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Here's his statement on Facebook:
This is an emotional time and we all need to think through these issues with a care that recognizes the need for change but also respects the complicated history of the Civil War. The Confederate Battle Flag has wrongly been used for racist and other purposes in recent decades. It should not be used in any way as a political symbol that divides us.
But we should also remember that honorable Americans fought on both sides in the Civil War, including slave holders in the Union Army from states such as Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware, and that many non-slave holders fought for the South. It was in recognition of the character of soldiers on both sides that the federal government authorized the construction of the Confederate Memorial 100 years ago, on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.
This is a time for us to come together, and to recognize once more that our complex multicultural society is founded on the principle of mutual respect.
Mother Jones has
this background on Webb:
In his 2004 book Born Fighting, a popular history of Scots-Irish immigrants in the United States, Webb complained that present-day attacks on the Confederacy and the Confederate flag were part of "the Nazification of the Confederacy." The book included a lengthy attack on post-Civil War Reconstruction policies, and Webb claimed that the federal government "raped the region" during this period. The passage was repeated in his memoir, published in 2014.
"The entire region has been colonized from the outside, impoverishing basic infrastructure such as schools and roads while the banking system and corporate ownership sent revenues from Southern labor to the communities of the north," he wrote in his memoir. The damage done, he contended, "in some measure validated much of the resentment expressed toward the Yankee and his minions."...
Webb's longtime strategist, Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, is an even more ardent fan and defender of the Confederacy. As the New Yorker reported in 2008, Saunders "sleeps under a Rebel-flag quilt, and when challenged on such matters he has invited his inquisitors to 'kiss my Rebel ass'—his way of making the point that when Democrats are drawn into culture battles by prissy liberal sensitivities they usually lose the larger war." Saunders is currently advising Webb on his potential presidential campaign.
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98 comments:
Do you know those WWI cemeteries with their endless rows of little white crosses? None of them are for German soldiers. The German bodies were plowed under in mass graves by the allies. The Germans took note of that.......They say you can judge a society by how it treats it's lunatics and prisoners. Add vanquished enemy to that list.
Webb just might be the democrat who can get real crossover votes from white male republicans and their wives.
Webb has qualities that are lost in the Democratic Party.
Webb is loyal to the past generations who fought an invasion of their home States. The conquerors did loot the south every which way but lose after Radical Republicans went to work. To the victor went the spoils.
The price of every southern property was near nothing after 1865, and the winning bidders were always the ones who had US dollars and not CSA dollars at the sales.
But that has gone away now, except for some knee jerk scapegoating of the southerners as if everybody knows they are still under the thumb of the north. That will not go away because it is too easy a ploy.
I was home in Waunakee, Wisconsin this weekend, and saw a huge confederate flag on an enormous "Pole" on a truck.
tits.
The South always tries to blame Reconstruction for the economic backwardness from 1870-1940. The fact is, the South was falling behind the North even before the war. During the war they spent all their time and energy fighting instead of making money. After the war, they kept on doing the same thing, growing Cotton and Corn. Meanwhile the North was building industries, inventing things, and educating their kids as much as possible.
After destroying all the Confederate flags we need to go after the George Washington and Jefferson monuments. After all, those guys were just racist, white supremacist, slave holders.
And that goes for Madison and Andrew Jackson too.
I suggest we rename Washington State "Obamaland". I think Seattle, at least, would agree.
There was a time when someone like Webb represented a substantial portion of the Democratic Party--even as late as the '90s they could win enough southern white votes to add to the black vote and win a bunch of southern states. Now it seems their best hope in the south are states with lots of northern transplants (FL, VA).
The South had the better soldiers and officers, but the north had industry and numbers. Kind of like WW II - the German Army had the best soldiders and most of the best officers - if you look at how well the Germans used their limited resources compared to the profligate Allies, its's stunning. But the Allies had oil, industry and numbers.
Also, the North and the Allies had the right cause, though pace Napoleon, I think the material mattered more.
I grew up in northern Alabama. All through my tender years, I got a belly full of Confederate lore, apologetics, & more Stars & Bars flags than I ever could count.
I loathed it all.
Over the past few days, I'm getting postings from my lefty FB friends about how the South is like Nazi Germany, & how the Stars & Bars is like the swastika.
Now, I'm wondering how much it would cost to paint the front of my DC surburban area home in the pattern of the Stars & Bars. 'Cause, I don't seem to remember the Confederates murdering about 18 million civilians in the course of the Civil War.
If we can put up with crosses, Ten Commandments monuments, "god" all over our currency and polluting our anthems, pledges and oaths, we can tolerate a mere flag that honors the efforts of Confederate soldiers.
I have admired Jim Webb since I first read his book "Fields of Fire". He has "been there and done that". I don't necessarily agree with his politics, but I do agree with his sentiments in this case. We can not deny history and in the case of the Civil War there is a great deal that is in shades of grey and not clear black and white. It is probably a good time to rethink the display of the Stars and Bars. I also think it important to remember that it was followed by many brave Americans. That should not be lost in the chatter.
According to a commie history professor I once had, the North fought the Civil War in order to impose corporations on the South. Of course, that was because no war fought by the US could ever be noble so the idea that the US would fight an actual war to end slavery was not an allowed thought. Now though, it is convenient politically to otherize the South, so sure, the US fought a noble war against the evil and traitorous South!
"I also think it important to remember that it was followed by many brave Americans."
Okay but it's important to never forget — those particular brave "Americans" did not believe themselves to be Americans. In their own minds they were Virginians, Georgians, etc. And they were well aware that they were going to war in order to destroy the American nation and to assert their own "states rights" to maintain the "peculiar institution" of holding African "sub"human beings in legal bondage, as chattel, for forced labor.
YoungHegelian wrote...
...'Cause, I don't seem to remember the Confederates murdering about 18 million civilians in the course of the Civil War.
Ya... but how many millions of 'civilian' slaves died on the slave ships making the journey to the South from Africa and otherwise died unnaturally early from punishment or essentially being worked to death in service to the glorious South?
There are parts of Jim Webb I like, though he often seems pissed.
"It is probably a good time to rethink the display of the Stars and Bars" - and for about the 10th time on the Althouse blog I have to point out that the Confederate battle flag is NOT THE "STARS AND BARS". You show a real sense of ignorance about the history of the Civil War when you make this statement. The "Stars and Bars" was the first national flag of the Confederacy, a red and white stripe field with a blue canton and a circle of stars. It was later abandoned and replaced by the the "Stainless Banner" because it looked too much like the US flag. Even Hinderaker on Powerline today made the same mistake. However his commentary was spot on. The progressives have their little victory and the floodgates are open. It's all out war on the South now. No telling where this is going to end but I don't think it will be good for the South or the country as a whole. I would say they'll all be on ancestry.com checking out the pedigree and census records of every Republican (Democrats get a pass, of course) and shaming every one with a slave in their family to leave politics forever. I can already predict it.
The country is just going to come apart.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/06/the-democrats-get-their-crazy-on.php
For once, could people accurately describe what this flag actually is. It isn't simply the Confederate Battle Flag. The version used is the second Confederate Naval flag. The battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (led by Lee) used a similar, but square, version.
It should also be acknowledged that the modern popularity of the flag is almost entirely due to southern states protesting civil rights. That said, I do think that while there are many racists who view the flag that way, I think most view it more as a symbol of the "fighting rebel" bucking authority.
Hmm, according to Wikipedia, it was also the battle flag of the Army of Tennessee. (I understand this was actually rare since most battle flags were square, but that's one of those esoteric topics best left to the actual experts.)
Spengler (a.k.a. David Goldman) gets it right: http://pjmedia.com/spengler/
"The Confederate battle flag is what makes America stupid"
Excerpts:
On moral grounds I sympathize with the African-American view, but there is an even more urgent reason to rip down the Confederate flag. Our refusal to look squarely at the evil character of the American Confederacy turned us into idiots. It may be a bit late to remedy this national lapse in mental capacity, but one has to start somewhere.
America never recovered from its Civil War, which killed nearly a million combatants on both sides. The Union won on the battlefield but conceded a cultural victory of sorts to the defeated South, spinning a myth of Southern gallantry in a lost cause. This myth dominated the popular culture from D.W.Griffiths’ 1916 epic “Birth of a Nation” (which celebrates the rise of the Klu Klux Klan) to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind with its romantic image of antebellum plantation culture.
This concession to a wicked cause cut America off from the principles of its Founding and ultimately turned us into idiots. It was not always so, as Angelo Codevilla explained in his masterful 2014 book “To Make and Keep the Peace.” John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln performed brilliantly in the foreign policy arena; Lincoln’s alliance with Russia kept Great Britain from joining with the Confederacy to carve up the American republic.
The sin of the South was too great to acknowledge; after the sacrifice of nearly 30% of its military-age man and the reduction of its standard of living by half, the defeated white South could not admit to itself that it had gotten precisely what was coming to it for wickedness of slavery. It is revolting to read Southern writers’ rationalizations for Southern wickedness ... [Before the outbreak of war] the future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, offered to keep the southern states in the Union after Lincoln’s election in 1860 if only Lincoln would agree to the annexation of Cuba as a new slave territory, a history I reviewed here. The South fought for the dream of a slave empire stretching southwards, and the 90% of Southern soldiers who owed no slaves hoped to get them–like Wallenstein’s mercenaries or Napoleon’s foot-soldiers with field marshall’s batons in their rucksacks. Like Wallenstein’s and Napoleon’s armies, the Confederates fought with desperate courage, but for rapine rather than right. Crushing them was the noblest thing the United States ever did.
What a bunch of highfalutin, arrogant Shinola.
"those particular brave "Americans" did not believe themselves to be Americans." Bullshit.
In their own minds they were Virginians, Georgians, etc
Yes. And Vermonters, Iowans, Ohioans and New Yorkers. The primary identity for everyone at that time was to the state, not to the more distant federal government. Why on Earth wouldn't it be?
You're sitting in a comfy chair in an air-conditioned room 160 years distant looking down your nose at a lot of better men than you - most of whom were conscripted, anyway, and had no choice.
The cloud of smug coming in from the North is thick indeed. How does a state saying "ok, but count me out" equate to "destroying the American nation," anyway? When Latvia became independent was that the end of Russia? Was there no U.S. before Texas was granted statehood? If Hawaii pulled out of the Union tomorrow because its people just didn't want to be in the union, why would that be an act of war against Michigan?
I seem to recall there were four Northern states that had slaves themselves, anyway, hypocrites.
And James Webb is one of the biggest assholes in American politics.
Yes. And Vermonters, Iowans, Ohioans and New Yorkers. The primary identity for everyone at that time was to the state, not to the more distant federal government.
Wrong. Why do you think hundreds of thousands young men from the north--including my great grandfather and several great grand-uncles, still speaking a mixture of Gaelic and English--volunteered to fight to preserve the Union?
the Confederates fought with desperate courage, but for rapine rather than right
That's easy to say when you don't have an Army sacking your family farm and those of your neighbors to feed itself on your land.
the 90% of Southern soldiers who owed no slaves hoped to get them
Garbage. I'd like to see the polling data. The soldiers who owned no slaves hoped to get the fuck home alive with all their limbs, and find their homes still standing.
Roughcoat... Yes, yes. All volunteers. That's why New York had a massive draft riot.
Fools.
What began as scattered calls for removing the Confederate battle flag from a single state capitol intensified with striking speed and scope on Tuesday into an emotional, nationwide movement to strip symbols of the Confederacy from public parks and buildings, license plates, Internet shopping sites and retail stores. …
In Tennessee, political leaders from both parties said a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and an early Ku Klux Klan leader, should be moved out of the State House. In Virginia, Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, ordered that the Confederate flag no longer appear on license plates, and political leaders in Maryland, North Carolina and Tennessee vowed to do the same. …
In Minnesota, activists demanded that a lake named after John C. Calhoun, a senator and vice president from South Carolina who was a proponent of slavery, be renamed.
If you want the flag taken down, you're a part of the problem, not the solution.
It is also worth noting in discussions on this topic that South dominated American government from 1800 to 1860. The Dred Scott decision pretty much cemented that dominance, and war was the only way to break it. Dred Scott meant that the North would have to submit to the South in the matter of slavery. Of course, and with monumental hypocrisy in light of what was to come, Southerners were counting on the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to enforce the law concerning the return of escaped slaves. Southerners were quite willing to rely on the federal government when they could rig the system to rule in their favor. In the matter of escaped slaves the South was eager to dispense with states' rights and defer to a strong central government. And why would southerners feel this way? Dred Scott ensured the tyranny of a minority with a repugnant social sytems over the majority population.
Blogger Meade said...
"I also think it important to remember that it was followed by many brave Americans."
Okay but it's important to never forget — those particular brave "Americans" did not believe themselves to be Americans. In their own minds they were Virginians, Georgians, etc. And they were well aware that they were going to war in order to destroy the American nation and to assert their own "states rights" to maintain the "peculiar institution" of holding African "sub"human beings in legal bondage, as chattel, for forced labor.
When does your lust get satiated?
The Civil War was as much a war of the North vs the South as it was a war of Republicans vs Democrats. The Democrats fought for the Confederacy. Democrats = Confederacy.
Shouldn't we force the Democrats to get rid of their party name and rename themselves to something new and more honorable? They stood for slavery. The party, not the individuals. The Republican party was created on the platform of opposition to slavery.
Ok, sure, maybe you won't want to take it that far. But that's you. Once you start this snowball rolling down hill, your responsible for how large and unwieldy it gets. You are. Meade.
Because you were a part of the mob. No use whining, "Hey, I was satisfied after the first blood was shed."
The Northerners were mean to the Southerners? Boo hoo. If they wanted better, they shouldn't have lost.
The New York draft riot was an outlier event. The vast majority of Union troops were volunteers. And by vast majority, I mean in excess of 95 percent.
The vast majority of Confederate troop were also volunteers. Except that huge numbers of them decided in the course of their service to volunteer in the other direction, i.e., to desert. Desertion took an enormous toll on Confederate armies throughout the war. This is the dirty secret of the noble Southern cause that Southerner rarely address: many, many rebel soldiers lacked the loyalty, discipline, character, and courage to stay in the fight.
"It's all out war on the South now. No telling where this is going to end but I don't think it will be good for the South or the country as a whole."
I agree. But don't forget you can avoid it all by voting for Liberal Democrats. When the "Solid South" supported FDR and Truman, Hollywood and the Northern liberals couldn't get enough Confederate love. Go watch movies like "Sente Fe Trail" or "GWTW".
And its hard to defend the South on the flag issue when its Southern Politicians who are leading the charge to get rid of it.
More from Spengler: "Public display of any kind of the symbol of the slaveholders’ rebellion should have been banned after the Union victory in 1865."
And Reconstruction, plus the occupation of the South, should have continued for at least 10 years after it terminated. Maybe more. As it was, Southerners were able to weasel out of their duties and responsibilities as Americans by replacing the "peculiar institution" of slavery with the equally peculiar and altogether cruel and un-American system of racial apartheid in which blacks were effectively oppressed and terrorized into submission.
"The New York draft riot was an outlier event. The vast majority of Union troops were volunteers. And by vast majority, I mean in excess of 95 percent."
Union Army - 2,000,000 served. 50,000 draftees.
reocean:
As I said.
"Shouldn't we force the Democrats to get rid of their party name and rename themselves to something new and more honorable?"
You a Democrat, eric? I'm not. But if I was, I'd sure lobby my party to take a cold hard look at it's history and to reflect on how it may still be demagoguing race.
Suck it up, eric. Muster some courage. Be a true American — loyal above all to what is, after all, a pretty darn exceptional constitution.
The Union came within 62 days of losing the War by Democrat MacClellan getting Lincoln thrown out of office. Mac had promised a peace with the South keeping its slaves.
But the charge of Hardee's Corps and Cleburnes Division on day one of Jonesboro made to stop the Federals just as they crossed the Flint River outside Jonesboro, was stopped cold by a unique moat like gulch running from the ridge line RR tracks in Jonesboro to the Flint River that was hidden by undergrowth until the charging Confederates were stopped under Union fire 100 yards from the defensive lines.
The next day, after another full days battle along the Macon to Atlanta RR track ended with a Southern retreat and Hood's surrender of Atlanta 20 miles to the north because the last RR line was cut by Sherman. That was the decisive battle of the War as far as its outcome.
it was August 31, 1864, the real day they drove old Dixie down.
@dwick,
Ya... but how many millions of 'civilian' slaves died on the slave ships making the journey to the South from Africa and otherwise died unnaturally early from punishment or essentially being worked to death in service to the glorious South?
Uhhh, you might want to bone up on the facts of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Here's a good start.
Well over 90 percent of African slaves were imported into the Caribbean and South America. Only about 6 percent of imports went directly to British North America. Yet by 1825, the U.S. had a quarter of blacks in the New World.
You know why the South had so many slaves by 1825, yet so few were imported? Because so many of the slaves further south were dead, but they survived in the antebellum South.
5% of the slaves from Africa ended up in North America. And, by God, those were the luckiest of the lot by a far, far margin. South American & Caribbean plantation slavery was horrible by comparison, with much higher rates of mortality. There are some scholars that estimate that for some Caribbean islands the entire slave population had to be essentially replaced over a 25 year span. For those poor souls who ended up in the mines, their life spans were measured in a few years at most.
There were operations in the ante-bellum South, such as SC rice plantations, that had high mortality rates (For their owners, too, from diseases endemic to the wet lowlands). Mortality rates after arrival were not bad by the standards of the time. The slaves' descendents had life-spans equivalent to their owners. As awful as ante-bellum slavery could be, what with the break-up of families & sexual abuse, to list two that especially rankle modern sensibilities, there was no better place for the slaves themselves in the world for an African slave ship to unload its cargo.
Don't even get me started on African slavery in the Muslim world & east of Africa.
Democrats accepted the Confederate battle flag from 1860 to 2015, while diligently implementing slavery, secession, segregation, Jim Crow and the "Great"Society. It's high time they stopped, the racist bastids.
But we should also remember that honorable Americans fought on both sides in the Civil War.
I disagree with James Webb here. I do not think it was honorable to take up rebellious arms against the United States merely because one disliked the outcome of the 1860 Presidential election. Seven southern states seceded before Lincoln took office, I also believe it was particularly traitorous for those who had taken a separate oath to the U.S. Army and fought against that Army. Actually, I don't find anything honorable about the Civil War except showing that a "nation conceived in liberty can long endure" and the emancipation of humans held in slavery.
@Roughcoat,
As it was, Southerners were able to weasel out of their duties and responsibilities as Americans by replacing the "peculiar institution" of slavery with the equally peculiar and altogether cruel and un-American system of racial apartheid in which blacks were effectively oppressed and terrorized into submission.
Since until WWII, there weren't very many blacks outside of the South, we should look at the post-war history of the black community in the North.
Harlem. Compton. South Side of Chicago. U-street corridor. South Philly. Indeed the list goes on & on, just name a northern city, and a native can give you "where the coloreds live."
So, tell us about apartheid, again.....
YoungHegelian, nothing that you say in your post invalidates what I said about the South.
And this: The mistreatment of blacks in the North, such as it was, was not sanctioned by law. In the South, the law sanctioned apartheid. There was a reason blacks migrated to the north in massive numbers after World War II, notwithstanding conditions in northern cities. Conditions were worse for them, in their opinion, throughout the South.
Oh Sweet Jesus! Give it a rest. That damn war has been over for 150 years. Stop fighting it on blog comments.
There are REAL enemies out there in the world. Let's all get together and fight them.
Instead of following the Democrat lead to defeat the descendents of Confederate families, we should welcome them as fellow Americans under the stars and stripes. The North and South schism desired by Democrats needs to be defeated.
There was a reason blacks migrated to the north in massive numbers after World War II,
Just as there is a reason they are moving back to the South now...
If the South was so concerned about states' right, why didn't the South respect and support the rights of northern states in the matter of Dred Scott?
Meade wrote;
You a Democrat, eric? I'm not. But if I was, I'd sure lobby my party to take a cold hard look at it's history and to reflect on how it may still be demagoguing race.
Suck it up, eric. Muster some courage. Be a true American — loyal above all to what is, after all, a pretty darn exceptional constitution.
Like you, I am not a Democrat. Nor am I a Republican.
Nor do I live in SC or have the Confederate flag flying.
However, unlike you, I'm not advocating to be in other people's business. Calling them racist. Insisting they need to change because I know what that flag means to them. I don't. Nor do I presume to know.
If you're going to be consistent, Meade, you need to make the same arguments toward the Democrat party, of which you are not a part, as you are of those who would choose to fly the Confederate flag, yet another group you're not a part of.
Roughcoat: Spengler (a.k.a. David Goldman) gets it right: http://pjmedia.com/spengler/
"The Confederate battle flag is what makes America stupid"
Excerpts:
On moral grounds I sympathize with the African-American view, but there is an even more urgent reason to rip down the Confederate flag. Our refusal to look squarely at the evil character of the American Confederacy turned us into idiots. It may be a bit late to remedy this national lapse in mental capacity, but one has to start somewhere.
"Our refusal to look squarely at the evil character of the American Confederacy turned us into idiots." Really, Roughcoat? So that fatuous crank "Spengler" has persuaded you that all the madness of contemporary America, all our turning away from constitutional ideals of the early republic, all the erosion of freedoms, the increasing racial animosity, out-of-control public and private debt, the metastazing bureaucracy, our foreign policy insanities, the corruption, the social fracturing, the accelerating destruction of national sovereignty - all besetting us now, all arising from the idiocy that set in because of our failure to proscribe the Battle Flag and impose a Carthaginian peace on a defeated slave-owning society.
Which obvious connection people like you somehow just noticed last week, when the Wisest People in America told you that the Confederate Battle Flag was the cause of a psychotic's murder spree. Did you slap yourself on the forehead and tell yourself, "Eureka! Of course! That's why we're idiots and the crazies are loose on the land now!
Good thing "Spengler", ex-LaRouche-ite, perennial dispenser of portentous foreign-affairs "expertise" (always wrong), itinerant theological crank, has enlightened you! We can still save ourselves from the seemingly intractable messes we're in (as well as preventing murderous rampages by psychotics) if we only conduct the purge we neglected 150 years ago! Surely there haven't been any other malign influences on the body politic in the intervening years to cause any of this!
Yeah, that makes all kinds of sense. But it apparently impresses you deeply.
Go back and re-read the twaddle you're lauding here with a bit more discernment, and maybe you'll notice how little is there. It's the same sort of "deep", meaningless fluff that Goldman has been peddling for years. Sheesh, learn how to evaluate the crap you consume on the internet a little more critically.
Roughcoat said...This is the dirty secret of the noble Southern cause that Southerner rarely address: many, many rebel soldiers lacked the loyalty, discipline, character, and courage to stay in the fight.
Well, and enough food to not starve. But yeah, fuck those guys, you're better not only than them but than Southerners now (since you're smart enough and courageous enough to address those things they're too stupid and cowardly to acknowledge).
The black race is being aborted right off this continent but the people doing it are against the Confederate flag so they're OK.
Roughcoat: Just because it's amusing, here are the first sentences from the US Civil War section of the Wikipedia article Desertion:
The Union Army faced large scale desertions. The total number of Union deserters far exceeded that of the South.[27][28] This has been partly attributed to southern soldiers fighting a defensive war, on their own ground, rather than an offensive war of invasion, giving the southern soldiers a sense that they were defending their homeland.
Meade said... Be a true American — loyal above all to what is, after all, a pretty darn exceptional constitution
Yeah, you tell 'em, Meade, it's fun to question other people's patriotism, and that's an OK thing for some people to do now. Not too long ago it was a shameful act, but back then the people accused of being insufficiently patriotic were on the political left, so that's different.
Quick question while we're on the subject of flags--is it OK to question the patriotism, loyalty, or "true Americaness" of people who've burned U.S. flags (as Roof did)? Or who proudly have their picture taken standing on a U.S. flag? Or saying things like "God damn America?" Or claiming that the U.S. flag itself is shameful and shouldn't be displayed (since it's a symbol of oppression, etc)? I mean, while we're drawing up our list of people who need to take actions to convince you they're adequately patriotic I want to make sure we don't miss anyone.
This is the dirty secret of the noble Southern cause that Southerner rarely address: many, many rebel soldiers lacked the loyalty, discipline, character, and courage to stay in the fight.
Well, I see others have dealt with Roughcoat's piggishness admirably. This in particular kept out as a breathtakingly arrogant and ignorant thing for him to say from the safety of a computer hutch.
The CSA did not have anywhere near the desertion issues the union had in northern virginia until the seige of Petersburg. By then the ANV had been bled white by the Overland Campaign and were operating on starvation rations for months at a time. These were veteran troops, nearly all of them, under some very capable officers and they had already been through Hell and back again. It's quite something for you to call these men 'undisciplined, disloyal cowards.' How much experience do you yourself have with being in their situation? That is, starving, filthy, sick, unpaid, in an Army fighting a losing war, outgunned and outmanned at every step, lacking provisions like shoes, ammunition, living like a rat in a trench with your friends dying around you? Tell us all about how you're equipped to pass judgment on their sacrifices and the decisions they made.
Tell us how you totally would have kicked ass in their shoes, sport. I like it when noobs spout off about how brave they would be in this or that combat situation. It's very entertaining.
Meade said...Be a true American — loyal above all to what is, after all, a pretty darn exceptional constitution.
Thinking about that Constitution it occurs to me that a South Carolinian might easily have in his family people who fought against the British in the Revolutionary War, people who fought against the Union in the Civil War, people who fought against the Central Powers in WW1, against the Axis Powers in WW2...and so on. His relatives helped win the fight that allowed the nation to exist and fought on the nation's side in every conflict after the Civil War. But some of his ancestors fought for the Confederates, so it's ok for you to question his loyalty to America if he doesn't insult those particular ancestors quickly enough to satisfy you. Sounds fair.
You know the question of whether secession was legal wasn't settled in the courts.It was settled on the battlefield.They call that force majeure. Yay the Union was preserved.In a civil war one side loses and is called traitors and the other side wins and is called heroes.
By the way besides the British who are the only people to have burned American cities?Americans.And just how many of those were in the North?0.
if we purge Nathan Bedford Forest, will we likewise prge everything named for Robert Byrd? and other racists Democrats? the Confederate flag is just first blood. Lets make them blood let their own
Imagine a roving band perambulating West Virginia destroying everything in that state named after KKK grand kleagle Robert Byrd.
Remember how Democrats used to defend that man? They fell in line behind him as dutifully as they are falling behind the woman who used the Confederate flag against a black opponent just seven years ago.
HoodlumDoodlum to Meade: "... Be a true American — loyal above all to what is, after all, a pretty darn exceptional constitution."
Yeah, you tell 'em, Meade, it's fun to question other people's patriotism, and that's an OK thing for some people to do now. Not too long ago it was a shameful act...
Now, now, HD, let's show a little understanding. When one doesn't have the power (or the stones) to take on the guys wiping their arses with that Constitution right here and now, and would prefer not to dwell on that unpleasant reality - indeed, when one is, in fact, actually very much on board with some of that arse-wiping - this is the sort of thing one does.
Meade said...
"I also think it important to remember that it was followed by many brave Americans."
Okay but it's important to never forget — those particular brave "Americans" did not believe themselves to be Americans. In their own minds they were Virginians, Georgians, etc. And they were well aware that they were going to war in order to destroy the American nation and to assert their own "states rights" to maintain the "peculiar institution" of holding African "sub"human beings in legal bondage, as chattel, for forced labor.
I don't think those southern boys on the line gave it that much thought. They just liked a good fight.
Suck it up, eric. Muster some courage. Be a true American — loyal above all to what is, after all, a pretty darn exceptional constitution.
Loyal to those principals and preceding documents that brought us our Constitution. The Soviet Union had a pretty exceptional constitution as well.
How like the Red Guards in Mao's China and how very much like ISIS's destruction of pagan statues.
Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.
The red blog commenters of courage.
I think it's a legitimate question as to whether the war of 1861-65 was really a civil war or a failed war of independence. In most civil wars, one set of factions tries to overthrow the existing government. That didn't happen in what is called the American Civil War.
Be that as it may, the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (what is commonly and incorrectly referred to as the Confederate Flag) was used after the war by violent racist (Democrat) organizations like the KKK. Whatever the flag might have stood for during the war, it was tainted by who used it afterwards. In a similar vein, for over 2500 years the swastika was a peaceful symbol in Buddhism. Today, it's hard to disconnect the swastika from the evil Nazis. Buddhists understandably don't like it but what can they do. The battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia is similarly tainted. It's time for them to come down.
Let's run it down the flagpole and see if anyone doesn't salute.
Meade: Any comments? Confederate Statues Vandalized
I seem to remember you being a bit upset about people defacing war memorials around where you live (with chalk, I think).
Was I "upset"? I don't think so.
Why don't you calmly express yourself by taking the opportunity to go help restore the monuments, Mr, Doodlum?
How many more wars do we have to re-fight before Obama leaves office:
-Cold War
-Race Wars
-Holy Wars (Crusades)
-Civil War
I wonder who'll be victorious this go around...
I want to think the best of people, so my takeaway is going to be that Jim Webb comes closet to accepting the Confederate Battle Flag, so that means that Jim Webb does not accept the Confederate Battle Flag.
Browndog said...
How many more wars do we have to re-fight before Obama leaves office:
-Cold War
-Race Wars
-Holy Wars (Crusades)
-Civil War
The terms "Civil War" and "Holy War" are massive oxymorons, even more so than "government worker", "military intelligence", or "jumbo shrimp."
"Jim Webb comes closet"
Top typo of the morning!
Meade said...
Was I "upset"? I don't think so.
How would you characterize your emotional response? Were you displeased? Since you sought to undo the vandalism it seems like a reasonable assumption. Do you feel similar displeasure by the vandalism of these monuments? If not why not?
Why don't you calmly express yourself by taking the opportunity to go help restore the monuments, Mr, Doodlum?
Thankfully none of the monuments in my city have been defaced yet, Meade. My question is: does it bother you that those other monuments were vandalized?
All of the critiques of how the West exploited Africa can easily be made about the North's occupation of the South.
Was the Confederacy dumb? Hell yes. Retarded idea.
But the Confederacy didn't seek to fight the US. They sought to seperate. The war, by and large, was defensive. The only attacks up North were attempts to get the North to let them leave.
Okay but it's important to never forget — those particular brave "Americans" did not believe themselves to be Americans. In their own minds they were Virginians, Georgians, etc. And they were well aware that they were going to war in order to destroy the American nation and to assert their own "states rights" to maintain the "peculiar institution" of holding African "sub"human beings in legal bondage, as chattel, for forced labor.
It's similar to Dresden. Was the enemy loathsome? Yeah. But did they deserve what they received? Likely not.
Blacks weren't exactly held as being equal humans in the North, either. And the North had few problems shipping slaves around.
Ya... but how many millions of 'civilian' slaves died on the slave ships making the journey to the South from Africa and otherwise died unnaturally early from punishment or essentially being worked to death in service to the glorious South?
Around 500,000 were sent to the US. About 12M slaves were sent across the Atlantic total in the entire history of the slave trade (more slaves are in Africa NOW, mind you).
Most slaves, the VAST majority, went to Brazil.
"does it bother you that those other monuments were vandalized?"
Answer: yes.
HoodlumDoodlum: Meade: Any comments? Confederate Statues Vandalized.
From the article: "In Baltimore, the same words were done in yellow paint over an etched message on a statue that was erected by the Maryland Daughters of the Confederacy in February 1903, The Baltimore Sun reports."
While naturally I deplore the extra-legal vandalism, we must admit that, if the Daughters of the Confederacy had not been allowed to erect that memorial 112 years ago, Baltimore would not now be the dangerous place for black Americans that it is.
Those D.O.C members have a lot to answer for Baltimore being a shithole right now.
When you stir the pot, the sludge rises to the top. All this controversy just serves to energize the assholes.......I had fore uncles who served in combat on the Union side. I have no love for the Confederate flag, and I'm glad to see it go. It's good that southern politicians for the most part agree that it's time to put it away......I wish the liberals would accept the fact that they won this argument and not keep pressing until they find some pressure point that makes white southerners strike back.
The honor of the Confederates was pretty well done in forever when the Union troops liberated Andersonville Prison, near Jimmy Carter's hometown.
It seems the Confederate Army officers there were worse than the SS were later at the art of starving men to death by denying them enough food, water, and cooking fuel to survive. "Unexpectedly" a third of the 45,000 Union prisoners held there died in 8 months. It was was an actual War Crime.
Great. Another person who writes as if Andersonville were the only POW camp. The North had a much greater capacity for provisioning the POW camps they ran all over the country. And yet we saw death rates of up to a third at places like Elmira, NY. That's not a 'war crime?' Or mortality of 23 percent in Chicago. That's not a war crime?
No, because the officers who ran those camps were never court martialed. Why is that?
As far as mortality rates are concerned, the CSA also ran some of the best POW camps in the war, such as Camp Ford.
But somebody saw a movie about Andersonville once, so there you have it.
Elmira was a pretty grim prison, and the North had fewer excuses for it. I am no Civil War buff, but I grew up near there and the place were the prison was used to give me the chills as a kid. As locals, we learned about it through the museum, not from books. It was never mentioned in New York State history books.
I am not defending the South. I think they were wrong and their cause was execrable.
.I wish the liberals would accept the fact that they won this argument and not keep pressing until they find some pressure point that makes white southerners strike back.
Ha ha ha ha! Too late. Of course liberals will accuse Republicans of harvesting racist votes because people who aren't racists are offended as being branded as such. But guess what? Liberals are going to call us all racists no matter what we do!
It seems the Confederate Army officers there were worse than the SS were later at the art of starving men to death by denying them enough food, water, and cooking fuel to survive. "Unexpectedly" a third of the 45,000 Union prisoners held there died in 8 months. It was was an actual War Crime.
tradguy, at that point, the Southern TROOPS weren't being fed either. Andersonville did what it could given its situation, but things were rather dire.
It's not like Southern troops or citizens were living well in the constant siege.
It is not remotely a war crime.
And, Dems, you wonder why you lost the South? It wasn't because you became "anti-racist" --- which you're not. It's because you tend to be assholes.
Brazil freed it's slaves in the 1880s, without a war, and without punishing it's slave owners. The US had a war because the North wanted it. They felt they were morally superior and they wanted to punish the evil Southerners. Apparently they still do. Ft. Sumter was not located in the North. The North invaded the South.
Hey Jason ...Go visit the graves and read the stories and walk the grounds of Andersonville Prison for yourself. Those men were intentionally killed. So why should your pathetic defense that "the Yankees did bad things too." mean didily squat.
The Confederate Army in South West Georgia acted as far from honorable as the east is from the west.
As for any honorable southern aristocrats like Ashley Wilkes in the fictional Gone With The Wind, there were none. They were all mean assholes that would kill you as soon as look at you.
People can switch political parties, switch again, and are free to change their positions on public policy.
Good.
Which is why I registered Republican when I turned 18.And would still never vote for the party of Woodrow Wilson.Family history still recounts just how hard it was after the War in southern Alabama and Georgia.(gg granddaddy in the 15th Alabama.).
Brazil freed it's slaves in the 1880s, without a war, and without punishing it's slave owners. The US had a war because the North wanted it. They felt they were morally superior and they wanted to punish the evil Southerners. Apparently they still do. Ft. Sumter was not located in the North. The North invaded the South.
Ken, read a fucking history book already.
The pendulum is swinging too far, as Apple and Amazon are eliminating games that feature Confederate symbols. EVEN IF THEY ARE JUST HISTORICAL MILITARY STRATEGY GAMES.
EMD
On the other hand, they are running a special on air-brushes.
Harlem. Compton. South Side of Chicago. U-street corridor. South Philly. Indeed the list goes on & on, just name a northern city, and a native can give you "where the coloreds live."
So, tell us about apartheid, again…..
That sounds like a ludicrous comparison. You could just as well say that "apartheid" caused the creation of Little Italy, Chinatown, Koreatown, Russian Hill, Germantown (just west of Philadelphia), New York (which I guess was settled by English Yorkshiremen), Novia Scotia, New Amsterdam (settled by Dutch), etc., etc., etc. The fact that ethnic communities naturally immigrated together and settled amongst themselves along with their shared languages, customs and experiences is vastly different from a legal regime of forced racial segregation as prevailed in the South.
Go visit the graves and read the stories and walk the grounds of Andersonville Prison for yourself.
Actually, I have.
However, wandering about the Southland communing with ghosts is not a basis for drawing broad conclusions about things that were happening elsewhere in the country and that were widespread at the time . I'm sorry your understanding of the issue is only a road-trip deep. However, I tend to find that drawing on a broader number of sources of information, including the actual mortality at camps where the subject is mortality, to be a more reliable basis than your magic Ouija Board of Confirmation Bias.
Your mileage, obviously, varies.
Some evil, sick nobody kills nine good people, and the families of the victims, members of the church to which they belonged, and the entire city of Charleston reacted with the kind of unity and Christian charity that takes my breath away. So why are we refighting the Civil War now? Because unity, forgiveness, and Christian charity don't further anyone's political agenda, keeping the culture war at a low boil does. I'm declaring myself a conscientious objector. To hell with them all.
Oh lighten up, Largely.
We're Americans. Fighting is what we do.
When we're not fucking.
To hell with you too, Meade.
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