hemoglobin and ferritin levels are now monitored every six months or so, and when the numbers indicate, I receive an iron infusion. This month, my numbers indicated it was time for an infusion, which I had a few days ago.

On top of everything else, in late January this year, I broke the radius bone in my left wrist, and cracked the ulna. This severely inhibits typing, and a lot of other things normal living requires.  Although the break healed nicely, it still hurts sometimes, and the hand doctor says it will take about six months for the pain to completely go away. But at least I can type now.

While I was working through all these maladies, I did what I could for our heritage. I participated in the efforts to save our Confederate monument in Pensacola, writing comments in the local mullet-wrapper following reports on the subject, writing and distributing handbills countering the demands of the mayor and some vocal leftist activists, and attending a city council meeting. The monument is safe. For now.

I've also made online memes and printed flyers and handbills for heritage hotspots and created an online group to answer the SPLC's ridiculous and dishonest "Whose Heritage" campaign.

But now that I'm emerging from the physical restrictions I've had, I'm ready to sure enough get back into the fray. I don't know how much I can do, how well I can keep up the pace ... but we shall see.

One of the projects I want to expand is the use of printed flyers and handbills to counter Take Em Downers and other Destroyers. By now, it is unmistakably clear that the media, national to local, is largely a leftist propaganda enterprise, and they are invested in drumming up hatred for our heritage -- and for us. Our views will not get a fair hearing or presentation from them ... so, we will attempt to inform the public about our side with a low-tech alternative -- printed handouts and, later, street posters.

I'll close out with some flyer samples -- some generic responses to Take Em Downers and some location-specific.

What It Was Really About....And Still Is

When the Southern states seceded, the north experienced a cultural "woman-scorned" syndrome. They went mad, mindless with fury. They invaded not to free slaves, not even to preserve the union, really, but to indiscriminately destroy. That was why they burned dozens of towns, shelled others where there were lots of civilians but no military presence or significance. That was why they stole from civilians, burned houses, barns, crops in the field, killed livestock, even robbed graves. Their "war" was barbarous. Many of them were savages.

When it was over, the South lay in utter ruin, and even that wasn't enough for the bloodthirsty haters. They had to ensure that prosperity wouldn't return to the South for generations. (How they did that is way too lengthy a discussion for a couple of paragraphs, or even a whole blog post.)

But seeing what they had done in the sobering light of "peace" preyed upon them, because, you see, these righteous yankees -- they were people who thought they were God's gift to the world, a shining city on a hill.... And, as hilarious as it is, they still think that today.

There was no denying the savagery and barbarism they had committed against people who didn't deserve it; the whole world could see it. So they set out to retroactively MAKE Southerners DESERVE the savage barbarism done to them. Southerners were evil slavers. Slavery was mankind's greatest evil, and Southerners were the planet's most diabolical practitioners of it. Those evil people even continued mistreating their slaves after they were free! Nothing else, and nobody else, could come close to the devilish evil of the South. The Third Reich with its gas chambers, the Soviet Union with its torture and murder in the gulags ... these folks couldn't TOUCH the Confederates for diabolical evil.

Never mind that the Nazis and the Bolsheviks murdered MILLIONS of civilians -- their own citizens. Never mind that in the four years the Confederacy existed, the slave population increased by about 900,000, which is roughly the same rate of growth as the free population of the USA as determined by the 1860 and 1870 census. (And remember, 700,000 or more Americans and Confederates died in the war, or because of it.) That doesn't fit the hate-narrative, so it is ignored. Or resisted.

The ongoing evilization of Southern white folks is for the purpose of justifying the unjustifiable wrong done to them by the union, which -- and here's the important thing -- was no better. The union was just as sin-ridden as Southerners. Southerners kept slaves? Northerners shipped them and when the shipping was outlawed they SMUGGLED them.  So they not only wrongly evilized Southerners -- they clothed themselves in phony righteousness ("We freed the slaves! We cared about Jim-Crowed blacks!")

Sorry, yankees. You don't get to wade nostril-deep into slavery and the slave trade for generations... you don't get to continue smuggling slaves for generations after the trade is outlawed ... you don't get to wallow in the riches you made from your own practice of slavery... you don't get to wallow in the riches you made off somebody else's slaves... you don't get to build your your industry and infrastructure on slave-grown cotton  -- and then become pure and righteous in just few decades because you abolished slavery and sold your slaves to get rid of your states' black populations (particularly when you continued to wallow in your anti-black racism).

The guilt, wickedness and infamy of your deep involvement in slavery was still with you when you invaded the South to kill innocent Southerners. Your army stank of it, along with the stench of staggering hypocrisy. You still do, because involvement with  slavery and racism as deep, as pervasive, as ugly and as lengthy as yours doesn't wear off that quickly or easily.

The removal of the flags and monuments, and the continual demonization of Southerners, past and present, in the government, the press and popular culture, are all explained by this addiction that has hold of the intellecual descendants of the blue-clad barbarians -- the obsession, the fever, to justify their unjustifiable war on people who did not deserve it, and their ongoing evilization and oppression of those people for generations afterward.

And remember, continuing to lie about those you made war on, and their descendants and supporters, will not make that nasty wiff of guilt and hypocrisy dissipate -- quite the opposite. You are stuck with it. Own it.

Folks, if you want to see what I'm talking about, read any of Kevin Levin's blog posts about the Virginia Flaggers and his evilization of them in his essay for the Daily Beast. Read also any of the sanctimonious, highly subjective, often false comments by Andy Hall. Many others participate in the ongoing hate-war against Southerners, but Kevin and Andy are superb models of it.

Buncha New Facebook Memes.... Enjoy!