Republicans and the Council of Conservative Citizens

The Council of Conservative Citizens have the following memorial for Samuel Francis:

http://www.cofcc.org/memoriam/sam_francis.htm

What you will find at this page is a link to Republican Congressman John J. Duncan, TN, 2nd District, at this link:

http://www.house.gov/duncan/2005/fs030905.htm

I think we can expect more of this as George W. Bush and the Republican party management loses all control over the direction of the Republican party.

Secession silliness

The secessionist branch of Neo-Confederacy is only a particular plan of action for one small faction of those holding Neo-Confederate beliefs. One concern about discussing secession is that it tends to make it seem like that is the central issue of Neo-Confederacy. It isn't. The overwhelming impact of Neo-Confederacy is through other venues besides secessionism. The Council of Conservative Citizens doesn't advocate secession.

However, a couple things bear pointing out about the Neo-Confederates references to secessionism.

The various secessions and national breakups of European nations are pointed out by Neo-Confederates. What should be pointed out also, is that these new nations promptly join the European Union. It is the exchange of one union for another. They also join NATO. All of this is in the context of other transnational groups like the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. It is more a rearrangement of connectedness than separation. Ireland has a huge influx of immigrants from Poland because the European Union has the free movement of labor. The new nations of Europe are not islands.

"United We Stand, Divided We Fall" seems to be a concept lost on Neo-Confederates, but it is not surprising since this concept is inherently in opposition to white patriarchal supremacy. We live in a shrinking world. I remember being told that in the 1960s when it was amazing even then how with jet travel and the telecommunications of that era had really brought together the world. How much more now the world is interconnected, with the Internet, cheaper air travel, GPS, modern telecommunications.

In this world all sorts of people are brought together and will need to live together constructively. It won't be a world where one group is going to be on top, and that world is a threat to the Neo-Confederates.

Bill Clinton material online on the Presidential Candidate page.

I got the Bill Clinton material added to:

http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/presidentialcandidates2008.htm

The Bill Clinton material is put in Note 4 and has the text of his letters to the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Also, a short note that he put a wreath on the Confederate Monument in Arlington Cemetery each year.

Direct Link to Note 4

The above is the direct link to the note.

Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton and Bill's Record Regarding the Confederacy

I had initially decided that Bill Clinton's record regarding the Confederacy wasn't relevant to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton is an independent person and capable of her own decisions and opinions and it can't be presumed that her husband's opinions are here.

However, Bill Clinton has become a major part of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, and in particular Hillary's campaigning for the votes of African Americans.

Also, for the other candidates I am listing the Confederate records of major persons in their presidential campaigns.

Bill Clinton wrote two letters of congratulations to the United Daughters of the Confederacy while president, to the national organization and to the Georgia Division. Additionally while president he annually put a wreath at the Confederate Memorial in Arlington Cemetery around June 3rd which is the birthday of Jefferson Davis. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=D000113

This weekend I will put the information in.

Neo-Confederate runs for President in Republican Party Primaries

The website for the campaign is:

http://electwdkennedy.com/2007/march/announcement.php

Walter Donald Kennedy is one of the Kennedy brothers, authors of a series of Neo-Confederate books that are widely read. One of them "The South Was Right!" is one of the founding books of the modern Neo-Confederate movement. As authors they have this website:

http://www.kennedytwins.com/

The Kennedy brothers oppose the Voting Rights act from the beginning. When they were young, they "Rolled With Ross" in opposition to Civil Rights.

Walter D. Kennedy is also the author of the apologetic for slavery, "Myths of American Slavery."

How far can he go in the Republican party primaries. I don't know. However, I think it could create problems for the Republicans if he makes some head way. The religious right faction of the Republican party is fairly disgruntled. It seems the Republican front runners don't want to pander to the religious right. So there is discontent that Kennedy can tap into. He could get protest votes.

If he is able to draw some appreciable percentage, it might result in other primary candidates shifting along a Neo-Confederate vector to win, and then having the problem of living down their stances in other primaries and the general election.

Remember, George W. Bush won the South Carolina primary in 2000 through the Confederate flag issue and a website and campaign run by Richard T. Hines, former Associate Editor of Southern Partisan. The Neo-Confederates now run the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and have a real base of operations. They are waiting for the South Carolina primaries to sort out who will be the next Republican presidential candidate, like they did in 2000.

Then again, maybe not much at all will happen. You can only discuss possibilities and the future will come with its answers.

Calling all Cranks, Kirkpatrick Sale writes for "Chronicles" magazine

In the Nov. 2005 issue of Chronicles magazine, Kirkpatrick Sales, has his secession article, pages 20-21, where he has his fantasy ideas about a small republic. Seems to be immune to understanding economics.

Kirkpatrick Sales

When persons with Liberal or Left become reactionaries, they often want to talk about labels not being important or a third way. They really can't face that they have become reactionaries and that their anti-autoritarianism was never a particular ideology but was always a general non-specific crankiness. I give Sales the Eugene Genovese award for best emulating Genovese's decent into reactionary crackpotdom.

American Conservatives was founded and run by a lot of people from Southern Partisan magazine, the www.lewrockwell.com website and other Neo-Confederate venues. Patrick Buchanan is called a Confederate-American on the cover of Southern Partisan, 1st Quarter, 1996, which is a fairly accurate label, the particular issue had an exclusive on a speak Buchanan gave. He was a regular contributor to Southern Partisan.

This is Kirkpatrick Sales' essay in American Conservative.

http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_08_28/article20.html

What you have making up the core of the Second Vermont Republic movement is reactionaries and miscellaneous others who are cranky over the future.

Peter Jones and "Chronicles"

The Rockford Institute promoted a conference in Edinburgh, May 2005, with the topic, "Walter Scott Versus the Scottish Enlightenment." Special guest speaker is Donald Livingston. The full page ad in the Feb. 2005 issue of Chronicles isn't as informative as the full page ad in the Main Street Memorandum of the Rockford Institute, July 2005, Vol. 22 No. 3.

One thing in the ad in the Main Street Memorandum is Peter Jones' participation. His lecture is that the Scottish Enlightenment wasn't all bad.

However, the lead paragraph for the tapes of the event inform the reader:

"In many conservative circles, Adam Smith's work is treated like Scripture, on moral as well as on economic questions. Knowing, however, that degenerates like Voltaire looked to the minds of the Scottish Enlightenment for inspiration should give us pause, and one great Scotsman, Sir Walter Scott, had more than his share of doubts about both the French and Scottish Enlightenment."

Since the Enlightenment lead to the end of "involuntary subordination" and human rights, I can surely see why the Rockford Institute crowd would not like it. Perhaps Vermont will be spared the Enlightenment in the Second Vermont Republic.

Bill Kaufman visits Carolyn Chute, another "Chronicles" connection

The article is titled, "Reactionary Radicals, Radical Reactionaries, The Militia of Love: A Visit With Novelist Carolyn Chute," by Bill Kaufman, Nov. 1999, pages 21-25.

In the article we learn that Chute has published a novel "Snow Man," a militia member who assassinates a Massachusetts U.S. Senator and targets another.

From the interview we learn that Chute goes into a rage over feminists. She is big on militias. Flys a militia flag. She wants to blow up public schools as a community activity.

"Her solution? "We need to blow up the schools and throw all the TV's into Boston Harbor. We do not want anybody in the schools when we blow them up. In fact, it would be rather nice is 80 percent of the population supported the effort. A great circle of people all holding hands will surround each brick fluorescent-lit school building. Songs of liberty will be sung. Flags will be waved. A cute 99-year-old retired schoolteacher will toss the first stick of dynamite.""

I think Carolyn Chute represents fully the mentality behind secessionists. A sort of raging crazed anti-authoritarianism which is cranky and upset about everything. The whole article is something.

Frank Bryan in "Chronicles" magazine

Frank Bryan promoted Vermont secession in the April 1991 issue of Chronicles, starting on page 45. It is the publication of the Rockford Institute http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/. They are currently promoting a book about M.E. Bradford who they regard as a hero. He was George Wallace campaign manager when Wallace ran for president.

This article of Bryan's comes after the Chronicles Jan. 1991 issue devoted to secession. Bryan's articles are a collection of gripes and a historical narrative of a Vermont republic.

Vermont Republic or Kingdom, a book review of Marco Bassani.

Marco Bassani reviewed "Democracy: The God That Failed" in "Southern Partisan" for Vol. 23 No. 4, July/August 2004. The "Southern Partisan" is the neo-Confederate magazine that Jesse Helms, Trent Lott, Phil Gramm, Dick Armey and others interviewed in.

Donald Livingston interviewed in the "Southern Partisan," in the double issue, Vol. 20 4th Qtr. 2000/ Vol. 21 1st Qtr 2001. However, this blog post is about Bassani.

This is a link to the book review of Hermann-Hoppe's book, "Democracy, The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order," Transaction Publishers, 2001, at Rutgers University. (Yes, the Rutgers University in New Jersey.)

http://www.mises.org/story/789

The book is an attack on democracy and argues that old style monarchy, not constitutional modern type monarchies, is superior to democracy.

Marco Bassani is quite taken by the book and one example is this quote on page 31-32:

"It is connection with this complex relationship between capitalism and the State that Hoppe makes his most outstanding contribution. His analysis is both theorectical and historical and underlines a point of extreme importance. The history of the State is not a narrative of progress from the beginning to the end it is actually a regressive history, just as monarcy was less inimical to property rights and the lives of the subjects than democracy. One could also argue that the political order of medieval pluralism was far superior to the monarchial absolutism that emerged at th end of the Middle Ages. Hoppe focuses on the transition from monarchy to democracy, and describes this as a process of decivilization; democratic republicanism has in fact been the triumph of a political culture more inclined than ever to collectivism, nationalism and mass slaughters. "

After the review goes on how bad democracy is, it then leads to how the solution or fix to get rid of what Hoppe sees as the evil of democracy is secession.

Bassani recommends that it be read along with Pat Buchanan's book, "Decline of the West," and concludes, "For conservatives and libertarians alike, it should not be too difficult to endorse both Buchanan's diagnosis and Hoppe's solutions."

I think with Bassani's writings, and Livingston's writings we see what the point of secession is.

Update: Bassani's article is in the special anti-Muslim issue of the Southern Partisan.

The League of the South's "The Grey Book" a statement of their beliefs.

The League of the South has published "The Grey Book," a statement of their beliefs. It is still being sold by the League of the South as a statement of their beliefs, you can order it from the League of the South at this URL:

http://leagueofthesouth.net/static/merchandise/merchandise.htm

These two essays concisely in one or two sentences express the breath of their reactionary sentiments. This is a book the LOS published to express their official positions and views and policies. It is not some stray essay in their periodicals or publications.

In it you see their hostility to women's rights, the Left, gays, democracy, etc.
From page 95, "The Treason of the Elite," pages 94-97, "The Grey Book," Traveller Press, Michael Hill editor, College Station, Texas, 2004.

"The treason of the Left involves such unconstitutional and immoral enormities of globalism -- the selling-out of American national sovereignty to international agencies and interests; radical egalitarianism' feminism; sodomite rights; abortion; Third World immigration; gun control; hate crime legislation (always meant to be used against whites); judicial tyranny; burdensome taxation; multiculturalism and diversity (code words for anti-white, anti-Christian bigotry); the universal rights of man; and other manifestations of a new brand of politically correct totalitarianism."

From page 102, "Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment," pages 98-102, "The Grey Book," Traveller Press, Michael Hill editor, College Station, Texas, 2004.

This is the concluding sentence of the essay.

"Revolutionary interpretation of the amendment have turned Lincoln's egalitarianism into rights-based social policies. The evil genie of universal 'human rights,' has been let out of its bottle and will never be put back in; 'rights' for women, racial and ethnic minorities, homosexuals, pedophiles, etc. are being manufactured in a never-ending, and never to-be-ended, series."

It isn't just about race. It is about a hostility to democratic freedom itself.

This is the George Wallace stuff that the League of the South sells at their store.

http://www.cafepress.com/losstore/562178

Livingston and "Involuntary Subordination" / Di Lorenzo

This weekend I will try to do more reviews of Livingston's writing.

These are some quotes from Donald Livingston's article, "Decentralists or D.C. Centralists: Overthrowing the Tyranny of Liberalism," pages 16-18, April 1999, Chronicles magazine, published by the Rockford Institute, http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/.

"A culture links generations together and is structured not by autonomy but by involuntary subordination and deference to authority." [Page 17]

"Since all forms of Enlightenment theorizing are hostile to the idea of involuntary subordination, they either ignore the priority of culture to autonomy or, in more radical forms, positively deny it." [Page 17]

"The ideal of individual autonomy as the end of the state, if consistently pursued, drives out culture because it drives out all forms of involuntary subordination and, consequently, undermines a valuable way of life." [Page 17]

Livingston is hostile to the 18th century Enlightenment and to the idea of the individual having rights. There are a series of articles which I hope to go through. For example, Jan 2007, pages 14-17, "The Declaration of Independence and Philosophic Superstitions," which is an attach on the idea that The Declaration of Independence is a document of "natural rights."

In both articles Livingston sees the solution to the problem of the lack of "involuntary subordination" and what he sees is a problem of the belief in "natural rights" through decentralization or the break up of large states into small ones. As Livingston states in his April 1999 article:

"The concentration has been ligitimated by an ideology of maximizing autonomy and destroying those substantial moral communities whose structures of involuntary subordination are offensive to liberalism."

Just remember that in an Second Vermont Republic there will be no appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court regarding some form of "involuntary subordination" the Livingston and company might dream up. Though Vermont being landlocked and small and mountainous, I think there will be good opportunities to make a run for the border.

DILORENZO

DiLorenzo is a contributor to www.lewrockwell.com and his contributions can be accessed at this page.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo-arch.html

A Donald Livingston Reader

For those who might be interested where Livingston is coming from might read these articles in Chronicles magazine of the Rockford Institute. I am sure some university in New England has a complete set. http://lists.webjunction.org/libweb/Academic_northeast.html

April 1999 page 16 (Talks about the need for involuntary subordination for maintaining culture.) "Decentralists or D.C. Centralists?: The Tyranny of Liberalism"

Jan. 2000 page 14

June 2001 page 24

Nov. 2001 page 17

July 2002 page 23

May 2003 page 14

July 2003 page 14

Aug. 2005 page 14

Jan. 2007 page 14

Sorry I am not providing more information. It is late, my day has been long and I will get back to this material tomorrow.