Eric Jacobson Has a Nervous Breakdown

Over at XRoads, Jacobson posts:

I have tried to stay out of this, but I can’t help myself any longer. What I find particularly galling is Chastain’s absolute ineptitude when it comes to the Confederate military and its history. She blathers on about the flag, but I highly doubt that she can carry on any substantive conversation that doesn’t involve some long post-war application of it. In that sense, it is all about heritage (her skewed version of it). Note her bloviating about how the South was screwed by intestinal bugs, railroad scams, price manipulations, and the like until well into the 20th century as prime examples. Funny how that sounds like the very kind of victimhood she usually rails against.

Now she also likes to talk about rape and fire (especially as it relates to Sherman and his troops), but that is also mostly post-war poppycock nonsense that was the ultimate creation of the Lost Cause movement. Chastain would throw her walker into the street if she knew how former Confederate AND Southern civilians who had lived through the oft-repeated barbarity of Sherman’s movements actually lauded and celebrated his return to Atlanta in the early 1880s. But, of course, its all about her view of heritage – facts be damned.

Also, most people like Chastain conveniently forget that schools and highways were named for Forrest, Lee, et al, almost 100 years AFTER the war, and as a show of defiance against the winds of change that were blowing in the mid-20th century. Same with the battle flag and battle flag displays that went up and then inevitably came down. They can scream “heritage” violations all they want, but that is false. It’s called time moves on and things change. And sometimes, things just change.

Some folks in Brooklyn and Baltimore have never gotten over their teams leaving them. Same with marriages, and Presidents, and friends, and on and on. Yes, it seems Chastain has a hard time with the ol’ life sometimes sucks mantra.

Capisce?????

I can provide endless quotes about how Confederate soldiers viewed the battle flag, and how in the post-war years they were very particular about how it should be displayed and by whom. I doubt they would agree with this bantering, and bickering, and fussing about the flag going up and the flag going down and the lack of the flag being flagged because they didn’t see it as a necessary public display. I’m sure Chastain and others will claim to speak for the veterans, but they have about as much right to that as I do, or anyone else.

I say let her flag away. It won’t accomplish a thing, except to make her feel good, and if that works for her then so be it. I’ll send her new tennis balls if she needs them in 2015.

P. S. – In closing, no sensible person repeatedly quotes the meaning of words from the dictionary. It such a sign of someone who really doesn’t understand the meaning of droll, even if its meaning was quoted from said online dictionary (or an old fashioned printed one).

Goodness gracious sakes alive. One hardly knows where to begin....

Well, that's a joke. I know exactly where to begin....

First, to clarify, when I discuss what Southerners endured after the war (and during it), it's not to showcase victimhood. It's to show (1) what they stoically bore largely without resorting victimhood and (2) who perpetrated it against them.

In typical yankee fashion, Jacobson minimizes the horrors Southerners lived with after the war (as he has in the past minimized what they endured during it). He calls pellagra and hookwork an "intestinal bug"-- and he rails against MY ignorance? Pellagra is a horrific disease with devastating mental and physical manifestations caused by a nutritional deficiency -- said nutritional deficiency caused by poverty-stricken diets. Hookworm was caused by a parasite (hardly a bug)  that plagued people who went barefoot -- BECAUSE THEY WERE TOO POOR TO BUY SHOES. Both were very widespread in the South in the generations following the war.

Apparently, Jacobson doesn't like acknowledging what the greedy union and its diabolical military did to the South and the aftermath of their devastation and ruin...bless his heart...

He sez, "Chastain would throw her walker into the street if she knew how former Confederate AND Southern civilians who had lived through the oft-repeated barbarity of Sherman’s movements actually lauded and celebrated his return to Atlanta in the early 1880s."

Yup, I don't know that they did that, and Jacobson didn't offer any substantiation. I do know that when I was growing up in Georgia I never heard anyone say a nice thing about Sherman. I'd have to see proof that people who lived through Sherman's barbarity lauded and celebrated the thieving, murdering arsonist's return to Atlanta. Interesting that the folks who criticize me for not offering PROOF (when I'm simply expressing an opinion or making a suggestion) let their own off the hook when it comes to substantiating their claims about history.

"Chastain conveniently forget that schools and highways were named for Forrest, Lee, et al, almost 100 years AFTER the war, and as a show of defiance against the winds of change that were blowing in the mid-20th century." It's not forgetting, conveniently or otherwise. It is knowledge that there was not much opportunity to name schools, roads, etc., after ANYBODY in the South until the mid-20th century because the region was still mired in poverty (much of it externally imposed) before then.

I also note that the flippin' CENTENNIAL of the war occurred 100 years after the war (amazing, huh) and that likely accounts for some naming streets, schools, parks, even private businesses, after Confederate heroes.

He can provide endless quotes?  Somehow, I doubt that. And I don't care what HE doubts. I am convinced, though, that Confederate soldiers would know who loves and reveres their memory and honors their sacrifices, and who hates their memory and slanders them as traitors, backward hicks, barbaric racists and slavers.... Moreover, I think if they knew what was going on in our culture and nation today, they'd not only agree with our side of the bantering, bickering and fussing, they'd join in (and they might even take up arms again to defend what's left of the republic).

Jacobson, my appeals to the dictionary for objective word meanings is to showcase the leftists' deliberate, muddle-headed crusade  -- aka, political correctness --  to make words subjective (at best) or meaningless (the extreme) to weaken our communication and thus our cultural cohesiveness and, on a personal level, so they won't have to be held accountable for things they say.