United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) called "KKK-Linked" by "Breitbart"

The title of the Breitbart Dec. 19, 2019 article is, "Nolte: Watch Joe Biden Defend KKK-Linked Confederate Group as 'Fine People,'".

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/10/nolte-watch-joe-biden-defend-kkk-linked-confederate-group-as-fine-people/

Wonders never cease.

Joe Biden depends heavily on the support of African American Democrats and I think is the centrist Democratic candidate the Republicans fear.

Also, Breitbart is pushing a BLEXIT movement, a movement of African Americans out of the Democratic Party. They don't need a majority of African Americans to vote Republican to achieve their objectives electorally, but if they can get a 10 or 15% it would help  a lot.

What is interesting about this is that Breitbart is bringing to the public's attention the UDC's history of praising the Reconstruction Ku Klux Klan.

For decades I couldn't get the liberal or neoliberal press interested in this. For decades the UDC was given a free pass. Suddenly, the reactionary right is publishing stuff like this about the UDC.

What it shows is that among conservatives and reactionaries the UDC is seen as something of little consequence and there are opportunities in reporting its racist agenda.

I have noticed that Breitbart isn't defending the Confederacy anymore, perhaps a little and I have missed it.  An insurrection that would have destoryed America doesn't really fit into an agenda where you have the slogan, "Make America Great Again."

I think we will find some UDC members dropping out, but the big impact to the UDC is that younger people aren't going to join when when even the radical right is dumping the Confederacy and getting African American votes is seen as critical to advancing their agenda.

Also, a lot of the population that was really bought into the Confederacy is passing away. A conservative movement needs to look into the future, and they can see there is no future hanging on to the Confederacy.

I think the Breitbart direction maybe in response to this article in the 11/25/2018 article, Washington Post, titled, "The GOP is now the party of neo-Confederates."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gop-is-now-the-party-of-neo-confederates/2018/11/25/d5d9dd88-f109-11e8-bc79-68604ed88993_story.html

Of course I couldn't get the Washington Post interested in neo-Confederates for decades, but now they are suddenly interested. The Washington Post provided a defense for Obama when he sent a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument. 

It is 2019, soon to be 2020, and it seems not one wants the Confederacy and it is a liability the two major political parties want to pin on each other as a means to lible them.

Confederate Railroad performed at neo-Confederate event held by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and reported in the Southern Partisan

Confederate Veteran has lost two bookings over their name. This is their website. http://www.confederaterailroad.com/

This is their Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/ConfederateRR/

They have been dropped from two fairs as of 7/26/2019.

There is an attitude that they are being picked on.

Charlie Daniels is really upset as reported in this article.

https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/cody-leach/charlie-daniels-blasts-decision-cancel-confederate-railroad-band-giving-fascism

In this Brietbart article Danny Shirley is all innocence saying, "I've done nothing wrong" and attributes the name to being derived from regional pride. He is quoted saying, "I love the part of the country I'm from and I will never apologize for that."

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/07/25/confederate-railroad-banned-from-second-state-fair-for-name/

He does other whining.

However, it turns out that when the band started they were quite the defenders of the Confederacy.

The 2nd Quarter 1993, Vol. 13 Southern Partisan (pp. 42-43) had an article by neo-Confederate Devereaux D. Cannon Jr. about "The Southern Heritage Jam," put on by the Sons of Confederate Veterans at their new national headquarters on May 22, 1993.

The article has a picture  of  Danny Shirley with the caption, "Danny Shirley, lead singer of Confederate Railroad, the "Best New Country Band of 1993," rallies the troops." These would be neo-Confederate 'troops.'

The article makes special mention of Confederate Railroad and thanks to Confederate Railroad as defenders of  the Confederacy. I quote:

"The first started by Alderman exploded as he introduced the final act of the evvening, the award-winning, and politically incorrect, "Best New Country Band of 1993," Confederate Railroad. The young men who make up that band are more than proud of their country and heritage, as the name implies. They are often asked in interviews whether they are criticized for having "Confederate" in their name. Each question offers them an opportunity to "witness" for Dixie, and opportunity which they never pass up."

"Southern Heritage Jame I was put together on a shoe string, with no advertising budget. Despite that, it provided to be a grand success and will grow into an annual event. (Rumor has it that Waylon Jennings has agreed to headline Southern Heritage Jam II.) ... The Jam was a success because  so many  artists were willing to donate their time and energy to benefit Southern Heritage. Confederate Railroad is to be especially commended in thsi regard. They played a concert earlier in the day at Jackson, Tennessee. From that concert they drove some 150 miles to donate their time and talent to the cause of the South, and then immediately set off, at 1:30 a.m. Sunday, to invade Ohio."

The article then urges other artists to support the Confederacy like the Confederate Railroad.

Danny Shirley sought to get the support of neo-Confederates by supporting a neo-Confederate event. According to the article are proud of the Confederacy. Devereaux Cannon mentioned as the "Chairman" of the Confederate Heritage Committee of the SCV.

Confederate Railrord continues to derail.

The cancelling of Confederate Railroad appearances is now getting attention in the political press.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/454768-country-band-loses-second-gig-over-use-of-confederate-flag-imagery

This is my previous posting.
http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2019/07/confederate-railroad-becoming-train.html#.XTs9Weg2qiM

This is the next post on the Confederate Railroad at a neo-Confederate event supporting "Southern Heritage."

https://newtknight.blogspot.com/2019/07/confederate-railroad-performed-at-neo.html#.XTucu-g2qiM

Breitbart has covered the second lost booking.

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/07/25/confederate-railroad-banned-from-second-state-fair-for-name/

It has made Fox News.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/country-rock-band-confederate-railroad-booted-second-state-fair

It turns out that the members of the band Confederate Railroad don't see anything that  they have done wrong. It doesn't occur to them that naming themselves after an insurrection to preserve slavery and white supremacy is wrong.

The significance of this type of coverage such as The Hill is that the political class is now aware. Every politician will realize that the appearance of Confederate Railroad in their area is going to be a political issue.

The coverage in the right wing press is going to mean that a lot of sensationalistic right wing groups will want to get involved to support Confederate Railroad in ways which in the end will not be helpful to the band Confederate Railroad, but will infact damage their image.

I think as cancellations occur over time, the occurance of a Confederate Railroad concert at your  event is going to give your event and your locality an unfavorable identity. A put down of a place might be that the place is the type of place that would have a Confederate Railroad concert.

Local chamber of commerces will not want Confederate Railroad at a fair event where their appearance could give the locality an unfavorable image.

At some point, maybe soon, Confederate Railroad is going to be forced to either shut down, change their name, which will greatly annoy their fans, or embrace right wing support. None of these choices are appealing.

These are Facebook postings that I am sure Confederate Railroad doesn't want. The old saying "With friends like these you don't need enemies."

https://www.facebook.com/groups/901544073513517/permalink/904864759848115/

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/the-land-of-lincoln-bans-confederate-railroad/

BREITBART reports that Robert E. Lee was a poor military leader and cruel to slaves. /HOLY MOLY GERALD HORNE IS QUOTED! NEO-CONFEDERACY IS GOING DOWN!

I about fell out of my chair reading this article this morning. (4/27/2019). The neo-Confederacy is going down!

This is the article.

https://www.breitbart.com/news/ap-explains-trump-revives-debate-about-robert-e-lee/

I check Breitbart every morning to see how they process historical memory in their politics. I have about 3 to 4 linear feet of printouts of their articles.

So with the title, "AP Explains: Trump Revives Debate About Robert E. Lee," I expected a long article about how great Robert E. Lee was and how the left hates America, etc. etc.

I was quite surprised to see that instead the article was highly critical of Robert E. Lee.

On slavery the article explains:

"Documents show Lee was cruel to his slaves and encouraged his overseers to severely beat slaves captured after trying to escape. Historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor said in a 2008 American Heritage article that Lee was angry about the slaves’ demands for freedom and 'resorted to increasingly harsh measures to maintain control,' breaking up most slave families. One slave at Arlington, Pryor noted, called Lee, 'the worst man I ever see.'"

Again, this isn't The Guardian, or The Root, or The Grio, or some liberal/left publication, it is Breitbart.

As for his performance as a soldier the article states:

"Lee eventually commanded troops in the field, winning battles largely because of an incompetent Union Gen. George McClellan, according to historians."

There is more than this quote explaining how Lee was a poor military commander.

The Lost Cause mythology is torn apart. Confederate monuments are associated with the rise of racism and the Ku Klux Klan.

HOLY MOLY GERALD HORNE IS QUOTED!

By the early 20th century, Northern state politicians — fearing deadly violence over black civil rights in the South — caved to pressure from Southern leaders to cast Lee in a more conciliatory light, said Gerald Horne, a professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Houston. “The South showed it would shed blood,” Horne said.

These are the books by Gerald Horne sold on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Gerald-Horne/e/B001HCVSVK?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1556384783&sr=8-1

Interestingly neo-Confederate Marshall DeRosa is quoted to take apart Lee's military record. I don't think the Abbeville Institute is going to be happy over that. Maybe DeRosa is bailing out of the neo-Confederate movement or is working on an exit strategy. DeRosa I will come up with a web page for you so your Confederate service isn't forgotten.

Of course this article might be a fluke. Or Breitbart might retreat is their support base is upset. Even if they do retreat, they might have the strategy of just not covering the issue and avoiding the issue.

As for African American conservatives who have supported the Confederacy or neo-Confederacy or Lost Cause rememberance as part of their careers, what is their situation after this shift by Breitbart? In the new strategy to get African Americans to support conservative causes, these pro-Confederate African American conservatives are not useful because they have this Confederate baggage. They will be dumped.

WHY?

In 2015 and 2016 and afterwards there were many many articles in Breitbart in defense of Confederate monuments, suddenly there is this reversal.

I think the conservative movement has decided that the neo-Confederacy is a lost cause in terms of 21st century politics. If they are going to have a conservative African American movement like Breitbart's Blexit, the Confederacy needs to be left behind.  If they are going to have some politics supporting racial hierarchy having the Confederacy attached to it makes it obvious which would defeat that politics.

I think it has been observed that campaigning on supporting the Confederacy doesn't win elections. There have been some candidates which have run on defending the Confederacy and they have lost elections and cost the Republicans important offices.

Also, Christianity is more and more centered outside the Western world and the Confederacy is not going to be a selling point there when Christianity is in competition with other religions.

In America Christianity finds its strongest support in minority communities.

These changes are manifested in the Southern Baptist Convention apology over slavery some years back and in 2017 (or 2018?) rejection of the Confederate flag.  Evangelical Christians are leaving the Confederacy behind and are finding it an obstacle in the way of their aspirations for the future.

Republican Moore defeated by Democrat Doug Jones is super Republican State. Neo-Confederacy, Steve Bannon defeated

I stay up last night until 100% of the precincts were in to make absolutely sure that Roy Moore was defeated. Turns out that Doug Jones defeated Roy Moore by 1.5% so there won't be an automatic recount. Roy Moore didn't concede but started talking about God being in control. Well maybe God is in control and he wanted Moore defeated.

https://www.politico.com/interactives/elections/2017/alabama/special-election/dec-12/?lo=ap_b1

However, before celebrating too much, Roy Moore did win with the white electorate. It was the turn out of the African American community which saved us. Moore won white voters "by more than-2-to-1 margin, 68 to 30 percent," according to the article of the following link.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/13/alabama-jones-moore-exit-polls-294159?lo=ap_c1

The article referenced by the above link said that African Americans voted for Doug Jones by "96 to 4 percent." Hopefully Doug Jones appreciates fully that fact. Perhaps the Republicans are not going to defend the Confederacy so much.

This is a big loss for Steve Bannon whose Breitbart has campaigned strongly in defense of Confederate monuments as well as for Donald Trump who has also campaign strongly in defense of Confederate monuments.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-think-bannon-made-an-ass-of-himself-republicans-rejoice-in-breitbart-chiefs-alabama-humiliation


This is Politico's take on the election. Key item is that Republicans are now fearing what the 2018 mid-terms will bring. Though it is a long ways away.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/13/alabama-senate-jones-moore-takeaways-294163

I can tell you that it has energized Democrats. Locally on Facebook they see 2018 mid-terms as having a tremendous potential.

Where are we now and is there an emerging counter revolution on Confederate statues

When a movement is at flood tide it is easy for the people in that movement to believe that their forces are irresistible and that they will sweep away all opposition. History shows that this is very often not true. The opposition is thinking and strategizing. They are testing methods and refining them or changing them if they don't work.

Suddenly an effective opposition emerges or effective tactics and the movement which seemed irresistible now is stalled.

So where are we now?

Seven things are working in favor of the monuments being removed.

1. They are located in center cities which aren't very Republican, have high minority populations, and are more populated by liberals and leftists. The poll for the nation or a state or even the local metropolitan area may be in favor of keeping the statue, but in the center city the polls are very likely to be against the Confederate monument.

An counter strategy might be to put a monument on private land, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) have put flags on private plots of land. However, this strategy has limitations. It does show that there is an opposition and an opposition large enough to afford the land and flag pole. However, it isn't on public land and so it doesn't have the cultural authority of a monument on public land.

Further, being a private plot of land and flagpole, the maintenance cost falls on the individuals or group behind the plot of land. Something they have to keep up over decades. Monuments on public land usually are kept up by the local municipal government or they get donors since they are on public land.

2. As monuments go down elsewhere the cities with remaining monuments will look aberrant. The monument will be references as an indicator of what type of town the city is. Corporations will note the monuments when considering locations of a factory or business unit. They will be concerned about recruiting employees to live there and realize that Confederate monuments will be a negative. Competing towns and cities which have removed their monuments will make reference to the Confederate monument in the city.

I have been amazed that Confederate things that only a few specialists like me and the neo-Confederates know about have been removed. What remains will really stick out.

3. Trump has come out for Confederate monuments which has provoked a reaction of many people to suddenly care much more about the issue and be willing to take actions against the monuments. For some people if Trump is for something they are against it. Others were against Confederate monuments but now it is on the top or near top of their agenda. Some people started to think about the issue and now care about removing Confederate monuments.

More importantly a lot of people who might otherwise chatter about rationalizations to keep the monuments are keeping quiet. Trump has discredited for many the arguments they might make.

4. There is an ongoing shift in peoples attitudes to be increasingly against the Confederacy. The high school American history textbooks are still terrible, but they aren't believed. There have been movies giving a more accurate history of the American past.

The percentage of people who grew up with segregated schools is declining. Fewer and fewer people support the Confederacy. The Civil War Round Table population is aging out.

So when there are incidents, like the Charleston Massacre or the murder of Heather Heyer, there is a sudden burst of activity. A lot of people who have rejected the Confederacy already and for them when there is some event they have just had it and they want the Confederate stuff to go.

It was just a few years ago, people who were against neo-Confederacy would tell me solemnly that they couldn't make comparisons to the Nazis. Now it is mainstream. People discuss how the Germans process the historical memory of the Third Reich. They compare honoring the Confederates to honoring other horrific people in history.  The climate has really changed and is changing.

5. Finally for the residents in a lot of cities the failure to remove Confederate monuments will be a big revelation about what city they live in and who the city leaders really are. Residents will ask why does their city still has Confederate monuments when so many others have removed them. This would be a question that some city leaders don't want to make and a revelation about their city and themselves that they don't want residents to make. A mayor who is against the removal of a Confederate monument is just not going to be take seriously when he or she has some pronouncement about Martin Luther King day or has a statement to make in the case of a police shooting of an African American.

6. Politicians who have greater ambitions then elected city office will have to consider how having the retention of a Confederate monument on their resume will impact their political futures.

7. Various scholars and others have folded on this issue, like Kevin Levin. Preservation societies, local historical associations have to consider if they want to have defending Confederate statues as part of their history when they so often go to city hall to appeal for one thing or another.

However, there is an opposition.

Right Wing:

The right wing press is defending the monuments. Breitbart in particular is reporting every incident of excess. There have been calls to remove other monuments that aren't Confederate and this is being reported as an inevitable consequence of Confederate monument removal. It is an appeal to white racial fear.

Donald Trump is in favor of the Confederate monuments thus mobilizing his base in favor of Confederate monuments. He is also the president of the United States which has its advantages.

There is an organized neo-Confederate movement. Many African American conservatives are speaking out to retain monuments. Though this strategy doesn't seem to be that important. This strategy was brilliantly satirized in this hilarious YouTube Video, "Buy Confederate Flags From a Black Guy."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is7SeH-gkHM

I think the right wing opposition will actually fuel more action against Confederate monuments. States with Republican Party majorities will have to wonder whether they want to be the party of the Confederacy. I am sure that in Alabama the Republican legislature has some regrets.

Neo-Confederates:

They aren't that relevant anymore. There aren't many that are going to be persuaded by  arguments for the Confederate monuments because the Confederacy was a good thing.

I think that there will be people dropping out of the groups since they don't want to be explaining to their relatives, fellow club members, fellow church members or co-workers why they are members. They will quit if they aren't purged first.


Centrist Democrats:

The centrist Democrats, aka neo-Liberals are I think a serious factor to consider. I have an earlier blog posting with links to articles where they argue against a campaign against Confederate statues because it is falling into a trap that Trump is setting.

What the real reason they are against it is that they want to get more white voters in the next election. This is part of a campaign among many in the Democratic Party who are saying that "identity  politics" needs to be de-emphasized which can be translated as, "let's drop civil rights from the Democratic Party agenda."

I haven't heard anything from Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton on the issue.

However, what the centrist Democrats can do is limited. They have lost both houses of Congress and lost the presidency to Donald Trump. They have no power in government and they have lost a lot of credibility with Democrats and the general public.  Their politics have led to Donald Trump being in the White House. They have limited ability to control the agenda.

The centrists run the risk that by waffling on Confederate statues or effectively opposing any real action against Confederate statues they will be further revealed as a group that stands for nothing but re-election and fudging on the issues.

Richmond mayor Levar Stoney and Charlottesville mayor Michael Signer are probably now regretting their respective courses of action. They will have eventually to have the monuments taken down, but they will get no credit for it since initially they opposed removal, but they will anger all the supporters of the Confederate monuments.

However, I think that there will be cases where individuals, organizational leaders, and some elected officials will use centrist Democratic arguments to not take action. It will act as a drag in the effort to remove Confederate monuments.

Left:

There are exceptions, like Mother Jones which is covering the movement to remove statues, but a lot of the left publications aren't giving this issue much attention. However, they will continue to drift into irrelevancy and it isn't much of a concern.

OVERALL:

I think at some point the movement to remove Confederate monuments will slow down. One reason is that the monuments that can be easily removed will be removed. The monuments that remain will be in rural areas and small cities where the opposition to Confederate monuments is limited and the support for them is strong. Though in those cases the chamber of commerce will be concerned about their city's image and wish they could just go away.

The centrist Democrats are mobilizing on this issue and more generally on a campaign against "identity politics" which means dump civil rights. Their reasoning is that minorities have no place to go so lets not do much on civil rights. However, I think that there are probably a lot of Democrats who aren't ready to sign up for this. Long term demographics argue against it.

However, I don't think any fraction of the establishment can put a break on this issue. Independent groups, both for and against Confederate monuments, are going to be taking actions on their own which will continue to put the issue before the public. Trump and the conservative media will then comment on this issue. Centrist Democrats will find themselves looking like centrist Democrats. Other Democrats will decide that they don't want to look like centrist Democrats.

This issue of Confederate monument removal after the initial easy removals will then become an issue of protracted struggles over the monuments that remain in cities where the support for monument removal isn't so strong. These struggles will keep it in the news. Right wing media and Donald Trump will keep it in the news.

The struggle will then result in the removal of monuments, one city at a time. After awhile it cities will decide that they don't want the constant agitation and decided that they need to go.

I think that after 2018 we will find it an ongoing struggle. It will require a developed strategy and a focused effort.

However, by the end of the next 12 months there will have been removed a great many Confederate monuments and those remaining will appear to be aberrant, an indicator of backwardness. Many residents in those cities will find them a painful reminder of what type of city they live in.

Also, at that time there should be a campaign about churches hosting neo-Confederate groups, the U.S. military working with neo-Confederate groups, and American history textbooks which pander to neo-Confederate groups. These campaigns will be synergistic with the campaigns to remove Confederate monuments and likely necessary for the success of campaigns to remove Confederate monuments.

The Centrist Democratic Counter Revolution Arises to Retain Confederate monuments, Update: More articles.

I have been wondering where the Counter Revolution to retain Confederate monuments would come from.  Pres. Donald Trump has come to the defense of Confederate monuments, but since the monuments are located in the center cities of urban areas this can be more an incentive for them to come down.

When there is a social revolution there can be the illusion that the social revolution is unstoppable. Often the forces of social revolution are surprised when the counter revolution arises and is unprepared.

The movement to remove Confederate monuments is not unstoppable and the counter revolution has shown up. It is being lead by the centrist Democrats.

This article first showed up on Slate, the news website of the centrist Democrats.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/08/18/trump_impeachment_chances_confederate_statue_edition.html

The title is "Are Democrats Making a Mistake by Fixating on Confederate Statues?" I don't think the Democrats are "fixating" on Confederate statues. The author, Ben Mathis-Lilley is with the title trying to stigmatize Democratic concern over Confederate monuments by using the term "fixating."

Mathis-Lilley's thinking is driven by polls and wants Democrats to focus on Trump's support for white nationalism and avoid the topic of the Confederate monuments.

Then there is this column reported in the S.F. Chronicle and then reported by Breitbart.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/williesworld/article/Trump-lays-a-trap-and-Pelosi-walks-into-it-11943839.php

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/08/21/ex-sf-mayor-willie-brown-nancy-pelosi-dems-fell-for-trumps-identity-politics-trap/

Now we have a prominent African American Democrat saying we shouldn't go after Confederate monuments. It is supposed to be a clever trap laid by Trump.  The Republicans have their Walter Williams, it seems centrist Democrats have Willie Brown.

Now Dershowitz is comparing liberals who want to take down statues to Stalinists.

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/08/22/dershowitz-liberals-stalin-statue-issue/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

Or course Breitbart wants this generally known.

I don't know why Dershowitz is called a liberal.

These articles give a rational for many liberal/left individuals to oppose efforts to remove Confederate monuments on the basis that they want to fight white nationalism but not fall into a trap or be a Stalinist. The reality is that these individuals are banal white nationalists unwilling to give up a white landscape.

I would think Democrats would learn from a policy of having candidates always triangulate their positions and filter their principles through five focus groups from the results of recent elections.

UPDATE:

As more articles like this appear I will put them in this update.

Article quoting a Democratic centrist warning that the anti-Confederate statue campaign will undermine the Democrats.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/us/monuments-confederacy-remove-rename.html?platform=hootsuite&mtrref=t.co

A quote from the article.

Paul Begala, the Democratic strategist, said his party was “driving straight into a trap Trump has set,” because the president seeks to shift the focus away from comments he made about white supremacists to his charge that opponents are trying to “take away our history.”

“While I understand the pain those monuments cause,” said Mr. Begala, who was an adviser to President Bill Clinton, “I just think it in some ways dishonors the debate to allow Trump to hijack it.”

Begala's last statement just doesn't make sense.

Another article from Politico titled, "Charlottesville fallout  divides Democrats." The lead for the story is, "The party  is wrestling with how much to focus on Confederate statues, or racially tinged issues at all." That is some are wanting to dump civil rights from the agenda.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/29/charlottesville-democrats-race-confederate-statues-242109

UPDATE:

This is a valuable article to show a larger context for this centrist neoliberal counter effort in the Democratic Party. This one of the few magazines I subscribe to.

https://thebaffler.com/latest/mark-lillas-comfort-zone

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/

 

Proposal to change North Carolina constitution to allow secession

This is what happens when you have Confederate monuments and places named after Confederate leaders.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article134037589.html

http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/n-c-ban-on-secession-could-be-dropped-under-bill/article_e7d42c53-19de-5cf8-8ca7-6bd2e145a9e1.html

North Carolina Republican House Representatives Michael Speciale, George Cleveland, and Larry Pittman want to amend the North Carolina constitution to remove the NC constitution's prohibition against secession.

This article as a little information about their reasons behind the proposal.

http://www.wbtv.com/story/34559979/house-bill-seeks-to-repeal-ban-on-secession-in-nc-constitution

We can expect more of this craziness when the conservative movement publishes people like Brion McClanahan. https://townhall.com/columnists/brionmcclanahan/2017/02/16/let-the-bear-flag-go-n2286464

And:

http://www.breitbart.com/author/brion-mcclanahan/

I think we can just ignore the claim by some conservative groups that they want to make America great again or claim to be patriotic when they publish persons that are sympathetic or pro-secessionist or are neo-Confederates.

This is a link to McClanahan's articles at the Abbeville Institute

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/author/brionmclanahan/

Milo Yiannopoulos and Nathan Bedford Forrest and CPAC UPDATE1.2,3,4 & 5

UPDATE: Milo Yiannopoulos has been dis-invited as a CPAC speaker.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-cpac-milo-yiannopoulos-tape-235204

I just finished this article and the above article comes out. I wonder if any conservative will complain about "political correctness" or free speech in regards to Yiannopoulos. It seems that not everyone at CPAC was willing to go along with him being the keynote speaker.  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/20/cpac-disinvites-milo-yiannopoulos-despite-his-attempt-at-contrition.html

I don't know if Yiannopoulos's career is over though. Politics has changed and what might have sunk a political career in the past may not now.

UPDATE2:

Book contract cancelled, though he has a $250,000 advance. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/21/milo-yiannopoulos-book-deal-cancelled-outrage-child-abuse-comments

Breitbart employees are threatening to quit if Milo Yiannopoulos isn't fired.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/21/milo-yiannopoulos-book-deal-cancelled-outrage-child-abuse-comments

UPDATE3

Milo has resigned from Breitbart. http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/02/21/milo-resigns-breitbart-news/

His articles are still at the Breitbart website. Is his career over? Again I don't really know. Normally I would think it would definitely be over but then again politics and media are now all different and I have no idea what is "normal" now.

Rolling Stone has an article, "Milo Yiannopoulos Isn't Going Away." http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/matt-taibbi-milo-yiannopoulos-isnt-going-away-w468012

However, I think conservative student groups likely won't invite him to speak at their universities and so there won't be counter protests and essentially Yiannopoulos as a phenomenon will fade away, at least I think it will.

UPDATE4

There are reports that reactionary Regnery Publishing is going to publish Milo Yiannopoulos' book.  It will be interesting if true. Regnery Publishing has pretensions of being a serious publisher and that evaporates if they publish Yiannopoulos' book.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/03/30/report-conservative-publisher-could-pick-up-milo-s-book.html?via=desktop&source=copyurl

http://forward.com/fast-forward/367594/right-wing-publisher-will-print-milo-yiannopoulos-book/

ORIGINAL POSTING FOLLOWS

Bad language quoted in the following blog posting. Given that it is about MILO it is unavoidable since his language is a significant aspect of his writings.

I hadn't paid much attention to Milo Yiannopoulos and his writings. He goes by MILO, all capital letters, and so I will use his first name in this blog posting. He contributed a lot of articles to Breitbart. This is a link to them. http://www.breitbart.com/author/milo-yiannopoulos/

The listing of his articles at Breitbart now just lists him as MILO.

However, this article refers to MILO as a Breitbart senior editor.

http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/02/19/milo-left-silence-us-because-they-know-they-cant-beat-us/

Condemnation of him on the Internet is widespread. He seems to be a person who just throws out a series of inflammatory statements to generate a response and he does get a response.  There are protests, at least one violent, against his speaking on campuses. Also, universities try to prevent his speaking by demanding security deposits that student groups obviously can't afford. These rather transparent attempts are publicized by MILO. These attempts, some successful I think, have allowed him to focus on the issue of free speech to the obscuring of what he says such as the article in the link above.

His writing is mostly just frothing at the mouth. However, now it is announced that he is the keynote speaker at Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) which is a prominent conservative annual event. The publication for which he writes is Breitbart whose former head, Stephen Bannon, is now the chief of staff at the White House.

So as the star of the American conservative movement if and possibly  a hero to English speaking conservatives everywhere, what he says is important. I think also it indicates some significant changes in politics and needs some review.

MILO very freely, clearly, and loudly states that he is gay and attracted to men of sub-Saharan African ancestry and is very expressive about being gay. His current speaking tour he calls the, "Dangerous Faggott Tour http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/01/31/milo-cal-poly-state-university-no-dead-babies/

He points to his having sex with black men as proof that he isn't racist or white supremacist.

http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/01/27/forced-glamour-magazine-admit-im-not-white-supremacist/

In the above article, MILO states, "Some kind of racist that just got railed for 18 hours in a hotel room by his black boyfriend. You fucking morons."

However, there are men with racist attitudes that are sexually attracted to African American men and sometimes that plays into to the attraction.

The thing about claiming someone is racist is that so far there is no technology to read minds. Even if a person stated they were a white supremacist they could claim 15 minutes later that they are no longer white supremacists and though you would likely think this claim as being dubious you can't disprove it. Neo-Confederates have claimed to have changed when it has suited them. In terms of racism you have to refer to actions, what a person does, what a person says, and these actions can be described as racist, that is actions in the service of racist goals.

American media is somewhat shallow about reporting on racism and to them a racist wears funny clothes and says they are a racist and MILO doesn't appear to be a member of any racist organization, doesn't make statements about racial inferiority and superiority or obvious white supremacist statements. American media doesn't seem to know how to engage him, or perhaps a critical analysis of MILO might lead to a critical analysis of other issues that would prove to be difficult for American media. Plus a critical review would take a lot of work and would be a long article.

He is self-derogatory about being gay and so I think his being gay is thus made acceptable to conservatives and my assessment is that he plays the role of being a gay person to be laughed at. It seems though it is entertainment that is very popular among conservatives as indicated by the fact that he is the keynote speaker at CPAC.

In this article MILO explains that that he would prefer to be straight.
http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/09/20/milo-i-would-take-a-straight-pill/

His homosexuality is in your face in some of his articles. For example this article about him having sex with a "black drug dealer" in his bedroom when he was 15 years old,"on a school night."
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/04/14/im-sooo-bored-of-being-gay/

In this article, link below, there is picture of a sign "Colored Served in Rear." In his article he explains his Grindr profile if "truthful" would say "blacks only" and so the meaning of the sign "Colored Served in Rear," becomes clear I think in any reasonable understanding of what MILO is trying to say with it. (Note: I looked up what "railed" means at the urban dictionary. It means to be vigorously and repeatedly penetrated by a penis. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Railed Warning, rather explicit language.) It isn't that this language would necessarily upset me, but I want to be considerate of the sensibilities of all my potential readers.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/10/my-grindr-profile-says-no-whites-am-i-racist/

So the keynote speaker for CPAC is a person who a man whose article makes it clear that he wants sex with African American men and has a picture of a sign to imply to the readers that this sex is anal penetration by African American men.

SO WHAT DO WE MAKE OF THIS?

First Ann Coulter must be feeling fairly down. She was a sensation in the media for her statements outraging opinion, now who is paying attention? She can't attack him since that would only help MILO. I don't think she could be anymore outrageous than MILO.

Gays and Lesbians:

I don't think that we can see it as a complete or nearly complete revolution in acceptance of gays in the conservative movement since MILO is basically playing his being gay on the old homophobic idea that being gay is inherently funny. However, it is a radical change in that he has become a conservative hero, a gay who is quite expressive about being gay and talks about his sexual desires openly. It should also be understood that part of the space created for this speech is that one of MILO's primary themes is that he is freely exercising his speech to say what needs to be said openly about race and religion and gender etc., and so critics of his being gay run the risk of being referred to as "politically correct" suppressing his speech.

Even so, even though MILO is self-derogatory as a gay person, his being the keynote speaker at CPAC as a very expressive gay man must really upset the religious right, though I don't know of any public expression by the religious right against MILO. The whole campaign against gays and Lesbians to evangelical youth is undermined by MILO being a conservative hero who has celebrity status and evidently financial success. I suppose the evangelicals can trot out their slogan, "hate the sin, but love the sinner," but I think the intention of this slogan was intended to look down on gays in a condescending way and not for a situation where a gay man, who who writes about his sex life, is cheered as the keynote speaker at CPAC.

MILO makes the religious right a sort of relic in many ways.

For the LGBT community it means a civil war of sorts. Trump is president and MILO is speaking at CPAC and the political fortunes of conservative gays will be benefited. It used to be conservative gays were closet cases and thus though they might express an opinion at a social function or bar, they weren't going to be talking to the public. Also, they were sort of worried about what the straight people might think and were sort of really negative about being gay and gay people. Other gays rejected them.

The neo-Confederate movement must be really be horrified by MILO. The neo-Confederate movement is both extremely anti-gay and against interracial sexual relations. Though it needs to be pointed out that Chronicles magazine publishes articles by Justin Raimondo who is openly gay.  But Raimondo doesn't discuss it in his writings, and I don't ever think he discussed his sex life. Chronicles is really, really anti-LGBT.

Chronicles magazine does see Trump as a great opportunity for their agenda, and hasn't criticizes MILO or as far as I know commented on him. When they do we will be understand what the significance of MILO's homosexuality is the paleoconservative movement. I suppose I need to catch up in reading my issues of Chronicles. https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/

The whole world of the Southern Partisan, the Abbeville Institute, M.E. Bradford and Southern Agrarians seems to have been left behind on the side of the road of the highway of history. John Shelton Reed must be as horrified as he was when he visited San Francisco and the presence of the gay male community there.


Conservative Movement:

With MILO's ascendancy in the conservative movement I think that we don't have to listen to the pretensions of conservatives to be some intellectual force. When they start talking about Edmund Burke or start quoting Eric Voegelin saying "immanetize the eschaton" we can just hold up a hand with palm facing outward, smile, and say  "MILO."

It seems the conservative movement really is, as Lionel Trilling said, "... irritable mental gestures," which would be a good description of MILO's articles and speeches. Intercollegiate Studies Institute, you can just give up your pretensions.

We have always known or at least suspected that all the involved arguments about states' rights, constitutional theory, and various philosophical rationals were often just pretexts for a racial and social order where some are subordinated. It would however take labored analysis to break it down and show that these rationals were pretexts in articles or essays often read by small audiences. MILO as a rising celebrity to a national audience in almost all the media has shown and will show as keynote speaker at CPAC what the agenda of conservatism really for most conservatives is in simple direct terms. The mask has fallen off the face of conservatism, and fallen to the ground and shattered.

Confederacy:

MILO has an July 2015 article about "Why We must End 'Burial Privilege.'"
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/10/why-we-must-end-burial-privilege/

MILO is commenting on the effort to get remove and bury elsewhere the body of Nathan Bedford Forrest in Memphis, Tennessee. This is a part of an effort of the city of Memphis to stop glorifying the Confederacy and not have a monument to Forrest.

MILO sarcastically informs his readers that he is obligated to inform his readers that there is a new way to "demonstrate their superiority in moral and political correctness ..."

MILO thus avoids discussing what the issues might be in monuments and historical memory and instead position it as a problem of some individuals being vainly self-righteous. MILO avoids the issue that monument monumentally endorse individuals and values. That is the whole purpose of monuments and MILO doesn't seem to understand what the purpose of a monument is.

MILO puts forth the irrelevant fact that Forrest as a commander was considered by many to be a "military genius" and Forrest's tactics are studied. However, the issue at hand isn't Forrest's ability as a military commander or whether his tactics should be studied. The issue is whether Forrest should be honored with a monument and a burial location that honors him. This is a common enough tactic to throw in items with the implication that they might justify something without explicitly saying what a specific item is supposed to prove.

Does MILO feel that there should be a monument to Forrest merely because he was a great military tactician? MILO doesn't actually say. It would seem that what Forrest fought for would be important, which is in this case was the break up of the United States to defend slavery and white supremacy. The issue of Forrest's objectives is avoided by MILO. Discuss one thing to avoid discussing another is a common enough neo-Confederate tactic.

MILO discusses Forrest's involvement in the Ku Klux Klan to exhonerate him. MILO states Forrest is "controversial" for his membership in the Ku Klux Klan and "possible leadership position in that heinous organization." MILO states that "towards the end of his life he distanced himself from the Klan." MILO uses minimizing language here. Forrest was thought to be the head of the Ku Klux Klan to give it credibility with ex-Confederates, not just any "possible leadership position."

The United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the United Confederate Veterans thought that the Ku Klux Klan were great ex-Confederate soldier heroes and believed that Forrest was the head of the KKK. S.E.F. (Laura Martin) Rose's book, "The Ku Klux Klan or The Invisible Empire," praised Forrest as the leader of the KKK and the book was endorsed by the UDC and SCV. S.E.F. Rose became the Historian General of the UDC. Rose didn't invent this understanding of the role of Forrest as the leader of the KKK. Forrest monuments in the South were put up in a time when it was popularly understood that he was the leader of the KKK.

Nathan Bedford Forrest II was the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan for Georgia during its 1920s revival. It does suggest but doesn't prove that Forrest II saw being a KKK leader as part of the family tradition. He probably got to be Grand Dragon based on his name and that his father was popularly understood to be the leader of the original KKK.

However, reviewing Forrest's role in the KKK, which will probably, barring some discovery of some documents, remain always unclear avoids the main issue. At the time when Confederate monuments were being erected the Ku Klux Klan was thought to be a great heroic organization of ex-Confederates by those who chose to honor the Confederacy and erect Confederate monuments.

Nathan Beford Forrest fought for the Confederacy a nation created to defend slavery and white supremacy and the fact that Forrest fought for the Confederacy and what the Confederacy's purpose was is very clear in the historical record. This isn't discussed by MILO. Neo-Confederates often like to shift the discussion to one issue to avoid discussion of another issue.

MILO then tries to distract from the issue of historical memory and race by asserting that the mayor of Memphis is expecting that the removal of Forrest from the park "will fix the lives of the citizens of predominately black Memphis." MILO brings up the rate of murder in Memphis and that it "is overwhelming a result of black-on-black crime." MILO states that Wharton "seems to value symbolism over substance."

Did Memphis Mayor Wharton say that the removal of Forrest from the park fix all or some of Memphis' problems?  MILO is refuting an argument that very likely wasn't made.  In debate this is know as knocking down Straw men. You assert an argument as being by the opposition and then refute the argument.

Also, this is a classic neo-Confederate tactic of making two issues as being competitive choices. The idea is that if there is any other problem in a city or county that removing a Confederate statue is denying resources to address the other problems. It sets up the situation that no statue can be removed unless all other social problems in society are gone which effectively means that the Confederate statues will be there forever.  There is no reason that the city of Memphis can't get rid of Forrest and also work on other urban problems.

But in all of this MILO is avoiding the whole point of monuments, is that they exist to monumentally endorse individuals and values. That is why they are put up because the expectations is that they will work to support a historical point of view and influence people.

The Forrest monument and burial site work to glorify Forrest and the Confederacy and to define Memphis as valuing the values of the Confederacy which were white supremacy and the support for slavery.

Every Confederate monument whispers, "Racial equality might be the slogan of the day, but white supremacy is for the ages." After all if racial equality was sincerely believed in the Confederate statues would be long gone.

MILO throws in some comments about "burial privilege" and "reap culture" so that opposition to Forrest memorialization sounds sort of like something at a college or believed by liberals that Breitbart readers would hate. The term "reap culture" sounds like feminist references to "rape culture," which is an anathema to conservatives.

MILO finishes by satirically listing individuals who he thinks should be disinterred. The singer Elvis Pressley for "appropriating black culture"; Betsy Ross, "reinforcing traditional gender roles as a seamstress"; Sir Francis Drake, who "by circumnavigating the globe .. inadvertently violated dozens of safe spaces."

One of MILO's messages here is that reconsidering who we memorialize and to whom we have monuments dedicated to is frivolous and and silly.

Confederate monuments inscribe the landscape and the land as being white and define values of white nationalism. The more important message MILO is communicating to his readers need to consider is that if one white person's role in American history is reconsidered, another white person's role in history might be reconsidered. This section of his article effectively is an appeal to white nationalist panic and loss of control of the landscape to non-whites or at the very minimum having to face lose of control of the white land which makes a white nation when the landscape is contested by non-whites.

The article is a defense against  non-whites this contesting the landscape. It doesn't directly make an appeal to white nationalism and even asserts that pursing the removal of Forrest body is a neglect of the interests of the the African American community in Memphis. So it wears disguises.

So is MILO a white nationalist or alt-right, I am not going to say. I don't have a mind reading machine. Is his writing in service of white nationalism and the neo-Confederate movement and the continued definition of the land as white nationlist, I think it clearly is.

UPDATE 5:

It seems that Milo might be making a comeback. This is an article about his book being a top seller on Amazon for pre-orders. Of course it might be just a one day spike in sales. I don't know how Amazon calculates these things.

http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/06/05/milo-book-dangerous-back-on-sale-soars-to-5-on-amazon-passes-clinton-sasse/

Checked now, and his sales is number 2.

Milo claims to have a media company, he might, I don't really know.

I don't know if Milo is important anymore to the preservation of Confederate monuments. If he defends Confederate monuments it might actually work to get them removed.

Who is Stephen Bannon?

Given Breitbart's pro-Confederate writing and that its editorial policy seems to be directed by Stephen Bannon, I have been trying to learn what I can about Bannon.  Bannon is in the White House in a prominent position where he can defend the Confederacy.

Breitbart isn't simply neo-Confederate. Breitbart articles regard Lincoln favorably and recently there was an article about Frederick Douglass. These are thing that neo-Confederates would find an anathema.

It might be argued that Breitbart is just a grab bag of incoherent rage, and it might be to some extent. Maybe Lincoln is respected since not to would be lethal to Breitbart's influence.

This article certainly represents how some Breitbart articles are just concatenations of rage.

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/12/21/walmart-drops-black-lives-matter-bulletproof-clothing/

To review the whole article's lack of logic would be lengthy but this extract should give a good picture of Breitbart's writing.

Micah Xavier Johnson, the Nation of Islam sympathizer and former Houston New Black Panther member who gunned down 11 police officers in Dallas in July said he wanted to kill cops, especially white cops, as reported by Breitbart Texas. Johnson started shooting at the close of a Black Lives Matter protest. A BLM activist thanked the cop killer on Twitter. Bill O’Reilly called Johnson “a hater and a terrorist.”

But Michael Xavier Johnson was in no way a member of any BLM organization and it turned out that radical African American groups thought he was crazy. So Bill O'Reilly's statement that Johnson was a terrorist is very correct, but not relevant to discussing the BLM movement.

Additionally, there isn't an official BLM national organization, it is more of  a movement. So the statement of a person who is "A BLM activist," without a name given doesn't mean much as an isolated incident. Even if it was an officer of an organization, we would have to see if the person was expelled from the group.  Large groups often have individual members saying things that the organization rejects, sometimes these offending members are expelled or censored.

It seems that BLM is a group of people who don't want to see African Americans indiscriminately shot by law enforcement. I don't think any group would stand for that.

However, thinking of Breitbart as being completely an incoherent rage machine I don't think is correct. I think there is very likely an agenda, and possibly a very reactionary pre-modern agenda.

I have read these articles:

https://qz.com/898134/what-steve-bannon-really-wants/

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/steve-bannon-books-reading-list-214745

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/bannon-trump-muslim-travel-ban-breitbart-generation-zero/ Jacobin is a socialist magazine, but at least it is not filled with the Democratic Party line.

Of course Quartz is the publication of the globalists and I think Politico is likely to be so.

It is proving really hard to find out who Bannon is given the extreme polarization on reporting on him.

A lot of web newsites are full of the worst junk. Slate actually published this rubbish.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/20/donald_trump_s_horrifying_signature_is_a_cry_for_help.html

Ironically Slate had in the past published an article debunking signature analysis. In this article the history of what the Slate article calls a pseudoscience is given and debunked.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/explainer/2013/01/jack_lew_s_loopy_signature_how_much_can_you_tell_about_someone_from_handwriting.html

As a scientific person this is especially dismaying. With new pseudo-sciences coming into being you would hope that some of the old ones would die out. They don't.

So Slate at the present time is just grasping for anything at hand. Maybe tomorrow they will have an article about the examination of entrails and tell what it signifies for the Trump administration.

This stuff and nonsense isn't confined to the globalists. I was astonished earlier this week when a Trump supporter told me with all seriousness, that newspaper political editorials that were biased were illegal in the 40s, 50s, and 60s.

Understanding Bannon's ideology is important. It is just proving to be difficult to do so. It might be that he is a believer in the "Dark Enlightenment," a neo-Reactionary, or it might not.

I see from Generation Zero movie trailer that Bannon believes in historical cycles. It is a common enough failing. There are historians who try to press history into some mold. But I am not sure this movie actually explains where he is coming from.

Perhaps figuring out who Bannon is will take some time. What I mean by this, is finding out where he fits in the political taxonomy. Or maybe I will focus on outputs, behaviors and leave it at that. I will have to see what information there is.

Abbeville Institute author at "Breitbart"

As I dig into Breitbart I am making interesting discoveries. I see that Brion McClanahan is the author of seven articles in 2016. No articles before and so far as of 1/29/2017 no articles in 2017.

All seven articles are articles to praise Trump or discredit Trump's opponents or both.

We should watch carefully who Trump nominates to various boards relating to scholarship and arts. For example the National Institute of Humanities. M.E. Bradford may not have been able to get nominated to the National Institute of Humanities, but McClanahan might. Some may say that the Democrats in the Senate would prevent it, good luck with that.

http://www.breitbart.com/author/brion-mcclanahan/

Brion McClanahan is a major figure at www.abbevilleinstitute.org, a neo-Confederate organization.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/topics/brion-mcclanahan/

I see that McClanahan is able to give his neo-Confederate interpretations of history.

In this article, "Donald the Good," McClanahan attacks James G. Blaine, Republican presidential candidate of 1884. McClanahan's leadership role in the Abbeville Institute isn't mentioned.
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/06/25/donald-the-good/


In this article, "Trump Foreign Policy Speech Makes all the Right Enemies," mentions that McClanahan is the author  of "9 Presidents Who Screwed Up America -- and Four Who Tried to Save Her." I just bought the book while writing this blog posting.
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/04/29/trump-foreign-policy-speech-makes-right-enemies/

You can read about the book here. You will notice that it is endorsed by neo-Confederates Lew Rockwell and Clyde Wilson.  The presidents who are listed as messing up America are Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and Barack Obama.
https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Who-Screwed-Up-America/dp/1621573753

The ones the thought tried to save here were Thomas Jefferson, John Tyler, Grover Cleveland, and Calvin Coolidge.

Somewhat inconsistently Brion McClanahan praises Trump as another Andrew Jackson in his article, "Is Donald Trump the Andrew Jackson or Aaron Burr of our Time?".
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/26/is-donald-trump-the-andrew-jackson-or-aaron-burr-of-our-time/


If you look at this website you will see a list of Scholars & Writers for America statement of endorsement for Donald Trump.

I see in it persons who wrote for Texas Republic, Southern Partisan and Chronicles magazine. I should emphasize that most of the writers on this list haven't. But I see a fair number who did, as well as those who wrote for the Abbeville Institute and at least one who I think was involved with the League of the South Institute.

Again, it is likely that they will expect to be appointed to some board or committee and apply their neo-Confederate or fringe ideology to American culture.

I do not have any information at  all whether Trump supports the thinking of any of these individuals or Brion McClanahan. I think that Trump, if he is sincere about his slogan, "Make America Great Again," should not appoint any neo-Confederates to any position or employ them in his administration.

By the way Lino Graglia what was your opinion of whether Texas should have joined the Union?

Birthright citizenship and genealogical citizenship. "Breitbart" and your citizenship at risk.

In the United States currently an American citizen doesn't really have to be too concerned about proving citizenship. You have your birth certificate, and there is your father's birth certificate and your mother's and grandparent's birth certificates. There are layers of documentation making you a citizen.

However, without what is called, "birthright citizenship" your status of a citizen becomes a whole other question. 

You might claim to be a citizen because your father or mother was a citizen, but the question could be raised whether your parents were citizens, because were their parents, your grandparents, citizens. Your grandparents, are they citizens? Were their parents, your great grandparents citizens? They were born in the United States but they may not be valid citizens. 

As you can see your citizenship is now a involved genealogical project. You probably want to track down at least two citizens to be on the safe side. Hopefully the court house where some records exist to prove your citizenship didn't burn down sometime in the 1920s or 1880s or get hit by a tornado in 1950s. I wonder what the fees might be for access to some records. 

Also, you will want to hire a good genealogist and it will cost money. You probably need to have these records notarized. Do you have a safe deposit box to keep these records? Probably needs to be the larger size box.  Maybe each brother and sister should have a set also as back up. 

Persons who are white often assume that their citizenship under a re-interpreted 14th Amendment would be a given. Actually, there is a whole history of illegal immigration from Canada that has gone on for generations. A change in the understanding of the 14th Amendment would apply to everyone. 

I think that if birth right citizenship is interpreted out of the 14th Amendment we can expect a lot of states controlled by Republicans to require some type of proof which poorer residents won't be able to provide.  The 24 Amendment to the Constitution will become a dead letter. You won't need a poll tax to drive off African American voters and poor whites, since the cost of proving citizenship will suddenly become prohibitively expensive for those with limited means. 

Ex-slaves often probably weren't dragging around genealogical records when freed. People whose families were poor might find there isn't much of a genealogical record to go on. So it might exclude many who simply don't have a genealogical record to research. 

Breitbart has been campaigning against the 14th Amendment birthright citizenship as have been much of the conservative media. President Trump is going to be nominating a candidate for the Supreme Court. With the Senate in the hands of Republicans, a candidate who has an interpretation of the 14th Amendment could be the next Supreme Court Justice. Also, there will likely be bills in the U.S. Congress which re-interpret the 14th Amendment. 

Neo-Confederates have been hoping to invalidate the 14th Amendment for generations. Their goal may be effectively achieved in the near future. 

Still studying "Breitbart" magazine. It isn't the "Southern Partisan" but it is something.

I have been exhaustively studying Breitbart's treatment of various topics. I have the articles printed out, hand dated, and filed and organized. Besides issues relating to the Confederate flag, monuments, and the Confederacy, I have printed out their articles relating to American slavery, Lincoln, 14th Amendment, 13th Amendment, etc.

I am using a browser that prints the date, URL, etc. I hand write the date so I can better organize them.

Breitbart isn't the Southern Partisan, but is in many ways supportive of the Confederacy.

On other topics they align with neo-Confederate objectives, but there aren't neo-Confederate arguments given. So I can't say this is a neo-Confederate agenda.

I also note the neo-Confederate authors they have published.

I am planning on reviewing these articles and do a report. I will report on some narrow aspects of Breitbart while doing my research.

The reason I do hard copy printouts is that I want incontestable documentation. Web pages disappear. Online news sites generally aren't tracked by archive.org.

The question might be why am I studying Breitbart instead of other right wing publications. The reason is that its former chief, Stephen Bannon, is in President Trump's administration. Breitbart also seems to be the press agency of the White House.

"Breitbart" avoids issue of Senator Sessions' defense of "Southern Partisan" magazine on the floor of the Senate.

I blogged earlier about U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions' defense of Southern Partisan magazine.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2016/11/alabama-us-senator-jeff-sessions.html#.WG_W9fkrKiM

Below is the link to Sessions' defense of Southern Partisan. Use the search term "Partisan" to find it.
http://www.sessions.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/floor-statements?ID=a73ad92f-7e9c-9af9-709d-5328157bc3ea

The following is the link to a Jan. 5, 2017 article where Breitbart is trying to spin Sessions' image.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/attorney-general-pick-sessions-has-dueling-images/

What you won't find in the article is any mention of Sessions' defense of the Southern Partisan. Sessions' submitted into the Congressional Record Southern Partisan's editor Christopher Sullivan's statement defending the magazine which is marvel of careful wording to deny admitting that the Southern Partisan was a racist magazine.

Of course Breitbart isn't going to try to give any excuse for Sessions' defense of Southern Partisan magazine, since Sessions' defense of Southern Partisan magazine is indefensible, both Sessions and Breitbart would rather no one would know about it.

It also shows how Breitbart acts to enable neo-Confederacy by letting enablers of neo-Confederacy off the hook.

"Breitbart" and the Confederacy. They aren't the "Southern Partisan." They are banal white nationalists with a policy destructive to American nationalism. "Breitbart" reporting could be an aid to Russia

I had said earlier that Breitbart was a modern day Southern Partisan, They are not. After printing out maybe about 100 articles and scanning them and reading for the last few weeks closely what they say I am beginning to see what their strategy is.

The Breitbart view of the Confederacy will please and displease neo-Confederates.

On one hand Breitbart will publish articles like this.

For example this series about the Houston Independent School District in Texas getting rid of Confederate names for schools.

In this article Breitbart claims they are erasing history.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/03/22/more-texas-school-district-seek-to-erase-confederate-past/

This article says that taxpayers are complaining that changing the name is a waste of money. How many taxpayers isn't mentioned.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/05/03/changing-name-of-texas-school-will-cost-500k/

Again another article about irate taxpayers, which means that there are at least 2.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/08/11/taxpayers-slam-multi-million-dollar-plans-rename-houston-schools/

On the other hand Breitbart invokes the Confederacy to condemn Democrats and liberals.

In this article Ian Hanchett quotes Charles Krauthhammer saying that the supporters of Sanctuary cities, cities where the police don't go after immigrants, are using "the language of the Confederates."
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/12/05/krauthammer-sanctuary-cities-speaking-the-language-of-the-southern-segregationists/

Then there is this article in which the California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon is condemned as neo-Confederate. As I blog earlier on, I didn't see exactly how Rendon was neo-Confederate and I am fairly good on determining neo-Confederacy.

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/12/05/rendon-speech-neo-confederate-editorial/

Condemning a speaker, writer, author, columnist, politician, celebrity by claiming that they have some element or feature or similarity to the Confederacy is also a condemnation of the Confederacy. Denouncing some statement, policy, position paper, or resolution claiming that it has elements of the Confederacy is necessarily a condemnation of the Confederacy.

Saying that something is bad because is like or similar or derives from something else, necessarily means that the something else is bad.

More interesting is that Breitbart reporting implies neo-Confederate ideology is bad, since it condemns certain thinking as having Confederate affinities or components or elements.

However, if anyone tries to get rid of a Confederate monument or holiday or place name Breitbart is entirely against it. It might seem contradictory and a person might think that it is just that Breitbart has no coherent ideology and is just a maniacal rage machine. Just because it is a rage machine doesn't mean they are stupid or don't have a strategy.

Breitbart supports a banal white nationalist America. So for issues in the present it supports a strong national government in pursuit of its agenda.

However, in the past, all fighting white Americans are held to be heroic and pulling down one statue to one white American might lead to another statue of a white American being pulled down. The Civil War of Breitbart seems to be the Civil War of the 1950s or earlier, a "romance of reunion" Civil War, a white solidarity maintained by the idea that the Civil War was an avoidable mistake or was only about preserving the union, but wasn't about slavery or race, and in any case the Civil War demonstrated white bravery.

Breitbart's concept of patriotism, a white nationalism, is dangerous to the United States, since white nationalism can't be the basis of a strong American national identity in a multiracial America, and instead will work to undermine America.

And there are foreign powers which will be glad to exploit the situation. It has already become clear that Russia is aiding both left wing and right wing nationalist groups, both California and Texas secessionists. They are aiding both left wing and right wing groups in Europe also. Their policy is a pragmatic realpolitik to attack Western democracy and to undermine their geopolitical opponents.

They will be very quick to seize on strategies of exploiting racial nationalist groups. With their support of neo-Confederates and Texas secessionists already supporting white nationalists. The Russians must be reviewing what other racial nationalists that they can support.

National sentiment is always provisional. With a change in a situation individuals will reevaluate their national identity. This is demonstrated by the current secession movements where both left wing and right wing groups feel that they have no prospects of their agenda in the current political unit being successful.

If the Trump administration is dragging hundreds of thousands or even millions of Hispanics out of their homes and dumping them in Mexico where these individuals end up in camps where they are starving there is bound to be a Hispanic nationalist movement. The United States did steal the Southwest United States as President Ulysses S. Grant as explain in his memoir:

"I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day, regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory." 

Surely some Hispanic nationalist will want to quote this.

As the Trump administration undermines civil rights and voting rights and shows an indifference to cases where police officers shoot African Americans and the Trump administration expresses a hostility towards the Black Lives Matter movement surely some Black Nationalists will seek to capitalize on the situation.

In 2016 the situation regarding reckless and wrongful shooting of African Americans came dangerously close to getting out of control as some individual African Americans sought to take revenge by shooting police officers and some neo-Confederate groups sought to have counter protest at Blasck Lives Matter protests.

I think with Trump being elected we are likely  to see right wing white groups show up with guns at Black Lives Matter protests. At Black Lives Matter protests there are already African American groups parading with guns. A few days ago a young person with guns fired shots in a pizza parlor in Washington, D.C. because of some lunatic right wing news story that the Clinton's were using its back rooms for child sex slavery. These protests with white nationalists, black nationalists, and the Black Lives Matter protesters, some carrying guns, will be combustible.

All we need to have is two groups at a Black Lives Matter protest shooting at each other and the situation could spiral out of control. It might not even be that the two protesting groups set it off, a third party, a lone individual, might decided to shot one of the protesters to set things off.

In any deteriorating situation Black Nationalism will seek to capitalize on the situation.

Then there is the situation of native Americans. How well has the American nation treated these groups historically? Not very well.  We still have Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Surely the Russians will find some opportunities.

All racial nationalisms share the same reactionary understanding of nationality. They only differ in which group they see themselves as advocating for. So it won't be that difficult for a white reactionary nationalist Russia to support minority nationalisms in America. They will find that in many ways they think very similarly.

Also, it should be understood to have your movement backed by a major world power gives it credibility.  Also, a major world power has ways of impressing a separatist movement.

When visiting nationalists are hosted by important officials in prestigious buildings the visiting nationalists are certainly impressed and given confidence and faith in their movement. When the nationalist group sees their leader hosted by important officials in an impressive historic building they can't but imagine what they are doing is important since important people with real power see it as important. The photos of these meetings certainly will give the movement credibility.

Our nationalist elites still see separatism as amusing and a novelty and don't take it seriously. This is because they are in many ways vacuous and an intellectually inbred set of people.

It is time for the government to wake up and start counter measures against separatism. As I stated earlier it needs to be NOT oppressive, but a strategy informed by a critical understanding of the theory of nationalism.

Also, government actions and policy needs to be reviewed such that nationalists are not encouraged. This is not to say avoid certain policies because you are afraid to aggravate some separatist nationalist direction, but to make sure that some policy doesn't needlessly enable separatist nationalism when it could easily have been avoided.

I suggest Michael Billig's "Banal Nationalism," and Donald Mitchell's "Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction." These books are available on the used market. They are not big books, and reading the both of them will give a fairly comprehensive view of the topic and provide most what a an anti-separatist program needs to know.


My paper on banal white nationalism.
http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/breaking-the-white-nation.html

Joel B. Pollak's inane and idiotic use of the term "Neo-Confederate" in "Breitbart"

In Breitbart Joel B. Pollak has an editorial titled "We Condemn Speaker Rendon's Neo-Confederate Intolerance."

This is the link.

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/12/05/rendon-speech-neo-confederate-editorial/

He is referring to California State Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon call to "fight" the Trump administration. I think Rendon is speaking metaphorically. Political groups, factions, parties, etc. do struggle with each other in politics.

The editorial seems to be a hodge podge of wild assertions and inflammatory statements and just a bag of rage.

At the conclusion Pollak writes:

We will defend the interests of the political minority, the principles of liberty, and the ideal of republican self-government against Speaker Rendon and his party’s neo-Confederate, tyrannical impulses.

Exactly how Pollak sees Rendon as neo-Confederate makes no sense.


If Pollak wants to fight neo-Confederate impulses he could start with his own editorials in Breitbart.

Here are links to some of them where on one pretext or another he is against taking action against holding up the Confederacy as some heroic effort.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/22/confederate-flag-at-least-bury-the-dead-first/

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/22/nikki-haley-leaves-the-door-open-for-democrats-war-on-history/


He isn't Breitbart's leading defender of the Confederacy which would be Awr Hawkins.

I printed out a great many Breitbart articles for study since Steve Bannon, Breitbart's former director, is now part of the Trump administration.  This is a publication which works to defend Confederate monuments and Confederate named schools and the whole idea of honoring the Confederacy.

For anyone at Breitbart to denounce someone as a  neo-Confederate is sheer hypocrisy.  If they are concerned with neo-Confederacy they can start with themselves.