Thursday, November 30, 2006

Presidential Candidate Biden Panders to Confederate Sentiment.

As reported in "The State" concerning Biden's campaigning in South Carolina, Nov. 28, 2006, Jim Davenport, Associated Press. http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/16117154.htm

"He's not shy about talking about South Carolina's Confederate history either.

After a club member noted an upcoming event at the state Department of Archives and History included a chance to see the state's original copy of the Articles of Secession, Biden asked: "Where else could I go to a Rotary Club where (for a) Christmas Party the highlight is looking at the Articles?"

Biden noted Delaware was a border state and "a slave state that fought beside the North. That's only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South - there were a couple of other states in the way."

The crowd roared with laughter.

Evidently Biden is campaigning for the Confederate Vote.

I have updated the Presidential Campaign page with this link.

http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/presidentialcandidates2008.htm

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Sons of Confederate Veterans start anti-NCAA Campaign

The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) has started a campaign against the National Collegiate Atheltics Association (NCAA) and the Black Coaches Association (BCA). The SCV has a reference to it on their website www.scv.org which has a link to a story in the "Washington Post" on their campaign against the NCAA. The following is the link to the "Washington Post" article.

"Washington Post" article.

The SCV also announces a link to a website, which has been launched for the anti-NCAA campaign. http://ncaainterference.org/ This site is an attack on the entire NCAA and the BCA.

The SCV is already running a campaign against NASCAR and that campaign seems to be largely going no where. Perhaps they have given up on NASCAR and think the NCAA is an easier target.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Deranged Lew Rockwell Ranting

This article on the highways is fairly typical what passes for thought at www.lewrockwell.com :

http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block66.html

Interestingly enough, Block has a table of deaths per 100M vehicle miles. It shows that the rate has decline from 5.98 to 1.64, from 1957 to 1994. This is nearly a 4-fold reduction. However, Block calls the government departments in charge of the highways "mass murderers." Reading through Block's article you come across all sorts of rants and rages, references to Stalin and Hitler, but I don't find an actual critique of this enviable record of improvement.

When you consider that you have to work on an existing built system of highways and can't rebuild anything easily, and that there needs to be learning cycles, and sometimes lax laws (Texas in the 1980s refused to ban open alcholic beverages in cars while driving.) It is quite an accomplishment.

Block rages on various irrelvant tangents and seems to be incapable of logical thought. This whole article is supposed to justify private roads and highways.

Block is a professor of economics at Loyola University in New Orleans.

Friday, November 24, 2006

No Plantation Christmas

Here in Texas we have Christmas Tree Farms and Christmas Tree Plantations. I would hope that no one would buy a tree from a Christmas Tree Plantation.

Now, I know that technically that a plantation is a farm with an organized labor force in the production of some agricultural product. A plantation is the agricultural equivalent of a factory. However, in some contexts, its meaning is fixed as mean Old South Plantation, in some cases it is stated as such.

We support banal white nationalism when we purchase these products. We promote the fantasy that the Old South Plantation was desireable and erase the crimes of slavery. Purchasing "plantation" labeled products, the purchaser is complicit the historical falsifaction of the "Old South Plantation" myth and is guilty of aiding and abetting banal white nationalism. With the great many products available to the consumer, there is no reason to purchase plantation-labeled products other than to consume the Old South Plantation fantasy. No one is going to suffer even the most minor hardship by purchasing something other than some "plantation" labeled product.

Corporations which produce "plantation" labeled products are not good corporate citizens. Their other products should be boycotted also.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

The Dallas Racist Way

It is not accidental that I was living in Dallas when I discovered the Neo-Confederate movement. The city of Dallas has this racist underground and because of it I found ten years of the "Southern Partisan" magazine in the Dallas Public Library in their storage.

The city of Dallas has no human rights commission. You might wonder why there is no agitation from the minority community for one, but then you should understand that this is a city where the African American mayor, Ron Kirk, declared a Confederate Heritage Day for the City of Dallas.

In the "Dallas Morning News" 11/18/06, Saturday, front page 1A, and 4A, is a story of the Federal Courts ruling that the Preston Hollow Elementary School practiced illegal segregation of minority students. This is the full online story.

Dallas Morning News story

This is the link to Federal Judge Lindsay's ruling:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/img/11-06/1118phopinion.pdf

The judge pointed out that is was very likely that officials in the DISD knew what was happening or should have known in his ruling which was very critical. The DISD public statements are very weasely after this court ruling. The DISD attorneys actually argued for seperate but equal in their defense.

In 2003 Dallas was released from a Federal Court Ordered Desegregation Plan, because supposedly DISD had moved forward from the Civil Rights era. Didn't take long for DISD to revert to their old ways. Remember this when you hear politicians saying that the Voting Rights Act is no longer needed.

This is a Dallas Independent School District school, with many minority school board members. However, like Ron Kirk, many of so-called minority leaders in Dallas, are just looking for the goodie bags that they can get from holding office and have an interest in civil rights mostly during re-election time.

Trent Lott's Neo-Confederate past.

A couple articles, one on Lott's Neo-Confederate past.

Return of Trent Lott article.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1212-06.htm This is an article from 2002.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Jonah Goldberg's selective memory on Trent Lott

Jonah Goldberg blogs at National Review online on Trent Lott.

Blog here on Trent Lott

Some assertions are interesting. Goldberg says

"It also should be remembered that Lott’s downfall was essentially a coup orchestrated in part by a White House that didn’t think Lott’s Confederate nostalgia jibed well with “compassionate conservatism.” Retrieving Lott from his Mississippi Elba may be the Senate’s way of telling the White House, “You won’t have the Senate GOP to kick around anymore.”So let us concede that he will be the consummate inside man in the Senate.

Let’s even concede that the paroxysm of political correctness that cost Lott his leadership post in the first place was overdone. The question remains: What are those senators smoking?"

If I remember correctly, I think National Review was the vehicle which the White House used to orchestrate Lott's downfall. If it was a "paroxysm of political correctness" it was National Review's "paroxysm."

I think the GOP is saying that they are finished with this "Big Tent," let's-go-after-minority-votes, Republican party and are adopting some of Samuel Francis' vision.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Fever Swamps Rule! Trent Lott elected GOP Whip in U.S. Senate, GOP Party of Jefferson Davis Again

"Fever Swamps" is the derisory label applied by "National Review" magazine to conservative views which they consider extreme, such as Neo-Confederacy. Trent Lott said the Republican Party was the party of the descendants of Jefferson Davis in the "Southern Partisan." This link has the complete "Southern Partisan" interview. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/lott.sp.1.html

Trent Lott has been elected GOP Whip of the U.S. Senate. CNN Article.

Trent Lott had resigned his position of majority leader in 2002 because of his statements at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party where he stated that he thought the nation would have been better if the Dixiecrats won in 1948. This online Time magazine article explains it.

Time magazine article.

"National Review" waged a ferocious war against Trent Lott on the behalf of the White House driving him from his leadership position. I thought it was fairly hypocritical of them. It is not like they didn't know all along for the last 20 years what was happening in the Republican party with Dick Armey, Jesse Helms, Phil Gramm, Thad Cochran and others interviewing in the "Southern Partisan." If you have ever gone through the early "National Review" from 1955 to 1965, (and I have), you know that it is really hypocritical of them. The early "National Review" was anti-civil rights and fairly racist.

There was one good thing about the Lott controversy. Along with the Ashcroft controversy, the McCain/"Southern Partisan" controversy, just about everyone learned the term Neo-Confederate.

What does the election of Trent Lott mean? I think it is the start of a radically new direction for the Republicans. It really shows the collapse of George W. Bush's authority in the Republican party. I think all the controls and moderating Republican party activity in support of programs to outreach to Hispanic and African American voters is over.

The Neo-Confederates are on the loose again.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Party of Dixie, Also, Trent Lott running for Senate Republican Whip

The party of Dixie label and Southern conservative label are applied to the Republican party in these articles.


Party of Dixie article.

Southern conservative party article.

Trent Lott is running for Senate GOP Whip

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/11/8/143511.shtml?s=ic

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Feingold not running for President/ 2008 Presidential Campaign

I am updating the Presidential page by both making not which candidates have declared that they are running and deleting those that declare that they aren't running.

Feingold voted for Ashcroft in both the the Senate Judiciary Committee and in the general vote. As a type of Democrat willing to give Neo-Confederacy a free pass, I am glad to see he isn't running for president.

I do need to start working on the Presidential Candidate page. The 2008 presidential campaign is underway.

If anyone has any information on the 2008 candidate relevant to Neo-Confederacy I would be interested. Of course I would need to have documentation.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Presidential candidates 2008 page revised

I removed George Allen's entry. I added Obama and Vilsack. I don't have any information on either one, either pro or con. I am interested in information I don't have.

I would appreciate letters being written by their constituents to Obama and Vilsack to get their position on Neo-Confederate related topics.

The link to the Presidential Candidates 2008 page is on the right side of the blog.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Impact of the Elections on Neo-Confederacy

Let me say upfront that I am not sure what all the impacts will be. However, I think that there will be some impacts of relevance to the Neo-Confederates. I have these speculations to offer.

REPUBLICANS AND CONSERVATIVE INFIGHTING WILL HAVE AN IMPACT

Some conservative ideologies have been frozen out of the Republican party by the political clout of the White House and the Republican leadership that has dominated the last 6 years or so. Their authority in the Republican party, will be much less and as a consequence I think we will see these formerly suppressed ideologies regaining a position in the Republican party including Neo-Confederacy in various forms. Though, the people who have financed the Republican parties over the last 6 years or so will have considerable influence and as various ideologies don't serve their purpose, they will attempt to freeze these ideologies out and will have some success.

However, that will have some limitation. If in some State, Congressional district, region, getting elected necessarily involves taking a certain position, and not taking the position involves being out of office, persons running for office will reject any national body attempting to set the agenda. I think we are beginning to see this with the issue of immigration.

Also, the ability to suppress dissident conservative ideologies depended on a national Republican leader, Bush, with broad national support and able to get candidates elected and punish dissidents. Bush is now the opposite, his association is a quick ticket to being out of office, that is he is fatally toxic to a political career. Republicans are avoiding him like the plague, I suppose since he is. His political group has a very limited future, and much opposition in the Republican party as bringers of defeat and powerlessness. They will not be getting donors' funding and will be without influence and therefore no clout.

There should also be a lot of political infighting as to who is to blame. A lot of fighting for power. Those groups which are seen as the source of future electoral defeat, the existing dominating forces of the Republican party are likely to be purged of influence. Also, while the fighting is going on, there will be no one group dominating, no group to police conservative ideology or having the time to do so, and groups will need as many allies as possibles. What an opportunity for conservative dissidents. Pat Buchanan is likely to have a revival in fortunes.

It will be interesting to see how many Republican party concepts closely associated with George W. Bush will be dropped or expelled. The idea of the "big tent" I think will be collapsed.

With Neo-Confederacy in particular, they have positioned themselves in opposition to Bush, did so loud and clear. That will give them some credibility I suppose with some conservatives.

THE "9/11" ERA IS OVER

One major blow that the Neo-Confederates suffered, was 9/11, and many of its members dropped the idea of secession to engage themselves in what they saw as national solidarity. When Michael Hill was critical of the Republican party post-9/11 program, many members were horrified. Now there is national disaffection with the Republican party over the Republican party's response to 9/11 and Neo-Confederates are not as far out of the mainstream on 9/11, and it appears not much out of the antiwar mainstream at all.

I think Neo-Confederacy will be on the loose.

James Webb's Neo-Confederate identity recognized by David Frum

David Frum in this article

Link to article here.

recognizes the Neo-Confederate identity of James Webb, recently elected U.S. Senator from Virginia.

Presidential Elections 2008/ Books 2 & 3

It looks like it is going to be a squeaker in Virginia, but as best I can tell looking at online sources, Webb is going to defeat Allen in Virginia. I suppose we might not know for a few days.

If Webb loses I will be taking Allen off the Presidential page.

I also need to put Obama on the Presidential page.

I think now would be a good time for individuals to write to presidential candidates who are currently their elected representatives in regards to their views regarding the Confederacy.

One question is whether they would put a wreath on June 3rd, Jefferson Davis' birthday, at the Confederate Memorial in the Arlington Cemetery?

Other questions need to be asked also. Such as if they would appoint Neo-Confederates to the Federal cultural institutions, or judgeships, or cabinet positions?

Book 2 is well along, Book 3 also. I hope to send two additional books to the publishers 2007. While I am finishing up, I need to think about what is next? I am not necessarily thinking of a book, unless I do a collection of some of my writings in "The Touchstone," probably doing some editing. I think it is time to focus on writing articles and seeing where that leads me. I might do a book on debating Neo-Confederates.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Neo-Confederacy in the "Ex-Gay" movement.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (http://www.splcenter.org/), which does excellent investigations into Neo-Confederacy, has this article about an article that was on the website of the "Ex-Gay" organization NARTH (http://www.narth.com/).

The article about NARTH at the SPLC site is here ( http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?aid=84 )

Quoting from the article:

A prominent member of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is under fire for publishing an essay in which he argues that Africans were fortunate to have been sold into slavery, and the civil rights movement was "irrational."

"There is another way, or other ways, to look at the race issue in America," writes Gerald Schoenewolf, a member of NARTH's Science Advisory Committee. "Africa at the time of slavery was still primarily a jungle... Life there was savage ... and those brought to America, and other countries, were in many ways better off."

NARTH quickly pulled the article. After all the anti-gay movement is making a major outreach to African American Religious leaders that are homophobic. However, SPLC found it online in google Cache and have the article at this URL. http://www.splcenter.org/images/dynamic/intel/SchoenwolfEssay.pdf

I bring this up as yet another example of Neo-Confederacy entering the mainstream of conservative organizations.

Related posting:

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2006/10/anti-gay-african-american-church-works.html

Dick Armey is on the loose

I see in today's "Dallas Morning News" Dick Armey has a 2/3rds page article on where he thinks the Republican party has gone wrong. His organization www.freedomworks.org is listed.

Dick Armey interviewed in the "Southern Partisan" Vol. 10, 3rd Quarter, 1990, starting on page 26. One of the major topics is his opposition to Civil Rights legislation. I wrote a review of both Armey's and Gramm's interview in the "Southern Partisan" and you can read it at this link.

http://www.rtis.com/touchstone/nov01/13.HTM

Trent Lott's interview in the "Southern Partisan," incidentally, is online at:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/lott.sp.1.html

One of the issues after the elections next Tuesday, is who is going to inherit the Republican party? I can't say that I know, but I don't think it is going to be under the control, as it as been in the last six years, of the Bush supporters. Bush is going to go, and many elected Republicans officials are finding that being identified with him might be the end of their careers. Hardly a situation where the White House can dictate policy to congressional representatives.

I think that there is a very real possibility that the racist Republican right is going to find itself back in the fold of the Republican party. Check this flyer of U.S. Senator Cornyn (Texas-R) going to a Rockford Institute event. http://chroniclesmagazine.org/Ads/091906Event.pdf

(For background on the Rockford Institutes' view on Hispanics, this is an article I wrote on it. http://www.rtis.com/touchstone/sum02/09.HTM)

Again, I don't really know where the Republican party is headed. The new prominence of Dick Armey as critic of the direction of the Republican party, and Cornyn going to speak at a Rockford Institute events are just two items. They may fore shadow coming trends or just be isolated incidents. We will have to wait and see.

I do think it is likely that some elements of the Republican party who were suppressed by the managers of the national Republican party will be breaking free and coming to the surface.

"Reforging the White Republic" by Edward J. Blum, excellent book.

I have recently finished reading "Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865-1898," by Edward J. Blum. It is an excellent book. It tells how the initial openness to a non-racial and civic republic after the Civil War was thwarted and how American Protestantism turned from racial equality to white nationalism.

One key thing in forging the white republic was the use of reconciliation to accomplish this, by giving in to the white supremacist views of ex-Confederates and then ultimately adopting them. White supremacy wasn't a byproduct of reconciliation, but a direct step in its accomplishment.

Incidentally, the Women's Christian Temperance Union was a supporter of white supremacy and anti-Catholic prejudice. So, unless you have a problem with drinking, hoist a glass today and celebrate their near demise in American life.

Slavery, always ready to come back when it can

These are three links to the same article on present day slavery in Latin America.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/4307371.html

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/world.aspx?ID=BD4A309105

Link to article.

I think there is a tendency to see slavery as part of the dead past, or a feature of backward societies. The correct way to see slavery is as a system of labor which always has the potential to introduce itself into the economic system anywhere anytime if it gets the opportunity to do so. Slavery is usually present if it is feasible and if it is economical. If it is economical, that is highly profitable, it becomes very feasible.

With the profits of slavery, officials, laws, religions leaders, opinion leaders can be induced to find some justification, some facilitization, some support to overcome opposition to slavery. Slavery really is the most pernicious thing, and once started somewhere, spreads like the plague, its supporters willing to support it with violence and thuggery.

The Antebellum abolitionists were for the longest time a minority and thought of as radical because they were uncompromisingly anti-slavery. The ending of government sanctioned slavery in the Western world is a phenomenal achievement in light of the opposition they faced.

The Neo-Confederate promote apologetics for slavery and call the abolitionists anti-Christian. They are fringe and at this time, avoid publicizing their views front and center. However, slavery and pro-slavery Neo-Confederate ideology will be there lurking down through the generations to some possible future time when the opportunity presents itself.

Not all forms of bondage are chattel slavery. There is peonage, serfdom, and other modes of bondage. My definition concerning bondage, is that to quit your job you have to run for it.

I don't have a comprehensive thought through plan to oppose slavery. I think in some cases it can be directly opposed, and in some ways there must be a systemic approach. A lot of people in modern day slavery, fall into it because they are vulnerable, lack education, and don't know what they are getting into. Economic development would help.

In other cases, we need to push police departments and labor officials to be more aggressive to shut down shops and situations here that are essentially slave labor.

HOWEVER, I think one thing can be done is to get people to stop thinking of slavery as something in the past except for a few aberrations or exceptional cases. People should always think of slavery as something that is always pressing to get in, and there is always a possibility of it getting in, not just in some foreign country or the Third World, but here in the U.S.A.

The following link is about the Confederate Christian nationalists who are apologists for slavery.

http://www.utpjournals.com/product/cras/323/sebesta.html
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