Here's an illustration that might be used:
Sunday, June 17, 2018
Saturday, June 9, 2018
Friday, June 8, 2018
I'm Designing a Little Catboat ... and a Travel Trailer
When I finish the design, I want to build it. Husband says I can't. We'll see about that.
Maybe someday, we can do the Florida 120, the Mississippi 110 and the Texas 200...
Years ago I bought a little vintage travel trailer to refurbish (an activity that has become even more popular today). The onset of arthritis in my knees stopped my project after I got it down to the bare chassis, got it sandblasted, primed and painted. Lo, these many years later, with new knees, I have revisited the trailer and finished the design.
Twelve foot by eight foot cabin built on the chassis of a 1972 Aristocrat Lo-Liner. I'm using as much as possible from the Lo-Liner in the design -- the aluminum-framed awning windows, the door and screen, possibly some of the "blond oak" finished plywood -- but not likely. Two full length sofa-bunks inside (so nobody will have to crawl over somebody to get in or out of bed), a dedicated computer work station, tiny porta potty room, tiny corner kitchen with dorm fridge and two-burner induction cooktop. No propane. If I have to cook with gas, we'll have a chuck box with Coleman camp stove for cooking outside.
Husband says I can't build this, either. We'll see....
Can't wait to take her to Confederate events!
There are some previous projects and commitments to do first. A plywood Stevenson Project's sewing center ... some bath and kitchen repairs and updates ... and a screened porch for the cat babies.
All my life I've wanted to build things, and I had to get by with sewing clothes and curtains and stuff. Now -- it's power tools, here I come. (I have a whole workshop of power and hand tools -- still need to get a power planer and one or two other things... Oh goody.)
Coquina -- a little clam of a boat for an old geezer and gezette --
not a Cape Codder catboat with its deep keel but flat bottomed, like the
catboats that oystered on the upper Gulf Coast in the 19th century
Alas, I have no design software, so this was done in a drawing program. Forget precision. But it gets the idea across. LOD, 17 feet; beam, 8 feet; draft, approximately 10-11 inches; board down, about 30 inches. Hull weight, ballast weight, sail area, etc., still to be determined. I'm getting lots of encouragement and advice from my boat groups.... Maybe someday, we can do the Florida 120, the Mississippi 110 and the Texas 200...
___________________________________
Years ago I bought a little vintage travel trailer to refurbish (an activity that has become even more popular today). The onset of arthritis in my knees stopped my project after I got it down to the bare chassis, got it sandblasted, primed and painted. Lo, these many years later, with new knees, I have revisited the trailer and finished the design.
Valerie -- The Happy Wanderer (more correctly, Valderi, but I prefer the other spelling).
Basically a tent with hard sides and air conditioning. And wifi. And video streaming.
Because most, but not all, camping is done outside.
Basically a tent with hard sides and air conditioning. And wifi. And video streaming.
Because most, but not all, camping is done outside.
Twelve foot by eight foot cabin built on the chassis of a 1972 Aristocrat Lo-Liner. I'm using as much as possible from the Lo-Liner in the design -- the aluminum-framed awning windows, the door and screen, possibly some of the "blond oak" finished plywood -- but not likely. Two full length sofa-bunks inside (so nobody will have to crawl over somebody to get in or out of bed), a dedicated computer work station, tiny porta potty room, tiny corner kitchen with dorm fridge and two-burner induction cooktop. No propane. If I have to cook with gas, we'll have a chuck box with Coleman camp stove for cooking outside.
Husband says I can't build this, either. We'll see....
Can't wait to take her to Confederate events!
There are some previous projects and commitments to do first. A plywood Stevenson Project's sewing center ... some bath and kitchen repairs and updates ... and a screened porch for the cat babies.
All my life I've wanted to build things, and I had to get by with sewing clothes and curtains and stuff. Now -- it's power tools, here I come. (I have a whole workshop of power and hand tools -- still need to get a power planer and one or two other things... Oh goody.)
Monday, May 28, 2018
Confederates Don't Need Validation by Their Enemy's Government
Kevin "South-hater" Levin has a blog, Civil War Memory Is What I Say It Is. He recently made a post about the claim made by some heritage folks that Confederates were recognized by Congressional legislation as U.S. veterans. I had to leave a response, and like most of my comments, it will not be printed....
What's even more absurd is the claim that Confederates fought to destroy the United States. They fought to get away from the United States -- to depart, scram, take a powder, skedaddle, make like a banana and split, make like a tree and leave. Did it peacefully and democratically, via secession, and the epic tantrum-throwing union sent a flippin' army South to kill them for it.
Read the documents -- secession declaration, editorials, legislation at the state or general government level. There is nothing there to indicate they were all hot to destroy the union -- the Confederate Army didn't even march against D.C. when it had a golden opportunity to. You cannot possibly conclude that's what the South seceded and fought for ... unless you think that the mere act of its leaving the USA would have destroyed it -- in other words, that the north was not capable of being a nation on its own, without Dixie.
Nevertheless, the fear of looming national extinction should the South successfully depart is what goaded so many northerners to join Lincoln's army to "preserve the union." It was a far more urgent motivation for them than freeing slaves, which wasn't much of a motivation at all.
This explains why the union army visited such barbarism upon the Southern people -- not because they were indignant about slaveholding -- they weren't -- but because they were fearful that these slaveholders and dirt farmers held their country's future existence in their hands. And there was also a bit of woman-scorned type indignation that a bunch of slaveholders and dirt farmers wished to no longer be politically affiliated with the elevated and enlightened north.
After it was over, union realized that the savagery with which they and their army brutes prosecuted the war made them look uncomfortably like bad guys. "They wanted to leave, and we were afraid that would have destroyed us, so they had to be punished, severely." So they changed the narrative to, "These people had to be brutally warred upon because they were evil slaveholders, and we, the strong and good, were just the people to do it."
Yes, there had been a lot of talk about slavery during the sectionalism era... But that was not what caused the bad blood between north and South (that still exists on certain levels today). But it is ludicrous to imagine the barbarians in blue uniforms invaded the CSA and killed Southerners to free slaves. That didn't "become" a reason for the war until two years into the fighting.
And, of course, keeping slavery was not what the Confederates were fighting for. It was one of the causes of secession, but secession is not war, and there are different reasons for each. Bottom line -- you cannot fight to keep what nobody is trying to take away from you.
Would the departure of the Southern states have destroyed the union, even though that was not their purpose in leaving? You cannot say Confederates fought to destroy the United States. And obviously, the USA was not destroyed by the South's separation. It remained a viable nation, even while fighting a war. But the mostly unspoken fear of national oblivion nevertheless permeated the union's cause, its fight, its Victor Fables, and to this day, causes people like London Johon to claim, without a scintilla of evidence, that Confederates wanted to destroy the United States.
Claims that the South fought to preserve slavery AND to destroy the USA are equally spurious.
Since researching this subject several years ago, I frequently dispute this claim that Confederates were "made" U.S. vets "by an act of Congress" when I encounter it online.In the comment thread following the post (where my submission above will NOT show up, assuredly), somebody named "London John" made a comment with this as the first sentence: "The idea that Confederate veterans, who fought to destry (sic) the United States, are US veterans is obviously absurd."
Some of the legislation most people cite for this claim recognizes veterans of the military forces of the Confederate States of America as "civil war veterans," the same as union veterans.
(Most veterans legislation that I encountered in my research [which was admittedly limited considering the total volume of vcterans legislation] doesn't use the terms American veterans or U.S. veterans even for its own vets, though some may. Most of it identifies veterans by the war they served in -- Korean War veterans, Mexican War veterans, etc.)
Other legislation clearly says that members of the Confederate military are recognized (as civil war veterans) "for the purposes of this section" or some such language. The purposes are (1) funding for headstones and (2) funding for widows pensions, and that's all.
Since the graves and widows existed because of the barbarous invasion of the South by the union army, I think it is fitting that the U.S. government appropriated funds, paltry as they were, for headstones and widows pensions. It has certainly funded far more generous payments for many more purposes (physical rebuilding, economic rebuilding, educational, medical, technological rebuilding, etc.) to countries and people its military defeated in other wars. With the exception of paying for a few widows pensions and grave markers, the United States and its government did exactly the opposite to the South -- purposely kept it economically and culturally oppressed -- for several generations post war.
Neveretheless I vehemently disagree with the notion that Confederate soldiers need recognition as veterans of their enemy's government to validate them. They do not. They validated themselves and their cause (which was not slavery).
What's even more absurd is the claim that Confederates fought to destroy the United States. They fought to get away from the United States -- to depart, scram, take a powder, skedaddle, make like a banana and split, make like a tree and leave. Did it peacefully and democratically, via secession, and the epic tantrum-throwing union sent a flippin' army South to kill them for it.
Read the documents -- secession declaration, editorials, legislation at the state or general government level. There is nothing there to indicate they were all hot to destroy the union -- the Confederate Army didn't even march against D.C. when it had a golden opportunity to. You cannot possibly conclude that's what the South seceded and fought for ... unless you think that the mere act of its leaving the USA would have destroyed it -- in other words, that the north was not capable of being a nation on its own, without Dixie.
Nevertheless, the fear of looming national extinction should the South successfully depart is what goaded so many northerners to join Lincoln's army to "preserve the union." It was a far more urgent motivation for them than freeing slaves, which wasn't much of a motivation at all.
This explains why the union army visited such barbarism upon the Southern people -- not because they were indignant about slaveholding -- they weren't -- but because they were fearful that these slaveholders and dirt farmers held their country's future existence in their hands. And there was also a bit of woman-scorned type indignation that a bunch of slaveholders and dirt farmers wished to no longer be politically affiliated with the elevated and enlightened north.
After it was over, union realized that the savagery with which they and their army brutes prosecuted the war made them look uncomfortably like bad guys. "They wanted to leave, and we were afraid that would have destroyed us, so they had to be punished, severely." So they changed the narrative to, "These people had to be brutally warred upon because they were evil slaveholders, and we, the strong and good, were just the people to do it."
Yes, there had been a lot of talk about slavery during the sectionalism era... But that was not what caused the bad blood between north and South (that still exists on certain levels today). But it is ludicrous to imagine the barbarians in blue uniforms invaded the CSA and killed Southerners to free slaves. That didn't "become" a reason for the war until two years into the fighting.
And, of course, keeping slavery was not what the Confederates were fighting for. It was one of the causes of secession, but secession is not war, and there are different reasons for each. Bottom line -- you cannot fight to keep what nobody is trying to take away from you.
Would the departure of the Southern states have destroyed the union, even though that was not their purpose in leaving? You cannot say Confederates fought to destroy the United States. And obviously, the USA was not destroyed by the South's separation. It remained a viable nation, even while fighting a war. But the mostly unspoken fear of national oblivion nevertheless permeated the union's cause, its fight, its Victor Fables, and to this day, causes people like London Johon to claim, without a scintilla of evidence, that Confederates wanted to destroy the United States.
Claims that the South fought to preserve slavery AND to destroy the USA are equally spurious.
Sunday, May 27, 2018
Getting Back in the Swing....
For the past couple of years or so, my time has been claimed by a number
of things beyond my control. I've been unable to regularly update my
blog or do much other writing on behalf of our heritage.
I had four major surgeries in the past 21 months with lengthy recovery and rehab.
To complicate matters, in July 2016 I was diagnosed with severe iron deficiency anemia. Due to gastric surgery in 2011, I cannot absorb dietary iron, not from food or supplements. It took about five years to use up my iron stores; thus, my anemia diagnosis in 2016. My hemoglobin level was 7 (should be 12 to 15) and my ferritin level was 3; normal level is 100. Seeing my blood test results, blood doctor said, "I don't know how you're walking around."
It required two transfusions and two infusions to return my numbers to normal levels, alleviate the fatigue and restore energy. Since I cannot absorb dietary iron, my hemoglobin and ferritin levels are now monitored every six months or so, and when the numbers indicate, I receive an iron infusion. This month, my numbers indicated it was time for an infusion, which I had a few days ago.
On top of everything else, in late January this year, I broke the radius bone in my left wrist, and cracked the ulna. This severely inhibits typing, and a lot of other things normal living requires. Although the break healed nicely, it still hurts sometimes, and the hand doctor says it will take about six months for the pain to completely go away. But at least I can type now.
While I was working through all these maladies, I did what I could for our heritage. I participated in the efforts to save our Confederate monument in Pensacola, writing comments in the local mullet-wrapper following reports on the subject, writing and distributing handbills countering the demands of the mayor and some vocal leftist activists, and attending a city council meeting. The monument is safe. For now.
I've also made online memes and printed flyers and handbills for heritage hotspots and created an online group to answer the SPLC's ridiculous and dishonest "Whose Heritage" campaign.
But now that I'm emerging from the physical restrictions I've had, I'm ready to sure enough get back into the fray. I don't know how much I can do, how well I can keep up the pace ... but we shall see.
One of the projects I want to expand is the use of printed flyers and handbills to counter Take Em Downers and other Destroyers. By now, it is unmistakably clear that the media, national to local, is largely a leftist propaganda enterprise, and they are invested in drumming up hatred for our heritage -- and for us. Our views will not get a fair hearing or presentation from them ... so, we will attempt to inform the public about our side with a low-tech alternative -- printed handouts and, later, street posters.
I'll close out with some flyer samples -- some generic responses to Take Em Downers and some location-specific.
I had four major surgeries in the past 21 months with lengthy recovery and rehab.
To complicate matters, in July 2016 I was diagnosed with severe iron deficiency anemia. Due to gastric surgery in 2011, I cannot absorb dietary iron, not from food or supplements. It took about five years to use up my iron stores; thus, my anemia diagnosis in 2016. My hemoglobin level was 7 (should be 12 to 15) and my ferritin level was 3; normal level is 100. Seeing my blood test results, blood doctor said, "I don't know how you're walking around."
It required two transfusions and two infusions to return my numbers to normal levels, alleviate the fatigue and restore energy. Since I cannot absorb dietary iron, my hemoglobin and ferritin levels are now monitored every six months or so, and when the numbers indicate, I receive an iron infusion. This month, my numbers indicated it was time for an infusion, which I had a few days ago.
On top of everything else, in late January this year, I broke the radius bone in my left wrist, and cracked the ulna. This severely inhibits typing, and a lot of other things normal living requires. Although the break healed nicely, it still hurts sometimes, and the hand doctor says it will take about six months for the pain to completely go away. But at least I can type now.
While I was working through all these maladies, I did what I could for our heritage. I participated in the efforts to save our Confederate monument in Pensacola, writing comments in the local mullet-wrapper following reports on the subject, writing and distributing handbills countering the demands of the mayor and some vocal leftist activists, and attending a city council meeting. The monument is safe. For now.
I've also made online memes and printed flyers and handbills for heritage hotspots and created an online group to answer the SPLC's ridiculous and dishonest "Whose Heritage" campaign.
But now that I'm emerging from the physical restrictions I've had, I'm ready to sure enough get back into the fray. I don't know how much I can do, how well I can keep up the pace ... but we shall see.
One of the projects I want to expand is the use of printed flyers and handbills to counter Take Em Downers and other Destroyers. By now, it is unmistakably clear that the media, national to local, is largely a leftist propaganda enterprise, and they are invested in drumming up hatred for our heritage -- and for us. Our views will not get a fair hearing or presentation from them ... so, we will attempt to inform the public about our side with a low-tech alternative -- printed handouts and, later, street posters.
I'll close out with some flyer samples -- some generic responses to Take Em Downers and some location-specific.
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
What It Was Really About....And Still Is
When the Southern states seceded, the north experienced a cultural "woman-scorned" syndrome. They went mad, mindless with fury. They invaded not to free slaves, not even to preserve the union, really, but to indiscriminately destroy. That was why they burned dozens of towns, shelled others where there were lots of civilians but no military presence or significance. That was why they stole from civilians, burned houses, barns, crops in the field, killed livestock, even robbed graves. Their "war" was barbarous. Many of them were savages.
When it was over, the South lay in utter ruin, and even that wasn't enough for the bloodthirsty haters. They had to ensure that prosperity wouldn't return to the South for generations. (How they did that is way too lengthy a discussion for a couple of paragraphs, or even a whole blog post.)
But seeing what they had done in the sobering light of "peace" preyed upon them, because, you see, these righteous yankees -- they were people who thought they were God's gift to the world, a shining city on a hill.... And, as hilarious as it is, they still think that today.
There was no denying the savagery and barbarism they had committed against people who didn't deserve it; the whole world could see it. So they set out to retroactively MAKE Southerners DESERVE the savage barbarism done to them. Southerners were evil slavers. Slavery was mankind's greatest evil, and Southerners were the planet's most diabolical practitioners of it. Those evil people even continued mistreating their slaves after they were free! Nothing else, and nobody else, could come close to the devilish evil of the South. The Third Reich with its gas chambers, the Soviet Union with its torture and murder in the gulags ... these folks couldn't TOUCH the Confederates for diabolical evil.
Never mind that the Nazis and the Bolsheviks murdered MILLIONS of civilians -- their own citizens. Never mind that in the four years the Confederacy existed, the slave population increased by about 900,000, which is roughly the same rate of growth as the free population of the USA as determined by the 1860 and 1870 census. (And remember, 700,000 or more Americans and Confederates died in the war, or because of it.) That doesn't fit the hate-narrative, so it is ignored. Or resisted.
The ongoing evilization of Southern white folks is for the purpose of justifying the unjustifiable wrong done to them by the union, which -- and here's the important thing -- was no better. The union was just as sin-ridden as Southerners. Southerners kept slaves? Northerners shipped them and when the shipping was outlawed they SMUGGLED them. So they not only wrongly evilized Southerners -- they clothed themselves in phony righteousness ("We freed the slaves! We cared about Jim-Crowed blacks!")
Sorry, yankees. You don't get to wade nostril-deep into slavery and the slave trade for generations... you don't get to continue smuggling slaves for generations after the trade is outlawed ... you don't get to wallow in the riches you made from your own practice of slavery... you don't get to wallow in the riches you made off somebody else's slaves... you don't get to build your your industry and infrastructure on slave-grown cotton -- and then become pure and righteous in just few decades because you abolished slavery and sold your slaves to get rid of your states' black populations (particularly when you continued to wallow in your anti-black racism).
The guilt, wickedness and infamy of your deep involvement in slavery was still with you when you invaded the South to kill innocent Southerners. Your army stank of it, along with the stench of staggering hypocrisy. You still do, because involvement with slavery and racism as deep, as pervasive, as ugly and as lengthy as yours doesn't wear off that quickly or easily.
The removal of the flags and monuments, and the continual demonization of Southerners, past and present, in the government, the press and popular culture, are all explained by this addiction that has hold of the intellecual descendants of the blue-clad barbarians -- the obsession, the fever, to justify their unjustifiable war on people who did not deserve it, and their ongoing evilization and oppression of those people for generations afterward.
And remember, continuing to lie about those you made war on, and their descendants and supporters, will not make that nasty wiff of guilt and hypocrisy dissipate -- quite the opposite. You are stuck with it. Own it.
Folks, if you want to see what I'm talking about, read any of Kevin Levin's blog posts about the Virginia Flaggers and his evilization of them in his essay for the Daily Beast. Read also any of the sanctimonious, highly subjective, often false comments by Andy Hall. Many others participate in the ongoing hate-war against Southerners, but Kevin and Andy are superb models of it.
When it was over, the South lay in utter ruin, and even that wasn't enough for the bloodthirsty haters. They had to ensure that prosperity wouldn't return to the South for generations. (How they did that is way too lengthy a discussion for a couple of paragraphs, or even a whole blog post.)
But seeing what they had done in the sobering light of "peace" preyed upon them, because, you see, these righteous yankees -- they were people who thought they were God's gift to the world, a shining city on a hill.... And, as hilarious as it is, they still think that today.
There was no denying the savagery and barbarism they had committed against people who didn't deserve it; the whole world could see it. So they set out to retroactively MAKE Southerners DESERVE the savage barbarism done to them. Southerners were evil slavers. Slavery was mankind's greatest evil, and Southerners were the planet's most diabolical practitioners of it. Those evil people even continued mistreating their slaves after they were free! Nothing else, and nobody else, could come close to the devilish evil of the South. The Third Reich with its gas chambers, the Soviet Union with its torture and murder in the gulags ... these folks couldn't TOUCH the Confederates for diabolical evil.
Never mind that the Nazis and the Bolsheviks murdered MILLIONS of civilians -- their own citizens. Never mind that in the four years the Confederacy existed, the slave population increased by about 900,000, which is roughly the same rate of growth as the free population of the USA as determined by the 1860 and 1870 census. (And remember, 700,000 or more Americans and Confederates died in the war, or because of it.) That doesn't fit the hate-narrative, so it is ignored. Or resisted.
The ongoing evilization of Southern white folks is for the purpose of justifying the unjustifiable wrong done to them by the union, which -- and here's the important thing -- was no better. The union was just as sin-ridden as Southerners. Southerners kept slaves? Northerners shipped them and when the shipping was outlawed they SMUGGLED them. So they not only wrongly evilized Southerners -- they clothed themselves in phony righteousness ("We freed the slaves! We cared about Jim-Crowed blacks!")
Sorry, yankees. You don't get to wade nostril-deep into slavery and the slave trade for generations... you don't get to continue smuggling slaves for generations after the trade is outlawed ... you don't get to wallow in the riches you made from your own practice of slavery... you don't get to wallow in the riches you made off somebody else's slaves... you don't get to build your your industry and infrastructure on slave-grown cotton -- and then become pure and righteous in just few decades because you abolished slavery and sold your slaves to get rid of your states' black populations (particularly when you continued to wallow in your anti-black racism).
The guilt, wickedness and infamy of your deep involvement in slavery was still with you when you invaded the South to kill innocent Southerners. Your army stank of it, along with the stench of staggering hypocrisy. You still do, because involvement with slavery and racism as deep, as pervasive, as ugly and as lengthy as yours doesn't wear off that quickly or easily.
The removal of the flags and monuments, and the continual demonization of Southerners, past and present, in the government, the press and popular culture, are all explained by this addiction that has hold of the intellecual descendants of the blue-clad barbarians -- the obsession, the fever, to justify their unjustifiable war on people who did not deserve it, and their ongoing evilization and oppression of those people for generations afterward.
And remember, continuing to lie about those you made war on, and their descendants and supporters, will not make that nasty wiff of guilt and hypocrisy dissipate -- quite the opposite. You are stuck with it. Own it.
Folks, if you want to see what I'm talking about, read any of Kevin Levin's blog posts about the Virginia Flaggers and his evilization of them in his essay for the Daily Beast. Read also any of the sanctimonious, highly subjective, often false comments by Andy Hall. Many others participate in the ongoing hate-war against Southerners, but Kevin and Andy are superb models of it.
Friday, January 12, 2018
Sunday, December 24, 2017
The Co-Popes of Confederate Right-Think -- Hall and Levin
Kevin Levin has a list of monuments that have come down in 2017 in a blog post titled, "The Year Confederate Monuments Came Down". Creative, catchy and fresh, isn't it? Not a bit banal....
Sez Kev, "There is no other way to spin what happened this past year as anything other than a complete rejection of the Lost Cause and the belief that Confederate military and political leaders deserve to be honored in our public spaces..."
What he's saying (he may not realize it) is that HIS SPIN is right and anyone else's spin is not right. Is he not? There's no other way to spin it except the way HE has spun it....
Once again we have a glimpse into the leftist, anti-Confederate mindset. Spinning is okay for them; it's not okay for anyone else.
Spin, btw, is just another word for interpretation -- a favorite word of what passes for historians these days. That's what Levin thinks the job of a historian IS -- to interpret history ... to SPIN it. And if you don't accept his spin, or if your spin clashes with his, then you're ignorant and probably an evil white supe, to boot.
He relates the comment of a resident of Memphis as if he's reporting on somebody telling the gospel truth, as if anyone who is for the removals is incapable of spin. "Finally," sez the Memphian, "we can come down and really enjoy this park. And we don’t have to see something that reminds us of our painful past: the lynchings, and beatings, and the selling of our forefathers.”
"In the end," Levin concludes, "that is what this is all about."
It's not about the truth, oh, no. It's not about other viewpoints that are just as valid.
You're a historian. You spin history, and your spin is to paint the side you don't like as total evil and unworthy of remembrance, and the side you do like as totally righteous. Your spin fosters a victim mentality in yet another group. You do this for years and years, indoctrinating students and the public.
And when somebody chants that indoctrination back to you, you crow, "That's what it's all about!"
(Note: Kevin doesn't even mention the extremely pertinent leftist/socialist/Deep State war on our current president that uses fabricated or artificially incited racial conflict to discredit him and portray him as a racist. Although you'd have to be deaf/blind/stupid or off-planet to miss it. All you have to do is ask yourself why all these removals did not occur at sometime the previous 8 years... But that doesn't fit the pre-selected spin. )
Sez Kev, "There is no other way to spin what happened this past year as anything other than a complete rejection of the Lost Cause and the belief that Confederate military and political leaders deserve to be honored in our public spaces..."
What he's saying (he may not realize it) is that HIS SPIN is right and anyone else's spin is not right. Is he not? There's no other way to spin it except the way HE has spun it....
Once again we have a glimpse into the leftist, anti-Confederate mindset. Spinning is okay for them; it's not okay for anyone else.
Spin, btw, is just another word for interpretation -- a favorite word of what passes for historians these days. That's what Levin thinks the job of a historian IS -- to interpret history ... to SPIN it. And if you don't accept his spin, or if your spin clashes with his, then you're ignorant and probably an evil white supe, to boot.
He relates the comment of a resident of Memphis as if he's reporting on somebody telling the gospel truth, as if anyone who is for the removals is incapable of spin. "Finally," sez the Memphian, "we can come down and really enjoy this park. And we don’t have to see something that reminds us of our painful past: the lynchings, and beatings, and the selling of our forefathers.”
"In the end," Levin concludes, "that is what this is all about."
It's not about the truth, oh, no. It's not about other viewpoints that are just as valid.
You're a historian. You spin history, and your spin is to paint the side you don't like as total evil and unworthy of remembrance, and the side you do like as totally righteous. Your spin fosters a victim mentality in yet another group. You do this for years and years, indoctrinating students and the public.
And when somebody chants that indoctrination back to you, you crow, "That's what it's all about!"
(Note: Kevin doesn't even mention the extremely pertinent leftist/socialist/Deep State war on our current president that uses fabricated or artificially incited racial conflict to discredit him and portray him as a racist. Although you'd have to be deaf/blind/stupid or off-planet to miss it. All you have to do is ask yourself why all these removals did not occur at sometime the previous 8 years... But that doesn't fit the pre-selected spin. )
The Co-Popes of Confederate Right-Think -- Hall and Levin
Posting on a comment thread of a Confederacy-hatin' blogger, Kevin Levin, Delusional Andy Hall writes:
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Folks, two things about Andy -- he tries to come across as unruffled, unemotional and above the fray, but it's futile, because his hatred manages to punch through, anyway.
The other thing about Andy is that he thinks he knows everything there is to know about an event (not to mention the people involved) without the benefit of having been there. Presumably, reading about it on the Internet opens his brain and pours in a bunch of information that isn't reported, so he can speak of it as an expert -- as if he was right in the middle of it, beginning to end, and knows every single thing about it. What happened at the Sutherlin Mansion in Danville when the Third National was removed is an example.
But the most telling thing about Andy is how he knows heritage folks, INSIDE OUT -- almost always people he has never met, never talked to, never been around. He reads some sentence on the Internet and HE JUST KNOWS. He can tell you what MOTIVATES THEM. He can tell you WHY they are thus motivated.
Well, no. He doesn't and he can't. What Andy can do is hate certain people, bigtime. And not only that, but to post crap that will encourage others to hate them, too.
Andy is like a reformed drinker who now rails against any and all who drink -- even if it's just swallowing a spoonful of Nyquil when you have the Mother of All Colds and you just need some sleep; you're no better than the town drunk.
He used to see Confederate history in a favorable way, or sez he did. But then he SAW THE LIGHT. He was WOKE. The scales fell from his eyes and now he knows that heritage folks are Satan's minions on earth, spreading lies to entrap people, and send them to Civil War Hell... And Andy is the infallible pope of Civil War History. He knows it all, folks, even what he doesn't know. What he thinks about it is RIGHT. It CANNOT be wrong because HE SAW THE LIGHT. And he not only SAW THE LIGHT, he did what was right in response -- he got on the Internet and started drumming up hate for heritage folks who don't see things like he does...
Of course, Andy isn't the only one who thinks he is infallible about this stuff. You could call Kevin Levin Andy's co-pope of Civil War History. He knows it all, even the unknowable. And he is as much a hater of heritage folks as Andy is. More on Levin in my next post.