Anti-Confederate bias on display

Vist the Washington Post, folks, and read the following, and then come back here for my piercing and decisive commentary:

The dodgy world of Southern history
by Peter Galuszka

Galuszka doesn't make his case any better than Masoff, the woman he's criticizing, does, and he inescapably exposes his biases.

"Masoff, who is not a trained historian..." (i.e., doesn't toe the court-historian line), "says she got the information from a Web site. It can be traced to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a Tennessee-based group open exclusively to males who can show that their ancestors fought for the Confederacy."

Nothing in that "tracing" of the source proves the information untrue.

"It can be traced", incidently, is a journalistic lapse into the passive voice, which usually signals a reluctance to be forthcoming with concrete information, likely because the information doesn't exist. If Galuszka was a journalist worth his salt, he'd have used the active voice (as he did later in the article) and said, "I traced the information to a web site, http://www.jacksonblackregiments.com/, which is owned by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and I confirmed that's what the website claims that Jackson..." That he didn't say it this way leaves me suspicious.

Article continues, "Disputes like this used to be fairly common some years ago, and it is surprising that they continue to crop up."

Surprising to who?

"Many serious historians note...."

Court historians toeing the PC line, no doubt. And unnamed, you'll notice. "Many historians note" doesn't establish untruth, proof or disproof. It just informs us what the "many" (unidentified) historians (trained ones, unlike Masoff? Why, he doesn't say!) "note."

Presumably, in this case, note means "believe" or "think" or "write" or "teach" or something. It's another one of those squishy, mamby-pamby terms some "journalists" use to keep from having to be held to what they say. Presumably, because they "note" something, we're supposed to swallow it as gospel.

Speaking of court historians, anybody recall who is the respected historian who said he BECAME a historian out of a personal desire to make the South look bad? I can't remember his name right now, I'll try to look him up if I have time, but I don't have a lot of respect for court historians who display that kind of biased attitude.

"...very few African Americans fought for the Confederacy, although some slaves were used as forced labor to build fortifications or as valets to Southern officers."

Whether blacks fought for the Confederacy, and in what numbers, is a nonissue to me. I don't know or care whether Jackson had a couple of black battalions. If he didn't, it shouldn't be in history books that he did. On the other hand, if blacks fought for the Confederacy, in whatever numbers, for whatever reasons, their service should be acknowledged and honored.

There is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence in the letters, diaries, journals and reports of officers and soldiers on both sides that report witnessing themselves, or receiving reports from others, that blacks were fighting for the South. There is also the evidence that blacks were treated as veterans by Confederate vets at their anniversary gatherings, and were given residence in old folks homes provided for Confederate vets. It is just as wrong for court historians to ignore this evidence, or attempt to downplay or neutralize it, as it is to claim Confederate black battalions existed if they didn't.

Since the civil rights movement and the advent of political correctness, an attitude has developed in this country that black folks all think alike about everything. They're mental clones. During the Confederate flag flaps of the last decade, newspaper writers (I won't call them journalists) wrote over and over and over and over, "Blacks think the flag is offensive" and "To blacks the flag symbolizes slavery" etc. They all think alike about slavery, about the war, about Jim Crow, about the civil rights movement, about the Great Society...

I don't believe it. Most blacks who were *identified* as offended by the flag were activist types, like local NAACP leaders wanting to keep their organization relevant, or leftist Hollywood/music biz types (think Spike Lee-types or Ludicris) who play to a PC audience. The black population in the South had lived with flag displays, Confederate monuments, streets, and other memorials, for years, decades...gen-er-a-tions...without a peep.

During the flag flaps, white liberals (white-guilty liberals wanting to force the whole Southern white population to share their guilt feelings) did as much bellyaching as black activists. They were the "journalists" who reported flag flaps with descriptions like this: "...the Confederate flag, a red flag with a blue X and white stars in the X, which is an offensive and painful reminder of slavery to blacks..."

It was like they were giving lessons... "See, folks? Expecially black folks? This is what you're supposed to be offended by; here's what it looks like, and here's why you should be offended...."

(Some learned their lessons a little too well. During the outbreak of flag-flaps and the war against all kinds of Confederate memorials and symbology, I came across a news report of some black lady in Georgia who was "offended" by her BANK. She said it had a RACIST name. It was "Heritage Bank." I'm not making this up.)

The outrage and offendedness today still seems more a function of white liberals (like this "journalist" Galuszka) than ordinary blacks.

Galuszka inserts bias into this "report" like this: "Critics say that assertions such as Masoff's ought be strongly opposed because they are designed to give the Southern cause -- maintaining slavery -- credibility. Groups that tend to romanticize the traditional white Southerners' view of the conflict counter that a lot of honest history gets lost in politically correct versions that have been taught in schools for decades."

How do critics know what such assertions are "designed" to do? That's just their opinion. You'd have to ask the person doing the asserting, and Galuszka evidently didn't. He just assumes. Then, there's this phrase, "Groups that tend to romanticize the traditional white Southerners' view of the conflict..." Unnamed groups, I, um, note. And who determines that they "tend to romantacize" anything? Galuszka? LOL.

And does he prove this assertion of his? Why, no. Look what he says next, "I am not a Southern by background but have lived a good part of my life in the South. One still cannot escape what some whites wish could have been."

What whites? How does he know what they wish?

Hey, a lot of honest history DOES get lost in politically correct versions taught in schools -- and not just the South's history. Does he not know this? Or does it just not matter to somebody whose purpose is the PC put-down?

His contempt for the South and Southerners (one assumes only white Southerners) is threaded throught this short piece of writing (I won't call it journalism) and serves to give readers a biased view of them. (...Groups that tend to romanticize the traditional white Southerners' view of the conflict counter ... One still cannot escape what some whites wish could have been ... a pleasant little town with the usual characters waxing eloquent about moonlight and magnolia ... a self-styled historian who would fit right in with the Sons of Confederate Veterans ...)

He ends with, "You would think that anyone with a hand in the contents of a grade-school textbook would understand that. Cribbing material off a Web site posted by a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is suspect at best."

But he didn't bother to provide proof that Masoff's account is untrue, regardless of where she cribbed it from.

This Wapo "journalist" deserves completely indifference or mild contempt --and that's precisely what he gets from me.

Intelligence and Poverty (-stricken lawyers)

Deconstructing SPLC "Intelligence" Reports

I see from a Facebook post that the poverty-stricken lawyers in their multi-story Airstream in the Cradle of the Confederacy have the Museum of the Confederacy in their, um, figurative gun sights.

I haven't read but a paragraph or two of the hit piece (which goes on and on and on for pages and pages and pages -- this article below explains why I don't read their crap) and I'm not putting a link to it. If you wanna read it, find it yourself.

In September 2005, I did some research on the SPLC's website for a post in a discussion group. I found two very interesting passages.

The first is about the publication, the Intelligence Report, and it sed, "Each year, Intelligence Project staff sift through hate groups' publications, citizens' reports, news reports and information from law enforcement agencies and field sources to develop the most up-to-date data on American hate groups. That data is then passed on to law enforcement, journalists, academics and the general public."

Something similar was found in a paragraph about the list of "hate groups" the SPLC tracks: "This list was compiled using hate group publications and websites, citizen and law enforcement reports, field sources and news reports."

I found these sources of information very interesting. (It's also interesting that the last time I looked, these passages had been removed or almost unrecognizably altered. cw, July 2010)

One of the sources is identified as "law enforcement reports." Out of curiosity, since SPLC's hate group map plasters West Florida with hate group symbols, I decided to find out what kind of reports local law enforcement agencies give to the SPLC about these groups. I talked to three people at the Escambia County Sheriff's Department --one of them Sheriff McNesby himself, with whom I am nominally acquainted.

Well, they don't give reports to the SPLC, so the "watchdogs" at the poverty palace in Montgomery have to get whatever "law enforcement reports" they want from West Florida from somewhere else. More than likely, the only law enforcement agencies that provide information to the SPLC are federal agencies -- the FBI, the BATF, etc. -- the jackbooted thugs of NRA fame.

Then, there is the source "hate groups' publications." I freely admit I don't study hate group literature, so I don't know how accurately the SPLC reports what they find there. However, I do know that they frequently misreport and misconstrue material from proSouthern publications.

Next we have "news reports". I have read only a fraction of the articles in the Intelligence Report -- mostly only those about proSouthernism -- but I find the citing of a news source (or any other source, frankly) to be as rare as hens' teeth. In fact, now that I think about it, I don't remember a single one.

That leaves "citizens' reports" and "field sources." That's mostly where the "intelligence reports" come from. They are anonymous accounts and as such, wholly unreliable. We aren't told who is supplying the information, how reliable they are, whether they have an agenda, and if so, what it is. We don't know the circumstances under which they gather the information. Did they interview people? Did they identify themselves right up front? If not, how was the information gathered?

These "citizens' and field source reports" are written in the language of persuasion and propaganda, not the language of factual and dispassionate reporting. They are not vetted by an impartial editor for fairness and objectivity. They are manufactured, beginning to end, by people with an agenda, for the purpose of pushing that agenda. They are written and edited by people whose (very substantial) incomes depend on convincing contributors that there's a huge and growing, dangerous, violent "hate" menace stalking the country.

I believe these reports from citizens and field sources to be considerably embellished, and in part actually fabricated.

Here's an interesting "report" about a meeting of the Constitution Party several years ago, representatiave of what I'm talking about.

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2003/fall/our-terrible-swift-sword


None of it came from "news reports" -- at least, not legitimate ones -- or, if it did, Moser didn't properly cite them. No ABC-NBC-CBS-Fox News stories cited, nothing from the Oregonian in Portland, no radio or magazine reports cited...

(The article does cite "Ballot Access News publisher Richard Winger," but only for generic information about the average percentage of the third-party vote, not information about the Constitution Party meeting being reported on. All the "analysis" of third-party history isn't intelligence reporting -- anybody can look that info up on the web.)

Also, there are no facts identified as being supplied by the Clackamas County Sheriff's Department, the Portland Police Bureau or the Oregon State Police or any other law enforcement agency, either (so much for "law enforcement" sources...)

That leaves totally anonymous, totally unverifiable -- in other words, wholly specious -- "citizens' reports" and "field sources."

Of course, the citizens and field sources themselves are not identified....

The SPLC claims that the Intelligence Report is journalism, but there's not a particle of journalistic objectivity to it. Its paragraphs are littered with manipulative language. For example, from the Constitution Party article:

"CLACKAMAS, Ore. -- They've journeyed west from as far as Pennsylvania and Maryland, this band of true believers, 100 strong. Some of them decked out in their Sunday finest, others casual in plaid work shirts and jeans, they have huddled together on a rainy April Saturday in a low-lit hotel conference room in this blue-collar Portland suburb that gave the world Tanya Harding, figure skater gone bad."

What tripe! A truly journalistic account would sound more like....

"CLACKAMAS, Ore. -- About 100 people from as far away as Pennsylvania and Maryland have arrived in Clackamas for the 2003 convention of the Constitution Party."

"decked out in their Sunday finest" "band of true believers" "huddled together" "blue-collar Portland suburb" "Tonya Harding, figure skater gone bad" are all word-picture irrelevancies designed to manipulate and bias the reader.

This kind of manipulative language liberally sprinkles the whole article.

And the passages about the meeting in Oregon were clearly written by someone who was there ... but the source isn't named. What a surprise....

If you are so anxious to believe crap like this, go right ahead. And if you want to give your money to a bunch of avaricious "fundraisers," who am I to try to dissuade you? It's your money. Send 'em lots. They need it. The POVERTY law center has only got $120 million, and I just know they've sacrificed and sent some of it for Katrina relief... Although, I haven't been able to find confirmation of it in the media, yet.... But they're so generous and caring, surely they've sent a big donation....

A trip down memory lane (yes, I know how clichéd that is)

Folks in the proSouthern community may remember the e-zine, 180 Degrees True South, written, edited, illustrated, published and webmastered (we called it "reb-mastering" back then) by moi, which appeared more-or-less monthly between 2000 and 2004.

It was rollicking fun for me — and evidently for folks in the movement, judging by the feedback I got.

Ah, those were the days! Some of life’s inevitable responsibilities took me away from active involvement in the proSouthern movement, and 180 went offline. While I was away, two things happened: I began to write proSouthern novels (the first one is published and available at Amazon.com) and the proSouthern movement went kablooey.

But a look at Facebook and other communities online tells me that the passion so many Southerners have for their home region still burns fierce in their hearts; that the gratuitous and mendacious attacks on Southern history and culture are as offensive to us as they’ve always been; that Americans in other regions of the country are beginning to exhibit the same misgivings about out-of-control federal government that Southerners have always had; and that it may be time for renewal of our dedication to our region’s history and heritage.

Toward that end, I’ve begun this blog. And while Southern issues will be at the core of it, I may blog about any subject I think will interest readers. And, as in the old days, it will be updated "whenever I feel like it and have the time."

Stay tune as the purpose and form of the blog take shape — and be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Connie Ward, Ed.