League of the South is deceived by "Duck Dynasty" Update:

One would think that the neo-Confederate League of the South (LOS) would have learned from the life of the Southern Avenger. When I first heard about the Southern Avenger, Jack Hunter, who had been formerly a professional wrestler, and was then a columnist for the Charleston City Paper in South Carolina, I saw him as an individual hired to basically entertain the readership of the paper as a freak.

To the LOS the Southern Avenger was a hero and I was an elitist to even think that the paper hired him as a freak show to amuse there readers. For the LOS references to him go to this link.  http://lsrebellion.blogspot.com/search?q=avenger.

Later it turned out that the editor for the Charleston City Paper explained that the Southern Avenger was hired exactly for the purpose as I had stated to amuse the readers as some sort of atavistic curiosity.

It also turned out that the Southern Avenger in an attempt to hold his job with U.S. Senator Rand Paul repudiated everything he had said as Southern Avenger. This disappointed the LOS as they explained in their blog postings. http://lsrebellion.blogspot.com/search?q=Jack+Hunter

So you would think they would have learned their lesson.  They haven't learned at all, this is LOS President Michael Hill's public announcement about the show Duck Dynasty. http://dixienet.org/rights/2013/phil_robertson.php

This concerns Phil Robertson's statements in an interview in Esquire magazine which have caused him to be suspended from the show Duck Dynasty by entertainment channel A&E.  This has gotten all of the American right wing in an uproar.

I had been vaguely aware of them by seeing articles about Duck Dynasty here and there, but haven't been much interested. Though their appearance called up certain stereotypes, I thought it was probably likely that off camera they could be quite different. I haven't seen a single episode, I don't watch TV and don't like reality TV.

However, with recent reporting I have gotten a sort of idea of what A&E was presenting in the show which is a cast of characters living and acting out a certain type of southern rural stereotypical existence. A&E were evidently doing very well with this show. The show avoided various statements about gay or racial minorities that would have gotten it into trouble.

What the LOS doesn't seem to comprehend is that Duck Dynasty is a product which is sold to make a lot of people a profit.

The Robertson's clan's role was to act out stereotypes on camera, but without saying things that would offend different groups. This way they could appeal to two different audiences. One would be those would identify with the Robertson clan or would want to be them and would assume they had additional attitudes about gays and minorities. The other audience would be those who wanted to watch them as a freak show and would assume likely they had certain attitudes about gays and minorities.

A&E could make money off both audiences without being seen as pandering to homophobia or racism. Everyone, Phil Robertson included, could have laughed all the way to the bank. His job description was to lead his family in living out stereotypes for the amusement of the viewers without getting A&E or the show in trouble.

This cartoon in the Los Angeles Times explains succinctly the purpose of the show.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-horsey-on-hollywood-duck-dynasty-20131223,0,2345996.story#axzz2ohovKTPa

Evidently Phil Robertson didn't understand this, or perhaps he understood it all too well, and upset the whole arrangement by saying what he did in Esquire magazine. Suddenly A&E was at risk of seeming to have knowingly pandered to bigotry to make a dollar. Yes, the Duck Dynasty show does make money, but A&E has a lot of other shows also, and an ongoing brand image to maintain. So they suspended Phil Robertson. A&E would be irritated that he didn't understand his job description which should have been obvious to him.

I think Phil Robertson understood exactly what he was doing. He and his show has gotten a lot of media attention. Though I am not sure he has calculated very well. The reports are that other channels are interested. However, I am not sure mainstream media channels want to risk their brand image by picking him up in this type of situation. Also, media channels are likely to be wary of a product that might come with problems and a producer of that product who is reckless or doesn't care about his media partners. So Phil Robertson very well might find another channel but not one with the ability to promote his show or deliver audiences over the long term.

I tend to believe that Phil is sincere about his beliefs, he isn't making them up. According to reports when he was younger he was into drugs and excessive alcohol and his rigid religious faith keeps himself in line. Without it he might fall back into his old ways. He can't afford to have a flexible religion, things have to be a choice between heaven and hell, otherwise he might go to back to his prior habits before he found his current religious beliefs.

In the end though it is about selling a certain southern stereotype to the public for profit. If Phil hasn't figured this out, he will. The LOS is likely to be disappointed in the outcome when he does. When the LOS figures out that it is about selling a certain southern stereotype to the public for profit they might be embarrassed.

What is surprising is the the LOS loves Duck Dynasty but abhors Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. They really are the same thing.

UPDATE:

A&E has reinstated Phil Robertson. A&E have a lengthy statement of many nice sounding things. I think everyone involved decided that they needed to make lots of money.

St. Andrew's Episcopal Cathedral of Jackson, MS hosts neo-Confederate function. Update:

The St. Andrew's Episcopal Cathedral of Jackson, MS hosted the 59th annual Children of the Confederacy (CofC) convention memorial service. The Children of the Confederacy is a youth group run by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) to indoctrinate their children in their neo-Confederate beliefs. It is open to both men and women.

Their website is at:

http://standrewscathedral.org/

They express many fine sentiments on their web page, but evidently it doesn't preclude assisting neo-Confederate groups.

I haven't yet compiled all the churches that hosted the national convention memorial services of the CofC. It is one of the compilations that I am going to work on.

UPDATE:

I contacted them and they informed me that St. Andrew's Episcopal Cathedral isn't a breakaway church. So this isn't just an activity of breakaway Episcopal groups.

Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Church in Elba, Alabama is dreaming of a white Christmas.

In the October 2013 issue of UDC Magazine on page 33 the activities of the Gen. Edmond Winchester Rucker Chapter 2534 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy it is reported as follows:

In April, Gen. Edmond Winchester Rucker 2534 hosted their seventh annual Confederate History and Heritage Month luncheon ceremony at Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Church in Elba, AL.

I have not been able to find a web site for the church. 

The luncheon was something like a memorial service "A moving roll call was conducted with each attendee standing and giving the name, rank, and regiment of a Confederate ancestor, then extinguishing their candle." 

The denomination is called Primitive Baptist. 

"Miami Herald" columnist reviews racist past of some Confederate memorials and the lunatic fringe that defends them.

This column by Fred Grimm of the Miami Herald explains the racist back ground of some monuments and memorials in Florida and Georgia and the lunatic fringe that continues to defend them.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/12/21/3831619/in-florida-when-it-comes-to-race.html

This is an excerpt from the column:

The day after Thanksgiving, Georgia state workers outraged southerners nostalgic for segregation by quietly moving the 12-feet-tall bronze statue of white supremacist Tom Watson from the capitol grounds to a nearby park. At the turn of the last century, the Georgia congressman whipped up white voters with vicious, hateful, lunatic diatribes against blacks, Catholics, Jews (“thick-lipped rakes who glut their eyes upon handsome Gentile women.”) His newspaper argued that lynching blacks should be legal. That blacks should not be allowed to vote. He was among the Georgia politicians responsible for the infamous 1915 Atlanta lynching of a Jewish factory worker, Leo Frank, on the flimsy evidence that this “member of the Yankee Jewish aristocracy,” as Watson called him, had raped and murdered a 13-year-old Anglo girl.

Yet, Watson has his admirers, who were aghast to discover that his statue, with the inscription, “defender of right,” had been relocated down the street. Georgia State Rep. Tommy Benton denounced Georgia’s surrender to “political correctness.” Benton introduced a bill that would outlaw moving historic monuments, arguing that “if you start taking down every monument because you find one or two things you don't particularly like about that person, there won't be any monuments left.” Though even a middling historian could count more than one or two things not to like about Tom Watson.

What is interesting about this column is that Grimm is not representing the issue as it was done frequently in the past by the media. In the past the media would represent the issue as if there was no objective historical record and that there was just a lot of different view points. Or they would say that in the interest of peace or general public good feeling that the monument should be moved or the flag changed, and emphasize that they have Confederate ancestors too and as Southern as the next person. They would not condemn the Confederacy, just plea for public harmony.

Grimm has none of this nonsense. The monuments, flags and the Confederacy, and Tom Watson are bad, and the excuses made for the Confederacy and people like Tom Watson is just rationalizing nonsense.

The attitude towards the Confederacy is shifting.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/12/21/3831619/in-florida-when-it-comes-to-race.html#storylink=cpy

Duval School District drops the name Nathan Beford Forrest for local high school.

The Duval School District in Jacksonville, Florida drops the name Nathan Beford Forrest for local high school. The article is online here:

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/breaking/article/338755/17/School-board-votes-to-change-name-of-Forrest-High-School

The vote was 7 to 0.

I helped some with this by providing information on Nathan Bedford Forrest and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), Florida secession, the history of racism in Florida of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). With www.confederatepastpresent.org I can readily provide information. I have other information on my bookshelves, in files, in my computer.

I have the following book in my collection and was able to send some image files of pages from the book.

http://books.google.com/books?id=1YMfAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22S.E.F.+Rose%22+Ku+Klux+Klan&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YaqvUpGxH8O0sASB8YGQDQ&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&q=Forrest&f=false

Essentially, it shows that the whole Nathan Bedford Forrest hero worship is about white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan. This book was endorsed by the SCV and the UDC.

Earlier I had provided information about the SCV in the form of this article. http://www.blackcommentator.com/526/526_confederacy_sebesta_guest_share.html

My contribution was just one among many, but I hope to help out in many struggles against neo-Confederacy in the years to come. When the groups fighting neo-Confederacy have the information they need I think they have more confidence going forward. I think politicians seeing the documentation have to think how this will appear on their records in the years to come that they were informed, knew the facts, but voted supporting neo-Confederacy anyways.

Every name that is changed makes the remaining Confederate named buildings seem less normalized and more abnormal.

Web page on churches of the confederacy and the campaign to get mainstream denominations to drop neo-Confederate groups.

The following web page is the main web page tracking the campaign to get mainstream denominations to drop neo-Confederate groups.

Information which I post in this blog will be in it. Other information which won't be in this blog will be in it. The web page will refer to relevant media and will refer to other web pages relevant to the campaign.

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

Letters to the Roman Catholic bishop and the Episcopal bishop in South Carolina asking them not to allow their churches to be used by the Sons of Confederate Veterans for their activities. UPDATE:

I wrote to the Roman Catholic bishop and the Episcopal bishop in Charleston, South Carolina asking that they not allow the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) to use their facilities. The letters were mailed on 9/20/2013. I have not heard back.

My next step is to write the Roman Catholic Archbishop in Atlanta, Georgia, and if that fails to write Pope Francis in Rome. Similarly I am going to write the national head of the Episcopal church. Though given that the Episcopal church in America is breaking into two denominations I may be writing two individuals to make sure that I am writing the correct individual who is the next higher up for the Episcopal bishop.

One person has commented that the Episcopal churches that do host the neo-Confederate organizations are often the churches splitting off into a new conservative Episcopal denomination.

The two letters follow:

ROMAN CATHOLIC

Rev. Robert E. Guglielmone

Bishop of Charleston Diocese

119 Broad St.  Box 818

Charleston, SC 29402

Dear Rev. Guglielmone:

The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is planning on holding their 2014 convention in Charleston, SC and they will be looking for church facilities to hold their convention service.

Enclosed is a table of churches which the SCV conventions have used in the 21^st century.

Please find enclosed documentation about the SCV. Their official literature compares Abraham Lincoln to Hitler, and praises and promotes books that defend slavery and books that laud the Ku Klux Klan. Please find enclosed a dossier on the SCV with detailed footnotes of all quotes and assertions. This dossier is also available online at http://www.blackcommentator.com/526/526_confederacy_sebesta_guest_share.html .

Additionally, I enclose a paper on Confederate Christian nationalism which is also online at

http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/ConfederateChristianNationalism.pdf. It was published by the Canadian Review of American Studies at the University of Toronto. Even though the article is about the neo-Confederate League of the South, the religious ideas promoted by the SCV Chaplains Corps (http://www.scv.org/about/chaplainsChronicle.php) are largely the same or similar.

When a church allows the SCV to use their facilities it gives them credibility that a prominent religious organizations would find the SCV to be an organization to which it would be acceptable to lend their facilities. Additionally they gain some of the prestige of the religious organization and the prestige of an architecturally prominent church building for their religious services and hence organization.

I ask that your church not give support to the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization by allowing them to use your facilities for their activities.

                                                                                                Sincerely Yours,

                                                                                                Edward H. Sebesta 

EPISCOPAL 

UPDATE: I have been informed by Holly Behre, director of communications of the Episcopal Church in South Carolina, that Bishop Lawrence is a bishop in his own breakaway diocese at the time of this blog posting update 12/15/2013.  Right Reverend Charles G. von Rosenberg is the Episcopal bishop of Eastern South Carolina.

Rev. Mark Joseph Lawrence

Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina

P.O. Box 20127

Charleston, SC 29413

Dear Rev. Lawrence:

The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is planning on holding their 2014 convention in Charleston, SC and they will be looking for church facilities to hold their convention service. Enclosed is a table of churches which the SCV conventions have used in the 21^st century.

Please find enclosed documentation about the SCV. Their official literature compares Abraham Lincoln to Hitler, and praises and promotes books that defend slavery and books that laud the Ku Klux Klan. Please find enclosed a dossier on the SCV with detailed footnotes of all quotes and assertions. This dossier is also available online at http://www.blackcommentator.com/526/526_confederacy_sebesta_guest_share.html .

Additionally, I enclose a paper on Confederate Christian nationalism which is also online at

http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/ConfederateChristianNationalism.pdf. It was published by the Canadian Review of American Studies at the University of Toronto. Even though the article is about the neo-Confederate League of the South, the religious ideas promoted by the SCV Chaplains Corps (http://www.scv.org/about/chaplainsChronicle.php) are largely the same or similar.

When a church allows the SCV to use their facilities it gives them credibility that a prominent religious organizations would find the SCV to be an organization to which it would be acceptable to lend their facilities. Additionally they gain some of the prestige of the religious organization and the prestige of an architecturally prominent church building for their religious services and hence organization.

I ask that your church not give support to the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization by allowing them to use your facilities for their activities.

                                                                                                Sincerely Yours,

                                                                                                Edward H. Sebesta

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. 

Louisiana State University Press has page up about the book "Loathing Lincoln" by John Barr.

Louisiana State University Press has page up about the book "Loathing Lincoln" by John Barr. The link is here:

http://lsupress.org/books/detail/loathing-lincoln/

"Washington Post" columnist John Kelly asks, "Why are Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson honored at Washington National Cathedral?" Yes, indeed why are they?

The link to Kelly's column is here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/why-are-robert-e-lee-and-stonewall-jackson-honored-at-washington-national-cathedral/2013/12/10/af3429f2-60e2-11e3-94ad-004fefa61ee6_story.html

The National Cathedral is an Episcopal church. The Episcopalian church hosts neo-Confederate organizations more than the next three denominations combined. It is not surprising that their most prominent church honors the Confederacy.

This is a map of of churches that host neo-Confederate organizations.

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/u/0/edit?mid=zfTqFzugXJv8.kpb21pK6SVwo Note that the table covers up the San Diego UDC church hosting.  I show a screen capture below. Click on it to see full map.

NOTE:  To look at the data more in detail you will have to go to the map on the link, not the screen capture. Look at the data table to see how many times an individual church hosted. Also, you may not see all the pins in cities that have had several churches host neo-Confederate organizations. You will have to expand the map to see them all, in particular Richmond, VA.

The following are bar graphs of neo-Confederate organization hosting by denomination from 1990 to 2013. Click on the bar graphs to see them full size.

The campaign against churches enabling neo-Confederacy is online at www.templeofdemocracy.com/churchesoftheconfederacy.htm.

Sons of Confederate Veterans are not getting the armory in Jacksonville, Florida. Pleased to say I helped.

I haven't blogged much lately since I have been busy helping out the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) in Jacksonville, Florida in their attempt to prevent the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) from getting the use of an armory building which was to be given to them by the city council .

As recently as Dec. 3rd the Finance Committee of the Jacksonville city council voted to lease the armory to the SCV for $1 a year.

http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2013/12/04/city-committee-supports-sons-of.html

However, on Dec. 3rd Sopio Sokoni, head of the local chapter of the SCLC, and I got in touch and I gave him the link to the article about the SCV online at Black Commentator documenting their racism and extremism. The following is the link to the article:

http://www.blackcommentator.com/526/526_confederacy_sebesta_guest_share.html

Tonight the vote shifted to 17 to 0, 2 abstaining, to not lease the armory to the SCV. Even the SCV's friend, city council woman Kimberly Daniels who had been wanting to lease it to the SCV voted to withdraw the bill to lease the armory to the SCV.

Sokoni had made a press release based on the Black Commentator article and sent it out to media and elected officials. I also sent him some documentation to corroborate the press release.

The Jacksonville SCLC's efforts is what lead to victory here, I just contributed something to help out.

I am also helping the Jacksonville SCLC with getting the name of the Nathan Bedford Forrest high school changed.

The larger picture is that the SCLC now knows that there is someone who has done the research on neo-Confederates and has the documentation and has it readily available to share to support efforts to block the agenda of neo-Confederates.

Tonight I told Sokoni that I would be willing to help any SCLC chapter out if they are opposing neo-Confederates. So hopefully other SCLC chapters will be more willing to take on neo-Confederates after seeing how the battle can be won.

I think the word will get out to other groups opposing neo-Confederacy that I am available as a resource.

New book out on Anti-Lincoln writers, "Loathing Lincoln," available for pre-order at www.amazon.com

Click on the photo to see it all. 

The above is the front side of a T-shirt sold by Southern Partisan magazine.Click on photo to see it all.

John Barr's book, "Loathing Lincoln: An American Tradition from the Civil War to the Present," is now available for pre-order at Amazon. The link to pre-order the book is:

http://www.amazon.com/Loathing-Lincoln-Tradition-Conflicting-Dimensions/dp/0807153834/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385932739&sr=8-1&keywords=John+mckee+barr

Louisiana State University Press is releasing the book April 7, 2014. The book is based on his prize winning dissertation.

The book covers anti-Lincoln writers from after the Civil War to the present. I helped John Barr with the research for the book. He visited my library at my house where I shared with him the articles form Southern Partisan and Chronicles magazines attacking Lincoln, and my neo-Confederate anti-Lincoln materials, books, and artifacts.

I also read the early drafts and later drafts of the book and gave inputs for each chapter. I must have spent dozens of hours reading the drafts and giving written and oral feedback. I have also informed Barr of every new anti-Lincoln book and kept him up-to-date on the anti-Lincoln literature. John Barr now has a shelf of anti-Lincoln books to show the media.

Over the decades I had indexed and noted the various neo-Confederate attacks on Lincoln, but largely collected information knowing that someday I would be able to give it to someone to put it to use. I don't have enough knowledge of the life of Lincoln or the Civil War or 19th century history to give the material an adequate treatment.

John Barr has the historical back ground to treat adequately these materials.

What I think is going to be interesting is when the public realizes that there is this modern movement that hates Lincoln.  Lincoln is the personification of the modern democratic egalitarian America. This is why he is hated so much by neo-Confederates who dream of a hierarchical society. The attacks on Lincoln are attacks on modern democratic egalitarian America.

Some so-called "heritage" groups are going to seem much more ominous to the American public as the public realizes how hostile neo-Confederates are to Lincoln, that it isn't a few cranks, but a movement, and further realize that this movement is hostile to modern democratic egalitarian America. Also, it will be realized that indulging the Lost Cause view of the Civil War has consequences.

It is very gratifying to see that over 20 years of my labors gathering materials about the anti-Lincoln hatred of the neo-Confederate movement will have aided the production of a book letting the public know about the anti-Lincoln neo-Confederate movement.

The following is the backside of the T-shirt shirt shown above. This T-shirt was worn by the Oklahoma bomber. Click on photo to see it all.