Posted on 12/27/2002 10:10:58 AM PST by Chi-townChief
I don't see why there's so much trouble about poor Trent Lott. After all, the South won the Civil War--oops, the War Between the States--and they're entitled to enjoy their victory. It's their right to fly the Stars and Bars over the Georgia capital, to celebrate the ''Confederate Heritage,'' to speak at the racist, anti-Catholic Bob Jones University, to lecture to white supremacy groups, to venerate the Dixiecrat Party and its founder Strom Thurmond for his wisdom, to proclaim always their mantra of ''states' rights,'' to trim black voters off the polling lists.
Admittedly, racial segregation in the South isn't what it used to be. Blacks can ride anywhere on a bus that they want to, their kids can go to integrated schools, they can vote in elections, they can work at jobs formerly off-limits to them. They're still poor for the most part and not all that well-educated (in Mississippi no one is), but that's not the fault of white Southerners.
Does someone say that the Stars and Bars is the flag of a racist revolution to keep black people in slavery? Does someone argue that the ''Confederate Heritage'' is a heritage of racial oppression, rape and murder? The answer is simple: ''Hey, boys in blue, we whupped y'all fair and square. Y'all ain't nothing but bad losers.''
My ''damn Yankee'' prejudice is to say that ole Marse Abe made a mistake. He should have let the rebel states go. We didn't need them, and we'd be better off without them.
The South didn't win the war, you say? Who's running the country now? Texans (or pseudo-Texans) like Bush and Cheney and DeLay, and crackers like Trent Lott, and until recently carpetbaggers like Newt Gingrich. When was the last time a Yankee was elected president? In 1960, the only Northerner since Roosevelt. Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon don't count; Orange County is Confederate country.
Nixon was the one who had the brilliant idea of incorporating Strom's Dixiecrat Party into the GOP in his notorious ''Southern strategy.'' Most of the newspaper accounts of the turn of the Solid South from Democratic to Republican don't mention that the change was inspired by anger in the South at the Democratic support for civil rights and racial integration. The Democrats won the campaign but lost the war. Gettysburg was not the decisive battle of the war between the states. The 1968 and 1972 campaigns were. The ''reform'' wing of the Democratic Party threw out the unions and the Catholics and gave away the game to the Dixiecrat wing of the Republican Party. They've never figured out how to win against the descendants of Strom and Tricky Dicky.
I'm not saying that all Southerners are racist (there are a lot of racists in Yankee land too--most of them Republicans). Nor do I contend that all Republicans are racists. However, the current Republican near-majority has its origins in racism. Many of the present causes of Southern Republicans--the Stars and Bars, the Confederate Heritage, Bob Jones University--are clearly causes of the antebellum South.
I'm willing to accept the song ''Dixie,'' both because ole Marse Abe ordered it played for the big victory march in Washington when the war was over and because it was written by Bing Crosby, a notorious Yankee who never set foot in Dixie (actually by New Yorker Dan Emmet, whom Crosby portrayed in film).
However, if the Republicans really want to break free of the Old South and become once again the party of ole Marse Abe (which they clearly don't), then they have to do more than merely drop redneck bigots like Trent Lott. They must loudly disown Bob Jones University and the battle flag over the Georgia capital and the Confederate heritage, and Jeb Bush's elimination of black voters from Florida registration rolls.
I concede that the Dimmycrats (as Mr. Dooley called them) are not without faults of their own--most notably the anti-Catholicism that affects some of the leadership level, their enslavement to the teachers unions and their stand on some life issues. Yet, whatever their failings, they're not storming the Little Round Top at Gettysburg with the Stars and Bars waving and loud rebel yells.
History says that Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the 20th Maine triumphed in that skirmish. A look at the Beltway today makes me wonder if they really did.
How many blacks owned white slaves? The Republican Party was formed to oppose slavery in the new territories. The Southern states seceded to preserve slavery as their Declarations of Secession say. The Civil War was a Republican vs. Democrat war. The good guys won. Slavery was ended, the union was preserved.
I think if we just clean up the voting in Chicago, the prospects for this state would improve dramatically. In election 2000 the vote in Illinois was going 100% for Gore for a while. That's impossible without fraud. Chicago precincts are always the first to report. I guess here they don't wait until election day to fraudulate the ballots, the ballots are prestamped. Chicago leads the nation in Democratic voter fraud technology.
You're right that would have been an issue. Howver, I don't think that slavery would have lasted another 15 years in the south. After all, 4 of the 13 northern states plus the chunk of land that later became West Virginia were slaveholding areas, so the idea that the Civil War was only about slavery is absurd, though slavery was certainly one of the causes. Slavery had not ended that long ago in many of the other northern states (about 1830 for New York) and the abolition movement was growing in the south, albeit more slowly than in the north. Plus, we can't forget that the Emancipation Proclamation freed only the slaves in areas still in rebellion -- slaves in the north and the conquered southern lands weren't freed until almost a year after the war was over.
Look at what jealousy does. France aligns itself with the worst of the earth out of jealousy over America. They wouldn't let us use their airspace to retaliate against Liubya, and now they're doing all they can to save Hussein.
...--but the US would have aligned with Germany long before World War I broke out.
Why?
It is if they can get the voters to go along.
to celebrate the ''Confederate Heritage,'' to speak at the racist, anti-Catholic Bob Jones University, to lecture to white supremacy groups, to venerate the Dixiecrat Party and its founder Strom Thurmond for his wisdom, to proclaim always their mantra of ''states' rights,''
Well, yes, these are rights. Freedom of speech.
to trim black voters off the polling lists.
Not only not a right, but actually illegal and unconstitutional. Which is why it isn't done.
So all the black slaves had committed a crime? An indentured servant became an indentured servant because of his actions if what you'resaying is true. A black person became a slave because of his race. Big difference if what you're saying is true.
Only if you telescope history. Indentured servitude had not been around for at least 60 years when the War broke out.
600,000 dead for nothing, huh?
After all, 4 of the 13 northern states plus the chunk of land that later became West Virginia were slaveholding areas, so the idea that the Civil War was only about slavery is absurd, though slavery was certainly one of the causes.
I never said the sole reason was slavery. The reason for secession was slavery as the Declarations of Secession say. The reason the North fought so hard to win was for preservation of the union. The reason for the attack on Fort Sumter....Foolish pride?
Slavery had not ended that long ago in many of the other northern states (about 1830 for New York) and the abolition movement was growing in the south, albeit more slowly than in the north.
Um...yeah right. Have you ever read the Declarations of Secession?
Plus, we can't forget that the Emancipation Proclamation freed only the slaves in areas still in rebellion -- slaves in the north and the conquered southern lands weren't freed until almost a year after the war was over.
A whole year, wow.
Indentures were for a limited period, often seven years. They were frequently, although not always, voluntary. In the involuntary cases, servitude was usually the punishment for a crime.
They were also not around by the time of TWBTS.
I think she still got a few percentage points from fraud.
Now if you could get Father Greely to focus on the problems of Chicago today and focus less on a war 140 years ago, progress may be made.
True. There's a few here on FR that could use that advice too.
HELLO???????? It's called free speech moron and is an AMERICAN right, not a confederate one!
Never happen. We should realize by now that to the Rats, blacks are for service, not leadership. Hmmm....now why does that sound familiar?
Brain drain.
Post war, the Brits probably would have looked forward to putting the US in a vise between Canada and the CSA.
Canada? The words "Canada" and "vice" do not go well together. LOL The U.S. was the industrial powerhouse of the North American continent and would've been even stronger had German brain drain taken place. I just can't see Canada and the agricultural CSA vicing anything. The poreservation of slavery with a CSA win would've kept the CSA down even longer in the industrial race. Why build gidgets and gadgets when you can just send 4 million people out in a field to do your work for you and make youe rich?
The US certainly would not have had the strength to pull off the Spanish American war (won with the assistance of the troops from Tennessee).
That would've been the CSA's worry wouldn't have it? Why worry about Cuba when there is a buffer nation?
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