OK, not much video, just the picture of the late great Johnny Cash. He recorded in 1983 in the album Johnny 99. Seems like a good time for every American to have a listen.
Showing posts with label Confederate States of America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Confederate States of America. Show all posts
Monday, August 28, 2017
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Confederate flags flying proudly in... wait for it... Brazil!
The pushback against the reverse-racist campaign to take down the Confederate battle flag is growing by the hour! Walt has just been alerted to a feature story on the BBC News website headed "The town in Brazil that embraces the Confederate flag". That would be Santa Barbara D'Oeste, where, once a year, the descendants of about 10,000 Confederates that fled the United States to Brazil after the US Civil War have a sort of family reunion. Here's a group of them, showing that, even after a century and a half, they're still proud to be Southerners!
Can you imagine the reaction in the state capitals of South Carolina or Texas or Virginia if the descendants of the sons and daughters of the Confederacy posed like this in public? Why, in Texas the state won't even sell you a vanity licence plate bearing the Dixie flag any more, because it's politically incorrect. Shame!
Asher Levine, Reuters' man in Sao Paolo, reports that despite being six or seven generations removed from their antebellum ancestry, many local Brazilians still maintain strong ties to Southern culture, and proudly wave the Confederate flag. At their annual get-together, he told BBC, "they all take part in stereotypically southern things like square dances, eating fried chicken and biscuits, and listening to George Strait." [George Strait? Who he? Ed.] Here's another photo.
Now there's something you don't see every day, even in the Ole South! Kinda warms the cockles of your heart, doesn't it? (If your cockles get too warm, rub them with ice.)
Over time, the article continues, the white Southerners who came from the USA [CSA, surely! Ed.] mixed with the darker Brazilians, resulting in people with a variety of skin colours waving the Confederate flag. "A lot of people who are descendants of these confederates have African blood as well, so you'll see at the party people with dark skin waving the Confederate flag."
Strange, isn't it, that people in Brazil and Canada (see previous post) are willing and able to associate themselves with the Confederate battle flag, in spite of its supposed negative connotations, yet Americans who are proud to be Southerners are being demonized and denied the right to show their Southern pride, all because of the actions of one deranged young man. But that's the USA in the Age of Obama. Political correctness rules!
Can you imagine the reaction in the state capitals of South Carolina or Texas or Virginia if the descendants of the sons and daughters of the Confederacy posed like this in public? Why, in Texas the state won't even sell you a vanity licence plate bearing the Dixie flag any more, because it's politically incorrect. Shame!
Asher Levine, Reuters' man in Sao Paolo, reports that despite being six or seven generations removed from their antebellum ancestry, many local Brazilians still maintain strong ties to Southern culture, and proudly wave the Confederate flag. At their annual get-together, he told BBC, "they all take part in stereotypically southern things like square dances, eating fried chicken and biscuits, and listening to George Strait." [George Strait? Who he? Ed.] Here's another photo.
Now there's something you don't see every day, even in the Ole South! Kinda warms the cockles of your heart, doesn't it? (If your cockles get too warm, rub them with ice.)
Over time, the article continues, the white Southerners who came from the USA [CSA, surely! Ed.] mixed with the darker Brazilians, resulting in people with a variety of skin colours waving the Confederate flag. "A lot of people who are descendants of these confederates have African blood as well, so you'll see at the party people with dark skin waving the Confederate flag."
Strange, isn't it, that people in Brazil and Canada (see previous post) are willing and able to associate themselves with the Confederate battle flag, in spite of its supposed negative connotations, yet Americans who are proud to be Southerners are being demonized and denied the right to show their Southern pride, all because of the actions of one deranged young man. But that's the USA in the Age of Obama. Political correctness rules!
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
DON'T tear down this flag!
Walt is incensed -- putting it mildly -- by the increasingly strident demands of the usual suspects (including Mitt Romney and a starlet posing as Governor of South Carolina) to remove the Confederate battle flag from its position next to the SC state capitol. Their argument is that since the "Southern Cross" (as it is sometimes known) has been appropriated by some racists and social misfits, including the nutbar who murdered nine black churchgoers in Charleston last week, the flag which the South has loved for a century and a half is no longer worthy of respect. They are wrong.
The Confederate battle flag was not intended to stand for racial supremacy, let alone slavery. THIS is what it stands for.
For over 150 years, the Confederate battle flag has been displayed throughout the Old South (and all over America) to honour the 260,000 Southerners who died in the War of the Secession fighting for the Cause in which they believed. That cause was not slavery, but the right of the people of the sovereign states to decide for themselves what form of society they wished to live in, and what form of government they wished to have.
Slavery only became an issue when Abraham Lincoln made it so, in his Emancipation Proclamation of 1 January 1863. He did this for political reasons, not because he was a believer in the equality of the races. Here, from "Abraham Lincoln Never Believed in Racial Equality", is a direct quote from a speech by "the Great Emancipator" at Springfield IL in 1858:
I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality ... I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman, or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negros and white men.
But the civil war -- regarded by blacks as a white man's war -- was going badly. In the North, anti-war sentiment was growing, enlistments were declining, and morale was bad. However, there was a strong abolitionist faction in Congress and in the upper strata of Northern society, and Lincoln felt that making the conflict about slavery, rather than about states' rights, would get the "progressive thinkers" more engaged. So, "Free the slaves!" became the new war cry -- "the battle cry of freedom".
And so it was that the Stars and Stripes was made to represent "freedom" and the Confederate flag slavery, a mischaracterization which is being revived in the heat of overreaction to the Charleston shootings. The deranged kid had a Confederate flag sewed to his backpack. So what? Many of the cops, white and black, who shoot innocent people, black and white, have the Star-spangled Banner sewed onto their uniforms. Does that make them evil racists or advocates of a return to slavery? [Well? Does it? Ed.]
And how about the Sandy Hook massacre? The Stars and Stripes was flying outside Sandy Hook Elementary School on the day Adam Lanza shot 26 adults and children. The same flag was flying -- and still flies -- at the CT state capitol in New Haven. Does anyone seriously suggest it was the sight of that flag that fuelled the killer's depravity? Ridiculous?! Certainly. Just as ridiculous as the notion that banning the display of the Confederate flag will somehow end race hatred in America.
Footnote and recommendation: For an even-handed commentary on the reasons for the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, Walt can think of no better reference than Ken Burns's superb TV mini-series, The Civil War, available as a boxed set from Amazon and other sources.
The Confederate battle flag was not intended to stand for racial supremacy, let alone slavery. THIS is what it stands for.
For over 150 years, the Confederate battle flag has been displayed throughout the Old South (and all over America) to honour the 260,000 Southerners who died in the War of the Secession fighting for the Cause in which they believed. That cause was not slavery, but the right of the people of the sovereign states to decide for themselves what form of society they wished to live in, and what form of government they wished to have.
Slavery only became an issue when Abraham Lincoln made it so, in his Emancipation Proclamation of 1 January 1863. He did this for political reasons, not because he was a believer in the equality of the races. Here, from "Abraham Lincoln Never Believed in Racial Equality", is a direct quote from a speech by "the Great Emancipator" at Springfield IL in 1858:
I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality ... I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman, or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negros and white men.
But the civil war -- regarded by blacks as a white man's war -- was going badly. In the North, anti-war sentiment was growing, enlistments were declining, and morale was bad. However, there was a strong abolitionist faction in Congress and in the upper strata of Northern society, and Lincoln felt that making the conflict about slavery, rather than about states' rights, would get the "progressive thinkers" more engaged. So, "Free the slaves!" became the new war cry -- "the battle cry of freedom".
And so it was that the Stars and Stripes was made to represent "freedom" and the Confederate flag slavery, a mischaracterization which is being revived in the heat of overreaction to the Charleston shootings. The deranged kid had a Confederate flag sewed to his backpack. So what? Many of the cops, white and black, who shoot innocent people, black and white, have the Star-spangled Banner sewed onto their uniforms. Does that make them evil racists or advocates of a return to slavery? [Well? Does it? Ed.]
And how about the Sandy Hook massacre? The Stars and Stripes was flying outside Sandy Hook Elementary School on the day Adam Lanza shot 26 adults and children. The same flag was flying -- and still flies -- at the CT state capitol in New Haven. Does anyone seriously suggest it was the sight of that flag that fuelled the killer's depravity? Ridiculous?! Certainly. Just as ridiculous as the notion that banning the display of the Confederate flag will somehow end race hatred in America.
Footnote and recommendation: For an even-handed commentary on the reasons for the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, Walt can think of no better reference than Ken Burns's superb TV mini-series, The Civil War, available as a boxed set from Amazon and other sources.
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