John Barr speaks on Lincoln haters in New York City/ Author gives me a dedicated copy.

John Barr will be speaking in New York City July 9, 2014, 7:00 pm, at Bryant Park,

The schedule for the park is online here:

http://bryantpark.org/static/pdfs/events/springeventbrochure2014.pdf

I have blogged on his other speaking events.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2014/03/john-barr-will-be-speaking-about-his.html#.Uz8hUfldWSo

John's website is at: http://loathinglincoln.com/

It has been just started and parts are still under construction.

John Barr was so kind as to send me a copy of his book with a dedication written into it and with a kind note thanking me for my help, as well as a very kind acknowledgement.

For 20 years I have been compiling a record of the anti-Lincoln hysteria of the neo-Confederates, and I really am grateful that John Barr came along and was able to put the material to good use in his book. I owe him my thanks and have expressed my thanks to him.

Investment banker Warren Stephens, Wall Street, and the Confederacy

There is a recent article on investment banker Warren Stephens, Wall Street, and the Confederacy at the following link:

http://www.salon.com/2014/02/28/wall_streets_long_torrid_affair_with_the_south_partner/

This is an excerpt from the article.

Think of Dixie, and your mind probably conjures something like “Duck Dynasty” — bearded men bouncing along dirt roads in pickup trucks, raucously waving rebel flags.

You probably wouldn’t think of black-tied bankers cavorting in the plush ballroom of Manhattan’s St. Regis hotel. But were you to peek inside the recent gathering of a secret Wall Street society, you’d have witnessed investment banking tycoon Warren Stephens taking the stage in a Confederate flag hat, performing an ode to finance to the tune of “Dixie.” “In Wall Street land we’ll take our stand,” you would have heard him croon, as 200 of his well-heeled brethren nibbled foie gras.

This is the article from which Salon got their information about the recent gathering.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/i-crashed-a-wall-street-secret-society.html


There has been for a long time sympathy for the Confederacy in New York City. I refer also to a blog posting I had on the New York Times newspaper. http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2013/11/when-new-york-times-was-pro-neo.html. By the title of the blog I don't want to suggest that the New York Times is no longer sympathetic.

Into the vortex of madness, secession in New York

At the Daily Caller website there is an article advocating secession in New York state. The article is here:

http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/18/founders-to-new-york-you-dont-need-congresss-hall-pass-to-secede/

There has been some desire by some people in upstate New York to have their own state. Primary motivation is that they lost the election and can't get their own way.

The writer of the article at the Daily Caller, Mike Church, a professional ranter with his own show, claims that there is no impediment for secession, that Upstate New York if they want to have their own country and not have to worry about the U.S. Congress granting them admission as a state.

As for my "professional ranter" label, I think if you read Mr. Church's article you will see that it fits.

In the competition to see who can get the most attention, who can best stoke outrage, by talk show hosts the conservative movement is being led into the vortex of madness. Also, it doesn't occur to conservatives that in talking about secession they are losing their claim to be more patriotic-than-thou. I am sure Mr. Church could care less what the consequences are of proposing secession as long as he can improve or hold his ratings and take out a position among his fellow ranters.

The article doesn't review the flow of income in the state of New York. It would be interesting to see where the cash flows in New York. How many rural areas in New York are subsidized by the whole state. Whether Upstate New York largely benefits from revenue from the down state region of New York. I do know that the State of New York is spending billions for an advance semiconductor manufacturing facility in Upstate New York to make the region a focus of the semiconductor and advanced technology. Something only a big state with a big budget could do.

In the 1970s I reviewed the representation in the Senate of the population of the United States. I found that 40% of the American public had 10% of the representation in the U.S. Senate and 10% of the American public had 40% of the representation in the U.S. Senate. Representation in the U.S. Senate is fairly unequal already. I don't think that this representation needs to be made more unequal by the admission of states which have very small populations and whose desire for statehood is that they didn't get their way in the last election.

Also, there is no great principle that all political bodies have to be homogeneous in opinion. In fact is probably is a good thing when political bodies have dissenting voices.

It will be interesting how far this secessionist thinking will go into the conservative movement, whether secession thinking will consume it and discredit it.

The Civil War and Gay freedom in New York City; Gays 1 Neo-Confederates 0.

I was recently in New York City and on all days I might have been there, I was there on the weekend of the Gay Freedom Day parade.

I of course went to the Stonewall Inn and what is now Stonewall Plaza, a small park. New York City has some streets at odd angles and it leaves little triangular wedges of land which are made into parks. 

Stonewall Inn for those of you who don't know, is the location of the beginning of the riot which sparked the modern gay liberation movement. Fortunately the name doesn't seem to have any relation to the name Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.  The police raided the place and the patrons decided not to take abuse and local gay crowds gathered and there was a riot, then protests and then a movement. The rest is history. 

The original patrons were marginal people in then gay society, drag queens, prostitutes, minority gay members. They weren't marginal in rebelling though. 

The original bar closed shortly after the riots, but now it has been reopened as a bar and historic landmark and gay tourist attraction and hundreds of thousands of middle class gay tourists go there. I had a Corona beer there. It made no sense in a way, because there was nothing of the original there. But still, remembering Karla Jay and Allen Young's book, "Out of the Closets and Into the Streets," I went. Reliving my youth in a way I suppose. CLICK ON PICTURES TO MAKE THEM LARGER. 

And then I went to the park and took this picture of these sculptures.

Then wouldn't you know it, I saw a statue of a Civil War American general Philip Sheridan. I was so pleased to see a statue of an American Civil War hero so I took a picture of him also.

As Madonna would say, "strike a pose" 

Philip Sheridan helped force Robert E. Lee into defeat at Appomattox. 

Doing his part to preserve the United States of America he insured American victory over the Confederates and the destruction of slavery. He helped keep the American story of expanding freedom going. Was he all good, I suppose not. 

He was however a part of the parade of American history and freedom which has led to the successes of the modern gay rights movement and the grinding of neo-Confederate teeth. 

Of course in visiting New York I drove through the Lincoln tunnel on the way to the Gay Pride Parade. 

The Chaplain's Corps of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) may go on and on about R.L. Dabney, James Henley Thornwell, Benjamin M. Palmer, and others, but it is the raging of the increasingly irrelevant for an archaic past where they type could dominate and bully others.