Happy Anniversary, Virginia Flaggers!

   

 Now and then, Southern heritage critic and self-identified liar Corey Meyer (and others) mentions on Facebook and in various flogger comment threads how long the Virginia Flaggers have been flagging without success -- i.e., without persuading the VMFA to put the flags back up on the Pelham Chapel.

Apparently, it escapes Corey's notice just how successful the VaFlaggers have been. In the past three years, they have inspired countless others to step up to the plate and defend Southern heritage all across our Confederacy. They have raised flags in honor of the Confederate soldier's memory beside well-traveled thoroughfares in Virginia. They have done more than any other group in recent memory to raise awareness of the place of Confederate veterans in our history -- and our hearts.

It started three years ago with one person, Susan Hathaway, standing on the sidewalk with a battle flag. Soon she was joined by others. From the start they've said, "All it would take for us to go away is to put the flags back on the chapel."

The video I made for the VaFlaggers gives just the tiniest glimpse of what the VMFA could have prevented by the simple act of restoring two small flags.  Too late now. The genie is out of the bottle...

Or, to use the metaphor literally depicted in the video, Susan was the first pebble dropped into a pond, and by now, the ripples have become a tidal wave...

Congratulations, Virginia Flaggers! You have our honors and gratitude!

The VaFlagger's third memorial battle flag goes up at Cold Harbor, just 

in time for the group's third anniversary. Good job, Flaggers!

'Splaining Things to Ohio Guy

Continuing commentary on the X-roads comment thread about Dunsford's blog post...

Ohio Guy sez, "That there were kind slave owners who interacted with slaves as he describes is well documented. What Jerry does is to buy into the Lost Cause lie that this was the warp and woof of American slavery."

No, he doesn't "buy into" that and he doesn't promote it, either. At least, not in the blog post I saw.

The "warp and woof" can mean two things (aside from the literal meaning of the lengthwise or longitudinal threads and the perpendicular transverse threads being woven into fabric on a  loom). It can mean either the foundation, or the totality.

In any case, I could find nothing in Jerry's post claiming that the good relations he described was the totality of slavery, or even the foundation of it. He said he has read many stories about the positive relations beween slaves and their owners. Ohio Guy himself seems to confirm that, saying it's "well documented."

Dunford also mentioned movies that "show the whips and chains," and says that was the exception, not the rule. So he acknowledged the negatives, and certainly claimed nowhere that the positives were the totality, or even the basis ... only that they occurred.

I have never run across this "lost cause" claim Ohio Guy mentions, so maybe HE is the one lying... or let's be generous and say he's mistaken.

Ohio Guy goes on to say, "It was not. In fact, it has been noted by at least one historian that in some ways American slavery was the worst form of slavery that ever existed."

So? It's one historian's opinion -- which I happen to think is complete hooey. Why I think so will become apparent later in this post.

Ohio Guy: This is because in most other societies that practiced slavery there were laws that protected slaves. There were limits placed on what a master could do to punish a slave, and what he could expect of the slave in terms of work and production.  This was not true in the USA. The infamous words of Judge Taney in the Dred Scott case sum it up well: “[The Negro] had no rights which the white man was bound to respect . . .” This means that whippings, beatings, chains, separating families, selling “uppity” slaves “down the river,” etc., were all accepted practices in the antebellum South.

Izzat right?

Contrary to what is commonly believed, slaves did have some legal rights, such as support in age or sickness, a right to limited religious instruction, and the right to bring suit and give evidence in special cases. Custom gave numerous rights also, such as private property, marriage, free time, contractual ability and, to females, domestic or lighter plantation labor, which, however the master was not bound to respect. Barbarities such as mutilation, branding, chaining and murder were regulated or prohibited by law, but instances of cruelty were common before the 19th century."

The above is from a set of encyclopedias that my husband and I purchased early in our marriage, copyrighted 1972 - 1975. That means they are pre-political correctness. Political correctness (especially when coupled with hatred of antebellum white Southerners) demands that slavery be totally defined as "whippings, beatings, chains, separating families, selling “uppity” slaves “down the river" and slave owners totally defined as "whippers, beaters, chainers, family separators and slave sellers."

Ohio Guy concludes, "That, I submit, is the essence of American slavery not the romanticized version that Confederate apologists would like us to believe."

I submit that neither one is the essence of American slavery. Warm familial relationships and physical brutality were the opposite extremes -- the essence lay somewhere in between. I think it weighed more heavily to the negative, but then so did life for a great many free people.

I want to go back to something Ohio Guy said and further address it: "...in most other societies that practiced slavery there were laws that protected slaves. There were limits placed on what a master could do to punish a slave, and what he could expect of the slave in terms of work and production."

Kinda like the laws in ancient Rome that "protected," oh, say, a slave that was a gladiator, sent into the arena to fight to the death? "As a gladiator, a man gained immediate status even though the gladiatorial oath forced him to act as a slave to his master and "to endure branding, chains, flogging, or death by the sword" (Petronius Satyricon, 117.5).  Familiar sounding list, isn't it? Sounds a lot like the way Ohio Guy described American slavery.

Another "society that practiced slavery" was Islam, and if Ohio Guy thinks that was one of the societies that protected slaves, I would urge him to compare Islamic involvement in African slavery to European (and American) involvement in African slavery.

“…the worst, most inhumane and most diabolical institution of the black African slave trade was initiated, refined, perpetrated and implemented by the Mohammedan Arabs and later aided and abetted by the black converts to Mohammedan Islam.” -- John Alembillah Azumah, Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa

While the European involvement in the Trans Atlantic slave trade to the Americas lasted for just over three centuries, the Arab involvement in the slave trade has lasted fourteen centuries, and in some parts of the Muslim world is still continuing to this day.

A comparison of the Islamic slave trade to the American slave trade reveals some interesting contrasts.  While two out of every three slaves shipped across the Atlantic were men, the proportions were reversed in the Islamic slave trade.  Two women for every man were enslaved by the Muslims.

While the mortality rate for slaves being transported across the Atlantic was as high as 10%, the percentage of slaves dying in transit in the Trans Sahara and East African slave trade was between 80 and 90%.While almost all the slaves shipped across the Atlantic were for agricultural work, most of the slaves destined for the Muslim Middle East were for sexual exploitation as concubines, in harems, and for military service.

While many children were born to slaves in the Americas, and millions of their descendants are citizens in Brazil and the USA to this day, very few descendants of the slaves that ended up in the Middle East survive.

While most slaves who went to the Americas could marry and have families, most of the male slaves destined for the Middle East were castrated, and most of the children born to the women were killed at birth.

It is estimated that possibly as many as 11 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic (95% of which went to South and Central America, mainly to Portuguese, Spanish and French possessions.  Only 5% of the slaves went to the United States).

At least 28 million Africans were enslaved in the Muslim Middle East.  Since at least 80% of those captured by Muslim slave traders were calculated to have died before reaching the slave markets, it is believed that the death toll from 1400 years of Muslim slave raids into Africa could have been over 112 million.  When added to the number of those sold in the slave markets, the total number of African victims of the Trans Saharan and East African slave trade could be significantly higher than 140 million people.

 Look at that -- 140 million victims of Arab/Muslim slavery, 112 of them deaths.

While Christian Reformers spearheaded the anti-slavery abolitionist movements in Europe and North America, and Great Britain mobilised her Navy, throughout most of the 19th Century, to intercept slave ships and set the captives free, there was no opposition whatsoever to slavery within the Muslim world.

Even after Britain outlawed the slave trade in 1807 and Europe abolished the slave trade in 1815, Muslim slave traders enslaved a further 2 million Africans.  This, despite vigorous British Naval activity and military intervention to limit the Islamic slave trade. 

By some calculations, the number of victims of the 14 centuries of Islamic slave trade could exceed 180 million.

Nearly 100 years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in America, and 130 years after all slaves within the British Empire were set free by parliamentary decree, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, in 1962, and Mauritania in 1980, begrudgingly removed legalised slavery from their statute books.  And this only after international pressure was brought to bear.  Today numerous international organisations document that slavery still continues in some Muslim countries.

This and much more about the Arab/Muslim slave trade can be found here:

http://www.inthenameofallah.org/Islam%20&%20African%20Slave%20Trade.html

I would urge Ohio Guy to watch this video about this Arab/Muslim "other society" that practiced slavery and tell me what kind of brainless dope could know about this and then claim American slavery was the worst form of slavery that ever existed?
http://www.wat.tv/video/muslim-black-slavery-islam-lkvx_2gv9d_.html

Floggasms and Assassination of the Intellect

It's interesting to watch floggers and floggerettes ssassinate their own intellect just for the pleasure of putting down Southern heritage. There's a floggasm underway at X-roads over the opinions about slavery expressed on his blog by one Jerry Dunford.

Mr. Dunford and I have "met" a couple of times online.  I don't know a lot about him. He isn't someone I routinely defend, or on whose behalf I counter-attack. I've visited his blog maybe three times quite some time ago, but I recently went to his blog post about slavery, because it has the X-roads floggosphere in such a tizzy. All I did was skim it, but it appears his subject is the purported relationship between slavery and the circumstances of today's black Americans.

I'll begin with the last X-roads comment in the thread (as of this writing) from one RE Watson, who sez, "My, my ...... Is there a possibility of a Connie/Jerry wedding in the future?"  Afraid not, Mr. Watson. I've been happily married since the waning months of the Nixon Administration.

And, as I said, I don't know much about Mr. Dunford or his beliefs. I do think the relationship between slavery and the circumstances of blacks in America today is greatly exaggerated in some quarters. I know that mistreatment of slaves occurred (just as mistreatment of children by parents, relatives, caregivers, etc., occurs) but I also agree that such mistreatment was not the norm, and certainly not the totality, of slavery.  Yes, it was bad. It was not THAT bad.

Now, on to some other floggerette comments.

seanmunger says, "Wow. Just…wow. ...Would this guy volunteer his children (much less himself) to be sold into slavery? Incredible."

I suppose seanmunger and his fellow travelers see some necessary or logical connection between (a) seeking or presenting a more balanced assessment of historic slavery and (b) volunteering oneself or one's children to be sold into slavery, but frankly, I don't see one and I don't think one exists. In my opinion, this is just an emotion-over-cognition method (typically used by those with a leftist mentality) for concocting a rooster-crow put down...

Makes we wonder.... is what's good for the goose also good for the gander? I mean, if they think people who "defend" slavery (even though that's not really what they're doing) should consider selling themselves or their children into slavery, does that mean that floggers and/or floggerettes who "defend" Islam (by disapproving of my disapproval of the practice of Islamic "religion" by Islamics in this country) should turn themselves over to Islamic jihadists for beheading?

One makes as much sense as the other.

Then, Jimmy Dick, the king of emotion-trumps-cognition, sez, "Isn't it always marvelous how people who have never been slaves can think that slavery was a benign situation or a positive for the enslaved people?"

Well, actually they likely "think" this because of what some slaves themselves said about it. No, not every slave experienced it that way, but then, not every slave lived in total pain and misery, as the Jimmy Dicks of the world would have us all believe.  How honest is it for the Jimmy Dicks to ignore the positives that indeed did occur -- and were recorded -- and impute only the experiences of the badly treated to all slaves? How dishonest is it for him to ignore the human feelings of affection or regard between slaves and their masters, and pretend that because some negative ones existed, they were ALL negative?

I wonder if seanmunger and Jimmy Dick support a "woman's right to choose" and if they do, why haven't they volunteered to have themselves aborted? I mean, just because they're no longer in the womb, that doesn't mean they can't experience what an unborn child experiences when it's being aborted -- burned to death by a saline solution, having its limbs ripped from its body by a suction machine, being chopped to bits -- "born" people can certainly experience all these -- and it makes as much sense to suggest that abortion supporters try it as Dick's and seanmunger's comments make about slavery.

This reminds me of another floggerette from the past who sincerely told me a slave could not tell the difference between being raped and NOT being raped....  The point was to make all slaveowners totally evil, make them all rapists, even those who did not rape, and would be horrified by the thought. The hatred of white Southerners is powerful that way, powerful enough to render one a complete dope.

But back to the X-roads thread.... somebody going by the handle msb says, "Yet violence was essential to the working of the system and slave life expectancy was much shorter than that of the free population, and infant mortality was much higher."

Well, that depends on when and where. Life expectancy for free and slave changed with time and location.

Besides, I wonder how he explains those situations where violence was not practiced? How can the system work if violence is essential, but it is not practiced or used? Wouldn't that make the system NOT work? Besides, I wonder if msb realize that violence was not found just in slavery.... violence was widespread during the settling of the colonies, the early ears of the country and especially in the movement west. It has been violent since the beginning, and remains so. I wonder what msb thinks about that.

Then Sandi "The Roanoke.com Queen" Saunders pipes up with, "Slavery apologists are just beyond the pale. If you cannot admit the inherent evil of slavery, you have nothing credible to offer."

How about truth? Is truth not credible? Here's some truth. Many -- in fact, I believe most -- of the critics and enemies of Southern heritage magnify the evil of slavery, magnify it beyond all reality, for the sake of evilizing white Southerners -- certainly those of the past, and many in the present. Is that why Miss Roanoke.com does it? I suspect so.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again -- for floggers, floggerettes and their ilk, white evil exists in exact inverse proportion to black/slave misery, and so black/slave misery must be exaggerated beyond all reason, reality and truth -- because the evilization of white Southerners is their desire ... beyond all reason, reality and truth.

I want to also answer "Ohio Guy" and "Rosemary" but they each deserve a whole blog post. So check back later for more of me showing how willingly these people choke their own intellect for the sake of evilizing those they do not like.

HEY, B. PARKS!

It's September third, and....
 

   I'M STILL HEEEE-ERE!

Many thanks to J. Steven Svoboda ...

... of the National Coalition for Men for this fantastic review of Southern Man. I can't tell you how pleased I am with his comments and insights. I'm not sure when and where the review will be posted, whether the organization's  main website or Transitions, which is a print publication for NCFM members only. However, when a link appears, will post it here and on social media.

Meantime, read the review here:

________

Southern Man: Legacy of Fortitude, A Southern Heroes Novel. By Connie Chastain.  Pensacola, Florida: Great Southern Publishing, 2009.   334 pages. No price given on book but amazon lists for $12.95. www.conniechastain.com, www.brasstownbooks.com. Review by J. Steven Svoboda.

Author, self-proclaimed devotee of the South and preacher’s daughter Connie Chastain has written a novel that greatly broadened my horizons and for which I owe her a substantial debt.  Her novel tells the compelling saga of hardworking family man Troy Stevenson and his adoring, supportive wife Patty.

Chastain throws in passing references to misandry, trusting the reader who may be unaware of the meaning of that word to look it up, wisely avoiding a political digression to explain it. 

The author describes a world relatively unfamiliar to me. I have only spent a few weeks in the South in my life though I have been very favorably impressed by the welcoming people there and the down-to-earth, unpretentious feeling I have gotten when I have visited.  While my mother was a housewife for a while until she took a job when I was about twelve years old, I frankly do not know many women who have chosen to build their lives around nurturing a family and around supporting their wage-earner husbands rather than around their own careers.

The book grew on me tremendously as I continued to read the extremely engaging story.  Chastain has a knack for convincingly, non-judgmentally immersing us in the lives of a very diverse set of characters.  Complications ensue when a young woman, Brooke Emerson, becomes obsessed with Troy and, determined to take him to her bed, begins stalking him.

Brooke’s plot to ensnare Troy goes so far as to encompass a wrongful sexual harassment accusation when he rejects her advances.  Due to some very provident actions, Troy is eventually able to clear his name.  Southern Man brought me face to face with some philosophies quite different from those familiar to me—characters who use Christian scripture as a guide in their daily lives, in some cases going so far as not to engage in premarital sex.

It is refreshing to read an author who unapologetically, unostentatiously yet convincingly paints a world in which men are accepted as different from women (as indeed they are), and the differences are celebrated. Troy and his wife Patty are full equals yet have different roles. And they love each other fiercely and with a commitment and devotion that many married people might well envy.

The family reunion that occurs on pages 226-228 is downright moving and sweet. What a wonderful book. And a true page-turner as well. I couldn’t put it down. Don’t miss it!

________

J. Steven Svoboda is the senior board member of and Public Relations Director for the National Coalition For Men, the world’s oldest and largest non-profit devoted to educating the world about the harm done to men and boys by gender discrimination. Steven is NCFM’s book reviewer and his articles are available through the group's bi-monthly newsletter Transitions.

Read his entire bio here.

For My Readers' Enjoyment

The following is edited from a p---ing contest between myself and a Virginia South-basher in a comment thread following an online letter to the editor or something....

ME: Actually, it's the winners, the north, the union, who've been taking liberties with the truth since Appomattox Courthouse, santizing their complicity in slavery, sprinkling the perfume of phony righteousness on their "cause" (money). Why do you think Lincoln had to sell the war as "preserving the union" instead of freeing slaves? Because (1) the north generally didn't care about slaves and (2) it did care about keeping that slave-grown cotton flowing northward to enrich maritime interests who shipped it to Europe, and textile interest who worked it in their mills....

My Opponent (hereinafter referred to as MO): ... stop being dishonest. we did not "sell" the war as anything but the fight to preserve the union. Slavery was the cause of the Confederacy and the Confederacy alone. Sure our history, from 1619 on included Slavery. However, slavery was on the way out in the North and in in future territories it was not going to be established. However, the Founders of this nation did not fight to preserve slavery. The Union Army did not fight to preserve slavery. Again, that was the Confederacy alone. You cannot revise the words of Davis or Stephens or any of the other 'slavery forever' leaders of the Confederacy. Slavery was the "state's right" they demanded.

ME:  I'm not being dishonest. You would have to be omniscient to know that, and I don't believe you are. The north's complicity in slavery has indeed been sanitized and is still being sanitized. You're helping to do it. Certainly the founders fought to preserve slavery, because slavery existed in what they fought for. Do you mean they didn't SAY they were fighting to preserve slavery? That just means they were the ones being dishonest.

Slavery was "on the way out" in the north because abolishing it -- and selling off their slaves -- was necessary to rid those states of their black populations. Keeping slavery out of the territories was necessary to keep blacks out of the territories. It is an unpleasant truth for some to acknowledge today, but it is still truth. What underlay the "slavery" issue was race.

Everyone north and south knew slavery would end eventually. Southerners wanted to "expand" slavery into the territories to more evenly distribute the black population before the end of slavery. The north did not want blacks in the north or in the territories. A war was fought to keep blacks bottled up in the South. It was successful. That is why this map looks like it does to this day:


http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/maps/img/black.jpg
MO: wow, you have the revisionist history down. The truth, not so much.
MO:  However, slavery was on the way out in the North and in in future territories it was not going to be established.
 
ME:  Slavery was "on the way out" in the north because abolishing it -- and selling off their slaves -- was necessary to rid those states of their black populations. Keeping slavery out of the territories was necessary to keep blacks out of the territories. It is an unpleasant truth for some to acknowledge today, but it is still truth. What underlay the "slavery" issue was race.

MO:  The nation was evolving as the South chose not to. The South was losing their economic supremacy, their free labor supremacy and their white supremacy as well as their power in the Congress and they came undone and blamed others for their problems, much like the revisionist Confederates do today.
 
ME:  The nation was evolving? LOL! The northeast has never evolved out of its love of money. Fighting a war to keep the north's cash cow (the South) in its possession during which slaves were incidentally freed doesn't absolve the north (and the US government) of its sins -- the Gilded Age, the Robber Barons, the official US government policy of genocide of the Plains Indians by starvation (by killing off their food supply, the buffalo), the imprisoning native Americans in concentration camps artfully called reservations in conditions worse than plantation slavery, the coal mine owners who lived like kings while miners and their families lived in conditions worse than plantation slavery; the northeast factory owners who lived like kings while CHILDREN worked in slave-like conditions in their factories...

Not to mention deliberately keeping the South in poverty for generations after the war by preventing economic growth (read this to see how it was done http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cescott/freight.html) Yes, it was policy of private industry, the railroads, but it was permitted by the feds, and realize this did not end until 1952, when I was three years old. And for those generations of grinding poverty after the war, poor Southerners, black and white (and most Southerners were poor) were plagued with nutritional deficiency diseases, pellagra, hookworm, that took a horrible, horrible toll... But I guess it served them right because their daddies and grandaddies fought to keep an ENTIRE RACE (spoken in high-pitched hysteria) in BONDAGE.

See, what you slave-o-centric folks don't realize, what you folks who wear slave-colored glasses either can't see, or refuse to see, is that whatever was happening with the political classes, north and South, whatever arguments they may have had about slavery, secession or the price of rice in China, what the average Joe in the South saw was a huge, brutal army armed to the teeth marching toward his town, his home, his family. And he fought to protect them. And THOSE are the Confederate I honor. You don't like it? Tough.

MO: ... rehashing the sins of others will not absolve the Confederacy of theirs. No sale.

ME:  Why, yes, it does. When the ones trashing the Confederacy are the ones with the sins I mentioned, it certainly does.

MO:   you do not "honor" anyone, you hide your anger, secesh and anti-government, anti-north, anti-Lincoln sentiments behind them. Well, I should say that you attempt to. I see right through you and your insults. Honoring the soldiers has never required your bile, revisionist history and dishonesty. Never.

ME: Oh, I have never denied there was more to it than honoring soldiers. You say "secesh" like it's a bad thing. LOL. I believe in the right of secession. You don't. I don't care.

Not anti-government, just anti-bad government.

Anti-north? Nope. Lots of good northerners. Anti northeast, money-grubbing, totalitarian yankees.

Anti-Lincoln? You bet.

MO:  according to the people leading the secession, yes slavery was the main driver. The "cornerstone". The north and south fought again together as the United States in almost no time. You just keep being dishonest and revising the history you do not want to admit. Slaves running from slavery went north. Black men fought for the Union. Former slaves helped bring the end of slavery. Of course racism remained but there was no actual "Jim Crow North", either. You believe your own hype clearly.

ME: It wasn't called "Jim Crow" in the north. It was called "black codes." Ever heard of sundown towns?

It's quite easy to for the north to tolerate its black populations when they are so tiny. Even so, most of the major urban race riots in modern times occurred outside the South.

You tell me why that census map looks like it does. Did you know the counties with the greatest black population in the Southern states today are exactly the same ones with the greatest slave populations before the war? If the north was so wonderful to the former slaves, why wasn't there a black stampede out of Dixie to the welcoming arms of the north?

Sprinkle that perfume, keep sanitizing the north. Keep trashing the South, which you claim to love. Ha.

MO:  you just keep on being dishonest. Clearly you cannot do otherwise. I have not "sanitized" anything or anyone. Claiming that the South could not "tolerate" so many free black people is not helping your case. The war was not over racism.

ME:  LOL!!! If you're not talking slavery, you're talking racism; and suddenly it's not about racism?

MO:  again for the slow, racism and bigotry is what allowed slavery to happen and flourish to the point that the Confederacy was willing to fight a war to keep it. They lost on both scores. The soldiers were honorable in their fight, as all soldiers are. You and your ilk, are not.

The Civil War was over slavery and the South's demand to keep it and their demand that the North accept that and continue to enable it. Their secession was not about the government being wrong, theirs was aligned much like the US already was. Their secession was not about them not having representation or a voice, they already had both, it was about them not being able to control the nation's choices anymore and refusing to accept the changes the evolution of humanity demanded. They wanted to keep their slaves, their caste system and their white supremacy domination of an entire race. There is no other story to it and the "state's right" they demanded was to keep slavery and have that respected.

Secession was rebellion. It was put down and it was adjudicated as unconstitutional. You people cannot let that go but it remains the truth.

ME:  The fact remains, regardless of the "sins" of the South, the north/union had NO moral authority for militarily invading the Southern states, and our Confederate ancestors were absolutely right to defend homes, families and communities and from a barbarous army.

The Southern states had the right to secede (http://youtu.be/7qfX0uXDktY); the self-righteous north, aside from not wanting to lose its cash cow, was simply enraged that anyone would wish to disassociate with them.

Secession is not rebellion. Secession was about slavery, among other things. The fighting, however, was because the north couldn't stand the idea of the South leaving. I guess they figured the northern states couldn't make it as a nation on their own... So, they fought a brutal war to bully the Southern states into the union.

The deliberate and punishing economic oppression and grinding poverty of the Southern states for FIVE GENERATIONS after the war illustrates the north's avaricious, venal, mercenary motives and proves they were not the righteous city on a hill you wish to believe in. You may want to believe slavery and secession are America's only sins. They are not. Not by a long shot.

A cold, hard look at the reality of northern sins makes slave holding look rather innocuous by comparison.

=========

And as a bonus, I include this marvelous observation by another commenter, with which I enthusiastically agree::

... my view of the South, along with the vast majority of its people, traces to the hard bitten, strong willed pioneers and small hold farmers - some of whom held slaves, but most did not - who carved a Christian civilization out of the wilderness and thicket from the Potomac to the Rio Grande in about 4 generations. They were heroes and they were better men than any today. They also had the backbone and fortitude to take on the might of the federal govt in defense of their liberty and right to self-rule.

 =========

My Opponent, btw, posts comments occasionally at Crossroads where, between self-righteous put-downs of the Virginia Flaggers and the SCV, she drones on and on about race, race, race, race, race....

New Cover for Southern Man

Somebody advised me that I needed to emphasize the "relationship" aspects of my novel as opposed to the issues/corporate politics aspects. The current cover certainly evokes the corporate politics in the story. It was inspired by Michael Crichton's novel, Disclosure, which is also about a false accusation of sexual harassment, but that's about where the similarities between the stories begin and end.

But Southern Man is also very much a relationship novel. There is, of course, the primary relationship of the main character, Troy Stevenson, and his wife. But it also features his relationship with his children, his best friend, his secretary, his co-workers, his pastor, and other families at church.

I've had people tell me that the Crichton-inspired cover evoked not just corporate politics, but mystery and suspense. Since there is no mystery or suspense in the story, it's probably best to replace that cover.

I really like the new one. The models look enough like those I've used in promotions (memes, banner ads, videos, etc.,) that I won't have to re-do any of them. We'll see if those "relationship" readers like it better.

I'm  testing this cover on the ebook first. If it's a go, I'll change the print cover, as well.  The size and resolution of this photo needed for print costs considerably more than the small, screen-rez version, so a test is in order before forking over the moolah.

U.S. Journalist Is Executed by Beheading...

...by ISIS in Iraq.

Christians in Syria are being genoicided, including children being decapitated. Missiles rain down on Israel from "Palestinian" terrorists. Iraq is soaking in blood.

A parade in Orlando, Florida supports Hezbollah, a terrorist group.

Found on Allen West's Website

And what do the Floggers and their wannabees get all bent out of shape over? Southern heritage supporters and the Confederate flag.

Kevin Levin sez....

There is a wall that I always hit when I read commentary by Ta-Nehisi Coates owing to my personal background and race. While I can relate to his preferred interpretation of Civil War memory on an intellectual level I am aware that his understanding comes from a very personal place and a sense of community that will always be foreign to me.

 Yet he imagines he can not only relate to, and understand, Southern whites, past and present -- and  their very personal place and sense of community -- but understands it well enough to pass judgment and condemn them ...  So much that he runs a blog that exists largely for passing judgment and condemning Southern whites over the civil war, and anything else he chooses.

Floggasms on Facebook

(and not even good ones)

Corey, using yet another fraudulent Facebook profile (George Bishop), started a group with the fraudulent name, Honoring Confederate Flags. He's gathered together a small handful of leftist loonies who get off on hating and slandering the Virginia Flaggers and Southern heritage folks in general, and feeding each other's hate.

Goat seems to be a big mover and shaker on the new page. He's still upset about somebody he thinks is a VaFlagger kicking his amp -- you know, the one he uses to crank up the volume on the filthy, obscene rap lyrics he blasts at visitors to the VMFA.

Like Brooks Simpson wandering around the desert going, "But what about Rob Walker? Rob Walker..." Goat wanders around the sidewalks of Richmond going, "But what about my amp? My amp...my amp...."

Corey recently had his fake profile George Bishop make him an admin of the group. Is that not hilarious? What's fun is to watch Corey's fake profiles have conversations with themselves.

The group's initial burst of hate for the VaFlaggers is still rocking along, although its starting to get stale. 

Goat posts some info from the VaFlaggers Facebook and asks:  "How do I join the Va Flaggers?" You can't. We need to be able to refute your ties with us once you break the law or the public finds out you are a white supremacist."

Of course, it's impossible for the Virginia Flaggers to refute ties to people they have never been "tied" to, so Goat's observation is pretty useless.

Then Corey says, So that would make the mother of Lilly Baumann a member of the Flagger since she has done many of these things...since there is no official "join" process?

Many of what things? There are only TWO mentioned in Goat's copy/paste: (1) Flagging (joining the Flaggers on  the sidwalk) (2) helping with email campaigns....  Now, I have seen no photos of the person in question  flagging the VMFA. Did she participate in any email campaigns? I don't know. I can almost guarantee Corey doesn't know either.

So he's lying. As usual. He'a a proven liar. A self-admitted liar, as I've shown before:

http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2012/06/framed.html
http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2012/06/news-flash-vic-hatcher-aint-vic-hatcher.html
http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2012/06/victor-vic-hatcher-apologizes.html
http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2013/11/how-liar-lies-part-deux.html

The photographic evidence I've seen indicates that the woman in question attended a couple of events that some of the VaFlaggers also attended. She went to those events with her boyfriend as a guest. Whether they were Flagger events or sponsored by other groups, her attendance didn't make her a VaFlagger.

Somewhere out there, there's a desperate woman, a mother in fear for her child's wellbeing. We may think what we will about the legality and wisdom of her flight, but only the most despicable, lowlife scum would use her to drum up hatred for innocent people just because they don't like them, or "disagree" with them about "history."

Later, in a different thread, Goat says, "I've said this before but not to anyone in this group, the Virginia Flaggers prefer to have no membership logs to avoid responsibility."

Really.  How does he know they have no membership log?

Corey the Liar adds, "Sure, and I doubt they have logs concerning the donations they get...no way to know how much taxes must be paid. They have openly stated that they are not a 501 3c or whatever that is supposed to be to be a charity."

What does it matter what he "doubts"? HIs doubts are shadows without substance. What matters is reality, and he doesn't know what that is. So, once again, all he's doing is attempting to stir up hate and trouble for the Virginia Flaggers.

And for what reason? What have they EVER done to him?

Nothing.