Yes, the Confederacy was about slavery
Ta-Nehisi Coates cuts through the nonsense using actual historical documents of the time, most notably the declarations of secession issued by the traitorous state governments themselves. Yes, there were true Southern heroes back then -- they just aren't the people today's knuckle-draggers choose to glorify. And Coates ends with a valuable reminder that, in the United States, there is no singleness of identity -- not for anyone.
Found via Pharyngula, which sees some connections with modern teabaggerdom. If that's not alarming enough, read this story from Oklahoma (sent by Mendip), where a few teabaggers and state legislators are floating the idea of a "state militia" to resist "federal infringements on state sovereignty". It should be noted that other conservatives in Oklahoma oppose the idea and are focusing on legal ways of opposing federal actions, such as lawsuits. As for the nutters, let's hope they read the words of Sergeant C.
Oh, and one of the high holy days of the extreme right, April 19 (the anniversary of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing) is less than a week away.
Found via Pharyngula, which sees some connections with modern teabaggerdom. If that's not alarming enough, read this story from Oklahoma (sent by Mendip), where a few teabaggers and state legislators are floating the idea of a "state militia" to resist "federal infringements on state sovereignty". It should be noted that other conservatives in Oklahoma oppose the idea and are focusing on legal ways of opposing federal actions, such as lawsuits. As for the nutters, let's hope they read the words of Sergeant C.
Oh, and one of the high holy days of the extreme right, April 19 (the anniversary of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing) is less than a week away.
posted by Infidel753 at 4:40 PM
7 Comments:
"Yes, the Confederacy was about slavery"
Isn't it sick that we even have to say this?
Texas from what I gathered year's back, even didnt tell their slave's of the Emancipation Proclamation or freedom until like a year after it. Also .... weird but fact .... in Dallas they have a park called Lee Park, which I heard was to commemorate Gen.Lee, what's weird about it .... it has been the unofficial gay park in Dallas for a few decade's now. It's where Dallas Gay Group's congregate and speak for event's. Why? I havent the faintest.
Later Guy ........
Infidel
I think even if they did read the words of Sargent C they wouldn't get it. These people are beyond rational thought. I've about given up on debate with them. Lies and Lies propagated by more lies.
Later
The Ta-Nehisi Coates piece was amazing. Almost too well-written, I kept getting distracted by the gorgeousness of the prose.
History needs to be re-written with this truth. This is nothing, *nothing* like the Civil War history I was taught in school, same thing with our history with the Native Americans. In fact, unless you go full-blown American History geek in college, this sort of thing just slides right by. Even in honors-level high school classes, no one talks about this reality, in fact if you were to turn in a paper focusing on slavery being the root cause, you'd get a horrible grade for taking too simplistic an approach and not blathering on about the agrarian economy vs. industrialization, blah blah etc etc. At least it was like that back in the 70's -- the popular thing was to intellectualize all this fancy nonsense about constitutional interpretations and socio-political conflicts, and pretend that slavery was just a cultural difference, like saying po-tay-to or po-tah-to.
As a country, as a society, we need to really talk about this, and really look at these historical documents, get this out in the open. We need to confront our denialists, because they're really insulting far more than just our intelligence.
But they're really insulting that, too.
GE: I feel the same way about the fact that we still have to argue about evolution 150 years after Darwin. In both cases it's because what gets taught in school is determined too much by the need to avoid offending pressure groups, rather than by what's established fact.
RC: I've heard of that happening with other Southern states as well -- that in some remote areas it took a while even after the war ended for word to reach all the slaves that slavery had been abolished.
Glad Dallas has at least found a good use for Lee Park. Maybe they can start claiming it's named for some famous Korean named Lee Park.
Tim: I would hope that the concept of "If you attack the lawful governmwnt, we will shoot you", could be understood by almost anyone. The nuts need to be disabused of the idea that the military will abandon its duty and back them up.
GL: In the 1950s, after Sputnik and Gagarin showed that the US had an urgent need to beef up science, we swept aside the creationists and anti-intellectuals and pushed through realistic science curricula in the schools. It worked for a long time, though things have begun to slide again. Maybe the revelation that a big chunk of our population believes all this befuddled rubbish about history and the Constitution will inspire better standards for teaching about those things, too, but unfortunately I doubt it will be a priority for a while.
The fact that we now have more black writers and intellectuals than before is bound to help, though. They won't let this crap about de-emphasizing slavery slide, even if others will.
I would like to apologize for the stupid shit that goes on in the South. We all aren't like that.
PP: I know you're not -- some of the best liberal bloggers I regularly read are in the South. And there are racists and nuts in the north too. No need to apologize. It's not the South, it's the Confederasts.
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