Provided research for CNN story aboutSecretary of Veteran Affairs Robert Wilkie's neo-Confederate views

The link to the story is here.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/07/politics/va-secretary-confederate-president/index.html

The title is "VA secretary praised Confederate president as a "martyr to 'The Lost Cause'" in 1995 speech."

The transcript of Wilkie's speech about Jefferson Davis is online here.

https://www.scribd.com/document/395176156/UDC-Magazine-Aug-1995-Pp-12?campaign=VigLink&ad_group=xxc1xx&source=hp_affiliate&medium=affiliate

The link to the Robert E. Lee article mentioned in the article is this.

https://www.scribd.com/document/395176070/Confederate-Veteran-March-April-Pp-10?campaign=VigLink&ad_group=xxc1xx&source=hp_affiliate&medium=affiliate

Wilkie sees the ideology of the Confederacy applicable to the present. From the conclusion of the article

"We have resisted Leviathan before but this time we face an almost irrestible combination of cultural standardization; utopian multiculturalism; political exhaustion; and militant drumbeats demanding Orewellian conformity."

Alternet ran an article based on the CNN article. This is the link.

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/robert-wilkie-praised-jefferson-davis-martyr-exceptional-man

The neo-Confederates actions from 15 to 25 years ago continue to revealed in the present. I am so glad to be able to do this.

Working to destroy the nation. James Ronald Kennedy on the Abbeville Blog has a posting on Calexit

The posting of interest is:

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/could-calexit-create-a-left-right-confederacy/


What James Ronald Kennedy (He has a twin who is a leading neo-Confederate) hopes is that there might develop a left/right alliance for secession and nullification.

http://www.kennedytwins.com/

This is not so fanciful. There was a left/right alliance against American overseas military adventures and some of the leftists were quite angry to be called out on it.

There are certainly a fair number of idiots who call themselves leftists who would support such an alliance for secession.

Nullification is an inanity which basically nullifies a nation's existence. If on some rationalization or some interpretation of the Constitution a state can nullify a federal law, you essentially don't have a nation. You just have 50 separate nations arising from the dissolution of the nation.

What is of interest is that the neo-Confederates are still on the prowl for some way to break up the nation. James Ronald Kennedy and his brother Walter Donald Kennedy get published in the Confederate Veteran, the official publication of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and have their books sold by this organization. The SCV has 30,000 members and significant resources and a headquarters which is substantial. This is not a group with a shack and a few members. They are able to promote ideas to a significant base.

The Abbeville Institute is also doing a reveal here. This is campaigning for the break up of the nation.

I have been discussing on this blog the Texas Nationalist movement. They are moribund at this time and will be until it starts appearing that Trump will not be able to carry out his agenda.

However, I think the neo-Confederates are perhaps also seeing hope for the revival of their agenda with the expected "blue wave" in which Democrats are expected to recapture control of the U.S. House. With the Democrats controlling the U.S. House the Democrats hope to undermine Donald Trump and go after Donald Trump in every and any way they can.

The group 538 looking at the polls sees a good chance that the Democrats will capture the House. They see a 6 out of 7 chance which is a really good chance. However as 538 states, it isn't 100% chance.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/

One thing the website shows is that with computers you can easily do all sorts of analyses. When I first started my engineering career, you did statistics with a pencil and paper or mechanical calculator if you were a student or an ordinary engineer. By the time of the end of my career I was routinely doing fairly sophisticated analysis with JMP software.

This is a rather detailed break down of the possible results for the U.S. House elections.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/house/?ex_cid=rrpromo


The U.S. Senate is expected to remain in the hands of the Republicans. Odds are 5 to 6.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/senate/?ex_cid=rrpromo


So even if the U.S. House does fall into Democratic Party hands, it remains to be seen how much they can actually undermine Trump's agenda. I am sure they can certainly cause problems for Trump and I am very sure they can heat up the political situation even more than it is, a whole lot more.

However, the path of developments to support secession may work this way.

The Democrats in the U.S. House may not be able to hinder Trump as much as inflame an already quite polarized situation such that when in 2020 elections Trump is possibly defeated there will be a radicalized and really alienated base to support secession.

If the Democrats win in 2020 the so-called "left" secession movements will collapse. The right wing ones secessionist movements will start gaining support.

James Ronald Kennedy's idea of a left/right secession alliance developing is wrong. If the left is in control of the government the left secessionist movement will be moribund. If the right is in control of the government the right secession movements will be moribund. They won't be active at the same time.

However, I think Nov. 6, 2018 election will need to be over so we know what the political landscape. Also, it won't be until after Jan. 3, 2019 that we will know what the Democrats will be be doing. However, I think the Democrats have likely already been planning a fair amount as to what they want to do, so I think that the conflict with Trump will start immediately after Jan. 3, 2019.

However, between Nov. 6, 2018 to Jan. 3, 2019 there will likely be statements from the Democrats what they intend to do, speculation about what the Democrats will do, calls from groups as to what the Democrats should do, and right wing fear mongering on what the Democrats will do.

So between Nov. 6, 2018 and Jan. 3, 2019, I think secessionists will pick up some interest from the Trump base of supporters but not in terms of supporting secession. I think that the impetus of most Trump supporters will be to support Trump and not support secession. I think though privately they might give it some thought as I said, as a Plan B.

However, there is likely to be some Trump supporters which will decide that secession has become their option of choice and since the secession movements are somewhat small, even a very small fraction of the Trump base of supporters would be a big increase for the secessionist movement.

We are going to just have to wait until the evening of Nov. 6th or even the morning on Nov. 7th to see where things are heading.

My expectation is the Democrats will win control of the U.S. House and things will start heating up very shortly after the election results are known.

Maybe this is where the Sons of Confederate Veterans is going to get the money to finish their musuem

From what I can tell the Sons of Confederate Veterans have progressed slowly on their museum.

This is a website for  the museum. http://www.theconfederatemuseum.com/

Originally there was talk about it being open this summer. This Facebook posting shows where it is now. (Almost a day ago. Sept. 10, 2018)

https://www.facebook.com/SCVOfficialPage//2569315683082401

They are making some progress, but it looks like to me they are just beginning.

I am guessing that they don't have the money. I think though they found a way to get the money.

There is a settlement with the Sons of Confederate Veterans and they are getting a little over $30 million dollars in the settlement with the city of Memphis.

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/local/the-901/2018/09/10/9-01-sons-confederate-veterans-offers-settle-memphis-suit/1199804002/

That should cover the costs of the museum unless a lot of money is spent on investigating heritage violations some place with really expensive meals for meetings. Not that I know that they would do that.

What about the $acred memory of Forre$t, Their great $outhern hero. Well $30 million is a lot of money and if you are short of money it can be sort of handy.

Chemtrail history at the Abbeville Institute

When you are just delusional and mentally just flailing.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/revisiting-the-conerstone-speech/


The neo-Confederates have always tried to ignore or rationalize away Confederate Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens' speech.

Another rationalization is that he misspoke himself. Stephen's did regret one part of his speech in which people felt he denigrated the American Founders. However, in a series of his speeches he repeats very similar or the same assertions supporting his white supremacist views of the enslavement of Africans.

However, as the Lost Cause infrastructure crumbles they are getting wild and desperate. This essay is really off the wall.

So I am calling it Chemtrail history. In case you are not on Facebook probably have been offline for a few years, Chemtrails is a idea in a conspiracy theory that the vapor trails that jets leave behind at great elevations are not merely the condensation of water vapor from the combustion of fuel, but some sinister plot to dispense chemicals over the United States.

It does not use with these people to point out that it is very cold up at the heights jets operate and that the combustion of gasoline or other hydrocarbon is water and carbon dioxide and that the water would precipitate at the very low temperatures of the upper troposphere. The internet has enabled the paranoid, the delusional, the mentally defective, the disturbed. Flat earthers are organized and there are endless health quackeries facilitated by the Internet.

So for the exceptionally delusional neo-Confederates I am going to deem them Chemtrail history.

Texas Secession and the mid-term elections of 2018

The Texas secessionists are beginning to hope that the mid-term elections will get their movement started again.

This is their latest Texian Partisan article on the mid-term elections.

https://texianpartisan.com/democrats-favored-for-a-midterm-victory/


I don't know if the mid-term elections will really boost their fortunes. If the Democrats gain control of the U.S. House I am sure they will find many ways of bedeviling Donald Trump. I am sure there will be all sorts of hearings. So some conservatives will likely despair and look at secession as an option to realize their agenda.

However, others might decide that they need to stand with Trump more than ever and not desert him.

The Texas Republican Party might have a secession plank in their platform in 2020.

I do think that if the Democrats gain control of the U.S. House we are in for a real storm of political conflict.

We  are witnessing the neoliberal establishment fighting for control against this new establishment being formed by Donald Trump.  This not some struggle between neoliberals and neoconservatives, the Democratic Party establishment versus the Republican establishment. These factions were just teams in the same franchise. The struggle with Trump is a struggle whether the old regime will survive.

I am expect that when the Democrats take over the U.S. House there will be dozens of investigations started into anything and everything which the Democrats might think will work for them in the struggle. I think that things will be ferocious. There is already cases where people are run out of restaurants because of groups harassing them. We could have a situation of public disorder.

The Democrats might move to impeach. I think that might prove to be the start of revolutionary disorder. I blogged on this before.

https://newtknight.blogspot.com/search?q=impeachment#.W3HBjeg2qiM

The neoliberals if they in the end do win in 2020 and restore the Ancien Regime I think will, to paraphrase a famous saying, will have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

The economic situations which had lead to wide spread discontent will still be there. A large part of the population will not see any hope in national politics. Trump maybe gone, but the discontent will still be present looking for a path to follow.

What is disturbing is that support for secession in polling is now high with many different demographic groups and across the nation.

So I think that if Trump falls secession movements will rise and they will face an opposition that is incompetent.

What am I doing currently?

I am doing an intensive excavation of Dallas' Confederate built landscape. Streets, parks, schools, monuments.

I am writing up papers on two topics and then will make PowerPoint presentations based on them. I am scheduled to speak at one place early Sept.

I am involved helping out groups so people while know who I am and what I can do.

I will be back to do postings occasionally, and when I get my research into Dallas accomplished I will post more often.

Being retired I have the opportunity to be more involved locally. Additionally,  I want to develop a practical politics around the built landscape. It is one thing to do a series of academic papers, but it is another thing to get involved directly. I am also developing my own methods of field work. I hope to develop an activist tool kit also. What I learn from De-Confederating Dallas I want to make available as a training and tool kit for others in other cities.

I am also identifying gaps in what needs to be done to have an effective action plan and so working to fill those gaps.

I haven't forgotten the other projects I have had with a national scope and I have one of those started up again.

Abbeville Institute's pretensions at being a scholarly institute shattered with the Kennedy twins.

This is an article by the Walter D. (Donnie) Kennedy who is one of the neo-Confederate Kennedy twins.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/wall-street-journals-confederate-animus/


This is the Kennedy twin's website.

http://www.kennedytwins.com/

Who knows? Perhaps in the future they are going to include articles by Lochlainn Seabrook.

http://www.lochlainnseabrook.com/

By the way bookstores in Gettysburg, PA, at least one, carry Seabrook's work.

Maybe Frank Conner will be a contributor?

Alternative History and the survival of slavery into the 20th century

There have been various alternative histories which imagine what the present would be like if the Confederacy had won. With a Confederate victory these fictions focus on the persistence of slavery into the present day.

To have a Confederate victory they pose that a Confederate military victory at some battle, or the entry of a European power makes a Confederate victory possible.

The persistence of slavery into the 20th or 21st century is always imagined as being possible through Confederate victory.

However, there is one way slavery could have persisted into the 20th century. It very likely would have made it into the 20th century easily IF THERE HAD BEEN NO CIVIL WAR.

The Civil War started because a lot of slave owners in the slave states panicked and reacted and choose the path of secession.  There is really nothing like war to bring down a slave society.

In general slaves will support the enemy belligerent of a slave society and often enlist in their armies and help in many other ways. In the Civil War many African Americans enlisted in the American Army.  Also, during a war you have an enemy at the front and essentially an enemy at home waiting for the right opportunity to flee or take revenge or both.

There was no possibility of a constitutional amendment being passed to abolish slavery as long as the slave states didn't secede. Yes, there could have been legislative actions making slavery more difficult to sustain. Over time as new states were admitted and as some states became free states, there might have been the opportunity for a constitutional amendment but that would have been fairly far in the future. For a 3/4th majority there would have had to have been 44 to 48 states depending on how many slave states remained and every, each and every, none-slave state would have had to been supporting the effort.

Even then emancipation could have been very gradual and would very likely been on the terms dictated by the slave states.

In alternative history it needs to be imagined that slavery would have happened with no Civil War and not with a Confederate victory. I think why this isn't imagined is because the American historical imagination is in the thralls of the ideas of American exceptionalism.

Speaking in Austin, Texas this Saturday about the Hood Brigade Monument. It is about white supremacy.

This Saturday I will be in Austin, Texas speaking about the Hood Brigade Monument and how it is about white supremacy.

This is the event.

https://www.facebook.com/events/240412070082742/

They are getting some fairly significant speakers at the event. 

I have copies of all the dedication speeches for all the Confederate monuments on the Texas Capitol grounds. 

My speech will explain how this monument, and others like it are erected for the purpose of supporting a system of white supremacy. My analysis of the dedication speeches for this monument would apply to most any Confederate monument in the nation. 

I am hoping that once people understand how to analyze the dedication speeches for this monument they will realize it applies to nearly every Confederate monument. 

For the Hood Brigade I also have this book. I will be showing it at the rally.  Chock a block full of stuff. I have some quotes following the picture. 

This is an extract from the ANNUAL ADDRESS OF COLONEL R. J. HARDING, President of Hood's Texas Brigade Association, AT CORSICANA, TEXAS, Reunion, Wednesday, June 28, 1905, starting on page 176 of the above book. 

The son of our glorious Hood got up a regiment of immunes. Anyone eligible that had ever had a contagious disease, yellow fever, smallpox, mumps or itch. Mississippi sent her quota promptly and McKinley insulted them by appointing the most despised negro in the State—John Lynch—their paymaster. Our boys would never receive their pay
from him.

I will say nothing about Teddy, except that he is rather coon-flavored. He seems to be trying to reform. [Bold face added.]

The book has other pungent racist items.

You can view or download the book at this direct link in several formats.

https://archive.org/details/unveilingdedicat01chil

Once you download the book, search words to use would be "coon" "negro" "inferior" 

What will be interesting is to show that the dedication speakers are a bunch of lying scammers. This is what John Bell Hood thought the War of the Rebellion was about. In fact the dedication speeches really show a bunch of scam artists engaged in all sorts of nonsense to push a political agenda. CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO SEE THE WHOLE THING. 

O.R. Ser. 1 V. 39 Bk. 2 Page 419-422.

I am also planning on driving down early the day before and taking photo documentation of all the Confederate stuff on the Capitol grounds. 

I hope to have a set of photos like I did in Dallas of the Confederate War Memorial.

http://templeofdemocracy.com/dallas-convention-reflections.html

Texas Secession movement seems rather dead.

In 2016 a secession item almost became part of the Texas State Republican Party Platform. It was voted down by 16 to 14 with one abstention.

This year in 2018 secession as an issue it was missing at the Texas State Republican Party convention. There was no reporting of anything related to secession at the convention by either the press or the self-titled, Texas Nationalism Movement. https://tnm.me/.

With Trump in the White House any impetus behind Texas secession or as they like to call it, Texit, has largely evaporated except for a few die hard supporters.

The Texas Nationalist Movement, or perhaps is should be called the Daniel Miller Movement, is desperate in their publication Texas Partisan to find fault with Donald Trump from a right wing perspective.

https://texianpartisan.com/

The Texas Nationalist movement is really straining to wipe up resentment against the policies of Donald Trump. There is this attempt.

https://texianpartisan.com/washington-to-grab-up-texas-land-in-the-rio-grande-valley/

The potential base for Texas secession movement is the very group that would love a Wall with Mexico.

For any government to build a wall with another nation would involve eminent domain, that is government would acquire the land and would pay for it. If you were going to build something like this you would have to acquire land by eminent domain. Not saying that this wall is desirable or not, but any such wall over a long distance would require eminent domain.

The article is confused and lacking logic and somehow Trump is like Obama.

Persons who want a wall with Mexico will understand that eminent domain is necessary. I don't see how a Trump supporter or wall supporter would see this article as being a legitimate criticism of Trump or Trump's effort to build a wall with Mexico.

The Texas secession movement is going to be fading out unless the Republican Party's  fortunes decline dramatically.

Right now the best they can hope for is that there is the "blue wave" in the 2018 mid-term elections and the Republicans lose the U.S. House. Whether that happens is subject to discussion and I am not sure that there is really a sure guide I can find. Special elections tend to indicate the Republicans are indeed in real trouble.

This analysis indicates that the "Blue Wave" is still likely.

https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/analysis-house-blue-wave-alive-well

However, the economy is improving and unemployment seems to be dropping. That may reduce any Blue Wave. Also, the election is still some months away. Something unforeseen might develop.

Even if the Democrats somehow capture the U.S. House I don't think that Trump's supporters will be all that disillusions. The Republicans will still have the U.S. Senate and Trump will still be in the White House. Trump supporters will be preoccupied with supporting Trump which Texit would undermine.

If there is no blue wave the Texit movement is going to be moribund until at least 2020.

At some point in the future Texas may not be a "Red State" in which case the ultimate reason for Texas secession, to create some reactionary nation, will no longer exist. The window of Texas secession is closing.

Further the Texas secession movement itself might be a reason for many Texas Republicans to vote for the Democrats. The business interests and professional societies and others who understand how the Texas economy is integrated with the American economy will be dead set against it. 

A Texas secession movement that actually gets something into the Republican Party state platform might be the thing to make Texas a "Blue" state with a Democratic governor, and majorities in both houses of the Texas legislature.

The best is that the Texit movement can hope for a rural movement of crankiness.

Robert E. Lee Plaque Removed From Frank Crowley Court House/ Exchange Club has this plaque in public places across the nation

I was on jury duty earlier this week and I was pleased to see that the Robert E. Lee plaque had been removed from the "Freedom Shrine" in the Frank Crowley Court jury room in Dallas, Texas.

We had criticized this plaque being in the jury room in our essay published in the Dallas Morning News. 

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/08/04/dallas-confederate-memorials-scream-white-supremacy

There had been no reporting of it being removed, but when I got there I could see that it was removed and that there were two holes in the wall left from the screws that had held it in place.

This "Freedom Shrine" is distributed by the Exchange Club which is a national organization.

It is a set of plaques with important documents in American history. There is Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. I am sure some members in the past were whining that the South was being put upon and the Exchange Club stupidly added in Robert E. Lee's letter of acceptance to be the president of Washington College.

These "Freedom Shrines" are all across the nation in public buildings and likely in every state in the nation. Removing the Robert E. Lee plaque from a jury room is an obvious thing to do. It can be asked to be removed as being a thing that biases jurors.

Next time you see a "Freedom Shrine" look at it and see if there is a Robert E. Lee plaque included.

The Exchange Club still included the Robert E. Lee letter in their Freedom Shrine display. It is item No. 19 here.

https://members.nationalexchangeclub.org/sites/default/files/attachements/30-PieceFreedomShrineArrangements.pdf

It is also in their 20 piece collection which you can see here. It is item No. 19

https://members.nationalexchangeclub.org/sites/default/files/attachements/20-PieceFreedomShrineArrangement.pdf

Why is the Exchange Club still including Robert E. Lee in a Freedom Shrine in 2018? They are an out of touch white club. I am sure they have some African American members who I am sure will come to their defense.

This could be a starter project for any effort to de-Confederate your city.  A small victory is encouragement to go after larger projects.

Also, each of these plaques in a government building legitimizes the Confederacy and their removal de-legitimizes the Confederacy and Confederate monuments. So removing these plaques also helps in removing other Confederate items.

Most importantly though is that we need to take the Confederacy out of the criminal justice system.

BEFORE AT THE COURT HOUSE

AFTER

CLOSE UP   You can see the drill holes.

"Confederate Identity Extremists" and elastic definitions

On Dec. 16, 1773 a group boarded a ship and threw the cargo of tea into Boston Harbor.

Were they Colonial Identity Extremists?

Years ago, when I graduated and I was living in an urban old style apartment building, we saw a tall person drag a smaller person into a doorway in the alley way and started to beat the person severely. Back to the alley way were the kitchen windows to the apartments and we, me and my neighbors started calling out, "We are calling the police!" so to get the criminal to run and stop the beating. Imagine our surprise, when the tall person held up a police badge and was rather smug about it.

At the time there were no smart phone cameras or smart phones or digital cameras at all. There was nothing we could do to document it. No one called, because you didn't want thugs in blue calling on you. So it essentially never happened except in stories related by me and other residents.

Christopher Daniels who goes by the name Rakem Balogun in the heat of anger said some really bad things about the shootings of police officers in Dallas and Memphis. This article by the Dallas Morning News (DMN) which got published rather late sometime after Daniels was released from prison details his statements on Facebook.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2018/05/14/black-activist-celebrated-murders-police-social-media-says-feds-targeted-political-views

I raised the issue whether the DMN would cover this story at all which was getting global coverage. I discuss the rather delayed reporting in one of the numbered sections below.

This is The Guardian coverage of the story.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/11/rakem-balogun-interview-black-identity-extremists-fbi-surveillance

This is the Aljazeera coverage of the story.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/judge-orders-release-black-identity-extremist-180504115412408.html

I am quoted in another story where I create the term, "Confederate Identity Extremist."

There are multiple issues raised here.

One

First, the statements made by Daniels are not acceptable. Five officers didn't come home that night. They had people that loved them. They were just people trying to do their job.

These type of statements are the type of thing that results in mob violence and lynch law where rage sweeps respect for the law aside.

Of course appealing to the rule of law when videos keep surfacing of law enforcement officers not following the law and abusing their authority makes my position seem foolish to some. Where is the law it could be asked?

Further the courts seem to be unable to convict police officers when they murder someone and the evidence is obvious. Prosecutors seem to be all fumble fingers on these prosecutions, because I think they don't want to do what is necessary to successfully prosecute the case.

Again, with the videos and the failures of prosecutors to do their job, appealing to the rule of law makes my position seem detached from reality and self-serving.

However, situations come up where rage threatens us to be pulled into a vortex of violence. I think we must resist making statements like this. I had a real fear at the time of these shootings that there would be a chain reaction of violent actions and violent actions in response that could spiral out of control. Down in Baton Rouge there was another individual who went on a murderous rampage.

Recently in Balch Springs a teen was murdered by a police officer. There are indications that it was fairly clear this officer had menacing rage and should have been removed the police force some time ago. However, the problem officer was tolerated and it resulted in a young teen murdered. The trial is coming up this June 2018.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2017/12/20/murder-trial-cop-killed-jordan-edwards-pushed-back-june

I suspect that one way or another the police officer will either have a hung jury, get off, or have a ludicrously light sentence.  At that point the DMN will report the usual vetted "leaders" making pious statements. There will be discussions of how the trial went wrong or some proposed changes. It will be treated as some aberration in the law rather than the systematic problem it is. Lots of local ministers will ask for prayer, but it will be a substitute for engaging the question. I am not taking a position against prayer, I am just saying that a call for prayer can be an opportunistic move to avoid an issue.

I think that for some in Dallas all this will be "blah, blah, blah" and the belief in the rule of law will seem ridiculous.

The opinions in this blog posting will seem like babbling in the reality of a nation of murders by a society in which Black lives don't seem to matter very much.

What is worse is that though it might be a "few bad apples" who do these deeds, time and time again it is revealed that other officers gave the bad actor a free pass. And these officers murdering individuals act with the expectation that their behavior would be tolerated.

For people to believe in the rule of law we actually need to have the rule of law and not excuses or expressions of ain't it awful.

Regardless of the above, the officers killed were people going to their jobs, and there needs to be police for society to function, and they were killed by a delusional individual and that night there were people who loved these officers who realized they were never coming home.

The descent into savagery which we see nations and places descend into is because the humanity of individuals is forgotten. We must take action to avert going down a path which leads into this descent.

Since the above sounds like some treacly thing some local leader might say on TV so we all feel good about the situation so let me restate it.

The killing needs to stop, and it needs to stop soon, and those who kill need to be punished. While this problem exists we need to consider our actions.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans Commander-in-Chief has done writing in which never mentioning Black Lives Matter by name, has in his columns in the Confederate Veteran, had writing which I think is very clearly about the police shootings and Black Lives Matter and which attempts to represent the whole protest movement against the police shootings as wrong and the result of some nefarious movement.


Two

There are racist and reactionary political factions who like to portray calls for accountability in police behavior as somehow as an attack on the police. Everyone is accountable for their actions and this includes the police.

What is more disturbing is the assertion that lawless action by police is needed to preserve public order.

These racists are looking hard for any pretext to move the conversation or distract the conversation from the issue and to make it look like it is about attacking the police. In this environment Daniels's statements enable the opposition. Though I don't know how much a person is responsible for self-serving and dishonest actions of another.

Three

Looking at the pictures of Rakem Balogun and associates, I see khaki outfits and guns. What it reminds me most is This is Texas Freedom Force. I did look up the word Balogun and I think it means "war lord" in Nigerian. I have been to Scottish Highland festivals also. It all reminds me of Cosplay.

As a cultural geographer you realize that people in the late 20th century and in the 21st century consume identity. If you want to sell someone something sell an identity with it.

Nationalism is also a component of this movement which has names derived from Africa.

Nationalism is a European ideology with which the Western European nations created themselves as very powerful nations, and which many ethnic groups in Eastern Europe saw the means to wrest power from the Russian, German, Austrian, and Ottoman Empires in the late 19th and early 20th century.

It was seen as a means to achieve independence from European empires across the globe in the 20th. The idea of nations is the globally triumphant ideology such that we have trouble recognizing that it is an ideology and thinking outside of its concepts.

I think its ideological success comes from the fact that it has allowed dispossessed groups to achieve power.

Nationalism is what led to violent war in the 20th century. With World War I and II the 20th century is the century of violence. There were calls to have a conflict with Russia, there could have been a World War III, but it was realized that it would be a war of total destruction of of the Western world if not the radioactive poisoning of the Northern hemisphere. Nagasaki and Hiroshima with the small 20 and 40 kiloton bombs gave insight as to what 10 and 20 megaton bombs might do. Nationalism and violence seem follow each other in history.

Nationalism is a time worn strategy to create a state or to coalesce an identity to fight for rights, particularly when the dominating society is demeaning your identity. That is why there are parades or festivals in the United States for so many groups. We have Christopher Columbus day for Italian Americans, St. Patrick's Day for the Irish Americans, other groups have parades and days also. Solidarity in politics works.

Though now that persons with Irish ancestry are part of the dominate group and most white Americans and maybe most African Americans have some Irish ancestry, St. Patrick's day means green beer. Which is another thing about identities, they are put on like clothes when needed.

So these Black nationalist groups are latching on to a strategy which works for other groups.

Of course sense nationalism is imagined, a nationality can exist if you convince people of its existence. This creates an inherent instability. Is it Great Britain or Scotland and England and Wales and Northern Ireland, and what about Cornwall, and then you can pull maps of the distant past and image further more nations. What about the Heptarchy? The success of a nationalist project depends also by suppressing other possible nationalisms.

Nationalistic difference within a state is separatism and thus threatens social unity. That is why the national American metaphor is the "melting pot" and there historically have been speeches against "hyphenated Americans."  However, the quickest way to get rid of "hyphenated Americans" is to truly eliminate prejudice against a group which is being hyphenated. Black nationalism exists since there really isn't a post-racial society in America and the "melting pot" is seen as a deceptive fiction.

You won't be very credible saying were are all in this together, when there is an ongoing pattern abuse by the police and others which make it very clear that we aren't.

I can see nationalism being used to keep from being co-opted by the system by being separatist, but I also see it as leading to carving out worlds of nationalist fantasy in which you can live inside.

In 2018 I see that with the Baloguns that African nationalism is still seen as a strategy.

All of the above is to explain that I find nationalism dubious, but I also find that these nationalists are the least accommodating of racism. So I think that they will continue to find follows.


Four

The Aljazeera article was on May 5th, the Guardian article was on the 11th, and the DMN didn't report it until the 14th after it was becoming an issue locally on Facebook. The DMN is still the Dallas Managed News. This is an important national story with a local connection. The DMN has a past history of doing things like this hence their nickname.

People in Dallas are somewhat annoyed, including myself, that the DMN does stuff like and I posted links here and there so that the story would be known and I was testing to see how the DMN would respond.

They just did a court report type article. No insight at all.

But never fear there is this article form the DMN.
https://www.guidelive.com/bars-and-cocktails/2018/05/15/waste-away-margarita-mile-app-dallas-new-cocktail-crawl#_ga=2.112256132.1647958528.1526036106-1544550825.1491865227

Four

The most serious thing about this whole "Black Extremist Identity" is that it seems elastic. In this article below I point out that you could create a classification "Confederate Identity Extremist."

http://atlantablackstar.com/2018/05/15/federal-judge-finally-releases-man-fbi-targeted-black-identity-extremist-now-hes-job-home/

Also, there seems to be selective enforcement involved.

It seems that the FBI combed through Daniels' past to find something on which to prosecute his ownership of a gun, though it is fairly apparent to anyone that this detailed going through Daniels' past was based on what Daniels' statements in the present.

Though one neo-Confederate group has said some quite threatening things online I haven't seen the FBI acting on them.

I pointed out the comments of Miss. State Rep. Karl Oliver who called for the lynching of opponents of Confederate monuments. Did the FBI visit him?

As frequently is the case, the government overreaches and threatens constitutional liberties with a case where the defendant is unpopular with the public, has done something where sympathy is little, and has limited support.

The Aesop fable of the small tree being surrendered to the woodsman resulting in the destruction of the great trees of the forest applies here.

I think that the FBI acted out of anger and once this BIE thing got started no one was willing to critically examine it, maybe because it was not politically tenable to ask questions. Maybe the FBI wanted to prosecute an African American so they could look "fair" when they went after white supremacists. Regardless, they have made themselves look less credible and look like they were influenced by Info Wars, a really ridiculous conspiracy website.

Southern Partisan magazine, Abbeville Institute, Revival or Decline of the Southern Partisan and the neo-Confederate movement

The Abbeville Institute is running a lot of essays from the Southern Partisan magazine.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/

First I want to discuss and dispose of this website which seems to be some zombie thing in case anyone thinks it represents a real continuation of the Southern Partisan magazine. This website exists with the old Southern Partisan cover title.

https://www.southernpartisan.com/

However, it seems to be a content farm or some type of website in which an algorithm scans published articles and presents them on the website.

All the authors are, "by Editor," or at least the ones I have reviewed.  I don't see any of the old Southern Partisan material from the magazine available.

So it is with some interest that I have seen a lot of Southern Partisan material being republished online at the Abbeville Institute. Is it a sign of the Southern Partisan neo-Confederate ideology continuing on into the present and possibly into the future?

I thought initially it might be that. However, I am also thinking that it might be that the Abbeville Institute needs filler. I noticed last week on the blog it is all or almost all old Southern Partisan articles.

It could be that since 2015 there are less and less individuals willing to write for the Abbeville Institute. They no longer list a faculty, and I can't find online any indication anymore that Brion McClanahan is the editor. I notice that some contributors have nothing to lose in their reputations.

Or it could be that this nationalist movement is dying out. The purposes which drove neo-Confederate nationalism and much of Southern studies, the maintenance a hierarchy of class, gender, race are still there, but neo-Confederate nationalism is no longer seen as the means to maintain these hierarchies. It could be that among neo-reactionaries, white nationalists, other reactionary sorts neo-Confederate nationalism is seen as irrelevant or at best a charming antique from the past.

These reactionary forces might still respect the Confederacy and revere figures of the Confederacy, but they don't see neo-Confederacy as a means or program to direct the future.

One of the forces which drove neo-Confederate nationalism was the need to maintain a separatist anti-democratic and explicitly racist section in the former slave states against national democratizing trends and national movement towards civil rights. It was to facilitate an internal secession.

The Southern Partisan started in 1979 and got serious funding in 1980 and was really launched that year, when it seemed that with the election of Ronald Reagan there was a real chance of overturning or rendering impotent civil rights legislation. The neo-Confederates felt very betrayed when Reagan didn't restore the pre-civil rights era status quo, though Reagan did much to undermine civil rights.

Though there still is a struggle over civil rights in 2018, the old segregationist regimes of the 1950s are gone forever. M.E. Bradford's hopes remain dashed.

Also, the struggle is for the nation at large. States' rights is gone. All the political forces are playing for the nation. Separatism is conceived as being realized through external secession in the form of a nation state and not internal secession with the vehicle of states' rights.

The whole Lost Cause argument of the Civil War being about states' rights doesn't seem to be that important. Secessionists might believe that the Civil War was over states' rights, but they are planning secession. They may be justifying secession a little because they see a lack of states' rights.  But I think the whole discussion might be seen as superfluous to secessionists who are conceptualizing their arguments within nationalist concepts, and nationalists aren't interested in being within a larger polity with or without "states' rights."

Neo-Confederacy is not dead though. It will continue as a reactionary thread in American thinking. It is still a concern. It has influence, such the "Politically Incorrect Guides" of the Regnery Press.

Because a specific nationalist movement is becoming less important, doesn't mean that the Lost Cause is fading out. School textbooks pander to the Lost Cause. The Lost Cause and its monuments seem to have become an agenda item of reactionary or racist websites like Breitbart. But Breitbart doesn't care about M.E. Bradford or neo-Confederate writing or ideology. Instead their defense of Confederate monuments is more about white nationalism in general and white resentment.

At this time neo-Confederacy is largely expressed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The United Daughters (UDC) of the Confederacy seems to have dropped entirely advocacy of neo-Confederate ideas. Privately they might still support neo-Confederate ideas though, it just isn't public. The UDC has set up their website such that archive.org doesn't archive it.

This doesn't mean neo-Confederacy is dead or will be dead. I don't think it will be what it was in the 1980s and 1990s. It will likely be picked up as a narrative in a larger reactionary narrative of national or world history. It might be a field of study for reactionaries reading reactionary books.

I think there still remains work to be done about neo-Confederacy. There is the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy and their enablers. There is still the issue of the complicity of the field of Southern studies with neo-Confederacy which the field refuses to acknowledge much less address.

Of course like a herpes infection, neo-Confederacy might flare up again under stressful circumstances.

However, even then I think that it will be that elements of neo-Confederate thinking will be used by national reactionary movements to advance a national reactionary narrative rather than push regional agendas.

The publication of the American Ideas Institute is American Conservative though they have had neo-Confederate contributors.

Kanye West, Obama, Bill Clinton, slavery and selective neo-Liberal outrage

I review Breitbart routinely since I feel they represent White House ideology generally and also in monitoring Breitbart I get a fairly good idea of the Trump supporting right wing ideas and positions on issues relating to historical memory. I have discussed this before in this blog.

So recently I have been printing out all the Breitbart postings about the controversy surrounding Kanye West and West's statements regarding slavery. I initially wasn't thinking that much about it, but I noticed that there was a tremendous amount of condemnation of Kanye West but also, it was interesting that other pop cultural figures came to West's defense, such as Justin Bieber.

Something about the outrage over Kanye West got me thinking.

Former president Bill Clinton wrote three letters of congratulations to the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The neoliberal press and the media that is just  furious about Kanye West has never been interested. Democrats have given me all sorts of rationalizations over the years.

Hillary Clinton had her infamous "super predator" remarks some time back, but that doesn't seem to be a concern.

Then there was the 2009 letter sent to former president Barack Obama asking him not to send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument.  Letters were later written asking Obama to put an end to the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) handing out of neo-Confederate awards at the U.S. Military Academies. Additional letters were sent about the Arlington Confederate. Never got any response to any of the issues about neo-Confederate involvement in the federal government.

https://arlingtonconfederatemonument.blogspot.com/

In 2009, prior to Obama sending a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument the neoliberal press mounted an effort to sideline the issue and rationalize Obama sending the wreath. The Washington Post took a leadership role in this with the New York Times in a supporting role.

When Obama spoke at the Arlington Cemetery in 2009 what references that were made to the issue sounded like he was channeling former president Woodrow Wilson. At the end I was somewhat glad that Obama's speech didn't involve any history written with lightning. Democrats had all sorts of rationalizations for Obama and it was made really clear that the letter was not welcome. The persons who had supported the effort lost interest. Obama did send a wreath to the African American Civil War Museum in DC and that was supposed to make it okay and I was told, "Let's declare victory and move on."

Of course there was the Obama "Beer Summit" which occurred before cell phone cameras and social media had advanced such that police abuse and murder of African Americans was routinely captured on video and shared online in social media and new online media websites.

Regarding Confederate monument removal you read here and there in the neoliberal media that being active against Confederate monuments is supposedly falling into some trap that Trump is setting.

I am not seeing a lot of interested by the Democratic Party in the Black Lives Matter movement or discussion about Confederate monuments.

The operating policy of the Democratic Party is that African Americans have no place to go so if they don't like the Democratic Party policies they can lump it.

Meanwhile there a desperate searching for some magic formula to shake loose a few more white votes for the Democratic Party. Progressives are lectured in the neoliberal press to stop being concerned about Democratic candidates positions on issues, that the winning of elections is paramount.

So into this situation comes Kanye West openly admiring president Donald Trump and saying slavery was a choice.  West's views and behavior suggests that African Americans do have the Republican Party as an alternative.

Kanye West is a major entertainment figure and has a substantial base of fans. On Twitter he has 28.2 million followers. (The story that he lost 10 million followers is incorrect, twitter had a glitch and when corrected there was no loss of 10 million followers.) This number of Twitter followers is after all the controversy over West and any supposed lost.

A short tweet, "free thinking is a super power," on May 8th, by West gets 5,100 comments, 46,000 retweets, and 180,000 hearts.

On Facebook there are various pages for him, with hundred or millions of likes. One page which is just a topic page has over 9 million likes. West currently has his Instagram account shut down, but the number of comments about Kanye West are over 5 million.

What is worrisome to the Democrats is that their program of civil rights is not very substantial and West might be validating to African Americans that African Americans should consider the Republican Party of Donald Trump.

David A. Love had an article in the Atlanta Black Star titled, "Should the Kanye West MAGA Debacle Remind Black People That It's Time to Hold Democrats and Liberals Accountable?"

http://atlantablackstar.com/2018/05/06/kanye-west-maga-debacle-remind-black-people-time-hold-democrats-liberals-accountable/

Nice sentiment, and good luck with that.

Chance the Rapper was chastised for a tweet in support of Kanye West but had this to say:

My statement about black folk not having to be democrats (though true) was a deflection from the real conversation and stemmed from a personal issue with the fact that Chicago has had generations of democratic officials with no investment or regard for black schools, neighborhoods, or black lives,” he said. “We have to talk honestly about what is happening and has been happening in this country and we have to challenge those who are responsible, as well as those who are giving them a pass,” the rapper concluded. “If that happens to include I love, someone who is my brother-in-Christ and someone who I believe does really want to do what is right, it’s not my job to defend or protect him. It’s my job [to] pick up the phone and talk to him about it.” (Taken from David A. Love's article.) 

It is not just leftists or political economists who are realizing that the Democrats policy on civil rights is the general idea that African Americans have nowhere to go and a Democratic candidate needs to search for a Sistah Souljah moment, or speak out and tell those African American men to pull up their pants to validate themselves with white voters.

But also, I sense there is a little bit of panic. I don't think that the general public really cares about what the Washington Post or New York Times has to say on West. I don't think the neoliberal press will have that much affect on West's fan base.

I live in Oak Cliff section of Dallas, and I notice that there are a lot off African American male pants not pulled up. Maybe I should tell them that Obama says pull up their pants and see what the reaction is. I wonder what the response would be? (I am being sarcastic and ironic and in no way would I do that.)

In short the fan base of of Kanye West largely isn't going to care about the fulminations of the neoliberals. Justin Bieber realized his fan base doesn't care either and came out in support of Kanye West. I am not hearing a lot of condemnation from Hollywood figures either who I think realize that West does have a lot of fans who would not be sympathetic to such a condemnation of West.

Remember when the National Review put out an issued devoted to the single topic of condemning Donald Trump and it had no impact on politics? I think that is what might be happening here. Neoliberals go thunder your Bull against West.

Of course Kanye West career might be on the way out, but pop stars are like meteors. They flash across the sky and blaze in the heavens and vanish. I don't think his career is going to be that much impacted. What will happen to it will not be that impacted by this. In a month West might be focused on something else and the media will be on some other topic. West's career might go one way or another and these recent remarks will have little impact.

Basically I think that the reaction to Kanye West's statements is in some sectors of the press, selective outrage. Bill Clinton sends letters to the United Daughters of the Confederacy and bringing up the topic is dismissed with annoyance. Obama sends a wreath to the Arlington Confederate monument and bring up that as a topic is dismissed with annoyance. Kanye West saying something about slavery being a choice, and all hell breaks loose.

I think the neoliberals see the Trump presidency as some type of inter period. The Blue Wave will come and if they can just keep the Progressives under control everything will be restored to the earlier status quo. Even better they will have sunk the Republicans and thus defeated the neoconservatives as competitors for establishment support.

However, I see the situation as fluid. One of the things that I was taught in ancient history is that when the Western Roman Empire fell it took a while for people to realize it was really over. The empire had lost provinces and restored itself many times before. Maybe the old political regime is gone forever. This doesn't necessarily mean that Trump is the future, but we are entering a new situation.

The Democratic narrative is that with time demographics will mean the doom of the Republican Party. Tomorrow belongs to them is the thinking. The Blue Wave is one idea of inevitable triumph. However, with Kanye West maybe some demographic groups are not locked up after all.

Labor market shows signs of tightening also. Articles talk about companies dropping drug testing for marijuana so they can find more workers, others about wage increases in fast food. Economics counts for a lot in elections and I don’t think the Democrats crediting it to the previous administration will have much effect.

Trumph has invited Colin Kaepernick to the White House. Would a Democratic president do such a thing? I doubt it. Obama invited police officers who had abused Louis Gates. Has Hillary Clinton met with Kaepernick? No. Nor is it likely that would ever happen. Yes, Trump uses the term “Bigly,” and neoliberals can be disdainful, but he did defeat both the Republican and the Democratic establishments with very little money or campaign apparatus. I think he has a type of cunning.

By the way here is another neoliberal lecture being given to Kaepernick for bringing up that the Democratic Party is missing in action about the issue of Black Lives Matter. Kaepernick crime was pointing out Clinton’s comments about “super predators.”

https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/30/opinions/where-kaepernick-lost-me-cane/index.html

It seems that these lectures to African Americans are becoming a regular thing.

The Democratic Party is out of power, neither controlling either house of Congress or the presidency. The neoliberals in particular are out of power, and so they can't necessarily punish dissenters as they might. I think people are realizing that being scolded by the New York Times or the Washington Post isn't quite the thing it used to be.

The whole matter with Kanye West might be just a blip, or it might be the beginning of a trend of African Americans realizing that the Democratic Party doesn't really care that much about their rights. If it is a new trend, in five years it will be proclaimed as an obvious beginning of a new trend, by various pundits and historians, like those who would write for the Washington Post, but I don't really know. I do think that the neoliberals are afraid that it could be a trend, that the African American vote won't be locked up.

Remember the victory in Alabama over Roy Moore? It was due to the Democrats getting an extremely high percentage of the vote of African Americans men, 93%,  and African Americans women, 98%, which gave a sort of nothing Democrat Doug Jones a small percentage win. Of course Roy Moore was a neo-Confederate lunatic and that helps.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/glanton/ct-met-alabama-black-women-dahleen-glanton-20171213-story.html

If the percentages for Doug Jones by African American women had only been 95% against Roy Moore, an African American men 90%, Roy Moore well might be in the U.S. Senate today. Even a small loss of African American votes to the Republicans could have severe consequences to Democratic Party fortunes.

The Democrats have come to depend a lot on extremely high percentages of the African American vote falling their way. Of course it remains to be seen what Doug Jones' election means for African American women.

Well actually it doesn't. Read this article.

https://www.theroot.com/doug-jones-and-the-democratic-party-just-screwed-black-1823802570

That didn't take long.

What the Democrats should be concerned about is that low turnout for voting in the African American community is driven by the fact that voting for Democrats has had limited benefits for the African American community as pointed out by Chance the Rapper quoted above.

As for “choice,” the idea of slaves choosing suicide to avoid slavery goes way back in history. If I remember the accounts of ancient slavery in Pierre Dockes, “Medieval Slavery and Liberation,” Roman slave owners had punishments of throwing slaves into pits of moray eels or crucifixion because slaves were quite willing to commit suicide or get themselves killed to escape the brutal horror of ancient slavery and so death had to be really horrific to be a punishment.

There is in popular culture the whole idea of the captured African committing suicide rather than being a prisoner or slave. The character Killmonger does it in the movie Black Panther, Toni Morrison has a character who does it, in the movie Amistad there is a scene where a woman jumps overboard with a baby to prevent them from being enslaved.

What does this say about those who didn’t commit suicide. Those who survived and those from whom the present generation of African Americans are descended?

This is somewhat a modern and American historical problem. Slavery in the Caribbean and Brazil mostly meant being worked to death as did slavery in most places in most historical times. There sometimes weren't too many survivors. Slaves in mines just died and largely didn't have surviving generations.

The other issue is that race marks out African Americans as being descended from slaves. There were English slaves, villain is derived from the term villianage a type of bondage in early and medieval England. You can't tell among modern day English who was likely descended from slaves. Some of these ideas about choice have a consequence of potentially stigmatizing African Americans.

There are various classes of bound labor also, serfs, peons, etc. What are we saying about their survivors?

Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” He was a slave owner. In ancient history soldiers who were captured were enslaved as an alternative to death and this was part of pro-slavery ideology. Are there historical roots of pro-slavery ideology in the narrative of dying rather than be a slave?

I am not saying that one should live under any circumstances. The idea of suicide being a sin is a Christian and Western idea. Japanese and other cultures don’t have a horror of it. I don’t know what the many African cultures thought in the past or think in the present about suicide.

I think that this whole thing about slaves committing suicide hasn’t been thought through.

It could be that with 2016 the neo-liberals win the U.S. House and in 2018 the U.S. Senate and the White House, and we do live in an inter-period and neo-liberalism will be restored but I am not so sure that is the case.

I am not saying that the future will be where Trump or others like him continue in power either. It could be that politics will have a new structure and new contenders and new alliances and configurations. There won't be a restoration of the pre-Trump political world.

Will be presenting at the South Dallas Cultural Center about the white supremacy inherent in Fair Park

April 28th, 2-4 pm, Sat. at the South Dallas Cultural Center I will be giving two presentations on Fair Pair and I will be on one of the panels.

We expect to have a good crowd attend. What is happening is that more and more people are realizing that Ed Sebesta does fairly good research and he is likely to have the story on some item of the Dallas landscape and Ed Sebesta will have documentation that it is about white supremacy.

Also, I expect that with this presentation, and the others planned after it, a lot of people will know about my research into the neo-Confederates.

I am also developing methods which I think will serve as a model to other cities to get rid of their Confederate built landscapes.

Click on it to see the whole thing.

Kay Bailey Hutchison Confederate Convention Center

The City of Dallas thinks that since the Confederate War Memorial is in a section of the park that people generally don't visit that maybe they can just let it stay.

However, monuments live in the imagination. The physical monument is just there to place in your thoughts the monument in your imagination. You don't need to be there every day, the impact of a monument isn't proportional to the percentage of time you are in its proximity. In fact monument that require some pilgrimage or trek can be only seen once but have the greatest impact on the imagination since they require a special visit.

The Confederate War Memorial has some special elements which I think will give it a place in the imagination of the nation and the residents of Dallas, and not in a good way. It turns out that being downtown the monument can be photographed against a backdrop of skyscrapers.

The Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center is one of those designs of a large amount of glass windows and the Confederate War Memorial reflects very well both during the day and at night off those windows in the most interesting ways. I put some of the pictures on the following web page.

http://templeofdemocracy.com/dallas-convention-reflections.html

I am mailing all copies of all the pictures on the above webpage, except one, to Mayor Rawlings and the City Council. They have all the same little comments that I show associated with the images in the above web page.

As a method of getting your city to rid itself of a Confederate statue I don't think my method of photographing the reflected images off the convention center has much general applicability. This combination of architectural style and close proximity was rather fortuitous.

However, photographing images of the Confederate monument against local landmarks I think could be applied to varying extent in a lot of situations.

The other lesson is to really look at your local Confederate monument and its location. We had been at this monument multiple times, and no one noticed the reflected images until the last anti-monument mini-rally and then only myself. One pointed out people picked up on the symbolic meaning fairly quickly.

So ask yourself do you really see your Confederate monument? Have you looked early in the morning, noon, late afternoon, night. What does it look like in rain or fog? Is it always illuminated at night or never? Does it have ultraviolet fluorescence? Have you tried photographing it with polarized filters?

There must be a lot of ways to get the Confederate monument seen for the thing it is, and get others to really "see" it.

Secession and Gun Control, or "That was fast!"

In this earlier Feb. 2018  blog posting I concluded that I thought the ignition point to get secession movements going was likely to be the passage of gun control legislation.

https://newtknight.blogspot.com/2018/02/status-of-texas-secession-secessionists.html#.Wsigt4jBqiO

The comment about gun control was at the very end.  It is part of a lengthy assessment of the status of the Texas secessionists. To give a very brief assessment, the Texas secessionists aren't going to gain any traction as long as Trump is in office and the Republicans control the government.

I blogged about a news article about secession and gun control March 27, 2018.

https://newtknight.blogspot.com/2018/03/liberal-left-is-noticing-secession-and.html#.WsihuIjBqiM

A left/liberal website Think Progress reported on some fringe elements advocating secession to prevent gun control. This is the link to their article.

https://thinkprogress.org/why-do-these-patriots-hate-america-ec1a093a8df6/

So I saw a developing idea among fringe elements. Maybe some time some where this would have consequences. I was really surprised that the issue of gun control and secession would find its way into state legislatures this fast with the introduction of a bill into the South Carolina legislature calling for secession if there is federal gun control legislation.

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/382003-south-carolina-house-republicans-introduce-bill-to-consider-secession

http://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article208132169.html

It became an Associated Press story.

Reminds me of the statement by South Carolinian James L. Petigru that South Carolina in 1860 was too small to be a republic but too large to be an insane asylum.

From the AP article we learn the following:

A trio of state House Republicans on Thursday quietly introduced a bill that would allow lawmakers to debate seceding from the U.S. "if the federal government confiscates legally purchased firearms in this State."

 The chief sponsor is Rep. Mike Pitts who contradictorily also says:

Pitts, a longtime law officer and Army veteran, said his bill isn't a call for secession but merely a proposal to make the action possible if events warrant.

"I'm not promoting secession. I served this country, and I don't want to see it broken up."

I think this shows that Pitts thinks that secession is a little out there as an idea or perhaps he doesn't have coherent thinking.

However, this puts the idea in the news for both South Carolina and in North Carolina where the story was covered in the Charlotte Observer.  https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/south-carolina/article208132169.html  The story is identical to the article in The State.

It has gotten national coverage in the media and with the Internet the secession proposal in South Carolina can be accessed by a national audience.

Perhaps this is the next ultra position to show that you are really a strong supporter on gun control. Or maybe it isn't. It could be that the Republican leadership is ready to severely criticize the three Republican legislators. Or it could be that some other Republican legislators will join the effort to make sure they don't lose the next Republican primary. Or it could be both. I think I have covered all the possibilities there.

However, the fact that this is proposed at all is cause for concern. We don't hear calls for the resignation of these three Republicans by the Republican leadership.

It is another incremental step forward in the normalization of secession. A little here and a little there secession continues to be normalized.

The attitude of the media has been bemusement. The history of secession is that it seems comical or outlandish until it isn't.

Any political movement, anything new, starts first with imagining it. At this point we have secession being imagined. We don't have the imagining of the consequences, just some idealized fantasy of secession. I don't see any anti-secession movement getting people imagining the consequences. There is just bemusement.

There needs to be conceptualized some anti-secession strategies with some group having some ongoing focus on preventing secession. That way when a body of ideas is needed they will be developed and there will be something better than some slogan like, "Better Together." (Used in opposition to Scottish secession.)

The fundamental problem in getting people to take secession seriously is that people think that nations are composed of some solid material, maybe concrete, and indestructible. The reality is that nations are imagined and are composed of dreams. Once the dream is gone, the nations may have all the apparatuses of state power, but as imposing as they may seem, a nation dependent on them alone, and not the support of the general population is in a desperate situation.

The collapse of the Soviet Union should have taught the public that. It hasn't. The secessionists however, were quick learners regarding this. The neo-Confederate Kennedy twins discussed the Soviet Union in their second edition of "The South Was Right!" Other secessionists noticed.

Also, I fear that if secession starts getting some traction the opposition to it will be blunt and unthinking and act to enable secession. Opposition to secession needs to be grounded in the field of cultural geography and that field's understanding of nationalism. The reliance on force will be a losing strategy.

However, at this point secession has moved forward just an increment. Perhaps I can't really believe that this is going anywhere. Even to myself it seems outlandish. However, I think that it might turn out to be very real and a great danger.

Take 'Em Down NOLA Item # 5 - The end of the Confederacy in the built environment and place names

The importance of the Take 'Em Down NOLA national conference is that we are networked now. A loose network to be sure, but a network. There is the sense that there is a national movement being born.

The conference has been inspiration for other groups to form and work in their areas. Information is being exchanged. I gave out 80 copies of my book "Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction," to the attendees. To one individual from each city I gave a copy of the "Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader," and "Pernicious." I think they will be surprised how rabid the neo-Confederate movement is.

I also shared with the people for whom I got contact cards online resources including my website http://www.confederatepastpresent.org/ and my curriculum vitae with its sources. http://templeofdemocracy.com/curriculum-vitae.html

If some neo-Confederate group is defending Confederate statues some place I can have information to the local group fighting Confederate statues as soon as they contact me. Though now the network is aware of this article.

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

Being informed is always an asset and people will be bring the information I have shared to others.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans will no longer be able to pass themselves off as sentimentalists and neither will the United Daughters of the Confederacy be able to pass themselves as persons with historical nostalgia. The neo-Confederate agenda will be known.

I can get information documenting the neo-Confederate movements hostility to all sorts of groups in hours.

The other groups bring their own talents and resources into the effort with their experiences to organize and mobilize.

We haven't gotten involved about half of the groups across the nation which are involved so there is potential for expansion and as mentioned new groups will be forming.

Another national convention is planned to be in Jacksonville. Annual conventions will keep the sense of there being a national movement and continue the exchange of information. I think Jacksonville will be closer to groups in Virginia and the Carolina's and we will get more participation from that part of the nation. Also, being in Florida I think there will be people wanting to have a combined vacation/conference visit. The ocean will be close by.

Up until recently campaigns against Confederate statues have been done by temporary ad hoc groups or groups that are only temporarily focused on this. Also, one interesting feature of the attendees at the NOLA conference is that they understood how the built environment created a framework of values that shape society.

Whereas there had been groups in defense of Confederate statues that continued from year to year for generations, there hadn't been counter organizations against the Confederacy that were more than temporary efforts. That is now changed. Elected officials will have to understand that there will be groups holding them accountable if they support or aid neo-Confederates. There might be a protest group showing up at their next event.

The was the comparison of local efforts and learning that some of the obstacles and behaviors they observed were the same in their different cities and an exchange of tactics and counter-arguments that people had learned.

The Confederate built environment is losing popularity over time and I think it just needs some focused groups to keep pushing and in 20 years Confederate monuments will be few and the indicators of some really backward town.

The Confederacy is going down.

Police Harassment after ministers event.

About half the group had dispensed all ready and some people still hadn't left and were talking and the group was gradually leaving as people wrapped up their conversations.

However, the police showed up and told us we had to leave. This is a public park and people just told the police that they were going to be staying.

What was interesting is that the police did this with media people still there with TV cameras. The police backed off when they realize they were being filmed, not just by me, but by the media.

The video is unedited. People come up to talk to me not realizing that I am taking video of a developing situation.

WARNING: Some bad language.

https://youtu.be/vYQX5kuPVIY


Click on the image to see the whole video.

Confederate Monument a Bad REFLECTION on Dallas, Texas

This is the Confederate War Memorial reflection on the windows of the Dallas Convention Center in Dallas, Texas. Took it 3/29/2018.  What organization wants their event reflecting the Confederacy.

https://youtu.be/Klxrs0H_fVk

Click on video to see the whole thing.




https://youtu.be/NTOHsij2Dhc

Click on video to see whole thing.

Texas Secession at the 2016 Texas State Republican Party Convention

The debate over secession at the 2016 Texas State Republican Party Convention video has been released.

You can watch and listen at this link.

https://texasnationalist.com/news/video-released-of-republican-debate-on-texas-independence

The proposal was defeated by the platform committee 16 to 14.  Fairly close I think for a party that claims to be patriotic.

The relevance is that the Texas Nationalist Movement is planning to get some measure passed at the 2018 Texas State Republican Party convention.

https://texasnationalist.com/news/tnm-rpt-past-and-future-part-1


What is in this movements favor is there is no longer the presidential campaign of Ted Cruz to ferociously oppose it.

Against it is that Donald Trump did get elected president and to advocate secession would undermine him, and the potential base for secession is largely the same people who support Donald Trump.

The Republican Party state convention is June 14, 2018.

As I have explained before, the secession movement would only start up if its potential base lost hope in Trump or the Republican party's current ascendancy in national politics, or the federal government passing gun control legislation. None of these things is going to happen between now and the June 14, 2018 Republican Party state convention.

If, and I emphasize if, there is some "blue wave," in the 2018 Nov. elections, then the Texas secessionist movement will start gaining traction.

These page and video links are posted so people know what is surfacing in the Texas Republican Party.

This is the link for the Republican Party state convention.

https://www.texasgop.org/2018-convention/

Take 'Em Down NOLA. Rationalizations of statue defenders Item #4

After I left the Mitch Landrieu book signing I ran into a person outside the museum who as critical of Take 'Em Down NOLA (TEDN). Being an older white guy often people will make assumptions about my opinions.

This person's argument against TEDN was that the members of TEDN were "transplants."

I pointed out that in our legal system there weren't hereditary castes nor privileged voters, and that everyone living there in New Orleans was a citizen with rights.

Of course the person didn't accept this, he said how would I like it if people came to my place to change my culture or some such thing.  A little Xenophobia is the basis of his argument.

If I moved someplace and something there was really stupid I would speak out. If it was something like cottage cheese pie in West, Texas. (That is West, Texas not West Texas, on the way to Waco.) I am not going to be that critical. Local favorite, awful, but let it go, I don't have to eat it.  But I think, and I have opinions, and I can choose to express them. I will be sensitive to feelings where possible, but I don't think locality enables stupidity.

What you learn is that people with banal white nationalist views don't want to recognize that they are white nationalists and come up with all sorts of inane arguments.

The tactic of discussing whether they are transplants or not is to avoid discussing the issues involved with Confederate monuments. The person discusses these other topics to avoid discussing the Confederacy or realizing his or her white nationalist views.

We need to confront these various rationalizations by the following

1. Point out that they are means to avoid discussing the issue.

2. Call it banal white nationalism.

Liberal/ Left is noticing secession and that gun control might drive it

The article is titled, "What's with these so-called 'patriots' calling for the breakup of America?"

https://thinkprogress.org/why-do-these-patriots-hate-america-ec1a093a8df6/

In this February 2018 I said that Texas secession would likely have an ignition point with the passage of gun control.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2018/02/status-of-texas-secession-secessionists.html#.Wrr3FYjBqiM

With the demonstrations for some type of control of fire arms after the Parkland school shootings it seems from the Think Progress article that this move towards secession to avoid gun control is starting.

It seems that the recent demonstrations for gun control have persons strongly opposed to gun control rattled and talk of secession has begun.

I knew that the protests had been large, but I didn't really think that the students had a chance, but maybe people against gun control are seeing that they do have a chance.

What needs to be remembered about these calls for secession or threats of secession is that they normalize secession. Maybe a person is just blowing off steam, but for what ever reason they talk about secession as a possibility means that this is no longer a taboo topic, or that there is a barrier between them and this position. They have taken this position once, so even if they lose interest, they have done so prior and there is no barrier psychological or intellectual to doing it again. There isn't a need to think through the issue, since in the past they had thought through the issue.

The percentage of people who have discussed secession increases a little or maybe more than a little. A larger population of those more open to secession than before is built up.

Take 'Em Down NOLA, Marching in the street. Item #3

On Sunday, 3/25/2017 we marched through streets in New Orleans and stopped at various monuments that needed to go.

There was no parade permit. The police just stopped traffic along the route so we could pass unhindered. I was able to safely walk backwards into intersections against the traffic lights so I could get Facebook live broadcasting of the group.

The city didn't want any incidents and it was like we had an escort along the way.

I have the video of the parade on Facebook.  My cell phone would lose signal and I would have to restart.

This is the first video.

https://www.facebook.com/edward.sebesta/videos/10157266790959829/

This is the second video.

https://www.facebook.com/edward.sebesta/videos/10157266915554829/

This is the third video.

https://www.facebook.com/edward.sebesta/videos/10157267094869829/


The police barricaded one monument so that the TEDN couldn't use the monument for some action.

At the end of the march we were back at Lafayette Park and we formed a big circle. This is part of the circle.

Click on pictures to see the ENTIRE photo.

This is another section of the circle.

And another section of the circle.

another section of the circle

another section of the circle

A very diverse group of people working for a common goal. People who are going back to their communities and who are fired up to take down Confederate statues and I will be providing research support for all of them.