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.