Slouching Towards Oblivion

Showing posts with label confederacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label confederacy. Show all posts

Saturday, March 25, 2023

Seemingly Simple


Meltdown In Dixie - Trailer


P is for public, but apparently, an awful lot of the content on our "public" broadcast system is buried so deeply behind pay walls, that it's practically impossible to find a link to the shit that airs on "my publicly-funded local PBS station".

You're on your own. Good luck.

Free, my dyin' ass.

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Oops

So they finally took that stoopid Confederate Participation Trophy down, and when they went looking for the time capsule that was supposed to be under the cornerstone of the pedestal, they couldn't find it.

But not to worry - they put everything back together, and then promised they'd look for it again later (?)


Crews in Virginia ended a daylong search Thursday after they were unable to locate a 134-year-old time capsule state officials believe is buried in the pedestal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that towered over Richmond for more than a century.

State officials were scheduled to remove the 134-year-old time capsule from the cornerstone a day after the large Confederate statue was taken down. But after removing more than half a dozen large, heavy stones, crews were unable to find it.

Workers used ground-penetrating radar devices, a metal detector and other construction equipment to try to locate the copper time capsule they believed was tucked inside or under a cornerstone of a 40-foot tall granite pedestal that the bronze equestrian statue of Lee had been perched on since 1890.


- snip -

While the removal of the statue went quickly and smoothly, the search for the time capsule was marked by difficulties and frustration. Crews had to remove three separate pieces of the cornerstone weighing between 500 and 8,000 pounds each. They also removed a half dozen other large stones around the perimeter of the pedestal so they could search under the cornerstone and the area around it.

After about 12 hours of work, crews ended their search for the day, said Northam's chief of staff, Clark Mercer. Mercer said workers planned to return Friday to put the stones they removed back in place and to insert a new time capsule in the cornerstone. He said it is doubtful workers would resume looking for the 1887 time capsule, but left open a small possibility.


"It's disappointing not to find the time capsule," he said.

"We looked where we thought it was. It doesn't preclude (us) in the future from finding it, but for right now, the mystery will continue."

Dale Brumfield, a local historian and author who has conducted extensive research on the time capsule, said he is sure the capsule is located somewhere in the pedestal, citing a newspaper account of an 1887 dedication ceremony that drew thousands of people.

"I'm positive there's a capsule in there somewhere," he said. "We just can't find where."

I can't find anything regarding any efforts to find the missing time capsule since this piece was published 09-10-2021.

Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Time To Move


We move slowly - usually because there's always a double-digit percentage of folks who just can't stand the prospect of change.


A time capsule was placed under the Robert E. Lee statue in 1887. Gov. Northam says he will remove it.

Gov. Ralph Northam plans to remove a time capsule placed under the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue in 1887 and replace it with a new one, he announced Tuesday, as the state begins to form its plans for the future of the much-contested monument.

The capsule was placed in the northeast cornerstone of the 40-foot-tall granite pedestal on Oct. 27, 1887, and contains about 60 objects largely related to the Confederacy, including a picture of Abraham Lincoln lying in his coffin, according a story in the archives of The Richmond Dispatch — a predecessor to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

To mark the occasion, the city held a massive celebration attended by 25,000 Confederate veterans and supporters from across the South that filled local hotels. The Richmond Dispatch called it a “brilliant street parade” and reported that hotels were full across the city and armed guards would be stationed near the site of the monument’s pedestal.

One of the speakers was Col. Charles Marshall, who blamed the Civil War on Lincoln and told the crowd that Lincoln’s only motive for freeing the slaves was to win the war. Three years later, in 1890, the 21-foot-tall Lee statue was unveiled and another celebration was held.

Lee, the first of five monuments to Confederate military figures along Monument Avenue in the Fan District, is the only one that remains standing after a summer of protests against racial injustice.


- more -

It goes on to describe the items in the time capsule - one being a picture of Abe Lincoln, dead in his coffin. "
Heritage not hate" my dyin' ass, Cletus.

There's also a series of lawsuits moving thru Virginia courts which are looking to block the removal (seems a little late, since they've all been removed), and force their return to places of prominence.

The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.

Friday, April 02, 2021

In Their Own Words


You'll never convince me with that tired stale bullshit about "honor and tradition" and blah blah blah.


"Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."
Alexander Stephens
Vice President of the Confederate States of America


"We recognize the fact of the inferiority stamped upon that race of men by the Creator, and from the cradle to the grave, our Government, as a civil institution, marks that inferiority."

"It would grant me much relief to learn your sons were engaged matrimonially to other white men if I was previously faced with the spectre of those same sons wedding negro women, slave or free, and siring negro sons that could presume to claim inheritance of your namesakes and property, or worse, equality with your purer grandchildren."
Jefferson Davis
President of the Confederate States of America


"The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence."
Gen. Robert E. Lee
Army of Northern Virginia, CSA


"I’ve never heard of any other cause than slavery”
Col. John S. Mosby
43rd Battalion (Mosby's Rangers), Virginia Cavalry, CSA

"This fight is against slavery; if we lose it, you will be made free."
Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest
3rd Tennessee Cavalry, CSA
(first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan)

 











Monday, August 27, 2018

Silent Sam


I looked it up. Julian Carr's dedication speech is a lulu, and all I need (for now - until some better argument comes along) to be sure that the idea behind these Giant Participation Trophies was the desire to reinforce White Supremacy, hiding it behind the lofty-sounding idea of states' rights - which is really just denying the need for balance between the power  of the states and the power of the federal government.

Historian and educator Hilary Green, PhD - Univ of Alabama - put up a complete transcript:

(excerpt)

And I dare to affirm this day, that if every State of the South had done what North Carolina did without a murmer [sic], always faithful to its duty whatever the groans of the victims, there never would have been an Appomatox[sic]; Grant would have followed Meade and Pope; Burnside, Hooker, McDowell and McClellan, and the political geography of America would have been re-written.

It is not for us to question the decrees of Providence. Let us be grateful that our struggle, keeping alive the grand principle of local self-government and State sovereignty has thus far held the American people from that consolidated despotism whose name, whether Republic or Empire, is of but little importance as compared with its rule.

This beautiful memorial is unique in one aspect. I have participated at the unveiling of several Confederate monuments, and have intimate knowledge of a great many more, but this is the first and only one in which the living survivors have been distinctly mentioned and remembered, and in the distinguished presence I desire to thank that Daughters of the Confederacy, in the name of the living Confederate students, for their beautiful and timely thoughtfulness.

The duty due to our dear Southland, and the conspicuous service rendered, did not end at Appomatox[sic]. The four years immediately following the four years of bloody carnage, brought their responsibilities hardly of less consequence than those for which the South laid upon the altar of her country 74,524 of her brave and loyal sons dead from disease, a grand total of 133,821.

It is true that the snows of winter which never melt, crown our temples, and we realize that we are living in the twilight zone; that it requires no unusual strain to hear the sounds of the tides as they roll and break upon the other shore, “The watch-dog’s bark his deep bay mouth welcome as we draw near home”, breaks upon our ears—makes it doubly sweet to know that we have been remembered in the erection of this beautiful memorial. The present generation, I am persuaded, scarcely takes note of what the Confederate soldier meant to the welfare of the Anglo Saxon race during the four years immediately succeeding the war, when the facts are, that their courage and steadfastness saved the very life of the Anglo Saxon race in the South – When “the bottom rail was on top” all over the Southern states, and to-day, as a consequence the purest strain of the Anglo Saxon is to be found in the 13 Southern States – Praise God.

I trust I may be pardoned for one allusion, howbeit it is rather personal. One hundred yards from where we stand, less than ninety days perhaps after my return from Appomattox, I horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds, because upon the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted and maligned a Southern lady, and then rushed for protection to these University buildings where was stationed a garrison of 100 Federal soldiers. I performed the pleasing duty in the immediate presence of the entire garrison, and for thirty nights afterwards slept with a double-barrel shot gun under my head.

With pardonable pride I look upon the grand record of my Alma Mater, near whose confines I first beheld the light; in whose classic halls three of my sons have graduated and a fourth is now a student, and where my brother and three of his sons also matriculated. The glorious record of this seat of learning is embalmed in affections of our family.

A brave soldier, a devoted son of the South, an honor graduate of this grand old University, led the brave phalanxes of the South fartherest [sic] to the front, up the bloody, slippery heights at Gettysburg, along the crest where death in full panoply with exultant glee held high carnival – I bow my head while I mention the name of the chivalrous J. Johnson Pettigrew – the Marshall Ney of Lee’s Army.

Permit me to refer at this point to a pleasing incident in which that distinguished son of the South, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, had the leading part. A year or two ago diplomas were given by our University to all the students who had interrupted their studies to enter the military service of the Confederacy. Mr. Wilson, then President of Princeton University delivered these diplomas. One man only of the Class [handwritten – that Matriculated in 1862] wearing the Confederate uniform, came forward to receive that highly prized token. It was the humble individual who now addresses you. At the dinner, later in the day, Professor Wilson greeted me with the remark that in many years nothing had so much touched and warmed his heart as the sight of that Confederate uniform.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

A Letter

Stonewall Jackson - Monument Avenue, Richmond VA

From 2 direct descendants of Stonewall Jackson.

Slate, Jack Christian and Warren Christian - Monuments Must Go

We are native Richmonders and also the great, great grandsons of Stonewall Jackson. As two of the closest living relatives to Stonewall, we are writing today to ask for the removal of his statue, as well as the removal of all Confederate statues from Monument Avenue. They are overt symbols of racism and white supremacy, and the time is long overdue for them to depart from public display. Overnight, Baltimore has seen fit to take this action. Richmond should, too.

- snip -

Confederate monuments like the Jackson statue were never intended as benign symbols. Rather, they were the clearly articulated artwork of white supremacy. Among many examples, we can see this plainly if we look at the dedication of a Confederate statue at the University of North Carolina, in which a speaker proclaimed that the Confederate soldier “saved the very life of the Anglo-Saxon race in the South.” Disturbingly, he went on to recount a tale of performing the “pleasing duty” of “horse whipping” a black woman in front of federal soldiers. All over the South, this grotesque message is conveyed by similar monuments. As importantly, this message is clear to today’s avowed white supremacists.

As is usually the case here in USAmerica Inc, we get hung up on the symbol itself - or we get too use to feeling comfortable with the hagiographic bullshit swirling around those symbols - and we forget about what the damned thing actually stands for.

Participation Trophies.

Jefferson Davis - Monument Avenue, Richmond VA

JEB Stuart - Monument Avenue, Richmond VA

Robert E Lee - Monument Avenue, Richmond VA

Thursday, December 24, 2015

What Jeb Said

hat tip = Little Green Footballs


Bless his pea-pickin' little ol' heart - he's trying so hard to lead some of these dolts away from the extremes, while trying so hard to step in the right places thru the minefield, which generally ends up meaning he's trying hard not to lead too much.  And that's pretty much exactly what electoral politics is all about.  You have to calculate; you say things that bring some voters over to your side while not alienating too many others.

I think Jeb is the GOP's only chance to pull that off, and I think Jeb is probably just not really up to the challenge.

He's half right, hoping to parlay it into enough of a message that's acceptable to enough of everybody wearing the Red Badge to stitch together a wobbly little coalition to get close to maybe being in contention for a shot at making a run for what may or may not be his big chance at the nomination - god willin' and the crick don't rise.  

Seriously, I just don't think he's up to it even tho' I think the GOP mover/shakers are working feverishly to prop him up, and I'm still not convinced he won't be the GOP's guy next fall.  Or is it that he'll be the GOP's next fall guy? This is all very confusing.

But anyway - half right.  He just got it kinda upside down and backwards.  He says the controversy over the Confederate Battle Flag isn't about the Confederacy so much as it's about what the flag came to represent in the 20th century.  That's the half-right part.

The upside-down-and-backwards part is that there was a long and concerted effort to change our perception, and to get people to believe that that flag represented Heritage and Commitment and Honor on the part of the glorious warriors who fought under it, instead of maintaining the truth about it, and making sure that it remained the symbol of Greed and Inhumanity and Bigotry and all the things this country has always said it doesn't want to be. It became the rallying point for people who need desperately to be lied into a political catatonia so they can go on pretending they don't have to do anything but wish their troubles away - or to kill their way outa the mess they're forever getting us all into.

But here's the thing, kids - that flag is the flag of quitters and losers and racist assholes. It is, it always was, and it always will be.



Friday, June 26, 2015

Check Your Fellow Travelers

Yo, "conservatives" - guess who knows exactly what your favorite symbol of "honor and heritage" actually means.


And BTW, fuck Godwin's Corollary.  Sometimes the Nazi reference is exactly the right thing.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

American Swastika



Seriously, fellas - what you're using to fetishize your misty-eyed fantasies of a glorious past really doesn't stand for what you pretend it stands for.

Slavery was a bad idea.
Secession in support of slavery was a bad idea.
Fighting a war to defend secession in order to support slavery was a bad idea.
3 strikes.
You're out.
Get the fuck over it.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Chris Hedges

Posted at truthdig:
The rewriting of history in the South is a retreat by beleaguered whites into a mythical self-glorification. I witnessed a similar retreat during the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. As Yugoslavia’s economy deteriorated, ethnic groups built fantasies of a glorious past that became a substitute for history. They sought to remove, through exclusion and finally violence, competing ethnicities to restore this mythological past. The embrace by nationalist groups of a nonreality-based belief system made communication with other ethnic groups impossible. They no longer spoke the same cultural language. There was no common historical narrative built around verifiable truth. A similar disconnect was illustrated last week in Memphis when the chairman of the city’s parks committee, William Boyd, informed the council that Forrest “promoted progress for black people in this country after the war.” Boyd argued that the KKK was “more of a social club” at its inception and didn’t begin carrying out “bad and horrific things” until it reconstituted itself with the rise of the modern civil rights movement.