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

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

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

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

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

Click on it to see the whole thing.

Kay Bailey Hutchison Confederate Convention Center

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It became an Associated Press story.

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

From the AP article we learn the following:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Confederacy is going down.

Police Harassment after ministers event.

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

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

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

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

WARNING: Some bad language.

https://youtu.be/vYQX5kuPVIY


Click on the image to see the whole video.

Confederate Monument a Bad REFLECTION on Dallas, Texas

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

https://youtu.be/Klxrs0H_fVk

Click on video to see the whole thing.




https://youtu.be/NTOHsij2Dhc

Click on video to see whole thing.

Texas Secession at the 2016 Texas State Republican Party Convention

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

You can watch and listen at this link.

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

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

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

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


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

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

The Republican Party state convention is June 14, 2018.

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

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

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

This is the link for the Republican Party state convention.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We need to confront these various rationalizations by the following

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

2. Call it banal white nationalism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the first video.

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

This is the second video.

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

This is the third video.

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


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

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

Click on pictures to see the ENTIRE photo.

This is another section of the circle.

And another section of the circle.

another section of the circle

another section of the circle

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

Take 'Em Down Nola Friday night session, meet and greet 3/23/2018 Item #2

The leaders of Take 'Em Down NOLA spoke to everyone Friday night. There were still people driving to attend starting in the morning so all the attendees of the Conference weren't there yet.

Click on image to see whole thing.

At the end of the session we formed a big circle as a means of achieving group solidarity. This was a big circle, but we had several groups not there yet, but would be there in the morning.

One photo shot didn't get the whole circle in.

These are people really serious about bringing down Confederate monuments across the nation and people making up a support network.

This will be the beginning. As we get a national group going, we will get individuals interested from different cities and they will contact our groups and they will be referred to other interested individuals from their city.

Some liberal Democrats and Leftists finally wise up.

This is the article in Nation magazine.

https://www.thenation.com/article/how-charles-koch-is-helping-neo-confederates-teach-college-students/

The article doesn't mention Marshall DeRosa's involvement with the Abbeville Institute.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/?s=Marshall

The problem is that Nation magazine relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center and they won't label negatively the Abbeville Institute.

Marshall DeRosa has a book on the Confederate Constitution also as well as other neo-Confederate books.

https://www.amazon.com/Marshall-L.-DeRosa/e/B001JP40L0

In addition to the books listed at Amazon, he has also contributed book chapters to "A Defender of Southern Conservatism: M.E. Bradford and His Achievements," Univ. of Missouri Press; "Rethinking the American Union for the Twenty-First Century," Pelican Press; "The Politics of Dissolution: The Quest for National Identity & the American Civil War," Transaction Books. Transaction books is at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

The liberal/left and the neo-liberals in particular were always afraid that they might not get an extra electoral vote in the South and so they have ignored this. Also, a large chunk of all these movements contain individuals which haven't really given up on the Lost Cause or the Confederacy and had various degrees of identification with the Confederacy. They think they are liberal and this and that, but mentally they have never left the plantation.

Now, neo-Confederate has gone further on the road to bringing down American democracy and the indifference of the American liberal/left and their whiteness has a lot to do with it.

Take 'Em Down NOLA reads Kevin M. Levin just before confronting Mitch Landrieu: Item #1 TakeEMDownNOLA Series

I was down in New Orleans at the Take 'Em Down NOLA (TEDN) national conference, 3/23-25/2018, this last weekend. It had people from across the nation attending. I will be doing a series of posts on what happened. The neo-Confederate movement is now doomed and it is just a matter of time before the Confederate landscape is gone.

Sunday, 3/25/2018 we had a morning march in the streets of New Orleans to the statues of white supremacists. Then a little later in the early afternoon we went to for lunch. Saturday, the previous day, I learned that TEDN was not happy with Mitch Landrieu taking all the credit.

The plan was that after the lunch we would go to the Mitch Landrieu book signing at 2pm.

During lunch, I shared with them Kevin M. Levin's posting on Mitch Landrieu's book where Levin criticizes Landrieu for taking too much credit for the monument removal. This is the link to Kevin Levin's posting.

http://cwmemory.com/2018/03/24/mayor-mitch-landrieu-and-the-mythology-of-confederate-monument-removals-in-new-orleans/

One of the TEDN leaders was very interested and read it through on my cellphone. I also shared the link. This was good preparation when we tracked down Mitch Landrieu's book signing several blocks away at a museum.

It was on the second floor with tables with linen cloth and African American food servers in an elite space and thus creating plantation optics. You needed a ticket to get up.

I was asked to reconnoiter and find out where it was.

I was able to get upstairs anyways by just walking up and saying no I did not have a ticket, but I was a historian that just happened to be in town and wanted to get a book. I had a nonchalant attitude that I expect to be admitted anyways and it worked.

I did photo documentation of the event and the audience and the food servers and the whole elite thing. Then I went down to report. However, TEDN had decided to come up and I direct them to the book signing where Landrieu was just spinning his narrative.

Malcolm Suber entered into a dialog with Landrieu but his is a very able politician, that is he had some rationalizations for everything. He also spoke to Suber as if he was an acquaintance.

I had explained that Kevin M. Levin was a person who wrote articles for the Smithsonian and The Atlantic and was an establishment figure and Levin saw what Landrieu was doing. I have shared the link and showed the URL of Levin's blog to them. There was a lot of interest and I think some gratification that others were seeing what Landrieu  was doing.

I also explained that though Levin and I am opponents that his blog often has good information. I also explained that Levin got on the train to remove monuments very late in the historical process.

TEDN during the march criticized academics for being missing in action and not challenging the built environment that honors white supremacists. They are right to a great degree, but I was able to show that there were exceptions.

The power of these conferences is that they connect resources. I was able to alert TEDN to Levin's posting. It lets TEDN know that there are people who see their side of this story and are supportive. It encouraged TEDN to continue to assert their narrative.

The following are photos of the event. Click on them to see the WHOLE photo.

Then TEDN appeared. It no longer was just an elite event.

"Deep States" and Secession

There is this concept among the right wing or right populists about a "deep state." I am not sure what the formal definition of "deep state" is, or what would distinguish it from just cliques of special interests in and outside the government. Would the "military-industrial complex" referred to by President Eisenhower be a "deep state"?

It could be that the public now has adopted a term to refer to a bureaucracy that has been built up by special interests ascendant in prior presidential administrations. However, the idea that there is a bureaucracy with its own agenda and disdainful of popular elections is hardly new.

The hugely popular comedy, "Yes, Minister," with its sequel, "Yes, Prime Minister" portrayed a British bureaucracy which had its own agenda and did what it could to thwart the elected officials in any and every way it could. I don't know if it could be called the "deep state" since it seemed to encompass the entire British government excepting the elected officials. The first series ran on BBC from 1980 to 1984 and the sequel from 1986 to 1988. Episodes ran on PBS later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister

The movie, "A Very British Coup," has the government attempting to undermine a socialist prime minister, and then when the elections go the wrong way the final scene suggests that the elected government has been overthrown. In this case there is a formation within the government which is actively opposing a socialist prime minister. It was originally a novel published in 1982, and then adapted twice for television in both 1988 and 2012.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_British_Coup

The idea that the federal government is working to undermine and subvert the agenda of a newly elected president with a different direction for government isn't new either.

M.E. Bradford, neo-Confederate, paleoconservative, and racist reactionary saw the federal bureaucracy as an active enemy of the new direction of Ronald Reagan and also was very vocal in his concerns that the Washington establishment would undermine Reagan's agenda until it became clear that Reagan didn't really have much of an agenda himself. This was back in 1976 when Reagan was elected.

The above is to show that the idea of a grouping or clique of government officials operating with various levels of conspiratorial methods is not a new concept. It has been abroad in popular culture and now it is called "deep state."

What is interesting is this article at Politico that the majority believe or tend to believe that there is a "deep state."

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/19/poll-deep-state-470282

The results are 27% says the "deep state" definitely exists and 47% believe it probably exists. That totals up to 74%. Who says Americans are deeply divided?

Only 5% said they believe the "deep state" definitely doesn't exist, and 16% said it probably doesn't exist.

The impact on the issue of secession is the relation of the ideas of a "deep state" and "nationalism."

Nation's are elite projects. They were invented with the end of dynastic states to provide a vessel for governance. The statement with the formation of Italy, made by an Italian nationalist, that they have created Italy, and that now they must create Italians, actually applies to most western European states of any size.

If the Nation as a political vehicle is seen as a vehicle that is only beneficial to an elite unbounded by democracy and disdainful of it, the particular national idea loses support. Though secession has the idea that another smaller nation as a political vehicle can be kept from the control of elites because everyone is part of some smaller national identity. Currently the idea to counter the failings of nationalism is to launch another nationalism which can be expected to result in small petty states with small elites. In short the secession idea is to fight the consequence an idea with more of the same with hopes that it will turn out different because our nationality is so special.

Since there isn't really any alternate idea, secession will likely pick up support from the alienated. With 75% of Americans thinking the national government is a "deep state," I don't think that there will be a lot of interest in supporting the national government if it calls for personal sacrifice, and nations often need to consume personal sacrifice.

For secessionists it means that they can expect to have a body of alienated to recruit from. For national governments they will have to largely support themselves with the resources they have and not expect the public to make serious sacrifices if things get difficult. The national government can expect that they have ambivalent support. Historically this is the situation where seemingly imposing states find that their situation is very much at risk.

The federal government's actions against the Bundy Ranch and the occupiers of the Malheur Refuge show a government that doesn't feel they have strong popular support and act cautiously to avoid giving insurrectionists public sympathy. I can only imagine what would be the situation if somewhere there were several hundred people better organized, determined and planning serious insurrection.

This doesn't mean secession is the wave of the future. It just is another indication of the shift in the environment towards conditions favorable towards secessionists. It isn't that you have a big shift in support of secession, though it could be expected that there will be some increase of support for secession, especially if the Democrats are seen as the future of the national government.

The importance is that support for the government will be less. The national government can be packages inside the concept of a "deep state" which sounds ominous instead of the concept of the United States of American which has popular sympathy. A movement composed of a small percentage of highly motivated individuals when faced with a largely apathetic opposition is not in a bad position.

Again, this is just a development, and hopefully will remain an obscure footnote in national history.

Comical aspects of white supremacy and neo-Confederacy

One thing that you often note about white supremacists is that often individually they aren't very notable in personal achievements themselves. They talk about a white civilization as if there is some such thing and that white people did this or that, but they haven't done much of anything or anything notable in the least.

However, these things done in European or American history are done by individuals who had opportunities in education and personally pushed themselves to do something with their lives white or otherwise. In contrast these type of white supremacists themselves haven't done much with their lives besides gripe.

There is a stereotype that white supremacists are marginal individuals with out of control lives. This is not helpful in combating neo-Confederacy since people overlook educated racists and the neo-Confederate movement is lead by people with degrees and people in the establishment.

However, somethings are just too funny to pass up.

Recently the Traditional Workers Party (TWP) disintegrated. The explanation for the demise of the organization is explained in this Daily Beast article introduction to an article titled, "Neo-Nazi Group Implodes Over Love Triangle Turned Trailer Brawl."

Matthew Heimbach and his spokesman came to blows after Heimbach was caught sleeping with the spokesman’s wife. What’s more, Heimbach is married to the spokesman’s stepdaughter.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/matthew-heimbachs-traditional-workers-party-implodes-over-love-triangle-turned-trailer-brawl?ref=home

The stepdaughter is from a previous marriage of the spokesman. There are these comical elements. Parrot is the spokesman for the TWP.

Parrott stood on a box outside the trailer and watched Heimbach and Jessica have sex inside, according to a police report. When the box broke under Parrott’s weight, he entered the trailer to confront them. Heimbach allegedly choked him and chased him into a house, where Parrott threw a chair at him. Heimbach hit back, choking him into unconsciousness, according to the police report.

The League of the South is inviting the members of the Traditional Workers Party to join their organization.

http://leagueofthesouth.com/statement-on-matthew-heimbach-and-twp/

Confederacy loses again, Jerry Patterson loses to George P. Bush for Land Commissioner in Texas

Jerry Patterson interviewed in the Southern Mercury, a racist publication put out by the Sons of Confederate Veterans Educational PAC. That is what the magazine said.

He has been a supporter of the Confederacy.

George P. Bush has been the object of hostility by various pro-Confederate militia and neo-Confederate groups.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2018-elections/2018/03/06/sid-miller-wins-gop-primary-ag-commissioner-george-p-bush-headed-win-land-commish-race

Jerry Patterson got 29.7% of the vote versus 58.2% for George P. Bush in the Republican primary.

The Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans had this Facebook posting regarding George P. Bush.

https://www.facebook.com/TexasSCV/posts/1614108091970237

This is the link to the "This is Texas Freedom Force" video during the the primary election day where their leader is expecting to see George P. Bush defeated at the polls.

https://www.facebook.com/1318988724858579/videos/1585502844873831/

They have been against George P. Bush for some time now.  This is their Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/This-Is-Texas-Freedom-Force-1318988724858579/

This is another #BOOTBUSH posting.

https://www.facebook.com/1318988724858579/photos/a.1319816784775773.1073741829.1318988724858579/1584351781655604/?type=3&theater

Of course the Texas Nationalist movement didn't like George P. Bush. This is one attack article. There are others.

https://texianpartisan.com/bushs-tangled-web-finally-unraveling/

Support for the Confederacy and the Alamo is certainly down when a Republican candidate in a Republican primary can't get 30% of the vote when campaigning on being supportive of both and the winning candidate being castigated as not supporting either. Turn out in primaries is low and in them ideological forces often have the greatest influence. Not in 2018 in this primary.

I am sure politicians will take note of this, that there really isn't much support for the Alamo or the Confederacy in a Republican primary. Also, Republicans are likely to be more concerned with what appears to be a strong shift to the Democrats in Texas this year and being known to being supportive of the Confederacy certainly would be very unhelpful in trying to counter this shift.

Panicked Alarm for thrills. A Norwegian flag reported to the press as a Confederate flag.

I don't know what type of person Rebecca Morris is, and the headline is my interpretation of these events.

It is like an episode out of Portlandia.

Recently a resident of Seattle called a reporter that a Confederate flag was flying in her neighborhood on a flag pole. This is the story:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/both-have-crosses-so-norwegian-flag-mistaken-for-confederate-flag/

It turned out it was a Norwegian flag.

Now before going forward lets contrast the Norwegian flag to the Confederate battle flag.

The Norwegian flag has a Latin cross, that is a + sign type cross.

The Confederate battle flag has a Greek cross, that is a X type cross.

The Norwegian flag doesn't have any decorative elements or symbols or anything besides the cross.

The Confederate battle flag has 13 stars. They are not small and a prominent element of the design.

They don't look like each other at all except a lot of red.

This was the news tip by Morris.

“Hi. Suddenly there is a Confederate flag flying in front of a house in my Greenwood neighborhood. It is at the north-east corner of 92nd and Palatine, just a block west of 92nd and Greenwood Ave N. I would love to know what this ‘means’ … but of course don’t want to knock on their door. Maybe others in the area are flying the flag? Maybe it’s a story? Thank you.”

A reporter drove to the corner and in this story an excuse is made for Morris.

There was no wind, and on a flagpole there was what obviously was the U.S. flag at the top, and below, a red flag with blue stripes. 

Simply hanging down, not spread out, you could make some assumptions that it was the star-filled “Southern cross” of the Confederacy.

It isn't clear whether there was no wind when Morris reported this flag.  However, if there wasn't any wind, I would think you would wait for some wind to make sure that it was a Confederate flag before you denounce a neighbor to the press. This is effectively a denunciation, Morris characterizes the neighbor flying the Confederate flag as someone potentially dangerous. "but of course don't want to knock on their door."

I can imagine that the neighbor flying the Norwegian flag felt intimidated.

The newspaper digs up another case of a Norwegian flag mistaken for a Confederate flag.

When it was reported back to Morris that it was a Norwegian flag she replied:

She says she had even looked up the Confederate flag online and it sure looked to her like the flag on that corner. 

But on a second look, “Well, it does look like the Norwegian flag!”

So here the no wind theory seems less creditable. Morris claims to have looked up a Confederate flag online and compared it to the flag on the corner.

Or perhaps there was no wind and that fact that the flag on the corner and a Confederate battle flag both had red and blue was enough for Morris to conclude that "it sure looked like the flag on that corner."

Morris then excuses herself by stating, "we're stressed by all things political that we see things that aren't there."

I think before you call the media about something this serious about your neighbor I think you really should make sure of your facts.

I would like to suggest some alternative possible interpretations of the events.

1. Maybe Morris is excitable and given to panicked alarms and just goes off the deep end easily. Perhaps cries often.

2. Or maybe Morris is excitable and saw a real opportunity for drama in her life. Morris could breathlessly report to her friends that she was the FIRST to report it. What dangers might be there with this neighbor she could dwell on breathlessly. The possibility for drama would be endless.

Right-wing news outlets were quick to take advantage of this opportunity to present opponents of Confederate things as addled persons.

Breitbart had this article.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2018/02/22/seattle-author-tips-reporter-mistaking-norwegian-flag-confederate-flag/

The Daily Caller had this article.

http://dailycaller.com/2018/02/23/seattle-confederate-flag/

Red State

https://www.redstate.com/jimjamitis/2018/02/22/seattle-author-reports-neighbors-confederate-flag-gets-geography-lesson/

The article concludes with, "To be fair, the colors are practically the same, but this seems like a mystery the true crime author could have figured out without contacting the media.

The Washington Examiner really takes Morris to task in this article and shows the two flags side by side.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/how-do-you-say-bless-your-heart-in-norwegian/article/2649898

The author of the Examiner article states.

"The reason we know about any of this is because the busybody Morris narc’d on her neighbor. "

The author also points out the alarmist representation of the neighbor by Morris and Morris' decision not to talk to the neighbor with this comment.

She would've discovered her boneheaded mistake pretty quickly, and privately, had she just done the neighborly thing and asked the man about his flag. Instead, she made a great fool of herself by ratting him out him to the local newspaper

I bring this up since I am finding in Dallas a lot of people who really aren't against the Confederate built environment, but really are primarily interested in drama and self-serving moral posturing.

They are focused on extremists and really don't want to know that the Confederate built environment is actually supported by mainstream elements in their society.

For those who have a compulsion to find silver linings in everything, I should point out there there isn't. Perhaps someone might reflect that they should check twice, but people who like panicked alarm for thrills are rarely reflective.

What the activist against the Confederate built environment needs to do is to discourage this in any organizations they have. I got to meetings and some seem to be forums for this type of self-indulgence. This needs to be called out for what it is.

Also, in building an organization don't imagine that these people are really supporters. They will be on to another issue and gone with a few news cycles when they see the current issue as exhausted for opportunities for drama and some new event provides new opportunities for drama.

Status of Texas secession, secessionists still waiting for Donald Trump to fail or to convince people that Donald Trump has failed or will fail. Long term what is the movement's prospects.

The Texas secession movement still exists, and it seems to be what it always has been.

https://texasnationalist.com/  and  https://texianpartisan.com/

On February 27, 2017 Daniel Miller in a Texian Partisan item in his regular column "Miller on Monday," the topic, "The rumors of our death."

He states:

Prior the Presidential election last November there was a belief among the political class here in Texas that a Hillary win would turn the Texas Nationalist Movement into an unstoppable juggernaut, and a Trump win would kill us.

https://texianpartisan.com/miller-monday-rumors-death/

I am not aware of anyone in the "political class" doing any such analysis. The political class in Texas doesn't take secession here seriously.

In 2016 I was reviewing that a Hillary win would develop a strong interest in Texas secession based on polls about Texas secession surveying Texas Trump supporters and the polls showed that 60% of Texas Trump supporters would support secession, and I said that a Trump victory would deflate the movement, but in no way I said it would kill it.

Mostly media interest in Texas secession is that it is a novelty story.

I had this blog posting when I thought that Trump was likely going to lose.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2016/06/presidential-elections-and-secession.html#.WozMY6jBqiM

I re-iterated this opinion and pointed out that the Texas secessionists were afraid that Trump would win

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2016/07/texas-nationalists-i-think-are-afraid.html#.WozMr6jBqiM

I point out that when Trump said the election was going to be stolen from him I thought the secessionists would greatly benefit from a Trump loss.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2016/08/secessionists-just-got-big-boost.html#.WozM5ajBqiM

Given that Hillary was projected to win I wrote this column.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2016/08/this-is-all-going-to-be-very-serious.html#.WozOO6jBqiM

After the election I wrote this:

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2016/11/election-results-and-texas-nationalism.html#.WozOkajBqiM

After Trump won and Hillary Clinton lost I noticed that right wing secessionist movements had lost "impetus" and did the following blog posting

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2016/12/prospects-for-right-wing-secessionists.html#.WozO-KjBqiM

But I didn't say it had "killed" the movement. I had said:

However, as time progresses I think that disillusionment with Trump will set in and the secession movement will revive and will be telling people, "I told you so!" Actually, long term, and by long term I mean 6 to 12 months, Trump's election will enable the secession movement. As Trump fails to turn the United States into whatever his supporter's right wing fantasy that they wanted was, these supporters will come to see national politics as hopeless to realize their objectives. Secession will get a hearing and have greater credibility.

I saw a revival of the prospects of secessionists over time.

Miller has an interesting approach which shows his "skill" with numbers. He does a poll of people who are current supporters and he reports that only 1% of the supporters of Texas secession have given up.

This side-steps the issue about the possibility of Texas secession movement making any progress. I don't think anyone thought that current supporters of Texas secession would state that they have given up. The issue is whether the Texas secession movement could get a lot of popular interest, new members, and not be a small fringe movement. Miller rejects that he is leading a small fringe movement and likes to report numbers giving the idea that there is mass support for Texas secession. That is my impression of what his web pages are asserting.

True to what I thought the Texas secessionists strategy would by they are trying to show that Trump is failing, or isn't really the person his supporters thought he would be.

Here is one example about the "Lost Trump Presidency."

https://texianpartisan.com/the-lost-presidency/

However, it needs to be asked what are the prospects for Texas secessionists. So I will review some scenarios and assess them.

1. Trump is re-elected president in 2020. I know current electoral trends make this unlikely. Also, his base is mostly older and the Democrats is mostly younger, but there could be developments and Trump is re-elected. The economy might turn out to be especially good for working people.

If Trump is re-elected then the Texas secessionists will be a lingering movement with die hard supporters but waiting for some distant future where their potential base will become disenchanted with America.

2. Democrats do really well in the 2018 elections, capture the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. They will be doing their best to make Trump's life miserable and there will be bills passing the legislature and vetoed by Trump.

At this point I think that there will start to be disillusionment with the American future by the potential base of secessionists as they begin to conceptualize that the trajectory of American in politics is not going to go their way.

The secession movement could start going somewhere in Nov. 2018 if it is perceived that the Trump revolution is certainly going to be undone.

3. The Democrats by 2020 capture all three branches of government.

The Texas secessionists will certainly find a much broader base of support when the alienated right wing finds no hope in an American future, and only hope in a Texas future that is split off from America.

THE BIG QUESTION IS WHETHER SECESSION WOULD STILL BE WORTH IT

Even if by 2020 the potential political base of Texas secession finally does choose secession what political prospects will secession have?

Texas continues to change at a fast rate. The younger generation is more liberal. People are moving into the state. The younger population is more multi-racial. There is considerable immigration from people whose ultimate origins are from outside the United States.

The goal of the Texas secessionists is to create a right wing state to escape from an increasingly liberal nation. If Texas is becoming liberal that defeats their purpose of secession.

However, this still isn't a obstacle for Texas secessionists. There might be a liberal majority with the current set of eligible voters but not with a set of voters created by a seceded Texas.

In this, I am not talking about some voter suppression tactic being done by the Republicans with voter id requirements etc. I am talking about radical measures such as reviving the poll tax and everything that was eliminated by the Voters Rights Act. I am talking about rejecting the 14th Amendment making African Americans voters. I am talking about really severe restrictions on who should be allowed to vote. Neo-Confederates and anti-civil rights activists reject the ratification of the 14th Amendment as being legal.

Some people don't think you should vote if you are receiving any government benefit. Others might have a poll tax of $20 an election and make it cumulative. If you have missed a few elections you might be asked for $60 for the missed elections and $20 for the current elections. Poll taxes also suppress voting indirectly because after you exclude poor people, the candidates that are running for office tend to seek to represent the interests of the more prosperous and not the interests of the poor and so voting for poor tends to be pointless and in this new Texas probably really need the money.

I am sure that there will be no citizenship based on birth in America if parents were not citizens.

Other restrictions could be added. Such is could be made that you have to be a resident in a place for a much longer time than now. That will tend to eliminate more people who aren't home owners. It will tend to exclude more poor people and those who move more.

So they could have an electoral majority once they chop off large segments of those currently allowed to vote.

I think that if the Texas secessionist movement starts really gaining support I think many will come to realize what their plans are for Texas and that they are entirely hostile to the interests of minorities, women, LGBT, and others.

Through a quirk in Texas law, it is possible to have a ballot issue on only one party's primary ballot. Primaries typically have lower turn out than the general election, involve more the more ideological elements of a political party.

So it could be possible that some secession resolution or measure might pass in the Republican Party primary.

One consequence would be that the partisan divides in Texas would be converted to divides over secession.

CIVIL STRIFE

If the Texan secessionist movement does get some wide spread interest among right wing and reactionary forces, what might be the consequences?

I think that they will find that even though they have significant levels of support among a certain base like the one that elected Trump, they will find that they still don't have a majority of Texans supporting them. In fact they might find that Texas secession has finally gotten significant attention from various political classes who are against it.

So winning elections won't be a path to secession and the secessionists will choose another path to secession, which is actions against the state and federal government and those who they see as opponents. That is obstruction, intimidation, and violence.

Also, if the secessionists think the composition of the electorate is wrongly determined they are not likely to respect elections.

Don't think that choosing these tactics is unlikely. The Bundy's still defy government law out west. The U.S. government took a long time to deal with a small band of right wing militia who took over the Malhuer Wildlife Refuge.

What would Texas be like if we had 30 such cases happening simultaneously?

CONCLUSION

I don't see Trump getting re-elected and the Democrats are winning some special elections in electoral units that previously would have been won by Republicans by a very wide margins.

Trump is doing very badly in the polls and I don't think the Democrats will put forth a candidate in 2020 with serious problems with getting elected.

So I think that the Texas secessionist movement might start reviving as soon as the Nov. 2018 elections are over, and the extent to which they revive will be determined by how well the Democrats do in the 2018 elections. It seems the Democrats might do very well.

If the Trump base feels that the Trump revolution is likely to be over at some point they will be looking for alternative venues for political action. I don't think they will be apathetic. They will likely feel aggrieved that Trump lost because they believe Trump lost because of some mechanization or manipulation and the election wasn't fair.

I don't think the surge in the purchase of guns during the Obama administration was due to the expectation that there was going to be some restriction on gun ownership. That was the reason given by some, but I think that there was some fear that with a African American president they no longer felt secure and wanted to be armed and in many cases heavily so.

I think the first ignition point will be the passage of some gun control measure by the Democrats.

Dallas Jaycees carry giant Confederate flag down Commerce street in 1964. Confederate "heritage"

Note the time is 1:24 for the scene.

Neo-Confederate often like to go one that it was some fringe elements that "mis-used" the flag.

Here we see the Jaycees carrying the flag as a protest against possible civil rights legislation.

This is the link to the video so you can watch it in full.

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1062768/m1/

It is about the sit-ins at the Piccadilly restaurant in Dallas, Texas in 1964.

This is the link to the story. https://blogs.library.unt.edu/yesterdays-news/2018/02/19/piccadilly/

The Confederate flag wasn't misrepresented by a few fringe groups. It was understood as representing white supremacy by mainstream southern society.

Mentioned in article in "Dallas Weekly," working on Dallas.

I am given a mention in this article in the Dallas Weekly.

http://www.dallasweekly.com/opinion/article_b67080e4-1033-11e8-b70b-afc8ad98c639.html

I have just finished rough drafts of two papers. One is on Fair Park, the other on the Confederate memorial at Pioneer park.

I had heard that the Confederate memorial at Pioneer Park was coming up for consideration in late February, but I don't think that is going to happen.

However, I decided to write up a draft to be prepared if and when the Confederate memorial at Pioneer Park comes up. The paper is 24,097 words long. There is a real racist history involved.

The Fair Park paper is more modest at 5,744 words.

In both cases there is additional material, but I wanted to have fairly comprehensive papers readily available if either Fair Park or the Confederate monument issue comes up.

My plan is to research and write up Dallas and there is a fair amount to be written up.

I am going to get back working on the streets and get the 2nd version of the map done.

I don't think the issue of Confederate named schools is going to come up until I make it an issue so I am holding off researching the schools.