Saturday, October 19, 2013

Bar Graph of denominations of churches that host neo-Confederate organizations. Seems the Episcopal church is the Church of the Confederacy Update

These graphs were generated as part of the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church campaign. www.templeofdemocracy.com/bostonavenue.htm.

Histogram of the denomination of the churches that host United Daughters of the Confederacy national convention services 1990 to the present. Click on image to see whole graph if you are not seeing the whole graph. It seems the Episcopal church is the faith of the Confederacy. UPDATE: I was able to get the specific Baptist denominations.



The distribution is different for churches that host national convention services for the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV). Again click on the picture if you can't see it all. For the SCV the Episcopal church is still frequent, but the Roman Catholic church is more frequent. For eight years either a church wasn't used for the SCV national convention service or it wasn't possible to determine which church was used. Even so the Episcopal church and Roman Catholic church turned out to be frequently used.



Well we can see who is dreaming of a plantation Christmas.

The campaign against churches enabling neo-Confederacy can be followed at this web page: www.templeofdemocracy.com/churchesoftheconfederacy.htm

Boston Avenue United Methodist Church has hosted the United Daughters of the Confederacy before

It appears that in 1999 the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church hosted the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) national convention on Nov. 7, 1999.

It is really spitting in the face of Carol Moseley-Braun. It appears there is some ongoing relationship between the Boston Avenue UMC and the UDC.

The campaign against churches enabling neo-Confederacy can be followed at this web page: www.templeofdemocracy.com/churchesoftheconfederacy.htm

Thursday, October 17, 2013

University project to map the churches that host neo-Confederate organizations

A university geography department is going to produce an electronic map of churches that host neo-Confederate groups. I am going to supply them with the data this coming weekend.

With these electronic maps you can represent the geographic data multiple ways. By neo-Confederate organization, by time, by denomination, etc.

The geography department has a map of the month program and this map might make it.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

League of the South gets major press coverage for demonstration, helps let general public know that neo-Confederates are bigots. UPDATE: More news coverage

The League of the South (LOS) protest in Murfreesboro, Tennessee got coverage in The Tennessean, the major daily for Nashville, TN. There was even a counter protest.  The article is online at:

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20131012/NEWS01/310120087/Counter-protesters-outnumber-League-of-the-South-rally-attendees

In the article the LOS shamelessly claims that  they aren't racist, but I don't think they are fooling anyone.

This is the Southern Nationalist blog on the event.
http://southernnationalist.com/blog/2013/10/11/southern-nationalists-protest-mass-immigration-in-tennessee/

Evidently there has been some other coverage in other significant media.

Middle Tennessee Public Radio
http://wmot.org/post/demonstrators-counter-demonstrators-face-murfreesboro

The student paper at Middle State Tennessee University covered the protest.
http://www.dnj.com/viewart/20131012/SIDELINES01/131012001/The-League-of-the-South-protests-in-Murfreesboro

The only unfortunate thing is that The Tennessean article didn't mention the anti-Jihad signs like the other articles, but they all mentioned the anti-Somalia sentiments. I think Muslims will realize it is an anti-Muslim event. Perhaps it will get coverage nationally in the Muslim media. I can only hope so. After reading The Tennessean article any immigrant from any country will realize that neo-Confederates are against them personally.

What is great about this type of media coverage is that members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) and the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) will be having to say to people, "Oh we are not like them," in reference to the LOS and realize that the people they are talking to aren't entirely convinced.

It also educates a lot of people that neo-Confederates may have a fairly obvious racial agenda but they will deny it regardless of the evidence. This will undermine the UDC and SCV when they are busy denying being racist.

I can only hope that the LOS and SNN continue these protests. In a year they will accomplish more to change public opinion against the Confederacy than the NAACP has done in ten years.

After the Uvalde, GA protest, I thought that though these protests were doing something to alert the public against neo-Confederacy, it was going to be rather minor in impact. The coverage was in local papers with small circulations. The Tennessee protest got major media coverage which alerted a lot of people about the neo-Confederates.

Hopefully the future protests of the LOS will get major coverage. However, this so far has represented a lot of activism for the LOS and it might be that they will tire out and go back to conferences and papers and essays. Michael Hill is probably thinking of an essay or lecture about the Southern Agrarians, "The Empire," and what Allen Tate and Richard Weaver thought about Muslims or Africa or Somalis or something and it is time for another conference and they will do a protest again some indefinite time in the future. I really fear that they are tired out and they won't have another protest.

I probably should have had all my blogging on these protests with the theme that I was really, really, outraged, yes outraged, angrily outraged by these protests, and that would encourage them to continue protesting, but it is hard to do when you are laughing.

The most amusing thing is that the LOS and the SNN haven't realized that they are being used. Pro-immigration forces would love to have the LOS and the SNN be the face of the anti-immigrant movement in the United States. Why do they think The Tennessean is covering the protest?

Already some anti-immigration groups are probably working to disassociate themselves from the image of the LOS and SNN and complaining that the LOS and SNN protests are being give undue coverage in The Tennessean.

UPDATE: There continues to be more news coverage. It might get regional coverage in the South. I can only hope.

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/D4/20131013/NEWS/310130045/Opponents-League-South-outnumber-supporters-protest




Friday, October 11, 2013

Pat Buchanan speaks about secession at "Town Hall." We learn something about the patriotism of some conservatives, are they American patriots or all along they were only white nationalists?

Pat Buchanan has this article at Town Hall about secession being the coming wave in national politics.

http://townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/2013/10/11/is-red-state-america-seceding-n1720999

What the article doesn't mention is that Pat Buchanan was an editor of the neo-Confederate magazine Southern Partisan for many years.

The article asserts that the Vermont secessionist movement is somehow left. It isn't. I tracked a lot of its board members back to Southern Partisan magazine and reactionaries appearing in Chronicles magazine.

The article is a summary of the arguments for secession that appear in the neo-Confederate movement updated to the latest geopolitical developments.

What is most interesting is it reveals how contingent the American patriotism of some conservatives. They were true to the red, white and blue as long as they felt that it was reasonably certain that American patriotism was for a white nation. Now that it is becoming more certain that America is becoming a multiracial democracy they are talking break up of the nation. Buchanan may be true to the red, white and blue, but now it is the red, white, and blue of the Confederate flag.

It is one thing when this type of stuff turns in up in World Net Daily, www.wnd.com, another thing when it shows up in Town Hall.

I see it as another example of how secession is creeping into the conservative mainstream.

Wednesday, October 09, 2013

The "Southern Partisan" Confederate Republican Party T-shirt

This was sold some time ago by the Southern Partisan magazine. I purchased one.  Before this t-shirt had been made the leaders of the Republican Party had already given interviews to the Southern Partisan: Jesse Helms, Trent Lott, Phil Gramm, Dick Armey and a lot of other Republicans. So making up this T-shirt wasn't so unreasonable. Many leading Republicans had also had also had dealings with the Council of Conservative Citizens. www.cofcc.org. I must have taken two dozen photos of this t-shirt.



Political reporting is full of reference to Republicans being secessionists or Confederates

I am somewhat overwhelmed by the reporting over the government shutdown and partisan politics referring to secessionists, neo-Confederates and the Confederacy.

Here is the latest article at www.Salon.com online.

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/09/right_wing_coup_deluded_secessionists_have_already_won/

The title is, "Right-wing coup: The deluded secessionists have already won," by

Thanks to a confluence of three events, the S-word — secession — is once again in the air. In Washington, new questions are emerging about whether the United States can function as a unified nation after a partial government shutdown was engineered by a largely regional party — one whose home territory looks eerily similar to the Confederacy. Adding to the questions about the viability of the post-Civil War union is the fact that the shutdown has been orchestrated by aTexas legislator whose state party stalwarts — including its governor — seem to support secession, to the point of taking concrete legislative steps to prepare for independence. On top of all that, in states across the country, incipient secession movements have sprung up only a few months after secession petitions flooded the White House website.
Then there is this article, "Tea Party's Shutdown Lunacy: Avenging the Surrender of the South." Doug Henwood is interviewed. Link below.

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/09/tea_partys_shutdown_lunacy_avenging_the_surrender_of_the_south/

Then there is this Michael Lind article, "Tea Party radicalism is misunderstood: Meet the Newest Right."

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/06/tea_party_radicalism_is_misunderstood_meet_the_newest_right/

I think Lind makes a very good point by saying that people misunderstand the Tea Party by trying to portray them as backwards. In my research on the neo-Confederates though I think they are very reactionary and need to be stopped, I was never stupid enough to think that they are stupid. If I thought they were stupid I wouldn't have bothered to research them. Lind writes:
The third misconception is that the Newest Right is irrational. The American center-left, whose white social base is among highly-educated, credentialed individuals like professors and professionals, repeatedly has committed political suicide by assuming that anyone who disagrees with its views is an ignorant “Neanderthal.” Progressive snobs to the contrary, the leaders of the Newest Right, including Harvard-educated Ted Cruz, like the leaders of any successful political movement, tend to be highly educated and well-off. The self-described members of the Tea Party tend to be more affluent and educated than the general public.

This is a Gawker story about a Republican House Representative who in his historical analogy made the Republicans the Confederates.

http://gawker.com/gop-rep-compares-shutdown-to-gettysburg-republicans-to-1442038231

Then there is this article where a former Republican operative calls Tea Party Republicans "neo-Confederates." Raw-Story also reported on this.

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/08/ex_gop_insider_unloads_blame_neo_confederate_insurrectionists_for_shutdown/singleton/

At Bloomberg a columnist says that comparing the Tea Party is wrong, they are more like Calhoun's nullification supporters.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-08/tea-party-tactics-lead-straight-back-to-secession.html

This is the Washington Post article, "The Rise of the New Confederacy," which  I blogged on a little while back.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-10-04/opinions/42713963_1_federal-government-south-carolina-union

This article refers to the South, the Confederacy and the Affordable Health Care Act in the Daily Beast.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/03/how-the-south-blocked-health-care-for-those-who-need-it-most.html

A lot of these articles are at Salon but they all aren't.


Monday, October 07, 2013

Tulsa media coverage of the Boston Avenue United Methodist Avenue hosting of the United Daughters of the Confederacy

My letter to the Tulsa Beacon made their online page. It is a small conservative newspaper in Tulsa.

The letter is online at:

http://tulsabeacon.com/boston-avenue-controversy/

I mailed a great many letters over the weekend to Tulsa local religious leaders concerned over race and board members of the Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry and the Tulsa Interfaith Alliance. I updated the Boston Avenue page at www.templeofdemocracy.com/bostonavenue.htm with the correspondence.

The campaign against churches enabling neo-Confederacy can be followed at this web page: www.templeofdemocracy.com/churchesoftheconfederacy.htm


Saturday, October 05, 2013

Letter to the Senior Minister of the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church

The letter is online and at www.templeofdemocracy.com/bostonavenue.htm.

The other correspondence to other individuals and organizations is also at this page as well as a list of churches which have hosted nation convention services for the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) and the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC).


Note: The entire campaign on the effort to get churches to not enable neo-Confederate groups is online at http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/churchesoftheconfederacy.htm

Letter to the Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry about Boston Avenue United Methodist Church hosting the United Daughters of the Confederacy

I am mailing by certified mail this morning a letter to the Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry (TMM) about Boston Avenue United Methodist Church hosting the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) national convention service. I am also asking that TMM directory Ray Hickman's irate email to me be allowed to go into the public record. The TMM was formerly known as the Tulsa Council of Churches and is an organization made of a great many churches in Tulsa.

This letter and other letters written to United Methodist Church (UMC) officials are all online at:

www.templeofdemocracy.com/bostonavenue.htm

At the conclusion of the letter I mention that I am discovering that this campaign is also an inquiry measuring American Christianity on the issues of historical memory, the Confederacy, and race.

I am planning of sending a great many copies to various individuals, groups, media organizations etc. in Tulsa and elsewhere.

Readers of this blog can help by making the above web page widely known.

Note: The entire campaign on the effort to get churches to not enable neo-Confederate groups is online at http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/churchesoftheconfederacy.htm

Friday, October 04, 2013

"Washington Post" Columnist Colbert King article, "Rise of the New Confederacy"

Washington Post columnist Colbert King has an opinion piece "Rise of the New Confederacy," about the Republican Party and the Tea Party. You can read it online here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/colbert-king-the-tea-party-resurrects-the-spirit-of-the-old-confederacy/2013/10/04/95b37f6e-2c7b-11e3-97a3-ff2758228523_story.html

What I find amazing is that a Washington Post columnist would write something like this. I don't think the Graham family would much like a column like this. Well the Graham family is gone. The Confederacy is no longer safe at the Washington Post.