More Mildred Rutherford

I have added more Mildred Rutherford speeches at www.confederatepastpresent.org. Her racism and historial reasoning are just delusional. The neo-Confederates don't think so and republish her works as being instructive, but then again the delusional would find reasonable the delusional.

Just use the search function for Mildred or Rutherford and they will all show up.

This will tell you what Confederate "heritage" is all about.

"War Between the States" expression used in "Scientific American"

I was reading a Special Issue  of Scientific American with the theme "Beyond the Limits of Science" which is really about going beyond the limits of current science. It is the Sept. 2012 Vol. 307 No. 3 issue.

I was reading an article, "Mind in Motion," (pages 58-63)  by Miguel A. L. Ncolelis, which is about the developments in Prosthetics and a goal of ultimately being able to create prosthetics such that the paralyzed could run or do other things just by thinking it. This by the way is not far fetched. The one thing that has amazed me about science is how it is speeding up faster and faster over the decades.

On page 61 there is a side bar for the article about the history of prosthetics, such as the first historical record of an artificial limb, other items such as the invention of gun powder which resulted in a greatly increased need for prosthetics. Under the title Civil War the entry states with the following sentence:

"The War Between the States resulted in many amputations."

Increasing the representation of under represented minorities in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) progressions is a major effort by all the professional societies and we have a leading science publication publish something like this. The term Civil War is the generally accepted term by history professionals and all those who aren't neo-Confederate cranks.

Did Nicolelis think that there was some neo-Confederate readership he had to placate by making sure he used both terms. He is a professor at Duke University, and maybe there in North Carolina that type of pandering might be necessary, but certainly not for the global educated audience of Scientific American.

I am going to write the editors.

The meaning of "Neo" in words.

The Neo-Confederates are currently complaining (whining) about the term Neo-Confederate. This is an ongoing complaint with the Neo-Confederates. A typical example of what passes for reasoned commentary is at this blog.

http://www.lsrebellion.blogspot.com/2012/07/are-we-neo-confederates.html

The claim that the term "Neo-Confederate" is an accusation.  "Neo" merely means new. The term was first used in Southern Partisan magazine by its editor Richard Quinn. (Vol. 8 No. 1 Spring 1988).

There are terms such as neo-classical and neo-baroque for either architects or musical composers working in the style of the Classical and Baroque eras. Politically there are neo-liberals and neo-conservatives and they are simply terms. Calling something neo-Baroque isn't derogatory.

The use of "neo" would be to differentiate a new group separate or distinct from the prior group from which the new group is derived or revived.

You know with the adjective neo-classical that the building or piece of music isn't from the classical period, but is a later building or piece of music done in a style or form derived from the classical period in some later period distinct and separate from the original period. When a period is long but continuous we might say early, middle or late to further differentiate the period.

The Confederacy ceased to exist some time ago. The new movement for secession of course intently studies the Confederacy and interprets its meaning and asserts an ideological belief that they hold to be derived from the Confederacy, but they are not of the period of the Confederacy. They are a later revival. They are neo-Confederate.

Michael Hill, president of the League of the South explicit racism

When I first started tracking the League of the South there were people who really didn't want to acknowledge that they were racists and came up with all sorts of rationalizations to deny it. I think however, this essay by Michael Hill will settle this question once and for all:

http://dixienet.org/rights/our_survival_as_a_people.php

Hill's essay both makes it clear and explains at length his racist ideas. He believes that the races, as popularly thought of, come from the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japeth, from his interpretation of the bible. White people are held to be the sons of Japeth. Hill believes that God favors white people.

After his biblical arguments for racial separation he has a fairly elaborate exposition of his racist views. The following is a sample quote:

"Our white European-American ancestors had no trouble enunciating the obvious truth that Western Christian civilization was superior to all others. Moreover, they had no hesitation about defending it, as their God-given patrimony, against those who would denigrate or destroy it. Just a century ago, our civilization was still distinguished by a robustness and self-confidence born out of a realization of the natural superiority of the West and its ways. None but the most crack-brained utopians believed in social, political, economic, and cultural equality, nor did they believe in the equality of the races in intellect and accomplishment. Unfortunately, the present century has witnessed the old order turned upon its head."

Advertising the article exposing the Museum of the Confederacy at Black Commenator on the History News Network

I placed a small ad on the History News Network, www.hnn.us, to let people know about the expose' of the Museum of the Confederacy at www.blackcommentator.com. For those interested in the article the free links to all four installments are at: http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2011/11/moc.html.

The ad is up, they are adding the link from the ad to the web page this evening.

I am been very busy, but I thought it was time to let a wider audience know about this article.

2012 Letter to Obama about the Arlington Confederate monument

http://arlingtonconfederatemonument.blogspot.com/2012/05/2012-letter-to-obama.html

The letter can be found through the above link.

"Anderson Independent Mail" runs major article on Ron Wilson, former Commander-in-Chief of the SCV

The Anderson Independent Mail has published a major article on Ron Wilson, former Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) about his past history. For those who haven't seen my earlier post on this topic, Ron Wilson has been charged with running a Ponzi scheme which has cost unwary investors tens of millions of dollars.

The major article is online at:

http://www.independentmail.com/news/2012/may/19/the-tarnishing-of-ron-wilson/

There is additionally another short article about his writing in the Citizen Informer, the official publication of the Council of Conservative Citizens (www.cofcc.org).


http://www.independentmail.com/news/2012/may/19/proto-tea-partier-ron-wilson-wrote-about-debt-20/

I am mentioned in both articles and helped supply a lot of documentation for the articles.

Maintaining and indexing archives of neo-Confederate materials takes a lot of time, but it is all worthwhile when I can help out reporters and others and get the information to those who need it.

Sons of Confederate Veteans promotes Anglo-Saxon superiority over European white immigrants, Asian Americans and African Americans

I came across a pamphlet published by the Sons of Confederate Veterans in 1914. It was first a speech at the Convention of the United Confederate Veterans and the Sons of Confederate Veterans, then they asked for it to be published in a national publication and it was, and then they had it printed up as a pamphlet for distribution. I managed to acquire one of them.

It is revealing in that they don't consider some European immigrants white enough, and they seek alliances with those who have antipathy to Asian immigrants in the West, and of course there is that old standby in Confederate heritage, white supremacy over African Americans.

To show what Confederate heritage is really about I have put the entire text online at my web site and you can read it at this link.

http://www.confederatepastpresent.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=188:anglo-saxon-supremacy-over-other-european-whites-asian-americans-and-african-americans-promoted-by-the-sons-of-confederate-veterans&catid=37:the-nadir-of-race-relations

When the book "Politics and the History Curriculum: The Struggle over Standards in Texas and the Nation," comes out there will in my biographical note will be a reference to www.confederatepastpresent.org and thousands of students and educators will have access to this website and the resources in it and including the above referenced document.

Additionally there is the website www.citizenscouncils.com which is also referenced in the biographical note. I am going to have www.confederatepastpresent.org reference it.

www.confederatepastpresent.org loaded with primary documents

After a long time, I have finally gotten around to working on my website www.confederatepastpresent.org. I want to have it done by the time the book on the Texas teaching standards comes out and have it serve as a reference source for teachers in Texas and elsewhere. I have added about 150 documents to it. They go from 1783 to the 1950s.

My biographical note in the book both mentions my other books, and the websites www.confederatepastpresent.org and www.citizenscouncils.com. So I needed to make sure that the website was done before the book came out.

I have a tremendous amount of documents to put on the website www.confederatepastpresent.org. I have only done the initial set.

The original manuscript for the book was nearly 900 pages of single spaced type. Jim Loewen pointed out that would be a reference book that would sit on the shelf, and so we cut the manuscript down to a book that could be used in the class. The understanding was that the material not used would go on a website.

As time has gone on since then I have run across a lot of material which should go on the website. Such as a pamphlet published by the Sons of Confederate Veterans seeking to deny African Americans' civil rights and interesting enough seeing allies in those on the West Coast of the United States who would deny civil rights to Asian Americans.

Did you know that counties in Georgia and Virginia passed resolutions for secession and the causes given were to preserve slavery? I am going to put them online.

I have a ten volume set of books of the speeches and writings of Jefferson Davis. There are many documents which show Davis's broad racism and pro-slavery ideology and in particular his attitudes towards Latin Americans.

I have accumulated a great deal of material over the years and I want to share it as a primary document resource for students, teachers, and others.

Once I get done with this, I am going back to finishing up a couple books which are nearly finished.

Cinco de Mayo and the Civil War in the news, Update More articles

The press is reporting on the Civil War origins of the holiday Cinco de Mayo and its anti-Confederate origins. The following are some links which I will add to.

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_20517077/marcela-davison-aviles-link-between-cinco-de-mayo

http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2012/04/18/2313672/author-explains-cinco-de-mayo.html

http://latinola.com/story.php?story=10645

The coverage of Dr. Hayes-Bautista's new book has been tremendous.

Associated Press

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jiNynw9VAxhp03X5ZLByq3iUEyXQ?docId=393b41297baf4cd48bbee011364c805e

Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/cinco-de-mayo-_-not-mexican-independence-day-_-holiday-with-us-civil-war-civil-rights-roots/2012/05/02/gIQAgJXpwT_story.html


This is from the LA Weekly:

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/05/cinco_de_mayo_history_california.php

This is from CNN

http://articles.cnn.com/2012-05-05/us/us_cinco-de-mayo-origins_1_mexican-army-french-army-california-and-oregon?_s=PM:US

This is from UPI

http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2012/05/05/Historian-Cinco-de-Mayo-has-roots-in-US/UPI-35091336228138/?spt=hs&or=on

From Tuscon

http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/arts/report/050512_cinco_de_mayo/the-facts-cinco-de-mayo/

From the New York Times, Hayes-Bautista is mentioned as a source for this article.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/remember-remember-the-fifth-of-may/

From the Wall Street Journal,

http://online.wsj.com/article/AP393b41297baf4cd48bbee011364c805e.html

It was on numerous other media and their have been bloggers commenting on it. 

It is making the Spanish language press also.
http://www.hoylosangeles.com/news/2012/may/04/cinco-de-mayo-tradicion-americana/

"Civil War Monitor" reviews favorably "Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader."

The glowingly positive review is online at this link:

http://civilwarmonitor.com/book-shelf/loewen-sebesta-eds-the-confederate-and-neo-confederate-reader-2010

To quote from the review:

"For those of us that study and teach issues of Civil War memory, one of our great frustrations has been the lack of easily attainable primary source material to thoroughly discredit and dismantle the mythological claims of Confederate and neo-Confederate revisionists. Loewen and Sebesta’s exceptional new text The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader is the first collection of primary sources focused exclusively on such documents, as the authors note, that have somehow remained hidden “in plain sight” since the end of the Civil War. The book provides teachers and researchers alike with an invaluable archive of speeches, images, political papers, and memoirs that graphically reveal what the Confederacy and its post-war nostalgists actually believed about slavery, secession, race relations, and the whitewashing of the southern past."

Finished Reading Dr. Hayes-Bautista's "Cinco de Mayo"

I just finished reading "El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition," by Dr. Hayes-Bautista of UCLA. It is a good read. It provides some background of the history of Latinos in California as context for the development of Cinco de Mayo as a holiday in California.

Cinco de Mayo was developed in California, though over time it has been picked up by other regions.

Its origins come from the Civil War where Latinos saw fighting the Confederacy and the French invaders of Mexico as part of one common struggle for democracy and against slavery, for the republican form of government and against aristocracy and oligarchy and racism.

In the original Cinco de Mayo celebrations in the 19th century pictures of Lincoln and Juarez were carried in processions. The American flag and Mexican flag were always paraded together as symbolic of the struggle for freedom in both countries.

Hayes-Bautista also explains how the meaning of Cinco de Mayo was lost as subsequent immigrant groups adopted it as a popular holiday but weren't connected to its past tradition in the past when there wasn't a developed body of Latino intellectuals as today.

The concluding paragraph of the book is very interesting as Hayes-Bautista speculates what a future Cinco de Mayo might be like. I quote as follows:

"It is interesting to speculate about what form future celebrations of the holiday might take, should its true origins and heritage become better understood. Naturally, the blatantly commercial aspects will not disappear; by now, virtually no American holiday has escaped some degree of commercialization. But future celebrations might also include California mission-era songs, dances, and costumes; uniformed Civil War reenactments featuring the Native California Cavalry and the unofficial Latino militias; images of Abraham Lincoln, Benito Juarez, and Ignacio Zaragoza; and of course liberal displays of American and Mexican flags side by side. Likewise, there might be uniformed reenactors of the French Intervention, including the Californios and Latino immigrants who traveled to fight for freedom and democracy in Mexico. In addition to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," one might hear Mexican soldiers' songs of the 1860s, such as "Adios, Mama Carlota" or "Batalla del Cinco de Mayo.' It might be fitting as well to remember the Latinos who, in the same spirit, fought for the United States in the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and subsequent conflicts. As in the nineteenth century, there might be speeches and pageants recalling these historical events, reminding listeners of the motivating values they share, showing the continuing relevance of those events to modern-day issues."

Such a Cinco de Mayo would have revolutionary impact in Texas. Also, would the Jefferson Davis highway be able to persist in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas with such a historical consciousness amongst the Latinos in those states?

Article about Otto Scott titled "Fool as Biographer"

A blog about John Brown has published an essay about Otto Scott titled, "Fool as Biographer," referring to Otto Scott. It is online at:

http://abolitionist-john-brown.blogspot.com/2012/04/essay-fool-as-biographer-john-hendrix.html

I supplied them with the Otto Scott neo-Confederate articles.

"Politics and the History Curriculum" is now available for advance sales

The Palgrave Macmilian website has this listing which isn't very informative:

http://us.macmillan.com/politicsandthehistorycurriculum/KeithAErekson

Amazon has this listing which tells a little bit more:

http://www.amazon.com/Politics-History-Curriculum-Struggle-Standards/dp/1137008938/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332812307&sr=1-1

And this is the link at Barnes & Nobles:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/politics-and-the-history-curriculum-keith-a-erekson/1107885815

However, Keith Erekson's page is the most informative I have found so far:

http://www.keitherekson.com/books/politics-and-the-history-curriculum/

There is also this flyer for the book which describes the contents.

http://www.keitherekson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/PHC_Flyer.pdf

You will notice in the flyer that yours truly is the author of the chapter on the teaching of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

The following are the book blurbs by distinguished scholars:

"What's the matter with Texas? Outsiders too often dismiss it as an overgrown and ignorant child, shrouded in right-wing politics and fundamentalist religion. But that view is itself a gross caricature, as this close study of history and myth-making in Texas demonstrates. Rooting their story firmly in the social and political history of the Lone Star State, Keith A. Erekson and his colleagues bust a few big myths themselves. Read this book if you want to understand why Texans continue to contest their shared past, and why the rest of us should stop condescending to them." --Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of Education and History, New York University

"In these behind-the-scene essays, history educators and all citizens interested in history education will find chilling accounts of how the conservative Christian right played power politics to ensure that young Texans learn a largely white-washed U.S. history while remaining uneducated about world history. The essays in this important book give voice to teachers and history professors who were steamrollered by the Texas Board of Education."--Gary Nash, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, UCLA; Director, National Center for History in the Schools

"Politics and the History Curriculum offers the most comprehensive, thought-provoking, and timely examination yet of the ongoing controversy over history standards in Texas and across the nation. As an historian and textbook author, I especially appreciate the range and analytical quality of the essays collected here. This book is a must-read for any teacher, administrator, or citizen engaged with these issues." --Daniel Czitrom, co-author, Out of Many: A History of the American People

The book is to be released June 2012.

Former Sons of Confederate Veterans Commander-in-Chief accused of defrauding investors, Updated

Ron Wilson, one time columnist for the Council of Conservative Citizens and former Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is accused of defrauding investors according to two news articles at the Independent Mail of Anderson, SC in an article titled, "Attorney general: Ron Wilson defrauded silver customers."

The articles are online at:

http://www.independentmail.com/news/2012/mar/14/attorney-general-ron-wilson-defrauded-silver-custo/

And another is online at:

http://www.independentmail.com/news/2012/mar/15/confederate-history-buffs-shocked-silver-fraud-all/

Quoting from the first article:

Former Anderson County Council member Ron Wilson told securities investigators he had at least $16.9 million of his customers’ silver in a Delaware depository, according to a complaint from the state attorney general.

But the complaint says the depository had no records of Wilson, his company or the silver.

The complaint says that Wilson and his company, Atlantic Bullion & Coin, collected millions of dollars from customers who thought they were buying silver but when customers wanted to cash out there was no silver in their accounts or the accounts had been altered.

A Complaint has been filed by the Attorney General's office. According to the article:

Five violations of the state’s security laws are alleged in the complaint, including making false claims under oath and the fraudulent sale of securities.

And

State Senior Assistant Attorney General Tracy Meyers requested Monday that prosecutors or a state grand jury take up a case against Wilson, according to a criminal referral request provided by the state attorney general’s office.

Evidently this isn't a new problem with Ron Wilson, the article reports:

Wilson kept selling the investments in South Carolina, and 24 other states, after agreeing in writing in 1996 to stop selling securities or similar investments because he was not a licensed broker or agent, according to state documents he signed.

The 1996 consent order signed by Wilson says he and any successors or representatives “are prohibited from making or causing to be made to any person or entity in South Carolina any offers or sales of securities by means of any false or fraudulent sales practices.”

In the second article one of the United Daughters of the Confederacy officer quips, "There is no silver lining in this." I always love a good humorist. Good for her.

Wilson used to run full page ads for his firm "Atlantic Bullion and Coin" in neo-Confederate publications.

It will be interesting what Wilson will say to his defrauded customers. Will he claim that an evil cabal of DC empire builders stole it, or it was a frame up by Obama and his minions?

The interesting thing about people in these right wing organizations is that they seem to be the targets of people selling investments. When they aren't being sold something as an investment to evade the New World Order or some imagined nemesis, they are being sold various quack health remedies. Some conspiracy is suppressing some health remedy and the persons advocating the conspiracy advocate some thing or food that you can purchase to cure what ails you. (Update: One website I am monitoring is selling a machine which generates electricity without inputs, essentially a perpetual motion machine, and also offering to sell gold wholesale.)

One thing that has to be asked is why it took 16 years for the South Carolina Attorney General's office to realize that Ron Wilson was violated an agreement to desist from selling securities. Lots of people suffering heavy losses.

Update:

I will update this as information becomes available.

More on this scandal:


http://www2.wspa.com/news/2012/mar/15/16/anderson-co-councilman-accused-running-scam-25-sta-ar-3411539/

http://www.wyff4.com/news/30676173/detail.html

Secret Service hauling off boxes of records.
http://www2.wspa.com/news/2012/mar/16/20/anderson-co-councilman-accused-running-scam-25-sta-ar-3411539/

Another article on the scamming.

http://thewilliamstonjournal.com/2012/03/15/sc-attorney-general-files-complaing-against-wilson-atlantic-bullion/#more-3122

Legislature decides to close barn door after horses have left department.

http://www.independentmail.com/news/2012/mar/17/anderson-legislators-react-investigation-ron-wilso/

Class-action suit: Lawyer conned by Wilson thinking of class action suit.

http://www.independentmail.com/news/2012/mar/16/class-action-lawsuit-proposed-against-ron-wilson/

4th and Final Installment on the article on the Museum of (for) the Confederacy published on Black Commentator

The 4th and final installment of of a series of articles on the Museum of(for) the Confederacy (MOC) is now online at:

http://www.blackcommentator.com/462/462_museum_confederacy_4_sebesta_guest_share.html

This article revisits critically the exhibit Before Freedom Came and the book associated with it. It recounts a visit by a distinguished person with museum expertise to the MOC. It examines how trivia and artifacts are used to obscure the story of the Confederacy. It examines how the MOC has co-opted the history profession.

This last installment also asks that the history profession in the future not accept awards from the MOC and those who have received repudiate them. Whether many or even a few historians in the future repudiate or refuse an award from the MOC isn't so important as the fact from now on when a historian accepts or retains an award from the MOC this historian is taking a stand and revealing their identity.

All the previous installments can be seen at:

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2011/11/moc.html

The Museum of the Confederacy as a shrine and creator of Confederate identity

The third installment of my 4-part article on the Museum of the Confederacy has been published.

The URL for the guest copy which is free is:

http://www.blackcommentator.com/461/461_museum_confederacy_3_sebesta_guest_share.html

The 1st installment covered the take over of the MOC by pro-Confederates and how the MOC works with neo-Confederate organizations. The 2nd installment covers how the MOC glorifies Confederate leaders. The 3rd installment covers how the MOC creates Confederate identification amongst its supporters, visitors, and others by being a shrine and reliquary.

The links to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd installments are in this blog posting:

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2011/11/moc.html

In the above blog posting I will have links to all four installments after they all come out. I expect the 4th installment to be published fairly soon. The installment is with the publisher.

The 4th installment discusses the exhibit and book "Before Freedom Came" and shows how the book and show is deeply flawed and how it avoids connecting slavery to the Confederacy. It shows how the MOC represents itself differently to different audiences acting professional before professional audiences and being neo-Confederate acting towards other audiences.

It discusses how the MOC tries to co-opt the history profession and is rather successful in doing so, and ends with a call for previous winners of the MOC awards to repudiate them and for historians in the future to reject them.

Frum Forum understands what neo-Confederacy is all about.

Very interesting article at:

http://www.frumforum.com/its-hamilton-vs-jefferson-all-over-again

More and more people are beginning to grasp what a neo-Confederate historical consciousness is about. The following is from the article:

Now we have fielded a Republican Congress which is determined to burn down the Hamiltonian Republic that has emerged since the war and return to a “simpler” time. Along the way they would damage (or even destroy) the benefits we’ve gained from our reluctant capitalism. If you want to know what a Neo-Confederate political model looks like in a modern country, try to find a good public school for your kids in Mexico.

We may not think that’s what we voted for. No one can say out loud that they are fighting for the Confederate way of life, and some who embrace it may not even recognize it. You can get some hints at what’s going on if you probe Ron Paul’s fans for their thoughts on Lincoln. The weird AM radio and Tea Party rhetoric of fighting “socialism” sounds absurd, but only if you take it literally. We want to relive a fleeting moment of Jeffersonian simplicity.

The rebellion against the Neo-Confederate Revolution must start inside the Republican Party. If we fail to manage the complexity of our age, there are horrors that await. Jefferson’s world is gone, but we can still have a banana republic if we so insist.

Related post.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2011/08/michael-lind-on-tea-party-caucus-in.html

A Mexican Immigrant's Badge of Honor

Great story at the New York Times at this link.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/a-mexican-immigrants-act-of-honor/

It is about a Mexican immigrant to the then Arizona territory who was a successful business person and was loyal to the United States of America even though the Confederate sympathizers confiscated all his property when he refused to pledge loyalty to the Confederacy.

I think it will be a great story for Cinco de Mayo.

See my earlier blog on Cinco de Mayo here:

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2012/02/cinco-de-mayo-as-anti-confederate.html

The hysterical stupidity of the Council of Conservative Citizens

I use the term "hysterical stupidity" to mean those who might otherwise have intelligence, are stupid because some hysteria they have over some topic. The hysterical are not thinking.

This comes to mind with a posting on the Council of Conservative Citizens website at http://cofcc.org/2012/02/black-history-month-myth-of-the-day-ice-cream/

They are upset that it is asserted that Augustus Jackson was the inventor of ice cream as part of African American history month.

I am focusing on this posting since as an engineer and a person who reads about the history of technological innovation I am better qualified to comment on it.

Most importantly, I am focusing on this, since it is simple and straightforward and clearly shows the credibility of http://www.cofcc.org/ postings in general. I am sure that most of the other postings are of the same nature as this posting.

Before I go forward, for those unfamiliar with the history of science and technology, I would like to explain that many technological innovations are not discrete events, but often the accumulation of many incremental changes leading to a working technology. Often the "inventor" is the person who contributes the critical development which led to the technology either being much more affordable or effective or available. Edison made many lightbulbs, but it wasn't until he figured to use a tungsten filament in an inert atmosphere that they really were practical. This was nice, but until someone figured out how to mass produce the delicate glass envelops blowing them from molten glass and systems to handle them without them breaking would light bulbs be practical.

Many people besides the Wright brothers were making flying machines while they were working on theirs. Did the Wright brothers invent the airplane or were they the first ones to figure out that you needed a gasoline engine to supply the power without excessive weight? Many hands go into technological development and there are many inventors.

So back to the stupidity of the post about ice cream.

First as an argument the CofCC says, "The practice of eating chilled desserts containing flavored ice dates back thousands of years to Mesopotamia royalty." Well that is true, I know Roman emperors had flavored ice. However, flavored ice isn't ice cream any more than oil or pitch is gasoline or polyethylene plastic.

Then further is the argument, "A reference book on the English in 1744 states “it is a chilled dessert made from cream, milk, and fruit.” Matching the modern definition of ice cream." Well modern ice cream is a frozen dessert so it doesn't match. Many things are chilled, but that is very different than frozen.

However, doing some research I found that cream and fruit was being frozen back in the 18th century, I didn't find much about the texture or form of this frozen cream.

Further ice cream isn't merely a frozen block of cream. It isn't a popsicle you make in your freezer. It has a very specific texture with air blended in and the components with small crystals. It has added ingredients to ensure it has this texture.

For ice cream to be commonly consumed it would have to have a practical method of manufacture.

It seems that Augustus Jackson was an innovator in the manufacturing process of ice cream.

It turns out that there is no myth that Jackson invented ice cream, it is understood that he developed a critical improvement in its manufacture. So the Council of Conservative Citizens is debunking a myth they made up. Or they searched the Internet to find some confused website which misrepresented Jackson's accomplishment and seized upon it to be aggrieved.

I found that this is the information you generally find on the Internet.

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/IceCream/IceCreamHistory.htm

1832 - African-American, Augustus Jackson, is credited for the modern method of manufacturing, (not discovering) ice cream, and the multiple ice cream recipes he developed around 1832. He uniquely used ice mixed with salt to lower and control the temperature of his special mix of ingredients. Unfortunately he never applied for a patent. He left his position as a cook/chef at the White House, moved to Philadelphia and created several popular ice cream flavors and methods of manufacturing ice cream. He distributed it in tin cans to Philadelphia’s many ice cream parlors. Today Jackson is called the "father of ice cream."

Jackson made the manufacture of ice cream practical and isn't called the inventor but the "father of ice cream."

However, the complexity of technological development isn't of interest to the members of the Council of Conservative Citizens, but instead they are hysterical over the idea that their could be any historical claim that would contradict their racism.

Also, revealing the true facts of the history of ice cream wouldn't be of interest, it would just be a reason to look for and seize upon other rationalizations for their hysterical racism.

I had this blog posting when the Council of Conservative Citizens were calling the Carthaginians Greeks in some pompous historical exposition. They edited the posting after my posting.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2009/03/council-of-illiterate-conservative.html