CHALLENGE! FIND THE HATE!

On his personal blog, Crossroads, Brooks D. Simpson, Professor of History at Arizona State University, posts a list of items that he characterizes as a "heritage of hate."  On that list, he includes an earlier post on his blog featuring graphics I have made to counter multicultural lies. Below is one of them. I challenge ANYONE to find HATE in the graphic. Please post your findings, and why you consider them to be HATE in the comments. Thanks.

(Disclaimer: Since there is no hate in this graphic, and hate did not motivate the creating of it, finding hate in it doomed to failure. But, hey, give it your best shot!)

Richmonders (?) Against the Flag?

The Facebook community, Richmonders Against the Confederate Flag on I-95, or something like that, created around August 7, is a most interesting page. Here's what the "About" section sez:

About --Let's do whatever we can to discourage the "Richmond Flaggers" from putting up a massive 10x15 foot Confederate Flag on I-95!

No creators, no owners, no administrators. Completely anonymous.

Howsomever, I think it's very interesting that the person putting up the most comments is not a Richmonder at all, but a Gilberter -- as in Gilbert, Arizona, which is either 2241.87 or 2335.37 miles from Richmond (driving distance), depending upon your route, or 1946 crow-flies miles.

Another interesting thing is that this Gilberter, in the past, has waxed adamant that only the residents of a community should have a say-so about flag issues that occur there -- for example, Lexington, Virginia.

I believe a certain Galvestoner and a certain Bostoner have echoed the Gilberter on that subject, but at last look, they have not spammed the Richmonders-Against community like the Gilberter has.

I Have Pissed Him Off ... AGAIN!

It's fascinating to see how a little retired insurance claims secretary in L.A. (Lower Alabama, aka west Florida) can get a famous academic soooo wound up!

He trolled Backsass for over 40 minutes earlier this morning, and all he has to show for it is this:

The Under Belly of Flagger Support

I wonder what did it this time.

Maybe it was this: Ghost People At the SHPG 

Or it coulda been this: Bullying Floggers

Or this: Lying By Omission...

Or this:  He ... Just ... Can't ... Stop

I've got a few chores lined up -- a book to finish reading and review, and several other reviews to write.  I have a website update to finish, and some other little things that need to be done.

Oh, and I wanna play on Facebook for a while.

But I'll be back to talk about this some more when all the important stuff is out of the way.

He ... Just ... Can't ... Stop

Brooks Simpson to Carl Roden:

...it is a little embarrassing for folks to find out that you place an adult sexual spin on Nickelodeon cartoon characters.

It is? Embarrassing for whom? Is it embarrassing for you, Simpson? Or is it a verbal taser-equipped cattle prod for you to wield?

And what folks are you referring to? Maybe the witch hunters who follow your blog, but they're predators, so what do you expect?  Normal people have a more, well, normal attitude. Besides, "adult sexual spin" is a weasel phrase that does not accurately descibe Carl's story.

Basically, you are trying to leave people with the impression that the story is erotic or pornographic. It is not. Not even close. But even if it was, what's it to you? Are Nickelodeon cartoon characters sacrosanct in the world of civil war blogging?

It is a little romantic story, and it has an element of sexual attraction common to all romance writing.

If memory serves, it was Eric Berne, developer of Transactional Analysis, who described romance as friendship plus sex.In romance writing, sex means sexual attraction. People who write romance must include both the "friendship" (caring for another person) plus sexual attraction. Without sexual attraction between the characters, it's just a friendship story. Without the friendship, all you have erotica or, worse, pornography.

What used to be the romance genre has become inundated with erotica (which Carl's story emphatically is not, btw). This transformation is a reflection of the hedonistic culture we live in; the inevitable result of the leftist, especially feminist, war on family and religion.

One of the reasons I, as a writer, cut back on participation in crit groups was that too frequently, I found myself in the position of having to help someone improve the grammar, spelling, composition, GMC of sheer smut and outright obscenity. No, thanks.

I would just point out to Simpson that different types of writing have different objectives and are aimed at different audiences. If something’s not your cup of tea, fine, but that in itself does not make it embarrassing, or a reason to try to embarrass someone.

The impression Simpson is trying to project about Carl's fan fiction is a blatant lie, prompted by his hatred of someone who doesn't worship his "authority" about the civil war. It is yet another manifiestation of Simpson's desire to denigrate, his thirst to hurt other people. There's absolutely no other reason for him to reference Carl's fanfic writing at all.

Brooks Simpson on the Virginia Flaggers

I am saying that they have a fondness for the camera, which is what drew them to Mr. Walker in the first place.

Simpson has put forth this lie repeatedly. It remains a lie every time he does it.  Mr. Walker approached them, not the other way around.

Regarding Susan Hathaway, he has said,

So she wants to admit that she’s a fool who invited a spy into the camp of the Flaggers, only to be betrayed?  

And,

Hey, if Susan Hathaway wants to draw attention to the fact that either she’s been fooled or she lied, I’m fine with that.

As I made clear in an earlier post, if Walker had given any indication he was out to set up the VA Flaggers and embarrass them, they would not have accepted his services.

But Simpson just can't leave it alone. He tells Tripp Lewis,

"But you're a coward to fail to admit that you welcomed Mr. Walker into your group and bought his story."

All that has been explained, but that's STILL not good enough for Simpson. He needs an excuse to use his verbal, taser-tipped cattle prod, and he'll misconstrue nearly anything for a chance to use it. He prefers a living person, but if he can't find one, he'll happily beat a dead horse with it.

But why shouldn't they have bought Walker's story? As I've noted, he gave them no indication that he was anything other than he appeared. Only God is omniscient, but I guess Simpson is now expecting Flaggers to be omniscient, and will verbally taser-cattle-prod them if they aren't.

I wonder if Simpson voted for Obama. I can't imagine he could resist showing what a good little non-racist he is by voting for the black guy.  If he did, he's a far bigger dupe than any Virginia Flagger, and he needs to turn his cattle prod on himself -- and about half the people in the country -- because they knew what Obama was long before the election (buddies with domestic terrorists, absentee U.S. Senator, bullying "community organizer" [Obama's cattle prods were the knee-pad media, i.e., Ezra Klein's left-leaning Journ-O-List, and SIEU]-- and they voted for him anyway.

As for a "fondness for the camera" -- you betcha. Mr. Simpson, you may have a blog, and you may Tweet and get on Facebook, but you don't seem to be really comfortable with the digital revolution, or other people's use of the technology that has resulted -- i.e., the democratizing of communications, promotion, organization and a host of other endeavors.

Video is a huge part of the revolution. The days of monopolies by ABC, NBC and CBS are long since over. Over 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. More than a billion unique viewers visit YouTube each month (http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html). Anybody with a cause ignores this resource at their peril. It is not to the discredit of the Virginia Flaggers that they use this medium. Indeed, they'd be crazy not to.

Brooks Simpson being a blatant liar

Now learn something about the people who support the Flagger proposal.

This comment accompanied a graphic on the "Richmonders against the Confederate Flag on I-95" Facebook community page, whose creators are not named, which has all of 33 likes thus far, and which Simpson seems to have taken over.

(Hmmm.... I wonder if he's the creator? But even if he's not, insinuating himself into a a flag issue of a city where he does not live, that is in fact 2241 miles from where he lives, negates all his criticism of non-residents of Lexington insinuating themselves into the flag issue there -- and shows him for the colossal hypocrite that he is.)

The graphic is from his blog,  a screen shot of a thread from the Southern Heritage Preservation Group. It is supposed to show how "racist" the group is; but his Facebook comment is a blatant lie because of one word --  "people," plural.  Because,  you see, only one person in the copy-paste made objectionable remarks and he was removed from the SHPG for doing so. But, of course, Simpson doesn't tell you that.

BTW, I've already dealt with that idiotic hate-mongering, HERE.

Dare I say to him,

"But you're a coward to fail to admit that only one person made the objectionable posts and he was removed from the group for it." 

Yeah. I dare.


____________________________
Images: U.S. Gov. (Public Domain) and Wikimedia Commons (GNU Creative Common license)

Lying By Omission...

...is still lying.

On his blog, bullyflogger extraordinaire Brooks Simpson writes about Susan Hathaway's attitude toward him and his blog...:

As Ms. Hathaway says, however, “Quit reading his garbage! Every click gives him site visits and more ‘clout’. I have not read ANY of these Floggers’ troughs in over a year and it has been a very blissful year.” 

So says the woman duped by Rob Walker. But her comments about the issue will make good reading with the interested members of the Richmond media. 

So says the man who dupes his readers pretty much every time he writes about Southern heritage.  Susan's comment on Facebook, doesn't end with "...very blissful year."  Following that, she says,

"I leave the heavy hitting to Ms Connie!"

He recently pulled the same stunt when he appropriated a passage I had written on Backsass:

"Emmett Till was not falsely accused. He came on to a white woman in pre-civil rights Mississippi, and the was brutally murdered for it. The murder was an atrocity, but it has absolutely no connection whatever to the story in my novel."

He left out the boldface sentence when he pasted it at Crossroads because, well, presumably he didn't want his readers to know I wrote it. He was attempting to portray me to his peanut gallery as insensitive and uncaring about Till's murder, so he bleeped out what contradicted his efforts.

Makes you wonder what else he leaves out of his blog posts...

The bullyflogger's obsessing with Rob Walker is interesting, in light of what actually happened. His carping is designed to give the impression that the Flaggers sought out Walker and they became buddy-buddies, why, he was practically a Virginia flagger himself...  But the choice to befriend him was unwise, as he ultimately betrayed them, lying about non-existent vandalism at a Confederate monument when his school term was ending and he departed for points elsewhere in the midst of the dust-up, leaving the Flaggers holding the bag.
 

The idea is to portray the Flaggers as stupid and easily duped. But they did not seek him out. Rob approached them on Veterans Day 2012. The Flaggers were thankful to have someone video their activities. I have no doubt that if Rob had exhibited any clue that he could not be trusted, they would not have accepted his services. This was not a case of, "You knew I was a snake before you brought me in."

But bullyflogger Simpson is so delighted that the Virginia Flaggers were betrayed and embarrassed by Walker, he can't let it go, all these weeks and weeks later. Presumably, Simpson would have cheered the snake and ridiculed the tenderhearted woman who saved it, and who got, as a reward for her kindness, a fatal bite.

Keep in mind that this man, who exhibits such uncertain integrity, is a professor at a major state university....
 

___________________________________________________  

In other news, Simpson  claims that for us, "it's heritage, not history." But for bullyfloggers like him, claiming to be historians, it's really not history, it's hate.

He has recently held up for ridicule on his blog a Southern heritage advocate who's an active commenter on various Southern Facebook groups. Keep reading and then tell me that attempt to ridicule is not motivated by hate and scorn.

Someone named Randy Chambers, whose membership in the SHPG was removed after he posted in a particular thread, wrote, "southern black scumbags are taking down all confederate memorials all over the South. Check out memphis."

Carl Roden replied, "New England Liberal Yankees are the masters driving the whole thing, always have been. And to a lesser extent so are certain white supremacist groups like the KKK and Neo-Nazi movement. The NAACP leadership certainly. Individual black Southerners who buy into the garbage are just puppets. I worry more about the puppet masters."

The first part of Simpson's odious attack is to lie about what Carl said. He says Carl "claims that those southern blacks who oppose the CBF 'are just puppets.'”

Well, no, Carl said those who buy into the garbage driven by Liberal Yankees are puppets -- and many of them are. Especially younger people who are coming out of schools virtually uneducated..

But what I really want to call attention to is the bizarre comment the bullyflogger makes next:

.. Carl W. Roden, taking a break from his interest in writing sexually-laced stories involving characters from Nickelodeon cartoons (another aspiring southern romance writer, no doubt) claims...

 And...

Still, I just can’t get over Carl Roden’s other advocation (sic). I think DarthRoden identifies with the lead character in Hey Arnold.

Can't get over it? Well...what's it to you?

What has it got to do with the civil war? Nothing. What has it got to do with Southern heritage, or the SHPG or the flaggers? Nothing. It is just a way for Simpson to indulge his desire to denigrate and to slake his deep thirst for hurting people.

I suspect Carl isn't hurt or angered, though, by the attempted put-downs by somebody for whom he has zero respect. So I'm not whining on Carl's behalf. I am simply presenting for my readers' consideration what makes Brooks Simpson tick, what gives him a buzz -- the lust to mock, ridicule, and make fun of.

Simpson has done the same thing to me because I portray Southern white people as decent and honorable in my novels. And it makes him livid that I portrayed Southern white teens as victimized.  His anger is so great about that, he implied my characters in Sweet Southern Boys are like the murderers of Emmett Till, and presumably thinks they should have been portrayed that way.

But I guess she [Chastain] trusts the accounts of the sweet southern boys who killed Till,  ~Brooks D. Simpson

Since he hates white Southerners, especially heritage folks, and blogs at least in part to evilize them, I know why he attacks and libels me for writing -- because I write novels to promote an agenda, no doubt about it. I've said so since before I started writing novels in 2006 or so.

But Carl seems to write fan fiction for the sheer enjoyment of it. Exactly what makes Simpson think he ought to hold that up to ridicule is mystifying. There is so much worse stuff going on that Simpson could focus on. But a lot of it (babies getting shot in the face, for example) are useless in demonizing white Southerners, so he ignores them, focuses on something  completely innocuous, tries to dirty it up, and then palm it off as as objectionable, somehow.

What a petty, integrity-deficient, nauseating little man.

________________
Graphic by C. Ward

Bullying Floggers

Watching Brooks Simpson, his followers, and other floggers, I've slightly modified their designation and added, "bull flogs."

From a comment thread at Crossroads:

Michael Confoy
I believe Susan Hathaway’s description of what Tripp Lewis said to her was in better English than he actually used.

    Brooks D. Simpson
    So it would seem. For all their talk about “manhood,” these fellows seem to hide behind women in the movement … that is, when they aren’t exploiting their children.
   
===========

All WHAT talk about manhood?

ALL <----- Weasel word designed to imply there are many references to their own manhood made by men in the Heritage movement.  Well, do a sampling and see what it tells us.

A search of the VA Flaggers blog turns up zero instances of that word, manhood. What a surprise, huh.

Below are the results of a search of Backsass, followed by a search index of the SHPG using the search term manhood.

As you can see from my quick research, there isn't that much talk about manhood, and when there is, it virtually always refers to Confederate soldiers.

It's not a really important topic; I blog about it here just to show how Simpson once again puts his highly questionable integrity on display. 

What you have here is a desire to denigrate that is so strong, people ignore how it makes them look in order to take nasty digs at people.  Observing his calling into question the manhood of men beside whom he looks like a Charles Atlas "before" client, well, one has to assume Simpson prefers the role of the beach bully.  Oh, and "They" don't hide behind women, and "they" certainly don't "exploit" their children.


(I would just LOVE to know if Confoy knows what Tripp relayed to Susan about the Rob Walker incident, if he knows how it was relayed -- and how he knows.)

 -----FROM BACKSASS-----

Backsass: Backsass to Tim Wise
mybacksass.blogspot.com/2013/04/backsass-totim-wise.html‎
Apr 23, 2013 - Their willingness to carry out one of the responsibilities of manhood -- that of defender/ protector -- and their doing so despite horrific suffering, ...

Backsass: Backsassin' a Feminist
mybacksass.blogspot.com/2011/02/backsassin-feminist.html‎
Feb 23, 2011 - Patrick Swayze played some roles (including Confederate Orry Maine in North and South), which in my opinion demonstrated correct manhood ...

Backsass: Black Confederate Redux
mybacksass.blogspot.com/2011/07/black-confederate-redux.html‎
Jul 30, 2011 - a ringing call came to the manhood of the South. The world knows how the men of the South answered that call. Dropping everything, they ...

  -----FROM THE SHPG-----

Gary Adams
... strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit." This was the opening salvo. Within a few months, Webster's speech had been reprinted whole in newspapers across the country and published in pamphlets that ran through 20 ...   

Barney Otis Stratton
    ... safety, pride, manhood. It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War, will be impressed ...
       
    Eddie Inman
    ... outset of manhood prompts the question, `If he was such in the gristle, what would he not have been in the bone?' " His last words after sending a farewell to his parents and family were: "Tell the General my men never failed ...
    
    Wayne Carlson
    ... of Southern manhood was so great and yet so little appreciated by the general population today, that it steels the hearts of those few who are determined to honor them and right a great wrong. Thanks for reminding us Ann Youell....
   
    Maeve Magdalen
    ... THE SIMPLE MANHOOD OF THEIR LIVES, THE PATIENT ENDURANCE OF SUFFERING, AND THE HEROISM OF DEATH, AND WHO, IN THE DARK HOURS OF IMPRISONMENT, IN THE HOPELESSNESS OF THE HOSPITAL, IN THE SHORT, SHARP AGONY OF THE FIELD, FOUND SUPPORT AND CONSOLATION ...
   
    Eddie Inman
    ... the manhood to fight battles are cardinal elements of successful civilization. All peace and mental cultivation produce effeminate Greeks of the lower Empire. All war and physical development produce the Goth and the Hun. But when the martial ...
    
    Steve Robinson
    ... will grow to manhood, and lessons sink deep that are learned from the lips of widowed mothers." E.A. Pollard...
            
    Gary Adams
    ... self-respect and manhood of its people. A far broader, more truthful, and statesmanlike view was presented by the Hon. A. E. Stevenson, of Illinois, then Vice-President of the United States, in his opening remarks as presiding officer at the ...
           
    Robert Mestas
    ... future manhood of the South I protest. What are we to teach them? If we cannot teach them that their fathers were right, it follows that these Southern children must be taught that they were wrong. Are we ready for that? For one I am not ready! ...
               
    Jimmy L. Shirley Jr.
    ... and sterling manhood of all its sons--in the interest of all these I shall insist that, however great were the evils (and they were many) of negro slavery, it was far, very far, from being an unmitigated evil. Lamented by philanthropists, denounced ...
   
    Maeve Magdalen
    ... meritorious manhood. When he entered West Point he took the head of his class and held it until he was graduated in 1829, never having received a demerit or reprimand during his term there. He entered upon the duties of an army officer with ...

    Gary Adams
    ... self-respect and manhood of its people. A far broader, more truthful, and statesmanlike view was presented by the Hon. A. E. Stevenson, of Illinois, then Vice-President of the United States, in his opening remarks as presiding officer at the ...
   
    Eileen Parker Zoellner
    ... THE SIMPLE MANHOOD OF THEIR LIVES. BY THEIR STRICT ADHERENCE TO THE PRINCIPLES OF RIGHTS, BY THEIR SUBLIME COURAGE. AND UNSPEAKABLE SACRIFICE, EVEN TO THE HEROISM OF DEATH, HAVE PRESERVED FOR US, THROUGH THE GLOOM OF DEFEAT, A PRICELESS HERITAGE ...
   
    Gary Adams
    ... manhood of the century now hurrying to an end — the Confederate Soldier....
   
    David Tatum Jr
    ... came to the manhood of the South. The world knows how the men of the South answered that call. Dropping everything, they came from mountains, valleys and plains— from Maryland to Texas, they eagerly crowded to the front, and stood to arms. ...

 Gary Adams
    ... self-respect and manhood of its people. A far broader, more truthful, and statesmanlike view was presented by the Hon. A. E. Stevenson, of Illinois, then Vice-President of the United States, in his opening remarks as presiding officer at the ...

    Aaron Kidd
    ... still remained manhood to assert the truth, and a proud consciousness in the rectitude of our course. When I find myself reviled by Southern papers as one renewing 'dead issues,' the pain is not caused by the attack upon myself, but ...
   
    Jimmy L. Shirley Jr.
    ... strength, honor, manhood, safety, success; in separation, defeat, disgrace, disaster, extermination, death. I promise to remain with you until the end, to share your dangers, your trials, your exile, your destiny; your lot shall be my lot and ...

    Jimmy L. Shirley Jr.
    ... manhood to assert the truth, and a proud consciousness in the rectitude of our course. When I find myself reviled by Southern papers as one renewing 'dead issues,' the pain is not caused by the attack upon myself, but by its desecration ...

    Chris N Julie Maldonado
    ... embodiment of manhood; men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve." Maj. Gen. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain US Army (won Medal of honor at Gettysburg for his ...

    Jimmy L. Shirley Jr.
    ... manhood to assert the truth, and a proud consciousness in the rectitude of our course. When I find myself reviled by Southern papers as one renewing 'dead issues,' the pain is not caused by the attack upon myself, but by its desecration ...
    
    David Chadwick
    ... safety, pride, manhood. It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War, will be ...
   
    David Wyatt
    ... pass into manhood in the eyes of your elders....
   
    Gary Adams
    ... strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit." This was the opening salvo. Within a few months, Webster's speech had been reprinted whole in newspapers across the country and published in pamphlets that ran through 20 ...

Note -- the only reference to manhood on this SHPG search list is this post by David Wyatt, which is a wonderful recollection of a fishing trip with his uncle, when David was twelve.  It's and great read.  As one commenter noted, "Happy memories." I don't think David would mind if I reposted it here. (Note, Brooks D. Simpson would never post this at his blog because he can't transmute it into a verbal club to beat Southern heritage folks with. Yet it is much a part of the SHPV as the stuff he brings over to Crossroads ...)

Recipe for the Best Southern Supper I ever ate

(Dinner is at noon yankees, dont show up at 6 pm and think your gonna eat dinner... its supper time)..

1. Be 12 years old and Catfish on the White river with uncle Winford Dean (AKA Flabby) all day, setting out limb lines and trot lines with shiners, blood bait, liver and hand picked catawba worms.

2. Motor up Green Briar Creek, Bring the boat up the bank and start a fire just before dark

3. Drink a coke and watch uncle Flabby peel taters and onions... Skip rocks on green briar creek with your older brother who is a dick and your best friend.

4. Watch uncle flabby open cans of treat (spam) and cut it into slices. He was a Sea Bee in Korea and a professional cook. We all said uncle Flabby was nuts, but looking back, he was the sane one. In the 60's He said we ought to get all them long hairs and put a stick on their necks like a coon.. and shear off their hair, and then maybe they would start to act right. Wisdom from the grave I would say.

5. Run through the Johnson grass kicking up bob white quails.. smelling something really good back towards the fire.

6. See a huge thunder head's golden crown in the fading lite as Winford calls you to supper..

7. Eat treat, taters and onions as the light faded by the coleman lantern.. Best meal I ever ate!!!

8. After Flabby falls asleep in his truck (cuz drank too much "cough medicine"), steal the boat and go out on a dangerous river, late at night, bringing back 12 big catfish with your brother and pass into manhood in the eyes of your elders.  

http://www.facebook.com/groups/shpg1/permalink/254943281187556/

_________________
Image of Charles Atlas ad cross linked from Bleacher Report

Ghost People At the SHPG

Interesting things going on, and I wish I had more time to spend on them. But I've got a lot of irons in a lot of fires right now, and stuff I've started that I need to finish, so I can only touch on some interesting observations I've made about Brooks D. Simpson's latest obsession-relapse regarding the Southern Heritage Preservation Group.

He has screen shots of a discussion about the Virginia Flaggers' interstate flag project, and he zeroes in on bigoted comments by somebody named Randy Chambers.

It's interesting to see how Simpson's mind works. 

Randy Chambers = the SHPG 
 SHPG = totality of Southern heritage.

The statements by Chambers didn't feel right to me, so I decided to find out more about it.

Well, it turns out he is not listed in the SHPG membership list, so I can't see when he joined.

Searching the group with just the term "Randy" brings up several members, but no Randy Chambers. He's apparently done some very creative and innovative things with his Facebook settings.

I don't have time to read or post much at SHPG, and I'm certain I wouldn't recognize the names of many of the over 2,000 members, so it wasn't significant that I had never seen the name Randy Chambers name before. So I clicked his name in one of his posts, which took me to a profile almost devoid of information. Very few posts, no friends, no "About" info -- and it isn't because he has me blocked; I wouldn't be able to see his profile at all if he had me blocked.

What I find most interesting about all this is that Brooks D. Simpson chose to focus on the someone who posts over-the-top comments but about whom nothing is known.

I don't want to say this guy Chambers is a plant; that he's somebody trying to setting up the Group, but it does occur to me. Apparently, it doesn't occur to Simpson, although presumably he knows that anybody can make up a fake Facebook profile and join open groups ... Corey Meyer does it all the time. 

I guess it never occurs to Simpson to look up the profiles of the people he uses to smear Southern heritage with. It does occur to me

I sent this person, Randy Chambers, a friend request. We'll see what happens.

UPDATE * UPDATE * UPDATE

Randy Chambers has accepted my friend request, and I can see his newsfeed now. I have sent him a message thanking him, and asked if I could ask him some questions. I want to find out what FB setting he used to make so little info about himself viewable. It seems to be more than just creating a closed or private profile.

I do note thus far that, judging by the information I can see, he is not a Southern heritage advocate.

Will issue further updates as more info becomes available.

UPDATE, CONT'D -- Randy Chambers accepted my friend request, which allowed me to see his "about" info, timeline, friend list, photos...  It also allowed me to search for his posts in SHPG, although he still does not show up in a search of the member list.  After he accepted the request, I sent him a message basically asking (1) how he kept his ID and date of joining the group from showing in a search of the SHPG, and (2) whether he was a Southern heritage supporter. I have not received a response yet.

However, what the search for his comments at SHPG told me was that his first one was Thursday, August 8, two days ago. It was one comment in one thread about locations of flags beside major highways in the South. His comment was that one of them was in "my back yard."  My assumption is that he was talking about the flag in White Springs, Florida.

The second time he posted was in the thread Simpson showcased on his blog.

What Simpson DIDN'T show his readers in the screenshots he posted was this comment by John Stones:

"Randy, you are barking up the wrong tree if you believe me or any of the others you are accusing of being PC. You, sir, reflect hatred in your remarks! Justice has an even hand and all must be viewed in the same light and held accountable to the same standard! You need to learn your history, sir! None other than Nathan Bedford Forrest, referring to the black Confederates that served with him, stated that he knew of no better Confederates! Time and space do not permit me to go on with further examples as you would recognize them if you spent any time at all doing research or following things on this page! Accusing any of us here of being PC is utterly rediculous! (Emphasis mine. CW)

There no more comments from Randy Chambers following John's post.

Of course, the reason Simpson didn't tell his readers about that is because it would undo his efforts to paint the totality of Southern heritage as racist. Remember, this is the formula:

Randy Chambers = the SHPG 
 SHPG = totality of Southern heritage.
 

John's comment blows this formula to smithereens and showcases as well as anything Simpson's lack of integrity when "reporting' on Southern heritage folks.  Whether I hear from Randy Chambers or not, Simpson has already shown his willingness to lie by omission.

UPDATE, CONT'D --  Randy Chambers replied to my private message. He said he was removed from the SHPG because of his comments in the thread Simpson plastered on his blog.

Simpson monitors Backsass. We'll see if he passes this information along to his readers, or whether he wants them to continue to believe his lies about the SHPG.

Note: After a couple of direct messages from Randy Chambers, I have concluded that he didn't show up in a members search of the SHPG because he had already been removed when I searched. Therefore, I withdraw my earlier comment about his having done some creative and innovative things with Facebook settings.

Phone Booth Conventions, Update

Brad "Hunter Wallace" Griffin has done another hit piece on me (I'm real upset about it, can you tell?) that I will respond to ... eventually ... whenever. Right now, I have bigger fish to fry. I simply wish to address only one thing in this post.

Dr. Michael Hill writes on Brad "Hunter Wallace" Griffin's comment thread:

Connie Ward/Chastain’s saying that we used the phone booth illustration at The League’s beginning in 1994 is in error. Actually, that was a phrase used by the Louisiana Kennedy brothers (authors of The South Was Right!) to describe the nascent Southern Nationalist movement they were involved in at a young age in the late 1960s. It would have had to have been a pretty large phone booth at the League’s founding meeting, as we had 42 people there! Just an example of poor research on her part.

Just a clarification. I said that the phone-booth phrase was "the saying" at conferences and events I attended. That was where I heard it. The people who used it (and no, I don't remember who they were) didn't identify who coined it. If they got it wrong, maybe Dr. Hill should check around and find out who they were, and correct them.

It's not poor research because it wasn't research at all. I was simply relaying what I personally remembered.

It is a pretty inconsequential point for Dr. Hill to go to the trouble of commenting about, if you ask me. The phone booth reference was simply an anecdote to illustrate the point that the League started small, grew because of its initial positions, and is alienating people now because of the radical changes in those positions.

Some Questions for Floggers

For Corey Meyer
The copy-paste of the "saddest" comment thread you have posted on your blog is from a Facebook group named "The Truth about the Civil War." It is a closed group. That means only members can see the posts. I don't see you listed among the members. So how did you get the copy/paste of that thread?

For Brooks Simpson
Do you really care about improper displays of the Confederate flag? Is that why you posted THIS?

For Al Mackey
If you're a student of the civil war, as your blog-title implies, why do you write critical posts about the Southern Heritage Preservation Group? The civil war occurred in the mid 1800.  The SHPG is a contemporary Facebook group that started just a few years ago. Perhaps you should change the name of your blog to "Thought Cop of the American Civil War."

Phone Booth Conventions

When I started attending League of the South conferences and events in the early 2000s, the saying was, "When the League was founded in 1994, you could have held meetings of Southern nationalists in a telephone booth."

By the time I became aware of the League some seven or eight years later, its membership was reportedly in the tens of  thousands.

That was back in the days when League spokesmen said things like, "Southerners are a people, not a race," and League policy was guided by both traditional and Christian principles. There was tremendous respect for our Southern ancestors, particularly those who fought, suffered so much, and died for the cause of independence.

This pleased me because I considered myself to be both a heritage advocate and a Southern nationalist.

I became a member of the League twice, but even when I wasn't, I supported it and defended it from gratuitous attack. I rejected claims that the League was a "racist hate group" because the accusers always labeled as "racist" things that I did not define that way at all. (See here.)

Over the past year or two, though, there have been indicators that the League is changing -- radicalizing. It appears to have abandoned the counsel of wise elders to increasingly embrace the untried ideas of a younger folks.

I'm not one to automatically distrust or reject new ideas. I like innovation. But not to the extent of throwing out the proven, the reliable, the steadfast, as if it is so much trash, and embracing new ideas that are untried and whose effectiveness cannot be known.

In early summer of 2012, the League's radical new direction was brought home to me personally when I was removed without notice from the League's Facebook group following my initiating a discussion that, apparently, was not politically correct. Since then, I have watched from a distance as the League has continued to radicalize, to accept the influence of white nationalists masquerading as Southern nationalists and to slowly develop a an indifference to Southern tradition and Christianity.

The indifference to tradition is seen in the development of a "Southern nationalist flag" (a black saltaire on a white field) to use in demonstrations and protests. The disapproval of this gratuitous change seems to be wide and spreading, particularly among those who have deep respect for Confederate soldiers and their flag.

Michael Cushman of the Southern Nationalist Network, who has led the push for the new flag. reported on Facebook that there has been "push back" against it. He linked to a blog post by white nationalist Brad "Hunter Wallace" Griffin attempting to generate approval for the new flag by trashing good, decent people who oppose it with the label "Confederate Cryptkeepers."

That term now joins the infamous definitionless term, Rainbow Confederates, in the arsenal of insults these people gratuitously use against good, decent Southerners.

Griffin, btw, has asked the burning question on his blog, "Can Christianity Save us?' and by "us" he means the white race. I guess he doesn't know that the purpose of Christianity is to save souls, not races, which, one supposes, makes it irrelevant to him..... 

I participated on the Facebook thread that reported the "push back" on the flag, which has now apparently been deleted, but it reinforced some insights I've only glimpsed in the past. The ridicule and derision aimed at "old" Southern nationalists by "new" ones are worthy of the most vociferous flogger.

What do  they hope to gain by this practice, this tactic? Do they really expect to increase their numbers when prospective members see this sort of verbal abuse aimed at anyone who dares to deviate from the new dogma?

Basically, what you have here is people who claim to love the South and its people and want to see them free -- or preserved, depending on who's talkin'. But what they really love is whiteness, which includes a built-in aversion to non-whiteness ...  and any Southerners who don't share their dedication to whiteness are heaped with scorn and derision.

Gracious.  I simply note that a lot of yankees are white...

Judging by the comments I've received from time to time as my disapproval of the League's radicalization has become known, I'm certainly not the only one dismayed by this change. These folks still support independence for the South, though. There have been suggestions that maybe it's time for a new group, one that remains true to the League's original, recently jettisoned ideals.

Perhaps they're right. It will be interesting to see if the aversion to these changes for change's sake, this contempt for and derision of Southerners, produces more flight from the League, and whether a new movement or organization more attuned to true Southernism will emerge.

Is a return to League national conferences held in phone booths on the horizon? Since phone booths have pretty much disappeared since 1994, perhaps they'll have to use a bus stop shelter.

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