"Religious Dispatches" carries article about neo-Confederate Christianity

The article by Sarah Posner is online at:

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/4858/neo-confederates_and_the_revival_of_%E2%80%9Ctheological_war%E2%80%9D_for_the_%E2%80%9Cchristian_nation%E2%80%9D/

The paper by Euan Hague and me referred to in the article is online at:

http://gis.depaul.edu/ehague/Articles/PUBLISHED%20CRAS%20ARTICLE.pdf

The word is getting out about the neo-Confederate movement.

www.salon.com runs article about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's Confederate past

The online news and commentary website http://www.salon.com/ has an article on Texas Gov. Rick Perry's Confederate past online at:

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/07/13/rick_perry_sons_of_confederate_veterans

I supplied the documentation for the story. The letter to Rick Perry asking him to oppose a Confederate license plate for the Sons of Confederate Veterans wasn't mentioned. You can read the letter online at the History News Network at this link:

http://hnn.us/articles/140292.html

To find out what the views of all the presidential candidates regarding the Confederacy and neo-Confederacy we are going to be sending them a questionnaire. We are still writing some background papers which we hope to have completed in July. You can read the questionnaire at:
http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2010/10/questionnaire-for-2012-presidential_15.html

We have a paper on the neo-Confederate issues that are coming up in mainstream politics, a paper on the presidents and the Confederacy, and we have a lengthy background paper on the neo-Confederate movement. These will help provide background information to journalists.

However, right now we are going to focus on the letter to Rick Perry.

History News Network Publishes Letter to Texas Gov. Rick Perry

The History News Network has put online the letter to Rick Perry asking him to oppose Confederate license plates. You can read it at:

http://hnn.us/articles/140292.html

Reader co-signatures for the letter are being solicited in the History News Network introduction to the letter.

This letter campaign is being tracked on the blog http://confederatelicenseplate.blogspot.com/.

Letter to Texas Gov. Rick Perry asking him to oppose the proposed Sons of Confederate Veterans license plate.

We have written a letter to Texas Gov. Rick Perry asking him to oppose a proposed Sons of Confederate license plate.

We are currently gathering signatures. We have a blog about the letter and the campaign at:

http://confederatelicenseplate.blogspot.com/

One significant online media is going to have the letter online July 4th. We will have more details then.

Origin of Memorial Day by David W. Blight

There is this very interesting article by David W. Blight about the first memorial day in Charleston, South Carolina. I strongly recommend reading it. It is a very powerful essay which I think will have important ramifications.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/opinion/30blight.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all

The following is a quote from the story:

After the Confederate evacuation of Charleston black workmen went to the site, reburied the Union dead properly, and built a high fence around the cemetery.They whitewashed the fence and built an archway over an entrance on which they inscribed the words, “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

The symbolic power of this Low Country planter aristocracy’s bastion was not lost on the freedpeople, who then, in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged a parade of 10,000 on the track. A New York Tribune correspondent witnessed the event, describing “a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the
United States never saw before.”

The procession was led by 3,000 black schoolchildren carrying armloads of roses and singing the Union marching song “John Brown’s Body.” Several hundred black women followed with baskets of flowers, wreaths and crosses. Then came black men marching in cadence, followed by contingents of Union infantrymen. Within the cemetery enclosure a black children’s choir sang “We’ll Rally Around the Flag,” the “Star-Spangled Banner” and spirituals before a series of black ministers read from the Bible.

So what is Obama doing today, sending a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument.

The History News Network did run the 2009 letter today, but not the 2010 or 2011 letters. http://hnn.us/articles/12140.html.

I suggest people read Blight's essay in the New York Times then read our letters to Obama at: http://arlingtonconfederatemonument.blogspot.com/.

Postings on neo-Confederate homophobia in new blog. UPDATED

I have started a blog to reach out to the Lesbian, gay, bi, and transgender communities about neo-Confederate homophobia at this blog.

http://neo-confederatehomophobia.blogspot.com/

It will happen that I will read about some homophobe and recognize their involvement or connection to neo-Confederacy and I need some convenient way to make this information available.

Also there are those in the LGBT community who have "Gone With the Wind" attitudes towards the Confederacy and I think with education will give up the Confederacy.

UPDATE: 5/28/11

I have gotten three different posts published on the blog now. One documents neo-Confederacy in the conservative wing of the Anglican church in the United States.

Incidentally, if you see something of interest for this new blog let me know.

"How the Lost Cause poisoned our history books," by Joan Waugh.

Excellent article about President Grant at:

http://www.salon.com/books/history/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/05/01/joan_waugh_grant

Favorable review in the Tennessee Historical Commission publication "The Courier."

The review of "The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader" is at this link:

http://www.tn.gov/environment/hist/pdf/CourierFeb11.pdf

The review is on page 7 of the publication, right most column.

Manuscript on the Museum of the Confederacy in the editing phase

I have a publisher for an essay on the Museum of the Confederacy. I have extensive records on the Museum of the Confederacy going back to the early 1990s. When you index the Southern Partisan, it is amazing what you will find you have indexed. Similarly when you have the Confederate Veteran and UDC Magazine indexed.

I am writing it for a major African American website for scholars, activists, intellectuals, etc. They have expressed an interest. There is a lot of material on the Museum of the Confederacy so my essay is over 26,000 words long so the editing is going to take some time. I had planned on just 5-6,000 words, but as I went through my records I really did come across a lot of interesting material.

UPDATE:

The free guest links for all four installments of the article published on Black Commentator are in the blog posting http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2011/11/moc.html

Winter Institute of the Univ. of Mississippi has link to ConfederatePastPresent

If you go to either the main page of the Winter Institute here, http://www.winterinstitute.org and this page also. http://www.winterinstitute.org/pages/academic.htm. I think the website www.confederatepastpresent.org will receive a whole new audience. I will have to get more material online this coming summer after I get a couple writing assignments done.

Article on Jefferson Davis Highway published by Cambridge University Press

The article, "The Jefferson Davis Highway: Contesting the Confederacy in the Pacific Northwest," has been published by the Journal of American Studies at Cambridge University Press. The link to the abstract is:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8238353&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S0021875811000089

We have another lengthy paper on the Jefferson Davis Highway which we hope to get published elsewhere.

My tentative title for the book is, "The Lost Highway to White Supremacy."

"Civil War News" Praises "Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader."

Civil War News, one of the major, if not the major Civil War publication, in their book review praises the "Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader." You can read the review at this link:

http://www.civilwarnews.com/reviews/2011br/febmar/confedreader-sebesta-b021105.html

A quote from Edward H. Bonekemper III:

"In the same vein, this book contains documents and arguments reflecting a “neo-Confederate” ideology of racism that emerged during Reconstruction, came to the fore during the “Nadir,” and continued to affect Americans’ thinking at least through the civil rights movement and the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

This thought-provoking tome should be required reading for all teachers of American and Civil War history. Its contents reflect a long and shameful history of racism in America — a major reason for continuing controversies about the causes, nature and impacts of the Civil War."

James Loewen is co-signer for 2011 Letter to the President

James Loewen is a co-signer for the 2011 Letter to the President.

Co-signatures are coming in.

Michael Phillips, co-signer of Letter to Obama quoted in "Texas Observer"

Michael Phillips, a co-signer of the Letter to Obama, is quoted at this article.

http://www.texasobserver.org/culture/seceding-from-history

It is about neo-Confederate white washing of Civil War history. Good article.

Incidentally, the link to the 2011 Letter to Obama is the following:

http://arlingtonconfederatemonument.blogspot.com/

Manisha Sinha "New York Times" article, "The Strange Victory of the Palmetto State," about SC's secessionism's eventual triumph.

Manisha Sinha, a co-signer of the 2009, 2010, and 2011 letters to Obama to not send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument has an article recently published in the New York Times, titled, "The Strange Victory of the Palmetto State." It is about how South Carolina's advocacy of secession for decades did not get much support outside South Carolina, but eventually it had the support many of the slave states and South Carolina eventually triumphed.

The link to the article is here:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/the-strange-victory-of-the-palmetto-state/?partner=rss&emc=rss

2011 Letter to President Barack Obama Concerning the Arlington Confederate Monument Now Online

The 2011 Letter to President Obama concerning federal government support of neo-Confederacy and sending a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument is online at:

http://arlingtonconfederatemonument.blogspot.com/2011/02/2011-letter-to-president-barak-obama.html

The racism of the persons who the UDC names its awards to the U.S. Military service academy students

.

The following was posted at the Arlington Confederate Monument Report.

The following is about the racism of the individuals who the UDC names the awards that they give to the U.S. Military service academy students.

Wade Hampton, was the leader of the Red Shirts who conducted a violent and successful campaign to restore white supremacy in South Carolina ending the multiracial democracy of Reconstruction. Wade Hampton is a hero to the UDC South Carolina Division precisely because he restored white supremacy to South Carolina and overthrew Reconstruction.[i]

The UDC South Carolina Division issued a publication with the cover, “United Daughters of the Confederacy, South Carolina Division: Golden Anniversary 1896-1946.” In it on page 13 is an article titled, “Oakley Park, Edgefield’s Red Shirt Shrine.” Oakley Park is an old Plantation house which the South Carolina UDC division had decided in October 1944 to restore. The importance of this house for restoration is stated in the article, “Oakley Park was the home of General Martin Witherspoon Gary, who with his Red Shirts, in 1876, did so much to restore white supremacy in South Carolina.”

The article explains further:

The “Red Shirts” were largely ex-Confederate soldiers under the leadership of their one-time military commanders. Forbidden to organize into military companies and regarding the gray uniform of the Confederacy as inappropriate, the men arrayed themselves in red shirts and formed mounted bands which patrolled the State in the interest of the Democratic nominee for Governor, which was Hampton, against the Republican nominee, Chamberlain. “A white man’s government”, they said. Then followed a long struggle for control. The Republicans held the State House, and were sustained by United States troops. Conditions were desperate! The Democrats were determined to get the government back into the hands of the white people.

The Red Shirts, who gathered at Oakley Park and rode out from there were a great factor in achieving this, and in the election of Hampton in 1876, and thus was accomplished the overthrow of that “blackest abomination” – The Radical Government of South Carolina.”

In the 21st century the UDC continues to promote the “Red Shirt Shrine,” the UDC run Oakley Park Museum in Edgefield, South Carolina. In the June/July 2001 issue of UDC Magazine, the cover illustration is a photo of the Oakley Park plantation house for an article in the issue about it. .[i] The UDC raised money for this museum in the 1940s and has promoted them as heroes over the years, including the aforementioned Wade Hampton sabre award.

Raphael Semmes erected a tombstone in Mexico with the inscription “In memoriam of Abraham Lincoln, President of the late United States, who died of nigger on the brain, 1st January 1863,” is somehow honored with an award given to an exemplary cadet of the U.S. Coast Guard academy.

Professor Gerald Horne, in his book, “The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil, and the African Slave Trade,” discusses the obsessive racism of Semmes. Brazilian society displeased Semmes because of racial antipathies. Horne quotes Semmes in his rejection of post-war colonization of Brazil as follows:

‘The effete Portuguese race,’ he sputtered, ‘has been ingrafted [sic]upon a stupid, stolid Indian stock in that country … this might be a suitable field enough for the New England schoolma’am and carpet-bagger, but no Southern gentleman should think of mixing his blood or casting his lot with such a race of people.’

Horne explains that while Semmes, as a Confederate naval officer during the Civil War, was hosted and feted by Brazilian society he was obsessed with their racial composition. Horne writes:

He was disgusted with “amalgamation” in Brazil, thinking it provided a poor example for North America, as it was leading to “mongrel set of curs” that would “cover the whole land.” He was more pleased with South Africa where “the African has met the usual fate of the savage, when he comes in contact with civilized man. He had been thrust aside, and was only to be seen as a straggler and stranger in his native land.” As he saw it, “the inhabitants of the Cape Colony seemed to resemble our own people” in their penchant for white supremacy.

Horne also questions Semmes being considered a hero and writes:

The “damage done by Raphael Semmes to the commerce of the United States” amounted to “ten millions of dollars.” Yet despite this mayhem he inflicted on the U.S. during the course of his treasonous revolt, after the war his “statue” was placed prominently on “Mobile’s busiest thoroughfare, standing near the sea he so long loved and dominated.”[ii]

Following the defeat of the Confederacy, Matthew Fontaine Maury attempted to recreate the slave-era Old South in Mexico. As noted by Gaines M. Foster in his book, “Ghosts of the Confederacy,” Maury and his comrades planned to:

Bring with them a proportional number of “negro skilled laborers in agriculture” who would enter the country as “peons” – a concession that caused Maury to consider himself an abolitionist. Together, the best families and faithful peons would build a “New Virginia” in a part of Mexico that reminded Maury of the Valley of the Shenandoah.[iii]

Maury also worked at length for a scheme to colonize the Amazon basin of Brazil with African- American slaves. Maury’s contempt for Brazilians and his plans for this slave expansion are shown in these excerpts in a letter of instruction to Herndon who he sent to Brazil as a scout for his scheme:

Who shall people the Great Valley of this Mighty Amazon? Shall it be peopled with an imbecile and an indolent people or by a go ahead race that has energy and enterprise equal to subdue the forest and to develop and bring forth the vast resources that lie hidden here?

… That valley is to [be] the safety valve for our Southern States, when they become over-populated with slaves, the African Slave Trade will be stopped, and they will send their slaves to the Amazon. Just as the Mississippi Valley has been the escape valve for the slaves of the Northern, now free, States, so will the Amazon be to that of the Mississippi.[iv]

To further promote this expansion of slavery Maury resorted to the fear mongering of race war, in De Bow’s Review in an article advocating the transfer of African American slaves to the Amazon.[v]

A columnist in the UDC Magazine in 1958 writing about an article praising Maury, lists this as an example of Maury accomplished intellect. Further the columnist quotes Maury writing to his cousin that transferring African American slaves to the Amazon “…would be relieving our own country of the slaves, it would be hastening the time of our deliverance, and if it would be putting off indefinitely, the horrows [sic] of that war of races, which without an escape is surely to come."[vi]

Despite his iconic status in the South, Robert E. Lee was a racist who worked against African Americans after the Civil War. His attitudes are best described by his son Robert E. Lee Jr. The 1904 book Recollections and Letters of General Lee, written by his son, R.E. Lee, Jr., includes the following remark by General Lee:

I have always observed that wherever you find the negro, everything is going down around him, and wherever you find the white man, you see everything around him improving.

Robert E. Lee wrote the notorious White Sulphur Manifesto to undermine and oppose the Republican Party civil rights policies in the presidential election of 1868. In this letter Lee wrote:

It is true that the people of the South, in common with a large majority of the people of the North and West, are, for obvious reasons, inflexibly opposed to any system of laws that would place the political power of the country in the hands of the negro race. But this opposition springs from no feeling of enmity, but from a deep-seated conviction that, at present, the negroes have neither the intelligence nor the other qualifications which are necessary to make them safe depositories of political power. They would inevitably become the victims of demagogues, who, for selfish purposes, would mislead them to the serious injury of the public.

At the Congressional hearings on Reconstruction Lee expressed support of slavery and believing that Virginia would be better off without African Americans.[vii]


[i] “United Daughters of the Confederacy, South Carolina Division: Golden Anniversary 1896-1946,” no author. Also, Harris, Donna, “Oakley Park: Only Shrine of its Kind,” page 23-24, United Daughters of the Confederacy Magazine, Vol. 64 No. 6, June/July 2001.
[ii] Gerald Horne, “The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil, and the African Slave Trade,” pp. 190-91, New York University Press, New York, 2007.
[iii] Foster, Gaines M., “Ghosts of the Confederacy,” page 16, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987.
[iv] Gerald Horne, “The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil, and the African Slave Trade,” pp. 113-16, New York University Press, New York, 2007. Maury’s plan is discussed from page 112 to 127.
[v] The fact must be obvious to the far-reaching minds of our statesmen, that unless some means of relief be devised, some channel afforded, by which the South can, when the time comes, get rid of the excess of her slave population, that she will be ultimately found, with regard to this institution, in the predicament of the man with the wolf by the ears—too dangerous to hold on any longer, and equally dangerous to let go.

To our mind, the event is as certain to happen as any event is [sic] which dependents on the contingencies of the future, viz.: that unless means be devised for gradually relieving the slave states from the undue pressure of this class upon them—unless some way be opened by which they may be rid of their surplus black population,—the time will come—it may not be in the next nor in the succeeding generation—but, sooner or later, come it will, and come it must—when the two races will join in the death struggle for the mastery,” from Matthew Fontaine Maury, “Direct Foreign Trade of the South,” De Bow’s Review, Vol. 12 No. 2 Feb. 1852, pp. 147.
[vi] Col. John C. Lawton, “Matthew Fontaine Maury,” UDC Magazine, Vol. 21 No. 3, March 1958, pp. 6-7, 10, 17.
[vii] Robert E. Lee, “Memoranda on the Civil War,” Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Vol. 36 No. 4, August. 1888, 600-01 for his views on slavery; ---, Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction at the First Session Thirty-Ninth Congress, (Washington: GPO, 1866), 135-36 for his views of ridding Virginia of African Americans.

Information on the United Daughters of the Confederacy and their support of white supremacy posted at the Arlington Confederate Monument Report blog

The link to the post is:

http://arlingtonconfederatemonument.blogspot.com/2011/02/united-daughters-of-confederacy-and.html

The draft of the letter to Obama is being worked on. We have the too long letter and we are shortening it. However, a lot of material in the letter is good back ground information.

2011 Letter to the President concerning the Arlington Confederate Monument almost ready.

The letter is going through a final review for small errors. I hope to have it up at http://arlingtonconfederatemonument.blogspot.com/ by Sunday night.

I think we have much better prospects this year than last year.

James Loewen writes on the responses to his "Washington Post" essay on "5 Myths about Why the South Seceded"

The link to the article is: http://www.hnn.us/articles/135873.html

What is interesting is that a lot of people who were initially hostile decided to get the book and read the primary documents for themselves.

Also, the Washington Post article went viral and had over a half a million viewers. This is the link in case you missed the article. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/07/AR2011010703178.html

It was commented on almost 4,000 sites from Forbes to The Times of India.

January 2011 isn't even over and we have already begun to significantly change the public opinion regarding the Lost Cause rationalizations of history. I think that even before the end of this year the Lost Cause (neo-Confederate) view of history will be seriously discredited with the general public and an object of mirth.

Does Criticism by the Sons of Confederate Veterans Help a Politician?

A very interesting article in the Washington Post argues that the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) did George Allen and Virginia Gov. R. F. McDonnell a favor by very publicly criticizing them. The article asserts that by being criticized by the SCV both Allen and McDonnell look good. McDonnell after his problem with declaring a Confederate history month and Allen with his image problems over the infamous "macaca" incident will find criticism invaluable to rehabilitate their images.

This is the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/20/AR2011012005399.html?sid=ST2011012005534

This again shows that there has been a real shift in public opinion against the Confederacy and so-called Confederate "heritage."

I suspect that the SCV believes their own propaganda in the "Southern Mercury" that they caused the defeat of many politicians who didn't favor Confederate symbols.

James Loewen on Black Agenda Report

This is the link to an audio file. James Loewen is talking at 30:58 into the podcast. The link is:

http://blackagendaradio.podbean.com/mf/web/x2dp2/BlackAgendaRadio011711.mp3

With this podcast we are reaching a great many African American community leaders, activists, and scholars with the information they need to refute neo-Confederate nonsense.

Excellent Essay at Forbes magazine website,

The title of the essay is, "Time to Lose the Confederate Flag: Some Heresies for the Civil War Sesquicentennial," by Craig Silver. The link is:

http://blogs.forbes.com/craigsilver/2011/01/12/time-to-lose-the-confederate-flag-some-heresies-for-the-civil-war-sesquicentennial/?boxes=financechannelforbes

Why Florida seceded, it seems to be something about slavery.

This is an article at a TV station in Tampa, Florida:

http://www.wtsp.com/news/state/story.aspx?storyid=167106

What is interesting is that it reviews the historical record showing that Florida seceded over the issue of slavery.

The Sesquicentennial is going to be about the historical record and the recognition that the slave states seceded over slavery. Persons who are in denial over this will be seen as cranks or members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Article by James Loewen in the "Washington Post" titled "Five Myths About Why the South Seceded'

James Loewen has an article titled, "Five Myths About Why the South Seceded." The link to the article is:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/07/AR2011010703178.html?sid=ST2011010703601

James Loewen explaining what secession was all about.

"Of Course the Civil War Was About Slavery"

http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-society/of-course-the-civil-war-was-about-slavery-26265/

This article was picked up at the History News Network at this link:

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/134784.html

2. http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/12/20-7 Short item about slavery and states' rights.

Haley Barbour and his comments on the White Citizens' Councils. Update, Further Update.

By the way, the White Citizens' Councils did sometime call themselves just that.

Anyways, Haley Barbour in an interview here, http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/boy-yazoo-city_523551.html?page=3, has Barbour explaining that the White Citizens' Council's as a force for good in race relations.

The Internet is having articles popping up all over about it.

Actually, the Citizens' Councils were extremely racist. You can read the entire run of their newspaper here: http://www.citizenscouncils.com/.

Blogger Yglesias here has a review of the Weekly Standard's interview here:

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/12/haley-barbours-affection-for-the-white-supremacist-citizens-council/

Yglesias blog has a link to http://www.citizenscouncils.com/

A lot of blogs are linking to Yglesias' blog which means a lot of people will get a link to the Citizens' Council web page.

UPDATE:

Another interesting article at Salon.com.

http://www.salon.com/news/race/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/12/20/haley_barbour_civil_rights

FURTHER UPDATE:

An interesting article by David A. Love. It mentions my Citizens Council website.

http://www.laprogressive.com/rankism/gop-strives-hate-groups-respectable/

"Journal of Society for Commercial Archaeology" publishes article on Jefferson Davis Highway

The exact bibliographic note is, "More Imagined Than Real," Journal of Society for Commercial Archaeology, Vol. 28 No. 2, 2010 Fall, pages 14-19. The author is Euan Hague.

We have another article planned for publication with a very prestigious journal and additionally hope to have a book sometime in the future. I am proposing the title, "The Lost Highway to White Supremacy." I am open to other ideas.

John Stewart and Larry Wilmore on the Sesquicentennial Secession Ball/History in Cambodia

I am getting a hang of clip embedding. This segment by John Stewart and Larry Wilmore is simply hilarious. When Larry Wilmore says "heritage not hate" you are going to be laughing so hard you might want to hold on to your chair.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The South's Secession Commemoration
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

I think video shows how the Lost Cause has really been rejected so thoroughly by such a widespread segment of the nation that it is now being ridiculed openly and emphatically. I also like that they refer to primary source documents.

This is the link to the embedded video, http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-december-9-2010/the-south-s-secession-commemoration

A lot of people probably haven't thought through the issues regarding the Confederacy and neo-Confederate rationalizations. So the Secession Ball has resulted in responses in print and on video that explain what the Confederacy was all about to people who probably didn't know a lot of the historical record and hadn't thought through the Confederate "heritage" rationalizations. In the end the Secession Ball has probably hurt neo-Confederacy more than my two books combined had done so far.

On the more serious side, here is a really interesting article of Cambodia addressing the issues of the history of the Khmer Rouge.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-cambodia-education-20101210,0,1672919.story

Perhaps they can have a Museum of the Khmer Rouge which will be a reliquary for artifacts of that era and hand out prizes to burnish their reputation.

Keith Olbermann on NBC on the Secession Ball in South Carolina

The link is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnXqjsmmqNI

The video segment on the NBC website has been pulled, but you can see it at the above link. Warning some bad language.

What I think is significant is that leading figures are not hesitant to reject Lost Cause rationalizations for neo-Confederacy and are quite quick to belligerently express their opposition.

It will be interesting to see if in opposition to Keith Olbermann some conservative commentators defend the Secession Ball. The website for the ball is here: http://www.scsecessiongala.org/

Trying to reject the Museum of the Confederacy.

I wrote four letters to the judges for the Founders Award of the Museum of the Confederacy (MOC) asking that my new book, "The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader," not be considered for any prize from the MOC. I copied all the letters and sent them with a cover letter to S. Waite Rawls. I sent all five mailings by certified post. I wrote this letter because I got word that they would consider it for an award if copies were sent to the four judges. In fact copies of the book were asked for by the MOC and copies are going to be sent to them by my publisher over my strongly stated objections.

This is the URL for the book:

http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1338

Unfortunately it seems that they are going to consider the book for the award anyway. As was explained by John Coski, in an email sent to me earlier today, it isn't my decision. Of course they are right, it is their award and I don't have a say, but I was hoping my letter to them would bring sure rejection of any award.

This is an eventuality that I didn't plan for and at this time, I don't have a plan other then it is probably time I did writing critical of the MOC. I am very unhappy over this possibility. I am thinking of an emergency plan. I suppose this blog post is the first step. I really don't want any book of mine to receive an award from the MOC. I am going to write about an interesting speech at the MOC about the MOC published in the Southern Partisan as the next step.

The following is the text of the letter sent to four judges and copies of each letter sent to S. Waite Rawls.

Dear XXX:

I am writing you to tell you that I do not want any book of mine to be considered for any award by the Museum of the Confederacy. More specifically I don’t want “The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader,” co-edited by Edward H. Sebesta and James Loewen, University Press of Mississippi considered for an award by the Museum of the Confederacy either for 2010, or in the future.

Not to be presumptuous that the “Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader,” would win any award from the Museum of the Confederacy, but if the book did win some type of award, I would reject the award publically and use the occasion to criticize the Museum of the Confederacy.

Finally, I should let you know that in debate with James McPherson, noted Civil War historian, I have spoken out against the Museum of the Confederacy on Pacifica Radio Network.


Sincerely Yours,


You would think that would be enough to put an end to any consideration, but evidently not.

As a preliminary to better understand my opposition to the MOC I suggest people might read www.templeofdemocracy.com/breaking.htm.

The Grio has an article on neo-Confederates. "Reader" mentioned

It is a nice article by David A. Love at The Grio, a NBC website.

http://www.thegrio.com/politics/why-celebrate-secession-civil-war-revisionists-sidestep-slavery.php?page=1

It is two pages so click to the next page.

David A. Love is Executive Editor at www.blackcommentator.com.

James Loewen, Heidi Beirich, Euan Hague and I mentioned in article on Neo-Confederates in "Mother Jones" magazine

Adam Weinstein has an article about neo-Confederates and the Sesquicentennial in "Mother Jones" at this link:

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/12/video-confederate-cool-again-south-slavery-lincoln

James Loewen, Heidi Beirich, Euan Hague and I are mentioned as "great historians" with a link to my blog where they can find out about both books.

James Loewen in the "New York Times" on Secession

The "New York Times" had an article titled, "Celebrating Secession Without Slaves." Didn't use the word neo-Confederate. Discusses the celebrations of the Confederacy and the omission of the issue of slavery. Loewen's picture is with the article.

Article is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/us/30confed.html

James Loewen says:

Most historians say it is impossible to carve out slavery from the context of the war. As James W. Loewen, a liberal sociologist and author of “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” put it: “The North did not go to war to end slavery, it went to war to hold the country together and only gradually did it become anti-slavery — but slavery is why the South seceded.”

In its secession papers, Mississippi, for example, called slavery “the greatest material interest of the world” and said that attempts to stop it would undermine “commerce and civilization.”

The story got picked up and seems to be everywhere on the Internet. Ta-Nehisi Coates commented on the New York Times article with an extensive quote from our book.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/11/they-have-encouraged-and-assisted-thousands-of-our-slaves/67190/

Mr. Coates is using our book just the way it was intended to be used. When some neo-Confederate makes his wild historical claims, you can just quote the Confederates in their own words, and dispel the neo-Confederates' stuff and nonsense.

History News Network picked up on the story in Breaking News here:
http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/134085.html

Generally the book hasn't been mentioned, but some people will take the initiative and find Loewen's books including our book.

It isn't even 2011 yet, and it seems that the Sesquicentennial will be very different than the Centennial of the Civil War. No neo-Confederate nonsense seems to be the theme.

The undesirable practice of cursing, swearing, etc.

I avoid cursing and swearing and even in anger generally don't swear or curse. It becomes a bad habit in people. I certainly don't see it as acceptable in writing, unless you were writing about cursing, writing about some one's cursing, or writing about language. A novelist can use these words as part of realistic dialog. A realist novelist of the 21st century could hardly avoid it.

I also don't find cursing or swearing or obscenities or blasphemies acceptable by using asterisks or acronyms. I find this so so stupid and idiotic. You either are expressing the concept or not.

I am going to use the term "swear" as a catch all for swearing, use of obscenitites, cursing, and blasphemies.

Recently I found a reputable Civil War blogger having used an obscenity in one of his posts.

http://cwmemory.com/2010/11/23/scv-fund-medical-research-or-wtf/

Not a single commentator pointed out the obscenity or critcized it. I was surprised at both the obscenity and the lack of criticism of it.

I subsequently realized this morning that one of the benefits of researching neo-Confederates on the internet is that generally they don't swear.

So I am going to explain why swearing is bad. Some this argument are some things taught to me by teachers, but some I think you will recognize as uniquely my own. I give these four reasons.

1. It has no affect. Especially in contemporary society, where swearing is so common it has no effect. It used to be insulting in that in using such terms against a person was seen as insulting to that person's class. However, now, swearing is just tuned out. After the first term is uttered, the brain just thinks, "take note, person upset with me," and nothing more. After that point swearing is just adding hot air to the room.

Swearing doesn't add a sense of exclamation to your expression.

However, an insult without swearing, will engage the attention of the person to whom it is directed. It will be more deadly in effect, if you think exactly what you wish to criticize and conceive your insult to express that. I would also always call attention to a person's swearing if being sworn at with some expression like, "What a gutter mouth!" They may not react in your presence to what you said, but they will think of it, when they swear.

Some insults can have interesting delayed impacts. Sometimes I say to an obnoxious person, "I hope your children grow up just like you." I say this clearly in the context of my hoping something bad happens to them. They are puzzled, they have to assemble the insult in their minds, and then they realize what the insult is, and they had to think through the insult, and thereby hear it, and remember it. Sometimes they are stunned.

My favorite rejoinder to the expression, "I will never speak (or whatever) to you (or here) again," is "Promises, Promises."

However, have your comment speak to the issue at hand and perhaps a little personal insult thrown in. The vulgar person might bay "bull shit," but I would say, "Your argument, like yourself, totally lacks logic and reason." "Nonsense" or "Nonsensesical" isn't bad, but doesn't sting, but keeps you from saying stupid things like "bs." "Stuff and nonsense" is an old classic. What someone is saying might be a sham, or a rationalization, or a pretense. An insulting remark that speaks to the issue is powerful. You might say, "This is just a rationalization which I don't find surprising coming from you."

When you stop swearing you insults will tend to be more deadly and you should consider when using them. You might want to just say, as a modification of one the above insults, "Your rationalizations tire me." You are still saying what he is saying is a rationalization, and that it isn't surprising coming from him, but further it is a continuing practice such that you are tired by it. You establish that you are the injured party and your insult is now a plea, lessening anger, but still really an insult.

In the case where swearing isn't for insults, but for an expressions of exclamation, it isn't necessary also. You can say, "I am flabbergasted," or "Jumping Jupiters" or "OMG" or "what in the world." There are a lot of fun expressions to do this.

2. It is aethetically unpleasing. Think of swearing as defecating through your mouth. Sorry for this foul image, but I wish to make this point forcefully. It is also accurate.

3. It is intellectually lazy and represents intellectual laziness or it means you are so upset you have lost control of your thoughts. Swearing can imply that it doesn't take much to get you to lose control of your thoughts, since you are shallow, when the provocation isn't much.

4. It can represent a limited range of being able to express yourself.

Finally, there are some who think swearing makes them more authentic, or more of the people, or something like that. It is insulting to everyday people. It is slumming. It is an affectation.

History News Network Banner ad for "The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader"

We have a banner ad for "The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader" on the front page of the History News Network.

http://www.hnn.us/

Positive Book Review in the "Journal of Southern History"

The book, "Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction," got a very favorable review in the Journal of Southern History.

The book review by Charles J. Holden is online here:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Neo-Confederacy%3A+A+Critical+Introduction.-a0242380183

Some quotes: (Note comment about juvenile emotionalism)

The contributors to Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction show admirable patience and steadiness with their subject matter: the often frantic, willfully ignorant, and paranoia-laced movement among some white southerners toward modern-day secession. This even, strong volume of essays, edited by Euan Hague, Heidi Beirich, and Edward H. Sebesta, explores the cultural, historical, gendered, white supremacist, and political components of the neo-Confederate ideology. The authors painstakingly explicate the writings and speeches of the main neo-Confederates such as Clyde Wilson, John Shelton Reed, Michael Hill, and other leading figures of the Council of Conservative Citizens and the League of the South.

And;

Again, there is much to admire in the tone adopted throughout Neo-Confederacy. The editors and authors carefully point out the slender grasp of historical fact, the political insecurities, and the juvenile emotionalism that appear to fuel so much of the neo-Confederate movement.

The word about the neo-Confederate movement is getting out there.

I was informed today that the publishers of the "Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader" have just contacted 3700 professors about the book.

The "Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader" recommended on the Zinn Education Project web site

The link is here:

http://zinnedproject.org/posts/6866

From the "About" page. http://zinnedproject.org/about

The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the use of Howard Zinn’s best-selling book A People’s History of the United States and other materials for teaching a people’s history in middle and high school classrooms across the country. The Zinn Education Project is coordinated by two non-profit organizations, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.

Its goal is to introduce students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of United States history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. The empowering potential of studying U.S. history is often lost in a textbook-driven trivial pursuit of names and dates. Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and Voices of a People’s History of the United States emphasize the role of working people, women, people of color, and organized social movements in shaping history. Students learn that history is made not by a few heroic individuals, but instead by people’s choices and actions, thereby also learning that their own choices and actions matter.

We believe that through taking a more engaging and more honest look at the past, we can help equip students with the analytical tools to make sense of — and improve — the world today. For a more complete description, read A People’s History, A People’s Pedagogy.

In 2008, with support from an anonymous donor, the Zinn Education Project distributed 4,000 free packets for teaching people’s history to educators across the country. In a follow-up survey, the recipients requested more resources, which led to the creation of this upgraded website to provide teaching materials online. Read the full report (in PDF) on the distribution of the 4,000 packets here.


The word about what the Confederacy and neo-Confederacy was really about is getting out.

Falsifying photos to create Afro-Confederate soldiers.

At the following URL is a fascinating story of detective work titled, "The Modern Falsification of a Civil War Photograph."

http://www.retouchinghistory.org/

I think the investigators reveal an example of misrepresentation that is fairly typical for what passes as neo-Confederate scholarship regarding so-called black Confederate soldiers.

"How Obama should remember the Confederacy ..." Ed Sebesta in the "Washingtonian"

The article is here:

http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/17300.html

The title is "A War to Remember - but How?: How Obama should remember the Confederacy as the 150th anniversary of the Civil War approaches" and is by Cragg Hines.

From the article:

The President may need all the historical understanding he can muster as the nation begins to mark the Civil War’s 150th anniversary next spring and our first African-American chief executive becomes a focus.

For Obama to take a leading role in commemorating the Civil War “is what Americans expect—it’s what the world expects,” says Frank Smith, founding director of DC’s African American Civil War Memorial & Museum. But as McDonnell’s misstep illustrated, politicians had best proceed carefully when dealing with a war that many historians see as the most divisive—and decisive—time in the nation’s development.

“It’s not only appropriate but necessary for the President to recognize it in a relatively forceful way,” says S. Waite Rawls III, president of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond.

Obama already knows the sort of controversy that can flare up. Over the protest of academics, he has continued the tradition of sending a Memorial Day wreath to the Confederate Monument at Arlington Cemetery. His response to complaints was also to send one to the African American Civil War Memorial on DC’s U Street.

For those wishing to read the 2009 and 2010 letters to Obama requesting him not to send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument you can read them at this blog. http://arlingtonconfederatemonument.blogspot.com/

The individual letters are at these URLs:

For 2009:

http://arlingtonconfederatemonument.blogspot.com/2010/03/2009-letter-to-president-obama.html

For 2010:

http://arlingtonconfederatemonument.blogspot.com/2010/02/2010-letter-to-president-obama.html

There is a 2011 letter that is in progress and there will be a questionnaire sent to all the potential presidential candidates for the 2012 election.

The questionnaire is online here:

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2010/10/questionnaire-for-2012-presidential_15.html

James Loewen interviews regarding "The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader"

The word is getting out all over the nation about what the Confederacy is all about.

James Loewen is interviewed by the Santa Fe Radio Cafe' here:

http://www.santaferadiocafe.org/podcasts/?p=997

And by Remapping the Debate in the following video:

http://remappingdebate.org/video/james-loewen-telling-truth-about-confederates-and-their-latter-day-sympathizers

This is a five part video and the total time is over 70 minutes, but since they divided it into five segments you can view it by parts and not sit through all 70+ minutes at once.

James Loewen on "Mississippi Edition" of Mississippi Public Broadcasting

The book segment comes on at 17:40 in the online edition of "Mississippi Edition."

http://mpbonline.org/mississippiedition/shows/thursday-nov-4-2010

It was originally broadcast on November 4, 2010. This program plays at 8:30 am in the morning so a lot of commuters can hear it as well as persons at home.

Incidentally, I will be adding more material to http://www.confederatepastpresent.org/ as I get time, have been tied up with two writing projects.

"Jackson Free Press" reviews "Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader"

The online review of the book is here:

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/back_to_the_source_110310/

From the review:

"Mississippi’s is quite clear: “In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.”

Loewen and Sebesta also include a number of speeches made before, during and immediately after the war. They all embody a single theme: the need to protect the institution of slavery. On April 29, 1861, Jefferson Davis delivered one of the most important speeches of the time, when he urged the Confederate Congress to adopt the proposed Confederate Constitution. The speech was a long one, though clearly Davis felt the need to lay out in great detail the historical events that led to secession. The entire speech was about slavery.

In this excerpt, Davis took great pains to defend the practice: “Under the mild and genial climate of the Southern States and the increasing care and attention for the well-being and comfort of the laboring classes, dictated alike by interest and humanity, the African slaves had augmented in number from about 600,000 at the date of the adoption of the constitutional compact to upward of 4,000,000.

“In moral and social condition they had been elevated from brutal savages into docile, intelligent and civilized agricultural laborers, and supplied not only with bodily comforts but with careful religious instruction. Under the supervision of a superior race their labor had been so directed ...”

What comes across after reading the documents Loewen and Sebesta have compiled is the clear sense that southern leaders were proud of what they had accomplished on the backs of millions of slaves. They had convinced themselves that white was superior to black, even ordained and blessed by God.

In the review, the reviewer makes reference to the Mississippi controversy over its flag. Jackson is the capitol of Mississippi, and the Jackson Free Press is the cities alternative weekly. Intelligent and educated people in that city will come to know of the book and its contents and realize that they have the material to support a challenge to the Mississippi state flag. As this book becomes known about in Mississippi, there will be a realization that the present Mississippi state flag is intolerable.

2010 Election Returns with a focus on the issue of neo-Confederacy

I will update this posting as the election results come in.

1. Tom Tancredo is projected to lose the race for the Colorado governor. He ran as a candidate of the American Constitution Party which is involved with neo-Confederate ideology.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/02/AR2010110207744.html

Though it is disturbing that about one out of three voted for a person who is totally irresponsible and whose political philosophy is to inflame.

2. Rand Paul, son of neo-Confederate Ron Paul has won the election to be a U.S. Senator from Kentucky. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/us/politics/03kentucky.html

3. Texas governor Rick Perry who talked about secession has won relection.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-11-02/texas-republican-governor-perry-re-elected-ap-says.html

Halloween Special: "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" a book even less believable than Thomas DiLorenzo's book.

I know that it is hard to believe that any book on Lincoln could be more unbelievable than Thomas DiLorenzo's book on Lincoln, but that just shows the limits of our imaginations. With "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," I think you have to admit that the author has outdone DiLorenzo, though perhaps only marginally.

There is a new genre in which classics are rewritten as horror novels. For example there is the book, "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" a rewrite of the Jane Austen novel. You can read about it here.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1889075,00.html

or this article:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-zombies4-2009apr04,0,4685367.story

Evidently the book is selling quite well and there is a bidding war for the movie rights. (Or a movie may be already be forthcoming since the above article was published.) So the author of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," Seth Grahame-Smith, wrote another book, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" which is selling well and its going to be made into a movie.

This is the "Los Angeles Times" article on it.

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2010/03/05/abraham-lincoln-vampire-hunter/


The following URL is for an article about it being made into a movie.

http://www.movieweb.com/news/NExeLO9wCkfzAF

Evidently 20th Century Fox is scheduled to release the film June 22, 2012.

There is something hilarious about how this pseudo-history that is so fantastic and unbelievable. Perhaps Seth Grahame-Smith was inspired by reading neo-Confederate accounts of black Confederates and realized that the sky is the limit for invented history. After all if it can be claimed that Stonewall Jackson had two black battalions why not have Abraham Lincoln be a vampire hunter?

The book is evidently selling quite well and there is actually a trailer for the movie that is in the works. On Youtube it has had over 400,000 viewers. The URL is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X58RPS665V0. The YouTube version is larger than what I can fit into this blog.




In the book and the movie the Confederates are on the side of the vampires. Someone should alert the Sons of Confederate Veterans that there is a heritage violation.

It should be observed that this book is no more fantastical or outlandish than the claim put forth by the Sons of the Confederate Veterans that Abraham Lincoln was part of a communist conspiracy. I quote them here in another blog at this URL: http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2010/01/was-lincoln-communist-scv-neo.html

So Seth Grahame-Smith is only marginally, if at all, more fantastical than the Sons of Confederate Veterans writings of black Confederates, claims of a Communist Lincoln, and of course the usual claim that the Confederates didn't secede over slavery.

Happy Halloween, don't eat too many marshmallow pumpkins.

Update: This web page covers the other "Monster Mashups" of the classics and the horror genre. The titles are a hoot to read, such as "Little Women and Werewolves."

http://fremontlibraries.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/13-book-monster-mash-up-type-things/

Watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jZVE5uF24Q

Bruce Levine demolishes myth of Black Confederate soldiers in the "Washington Post"

Bruce Levine, demolishes the myth of Black Confederate soldiers in an article in the Washington Post and you can read it at this link:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-opinions/2010/10/the_myth_of_the_black_confeder.html

It will be in the print version of the Post tomorrow, Sunday, 10/30/10.

Bruce Levine is the author of "Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves During the Civil War," pub. Oxford University Press. It is an excellent book.

This is the link to it at Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Confederate-Emancipation-Southern-Slaves-during/dp/0195147626/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1288487996&sr=1-1

The Sons of Confederate Veterans had a book review by Cassie A. Barrow criticizing the book in the Confederate Veteran, Sept./Oct. 2006, page 46. I sent a copy to Bruce Levine who was greatly amused by it.

Commercial Sponsors of the Council of Conservative Citizens

These are the sponsors in the newspaper of the Council of Conservative Citizens, www.cofcc.com.

1. Peoples Bank & Trust Co., North Carrolton, Mississippi.

2. All American Realty & Insurance, Rupert E. Dunkum, Webster, Florida.

3. Harry Sanders Grocery & Market, North Carrolton, Mississippi.

4. Hudson Flower Shop, Calhoun City, Mississippi.

5. Gaines B. Smith, Jewelers Inc. Batesville, Mississippi.

6. Swiney's Barber Shop, St. Ann, Missouri.

7. A.J. Barker Window and Siding Company, Clemmons, NC.

8. The Crystal Grill, Greenwood, Mississippi.

9. Q-Ball's Bar-B-Que, Indianola, Mississippi.

10. Stanford's Farm & Feed, Carrolton, Mississippi.

11. Christopher JM Cummins, MD, Ripley, Mississippi.

The delusions of the Council of Conservative Citizens and genetics.

With the sequencing of the nuclear chromosomes and the genetic material of the mitochondria science has gained a lot of information on the relatedness of peoples and species and a window back in time. In the pages of Science magazine, the publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of which I have been a subscriber to for 20 years at least, the new revelations of genetic sequencing have come to light. Also, in Scientific American, another prestigious publication, the discoveries of genetic sequencing have been reported.

Some of the genetic material in us isn't very critical and seems to be along for the ride, and some of the other material is of course critical and if mutated is the cause for so many diseases. Though exactly what isn't really critical continues to be a subject of discovery and further investigations. Then there is epigenetics which is a whole other level of complexity.

The mitochondria are inherited from the mother, though there was some discussion whether in rare occasions a mitochondria might come from the father, but I never did read what the end of that discussion was. This DNA can be sequenced, it exists in a circle in the mitochondria, and since it isn't involved in reshuffling in sexual reproduction from two sources it is a great source of information to trace evolutionary relatedness.

Changes in this mitochondrial DNA is solely through mutations and the variations in the non-critical parts changes over time. You can thus with sequences map the relatedness of the human species. Of course scientists understanding that they could do so did so and what they found was that in the scheme of things everyone outside of Africa were part of a sub-sub group, I am not sure how many subdivisions down, of one of the African groups. Africans are divided into three groups with a lot of mitochondiral differences. Out of Africa is a scientific reality.

A scientific question over the years has been whether Neanderthals and modern humans ever interbred and the debate has gone back and forth. DNA sequencing a piece of tissue left from a Neanderthal would help resolve this. However, there are real problems in doing so. As the DNA is older it is degraded and results less clear. Also, you have to make sure that the sample isn't contaminated by human DNA such as the dead skin cells people are shedding all the time.

However, recently one researcher has done an analysis, reportedly successfully in the scientific press, and has come up with 4%. This is a very interesting result, but needs some replication since it is just one sample and one analysis. Once we have three or four analyses and similar numbers we can start to perceive this as result which more confidence can be placed.

However, the goofologists at the Conservative Citizens Council at the following link see this one scientific result as the basis of delusional claims. http://cofcc.org/2010/10/new-discoveries-disprove-out-of-africa-myth/

"The “Out of Africa” theory was not created by actual scientists. It was cooked up by left-wing college administrators and forced onto the science departments. It was a myth designed to promote the left-wing agenda on multiculturalism. Every new discovery in the fields of anthropology and genetics continue to completely disprove this left-wing fantasy. Europeans and Asians have substantial amounts of Neanderthal ancestry, while Sub-Saharan Africans do not. Further, the Neanderthal genome project has revived the groups placement as “proto-Caucasian.” Neanderthal can be divided into at least three regional sub-groups. Some Neanderthal, at least those living in Europe had members with fair skin and red hair."

First there is the denial of years of scientific research and publication, with the claim that the conclusion of this research was "cooked up by left-wing college administrators." Then there is the claim of "substantial amounts of Neanderthal ancestry," instead of mentioning it is just 4%.

The mitochondrial evidence is real and not subject to hysterical delusion and exists as scientific evidence independent from nuclear genetic material.

However, these http://www.cofcc.org/ posts just show that what passes for scientific thinking among the members of that organization's membership is actually some type of crazed racism grasping for straws and has no understanding of the underlying science involved.

Update: It occurs to me that it is somewhat ironic that the Council of Conservative Citizens which is hysterically aghast over interracial relations, regards very positively interspecies or perhaps it might be called intersubspecies relations.

James Loewen on National Public Radio on the myth of Black Confederates

Jim was on NPR this morning on the topic of the bogus Black Confederate claim being in a school text book.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130744788

The Confederates were fairly hostile to the idea of any African American troops until the last few weeks of the Civil War when they were really desperate.

Charles Kelly Barrow is so pathetic when he says, "Some people just don't like the truth." Would that include Robert E. Lee? Robert E. Lee towards the very end of the Civil War wrote a letter endorsing the idea of Afro-Confederate troops saying that it would be better for the Confederacy if they freed slaves under their terms than the Union doing so.

Was Robert E. Lee a liar and there were thousands of African American troops all along? Or was Robert E. Lee a heritage violator and wanted to defame the Confederacy? Or was Robert E. Lee out of touch?

Mr. Barrow would that include the Confederate Veteran magazine of 1893 to 1932? In more than one article, the Confederate Veteran discusses the issue of Black Confederate troops and the opposition to them and how they weren't adopted until the very end. Was the Confederate Veteran not liking the truth about Confederate history? Were the individual Confederate veterans heritage violators?

Though, this constant claim of Afro-Confederate troops has a good benefit. It discredits the neo-Confederates generally as being deluded and bogus.

James Loewen and the Filson Historical Conference on Secession in the "Louisville Courier-Journal"

The Louisville Courier-Journal has a lengthy article about the Filson Historical Conference on secession and James Loewen at this link.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20101018/FEATURES06/310180021

From the article:

"Loewen will give the opening address of the three-day conference, which begins Thursday at the Filson Historical Society.

The conference topic, “Secessions: From the American Revolution to the Civil War,” coincides with the 150th anniversary of South Carolina's secession from the Union and will explore moments in U.S. history when Americans threatened or acted upon a perceived right to secede from state or national authorities."

"In true Loewenesque fashion, the University of Vermont professor's address is titled “Lies My Teacher Told Me About Secession.”

Questionnaire for the 2012 Presidential Candidates

This is the questionnaire for the 2012 Presidential Candidates. The results will be posted online. We are writing up briefing papers about the questions in the questionnaire, a briefing paper on the neo-Confederate movement, and a briefing paper on the presidents and the Confederacy starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt to the present.

Of course there is a question, #8, about sending a wreath to the Arlington Confederate monument.

The question about secession may seem a little crazy, but we already have the Governor Rick Perry talking about secession and a Minnesota Republican Congressional district convention passed a resolution that a state had a right to secede. Secession is back as an issue in politics.

There were other questions we might have asked, but we wanted the questionnaire to be short. Also, these twelve questions will give a fairly good indication where a candidate stands in general regarding the Confederacy and neo-Confederacy.

We will likely start sending out the questionnaires after the November elections.

The questionnaire is as follows:

2012 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE NEO-CONFEDERACY QUESTIONNAIRE

INTRODUCTION:

The questions are divided into two sections. The first section pertains to how neo-Confederacy impacts policy; the second seciton contains cultural questions in which the issue is who we are.

POLICY:

1. Do you support the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in its entirety?

Yes, No, Undecided, Other

2. Do you think that nullification is a legitimate action?

Yes, No, Undecided, Other

3. Do you think a state has a right to secede?

Yes, No, Undecided, Other

4. As President would you nominate or appoint a person who is a member of a neo-Confederate organization such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans, League of the South, United Daughters of the Confederacy, or Council of Conservative Citizens to any position in the Federal government or judiciary?

Yes, No, Undecided, Other.

If Yes, to what positions might you appoint or nominate a neo-Confederate?

5. As President would you oppose the involvement of neo-Confederate organizations such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans, League of the South, United Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Council of Conservative Citizen in the Reserve Officer Training Corps or the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps?

Yes, No, Undecided, Other.

6. As President would you oppose the U.S. military participation in the activities of neo-Confederate organizations such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans, League of the South, United Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Council of Conservative Citizens?

Yes, No, Undecided, Other.

CULTURAL

7. Are you a member, regular, associate, honorary, or otherwise of a neo-Confederate organization such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans, League of the South, United Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Council of Conservative Citizens?

Yes, No, Undecided, Other.

8. As President would you send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate monument?

Yes, No, Undecided, Other.

9. As President would you fly or display the Confederate flag at the White House or elsewhere?

Yes, No, Undecided, Other.

10. As President would you declare a day, week, or a month of Confederate memorialization?

Yes, No, Undecided, Other.

11. As President would you participate in a celebration, observance, or ceremony to honor, memorialize, or celebrate the Confederacy or a member of the Confederacy or send a representative to do so?

Yes, No, Undecided, Other.

12. As President would you support having Civil War battlefield parks explain the role of slavery in the Civil War?

Yes, No, Undecided, Other.

"A Talk With James Loewen" on Univ. Press of Miss. Video Website

"A Talk with James Loewen" is at this link.

http://vimeo.com/15789951

James Loewen discusses our new book, "The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The 'Great Truth' About the 'Lost Cause'" in this video.

A historical group of Nazi re-enactors, claim not to be pro-Nazi

It turns out that one of the GOP's congressional candidates is a member of a group that does re-enactments of Nazi's and white washes their history.

The link is here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/why-is-this-gop-house-candidate-dressed-as-a-nazi/64319/

Read the article. Does it remind you of any "heritage" groups that you know?

Questionnaire for the 2012 Presidential Candidates

The Committee Against Neo-Confederacy will be sending out a questionnaire on neo-Confederacy to the 2012 Presidential candidates. Of course there will be a question about the Arlington Confederate Monument and wreath sending, but there will be eleven other questions for a total of twelve questions.

The cover letter has been written and the questions have been defined. We started with 20 or so and whittled them down to twelve questions. These questions may not cover every issue, but I think that answers to the questionnaire will give a person a fairly good picture as to where the candidate stands.

What isn't complete is the briefing and background information papers which will go to journalists. We are still working on these papers. We will want to have a brief paper on what neo-Confederacy is, I don't expect reporters to want to read a book. We need to write up a back ground for each question. We are also going to have a paper with background information on the presidents and the Confederacy and neo-Confederacy from Franklin D. Roosevelt to the present. I have accumulated materials over the years and have some interesting materials.

The questionnaire is about where America is heading and about what direction the presidential candidate would take America if elected. It isn't about debating the 19th century or the president's interpretations or understanding of 19th century history. It is about who we are and where we are going which is something everyone is interested in.

So we have the questions in two sections, one section concerns policy, and the other concerns national identity, what type of nation we think we are. Once a nation has an idea of who they think they are and what type of nation they should be, politics, policy, actions are largely derivitive actions.

I think we have fairly good chances of getting a response to our questionnaire. There are a great many candidates for the presidency on the Republican side and I think one or two would be interested in answering our questionnaire, if only to differentiate themselves from the pack. Republican candidates for South Carolina governor met with a neo-Confederate front group to be video taped as to their views on the Confederacy among other topics. The South Carolina presidential primary is a critical gate in the primary season for presidential candidate and after New Hampshire, an opportunity for a candidate to gain the lead. George W. Bush derailed John McCain's presidential aspirations in 2000 by having a pro-Confederate flag front group attack McCain. Huckabee when campaigning there in the 2008 presidential primary wanted to make sure that voters knew that he supported the Confederate flag. I suspect that neo-Confederate groups are already planning a questionnaire or video interviews to screen the presidential candidates as they did the candidates for governor of South Carolina.

On the Democratic side, there well may be some other candidates besides President Obama in the next primary cycle and who might want to answer the questionnaire.

We are working on all the papers to have them ready by Nov. 2010. The campaign for the presidency I think really starts in January 2011. The mid-term elections will be over, the holidays will be over, and the new congress in session.

We will post the questionnaire later.

2011 Letter to the President concerning the Arlington Confederate Monument

There will be a letter in 2011 to the President concerning the Arlington Confederate Monument.

This blog will keep you updated as things develop.

http://arlingtonconfederatemonument.blogspot.com/

Also, at this blog you can read the letters of 2009 and 2010, or you can read them at the History News Network.

I think in 2011 we will be able to garner a great many more signatures for a variety of factors. The second book is out and a great many people are reading it. I have two new web sites for scholars and students to use as a research resource. It means when I "cold call" for a signature, it is going to be much easier to get a dialog going and get support.

Giving up Neo-Confederacy by the Virginia GOP

This very interesting article in in the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/02/AR2010100203167.html

Governor McDonnell and former Gov. George Allen publicly reject Confederate History Month. However, it is not clear whether State Attorney General Cuccinelli has given up Confederate History Month.

James Loewen signs "Reader" at Lemuria Books in Jackson, Mississippi

James Loewen will be signing copies of "The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader" and doing a reading, at Lemuria Books in Jackson, MS, Oct. 11, 2010.

The event notice is here:

http://www.lemuriabooks.com/index.php?show=events&id=1351

Some of James Loewen's engagements can be viewed at his website: http://sundown.afro.illinois.edu/