Ken Burns' "Congress" Is Pure Blather

Oregon Magazine ^ | 26 May 2003 | "LL"

[GOPcapitalist]

I don't think our Southern conservatism is harmful to the GOP...quite the contrary, it is the most reliable anchor the Pubbies have and the stats bear that out. Even detractors admit that.

Don't expect rational statements such as the above to phase him any. He thinks that the south of today votes republican because after the war a bunch of benevolent, caring, and conservative yankees moved down here and taught us to be like them...or something along those lines.

I don't think he has explained yet why, if those yankees were so conservative, they let their own part of the country turn into welfare-topias and urban murder cesspools. I'm sure he will get around to answering it someday and though I don't know what that answer may be, let me simply note that I would not be surprised if it involved some soviet-america conspiracy orchestrated by the elusive confederate "Knights of the Golden Circle."

[Diddle E. Squat]

Thanks for clueing me in to a new shortcut. It seems there are a few phrases that when invoked by a poster are a tipoff that they are not to be taken seriously, such as referring to President Bush as 'Jorge' or claiming a Kissinger/Bildeberger type conspiracy.


I can now add 'The War of Northern Aggression' to those phrases.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Republican President Warren G. Harding hosted a Klan meeting in the White House!

I believe your implication is misleading. Harding went down to Birmingham, Alabama in 1923(?) and gave a speech(not at all well received) to a white audience on the importance and need for improving the rights of Blacks. That took guts, and is hardly the kind of thing a KKK member would do.

[AnalogReigns]

It's very (very) rare to find any self-published book that has sold this many copies (6,000) let alone in a 3rd printing. You denigrators of Grand Old Partisan's well researched perspective may well be wise to reserve judgment until you've read the book.

I have the book now (thanks for signing it Grand Old...) and my initial scan of it makes it look pretty good, especially from the pen of a Yankee... ;)

Conservative Republicans have always been about a strong United States, freedom and equal rights...and its time we stopped Democrats from re-re-rewriting our history, and that we reclaim the honorable legacy of the Party of Lincoln.

The neo-Confederates in the conservative movement don't do us any good--in that they really do accept the Democrat version of history, and their neo-racism (though denied) alienates the groups which could be most benefited by and beneficial to, conservativism, namely poor blacks and hardworking new (legal) immigrants.

The biggest embarrassments to Republicans in the last year have come from the (former) Democrats from the Deep South--certain Senators who shall remain un-named. Yes it was an unfair hatchet job by the press and Democrats, but hey, Republicans need to consistently and loudly stand for the principles of racial equality, not allowing any more that to merely be a catch phrase of the Democrat plantation.

Republicans are a party originally formed by principle--and through those principles, applied to our day, we shall prevail.

[Grand Old Partisan]

I give the Ken Burns Civil War series an A++

[Grand Old Partisan]

You're the one injecting regionalism into the debate. In all my posts, I defy anyone to find any criticism of the South, ever. The forty percent of southerners -- the blacks and many poor whites -- who supported the Union during the Civil War -- and then voted Republican as soon as they could -- I praise, while northern Democrats (Copperheads) who supported the rebels I condemn.

What I do is criticize Democrats, then and now. It is not the Confederacy which is to blame for the Republican Party's inability to do more than slow down the Democrats' socialist onslaught, but the veneration for the Democrats rebels of the Confederacy by many Republicans today which allows Democrats to throw Republicans on the defensive on nearly any issue with charges that our motives are racist. I could go on, but I can't be expected to rehash what I spent two years putting into book form. See my website for more.

[Grand Old Partisan]

'The War of Northern Aggression'

Exactly! There's no point debating with someone who assumes that the Unites States Government lawfully and constitutionally suppressing a rebellion was wrong.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Warren Harding was far more progressive on racial issues than was his predecessor, Democrat President Woodrow Wilson. That KKK charge is bogus.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Thank you, Analog Reigns! You summarize exactly why I wrote the book and exactly why so many top Republicans love it. As I say in the book: "How can we Republicans expect voters to place their confidence in us when we lack confidence in our own heritage?"

[AnalogReigns]

I think the problem with the whole debate, and I've said this to you before, is people personalize (and romanticize) the Confederate cause--confusing personal (and often very honorable) motivations on the part of military heros and Generals (I will always venerate Robert E. Lee for example) with the grubby politics behind the causes of the War. As has been shown again and again here on FR, in the hard documentation of the Secession debates, the politics in the South for the Confederacy ...the reason BEHIND "states rights," was all about preserving the status quo--and that seemingly essential "peculiar institution" namely, slavery.

Does this mean that Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and other honorable warriors, were fighting with ill-motivations? Of course not--but neither should we project the best of the the Southern heros' motivations onto the seamy politics of the Confederacy--or as you would say the DEMOCRAT Confederacy.

Of course all thinking people who know history reject the Disneyesque picture many have of the Civil War with the North fighting to free the slaves...they were fighting to SAVE THE UNION--and freeing the slaves was only a happy consequence of that, not the original motivation.

Individual motivations and gallantry should not be confused with the politics behind the war. It is good the Confederacy lost... we as a nation are better, indeed more blessed, for it.

I think Lee would agree.

[Susannah]

"Except for a few whiny minutes from the black female "historian" cited in the OREGON MAGAZINE article above. "~Ronly Bonly Jones

I taped the Civil War series. It's the best documentary I've seen on the Civil War. And, I did notice the black female historian's comments played between the actual viewings and narrative. She was, IMO, inferring that Lincoln did little or nothing for blacks.

[wardaddy]

Show me a real neo-confederate as you call them. Give me an example of one that is currently corrupting the modern Republican party.

Btw...our recollection of the radicals like Thaddeus Stevens whom you praise is a bit different...lol

Where is Mortin Sult/Dutch Comfort anyhow these days....if you're out there FReepmail me in code so I'll know you're about!

[Grand Old Partisan]

Yeah, the whiny black woman was the worst part of the program. Lincoln critics completely miss the complete lack of rancor in his speeches and statements during the Civil War. How easy it would have been for him to whip up northern hatred for the southern rebels!

One of my favorite Lincoln stories is when he visited Richmond in April 1865. Black people there who recognized him got down on their knees, but the President said sternly: "No, don't kneel to me. You must only kneel to your Father in Heaven and thank him for the freedon you will hereafter enjoy. An old black man then removed his hat and bowed to the President. Abraham Lincoln then removed his own hat and bowed in return.

THAT, my neo-Confederate friends, was "The Real Lincoln".

[Diddle E. Squat]

That's an understatement. Did not Woodrow Wilson(who so many liberal historians declare as perhaps the greatest president ever) institute civil service reforms that barred Blacks from those jobs? IIRC, during Teddy Roosevelts tenure Blacks had begun to hold govt positions and move up the ladder, only to be knocked off by Woodrow Wilson.

[Grand Old Partisan]

I'm going to get into finger-pointing at prominent Republicans. It's not a matter of people but of ideas.

"Mortin Sult/Dutch Comfort" -- no idea what you're talking about.

As for Thaddeus Stevens, Democrat historians have brutally maligned the man who, in my opinion, was the greatest Republican who ever lived.

[Valin]

Are you really sure you want to go do that road?

[Grand Old Partisan]

Definitely. Woodrow Wilson was the guy who segregated the federal government. Woodrow Wilson, Democrat was the most racist President since Andrew Johnson. Both were Democrats.

[Grand Old Partisan]

I'm NOT going to get into finger-pointing at prominent Republicans. It's not a matter of people but of ideas.

"Mortin Sult/Dutch Comfort" -- no idea what you're talking about.

As for Thaddeus Stevens, Democrat historians have brutally maligned the man who, in my opinion, was the greatest Republican who ever lived.

[wardaddy]

Ugh.....

That hurt.....Thad is not beloved down here. Fact is....I can think of very few historical figures less loved in my "region".

Mortin Sult is a perpetually banned FReeper from over the years who worships the Radical Reconstructionists as do you sadly.

He has been I think The Cruiser, Who is George Salt, and LLan_DDeussant as well in addition to the two other monikers. I can't believe you don't recall him.

OK...enuff chit chat...what about my ????.....who is a nationally recognized Republican Neo-Confederate corrupting the Party right now?

[Grand Old Partisan]

Sorry about my first preply. Like I said, I'm NOT going to get into finger-pointing at Republican leaders.

As for my hero, Thaddeus Stevens, he was the (slightly fictionalized) villian of "Birth of the Nation" , that wildly over-the-top pro-KKK movie -- which to me is a great compliment. All this Democrat basshing of Stevens ignores the fact that Republican Reconstruction, Radical or otherwise, did not even begin in the South until the March 1867 passage of the Reconstruction Act. That law was more than anything a reaction against how brutally the ex-rebel Democrats of the South were treating the blacks and white Unionists in the two years before Reconstruction began.