Cookin' the Books on Slave Ownership

A couple of years ago, I put on Facebook a question about the number of  slave owners in the South in the mid-19th century. I had found online several genealogy sites with this information: "The last U.S. census slave schedules were enumerated by County in 1860 and included 393,975 named persons holding 3,950,546 unnamed slaves, or an average of about ten slaves per holder."  It was the same word for word on each site, and appeared to be a copy-paste.

According to THIS TABLE, in 1860, the free population of the Southern states (those that would form the Confederacy) totaled 5,447,220 -- meaning that the number of slave holders would make up about 13 - 14 percent of the population. I noted that critics of the South frequently waved away the number of slave owners -- people who actually held title to slaves -- and focused instead of slave holding families.

If memory serves, I linked to this page  http://www.civilwarcauses.org/stat.htm and asked fellow Facebookers if they knew how the slave holding family figures were calculated.

Out of the blue, I got a private message from James Epperson, the owner of that site: 

Ms. Chastain, if you go to the website in question, click on a year (say, 1860), you will get a list of hot links for variables, one of which is "slaveholders," and this is how I arrived at my figures. I no longer see an obvious way to look at individual states, but I assure you that option existed when I constructed the table.

I asked how the number of slave holding families was calculated, and he replied,  

Each slaveholder in the census is assumed to represent his own family. Some of these would be individuals, some would be extended families (patriarch/ matriarch, children and spouses, etc.), some would be nuclear families. I don't see a problem with this.

Me:

It seems to me that a figure of 26% looks much more weighty and impressive than 13.8% -- particularly to people who won't take the time to discern the difference in what the two figures represent. The term "slave holding families" could be construed by some to mean all members of the family were slaveholders; to such people, that means 26% of the Southern population, not 13.8%, owned slaves. I think it gives a false impression.

Him:

 The point of the exercise is to discern how many people were affected by or benefitting (sic) from or exposed to slavery. It would be more than the individuals who legally owned the slaves---it would include their wives and children. I am not the originator of this, it is the standard metric used by historians.

Ah, yes.  Historians.

So people who didn't own slaves can be considered the same as if they did -- and thus swell the number of Southern white slave owners (or, at least, appear to swell them).

Aside from having a problem with counting family members as slave owners who likely were not, I have a real problem with the point of the exercise being to find out how many people were affected by or benefiting from or exposed to slavery -- but ignoring a great many people who fit that criteria.

If that's the point, "slave holders" would include nearly everyone in the New England maritime industry, whose ships carried cargoes, and whose crews were paid to carry cargoes,  of slave-grown cotton to markets in Europe. It would include New England's textile mill owners and workers who milled Southern, slave-grown cotton   It would include northern bankers and their employees, which financed the purchase of slaves and plantations. It would include northern insurance companies that made profits insuring slaves....

They were all affected by, benefited from and were (indirectly) exposed to slavery. If the point of the exercise is to discern how many people benefited from slavery, why is the benefit to these northerners ignored? 

We know why, don't we? Because acknowledging it would be of absolutely no use in demonizing white Southerners. 

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Illustrations by C. Ward

What'sa Matter? Cat Got Your Tongue?

When is racism a good and positive thing?

When it is leftist racism against whites.

Over the past decade or so, proSoutherners have increased their attention to the increasing phenomena of racism against white Southerners, and the cleansing of Southern culture, particularly of its Confederate history.

A decade ago, proSoutherners warned the rest of the country that they were not immune to, nor protected from, the same sort of criticism.  We have since seen displaying the U.S. flag attacked at American schools, the playing of the national anthem outlawed, and other manifestations of the same

Michael Cushman at the Southern Nationalist Network and other proSoutherners have begun to call attention to not only anti-white, anti-Southern racism, but to the genocidal component of that racism -- the efforts to replace white Southerners themselves with a different demographic.

We see this happening in other parts of the country -- California, particularly -- and in the country as a whole. The objections of white people to the process of being replaced is, of course, labeled racism by the usual suspects on the left.

Interestingly, though, floggers and their followers, who do so love to evilize white Southerners, have been strangely silent on the demographic replacement -- a form of genocide -- of said white Southerners.

What'sa matter, y'all?  Cat got y'all's tongue?

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Image: Composited with photos from Dreamstime.com and the public domain.

We Didn't Start the Fire

**UPDATE**  **UPDATE**  **UPDATE**  **UPDATE** 

Brad Griffin's methodology for lying (not unlike Brooks Simpson's) is on display at his blog. After I specifically requested, twice, that Griffin not post about me on his blog, or link to Backsass, he insists on doing so. One wonders why he thinks my little blog is worthy of that sort of attack and promotion. I suspect he is still PO'd  -- and continuing to throw a really long tantrum -- because I wouldn't approve his membership request in one of my Facebook groups. In his own way, he's as small and petty as Simpson.  Both Griffin and the floggers are self-appointed thought cops who believe everyone should be bullied into seeing things their way.

In any case, in a comment following his latest post about me, he writes,

Before she was banned from the LoS Facebook group, Chastain went into a long rant about “shacks and hovels” in Fort Deposit in Lowndes County that haven’t existed in decades. The brain tend to ossify once it reaches a certain age.

That deliberately doesn't tell you what my purpose was in bringing up those past living conditions in that place, although I made it clear in my Facebook comment. Anybody with average reading comprehension skills could understand my purpose, and how my questions about the subject related to the future.  So the comment pasted above is deliberate deceitfulness on Griffin's part; and his comments in the thread that resulted from my question were chock full of the same kind of lies. The brain of habitual liars renders them unwilling to distinguish truth from falsehood, so that nothing they say can be trusted.

**END OF UPDATE**  

Brad "Hunter Wallace" Griffin says, 

"The Rainbow Confederates who “strongly disagree” with “official government segregation or any other kind of oppression” are responsible for creating the cultural conditions that empowered the blacks who have since gratefully returned the favor by using their political power to displace Whites in literally every major Southern metro area (most spectacularly in Memphis and Birmingham) and to attack Confederate symbolism from one end of the South to the other."

That, of course, is not true. First, there's no such thing as Rainbow Confederates and second, the cultural conditions that empowered blacks to attack Confederate symbolism were not created by disagreeing with official government oppression.

If Griffin's very simplistic view of causes and effects ("Baby Boomers done it!") is very widespread among Millennials, that means they are far less capable of preserving Southern heritage than the Baby Boomers he decries. In fact,he is so obsessed with one thing -- it apparently defines the whole world and all of existence for him --  he seems absolutely clueless about what heritage preservation (and restoration) will require. Fortunately, I don't think his myopic and clueless views are all that prevalent among Generation Y, so there's hope yet.

I have requested a second time that he refrain from linking to my blog or mentioning me in his blog. I don't expect he will honor my request. I know better than to expect dishonorable people to behave honorably....  Regardless, I don't have time to mess with him anymore. I'm busy.

Comment-Bot Anger Is So Delicious!

 **UPDATE TWO **  **UPDATE TWO**  **UPDATE TWO** 

  

Rob "Tu Quoque" Bakur has chimed in at Crossroads with, 

 "it’s funny. She’s using “Discover the Networks.org,” a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center as proof of the alleged “damage” to blacks that integration wrought. This is an organization/person that Hunter Wallace is also familiar with. http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2009/12/05/my-awakening/

Wouldn't you just love to know the reasoning behind Rob's thinking that this is funny? Presumably, this is a lame attempt to follow the SPLC's tired and mendacious "links and ties" method of smearing people by association. But it takes a leap of logic light-years in length to create some sort of association between two individuals just because they happen to visit and reference the same website.

It also requires tunnel vision; it requires NOT noticing that Horowitz's website is very well-known and draws many visitors; I wonder if Bakur also finds it "funny" that the leftwingers at Media Matters are familiar with (obsessed with, atcually) Horowitz's Discover the Networks and Freedom Center. 

In case he's tempted to try linking-and-tying me to Media Matters simply because we're both familiar with Horowitz's database -- which makes as much sense as linking-and-tying me to Griffin for the same reason --  let me head that off here and now. I ain't no "progressive," Rob, and I'm a counter-jihadist, bigtime. I have no sympathy with, and no ties to, Media Matters or any other group or individual who sucks up to leftism and/or radical Islam. Capisce?

Folks, here is yet another example of these people's willingness to assassinate their own brains in order to make (or attempt to make) someone they don't like look bad. Bizarre, isn't it?

**UPDATE**  **UPDATE**  **UPDATE**

Ah, Simpson, the humor in my blog posts is not unintentional. Perhaps it seems that way to you sensahuma-impaired folks...  But not all of it is humorous. I think it's appalling that you'd characterize the references to the tragically damaging circumstances found in the black community (as a result of leftist influence on civil rights and the war on poverty) to be unintentionally funny. Interesting that you'd give us this glimpse of a side of yourself you haven't revealed before....

I recently commented to Corey Meyer,

 "With us it's not history, it's heritage? With you and your fellow floggers, it's not history, either -- it's a craving to insult and hurt people ... an unquenchable thirst to denigrate others ... an insatiable hunger for the put-down. It's about alleviating your doubts about your own questionable beliefs by lying about others. It's about inflating your own questionable and sagging moral authority by fabricating somebody "worse" than you are. Hardly anything you write is about history....."

The Crossroads comment thread I'm chronicling here is a marvelous example of the thirst to denigrate, the hunger for the put down. Don't go looking for history there, folks. That is the last thing on their minds.

James Epperson answered Simpson's question, "Guess who said this?" with "I’m thinking Connie or Eddie Inman"

Simpson's reply: "Mr. Inman’s very good at cherry-picking, cutting, and pasting, often in highly selective ways, but when left to his own devices, he’s not nearly that articulate."

An unquenchable thirst to denigrate, an insatiable hunger for the put down... and not a syllable of "history " to be found. Why does Simpson hate Mr. Inman? Simply because the latter views history and the war differently? Oh, that's a great reason.

Earlier, Simpson posted, 

"Over at Occidental Dissent, Hunter Wallace admits that the author of the quote in question might just be coming around to his view of the world after all. Of course, I believe that was always the case, and the only reason the author’s hiding her true sentiments (and not very well) is because she needs to sell a few books." 

Certain folks rarely ever say, state, or write anything, in Simpson's view. They "admit". Sometimes they "freely admit." This is manipulative terminology designed to convey the idea that the "admitter" has been hiding, obfuscating, perhaps even lying  And when Simpson uses that term, you can pretty much count on it that he's fixing to let rip a lie that will rattle the windows. Only it's his lie, not the "admitter's".  This time, he actually issues the disclaimer "I believe" before lying but that amounts to very little in the way of keister-covering.

I'm not "coming around" to Brad Griffin's world view. Far from it. So either Simpson is lying, or else he is woefully lacking in cognition and gumption. I don't like to comment on the intelligence (or lack thereof) displayed by critics and fault-finders like Simpson -- it's too much like what they do. Still, when people write things like Simpson does, you have to at least consider it sometimes. How can a person of reasonable intelligence NOT see the difference between what Griffin writes and what I write?  Between OD and Backsass?

Regarding his claim that my "true sentiments" are the same as Brad Griffin's world view, I have to repeat what I've said about Simpson before: 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."

**END OF UPDATE**

___________________________________________

The oh-so-focused-on-civil-war-history comment-thread bots at Simpson's Crossroads are throwing hissy fits because of this passage in my most recent Clowns and Jokers post, which Simpson (because HE is also soooo devoted to history) posted on his blog:

... I strongly disagree with the notion of official government segregation or any other kind of oppression, of blacks (or anyone else) in an independent South.

But because I believe government forced segregation/oppression was/is/would be wrong does not mean I approve of the the civil rights movement as it was orchestrated by leftist leaders and culture changers. Because not only was its purpose to tear down the existing culture, which was perceived as the white man's world -- it was also horribly damaging for blacks. 

True to his history of deviousness, he purposely left out this link, which starkly documents the horrible damage::

LEFT'S WAR ON MINORITIES, THE POOR, & WORKING AMERICANS

Of course, there's no guarantee that he or his myrmidons would follow the link if he'd posted it -- and certainly they would not do their own investigation to see if their concept of the overwhelmingly good effects of the civil rights/war on poverty era is accurate.

Mark Somebody offers an unnecessary translation of my comment, as if there's something about it requiring translation.  There isn't of course. My meaning is perfectly clear. The purpose of Mark's "translation," then, is to (a) lie about what I said by putting his false meaning on it or (b) show his own prejudice when he interprets something written by someone he doesn't like.

Then we have this from R.E. Watson, showing his veneration for history:

Yup, that was Connie ! I did make the mistake of reading several of the entries and can only conclude that she is out of her ever luvin mind ! Maybe a day job would help. That would give her something to do besides writing nonsensical blog posts before they send her back to the institution for the night. It’s a good thing she uses a keyboard. A person can hurt themselves with sharp objects like pens and pencils.

Here's another "translation" from another history-lover -- Will Hickox -- who, like Mark, rejects what I actually said in favor of his own lies about it:

“Sure, the government (not white society) was a little rough on our blacks, but why did those pinko agitators have to stir ‘em up and make ‘em demand rights? Clearly, we knew what was good for our blacks better than they knew themselves.” White Southern paternalism is alive, if not well.

Then we have cc2001 weighing in -- you know, the one who extolls geriatric ex-Nazi soldiers.  She (presumably she's a she) says,

"By coincidence I watched The Loving Story on HBO OnDemand last night. It only took 9 years from the time they were dragged from their bed in the middle of the night and thrown into jail for their case to be resolved by the US Supreme Court. My state of VA fought them tooth and nail. Ms Chastain may feel “culture changers” have gone too far. But that the Lovings right to be wed was actually questioned in the radical 60′s astounded me. Maybe leftists wouldn’t get all the attention for social issues if we average folks stepped up to the plate more often."

How marvelously narrowly focused cc2001 is.  Stack the Lovings' story up against the 78% out-of-wedlock birth rate for the black community and all it entails. Children from single parent homes are among the most at-risk demographic in the former United States and the reason is well known.  But who cares about the lives of hopelessness and horror millions of kids must endure, compared to being able to marry whoever you want! This, in an era when about 70% of black mothers exhibit astounding indifference to marriage by remaining unmarried to any of the fathers of their children...

As William Raspberry noted eight years ago (and Daniel Patrick Moynihan several decades ago):

"Father absence is the bane of the black community, predisposing its children (boys especially, but increasingly girls as well) to school failure, criminal behavior and economic hardship, and to an intergenerational repetition of the grim cycle. The culprit, the ministers (led by the Rev. Eugene Rivers III of Boston, president of the Seymour Institute) agreed, is the decline of marriage." Raspberry continues, "When Moynihan issued his controversial study, roughly a quarter of black babies were born out of wedlock; moreover, it was largely a low-income phenomenon. The proportion now tops two-thirds, with little prospect of significant decline, and has moved up the socioeconomic scale." 

Read more here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/24/AR2005072401115.html

This means is that the enormous increase in fatherless black families are a civil rights/war on poverty era phenomenon.

It is astounding to me that people sooo focused on the "split up" of black families by slavery turn a completely blind eye and a callous disregard to the disintegration of the black family the last half of the 20th century in the former USA, and the almost total nonexistence of fathers in black households, since the civil rights/war on poverty era began....

Moving along, somebody named Rob Wick notes,

"it was also horribly damaging for blacks.”

As opposed to lynching and murder. You fully expect her to say “I’m not prejudiced. Some of my best friends are…”

Lynching and murder, huh?  As Walter Williams has noted,

"According to a Tuskegee Institute study, between the years 1882 and 1968, 3,446 blacks were lynched at the hands of whites. Each year, roughly 7,000 blacks are murdered. Ninety-four percent of the time, the murderer is another black person. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims. Using the 94 percent figure means that 262,621 were murdered by other blacks..."

http://cnsnews.com/blog/walter-e-williams/should-black-people-tolerate

What that means is that a little better than every six months or so, the number of blacks murdered by blacks equals the number of white on black lynchings that took place over almost ninety years.... Are these black victims of blacks any less dead than those 3,446 lynching victims? Do you suppose at their funerals, their family members can take comfort in knowing they were shot by blacks instead of being lynched by whites?

I don't expect any of Simpson's comment bots to read Victims of the Left: Black Americans.
The Table of Cntents will give you a clue why:

1) How the Left Created Black Victimology and Black Rejection of American Values
2) Affirmative Action: How the Left Has Harmed Blacks through the Bigotry of Low Expectations
3) How the Left Consigns Blacks to Substandard Education
4) How the War on Poverty Devastated the Black Community
5) How the Failed Crusade of “Sex Education” Harmed the Black Community
6) The Crime Wave that Has Decimated Black America
7) How Blacks Have Been Victimized by Leftist Policies Concerning AIDS
8) How the Left Demands Black Conformity of Thought
9) Notes

These are things that haters of whites (especially haters of white Southerners) simply don't want to know....  It's a lot more fun to put down people who are simply telling the truth in order to give yourself the fake warm fuzzies of fake moral superiority, and thus not have to face your own shortcomings, or those of your ideology, mindset and worldview....

Viewing the whole of something just isn't their way. If it's something they don't like, they see only the negatives (i.e., Forrest, the Confederacy, Southern heritage, Virginia flaggers, white Southerners, etc).  If it's something they do like, they see only the positives and screen out the negatives. This is why they gloss over the north's armpit deep involvement in slavery, even after abolition in the northern states, and why they refuse to see the negative impact of civil rights/war on poverty, etc., on blacks. The politically correct lure of showcasing whitey's evil is just too mesmerizing to resist....

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Photo by imagerymajestic via freedigitalphotos.net

How the PC-bound Mind Works...

Kevin Levin writes, 

"... it [a possible KKK rally protesting Memphis park re-naming] will present something of a conundrum for Southern heritage advocates who believe that Forrest’s significance to American history can and ought to be understood independently of his role as a wealthy slave trader, commanding general at Fort Pillow and early organizer of the Klan."

What hooey. What utter shuck.

That statement gives us a clear, stark look at two things.  First, the academic mindset revealed by scholarly writing so ably described by Rudolph Flesch in How to Write, Speak and Think More Effectively. And, second, how a mindset bound by the chains of political correctness works.

There is absolutely nothing the KKK does that should present a conundrum for Southern heritage advocates. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

But perhaps Levin doesn't really mean conundrum (i.e., riddle, puzzle). Judging by the rest of his post, perhaps what he means is that the KKK rally, if it occurs, could be something of a sticky wicket -- i.e., an embarrassing or tricky situation -- for Southern heritage advocates.

Of course, it isn't that, either.  Southern heritage is not responsible for what the KKK does, and what the KKK does in no way reflects upon Southern heritage. What we have here is yet another flogger attempt to evilize heritage advocates by association -- by implying there's some sort of similarity or association between Southern heritage and the KKK.

I have not run across any Southern heritage claims that Forrest's "significance to American history can and ought to be understood independently of his role as a wealthy slave trader, commanding general at Fort Pillow and early organizer of the Klan--" That is yet another flogger mis-portrayal.  (They get tiresome after a while, don't they?)

The Southern heritage claims I'm familiar with are those that say Forrest's positive contributions should not be ignored, suppressed or lied about -- and the aspects of his life presented as reprehensible by the ususal-suspect critics should be presented much more truthfully.

Where Forrest is concerned, floggers need to stop presenting the worst as the whole, which is one of their primary approaches to anything Southern and Confederate -- including Forrest. Yes, whether a slave trader was compassionate or cruel is significant. Extremely so. Just as it is significant whether any person, whoever they are, whatever they do, is compassionate or cruel.

No, Forrest did not order a massacre at Fort Pillow, and no, a massacre did not occur there.  No, there's no historical documentation that Forrest was an early organizer of the Klan or that his involvement with it was significant -- that he was anything but a figurehead, basically. 

Floggers and other who wish to perpetrate the notion that  Forrest's KKK involvement was monumentally significant are notoriously short on primary historic documentation for it.  At least, they seem extremely reluctant to put it online. Several months ago, in my online quest for information about what Forrest actually did as KKK "leader" netted almost zero information from these anti-heritage folks. Here's kinda how it went:

"What, exactly, was Forrest's involvement with the KKK? What did he do?  What were his deeds/activities?"

"Well, duh! He was the freakin' Grand Wizard!"

"Okay.  What did a Grand Wizard do?  What were his deeds/activities?"

"Can't you READ?  He LED the Klan!"

"And what was involved in leading the KKK?  What ACTIVITIES did he engage in?"

I did manage to find online a couple of quotes from KKK members back then.  James R. Crowe stated, "After the order grew to large numbers we found it necessary to have someone of large experience to command. We chose General Forrest.”  That doesn't sound like he was an "early organizer." It sounds like the KKK was already organized and had grown and needed someone to command it. But that doesn't tell us much about what I'm asking. What Crowe actually tells is what the group did (chose Forrest) -- not what Forrest did after he was chosen. 

Another member of the Klan, an anonymous member (or, at least, not identified online), wrote, "N. B. Forrest of Confederate fame was at our head, and was known as the Grand Wizard. I heard him make a speech in one of our Dens.” 

AT LAST, we have an ACTIVITY on the part of Forrest as Grand Wizard!

He gave a speech.

HE GAVE A SPEECH!

Alas, in the online passage where I found that, there's no mention of what else he did as Grand Wizard.  Not even a hint what the speech was about. Was it, "Treasurer says half of you fellers are behind on your dues. Pay 'em tonight or you're outta here. How do you expect an organization to run without money?"  Or maybe, "Somebody needs to take responsibility for cleaning up before meetings... this place is a mess..." Or maybe, "Everybody circulate the June bake sale sign-up sheet to your wives between now and next month's meeting..."

Pardon my levity, but sometimes Levin does that to me (as do Simpson, Hall, et. al.) 

But back to conundrums and Southern heritage and KKK rallies. Hoping to achieve the same goal does not require aligning oneself with others who have the same goal. I believe pornography should be discouraged, but that doesn't mean I align myself with man-hating feminists who believe pornography should be discouraged.

It is the mind conditioned by PC group-think that attempts to lump together hugely disparate people and/or groups based on one or two similarities....

And don't you love Levin's assumption that "the rest of the country" stands with Memphis on the name change?  There are likely huge numbers of people in the "rest of the country" who (1) don't know who Forrest was, (2) don't know there was a park named for him in Memphis (3) don't know where Memphis is and (4) couldn't find Tennessee on an unlabeled map (or even a labeled one) if you offered 'em money to....

Think I'm joking?  Fewer than 50 percent of those polled in this survey could identify the U.S. states of New York or Ohio on a map. http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1068259.html

We're living in an era when people are "educated" by TV -- and you have Mika Brzezinski picking  Lincoln as her favorite Founding Father. No joke. And you have fewer than half of the college graduates surveyed who could identify George Washington as the general at Yorktown when asked to choose from among him, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee and William T. Sherman.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/10/study-rates-colleges-base_n_1954987.html
 
It looks like history teachers have evidently failed, and failed bigtime, and floggers don't begin to take up the slack. Providing information about history isn't their purpose, anyway. Their purpose is to use a semblance of history to demonize and marginalize people and groups they think are deserving of demonization and marginalization.

Levin ends with this choice tidbit -- "The Klan intends to celebrate its heritage and it is going to be a tough sell to argue that they don’t have history on their side."

So is it suddenly heritage, not history?  Or is it history, not heritage?  Ought to clear that up, Levin, before taking Southern heritage advocates to task over it again....

Oh, Crap. Not Again....

So I'm checking my visitor log today and I see hits to my Memphis post from both Crossroads and Occidental Dissent. 

I don't like visiting Occidental Dissent, and almost never do.  I always feel like I need a shower afterward. However, if Brad "Hunter Wallace/Fade The Butcher/Prozium/Feyd Harkonnen/NjEcTiOn" Griffin is linking to my blog, I want to know what he's saying about me, so I had to hold my nose and stop by.

I found this in his post on the Memphis park name changes:

Having went (sic) out in search of reaction from the Rainbows, I see that even Connie Chastain is starting to realize that these people are anti-Southern and anti-White and that the “Civil Rights Movement” was about “tearing down the white man’s world.” Perhaps this episode will stimulate racial and ethnic consciousness among SCV types?

Well, I've never NOT known that for some people, the the civil rights movement was an opportunity to do what they'd always wanted -- to get rid of what was already there and replace it with something else. The difference between Brad Griffin/Hunter Wallace and myself -- well, one of the differences -- is who we identify as "these people/some people."

For him, they're black people.  For me, they're leftist leaders and culture changers -- people who either helped to create or used the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the gay movement, the anti-war left, the radical environmentalists, in the war against the existing culture -- such people as Saul Alinsky, Bill Ayers and his terrorist bunch, the neo-Marxists of the Frankfurt School, (Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, among others), Betty Freidan, Gloria Steinem, Students for a Democratic Society, Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda, Angela Davis, Susan Sontag and countless others.

Wallace/Griffin believes I'm only just now "starting to realize" certain realities about the left because he believed his own lies about me that he has espoused on his blog, Facebook and who knows where else.

He calls me a "Rainbow Confederate" because I strongly disagree with the notion of official government segregation or any other kind of oppression, of blacks (or anyone else) in an independent South.

But because I believe government forced segregation/oppression was/is/would be wrong does not mean I approve of the the civil rights movement as it was orchestrated by leftist leaders and culture changers. Because not only was its purpose to tear down the existing culture, which was perceived as the white man's world -- it was also horribly damaging for blacks.

You can read about the untold damage the left has done to the black community here: LEFT'S WAR ON MINORITIES, THE POOR, & WORKING AMERICANS

Griffin, please, don't link to my blog anymore. I don't suppose you'll honor that request, but I had to make it.

As for Simpson, I don't believe for a New York minute that he believes the lies he tells about me. He knows he's lying and he does it anyway. Here's a sampler from his blog:

Some people are all about heritage, which, as Connie freely admits, she shapes to serve her own personal agenda.

Rather, as she now freely admits, for her it’s a process of picking and choosing what one wants to “honor” ...

Connie freely admits that she could care less about [historical accuracy].

The only “color” in Connie's rainbow is white.

Now continue your stalking (which you admit doing on your blog).

Apparently segregation (or outright exclusion) reigns supreme in her fictional world, too.

Connie speculates about other people because she would like to distract us from her lily-white world 

... she’s a deeply troubled woman who is quite fixated on certain issues and people.

When Simpson writes that somebody "freely admits" something, don't be surprised if a lie follows.  Sentences he begins with "After all..." or "In other words..." are also likely to be, or contain, lies. I have never admitted, freely or otherwise, what he claims I've admitted. These are baldfaced (no pun intended) lies. Anybody is welcomed to try to find such admissions, but I'll tell you right now, you won't find them, because they don't exist, and never have.

Of course, to put it it all in perspective -- it is no doubt best to be caught between these two extremist liars -- I sure wouldn't want to be on the same side with either one of them.

More on Memphis

--Levin On Memphis--

Kevin Levin writes about Lee Millar re: the Memphis situation:  

It comes down to this: Southern heritage advocates are their own worst enemies.  We can see this clearly at work in last night’s decision on the part of the Memphis City Council to change the names of three parks named in honor of the Confederacy.  Forrest Park is at center stage.  In an interview with a local news reporter, Lee Millar of the Sons of Confederate Veterans had this to say in defense of Forrest:

Forrest was known as a very humane slave trader…. He never split families.

That, my friends, is a morally bankrupt position.  What I find truly startling, however, is that anyone would go ahead and actually make this point on television for public consumption.  Millar certainly deserves some kind of award.  At least H.K. Edgerton decided to leave the costume at home.  Their only hope last night was that the state government would step in with legislation that would make it illegal to change the names of parks named after military leaders.  You gotta love the irony in that.  :-)

Regardless of whether they like it or not, it’s time for Confederate heritage advocates to adopt a new strategy.  No one should have been surprised by the council’s decision, least of all the SCV.  They should have from the beginning jumped on board with a name change that added Ida B. Wells to the park.  Now they stand to lose Forrest completely from the landscape.

And when you say idiotic things about “human slave traders” you deserve to lose it all.

No,  that is NOT what it "comes down to."  And what people "deserve" is not Levin's judgment to make. At best, it is his opinion, and there are lots of people with other opinions about it. But that is how these floggers showcase themselves -- as the arbiters of Southern heritage. They. Are. Not.

Who is surprised by the city council's decision? As I've noted before, this campaign to cleanse the landscape of reminders of the Confederacy has been underway for over a decade. We know about it, Levin, probably better than  you do. We know.
 
Levin's entire post -- his entire approach -- is infused with odious arrogance, just as all the floggers' posts and approaches are. Whether they like it or not, it's time for floggers to can the arrogance, admit that their opinions are just opinions, and to acknowledge that other people's different opinions are just as valid as theirs.

The Flogger Approach:

 Southern Slavery = the Worst Evil In Human History

Here's the flogger approach: In the politically correct former USA, it is implied that the most evil thing that ever happened in human history was Southern slavery -- particularly during the four years the Confederacy existed. School children are indoctrinated with this view. The indoctrination continues in college. It is presented by government, business and industry, Hollywood and the rest of the popular culture, and flogger blogs. Only the Nazi holocaust is allowed to compete with "Confederate slavery" as humankind's worst evil.

The highly duped are all, like, "Yeah, yeah!" in their enthusiasm for that view. But they are likely leftist innocents who don't realize the scope or depth of human evil and the horrors and misery it has caused throughout history (because a lot of it was the result of leftist governments, and that's not acknowledged by the left).

There are things going on right now around the world -- and things that happened throughout the 20th Century -- that makes Southern slavery look like peace, light and goodness by comparison. Some of them are perpetrated by the US government -- an entity whose level of corruption and evil could not begin to even remotely be approached by the Confederate government or its citizens. But this must never, ever be acknowledged by floggers.

There is a picture you sometimes see online of a
man being tortured -- strapped down, sur-
rounded by his tormenters, screaming in agony. It is absolutely haunting in its horror. Not long ago, I saw it wrongly identified as Ambassador Chris Stevens being tortured by Libyans or Al Qaeda or somebody. In fact, it is a photo of torture during Argentina's "Dirty War" from 1976 to 1983 by that country's military dic-
tatorship against suspected political opponents -- torture that was assisted by the CIA.

Apparently, the US government has never objected much to the torture of its enemies, as Confederate POWs in yankee hell-hole prison camps knew all too well.  The victims in Argentina were identified as enemies, too -- "left-wingers," "communists" -- although it's likely that most were innocent citizens. I abhor communism,  but that doesn't mean I approve of torturing communists -- or anyone else.

Others of us who know about Stalin's purges, the Khmer Rouge's killing fields, Mao's millions of dead, and on and on and on -- well, I won't say we're jaded, exactly. But we know that the presentation of Southern slavery as mankind's most awful sin simply isn't true....

But you will never see floggers acknowledge this kind of evil and horror because it would take something away from their depiction of Confederate slavery as humanity's worst sin (and Southern slaveholders as humanity's worst sinners)...  Perhaps the excuse is that these other examples of evil and horror aren't civil-war related -- but that's why flogger blogs are "memory" and "era" and "other stuff" blogs, so floggers will have a much broader choice of historic material with which to evilize those they wish to evlize, rather than limit themselves to the civil war. And the only folks they wish to evilize are white Southerners, past and present.

We see through the transparent attempts to palm off that meme onto us -- and we see through the transparent people trying to do it....  
 

--Mackey on Memphis--

Oh, Gee, What a Surprise–Not

The Gift That Keeps On Giving is predictably upset about the Memphis City Council’s move to change the names of three parks.  Story here.

There’s nothing worthy of note there, but there is in the nature of some of the reactions–at least this one.

What makes this worthy of note is the link at the posting.  So far I’ve seen no one there protest it.  It’s a link to a site called “Southern Nationalist Network."

Let’s take a look at some items in the article.

“It should be noted that Memphis’s population is now 62% Black and less than 30% White.”  –  Why should we note that?

It always amazes me how willing floggers are to assassinate their own brains -- to play dumb -- in order to portray somebody else "racist." Why should we note that? Well, duh, Mackey. Because politicians in this country, from border to border and coast to coast, at all levels, are eaten up with obsession about race, racial demographics, racial issues, racial concerns, and how they may be exploited politically ... didn't you pay any attention to the recent presidential campaign and election?  Racial minority groups are voting blocs to these leeches -- someone to appease with legislation in exchange for votes, election and/or re-election.

“'New South’ democracy and equality mean that Southern heroes are cast aside while people (such as those who staff the local government) with no regard for the historic Southern identity and culture of the city are allowed to push their anti-Southern and anti-White agenda.” — So then anyone who isn’t a confederate can’t possibly be a “southern hero,” and anyone who’s not white is by definition “anti-South.”  I guess to these folks there can’t be any southerners who are of any race but Caucasians.  Interesting.

I don't always agree with Michael Cushman at the Southern Nationalist Network, and we've had some public disagreements on Facebook. But that doesn't mean I approve of lying about him and what he writes. Ah, nothing in that statement logically leads to your conclusion, Mackey.

Southern heroes who happen to be Confederates are the ones being cast aside by people with an anti-Southern and anti-White agenda. (You will find far fewer Southern heroes of other types -- authors, actors, musical artists, sports stars, etc., -- who are cast aside, particularly when they are leftist suck-ups and demonstrate their own brand of anti-Southern and anti-white attitudes.) Nor is "anti-South" by definition anyone who is not white, and I've never seen Michael, or anyone else, claim that. A lot of white people are anti-South. A lot of white people are anti-White, as well. You are the one defining people's race by their behavior -- not Michael.

Let’s take a look at a couple comments from the loyal readers at the site.

GregFannin-SCV on February 5, 2013 at 9:16 pm

With a large dusky population, what would one expect!

Again, that statement alludes to politicians appeasing racial groups in exchange for being elected, which is what happened in Memphis. BTW, Mackey, "dusky" means "having dark skin, swarthy," a description of African Americans. If it's that word, dusky, bothers you, just apply the term used by indicted-on-21-federal-charges, dusky, swarthy. former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's description of the Crescent City --"Chocolate City"--  to Memphis.  There, there.  All better now?

Jim on February 5, 2013 at 9:22 pm

No doubt with White, Northern Trendy-Lefties egging them on in the background. Too many Southerners ignore this fact. There’s nearly always a Yankee at the bottom of it.
At least one other member of TGTKOG gave the posting a “Like.”

Hmmm.  Why would anyone think neoconfederates are racists?

Why would anyone think that?  Perhaps because they're bigots, like you? So it is considered racist to note the racial politics, the racial political pandering, the racial political appeasement practiced by politicians from one end of the country to the other, but it's not racist for the politicians to do their racial pandering? It's only racist to notice and mention that they're doing it?

Again, as I have written before,

"The obsession to smear others -- particularly with society's witch-hunt issues, of which "racism" is a major one these days -- is sometimes an indicator of a person's feelings of uncertainty about their own morality."

And,

"It's about alleviating your doubts about your own questionable beliefs by lying about others. It's about inflating your own questionable and sagging moral authority by fabricating somebody "worse" than you are."

That is the floggers' MO -- over, under, sideways, down ... backward, forward, square and round.....


_______________________
Image credit: Photo of torture victim in Argentina's Dirty War found numerous places online, unattributed. Mugshots of Levin & Mackey, various internet sites/blogs.

What's Goin' On ... In Memphis

(Post and comment edited from Facebook)   When the civil rights movement was just getting underway, people said blacks in America just wanted to take their rightful place in society and culture, to take a place at the table that they'd always been denied. Because Americans are basically a fair-minded people, the country agreed that black folks (and women and other minorities) had been denied and it was time to include them.

(The "massive resistance" to desegregation during this period that you sometimes hear about from flogger types and others appears massive when it's the only thing in their camera frame. In most schools, in most counties and municipalities in the South, there was minor to zero resistance and trouble from white students and their parents. You didn't see this on TV at the time, or see it repeated over and over to this day, a la Little Rock, because it is of limited to no use in demonizing white Southerners.)

Well, we saw almost immediately that it wasn't really about adding a leaf to make more room at the table, and pulling up another chair and adding some new dishes to the existing menu. For leftist leaders and culture changers, the civil rights movement was an opportunity to do what they'd always wanted -- to get rid of what was already there and replace it with something else. Not just the food, but the china and silverware ... and the people. They hated what was already there, and the people who had put it there. For them, it was about force... about using the power of government and the courts and the media to force people already at the table get up, give up their chair and their meal...

What's going on in Memphis is NOT about honoring Ida B. Wells -- they could name a new park for her; a new school, a new street, a new anything, if honoring her was the genuine motivation. But it isn't. Getting rid of Nathan Bedford Forrest is the genuine motivation.

In the early 2000s, the campaign to eradicate the Confederate battle flag from public property (starting in South Carolina) included the rhetoric, "We don't care what you do on private property; it is the putting the flag on public property that we object to." So, down the flag came from state houses and other public buildings and from historic flag displays like the one in my town. And up it went on private property.

Well, just listen to the teeth-gnashing and the howls and screeches of protest when large Confederate flags go up on private property beside interstate highways in the South. Look at the treatment that Annie Caddell in S.C. got for putting up a flag **in her own yard.** "We don't care what you do on private property," was obviously yet another Big Lie.

But the privatization of very visible Confederate commemoration has to be done --  massively. If the park is renamed in Memphis, a very large, visible and beautiful new park must be created on private property to honor Forrest. His remains should be moved there and given a magnificent memorial.

And then, Memphis needs to be put under a microscope and monitored constantly, to see how changing the name of the park  "improves" the "quality of life" in that city.

Very, very visible positive reminders of the Confederacy -- and many more of them - must be maintained on private property to counter and neutralize, as much as possible, the ongoing efforts to dishonor and remove reminders of it from publicly owned places. The effort to erase all reminders of the Confederacy from the national consciousness, and all artifacts of it from the Southern landscape must not be allowed to succeed.

See a Facebook responder's comment below videos.

Memphis, Tennessee Elvis Presley

Walking In Memphis Marc Cohn

Communists founded and ran (and still run) the so-called civil rights movement. They did it because they knew that the black community was a perfect lever to "divide and conquer" in this country.

Now, having said that, I believe we must recognize that there was plenty wrong prior to the movement and that if good men of all colors could have come together and worked to do the right thing, the commies never would have had their opportunity -- but we didn't and they did.

Again, having said that, the time has come to stop the eternal effort to use the past as a means of a minority (not just in race but in political ideology) to destroy the rights of the majority (and not just in race). Yes, things were wrong and yes, we failed to act to make them right thus giving an opportunity to our enemies -- who, by the way, are as much an enemy of the black man -- to create what we now have in this country, rule by political correctness. But, sadly, it would seem as if the commies have won. 

So it would appear.

After World War II, when victorious GIs returned home, using technology, methods and inventions developed during the war, they built a new peacetime prosperity for the common folk never before seen in history. They built entire neighborhoods in the suburbs filled with little ranch houses with backyard barbecues and two car garages (with two cars in them) and network of streets and roads connecting them to suburban shopping centers and jobs in the cities. The San Fernando Valley epitomizes that culture.

But there were people who hated the prosperity and optimism of the era and began the job of tearing it down. They would love nothing more than to see the San Fernando Valley and its mirrors across the country turn into third world hell holes. In no small part due to their efforts, the Fabulous Fifties gave way to the Sick Sixties, and the country's and culture's decline has been steady ever since.  The civil rights movement was right in the middle of the decline because, as we now know, a great many blacks have not benefited from that effort, because it was as much about tearing down the "white man's world" as it was about elevating blacks. Ditto the feminism movement, which was less about helping and protecting women and more about hating and getting even with men.

The logical conclusion of the civil rights movement sits in the White House in Washington, D.C.  Barack Hussein Obama's economic jihad on the U.S. economy will finish off the country...  But nobody is going to like what results, not even the people who think that's what they want.  We'll all feel the regret GloZell felt after Obama's first election -- but for very different reasons.

Goodbye, Memphis. Goodbye, America.


___________________________
Image Credits: Columbia and Pensacola photos by C. Ward. Forrest Memorial photo by Thomas R. Machnitzki, Creative Common License. Confederate Flag in Tampa  photo found online unattributed.

Tiptoeing Through the Floggosphere (and Facebook)

**UPDATE**   **UPDATE**  **UPDATE**  

Some lover of history over at Simpson's Love-History Crossroads blog, leaves this comment, showing his great expertise in history, and his love of it: 

R E Watson

A classic Connie quote: “I dunno, Corey. I don’t know any Southern heritage nuts.” Quite a statement coming from the head pecan !

 **END OF UPDATE** 

 _____________________________________________

I wasn't born a Redneck, but I like to think I've evolved into one. ~Carter Lewis via Facebook.
   

Look who's cheering the death of an ex-Navy Seal -- it ain't "neo-Confederates."   Waiting for great gusts of indignation from the floggosphere blasting toward these left-lib tweeters.  If it doesn't come, we'll know that "cheering the death of US soldiers" doesn't really bother them -- that it's a fabrication, an excuse to bloviate their hatred of Southern heritage.

 

When confronted with the self-proclaimed declaration of Julia Ward Howe that she and her fellow aboes wanted to "blow up the union" Al Mackey explained that what she really wanted was for the "pieces" of the union blown to smithereens to somehow fall back to together and reassemble themselves exactly as before, but minus slavery. (Smirk.) 

He didn't say how he knew that. He cited none of her writings. I told him there's nothing to that effect in the chapter of A Trip to Cuba where she declared it in writing. Maybe he held a seance and she told him?  Maybe he consulted a crystal ball?  Or perhaps he threw some chicken bones, or called Miss Cleo....

In any case, has ANYbody ever seen ANYthing blown to bits behave that way?  Every piece of debris, every splinter, every particle of dust ... just ... float back together and reassemble themselves exactly as before, but with some undesirable component missing? What a way to remodel and modernize your home, huh?  Just blow the sucker up and watch it reassemble itself minus the 1950s knotty pine paneling and asbestos floor tile in the family room...  Talk about a new twist on flippin' a house...

 

Over the past few days, I've tiptoed through the Floggosphere to sample the devotion to history and historical accuracy held by the Flogging Bloggers and their comment-thread followers.  Here are just a few comments demonstrating their great knowledge of and devotion to accurate and truthful civil war history:

These people at “the gift” take the phrase “dumber than dirt” to new heights!

The rampant idiocy here is beyond comprehension :-(

Connie loves heritage and fiction. Indeed, she can’t tell them apart.

Does he wear his dime-store Confederate uniform to work? Does he take it off when he showers?

Connie finds actual history a bit too challenging, which is why she prefers fiction.

Your assumption that she knows Mitchell’s book is a work of fiction might be a bit optimistic.

Well this war dog feels like cocking a leg and letting fly in their direction.

Connie speculates about other people because she would like to distract us from her lily-white world …

… but at the moment she’s red-faced with rage as she sputters away on her blog. And that’s where I think we should leave her.

And last but not least, look at how Brooks D. Simpson, professor of history at Arizona State University, emphasizes accurate history AND demonstrates his veneration of it:

Let’s just say that I understand from various folks that she’s [Connie] deeply troubled woman who is quite fixated on certain issues and people.

  _____________________________
Images: Tile,  paneling and Howe images from the public domain. Other graphics by C. Ward

Cheering the Death of US Soldiers?

From our newest flogger:

I point this out not only to point out the massive historical ignorance of TGTKOG* but also to point out how they are oh, so outraged (even if they can’t spell “outrageous”) because of a banner on the base of a statue, but they have no problems, and indeed like the idea of someone cheering about the deaths of United States soldiers.

... this crowd** ... cheers the deaths of United States soldiers ...

... they** are exalting over dead United States soldiers ...

~Al Mackey

________
*The Gift That Keeps On Giving, e.g., a derogatory name for the Southern Heritage Preservation Group on Facebook ripped off from TLTKOL (The Liar That Keeps On Lyin')
**"Neo-Confederates, Southern heritage defenders and advocates

==========

What I find just fascinating about these floggers -- well, one of the things -- is their fundamental dishonesty. So Mackey finds a post and thread at the SHPG that indicates some of the commenters may not know that the equestrian statue in New Orleans -- the one in park in front of St. Louis Cathedral and Cabildo and between the Pontalba Buildings -- yes, that park, Jackson Square -- depicts Andrew Jackson.

He calls this (eight comments and eight "likes") "massive ignorance" -- and uses it to bring up -- yet again --  the false claim that "...they have no problems, and indeed like the idea of someone cheering about the deaths of United States soldiers."

First, nobody has cheered the deaths of United States soldiers, except for those in the yankee army who came south, killed Southerners, literally devastated their land, and paved the way for social and economic oppression of the region by private northern industry (enabled by the feds) for generations afterward.

Here's a discussion of  the post they misconstrue in order to make that scurrilous claim: http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2013/01/keep-staying-with-me-folks.html

Another example of the fundamental dishonesty -- some of it just downright petty, such as calling attention to one example of a misspelled word by Robert Mestas. Obviously, the problem is not misspelling. The problem is people he doesn't like doing it. How do I know?  Well, he ignores the massive and repeated misspellings, bad grammar and punctuation errors by his fellow flogger, Corey Meyer.  From Corey on his blog: "my schools website ... You its funny ... If there was every any doubt ... I find it very interesting to here group/people like you talk..."  -- and that's just from one comment thread.]

But back to the "cheering the deaths of U.S. soldiers' falsehood....

So the floggers focus on, and misconstrue one post by David Tatum, and completely ignore this post by Georgia Flagger Billy Bearden:

Exactly 1 month before his 20th Birthday, 70 years ago this month my Father enlisted in the US Army on January 15th, 1943. Dad would eventually give 48 & 1/2 years of his life to the military, which included WW2, Korea and Viet Nam. He and Mother are buried in Arlington National Cemetery
http://www.facebook.com/GeorgiaFlagger/posts/4826574300524

Does that sound like cheering to you?  No? Note that Billy's post got  55 likes and 16 very positive comments.

Also note that Robert Mestas, who made the post about the sign in Jackson Square, was a U.S. Marine intelligence clerk and administrative chief of a Company HQ from 1971 to 1973.  If cheering the death of US soldiers is "no problem" one has to wonder why Robert didn't cheer -- while shooting himself back then.

How come Patrick Fogerty, or Bill Dennison, or Bobby Edwards, or Gary Adams or countless other Southern patriots who served in Vietnam didn't do the same thing? Why does Bobby's photo albums so reverently pay homage to his US SOLDIER buddies in Vietnam? How can he commemorate their passing today, from Agent Orange-related cancer -- while simultaneously cheering it?

Why does Virginia Flagger Susan Friese Hathaway proudly post a photo of her great uncles who, as US SOLDIERS, served in WWII, with comments identifying their branches and location of service? 
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=496406589273&set=a.96477299273.107829.698334273&type=3&theater


This is cheering the deaths of US soldiers?

Here's an essay I wrote for The False Rape Society in October 2010 about my uncle,  SSgt Berthold Chastain, who went missing in the Pacific on October 27, 1943. I invite you to read it and see if you can find any cheering....http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2010/10/rape-culture-101-is-this-what-they.html

Floggers gotta flog, liars gotta lie...

Elsewhere in the Floggo-sphere....

January 29, 2013
"...we will return to Chastain-free programming, so don’t worry." 
~Brooks Simpson

February 2, 2013
"In the latest Chastain spin cycle,we learn this..."
~Brooks Simpson

Apparenly, he hasn't returned to Chastain-free programming yet...

==========

Corey posts on his flog a video of Glenn Beck and David Barton, with a post title indicating he's not cool with people reviewing a movie they haven't seen. I know what you mean, Corey. Brooks Simpson has made numerous derogatory posts at Crossroads about my novels, which he hasn't read; and now the Foskett-bot is getting in on the act, denigrating a novella of mine he couldn't possibly have read because not only is it not published yet -- it's not written yet. Only the first two chapters of the first draft have been written ...

But, see, the floggers and their bots ... they're only concerned about accurate history and correcting historical error, right? (Smirk,)

(For the curious, Love at Lake Lucy, the novella the Foskett-bot was so derisive of, is about an NFL quarterback, an honest and upright man, who retires early -- real early, at the peak of his career --  because he's being pressured by his team's management to cheat and lose games for gambling purposes.  He has no objective proof, so can't go to the authorities, and there have been hints of threats to his parents and siblings back in North Carolina if he does. At a lakeside campground in Georgia, he meets a woman with a young son who was born out of wedlock. He and the woman fall in love and marry, he adopts the boy, and they become a family.)