Unless You Say Yer Agin' It, You Must Be Fer It?

There's a fellow named Marc Ferguson who post frequently on civil-war-era-memory-type bash-Dixie blogs -- another critic who (1) wears race-colored glasses, so that it tinges eveything he sees, and (2) focuses on a small, worst segment and pretends it is the whole.

He recently posted this to me on Cousin Perfesser Brooks Simpson's Crossroads blawg. (I'm editing it slightly but only to add paragraph breaks, and remove non-pertinent "introductory" sentences, not to otherwise alter wording or meaning.)

I have read your exchanges with Hunter Wallace on his racist blog “Occidntal Dissent” and your replies to other commenters here on “Crossroads” however, and it is noteworthy that you have never taken an opportunity to disavow white supremacy.

I can easily imagine that Mr. Wallace would include you, as he has me, among those who are N****r Lover, and that I probably live in some “Whitetopia,” and should take my kids to live in a minority neighborhood, where I would learn that non-whites are evolutionarily inferior to whites, and have never created, nor been able to sustain a real “civilization.”

For anyone wondering what this “civilization” might be, I would refer you (yes, you, Connie, and anyone else who is not certain what this might mean) to the episodes of the documentary “Eyes on the Prize,” especially the ones featuring the murders of Emmitt Till and Medgar Evers, and Bull Connor turning the fire hoses on activists protesting white businesses that refused to hire blacks. Examples of “civilization” in the segregated American South.

For the record, Hunter Wallace accuses me of being a N****r Lover because I believe that African Americans are human beings, and should be accorded full civil rights, and treated with human dignity. Do you?

I await your disavowal of this, Mr. Wallace’s, style of racism.

Waal, Mr. Ferguson, I have read your comments on Crossroads and elsewhere, and I find it is noteworthy that you have never taken an opportunity to disavow pedaphilia. I find it noteworthy that you have never taken the opportunity to disavow torture by the CIA and the U.S. military. I find it noteworthy that you have never taken the opportunity to disavow the U.S. government killing its own citizens (Waco, Ruby Ridge, Kent State). I find it noteworthy that you have never taken the opportunity to disavow Mike Nifong's attempted railroading of three innocent young men for rape.

You see, Ferguson, it isn't necessary to disavow support for everything one doesn't support. As long as one has not openly supported or advocated it, it can safely be assumed that one doesn't support it. Capisce?

 This is particularly true of those who support Southern heritage, when so many people, such as yourself, attempt to conflate such support with racial hatred.... It is not incumbent upon Southern heritage advocate to "disavow white supremacy" as their lack of support for it should be sufficient. What's incumbent, Ferguson, is for you to not automatically conflate support of Southern heritage with support for white supremacy.

Your citing "examples of civilization in the segregated American South" (and the ones you cite) is itself an example ... an example of focusing on a small, worst segment and attempting to pass it off as the whole. Overall, segregation in the South was a not a positive experience; however, to totally define it as murder is a lie that, in my opinion, is motivated at least in part by hatred of white Southerners.

I don't believe in macro-evolution; I believe all human beings were made by God in His image (which, to my understanding, means possessing a soul that can exist in the dimension of timelessness we call eternity). As we used to sing in Sunday school, that means "red and yellow, black and white."

Satisfied, Mr. Ferguson? Good. Now you can run along to your NAMBLA meeting without worrying about my views on race....

A great voice now silent....

OH, NO! SAY IT AIN'T SO!

Oh, my GOSH! Me, kin to Perfesser Simpson? That's what the perfesser revealed on his blog today....

The kid in this video very closely approximates my reaction when I found out....




How embarrassing! I won't be able to show my face amongst good Southrons anymore! I'll have to get a hat with a veil, which will no doubt bring on more snide posts at Crossroads attempting to liken me to the KKK.

Actually, as one of my group members (a life-long New Yorker pointed out) it's not our ancestors who discredit us, though out descendants might. That's a moot point for me, since I'm not leaving any descendants.

Still, it's sooooo embarrassin', having yankee ancestors. Until now, my research showed my northern-most ancestors were the Silvers, in Maryland and Pennsylvania... Of course, that's direct ancestors. Rebecca Denton is not a direct ancestor. She married Benjamin Chastain, who was a cousin to my direct ancestor....

Perfesser Simpson says he wasn't "using facts about the Chastain family simply to make fun of Connie (as opposed to revealing the important difference between history and heritage."

What horse hockey. The perfesser implied that I was attempting to hide something about my family in this remark: "Connie Chastain delights in telling us of her Cherokee heritage. But she’s declined to reveal the role of some of the members of her family tree in deporting other members of her family tree … or perhaps she never knew about it."

Somehow, the perfesser construes that if you mention anything about your family history, you're trying to conceal everything that you don't mention.  Apparently, if you mention anything about your family's past, you have to post your whole, entire family  history ... in blog comment. Yeah, right.

Let's remember how this whole discussion came about. The perfesser posted excerpts from a blogger known as The Catholic Knight. Said exerpt included this, "I do confess to having a strong biological connection to Southern culture through my mother, both in Southern English, Irish and Scottish descent, as well as a strong Cherokee ancestry which is deeply connected to Southern history."

To this the perfesser snidely remarked, "Someone ought to fill him in on who advocated the removal of the Cherokee Nation." Implying (1) he didn't know and (2) having both Southern and Cherokee ancestry/heritage requires a person to choose one and reject the other.

I simply addressed that cockamamie idea by showing I'm a person with both in my ancestry, and I reject neither.

Now the perfesser sez, "Perhaps next time some folks will refrain from assuming certain motives before they know the complete story."

Oh, please, perfesser. Your blog is continuously telling the complete story and continuously revealing your motive of animus for Southern heritage advocates in general, and me in particular. You know it and we know it.

Perfesser Unhinged!

It looks like closing my group has had a terrible effect on the perfesser... He feels abandoned and has become totally unhinged -- doing my GENEALOGY and posting it on his blog!!

http://cwcrossroads.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/connie-chastains-family-heritage-a-house-divided/

How do you spell obsession?   B-R-O-O-K-S   D-O-N-O-H-U-E   S-I-M-P-S-O-N

Careful, perfesser. Those nice young men in their clean, white coats could show up at your doorstep any moment!

 

 He even looks kinda like the perfesser, don't he?

Damnyankees Attack. Southerners Defend.

The perfesser's been stomping throught the Internet with his jackboots on, looking for people to bash. Again. You'd think he'd get tired of it...  But then, that's what damnyankees do.   Interestingly, out of the five things he's noted in his current Crossroads post, three --count 'em, three, t-h-r-e-e-, (3) -- are about ... you guest it ... MOI!

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News and Notes: April 11, 2012
Apr 11

A look around and about …

    1. Someone thinks that we should celebrate John Wilkes Booth as a Confederate hero who did the right thing.
 
I don't think so.  I have no admiration for an assassin, but then, I'd have no admiration for this character even if he hadn't assassinated Aby-baby.

    2. Someone can’t get anything right.  This blog was never named “Civil War Crossroads”; the address (cwcrossroads.wordpress.com) reflects the fact that “crossroads” as an address was already taken.  She also got my job title wrong: her stalking me on the web led her to a rendering on an ASU website that is in serious error (these documents date from 2011).  My correct title can be found elsewhere.  Then again, this person confesses she doesn’t know her history, anyway, so why should this be different?  But, so long as she spends her time ranting away, she’s not exactly serving the cause of “Confederate heritage,” now, is she?  And perhaps that’s my secret plan after all.  Now I have to ask my friends in Washington to start visiting her blog again.  Shhh.
 
LOL! Doing a Google image search is stalking? Talk about paranoid.; Ho, this from a man who constantly rakes Facebook's proSouthern forums with a fine-toothed comb looking for posts he misconstrue and posters he can lie about.

Regardless of the name of the blog, (petty, petty, petty point, perfesser) there are no more Union generals in the header, and rather than the civil war -- or the "history" mentioned in the tagline -- the emphasis at Crossroads is now on bashing whoever the perfesser doesn't like, or those whose views he disagrees with, usually Confederate heritage advocates and primarily me. The perfesser is also repeating his currently favorite lie. I've never, ever said I don't know "my" history, or history in general. I challenge anyone to find where, on Facebook or my blog, I have said thus. Nebber said it folks. The perfesser lies.

    3. Someone can’t get anyone to read her books.  How to remedy that?  Why, by plastering the Confederate Battle Flag on the cover, thus commercializing that banner yet again!  Goodness, she is just like Ed Sebesta!
 
Actually, it is the proSouthern community who hasn't read my first book in the numbers that I would like. Romance readers (usually conservative women) have read it, liked it and given it good reviews. Moreover, if I'd had the money to promote it, it would have found more proSouthern readers. After all, as P.T. Barnum said, "Without promotion, something terrible happens. Nothing." As it is, only a handful of people know it exists.

Moreover, some commercialization of the Confederate battle flag is not a problem for me, as long as said commercialization does not dishonor it. My novels do not dishonor the flag -- quite the opposite.

And again, the humor-impaired professor doesn't realize that the Confederate battle flag on the cover of the second book in the series dates back to about 2007, before I was on Facebook or had ever heard of the perfesser. This cover reflects what happens in the story -- the three main characters become Confederate advocates in their teens...and are attacked for it with lies not unlike the ones the perfesser perpetuates -- only these lies have very serious potential consequences for these innocent boys -- thirty years in the state penitentiary for crimes they didn't commit.
 

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There is nothing about Confederate heritage in the first book of the series, Southern Man -- hence, no flag on the cover, and I'm not planning to put one on it.

    4. And speaking of commercializing the Confederacy … here’s another proposal to cash in on it.  I’m sure this will go over well all over the country.

Sounds like a good idea, to me.

    5. Someone’s frustrated. “We can’t save our heritage posting our opinions on Facebook.”  But don’t let that stop you.
 
Right. Posting opinions on Facebook does serve a constructive purpose ... but saving our heritage will depend on organization and activism to defeat those working so hard to eradicate it, like the perfesser...
 

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So what are we to make of a man with a responsible position at a state university, whatever his title may be, who gets his rocks off trolling Facebook looking for posts by people he hates that he can lie about on his blog? Remember, he attacks. He admittedly GOES LOOKING for things and people to attack. I defend or counterattack.

Attacking -- the more brutally the better -- is what damnyankees do.  Defending is what Confederates do.

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Book cover designs by C. Chastain. Photos and comp images copyrighted by C. Chastain and various microstock photo companies and their photographers.

Obsession? What a Scream! I'm Just Reciprocatin'!

In the four years I've been blogging, and the two or three years I've been on Facebook, I have mentioned my hit stats and visitor counts maybe eight or ten times.  Because I've posted on Facebook a couple of times some interesting visitor locations (the Department of Justice and now a law firm in Washington, D.C.) the perfesser says I'm obsessed.

I guess, to his understanding, posting about something on Facebook is tantamount to being obsessed (as opposed to, say, attacking someone on your blog every other day)....  Ya think?  Or is he, as usual, lying?

I note that he's made more posts about me in the past five to six weeks than I've made about my visitor stats in four years. In March 2012, through April 8, 2012, he made eleven (11) posts about me, directly or indirectly -- and this does not count the times he mentioned me in comment threads during the same time period, at  his blog and others'.

Here lately, he's been attempting to mischaracterize folks, mainly me, without mentioning names. He's not real good at it, and it makes for some really tangled and convoluted (and unintentionally hilarious) posts.

In one particularly obscure post about a "Confederate heritage advocate" -- that would be moi --  he mentions that blogging software comes with hit counters. I suppose so, but if mine does (Blogger or Blogspot, run by Google), I don't use it.  I use independent visitor stat software.

My tracking software recently recorded that I received a visit from a law firm by the name of O'Melveny and Myers. Yes, it identified them as the IP address, by name, and provided their numerical IP address (151.194.49.145) and location, Washington, D.C.  See?

More  here:

O'Melveny & Myers website
http://www.omm.com/

Wikipedia entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Melveny_%26_Myers

The visitor tracking software told me this visitor came to my site by clicking on a link to it found at: cwcrossroads.wordpress.com/...<snip>.

So Simpson writes, "That advocate, in yet another effort to draw attention to herself, now claims she’s being checked out by a Washington, DC law firm (she’s previously claimed that the Department of Justice is on her tail).  All that’s happened here, people, is that a reader of this blog clicked on a link to another blog … although the post in question doesn’t even mention any Confederate heritage blogger by name.   So, tell me … is this Confederate heritage blogger simply stupid?" 

I have a better question.  Are you simply a liar, Perfesser?  Ah, yeah, you are.

At least two blatant lies stand out in just that one paragraph.  First, that visit from the law firm was not to my blog. Second, I've never claimed that the DoJ is "on my tail."

Also note I never claimed that the Crossroads "post in question" mentioned me by name. However, the link that the  D.C. law firm visitor followed at Crossroads was in a comment posted by me, which identified me by name. Geez, do you imagine somebody that works at a law firm might be able to put two and two together and at least guess whose site they'd be visiting?

Anyway, back to my comment on Facebook about the DoJ visit to my blog.  Here is the FB post where I told my group about the visit: "My 180 blawg has been visited by Eric Holder's US Department of Justice. LOL! Hey, Eric! (Waves.) How's Fast and Furious goin'?"

Obviously, I wasn't obsessed with the visit from the DoJ; I didn't even take it seriously, as anyone who isn't humor-impaired could see.  Later in the thread, I posted:

Anybody have any thoughts or ideas about how I might parlay this visit from the DOJ into ... book sales? I recently changed the cover of Southern Man and reduced the price to $12.95. If I just had some other marketing gimmick... Could Holder's DOJ fill the bill?
 
Corey "Kindred Blood" Meyer also posted on that thead: "Maybe it is just someone who works there and was looking for something and google pointed them your way. Or you could just be paranoid."
 
To which I replied: "So I sound paranoid, Corey? What's paranoid about "LOL" and "Hey, Eric! (Waves.) How's Fast and Furious goin'?"  Humor, sarcasm and irony really DO go over your head, don't they? You yanks are sooooo SOUR."
 
The same observation holds true for Perfesser Simpson.  Even when he deliberately attempts humor, it falls completely flat.

Anyhoo, Corey continued, "Why else would you comment about the DOJ visiting your site."
 
So I had to 'splain it to him:  "Corey, why would I comment? Well, it's a concept you evidently don't understand. HUMOR. Entertainment.  My original 180 ezine got hits from the feds all the time -- the State Department, mostly, but the Justice Department, too -- but the miltary more than anyone, esp. the Army and the Coast Guard. I always just assumed the visits were from homesick southerners sneaking around and using their gubmint employer's internet access to have a little cyber-visit to Dixie. My e-zine rocked -- really. I played great rock midis..."
 
So, back to the visit from the D.C. law firm recorded on my visitor log.  The perfesser sez, "All that’s happened here, people, is that a reader of this blog clicked on a link to another blog."  Yeah, the "reader" whose visit he mentioned was from the D.C. law firm.  Does the perfesser imagine that because the click-through came from his blog that it couldn't have come from the D.C. law firm, as recorded by my tracking software?

The more I read the perfesser's complaints about me, the more I realize that what he's complaining about describes himself far more than it does me.  He's the one who's obsessed -- with Southern heritage advocates in general, and with me in particular. He admitted that he trolls the internet looking for such folks to bash on his blog.  He calls it tiptoeing "through the internet to sample historical understandings about the American Civil War." 

People say, "You do the same thing with his blog." 

Ah, no. He goes looking for people to attack.  I read his blog looking for those attacks in order to defend against them, or counterattack.  The perfesser attacks.  I defend or counterattack. I virtually never post on his blog, or post about him at mine, or on my Facebook group, except to defend or counterattack.

Remember when the emphasis of this blog was the civil war and the header included a version of this image?

The "cw" is still part of the URL of his blog, although when he grew less interested in  the civil war and more interested in spying on and lying about and just generally bashing Southern heritage and its advocates, he took the emphasis on "civil war" out of his blog and now it's just Crossroads....

The tagline reads, "Where history, scholarship, the academic life and other stuff meet."  Since the first three seem to be in short supply on his blog, most of it is "other stuff" -- usually attacks on Southern heritage folks. 

Yes, I know posting this image here violates the perfesser's new copyright policy on his blog... but as long as he posts things like this, in violation of mine (not only posting a copyrighted image, but photoshopping it), he can expect the same thing from me.

After all, when he announced his new copyright policy, he said that I "should reciprocate." So that's what I'm doin'.  I'm reciprocatin'.

Every now and then, he tries to quit us, and he'll post about other things for a while... But then it gets to be too much for his predatory nature, and he always resumes his attacks.  It's happened over and over.  And not just on his own blog, but in comment threads at other ostensible "civil war" blogs...

Keep in mind that this man who exhibits so little regard for truth is a Distinguished Regents’ Professor of History, in the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies at Arizona State University.  Explains a lot, doesn't it?

Does He or Doesn't He ... Know He's Lying?

When Perfesser Simpson takes a written passage out of context in order to come to an erroneous conclusion about Southern heritage and its advocates, does he not realize he's being dishonest? Is he so blinded by his hatred for us that he doesn't realize what he's doing?

Yes, dear readers, that is a rhetorical question. I believe he knows exactly what he's doing. I believe he purposely ignores and leaves out vital information in order to lie about what he wants to focus on.

Take this passage, for example, stolen from my 180 Degrees True South Facebook group and posted at Crossroads, unattributed (attributing it to "someone" is not sufficient).

… secession, the creation of the Confederacy, the South’s struggle for independence, the shabby treatment of the South by the “victors” for several generations after the war — these are unique, integral, defining components of our region and the cultural inheritance handed down to each generation of Southerners. These elements are MORE defining of the South than as slavery and racial issues.

Actually, I wrote it and you can see the entire post and thread, and see what he purposely leaves out, here:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/345813525448421/permalink/407254769304296/

To say Southerners with no Confederate ancestors cannot claim and celebrate their Confederate heritage is like saying immigrants to the US with no colonial/revolution era ancestors cannot claim and celebrate their American heritage.

Confederate heritage is an *integral* and *defining* part of Southern heritage. Secession, the creation of the Confederacy, the South's struggle for independence, the shabby treatment of the South by the "victors" for several generations after the war -- these are unique, integral, defining components of our region and the cultural inheritance handed down to each generation of Southerners. These elements are at least as defining as slavery and racial issues, which are not unique to the South, but part of northern heritage, too, despite the north's striving to ignore and downplay it, or to pretend that "fighting a war to free the slaves" (which they didn't do) somehow neutralizes their guilt in slavery.

But I'd like to hear other opinions on this. I think it's a very interesting topic.

I would amend the above to say that secession, the creation of the Confederacy, the South's struggle for independence, the shabby treatment of the South by the "victors" for several generations after the war --these are unique, integral, defining components of our region and the cultural inheritance handed down to each generation of Southerners. These elements are MORE defining of the South than as slavery and racial issues.

The first indication that the perfesser is lying his head off is that he chose NOT to include this:

Confederate heritage is an *integral* and *defining* part of Southern heritage.

Saying that Confederate heritage is part of Southern heritage -- even an integral and defining part -- implies that it is not the whole of Southern heritage, so there are other parts to Southern heritage. So what am I saying? He left that out so he could lie? Yep, that's what I'm saying.

By claiming that I'm claiming that these defining regional characteristics are the South's only characteristics, he's lying.  What I actually said was that these are defining of the South because the South is the only region where they occurred.   They are unique to the South, and thus define it -- that is, differentiate it -- from the rest of the country.

When I say, "These elements are MORE defining of the South than slavery and racial issues," that's because slavery and racial issues are not unique to the South. Slavery occurred in the North, so it is not unique to the South.  Racism occurred and continues to occur throughout the United  States, so it is not unique to the South.  But secession, the creation of the Confederacy, the South's struggle for independence, the shabby treatment of the South by the "victors" for several generations after the war -- these did not happen in New England, the Midwest or the West Coast. They are unique to Dixie.

That doesn't mean they negate all the South's other characteristics and history.  You'd have to be incredibly stupid or maliciously dishonest to come to that conclusion -- and while I may wonder whether the perfesser's book learning has somehow atrophied his common sense, I don't think he's incredibly stupid.  That leaves --  yep -- maliciously dishonest.
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Graphic created by C. Ward

And the hate just keeps on coming....

Morons, troglodytes, knuckle-draggers, according to Eric Wittenberg and his myrmidon commenters. Do these people look like that to you? To me, they look like decent, regular, respectable but spirited folks who seek to recognize and honor their cultural inheritance and do not deserve the verbal hatred aimed at them by self-appointed, sanctimonious civil war thought police.


Click here to see more photos of the flagging of the Museum of the Confederacy -- Appomattox on Facebook.

More strident, screeching liberal hatred for Southerners, here:

Mother Jones
Democrat Underground

Leftist hatred. Nobody does it better....

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Photo by Susan Frise Hathaway

Ha ha ha

Connie = Liberal, Anti-Racist, Multiculturalist
(according to white-supe "Hunter Wallace" who hides behind a pseudonym and fake photo)

Connie = Racist, Intolerant, Bigot
(according to Brooks Simpson, the Triple-A Liar who lies in perpetuity at the Civil War Crossroads blog)

The Real Connie = Neither One

 Photos and artwork by C. Ward