With supporters like these, Confederate monuments don't need enemies

http://www.wbrz.com/news/miss-man-upset-over-nola-confederate-monuments-removal-arrested-for-threatening-public-official/

John Steiner of Meridian Mississippi made a threat to kill officials in New Orleans to stop the removal of Confederate monuments. He also had this to say according to the article:

Steiner reportedly stated that "the only thing that would stop all this nonsense is that all coons had to die," according to arrest records. Steiner claimed that he would be coming to stand in front of the monuments with his guns and would shoot anyone who would stop him, according to arrest records.

I can't but think that John Steiner's statements will be an incentive to remove other statues. There will be those who would love to get racists to make fools of themselves and land themselves in jail.

Another story on John Steiner.

http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/article_7a78d812-2ce4-11e7-8f64-7b074298fcb0.html


Maybe the following story should be filed unter "Heritage Not Hate."
 http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/article_5e1296b2-2baa-11e7-b97b-174ab456e171.html

Driving across America to fight secession. Avoiding flying.

One antidote I think to secession is long distance driving. The United States of America is an amazing country with a beautiful landscape in most areas.

I think when you drive across America you have the opportunity to see vast landscapes and feel the immensity of our nation. You are also away from the television or other video devices and can just listen to music and reflect on things. It is perhaps a uniquely American form of meditation.

It also is a great way of learning in an intuitive way how secession is a totally stupid idea. While you are driving you can imaging what it would be like to dive 500 miles and having to stop several times and present a passport and perhaps a travel plan and have your car inspected, perhaps you might be part of a random pat down, and your baggage searched and your laptop and cell phone checked. Also, as you drive out of your little nation you are no longer among your fellow citizens, but you are a foreigner. As sure as the sun rises, there will be stereotypes and prejudices about your nationality.

Instead we can drive across the nation and where ever I go I am an American among Americans. I do need to acknowledge that for minority members of our society it is not this simple. However, I would say that being divided nationally would put another layer of division over this layer of division.


Also, if the place you are going is 600 miles or less I really have to wonder why you are flying. For 600 miles is the break even point for me to fly. If it is over 600 miles I might fly, but I will not fly less than 600 miles. There is no advantage to flying less than 600 miles and every reason not to.

1. You either have to drive to the airport and pay parking for the duration of the trip, or get someone to drive you there, or schedule a driver and be ready to go at the time of driver pick up. When you drive yourself you can leave when you want and any driving you do is in the direction of your destination.

2. You have to arrive at the airport really early. There can be traffic jams on the way to the airport, the airport can be suffering from traffic problems. Then there is the TSA which can have really long lines with some lanes idle. The wait can be long while you are lugging your brief case, suit case, etc.

3. Then there is the TSA security. You take off your shoes, take out your keys, take off your belt, laptop, cell phone, coins, which go into a bin which is X-Ray scanned. You watch it really closely. Then after you are through being scanned you run to get your bin and get your cell phone and stuff before it is stolen. The benches are often not really well placed to get your shoes on.

Then there is the chance you might get a pat down or strip search.

4. Then you wait in a place with lots and lots of noise and endless announcements. The food and drink is way over priced.

5. You wait in this noisy place until the plane arrives at the gate, unless they move the gate and you are running to it.

6. When you get on, there can be overbooking and you might be selected to be removed.

7. Then your plane can be delayed for boarding or once boarding is completed it can be delayed.

8. Boarding is really a hassle. They have crammed more seats in and everyone is bringing on luggage and not checking it which we will discuss. It is slow. There is a fight for space because there really isn't overhead space.

** So by the time the plane takes off and reaches its cruising altitude it can easy take 1.5 to 2.5 hours. You could have driven from your house, gotten on the highway and be 70 to 150 miles along the way.

9. I don't check my luggage and always bring aboard my laptop because I don't want my stuff stolen. I believe others feel this way also.. I had a co-worker who had something disappear and he spent months going through channels trying to get compensated. Then there is the rough handling of your stuff.

10. When in flight you can purchase a tiny snack for a lot of money.

11. Hope the person in front of you doesn't lower their seat into your face. The small seats will allow very little personal space. Hopefully everyone practices good hygiene. The overworked employees are often surly. Services are slow. I flew first class on an airline and my tray would not come down and fit the space and I had to hold the tray with one hand and eat with the other. Major airline.

12. When you arrive you will have delays as your plane waits for a gate or moves across the airport, then the slow process of unloading. You will have to walk to the sidewalk, get on a bus to the car rental place, wait in line for a car, walk to the car, fill out paper work, and then figure out how to drive out of the airport and to your destination. Later you will return the car via the same process. There are cases where people are trapped on board a plane for 12 hours or more because the airline can't get a gate.

13. The airline systems have very little capacity for disruption, so if there is a snowstorm a thousand miles away, or thunderstorm  somewhere and your plane doesn't arrive, If you are on a return flight you face camping out in the airport for hours. Then there are the occasions where the computer systems go down and the airline can't board passengers.

14. Finally there are idiot things. I was on an international flight and the surly flight attendants left a strap hanging out when they closed the doors. So fuel had to be dumped at a high altitude so we could land in Atlanta. When we arrived in London hours and hours late, we didn't get any help from the airlines to our destination to Scotland. Yes, if anything goes wrong, the airlines just don't care.

15. Connecting flights: Are you insane! You have a connecting flight and you aren't driving. You really need to consider driving unless it is a really long distance. I remember being trapped in Houston on plane that landed but had to wait for thunderstorms to clear to take off.

If it is another plane, you will get your exercise traveling to another terminal maybe, to get your flight, unless it has taken off and didn't wait for you.

*** It is easily faster to drive someplace if it is 400 miles or less than fly with no risks of some airline inanity holding you up or trapping in a plane with overflowing toilets.. People who take planes from Dallas to Houston or Dallas to Austin are idiots. 400 miles is simply a break point in terms of time traveled. I will explain why I have a 600 mile break point.

ADVANTAGES OF DRIVING

A. You don't have to rent a car and are spared the expense, you don't have to go through the whole process of renting a car and returning it. And you have your car which you are familiar with. You won't be paying extra charges on gas. You won't be quickly looking for a gas station to fill up a tank before you return your car.

B. On the way if you are hungry you can stop and get what you want easily and the price won't be extortionate. The service usually is friendly. It will be something reasonably palatable or maybe delicious, or something new that you are first discovering. You can have your favorite places along the way.

C. McDonald's restrooms don't induce claustrophobia and usually are clean.

D. You can take as much luggage as you want to fit in your car. You can take what you need for your trip not constrained by fear of stuff being stolen from your luggage, rejected by the TSA, or baggage charges.

F. No lugging around your stuff everywhere. You arrive at your fiends and just carry the luggage in or at the hotel put on a push cart and in a short distance you are at the elevator and then to your room.

G. No taking off your shoes, belt, putting valuables into a bin and worrying about them being stolen. No X-ray of your stuff. No IDS. It doesn't matter if your state's driver's license is TSA approved or not. No waiting and waiting for long lines to be processed by unhappy employees. No strip searches, no patting down.Your bags won't be searched. You won't have to show TSA employees your cellphone or laptop contents. You simply won't have to see their faces.

H. You will have time to reflect and think and when you arrive you will might be a little tired from the long drive, but not as worn out as you might be from flying. You won't be wasting mental energy trying to figure out which airline might be better than the horrible one you just experienced. You will likely be in a good frame of mind and not need time to recuperate from air travel.

I. Along the way you can stop and stretch when you stop to get gas, stop at a rest stop, stop at a restaurant, or just stop to stretch.  You will not be trapped in a really small chair for hours.

J. You can have real bottles of shampoo, body wash, cologne, lotions, etc. and not over priced small bottled liquids manufactured for air travel.

K. You can pack fingernail clippers or what ever you need for your trip. You won't have to check up what the latest TSA regulation and will avoid throwing a valuable into a bin.

L. If you see something interesting along the way you can stop and check it out.

I put the break point at 600 miles to drive instead of flying in the case where you need to be there within a time window. Like you are going there tonight for activities the next day.

For when I have time to travel and don't have to be there right away I might take two days driving.

LONG DISTANCE DRIVING:

I can drive 10 to 13 hours a day. These are the tricks.

1. Good posture. Your posterior needs to be in the base of the chair. Sit up straight. Don't slouch. Otherwise you will feel aches and pains.

2. Don't be fiddling with the radio and stuff. Your back is bend over and it will hurt eventually.

3. Cruise control if you got it, or your leg in a comfortable position on the gas pedal.

4. Put your wallet someplace safe and not in a back or side pocket.

5. Stop every hour and stretch. Don't skip to make time. Also, when you stop often you will find that you did indeed need to use the rest facilities.

6. Use major highways when possible, avoid short cuts. Highway driving is comfortable.

7. Pack a bottle of aspirin, just  in case.

SO  DRIVE ACROSS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and enjoy seeing the nation and interesting things and have a pleasant trip and fight secession.

Columbia University Press does blog posting on Univ. of Texas Press blog posing

Columbia Univ. Press blog picks up book blog posting from the University of Texas Blog post.

Just search down and you will see it was given a mention.

From the blog:

"Important posts on history, public policy, and environmentalism also featured heavily this week. At the University of Texas Press blog, scholars Euan Hague and Edward H. Sebesta took a fresh and urgent look at the influence of American ‘neo-confederacy’ in the age of Donald Trump."

http://www.cupblog.org/?p=21093

I think people are picking up on our  message about the neo-Confederate movement.

New Orleans gets better! Sons of Confederate Veterans has declared a boycott of New Orleans.

http://www.scv.org/new/new-orleans-louisana-boycott/

New Orleans has gotten even better. The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) has declared a boycott if New Orleans. 

I don't think the SCV members contribute much to the New Orleans economy. But I do think that their boycotting it makes New Orleans a more desirable city since because if neo-Confederates are boycotting New Orleans they are not visiting it. 

The only losers in this situations are the racist historical societies which tried to defend the Confederate monuments and they might have a drop off in visitors and they need to lose as much revenue and support as possible. 

This is a new incentive for a city to get rid of Confederate monuments, change names, etc. You might be able to get the Sons of Confederate Veterans to declare a boycott and reduce the number of neo-Confederates in your city. It is a twofer. 

The SCV doesn't realize that most major large cities don't earn a significant, or even much at all of their income from pandering to neo-Confederates. New Orleans isn't Gettysburg. 

I think other cities would be delighted to be boycotted by the SCV. Many states would be delighted to be boycotted by members of the SCV. 

Trevor Noah rips neo-Confederacy to shreds

Trevor Noah rips neo-Confederacy, that is the silly "Heritage Not Hate," nonsense to shreds.

I found this video via Kevin Levin's blog. He has a lot of interesting information on it. You can learn from someone you disagree with.  Levin is probably thinking that this video endorses his "fearless girl" concept. Well dream on Levin.

This is the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUrZOZRnbME

This really eviscerates the various arguments given by neo-Confederates for their activities.

For those who give excuses to keep these statues all the while talking about how they voted for Obama or aren't racist, etc. I think this ridicule will at least let them know that a great many people will find their excuses ridiculous.

CLICK on the video to see it all.  I think neo-Confederacy is going down.

University of Texas re-launches our book, "Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction."

http://utpressnews.blogspot.com/2017/04/making-america-confederate-again.html#sthash.FFzQ5bmG.dpbs

Yesterday the University of Texas Press did a blog posting about our book, "Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction."

The title of the blog posting is, "Making America Confederate Again," a title adopted with reference to what is happening with recent events.

The blog posting also has a link to this article.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/17/politics/kfile-corey-stewart-richard-hines/


The concluding paragraphs of the blog posting.

An Active Legacy

In 1972, Dr. M.E. Bradford, a University of Dallas professor of English, paleo-conservative herald of neo-Confederacy and, at the time, a local chairman of “Democrats for Wallace,” wrote an essay in the conservative magazine Triumph. In it he outlined his belief in an imminent populist “counter-revolution,” one that could carry not only the US South, but Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, as people reacted against a belief that “Someone ‘out there’ – federal bureaucrat, corporation executive, clergyman, television pundit, Congressman, or judge—was determined to manage their lives and thus deprive them of the distinctions which make for self.” The result would be a “revolt of the backlands” that could upend both the Republican and Democratic Parties and echo Confederate sentiments from the nineteenth century. “It is an omen,” Bradford concluded, “when crowds of men whose fathers and grandfathers came after 1865 to these shores rise in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and Pontiac to shout out a chorus of ‘Dixie’: an omen which we should ponder.” Prolific until his death in 1993, and, as we outline in Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction, a regular contributor to neo-Confederate venues including Southern Partisan and Chronicles, Bradford’s work, and that of his colleagues, “constructed a worldview centered upon a historical reinterpretation of the Confederate States, the U.S. Civil War, Reconstruction and their legacies. This comprehensive vision was used to articulate and legitimate a reactionary history of the United States and the world. More than merely Lost Cause enthusiasm,” we argue, “neo-Confederacy underpins a historical narrative on which an anti-modernist, anti-egalitarian belief system is built.”

Neo-Confederacy is not a historical footnote. Its advocates have brought this backward-looking conservative ideology into ever more mainstream venues. Neo-Confederate authors are best-selling contributors to the Regnery Publishing series of “Politically Incorrect Guides” that offer interpretations of a host of topics from the US Constitution to climate change, the 1960s, Jihad, and the Civil War. Advocates of neo-Confederacy operate South Carolina’s Abbeville Institute which is republishing Southern Partisan essays of the 1980s, and Chronicles continues to offer a bimonthly platform for neo-Confederate perspectives. The lineaments of Trumpism can be found in neo-Confederac - See more at: http://utpressnews.blogspot.com/2017/04/making-america-confederate-again.html#.dpuf

They have white nationalism in the bag.

This was one of the shopping bags from the store at the Gettysburg National Military Park center.

Notice the gray and blue and how it is made to be exactly equal and equivalent. The bag colors represent America and the Confederacy. Then there is the statement, "Our Common Ground."

I have a statement to make to the Gettysburg National Military Park, the National Park Service, and the Gettysburg Foundation. I don't have any common ground with the Confederacy or its principles.

I don't have a common ground with slave holders. Evidently the Park and the Foundation do think that they have a common ground.

If they think it means something about national unity, we have national unity among Americans. The South and the Confederacy is not equivalent. To even assert that it is or imply it is an erasure of African Americans in the South.

This is banal white nationalism, so every day that it hides in plain sight.

The National Park Service talks about a "high ground" but it clearly is just a lot of self-flattering rubbish. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/rthg/intro.htm

When one prominent monument is removed it becomes not just an example for others, but a rebuke to political leadership that is unable to remove monuments

This is an excellent article about the removal of the Liberty Place monument.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/26/in-new-orleans-monument-to-white-terrorism-finally-falls.html

Besides inspiring people in other cities to get rid of Confederate monuments and think of demanding that they be removed, there is another important effect of this monument removal and the removal of the next three monuments.

The success in New Orleans is a rebuke to African American leadership elsewhere that fails to get a Confederate monument removed. Such as Baltimore where the African American members on a committee voted to retain some Confederate monuments and a city leadership that has gone nowhere in getting any Confederate monuments removed.

Pressing on the issue of Confederate holidays, monuments, symbols reveals who is really who in American society. This includes African American leadership which pretends to be advocates of the concerns of the African American community, but are in fact the faithful servants of white interest groups, in particular white interest groups which favor the Confederacy.

After New Orleans gets rid of its Confederate monuments, every town which has Confederate monuments which aren't going anywhere, will have the pretenses of its African American leadership exposed as being just that, pretenses. Those African Americans who have accommodated themselves to the Confederacy will be reveals as having done so.

This will hopefully result in that leadership being replaced with a leadership which isn't accommodated to the Confederacy.

Pledge not to provide services for plantation weddings and not to use the services of those who do

I will be writing a pledge for business to not provide services for a plantation wedding.

Also, the pledge to not attend a plantation wedding will include also a pledge not to use the services of those businesses that do provide services for plantation weddings.

This campaign will be somewhat like the campaign against blood diamonds.

It just isn't plantation weddings that can be picketed. The businesses that support plantation weddings can be picketed and they can be picketed when they  provide services at other weddings.

New Orleans Confederate Monuments begin to come down, showing the way for other removals

Despite threats of violence the Confederate monuments are coming down.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/04/monuments_removed_new_orleans.html


The Liberty Place obelisk came down last night.  Only a concrete base remains.

They didn't think about putting some counter monument. They didn't install an African American fearless girl. They  didn't put up a contextualizing plaque. They didn't chatter that the monuments could offer a teachable moment. They removed them.

This sets an example for all the other cities. Anything less than removal and the leadership of their cities and towns will be judged as falling short.

Also, since it is happening, it can be imagined happening elsewhere, in Baltimore, in Dallas, anywhere where there is a Confederate monument.

Sarah Palin is wrong. Kid Rock and Ted Nugent are not "all American"

https://www.wired.com/2017/04/internet-week-116/

Sarah Palin brought Kid Rock and Ted Nugent to the White House .

Palin stated, "So, yes, I invited my buddies Kid Rock and Ted Nugent, some bold, courageous, all-American dudes who I knew would have good conversation with the president and get to express a lot of good, middle-class, work ethic-type issues and policy proposals that they could all relate to, and that's exactly what happened at the dinner."

Both Kid Rock and Ted Nugent are well known for Confederate flag flying. They are not "all-American" at all, unless your idea of American nationalism is white nationalism.

National Civil War Museum, teach your child a neo-Confederate view of history

One of the books I purchased at the National Civil War Museum is, "Who Was Robert E. Lee?" It is by Bonnie Bader with a cover illustration by Nancy Harrison. The interior illustrations are by John O'Brian. The book is published by Grossett & Dunlap, an imprint of Penguin Books and it meant to children.

Slavery is mentioned. There is a section on Robert E. Lee's views on slavery. We learn that:

"Some historians say that Robert E. Lee was against slavery." And we are told that, "... other historians say that Robert E. Lee did not object to slavery."

The section concludes with, "Robert thought that the only one to decide to free the slaves should be god." An interesting spin on this letter by Lee.

Of course Lee made it abundantly clear that he thought slavery was best for African Americans. In an 1865 letter by Lee to Andrew Hunter Lee writes:

“Considering the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country, I would depreciate any sudden disturbance of that relation unless it be necessary to avert a greater calamity to both.”

There was a slave hunt where African Americans in Pennsylvania were rounded up and taken as slaves.

http://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2013/06/30/Confederates-slave-hunt-in-North-a-military-disgrace/stories/201306300221?pgpageversion=pgevoke

Finally the book discusses Lee being a university president after the Civil War but not his hostility to African Americans as documented by Robert E. Lee Jr., testimony to the congressional committee on Reconstruction, and Lee's infamous White Sulphur Manifesto.

This book is the equivalent of Holocaust denial.

For information about what Robert E. Lee said and believed you can go to this website and use the search term "Robert." http://www.confederatepastpresent.org

This museum in promoting this book commits an outrage against the humanity of African Americans. It is no wonder that it proves to be a challenge in America to have people recognize truly that Black lives matter.


http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/07/books/lee-without-tears.html

Pledge not to perform a plantation wedding and not to attend a plantation wedding

I will be writing up a pledge not to perform a plantation wedding for clergy, and a pledge not to attend a plantation wedding for everyone else.

At this time I am soliciting ideas on writing the pledges. If you have ideas email them to edwardsebesta@gmail.com.

Jury selection and the Confederate flag.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/us/louisiana-death-row-inmate.html?mwrsm=Facebook&_r=0&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2F

In this article an African American juror was rejected with cause because he was opposed to the Confederate flag in this death penalty trial.

I think it is time we start rejecting Confederate flag supporters and persons sympathetic to the Confederacy from juries.

Professor Euan Hague and I had this article proposing that jurors sympathetic to the Confederacy be removed from juries.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/507/507_confederacy_jury_selection_sebesta_hague_guests_share.html

Sheri Few running on the pro-Confederate flag platform for the 5th Congressional District in South Carolina

These are a few videos on Sheri Few's You Tube channel.

In this video Sheri Few isn't just criticizing the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol grounds, but any removal of Confederate statues and flags anywhere.

CLICK ON VIDEOS TO ENTIRELY VIEW THEM. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIUX97O11Vk

Removal of the Confederate Flag is criticized in this video also, but with a gun. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CASLqRoB0Mw

The Daily Beast says  that Sheri Few's message is falling on "Deaf Ears." I would think that with the election of Trump journalists would be less quick to reject out of hand the prospects of a candidate like this. You might have to click on the link twice. 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/18/candidate-s-rebel-yell-for-confederate-flag-falls-on-deaf-ears-in-south-carolina.html

I don't know if Few has any real chances or not. We will just have to wait until the Republican Primary is over. She has gotten national coverage out of a local race. Perhaps it is also a career building move. 

National Civil War Museum and Kevin Levin

I was down in Harrisburg, PA to visit and review the National Civil War Museum and listen to Kevin Levin's presentation. CLICK ON ALL PICTURES TO ENTIRELY SEE THEM.

I think this photo ably summarized the essential nature  of the museum. It was offered in the museum store. Didn't find videos about slavery and certainly not Django.

I am sure there will be those who will point to the various exhibits and things which acknowledge slavery and African American soldiers, but these are token gestures. To give narratives of the Civil War they had James Robertson Jr., a supporter and endorser of Southern Partisan magazine.  The exhibit on Reconstruction was telling with displays talking about how "harsh" policies of "radical Republicans" caused resentment in the South. It is like reading Hodding Carter's, "The Angry Scar." The museum management seems to have a curation of the Civil War out of the 1960s but with concessions and accommodations to local criticism which they are getting. But this statue in front of their museum really sums up their mentality.

It is a Confederate soldier giving a wounded Union soldier water on a battle field. This suggests that the museum is mentally living in the early 1900s.

Kevin Levin is an able speaker and had a fairly good presentation. A school teacher, his presentation involved asking his audience questions which is a good method. On the historical side he missed an opportunity or perhaps didn't realize that one Confederate monument's reference to "Anglo-Saxon civilization" wasn't just white supremacy, but represented prejudice against non-Anglo-Saxon white people. There has been in the South this whole self-identification of being un-corrupted by European immigrants. His presentation was informative in many ways.

He did make it clear that the monuments were about race. He was really big about local decisions be made about monuments, no outside agitators wanted. However, he didn't make it clear that these monuments were about racializing the landscape. He is a historian and not a cultural geographer. He really needs to read Billig's "Banal Nationalism."

He did refer to the statue in front of the museum as an erasure of the issues of the Civil War. There is another very similar statue at a park somewhere in the South and Levin explained that the Mercy story wasn't published until the 1880s and isn't verified historically and is about erasure of history. He didn't use the term "erasure" but that was his argument. He then referenced in the statue in front of the museum which was very similar. So credit to that. I doubt though it will change anything.

Regarding Monument Ave. in Richmond, he might well refer to British Gary Younge's writing on the avenue.

I turned around to walk back up Monument Avenue, feeling angry and confused... I had spent about an hour walking along a road in which four men who fought to enslave me... have been honoured and exalted. I resented the fact that on the way to work every day, black people have to look at that. Imagine how black children must feel when they learn that the people who have been raised and praised up the road are the same ones who tried to keep their great-great-grandparents in chains. [Gary Younge, "No Place Like Home: A Black Briton's Journey through the American South," Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2002, pg. 67] 

This would be better than what Levin did, which was to self-reference himself as a "white privileged" person looking at Monument Ave. as to establish that he was conscious of racial issues. Though in reading Younge's passage, I do see Levin as not seeing the avenue like Younge because of his "white privileged" self.

The lecture concluded with his proposed idea that Confederate monuments remain in place and additional counter monuments be added. He had photos of "Fearless girl" from Wall Street to demonstrate this idea.

He did discuss some proposals for additional contextualization. He also presented how Eastern Europe handled communist statues, which was to put them in a museum.

Putting the monuments in a museum as part of the history of racism in the locality is what should be done.

I didn't introduce myself to anyone. I was their to document the museum and assess Levin. He is exactly what his blog presents himself to be, that is Levin's blog is an honest representation of himself.

Levin needs to consider whether presenting at this museum legitimizes it, but it might be argued you need to reach out to people and talk to them. However, there has been protests against the museum in Harrisburg, at least one. Then, there has been no boycott called that I know of.

For Levin's audience I think the questions he raised probably got some people thinking and relative to Civil War Round Table thinking represents some type of step forward, but maybe into a cul de sac, that is self-satisfaction with the status quo.  It will likely be a shock to them to learn of the hostility to the monuments by African Americans who aren't situated inside the white establishment. It will be similar to the shock of slave owners in the South who discovered that their slaves were supporting the Union.

"Southern Partisan" defender Jeff Session gives Hawaiian secessionists a big boost UPDATE

Jeff Sessions defended neo-Confederate Southern Partisan magazine during the confirmation hearings for John Ashcroft who had interviewed in Southern Partisan.

I see Sessions's page with his defense is no longer online.

As most everyone has hear Sessions made this comment about a federal judge's decision regarding an executive order by Trump regarding immigration.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/04/20/jeff_sessions_is_amazed_that_some_guy_in_hawaii_can_tell_trump_what_to_do.html

Sessions said, “I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power.”

It is somewhat concerning that the Attorney General of the United States doesn't understand the concept of the division of powers in our federal system of government.

Sessions's statement in reference to Hawaii tends to confirm the criticisms of Sessions during the U.S. Senate confirmation process that he was a racist.

However, what has really amazed the public is Sessions's dismissive attitude towards Hawaii, as if it isn't a real US state. I can't imagine him making this type of remark about Arkansas or Vermont or Utah or Maryland or any of the other 48 contiguous states. This comment isn't coming from some fringe element but the Attorney General of the United States of America.

This of course is very harmful to the Republican Party in Hawaii, but I don't think they have much influence there. It is a statement which will alienate persons of Pacific Island ancestry on the United States mainland. However, a lot of those votes are in California and the Republican Party does poorly there. As for Asian Americans Sessions's comments send a clear message that they will always  be seen as the alien other. Again a lot of those votes are concentrated on the East and West coasts where the Republican Party isn't winning anyways.

Still Sessions's comments are adding another long term obstacle to presidential victories when the demographics for the 2016 Trump victory are fading away with time. The Republican Party can't always  depend of the Democrats selecting and trying to foist a candidate for president who just isn't that electable.  Also, in Hawaii and on the East and West coasts there are elected Republicans who are attempting to have some influence and elect candidates and Sessions's comments damage the Republican Party's prospects there.

Also, Asian Americans are distributed across the country and in a lot of states currently dominated by Republicans Sessions's comments will be an acceleration of the slow shift that is occurring of these states to a more progressive politics.

HOWEVER, ....

Sessions's comment is a tremendous boost for the Hawaiian secessionists. The Attorney General of the United States of America has made it very clear, loud and clear, that to him Hawaii isn't part of the United States of America. Sessions really couldn't have been more insulting if he tried. It is the casual way he said it as well as what he said that shows that he really doesn't consider Hawaii part of America.

Sessions's comments are an endorsement of the central core concept of  the Hawaiian secessionist movement, that Hawaii is really a foreign nation under American occupation.

The impact of this comment is still in play. What will Trump say? What will the national leadership of the Republican Party say? Will the conservative movement rebuke Sessions? It will be observed to what extent the Republican Party and the conservative movement respond to Sessions's comments and to what extent they reject them.

Then their has been the Boycott Hawaii movement by Trump supporters which is already an antagonizing factor. http://www.kitv.com/story/34943719/attorney-general-doug-chin-reacts-to-boycotthawaii

The press is focusing on the outrage of Hawaiian leaders, but what will be really interesting is what Hawaiian secessionists do with it and I think they certainly will use Session's statements.

Of course there are all those other islands in the Pacific which the United States possesses as colonial possessions. Maybe they also will suddenly develop secession movements. I suggest Mr. Sessions not visit any Pacific Islands ever. It would energize any potential secession movements.

For the territorial integrity of the United States of America Jeff Sessions should resign.

UPDATE:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/21/jeff-sessions-hawaii-judge-remark-237456

Sessions denies that he made a disparaging remark about Hawaii.

It might be that Sessions thinks he is in Alabama where some people are predisposed to accept these type of excuses or that excuses that he made during his confirmation hearing will work now. And they might work now. I don't think they will work in Hawaii though.

Sessions didn't say, "a lone judge out of hundreds," or something similar. Sessions felt it was essential to mention it was "an island in the Pacific" to emphasize how reasonable it was. The only people who are buying Sessions's excuse are people with a racial attitude anyways.

Numerous links to our research at CNN article

I am going to just put up the link, to the article, but if you go to the links embedded in this article you will see some of my old web pages, and links to my video channel at YouTube and other material supplied by Euan Hague and I or just by myself.

Even the TPM Cafe material originally comes from me.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/17/politics/kfile-corey-stewart-richard-hines/

I will provide more information tonight. The nation seems to be realizing what is happening.

The claim of the following T-shirt which was sold by Southern Partisan seems to have become real.

If you want to prevent "Lincoln's worst nightmare" sign this petition.

https://www.change.org/p/edward-h-sebesta-ask-president-trump-not-to-send-a-wreath-to-the-arlington-confederate-monument

CLICK ON IMAGES TO SEE WHOLE THING

Visited white nationalist Park in Pennsylvania

I visited a white nationalist park in a city dedicated to maintaining that interpretation. I spent three days there. Did plenty of pictures and did some video also. Purchased a lot,  I mean bags full of junk showing the mentality of the town and the park management.

What is the essence of the city of Gettysburg I think this picture will suffice to represent the spirit of the town. Lots of Confederate garbage for sale. I wonder how they explain to their families that they earn their living off of pandering to white nationalism. Notice the picture at the top. Unfortunately there is a reflection on it, but it is a print praising American veterans. These merchants who pander to racists have the effrontery to think they are patriotic. CLICK ON PICTURES TO SEE THE ENTIRE PICTURE.

The people who run Gettysburg Military Park are maintaining the white nationalist interpretation in the book store.  Here in the bookstore is a Southern nationalist understanding of geography. The South is made equivalent to the Confederacy. There isn't the use of Union versus Confederacy.

The pandering to neo-Confederates is non-stop. This mug tells us that Lee is "revered." Books on slavery are hidden away in a small section.

I am going to do a video of Gettysburg Park and city.  The park service wonders why there is declining attendance and why there is little minority interest in going to the parks.

Of course one factor is that when driving to a park in a rural setting a minority person would have to worry about cops stopping them. An audiologist here in rural Pennsylvania when visiting her fiances house was stopped a couple blocks before she got there by a police officer who decided to yell at her and tell her to stop lying about being legally in the country.

Even if a minority person decided to visit a park in a rural setting they would find themselves at a park and city with a white nationalist ethos. It should be no surprise why there isn't much interest in the Civil War by African Americans.

One good development is that business is declining. The generation with a white nationalist interpretation of the Civil War is getting old and becoming much less active.

I am going to do a video with the pictures and video I took there.

Perhaps the National Park Service could hire a competent historian that doesn't see history in a white nationalist framework and do its job competently.

What is really amazing is that Civil War historians haven't given the town and park a scathing criticism.

Violence is an integral part of neo-Confederacy

http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/article_a835146e-20aa-11e7-ad4e-d70d876e27ea.html

Threats of physical violence have been made against contractors and city employees associated with the effort to remove New Orleans monuments to high Confederate officials and a white supremacist militia, prompting renewed security measures, a senior city official said Thursday.

Those threats, as well as lower-level harassment of contractors and other organizations, have come throughout the lengthy process of trying to remove the four monuments, said the official in Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration, who couched them as extensions of tactics used against civil rights efforts for more than a century.

"NC lawmaker calls Abraham Lincoln a 'tyrant' Like Hitler" NC Rep. Larry Pittman

Neo-Confederacy is boiling to the surface. 

This is the article in the Charlotte Observer.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article144233494.html

This should not be surprising. The Sons of Confederate Veterans has promoted this view in their magazines, in the books they promote.

This is the article quoting North Carolina House Rep. Larry Pittman.

In his post, Pittman said North Carolina should uphold traditional marriage “in spite of the opinion of a federal court.”

“And if Hitler had won, should the world just get over it?” he wrote. “Lincoln was the same sort if (sic) tyrant, and personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional.”

Click on it and you can see the Confederate Veteran has an article, "Lincoln's Band of Tyrants" where he is compared to Hitler and Marx. Magazine to the left side.

By the way Olustee was a massacre of African American troops, and note the article about Mandela.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article144233494.html#storylink=cpy

Neo-Confederate Ron Maxwell upset with Trump, warns Trump on "Breitbart" I think we are on schedule for the rival of right wing secessionism

There has been a lot of reporting about the Alt-Right and other reactionaries being upset with Trump for his military action in Syria. 

It is hard to know whether this is partisan propaganda or is really true so I have been doing some independent checking to see to what extent this is true. It seems to be true. The establishment press would like to see Trump's base alienated from Trump and would work to foster alienation of Trump's base from Trump. However, it does seem to be true, regardless of what the mainstream media's agenda might be.

Similarly about the reporting in the media about divisions in the Trump White House. I suspect that in any presidential administration there are divisions and infighting. I don't know if the infighting in the Trump White House is more than usual. Or it might be expected with a radically different presidential administration representing an entirely new coalition there would be a time of settling out of arrangements. When there is a radical change in government some people probably are disappointed that it isn't all that they imagined or hoped it would be. The mainstream media could have an agenda of fostering division or it could be true regardless of the agenda of the mainstream media. That is both could be true, I just don't know.

A person very influential with neo-Confederates has expressed dismay with Trump over Syria.

"Gods and Generals" movie director Ron Maxwell, who is also an interviewee for Southern Partisan magazine,  has this article at Breitbart. It is more than just criticism of Trump's military action in Syria.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/08/ron-maxwell-america-last/

After all the criticism of Trump getting involved in Syria and Maxwell the article concludes with what I think is the most critical part:

"But yesterday, we heard the president justifying a military attack with words that could have been spoken by Hillary Clinton. Did we have an election or didn’t we?

President Trump has a choice. He can stay the course he set in the campaign, in his inaugural speech and in the first days of his presidency, keeping America First. Or, he can succumb to the selective hysteria of the Corporate Media, to his most ardent critics, to the omnipresent chorus of NeverTrump Republicans and to the beltway’s permanent war party to choose the path of America Last."

Maxwell is wondering if Trump is really going to take America on a right wing path for which Maxwell has hoped he would. I don't know where Trump is headed, but I think it it likely not to be any particular ideological path.

You know Maxwell is really upset and serious, he used the H-word.

Of course with a presidential administration promising radical change there is bound to be some disappointment. It might be thought that Trump supporters would be reasonable and realize that overall they are getting the change they hoped for and that Trump has to keep a coalition together to do any change and that some objectives will be won and others lost but overall they are advancing their agenda. However, I don't think a lot of Trump supporters think that way, do those type of assessments, and a lot will become disillusioned and alienated.

The failure to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act of the Obama administration and the actions of the U.S. House Freedom Caucus I think gives some indication of how little compromise figures in the political calculations and actions of many conservatives.

However, what I think will drive reactionary media attacks on Trump is the fact that these websites live on rage. Right now they can rage against media and celebrity criticism of Trump, they can rage against Trump opponents, but I don't know if this really substitutes for raging against the establishment and the modern world.

Also, this reactionary faction, is focused on denouncing conservatives who they feel are compromised in principle or not sufficiently conservative. They use terms like "cuckservative," a portmanteau of "cuckhold" and "conservative." It is the classic politics of "ultraism" where someone is purer than others.

At some point the different media platforms of rage might see being critical of Trump as being a competitive advantage against other media platforms of rage or perhaps see a niche audience for their platform for rage.

So I think that you will see right-wing secessionist movements start reviving. As time goes on reactionaries will realize that Trump is not leading to the great counter-revolution or not enough of the counter-revolution for which they hoped.

M.E. Bradford became disillusioned with Ronald Reagan's administration carefully avoiding criticizing Reagan. Bradford and others hoped that Reagan was going to undo the civil rights revolution of the 1960s, but Reagan was content to stall it instead.

The revival of right wing secessionists might only be partial or weak. It could be that most Trump supporters will be satisfied enough or hope that Trump has some radical plan that will be forthcoming in the future.

If the Republicans lose the U.S. House and U.S. Senate then Trump would be the embattled president and his base will rally around him and right wing secessionists will find their fortunes bleak.

A sure thing for right wing secessionists would be Democratic party victories and take over of the U.S. House and Senate and the presidency and a sense that there is no hope in national politics. In comparison it will take awhile for disillusion in the Trump movement to become overwhelming with Trump's base, but it could happen. It seems to be progressing towards that end primarily because his base is reactionary and extremist and fully expecting a total counter revolution.

I think also they are quite aware of how the "Reagan Revolution" really failed to advance reactionary politics and they hope to avoid a historical repeat with Trump.

So I think we are still on track for right wing secessionism to revive fall 2017.

Incidentally, Ron Maxwell is another neo-Confederate writer for Breitbart. Not a lot of articles, but some.

http://www.breitbart.com/author/ron-maxwell/

http://www.breitbart.com/author/ron-maxwell-2/

 

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant is a dues paying member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans

It is reported that Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant is a dues paying member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in this article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2017/04/governor_confederate_veterans.html

For those wanting to know what type of group the Sons of Confederate Veterans is should read this article:

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

As the title correctly indicates it is about the racism and extremism of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Eddie Bauer, Port Authority, Gildan, Ogio, and Nike Brands used to support the Confederacy. UPDATE1

These are the links to these brand name garments with the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV). logos added.  I don't know if these brands know that their garments are being used by the SCV. I think that if the SCV ordered this material directly the brands should have asked questions. However, it might be that some supplier is ordering material and applying the SCV logo to it.  We will have to make inquiries to find out and also see if the brands actually care.

NIKE

https://scv-online-store.myshopify.com/products/shirt-nike-golf-shirt

GILDAN

https://scv-online-store.myshopify.com/products/gildan-hoodie-s935

OGIO

https://scv-online-store.myshopify.com/products/ogio-big-dome-duffel-s944

PORT AUTHORITY

https://scv-online-store.myshopify.com/products/clothing-port-authority-fleece-jacket-s925

https://scv-online-store.myshopify.com/products/port-authority-laptop-book-bag-s946

EDDIE BAUER

https://scv-online-store.myshopify.com/products/clothing-eddie-bauer-fleece-vest-s920

COLUMBIA

https://scv-online-store.myshopify.com/products/shirts-scv-columbia-fishing-shirt-s916

Again I don't know if these brands know anything at all that they are being used by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. It will have to be something to be investigated. I am researching the corporate ownership of these companies.

UPDATE AND CLARIFICATION:

I don't think it is likely that these brands actually put anything Confederate on these garments themselves. However, I think that if they sold these garments to the Sons of Confederate Veterans or to another party who they knew was going to be selling the garments or delivering the garments or otherwise transferring the garments to the Sons of Confederate Veterans  they should have expected that something Confederate was going to be done to the garments or done with the garments.

Additionally when these brands find out what are they going to do to prevent this from happening again?