150th Celebration of Being Assholes

[dexfarkin]

Selected quoted around upcoming plans to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/us/30confed.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&hp

“We in the South, who have been kicked around for an awfully long time and are accused of being racist, we would just like the truth to be known,” said Michael Givens, commander-in-chief of the Sons, explaining the reason for the television ads. While there were many causes of the war, he said, “our people were only fighting to protect themselves from an invasion and for their independence.”

... and their right to maintain an economy based on owning other human beings. Funny how they forget that part at the end.

“We’re celebrating that those 170 people risked their lives and fortunes to stand for what they believed in, which is self-government,” Mr. Antley said. “Many people in the South still believe that is a just and honorable cause. Do I believe they were right in what they did? Absolutely,” he said, noting that he spoke for himself and not any organization. “There’s no shame or regret over the action those men took.”

Mr. Antley said he was not defending slavery, which he called an abomination. “But defending the South’s right to secede, the soldiers’ right to defend their homes and the right to self-government doesn’t mean your arguments are without weight because of slavery,” he said.

Actually, it does mean your arguments are without weight, because slavery was the central reason behind the secession of the South from the Union. The South seceded to protect their right to perpetuate the institution of slavery.

Next time any of these pinheads prattles on about the glories of the Civil War and how it was really about states' rights and limited government and all that appropriated Tea Party nonsense, and point out what they are celebrating, should they have won, would be a country built and sustained on treating an entire body of people as subhuman labour. Sadly, only one or two would be ashamed. The rest will be sporting hard-ons and rubbing a lynching rope.

EDIT: Because the affronted emails have already started to come in, I would like to be crystal clear on a few things. I am not saying that Southerners cannot have pride in the accomplishments of your family and heritage. I am not saying that the Civil War was as simple a case as good versus evil. And yes, I know that most of the South who fought the war were largely ordinary who believed that it was their homes and freedom that they were defending, and many of them fought bravely and even heroically.

However, you cannot whitewash the casus belli for the war because you want to celebrate without dealing with the racial dimension. You cannot distance yourself by claiming that you only support 'these parts' about the struggle as a way to ignoring the fundamental injustice that the war was fought to try and maintain. I hate to edge into Godwin's Law, but there were heroic Nazis too; poor bastards who saved their fellow soldiers and innocents, acted with honour and lay down their lives for others. That does not change the fact that they fought for an evil regime.

The point is that you can celebrate the lives of individual soldiers without celebrating their cause. You cannot celebrate a conflict without acknowledging its reasons and aims.

Comments

[fengi.livejournal.com]

Great, one of the things about my fellow Americans which annoys me the most, amped up with the excuse of an anniversary.

It bugs me how this guy is lying even in the basics secession by definition means they weren't "protect themselves from an invasion" and the South was, in fact, the aggressors. The only true thing is they were fighting for independence...to keep slaves.

[d-benway.livejournal.com]

I find it impossible to visit The South without constantly noting that all of that gentility and nice architecture was developed as a veneer over the realities a brutal slaveholding society. The flags and music make me feel almost physically ill every time I encounter them. While one might argue that the collective punishment inflicted by the Union may have been excessive in some places, the images of public lynchings for decades after Reconstruction suggest that evils associated with human bondage barely changed for years after the war.

I also find it useful to remember that most African-Canadian locals with long histories in my Zone had ancestors who arrived here as slaves, and that they were forbidden to settle in the largest regional town in the province for several decades after its founding.

[dexfarkin.livejournal.com]

True, but at least there isn't amplified retoric at the provincial level to celebrate our past relations with the racism carefully smudged over. Unless New Brunswick has gone quietly unhinged while I wasn't looking.

[diamond-dust06.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Proper_Way_to_Hang_a_Confederate_Flag

[fengi.livejournal.com]

"I am not saying that the Civil War was as simple a case as good versus evil. And yes, I know that most of the South who fought the war were largely ordinary who believed that it was their homes and freedom that they were defending, and many of them fought bravely and even heroically."

Actually this isn't true. Every state which seceded stated explicity it was due to the grave offense of black people getting civil rights and made it clear that there were no other real causes. Causes which had been explicitly stated over nearly a decade - which were central to the Lincoln Douglas debates and on and on. The "other reasons" claim only came up after the war when Southern whites were trying to whitewash their cause - and most never provide any proof of these other reasons. The few they do - like whining about taxes - weren't claimed at the time and, again, go back to slavery.

That many of the soldiers didn't own slaves themselves means nothing - the implicit and explicit racism and slavery worship of southern soldiers is documented and in the rare uncensored Civil War songs, the hatred of blacks and pride in slavery exist.

Nazi's fought bravely and heroically as well - they're still Nazis. Slavery was evil, and Southerners fought for that. They were wrong, they lost and the south should feel shame over it.

[dexfarkin.livejournal.com]

I disagree to some extent. As I said, I think the personal history and heritage is what makes the issue more complex. I'd like to underline the personal part, because in no way do I feel any circumstances justify whitewashing the larger history and justify supporting any of the fetishist Confederate apologist groups that have sprung up.

In any war, there are differing stages that shape recruitment and intention in recruitment. Yes, the South was a profoundly racist culture and anyone coming out of that culture would have been steeped in it, but I would posit that the average soldier by midway through the conflict was primarily motivated less by perserving their way of life and more by the spectere of being defeated and occupied. I think there's a point in any conflict that the reasons for fighting largely stops being about ideaology on the individual level, and comes down to a more basic tribal level of 'we're about to get stomped unless we do get involved'.

Which is why I can accept the idea that one's personal history is something that can be celebrated, so long as the larger context is not sublimated in the process. I think there can be a delination between the active supporter and the circumstantial participant, again, so long as the greater picture is actively kept in mind.

[iamgerg.livejournal.com]

Pinheads glorify past battles. Be they Neo-Nazis, Son's of Confederate Veterans or drunk hosers spouting off about a famous act of arson. Hell the landscape of much of the Balkans can be traced back to wars fought over 500 years ago. Texans remember the Alamo, Canadians remember Vimy Ridge, and Americans remember Gettysburg.

That the south appropriates a defining moment in their history to celebrate, and in so doing white washes it, is hardly unique to the southern United States. The south has not, nor will it anytime soon forget about slavery, or race, or the devision between Confederate and Yankee. Watching this distinction being applied to my Yankee family (who didn't realize that they were still Yankees after 150 years until the were told so in the South.)

Race caused the entire American political system to flip on its head in the 60s. Race is a palpable factor of current political happenings, and despite the wrong headedness of the SoCV regarding their Great-Granddaddies reputation is at least a motivation I understand. I don't tend to bring up that some of my family probably sent Jews to concentration camps, or that at least one of them might have been a guard at one, but rather tend to speak of my uncle who gave regular wages to Polish prisoners of war who were assigned to his farm.

So yah, Civil War = Slavery, Nazi = Holocaust, but I worry more about the pinheads and their actions today, than their high school grasp of history and selective memories.

[jim-smith.livejournal.com]

I think the bigger picture, beyond why the southern states seceded, is simply that they seceded and the Civil War was fought over their right to unilaterally do so. Even if you want to make the argument that the Confederacy wasn't merely pro-slavery, you still have to acknowledge that it was pro-secession.

So the remarks you've quoted here seem really odd, because it's one thing to respect the Confederate forces, but to agree with their cause goes beyond mere minarchism to full-blown sedition. Mind you, I never get the sense these guys really feel they're under an illegal occupation by a brutal regime. But I don't see how else it can be construed--either you think South Carolina still has a right to be independent of the US government, or you don't.