Academic leftism and the Civil War

I recently visited an anti-Confederate blog's comment thread and made a few comments, among them the notion that American colleges and universities are not the zones of free thought and inquiry they once were, but now are centers that teach students what to think.

I posted a link to the website, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, The FIRE.org, which monitors restrictions of free speech on college campuses. One blogger is a professor at Arizona State University, and because ASU has a FIRE "green light" rating -- a good record on free speech -- he says I contradicted my own claim.

Not really. Some of you have encountered this idea from me: "If you want to understand ALL the reasons Mississippi seceded from the union, you have to NOT STOP reading after you encounter the word "slavery." The document goes on to list the ways Mississippi had been victimized, with slavery as the excuse, and since they are included in the secession declarations, they are reasons why the state seceded. If not, why were they included? If they were, that makes them as important in the decision to secede as slavery was."

It's the same situation now. You can't stop reading after the "green light" comment; you must read on to get the whole picture.

But first, you have to know what "green light" means. Here is FIRE's note about it:

"Green Light: If FIRE is unable to find a policy that seriously imperils speech, a college or university receives a 'green light.' A green light does not indicate that a school actively supports free expression. It simply means that FIRE is not currently aware of any serious threats to students’ free speech rights in the policies on that campus."

Further, as FIRE notes, ASU's "green light" was recently earned. An Arizona State Press editorial from June 2011 (that's this year, folks) notes: "FIRE used to have ASU as one of the worst schools in terms of free speech, but a change in a university policy in January took away viewpoint restrictions in advertising and posting."

In January. As recently as seven months ago, this university, where the anti-Confederate blogger is employed, was one of the worst in terms of free speech.

Visit here and read more about it: http://thefire.org/spotlight/schools/46

While you're there, read about ASU's recent history of segregated classrooms ("...Native Americans only...") and the university's denial of same, despite proof.

Everybody knows, and studies confirm, that educators are overwhelmingly leftist politically (two thirds to three quarters, depending on the study).

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/arts/18liberal.html

There are many reasons given for this, but the bottom line is that our college and university students, as well as elementary and high school students, are taught by those with a leftist political and cultural bias. And there is no doubt in my mind -- is there in yours? -- that the leftist bias influences what and how they teach to their students.

More about the ivory towers of academia in future posts.

For now, just suffice it to say that some anecdotal evidence can be found in comment threads that follow news articles about the "civil war" and related events of today. The mindless, all-emotion, no-cognition comments screeching that the war was over slavery, and Confederates were traitors made, presumably, by people educated in the USA, testify to the leftist bias they've been taught -- because history offers plenty of primary evidence to the contrary. Students, in my opinion, are just not allowed to be exposed to it.

More about that in future posts, too. So stay tuned.

The Civil War Thought Police

We once knew that 1984 was a time span. A year, to be exact -- 365 days stretching between 1983 and 1985. We also knew it was the title of a distopian novel written by George Owell in the latter half of the 1940s. Many pop culture references grew from the novel -- War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength ... Big Brother, doublethink, Newspeak, memory hole -- and thought crime.

In the mid 1960s, when my class studied this novel, these concepts seemed foreign to us as Americans, and wholly unlikely to ever see the light of day in here in the USA.

How wrong we were. We've had thought crimes for several decades; they just have a different name: hate crimes -- selectively applied. And we have Thought Police. They work out of a network of police stations known as colleges and universities and, to a lesser extent, grammar and high schools, in the fourth estate and in government bureaucracy.

When I was coming up, the purpose of school was to teach one how to learn, so that education became a lifelong ability, self-achieved. Today, the purpose of school is to implant and cultivate in you what you must believe. Higher Education in the USA has become the (mostly) taxpayer supported, self-appointed Ministry of Truth. It is not at all surprising that the insidious manipulator of speech and thought that we call Political Correctness found its most welcome home in academia.

There used to be a saying in Old America -- "I may not agree with what you say, but I defend your right to say it."

How far we have strayed from that concept of rights, and live-and-let-live liberty. There are many illustrations of the distance we've traveled. I'm reminded of the news report several months ago of some government bureaucracy victimizing a woman who advertized for a roommate on her church bulletin board because her ad specified a Christian roommate...

But nothing illusrates the push toward totalitarian censorship -- in this case, in academia -- like the recent blog post by "civil war historian" Kevin Levin, urging a researcher into the black Confederates issue to take down her website.

Look at it again, folks. He's telling her to TAKE DOWN HER WEBSITE.

Can you believe the unAmerican audacity of this demand? It's truly breathtaking.

And why the demand? Because she's made a few mistakes in her research? (Who hasn't?) No. Because her work is "incredibly disturbing" and because her "commentary/analysis clearly points to a lack of understanding surrounding the larger issues related to African Americans and the Confederacy" and because she does "not understand how to conduct primary source analysis" and because her work as "been discredited."

All this, of course, is his "interpretation." It means "You didn't do it the way I did, therefore you're wrong. Anybody who doesn't do it the way I did is wrong."

Here's the post: http://cwmemory.com/2011/08/09/an-open-letter-to-ann-dewitt/

He just can't seem to pile on enough slimy ridicule, which seems to be an increasing element in academia today. (There's even more of it in the comments at his and his cohorts' blogs.) But when you hose it all away, what's left is the incredibly arrogant assumption that only people who believe what he believes about any aspect the war and who arrived at the belief by the same route he did (academia) are right. This is a theme that recurs with the monotony of a pile driver in his blog posts -- and I've only read a fraction of them dating from the past few months.

The dust-up over the Black Confederates research and website in the self-appointed Ministry of Civil War Truth -- the blogs of Kevin Levin, Andy Hall, Brooks Simpson and tagger-along Corey Meyer, and who knows how many others -- will be the subject of more blog posts here at 180 DTS. If you want to see truly incredibly disturbing, stay tuned.

Corey's back for more

I guess he can't get enough of banging his head against a brick wall.

He's posted a challenge to me here:

http://kindredblood.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/connie-chastain-ward-responds-again/

after I took him to task for his risible “think piece” about the Southern Heritage Preservation Group on Facebook. You'd think he'd learn. Guess not.

He doesn't take me to task on every point. Just three. Therefore, I will address those three.

Corey writes, “Connie ranks as an amateur historian, whereas I and the other bloggers mentioned (minus Andy since I do not know what he does for a living) are Historians since we do history for a living. I mean really Connie, come on, Brooks D. Simpson is ASU Foundation Professor of History at Arizona State University and both Kevin and I are teachers…of history.

Connie responds:

Dictionary.com defines "historian" as:

his·to·ri·an [hi-stawr-ee-uhn, -stohr-] noun

1. an expert in history; authority on history.
2. a writer of history; chronicler.

Nothing there about "doing history for a living."

However, an interesting note about the suffix "an" follows the definition, and with regard to "historian," it says, "The suffix -an, and its variant -ian also occurs in a set of personal nouns, mainly loanwords from French, denoting one who engages in, practices, or works with the referent of the base noun ( comedian; grammarian; historian; theologian ); this usage is especially productive with nouns ending in -ic ( electrician; logician; technician ). See -ian for relative distribution with that suffix."

Still nothing that makes "doing" it "for a living" as part of the definition. So, I'm as much a historian as Corey, Levin, Hall and Simpson. I'm a writer of history; I work with history. No, I'm not employed to do that, but I nevertheless am a historian.

With the possible exception of Andy, as Corey notes, what these gentlemen do for a living is, um, work at educational institutions -- presumably teaching. What they do for a living is teach. That makes them teachers.

Being a historian, if you accept Corey's definition of "doing history for a living" is not the same thing as doing, say, plumbing for a living. As a plumber, you have to know what you're doing and do it well enough to please the people you're doing it for -- an employer and his customers -- if you're gonna get paid. (Getting paid is basically what "for a living' means.)

To be a historian at an institution of learning just means you have to show some papers that presumably verify that you've studied and learned.

Most people so credentialed get their papers from institutes of higher learning, which as we know, have changed over the last fifty or sixty years from places of free thought and inquiry -- a setting for acquiring knowledge -- to centers of indoctrination.

If you want to see just how the indoctrination works, read some cases from The Fire.org http://thefire.org/ While there, take a look at the page for Arizona State University, were Mr. Simpson teaches: http://thefire.org/spotlight/schools/46

Obviously, I'm not as impressed with Corey's concept of "historian" and what it takes to become one as he is.

Next he writes, “First of all I have never disparaged any veteran from any time period. I have no idea how the fact that some of the members of Facebook’s Southern Heritage Preservation group are Vietnam veterans plays a role in my assessment of their historical understanding of the War of the Rebellion. Furthermore, I do not understand how my military career or lack thereof plays a role in my ability to interpret the past. There really is only one answer…it does not…and Connie knows it. But in an attempt to pacify Connie’s sense of honor I will mention that my family has taken part in just about every war this country has been involved in and then some. I have had ancestors fight in wars from King Phillip’s War in the 1600?s to the French & Indian War, The American Revolution, War of the Rebellion, World War II and Vietnam. And No I have no military service, but that does not exclude me from being able to comment on things of history."

Connie responds:

My mention of the Vietnam vets is because they have experience with war -- the same as Confederate veterans, and Union ones, too. The technology may have advanced, but the horror, the dying, the loss of war -- those don't change. One doesn't get that because one has relatives who were in war. One gets it because one has experienced it personally.

Corey says, "Furthermore, I do not understand how my military career or lack thereof plays a role in my ability to interpret the past. There really is only one answer…it does not…and Connie knows it."

I completely disagree. Men who have experienced war first hand are truly war historians in a way that the inexperienced cannot be. They lived the history -- literally did it for a living. Corey's appeal to his military ancestors doesn't appease me. They don't give him the knowledge-by-experience that our SHPG Vietnam vets have.

Of course, Corey's lack of military experience doesn't exclude him from commenting on history. My lack of military experience doesn't exclude me from commenting on it, either. The difference is that I willingly acknowledge that their experience gives these vets the status of war historian in a way that Corey does not, cannot, have. I suspect Corey doesn't recognize their status as war historians-by-experience.

The last thing he complains about is my comment, “Some of the Deep South states seceded over slavery, among other things (the other things are listed in their Declarations of Causes but you have to not stop reading after you encounter the word “slavery.”) The states of the upper South seceded because D.C., in violation of the founding principles of the USA, was planning a military invasion of the South. The fighting was because an army invaded the Southern states — but that army did not invade to free slaves, so the South could not have been fighting to defend slavery.

Corey responds, "The last sentence defies logic. How can one even type such a blatantly false statement…It simply does not make any sense. Since Connie challenge me about my military service, I too challenge her to explain this last point. I seriously doubt she can."

(Loooooooooooong pause.)

Oh. My. Goodness. People, I must humbly apologize. Corey is right.

Levin, Andy Hall, Simpson, all the anti-Confederate bloggers and South-bashers ... ARE RIGHT! They've been right all along!

We Southerners, who have always maintained that the war was about more than just slavery - WE'VE BEEN WRONG!

How could we have been so wrong? How could we have been so duped?

It's all there, right there, in Abraham Lincoln's proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteers to invade the South. He called them up to march South and free the slaves! He did! He did! Here's his proclamation, word for word!

Whereas slaves are being held in the United States, and have been for some time past, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, by people too numerous to be compelled by ordinary judicial procedings or the powers vested in the marshals by law:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, in virtue of the power vested in me by my ego and my big-government agenda, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventy-five thousand, in order to free said slaves and oppress their oppressors, despite there being no law that justifies said action, and doing so violates the Constitution of the United States of America. I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, have deemed that in this situation, my decision is just and right, and transcends the Constitution.

The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the State authorities through the War Department.

I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate and aid this effort to free said slaves, despite there being no law to justify it, and despite there being little love for slaves in the free states and little concern for their wellbeing.

I deem it proper to order the freeing of said slaves for the purpose of divesting Southerners and their region of their wealth, and preventing their ability to generate more wealth, and transferring said wealth and accompanying power (but not the freed slaves) to the northern states of the union, and the northern people.

Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents an extraordinary occasion, I do hereby, in virtue of the power in me vested by my gargantuan ego in combination with my limitless ambition, convene both Houses of Congress. Senators and Representatives are therefore summoned to assemble at their respective chambers, at twelve o'clock, on Thursday, the fourth day of July next, then and there to consider and determine such measures as, in their wisdom, the public safety and interest may seem to demand.

Okay. Just kidding. I made that up. In Aby-baby's actual proclamation there ain't one word, not a freakin' syllable -- not even a tiny, freakin' syllable -- about freein' slaves. To say the federal army came South for the purpose of freeing slaves is like saying the USA got involved in WWII to liberate Jews from Nazi concentration camps. Yes, slaves and concentration camp inmates were freed, but that was not why the fighting started.

Lincoln called up troops to bully the seceded states back in the Union, not to liberate slaves. If that had been his purpose, he wouldn't have waited so long to issue the Emancipation Proclamation; and he would have done something that wasn't just for show, as the EP was. If the union army invaded the South to free slaves, Lincoln wouldn't have told Gen. Freemont to return to slavery the slaves he'd freed in Missouri. And on and on.

Lastly, studies of the letters of federal soldiers reveal that the reason for fighting they listed most was to preserve the union. One such study was done by James McPherson, a conventionally credentialed historian, so Corey ought to be impressed....

Like so many people, Corey-the-historian apparently can't distinguish between secession and war. This is sorta on the order of not being able to tell the difference between resigning from your club ... and getting into a brawl with the remaining members and burning down the club house.

As I stated, some of the Southern states seceded to protect slavery -- among other things. But they fought because an army was marching South to kill them and their familes and servants, and force them back into the union at the point of a bayonet.

---

Lincoln's actual proclamation:

Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some time past and now are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia of the several States of the Union, to the a ggregate number of seventy-five thousand, in order to suppress said combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed.

The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the State authorities through the War Department.

I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government; and to redress wrongs already long enough endured.

I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event the utmost care will be observed, consiste n

tly with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, and destruction of peaceful citizens in any part of the country.

And I hereby command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid to disperse and retire peacefully to their respective abodes within twenty days from date.

Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents an extraordinary occasion, I do hereby, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution, convene both Houses of Congress. Senators and Representatives are therefore summoned to assemble at their respective chambers, at twelve o'clock, on Thursday, the fourth day of July next, then and there to consider and determine such measures as, in their wisdom, the public safety and interest may seem to demand.

Corey attempts intellectual analysis

Corey Meyer has just posted a pseudo-intellectual think-piece -- his idea, I guess, of analysis -- about the Southern Heritage Preservation Group on Facebook. I really don't have a lot of time for his silliness, but I had to answer... (Grammar and spelling are as they appear on his blog; this is an exactly copy-paste.)

Corey sez: In the past few days there has been an intense exchange of comments between several Civil War Historian bloggers and the Southern Heritage Defense supporters. You can read the exchanges here, here and here. The latter site has been very active today (8-6-11).

What I want to do in this post is try and shed some light on what is going on in the minds of those Southern Heritage Defense supports

Connie replies: A prerequisite would be for you to figure out what's going on in yours first.

Corey: Any discussion on the minds of Southern Heritage Defenders (SHD) must begin with the current political climate of the United States.

Connie: Sez who? And why?

Corey: I think it is fair to say that anyone reading these words knows the current polarization of the country over the debt limit and government spending.

Connie: Possibly. On the other hand, a lot of people in America don't pay much attention to national politics, and may barely have a grasp of it.

Corey: Also, many would agree some changes are needed in Washington to help this country out of the economic troubles we are currently facing.

Connie: "Economic troubles" is quite an artful euphemism for being so deeply in debt that we'll never be able to pay it off and therefore face economic ruin/collapse as a country.

Corey: Sadly much of what SHD deal with is a combination of present troubles and the troubles facing the country in the 1860′s.

Connie: I'm afraid not. You're confabulating, here, Corey.

Corey: We historians call this presentism…the applying of today’s attitudes and experiences to the past. SHD are unknowing experts of this and I shall explain how and why they do this .

Connie: Actually, dictionary.com defines presentism as, "the doctrine that the Scripture prophecies of the Apocalypse (as in the Book of Revelations) are presently in the course of being fulfilled." You appear to be mistaken about presentism, Corey.

Corey: The SHD is someone who has an unshakable love of the Southern Confederacy that existed for only four years between 1861 and 1865. However the Southern Confederacy has lived on in the minds of people since their devastating loss at the hands of the Federal Government in 1865. The story of the reason the South went to war in 1861 has been altered by the Lost Cause Myth that sprung forth in the later half of the 19th century. This myth removed the issue of slavery from the history and made the Confederate soldiers struggle for “independence” its central them. It is, therefore, no wonder the SHD clings so tightly to the memory of the Southern soldier. The Southern soldier represents all that was good in the South during the war.

Connie: We psychologists call this "projection," Corey. You believe what you've just written, so you project this belief onto others. (Yes, I'm as much a psychologist as you are a historian. I'm as much a historian as you are, too. As much as Levin and Hall and Simpson are, as well.)

Corey: Now that the Lost Cause Myth has been dispelled and slavery returned to its rightful place in the history of the war, SHD have come to the rescue of the Southern soldier and his reputation. To think that Southern soldiers would have fought for something other than hearth and home is unthinkable to these folks.

Connie: It's not unthinkable to me. I know there were many reasons why they fought. Ye of narrow minds are the ones who try to narrow it down to one cause, usually slavery.

Corey: What SHD fail to recognize is that those soldiers fought for what the Confederacy was fighting for and that was slavery.

Connie: See? Diddin I tell ya?

Corey: I could go on and on here about the causes of secession and the writings of the Secession Commissioners from the South, but that is for a different time and place.

Connie: Sorry, that is not correct. Some of the Deep South states seceded over slavery, among other things (the other things are listed in their Declarations of Causes but you have to not stop reading after you encounter the word "slavery.") The states of the upper South seceded because D.C. in violation of the founding principles of the USA, was planning a military invasion of the South. The fighting was because an army invaded the Southern states -- but that army did not invade to free slaves, so the South could not have been fighting to defend slavery.

Corey: SHD find themselves in a precarious position.

Connie: Not me. My position is just fine.

Corey: They on one hand want to honor their ancestor soldiers and keep their memory untarnished while at the same time deny the big overreaching reason these men went to war.

Connie: The overarching reason they went to war was to defend family and home from a barbaric invading army.

Corey: During this process today’s displeasure with how things are being run in Washington overlap.

Connie: What claptrap. They do not overlap. The USA, while violating its founding principles to invade the South, was not the global bullying empire it is today. If you think the two situations are similar, the only thing similar is that the American empire was in its infancy back then and today it is a huge, strapping monstrosity of a bully.

Corey: They see their Confederate ancestors struggle against the “evil empire” as their struggle against, ironically the first black President who happens to be a Democrat.

Connie: Struggling against the first black President? You get more delusional with every paragraph, Corey. What difference does it make what color he is? He's presiding over, and assisting, the economic collapse of the country. You're fine with that? I thought you were this big USA supporter and defender. What most people are doing is struggling to keep their heads above water, economically.

Corey: Therefore if secession was legal and the best remedy for what ailed the country in 1860, something similar is good today. This is what prompts them to claim anyone who disagrees with their view of the Civil War to be a revisionist or Communist/Marxist.

Connie: Ah, who claims that? I only claim someone is a communist/Marxist if they promote, espouse or seek to bring about communism or Marxism. Most of the ones I've encountered have little knowledge about the War -- they just have the propagandist view of it.

Corey: So, in my humble opinion, to save face not only for themselves but their ancestors as well they must root for the United States to fall apart. That way they and their ancestors will be vindicated for what happened 150 years ago. For them there is no other course to prove that what their ancestors did during the War of the Rebellion was correct…or as the Kennedy Brothers say..”The South Was Right”. The one thing I find ironic is that their worship of Bobby Lee and all things Confederate seems even more diehard than the admiration for Lincoln by those they refer to as the “cult” of Lincoln.

Connie: Your humble(?) opinion is wrong. The USA is falling apart; what we say or don't say won't change that. It is past the point of no return. We are rapidly falling to third-world economic status. And yes, it was a long-haul process that began with Lincoln's destruction of the founders federated republics. And if everything the Confederates did wasn't correct, the union was even more incorrect, Corey. Whatever criticism you want to level at the South, the same and worse can be said of the north.

Corey: Oh well…I really should not try to understand them, but try to empathize with them…after all they did lose the war.

Connie: Exactly, you should not try to understand because you are not equipped to. Your cognition is way too distorted by your prejudice and your rigid subjectivity to understand anyone who believes the slightest bit differently than you.

BTW, Corey. How do you get "SHD" out of Southern Heritage Preservation Group?

____________________

Folks, one of the things you need to realize when reading this claptrap hooey from Corey is that a number of members of the SHPG are Vietnam vets. Regardless of whether you agree with the U.S. policy of "containment" in Southeast Asia, the men of today who went over there as boys, teenagers -- the average age was 19 -- put their lives on the line for their country. Fifty-thousand of them lost their lives. Thousands of others faced a host of medical problems (and still do) thanks to their own government's disregard for their health and lives over there. And the civilian culture largely gave them the back of its hand across their jaws.

I challenge Corey to tell us what is his military service to this country he falls on his face and worships. Let's hear it, Corey. Army? Navy? Air Force? Marines? Name, rank and serial number. Years of service. Duty stations. Type of discharge....

Who, me? No way!

The basketball game is going fast and furious. A player is dribbling while he lopes down the court toward the goal, a defender running along side him, slapping at the ball, bumping against him to knock him off balance, and suddenly the official's whistle blows. He points at the defender and raises his hand to stop the clock, then signals pushing/charging.

The defender's face registers complete and utter surprise -- shock, really -- and he throws his hands out at his sides in an exaggerated display of innocence. As he looks from the ref to his coach to the crowd in the stands, the exaggerated innocence takes on a touch of righteous indignation.

Now, he fouled the guy. He knows it. The ref knows it. The coach knows it. Everybody in the stands knows it. But he still plays innocent when caught.

This is exactly the scenario that comes to mind when Mr. Civil War Memory attempts to defend himself from charges of South-bashing. He does it -- everybody knows he does it, and sometimes he gets called on it. And he throws out his hands in a display of exaggerated innocence, and offers up truly ludicrous "proof" of his innocence.

In one recent thread on his blog, he wrote, "No one here has attempted to turn this into a South bashing crusade. We are all aware of the North’s long and violent history surrounding slavery and the slave trade."

Really? His entire blog is a South-bashing crusade, and while he may be aware of the north's long and violent history surrounding slavery and the slave trade, he manages to do a supreme job of ignoring and yeah-yeah-yeah-style downplaying it.

In the same thread, he wrote a post that included the phrase, "the darker side of slavery," which I repeated in a response. Now, when *I* used that phrase, I was jumped on by a couple of his sycophants ("And what exactly was the bright side of slavery?" and "Slavery had a bright side?").

Mr. Memory himself came back at me with, "You said: 'Perhaps it is because the darker side of the institution of slavery is often dishonestly portrayed as the totality of it.' It implies that there was a lighter side. Perhaps you should take more responsibility for your choice of words. Exactly what aspect of the 'institution of slavery' fell outside of this darker side?"

Well, of course I had to remind him with this post:

Mr. Levin, in your post tagged “Kevin Levin August 1, 2011at 3:55 pm” you said:

“…They were not responding to the specifics of the show, but the broadest themes surrounding the darker side of the institution of slavery….”

Seems to me YOU are the one implying a lighter side. Perhaps you are the one who should take more responsibility for your choice of words.

I was responding to what you posted, and I didn’t imply anything about a “lighter” side of slavery — I said flat out that advocating for a more **realistic** view of slavery is to be called a “slavery apologist.”

Since you originated the “darker side of slavery” phrase, why don’t you tell us what fell outside of it? In your opinion.

So three of them -- which includes him -- jump on ME for using a phrase HE originated. Hmmm... That looks a lot like bias, practicing a double standard, and just being all around hypocrites.

This man is so transparently anti-South, anti-Confederate -- not to mention anti-fairness and anti-objectivity -- that only an idiot could believe he truly sees himself as fair and objective.

No, he knows exactly what he's doing. He feels justified in being unfair and subjective because he is convinced the South was/is morally deficient and the north morally superior. They aren't -- but the north and its self-appointed spokespersons have to maintain their warm- fuzzy illusions of moral superiority, and if that requires self-delusion...

Call 'em on their fouls, and watch the exaggerated displays of fake, "Who, me?" innocence. It'd be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.

(Photo: U.S. Navy, Public Domain)

Black Confederate Redux

The black Confederates issue pops up again like breakfast toast out of a three-slice Cuisinart.

To recap the argument as I understand it -- the yes-they-did folks believe that evidence supports blacks -- slave and free -- serving the Confederacy in a military capacity, whether cooks, teamsters, foragers, or infantrymen, snipers, whatever -- regardless of the Confederate government's official stand on the issue.

The no-they-didn't folks cite the Confederate government's refusal to allow blacks to serve in the army as proof that they didn't serve.

As I may have noted before, I'm not deeply invested in this issue. Still, I've developed a mild interest, not in the issue itself, but in the mentality of those taking sides on it.

Personally, I don't think the Confederacy "needs" blacks among its military to justify its struggle for independence. I think it was justified first in seceding and second in protecting its people and territory from a particularly brutal military invasion. On the other hand, I think all who served, in whatever capacity, but especially those who served on the battlefield risking life and limb, should be acknowledged, and I believe this notion motivates many yes-they-did folks.

What I find most interesting is the no-they-didn't camp's almost mad scramble to neutralize any documentation discovered and presented by the yes-they-did people. If it says "servant" or "slave" anywhere on it, that is proof enough to these folks that the servant or slave was not a soldier -- or, did not engage in soldierly conduct (i.e., shooting at the enemy). As if the two statuses are mutually exclusive. They aren't. Slaves have served in armies throughout history and around the world.

One thing I find interesting about the debunkers is their virtually total reliance on what they accept as official documentation. If the Confederate government prohibited it -- or at least didn't authorize it -- it couldn't have happened. Of course, we know all sorts of unauthorized and even prohibited activity takes place all the time -- but they can't allow themselves to accept it in this case.

I went to school with a guy who became an officer of the U.S. Navy and commanded a boat that patrolled rivers during the Vietnam war. He flew a Confederate flag from his boat. Presumably, this was/is officially prohibited somewhere, because his superior officers repeatedly ordered him to remove it. He didn't.

To believe something didn't happen -- couldn't have happened -- because it was forbidden by law is to believe there were no abortions in the USA before 1973, or that nobody drank alcohol during Prohibition.

I believe the reason there is such resistance to the notion of black Confederates has nothing to do with documentation or historical accuracy or any of that. It is the belief, shaped by modern, politically correct (i.e., socialistic) indoctrination, that blacks simply would not, could not, have fought to keep themselves enslaved.

Of course, this thought process is totally dependent on believing that Confederates fought the war solely for the purpose of keeping black folks in chains. What that means is, South=fought to keep slavery=evil, North=fought to free slaves=saintly, the war was all, all, all about this and nothing, nothing, nothing else.

Anyone who scratches off the layer of victor-pablum coating the "history" of the war is likely to see in short order that it simply wasn't that cut and dried -- indeed, slavery itself wasn't that simplistic -- but people are loathe to go against what they've been spoonfed their entire lives. They simply cannot violate their programming, regardless of the enormous amounts of truth it leaves out.

But there's an even greater/deeper reason for this belief, I suspect. What the north did to the South in the Civil War was not justifiable by any standard of decency known to civilized man. There was no justification for responding to the peaceful and democratic act of secession with war -- particularly war on civilians and particularly not with such savagery and barbarism. And so, to justify the unjustifiable, the victors had to fabricate a people so evil and a culture so malevolent that destroying both justified the union's bloody brutality.

That was accomplished by focusing solely on slavery, and not the whole of it, but the small, worst component of it -- and then smearing all Southerners with it. This process actually started before the war, and helped to build up the bloodlust of the north that resulted in the horrors perpetrated upon the South during the war. To acknowledge that blacks could have fought for the Confederacy is to acknowledge that the evilization of white Southerners, to justify their destruction in war, was wrong.

But once it was done, there was no turning back possible. The victimization of the South, justified by it's "evil," had to continue, and the result was four or five generations of deliberately created regional poverty that did not begin to ease until World War II. The demonization of Southerners continues to this day in books, fiction and nonfiction, scholarship, movies, comics, video games -- the whole of the popular culture.

There are likely diehards, like the pro-yankee bloggers who can't seem to get through a week without "monitoring" Southern heritage advocates online, who will never change. But it is past time for the self-deluded north to come to terms with what it did -- to realize that the evilization of Southerners was and is a fabrication (we're no worse than anyone else), and admit that, slavery notwithstanding, the union's savage war on the South was wrong. Just plain wrong -- whether a single black fought for the Confederacy or not.

(Photo: Matthew Bowden, Stock.Xchng)

A Reply to a Responce [sic]...

...to Corey Meyer, aka Kindred Blood, aka Billy Yank, who wrote about me on his blog. His comments in italics, mine normal text:

Connie,

I nor the other blogger* claim no more authority than you…you run a blog about the south…what authority do you have? You and yours have repeatedly shown that you do not have a grasp of the original source material that you present.

Nope. We haven't shown that. You're expressing an opinion, that's all. We show that we have a grasp of the original source material that's at least as strong as yours.

However, the other blogger* and I have history degrees which is the be-all-to-end-all on the situation, but it does help us when we are working with source materails…we have a background understanding of how to work with those items.

Your degree didn't help much with your spelling and grammar, though -- so why should I believe it gives you some kind of edge understanding history or anything else? Having a degree doesn't automatically give you a "background understanding" of anything. It depends on how well your were taught, how well you learned, and whether you were learning for the sake of knowledge, or to promote your pre-existing agenda.

Your problem is that you want to define any black person who supported the war effort of the south to be labeled a black confederate and even black confederate soldier.

That is not correct. http://one80dts.blogspot.com/2011/06/black-confederates-controversy.html Besides, it's not a matter of what I want, anyway, but a matter of what is/was. The people of the Confederacy were Confederates. If they were black, that made them black Confederates. YOU are the one trying to equate "black Confederate" with "soldier" -- not I, so don't try to palm your misconception off on me, buster.

Moreover, many heritage defenders who make claims of black Confederate soldiers, are using neither the dictionary definition of "soldier" nor the legal or political or military definition -- they're using the organic definition or the reality-based definition -- i.e., did the black Confederate pick up a gun in a battle and shoot at Yankees? Then that makes him a soldier to those folks -- in the sense that a soldier is as a soldier does.

The problem is … is there is no strong evidence that those who are claimed by you to be black confederates or black confederate soldiers are soldiers.

That may be a problem for you. It's not for me. Besides, where do you imagine I have made such a claim? I'd like chapter and verse, please. I've already 'splained it and 'splained it and posted a link to my position on this subject; so where are you getting this misinformation? Do tell. It might give some insight in how you traverse convolutions to arrive at the conclusions you arrive at.

Do I deny that tens of thousands of blacks were in a support role for the confederacy…no.

Now, why don't you tell me why I should care what you don't deny?

Do I deny that a very small number of blacks fought…no. However I will not and the historical data does not support the contention that tens of thousands of blacks fought as actual soldiers.

I don't contend that, either, so what are you bitching at me for? The ones who fought, however many there were, probably fought because they were at a place where circumstance -- i.e, marauding yankees shooting at them -- demanded it. I recognize that as soldierly conduct. Because this fellow wasn't on some muster roll somewhere, you refuse to see that as soldierly conduct. What? Certain conduct is what it is, only if something is written down on a piece of paper somewhere? You self-styled academics are so trussed up in paper that you're smothered by it, blinded by it, so you can't see the reality of the world and human nature and the human experience going on all around you.

You calling them black confederates denotes soldiers and loyalty.

No, you INFER that's what it denotes. That isn't necessarily what I'm implying, so don't put your words in other people's mouths and then condemn them with your own misunderstanding. If you could learn not to judge people, their beliefs, and what they say by your own misperceptions, you'd be waaaay ahead. I don't denote anything by it. I'm saying what was. They were residents of the Confederacy -- that made them Confederates, just like blacks, slave and free in the USA, were Americans. Voila -- black Americans, black Confederates.

Despite what you think, we just simply do not have the documentation to provide evidence of loyalty.

Well, you don't know what I think. You only prejudge what I think. However, if the documentation cannot provide evidence of loyalty, neither can it provide evidence of an absense of loyalty, can it? Thus, the documentation is neutral -- and irrelevant.

I too and saying that those who served should be acknowledged…but for what they were…and that was that the lions share of those you call black confederates were really slaves or free blacks that felt that any action in support of the south would lead to greater freedoms for themselves.

You know how they felt? You demand "written proof" from others, but you turn around and imply that you know how they felt? How? Do you hold seances? Do you put your hands on the "documentation" and the knowledge just ... sort of ... flows up your arms and into your head? I simply recognize what they did. You're telling me you know how thousands of people who lived a century and a half ago felt? This is one of the most ludicrous claims you've ever made.

Besides, being a slave, and being a black Confederate were not mutually exclusive, any more than being a slave and being a black American were mutually exclusive.

The only issue we have is how those men are acknowledged…and that needs to be done in a historically correct way. Calling a black slave who served his master during the war a black confederate will sound to a lay person on the War of the Rebellion as if blacks served as soldiers willingly and that the south openly enlisted blacks as soldiers and we….despite what you say…know that is not true.

You are once again doing the thinking for people you don't know, haven't met, never will know. You don't know that's what they'd think. Not everyone, lay person or not, has your mental limitations, Corey (limited to fit into your preexisting agenda). Frankly, I don't know how many "lay persons" would care one way or another. However, they are perfectly free to hear both sides of the issue and make up their minds about it. YOU would deny them that by shutting down the voices of those you disagree with, claiming that only YOUR way is the "historically correct" way.

Besides, when you show the same zeal for "historical correctness" regarding the Union's treachery, brutality and betrayal of the Founders, maybe we can revisit this.

As for the the example you refer to a couple of things. 1)If the writer is refering to new found information they need to tell the reader what that information is and where it comes from…Historical Honesty. 2)As for Kevin’s right to call anyone out I have this to say. Kevin is a published author, his first book is at the publishers and he has had numerous article published in journals and magazines about the War of the Rebellion. He is also currently under contract to write a book about black confederates and is in the research stage of the process. Therefore I would take his comments in higher esteem than say someone who writes southern romance novels!!

You expect me to be impressed? I'm not as gullible as you are. Levin is a published propagandist. I freely acknowledge my novels are fiction, and that they're written to an agenda. I say so right on my author website. http://conniechastain.com/bio.html You think Levin is candid enough to admit his writing is propaganda designed to push his pre-existing agenda? Ha!

Can't wait to see his book about "black confederates," which you and he say didn't exist. What's it gonna be, a back and front cover with nothing in between? LOL!

So are you saying that southern heritage is not synonymous with history.

Well, it's not me saying it, Corey. It's the very definition of the words themselves. Why don't you look and see? From dictionary.com:

==========

his·to·ry [his-tuh-ree, his-tree] Show IPA
noun, plural -ries.
1. the branch of knowledge dealing with past events.
2. a continuous, systematic narrative of past events as relating to a particular people, country, period, person, etc., usually written as a chronological account; chronicle: a history of France; a medical history of the patient.
3. the aggregate of past events.
4. the record of past events and times, especially in connection with the human race.
5. a past notable for its important, unusual, or interesting events: a ship with a history.

==========

her·it·age [her-i-tij] Show IPA
noun
1. something that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth; an inherited lot or portion: a heritage of poverty and suffering; a national heritage of honor, pride, and courage.
2. something reserved for one: the heritage of the righteous.
3. Law.
a. something that has been or may be inherited by legal descent or succession.
b. any property, especially land, that devolves by right of inheritance.

==========

Is the distinction too subtle for you? Perhaps I need to spell it out. Our history is PART of our heritage in that it has been handed down to us. It is a part, a large part, of what we as Southerners have inherited. But it is not the WHOLE of our inheritance. Our region -- the very land itself, the mountains,, the plains, the rivers and bays, the flora and fauna -- our culture, our food, our kinfolk, our music, our language and much, much more. That's heritage. And while the SHPG concentrates mostly on Confederate history (primarily because it is under concerted attack, and has been for over a decade, and the attack will get worse now because of he sesquicentennial) that is not all we post about.

From what I have read on pages like Facebook’s Southern Heritage Preservation Group or Virginia War Between the States Sesquicentennial you are very correct…history and heritage are in no way connected or your’e not connecting them.

Sigh. Certainly they're connected. They're just not the same thing. How difficult a concept is that to comprehend? That two things which are not the same thing are nevertheless connected?

As for being drawn to your type…I suppose I am**…I won’t speak for others. You provide a comic relief!

Nope, that doesn't get it. If all I provided was comic relief, you wouldn't have responded here with such ernestness and gravity. LOL!

The difference between you and me, as bloggers, Corey, is that you're a censor. You would silence those you disagree with if you could, or make what they say conform to what you believe. I, on the other hand, don't seek to silence anybody. I just point out how wrong you are.

End

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*The "other blogger" being Kevin Levin, owner of an anti-Southern, authoritarian, granite-minded blog called Civil War Memory (a virtually limitless subject matter that allows him to pontificate on anything and say it is "connected" to the Civil War because it's really about how the war is remembered, not about the war itself....) Anyhow, this fellow is a thin-skinned yankee teacher who came South to "educate" the poor, benighted chirren of scum-sucking, racist hick Southerners, and teach them about the evil reality of themselves and their kin, region, history, heritage, culture.... and who now -- praise be -- has relocated to Boston. I can't think of a better place for him. (Yes. This is my opinion, developed from reading Levin's blog and my personal experience with his childish whims and tantrums .)

**You can see how long Cory has been drawn to us by reading these columns from my original 180 DTS e-zine. They date from 2000 or so. About the only thing I got wrong was my caricature of Billy as a big, burly, Bluto-type of guy.... Talk about comic relief....
http://members.cox.net/180dts/Billy.html
http://members.cox.net/180dts/DigitalBilly.html

Getting OUR Message Out

(Note: A slightly different version of the following appeared in a post by me at the Southern Heritage Preservation Group's Facebook page.)

Recently at the forum Southern War Room, there were two posts that illustrate part of the reason why our side of the story is seldom heard.

The first was a link to an excellent essay by Dr. Donald Livingston, *Why The War Was Not About Slavery, found here: http://www.carolannwilson.net/Livingston.pdf

The second was a link to a Power Point presentation titled *The Antebellum South by Ms. Susan Pojer of Horace Greeley High School, Chappaqua, NY, found here: http://www.pptpalooza.net/PPTs/AHAP/AntebellumSouth.ppt

(The Power Point Palooza page is here: http://www.pptpalooza.net/ While there, you might want to check out other of Ms. Pojer's Power Point Presentations -- Civil War Atrocities, which concentrates heavily on the Ft. Pillow lie and Andersonville, barely gives a nod to Point Lookout, and doesn't have a syllable about deliberate starvation and murder at Hellmira and torture at Camp Douglas, what a surprise, huh?.... Also check out Reconstruction and I'm A Good Ol' Rebel [that last one's great, although I'm sure Ms. Pojer doesn't think so!] )

My observations:

1. Dr. Livingston's essay is wonderful but it isn't likely to be read by anyone except we who are in the choir. It is nicely laid out, illustrated, etc., but it is thirteen pages of almost unrelieved text. THIRTEEN. PAGES. We do not live in a thirteen-pages-of-text world anymore. We live in a Power-Point, Facebook, Twitter, You-Tube, e-reader, SMS, sound-bite world.

2. If Ms. Pojer's entire lesson plan for her students follows what she has put in these Power Points, and if they're representative of what's taught in northern schools, is there any wonder why yanks continue to hate us?

3. ProSoutherners and Southern heritage advocates need to be making our own PPPs -- Power Point Presentations -- (and You-Tube videos, and other short-message venues) to get our message out. For example, a Power Point that distills the major points of Dr. Livingston's essay (with his permission, of course) that includes a link to it for those who can still read. A PPP refuting and/or "expanding" on Ms. Pojer's anti-South PPPs (i.e., showing what she leaves out). A PPP showcasing northern slavery, the truth about how/why it ended up there, and how the region continued to profit from "remote" slavery in the South. Think of all the subjects that can be presented this way. The truth about Forrest. Sherman's March. Black Confederates. Torture of Confederate captives in northern POW camps. And on and on and on.

4. Keep our presentations honest. In a section titled, "The South's Peculiar Institution," Pojer's The Antebellum South PPP includes a drawing of a slave wearing a metal muzzle, and a photo of three slave brands. If branding slaves had been routine in the plantation South, we would already have heard about it (and would never hear the end of it). I've done some rudimentary Google research on these images, and according to this site -- http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts/slavery_4446.jsp -- these items are relics of the Atlantic slave trade. To identify them as part of the South's peculiar institution as Ms. Pojer has done is either boneheaded ignorance, or willful lying. However, you see this all the time -- the conflatation of the Atlantic slave trade (which sent far more slaves to other parts of the western hemisphere than the South and was truly horrifically inhumane) with Southern plantation slavery, and it needs to be vigorously refuted -- with facts.

5. Thus, our presentations, whatever method is used to present them, must, must, must include source documentation. Pojer's doesn't. (Does anyone really believe she tells her students, "Now, that picture of slave muzzles and brands actually relates to the Atlantic slave trade, not the antebellum South, but I included them in this presentation about the South because _____ "(fill in the blank).

6. A note about execution. Don't use fancy transitions (checkerboard wipes, etc.) in PPPs and videos, as Pojer does, or use them sparingly. Especially don't use them on title pages. Don't make the fonts on your title pages too big, also as Pojer does. There's lots of instructions available for making high-quality video, much of which would apply to slide presentations like PPPs. There's no excuse for making stuff that looks amateur and thrown-together. (In the future, hope to write or link to articles with instructions on how to make professional-looking videos and presentations that have impact, so check back often.)

7. How do we get our view out there? We need to move beyond blogs and forums, and create our own proSouthern alternate media, including e-newspapers and e-magazines, books, both fiction and nonfiction (we already have many fine books, but more never hurts!), videos and PPPs, our own coloring books for our kids, comics for our teens, puppet shows, toys -- an entire proSouthern pop culture, including music, movies, radio and eventually television (featuring our own "stars") -- our own sports, our own schools (shadow schools with classes held after regular government indoctrination center classes, or on Saturdays and in summer), our own home-schooling curriculum and our own **awards for excellence in these endeavors. The digital revolution makes most of it accessible, relatively affordable, and easier than ever. We simply need to learn how to use it.

So read up on self-publishing, learn screenwriting. Educate yourself on independent filmmaking. Draw a coloring book or comic book (called "graphic novels" these days). Write songs, form a band or singing group, record the music, burn it on CDs and/or make your own digital recordings to sell as downloads. If you don't have the time or inclination to do all this, donate money to those who do and cheerlead for them. (Which leads to another though -- we need our own fundraisers and financial backers.)

In my wanderings through cyberspace, I've found lots of Southern sites. These aren't necessarily heritage or Confederate sites (though some to pay homage to Confederate heritage) but they are very, very culturally Southern. (See http://usadeepsouth.ms11.net/index.html and http://www.propersouthernwoman.com/ What this says to me is, despite encroachment by the rest of the country, despite the homogenizing effects of TV and other pop-culture elements, and ridicule of the South by Hollywood and the big six publishers in New York, and despite anti-Southern indoctrination in schools, our people still tenaciously retain much of their regional identity. These are the people we need to be reaching.

I would add one other item to my list:

8. Don't confine your efforts for the South to Facebook, forums and such. As wonderful as it is to "meet" with likeminded folks in this manner, there is a possibility that it will become too cathartic and take the fire from our bellies.

How do we create our own media, movies, pop culture, etc. Start small, with Power Points or YouTube videos that will not only illustrate our views, but attract others (perhaps even indie filmmakers or financial backers we need). We start with what we can do, and then move up....

In the spirit of practicing what I preach, I have produced a short (under three minutes) video about secession that I will post at the end of this essay. If you agree, please repost far and wide, and leave comments here and/or at the video's YouTube page.

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*(These were posted by Roy and RHC40AL; thanks to forum manager PoP for permission to repost.) http://www.southernwarroom.info/

**Kudos to the Military Order of the Stars and Bars for their Literary Awards: http://www.militaryorderofthestarsandbars.org/programs-services/service-programs/literary-awards/

If you know of other awards issued by proSouthern organizations, please let me know and I'll post links here.

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Why I'm In This War of Words

There are manifold reasons. To honor those who went before; to strengthen and protect what's left of my culture (it's worth saving, and it can't make a come-back if it's all gone); to correct age-old lies and slanders about my region and its people, to name a few...

As an example (we run into stuff like this. All. The. Time.) I recently ran across somebody's personal website, The Civil War in Georgia, created in 1996 and last updated in 2000. It's an amateur site -- both in design and writing (and the Internet has come a long way since then).  It's just an illustration of the dismal ignorance rampant out there today.

The site deals with several subjects related to the war in Georgia --the cause, the blockade, Sherman's march, etc.  It sez the war  ...was America's defining moment, when the rural collection "These United States" transformed into the industrial powerhouse of "The United States."  (If one is old enough to remember, one might call it the military-industrial powerhouse bully....  but I digress.)

What caught my attention, though, was  in the "causes" section: "Slavery caused the war. It was the desire of the South to keep humans enslaved for profit and the inability of the North to stomach the evil of slavery that led so many thousands to their deaths."

The inability of the north to stomach slavery?  Really?  Actually, he's partly right.  The north was unable to stomach those parts of the slavery enterprise that were no longer profitable for them -- the financial responsibilities of round-the-clock, cradle-to-grave support of slaves who did not, could not, produce round-the-clock, cradle-to-grave.

However, when they were relieved of that responsibility, and it rested solely with plantation-owners in the South to support their slaves, the north was all too happy to get rich off the products of the evils of slavery -- that is, weaving slave-grown cotton in their textile mills (i.e., the infant "industrial powerhouse" ran on "remote" slavery) and the shipping of slave-grown cotton in the cargo holds of their ships headed for England.

As long as they didn't have to come in close proximity to slaves, Northerners were fine with the "evil of slavery" -- particularly when they profited so handsomely off the work of slaves who were out of sight, out of mind.

I have said it before, and I will continue to say it.  Whatever "sins" the Confederacy committed, the Union's were just as bad, and some of them worse -- and continue to be so to this day.

Another Walk Down Memory Lane

One of my favorite 180DTS covers from back when. This was the cover for February 2001, shortly after King Roy Rat Barnes arbitrarily changed the Georgia flag (and was subsequently thrown out of office by the voters). Look closely and you can see Kerosene Billy's ghostly face above the city skyline. (Click image for a larger view.)