James Webb and his neo-Confederate thinking in "The Scotsman"

Euan Hague, editor of "Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction," had an Op Ed published in The Scotsman regarding James Webb's neo-Confederate Celtic theories. The Scotsman is the leading newspaper of Scotland and read by most everyone.

The link to the article is:

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion/Celtic-warrior--poised-to.4182509.jp

You have to register for the full article, but it is free.

I think Alexander H. Stephens was one Confederate Vice-President too many and we don't need another one.

I think the Democrats need to conside that the 150th anniversary of the Civil War is coming up and do they want a Democratic Vice-President going on and on with a Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War period. If it is like the Civil War Centennial, activities will start in 2009 and last until 2015.

James Webb and his Confederacy problem hit the news

David Mark has an article "Webb's rebel roots: An Affinity for the Confederacy," on James Webb and his Confederate Celtic theories and pro-Confederate viewpoints.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/10994.html

The question that needs to be asked is whether James Webb is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a racist group.

I have a paper on the Confederate Celtic identity theory that was published in Scottish Affairs, at the University of Edinburgh. http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/ScottishAffairs.htm It has a section that explains the bogusness of this Confederate Celtic theory.

There is also Diane Robert's article in Oxford American. http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/YourClanOrOurs.htm

Though these article focus on Scotland, the basis of this Confederate Celtic identity theory is the same as for James Webb. They both quote Grady McWhiney and the others in the Confederate Celtic movement to support their theories.

I am mentioned, though I am not the author, but one of three editors for "Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction." The web page for the book is at:

http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exhagneo.html

Incidentally, I contributed the research materials for this article on Bill Clinton and the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/274/274_clinton_udc.html

Signing another book contract soon

I will be signing another book contract soon. Negotiations are in progress. The book manuscript is to be delivered Oct. 15th this year. I will have more details somewhat later.

After this book, I have a couple other books projects to finish up and an article I am writing might become book length also. It is at least the length of a small book now.

Updated: Bill Clinton UDC story to be on Sirius Talk Left Radio Channel 146

The editorial staff at http://www.blackcommentator.com/ will be on Sirius Left channel 146 http://www.sirius.com/siriusleft on the Mark Thompson show tomorrow, Thursday, to talk about Bill Clinton and his letters of praise for the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The story is the lead story of their web page. If the interview gets posted to YouTube or something I would like to know.

The direct link to the Bill Clinton UDC story is:

http://www.blackcommentator.com/274/274_clinton_udc.html

The story has appeared in the Michigan Chronicle, the Detroit African American newspaper as a front page story, by Bankole Thompson, senior editor. Vol. 71 No. 32, April 23-29, front page, with follow up to page 3. The article is online at the following link:
http://www.michronicleonline.com/articlelive/articles/2638/1/In-report-Clinton-praises-KKK-supporters/Page1.html

Blogs are beginning to pick up on the story and it seems to be getting around the blogosphere.

Bill Clinton and the United Daughters of the Confederacy story on www.blackcommentator.com

The story of Bill Clinton and the United Daughters of the Confederacy is on http://www.blackcommentator.com/

Click on the link to go to the lead in to the story or click on this link to go directly to the story.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/274/274_clinton_udc.html

I will have more information later.

Updated: Book on neo-Confederate announced by the University of Texas Press

The book, of which, I am one of three editors, has been announced by the University of Texas Press.

The link describing it and its contents is at:

http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exhagneo.html

The Introduction to the book is on the web page.

James W. Loewen, author of "Lies My Teacher Taught Me," "Lies on the Landscape" wrote the Foreword. I think he has sold about a million copies of his book.

Ed

Bill Clinton Enables Neo-Confederates & Betrays Carol Moseley-Braun: UPDATED

http://www.blackcommentator.com/ has picked up this story with all the documentation. 4/20/08 Direct link to story is: http://www.blackcommentator.com/274/274_clinton_udc.html

I have updated this essay.

BILL CLINTON ENABLES NEO-CONFEDERATES & BETRAYAL OF CAROL MOSELEY-BRAUN

On July 24, 1993 in a New York Times’ editorial, “Ms. Moseley Braun’s Majestic Moment,” the editors praised the U.S. Senator Braun from Illinois as follows:

“On Thursday, Carol Moseley Braun woke up a sleepy Senate to the unthinking way the white majority can offend minority Americans. Before Ms. Moseley Braun interrupted, that body was about to renew the patent of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Alone at first, then joined on the Senate floor by others whose awareness she raised, the Senate’s only black member stopped the renewal of the Daughters’ design patent with the Confederate flag insignia.”

Moseley-Braun’s oratory was eloquent and persuasive. In an article titled, “Daughter of Slavery Hushes Senate,” writer Adam Clymer in the July 23, 1993, New York Times writes:

“The Senate’s only black member, Carol Moseley Braun, made the chamber listen today as freshman seldom do. Her oratory of impassioned tears and shouts, stopped Jesse Helms in his tracks as he defended the Confederate flag.”

The U.S. Senate reversed itself from a 52 to 48 vote in favor of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to a 75 to 25 vote against the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and the patent was not renewed.

However, one powerful white politician wasn’t touched by Moseley-Braun’s oratory. U.S. President Bill Clinton, Toni Morrison’s “first black president,” wrote his first letter, dated June 21, 1994, of congratulations to the UDC celebrating their 100th anniversary. Later Clinton wrote a letter September 8, 1994 letter of congratulation to the Georgia Division of the UDC celebrating their 100th anniversary, then August 9, 1995 welcoming to Washington, D.C. for their 1995 national convention. Each letter was given a full page with Clinton’s picture in the United Daughters of the Confederacy Magazine (UDC Magazine) giving legitimacy to the UDC.

What type of organization is the UDC? Some might say that they are just a harmless organization of “little old ladies.” However, racism isn’t heavy lifting and doesn’t require physical strength. One recent example is in the Nov. 2007 issue of UDC Magazine, where in an article titled, “Confederate Classics,” in her regular column, “Confederate Notes,” Retta D. Tindal writes:

“Some books are classics that never go out of style. As we approach the gift-giving season, there are four books that I treasure and use over and over, whether for research or reference or just to refresh my memory of the special heritage I have.”

Tindal recommends these books for UDC members children and grandchildren, friends, and family members saying that “these books are sure to become their treasures too.” The first book which Tindal recommends is the white supremacist racist text, “Southern By the Grace of God,” by Michael Andrew Grissom, a Ku Klux Klan praising book, not just the Klan of Reconstruction but the Klan of the 1920s, a book which recommends the racist books of Thomas Dixon, “The Clansman” which later was made into the notorious movie “Birth of a Nation,” and the movie itself, and recommends the organization of the Council Conservative Citizens, praises a lynching and much, much more. The UDC helped launch this book when it was first published by running a segment of the book in its September 1988 issue of UDC Magazine.

Nor is this a unique example of the UDC’s promotion of racism. The prior columnist for “Confederate Notes” Clara Erath promoted the neo-Confederate magazine Southern Partisan and the books it published. Erath promotes and praises Richard Weavers’ book “Southern Tradition at Bay,” an anti-democratic racist book defending slavery. Other neo-Confederate texts are also promoted, such as “Secession, State & Liberty” by David Gordon of the neo-Confederate Ludwig von Mises Institute. The horrors of the Transatlantic slave trade are minimized in a speech by Walter W. Lee III printed in the April UDC Magazine. The Red Shirts, violent white terrorists of Reconstruction in South Carolina are held up as heroes in the June/July 2001 issue of the UDC Magazine.

The racism of the UDC isn’t a new phenomenon but goes back generations of Klan praising and white supremacy to the early 20th century. In the late 1950s the UDC Magazines were clogged with denunciations of Brown vs. Brown, integration and civil rights. A typical article is “Jefferson Davis – The Man America Needs Today, an address by Bruce Dunstan printed in the June 1958 UDC Magazine. The article explains that Jefferson Davis was for states’ rights, and the nation needs states’ rights for local control of education for the following reasons:

This constant waste of America’s wealth, together with forced shameful race-mixing, that causes lowered educational standards, immorality, and finally a mongrelized people, will bring about the down fall of America, as integration of races doomed the once cultured, and prosperous cities and nations of Carthage, Athens, Rome, and Sparta; and made of Egypt the weak world power that she is today.

This is the organization that Bill Clinton congratulated. These are the “special memories,” “traditions,” and “community spirit” which Clinton’s letters congratulated. That the UDC is a proponent of racism and white supremacy is not surprising. It is the Confederacy and did not Bill Clinton or anyone in the Clinton administration know what the Confederacy was about. This well known and infamous speech by Alexander H. Stephens should have given them a clue.

The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the Constitution, was the prevailing idea at the time. The Constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly used against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it; when the “storm came and wind blew, it fell.”

Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery―subordination to the superior race―is his natural and moral condition. (Applause.)

This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

The larger issue is the empowerment by elected officials of neo-Confederate organizations. When a public official, whether president or governor or mayor or senator or other elected office, writes a letter to a neo-Confederate organization they lend the prestige of their office and their name to legitimatize neo-Confederate organizations and to normalize the Confederacy. Elected officials enable neo-Confederate organizations and normalize the Confederacy in other ways, by participating in ceremonies and events to celebrate the Confederacy or take actions on their own to celebrate the Confederacy.

Will the next president of the United States praise and honor the Confederacy. Will the next president of the United States annually around the time of Jefferson Davis’ birthday send a wreath annually to the Confederate monument in Arlington cemetery? When will the president of the United States serve as an example that public officials shouldn’t by their actions normalize the Confederacy and empower neo-Confederate organizations.

"Washington Times" gives neo-Confederate editors the boot.

The Washington Times has given its neo-Confederate editors the boot. Both Wesley Pruden and Robert Stacy McCain are gone.

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=895

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/business/media/11times.html?ref=business

Interestingly enough, the new editor is John Solomon, who I think is the same John Solomon who has done some excellent reporting on the neo-Confederates.

Also, it is interesting that The Washington Times is ditching its neo-Confederates while The Charleston City Paper is putting on its staff The Southern Avenger http://southernavenger.ccpblogs.com/. Of course The Washington Times, for all its failings, isn't likely to have columnists for the amusement of its readers. Well at least not intentionally.

Leonard Pitts, columnist explains, "Nazis have a heritage too." Students harass anti-Confederate student editor

The article is at this link:

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_8429894 or this link

http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/227589

Leonard Pitts in his column introduces the story as follows:

"Last week, a fellow journalist wrote to ask me for help. His name is David Tintner, and he's a senior at Cooper City (Fla.) High South, where he's the editor of the school paper. Recently, he wrote a column criticizing those who wear what he regards as "an extremely offensive symbol": the Confederate battle flag. David says a group of students known on campus as "the Redneck Nation" took exception. A gang of them cornered him at lunch to yell at him. They've made threats and tried to stare him down."

Leonard Pitts explains in his column:

"They will tell you the flag just celebrates heritage. Remind them that "heritage" is not a synonym for "good." After all, Nazis have a heritage, too."

My sense is that a group that harasses people and calls themselves "the redneck nation" are truly representative of "Confederate heritage."

I doubt the Southern Avenger will comment on this story since it does reveal what the issue of Confederate heritage is all about.

Hilarious cartoon on automobile license plate with the Confederate flag.

http://www.floridatoday.com/blogs/jeffparkertoonsin/2008/02/0228-cartoon.html

The above is a link to a hilarious cartoon.

Is Southern Avenger calling me politically incorrect?

That is essentially what Southern Avenger is doing. I am pointing out the possibility that Southern Avenger is a new Joe Bog Briggs for the Charleston City Paper, and in response, besides some gratuitous name calling, he is calling me elitist.

There is yet another blog by the Southern Avenger on my assertion that he is possibly hired as a colorful character for the amusement of the Charleston City Paper.

http://southernavenger.ccpblogs.com/2008/03/04/neo-confederate-hunter-sebestas-elitism-continues/

Southern Avenger writes:

Regardless, Sebesta’s latest blog suggests that the Charleston City Paper only publishes my stuff (and CP readers only read it) for pure amusement. His proof is that the CP also features articles on the arts and wine tasting - cosmopolitan tastes, worlds apart apparently, from the redneck diatribes of “da Suthern Avingerr.” Woodoggies!

However, in my blog I made no such claim that these interests are worlds apart.
http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2008/03/southern-avengers-serious-interest-in.html

What I do claim is that people who are engaged in these things often, though not always, think that these things are worlds apart. In regards to art galleries, expensive resturants, the people interested are often, though not always, are young professionals with various roles relating to class status which can be enacted through various activities. They may not be at all conscious of it, but it is true. Modern consumerism is about purchasing identities through the purchase of a style of clothes, cars, wine, art, etc. It may be politically incorrect to point this out, but the readers of The Charleston City Paper can be understood to some extent from the advertising and articles directed towards them.

In the 19th century, one Southern magazine, either the "Southern Review" or "Southern Magazine," I think it was the later, had a serial with a fictional speaker with heavily dialectical language, colorful and comical speaking, speak on the Civil War and other things. I think Moses Adams was the characters name, but when he spoke it it was spelled Mozas Adums or some such thing. Southern publications have been doing this for some time. It is nothing new. Maybe Southern Avenger is continuing a southern tradition.

Publications do parade around some fictional characters or real people in their publications thinking it will amuse their readers.

Evidently, it is politically incorrect for me to bring up that publications do this. That the alternative weeklies have a readership that would like to think they are avant guard, chic, cool, hip or whatever and these readerships might find Southern Avenger amusing.

Finally, I never said Southern Avenger was a redneck. My paper on banal white nationalism specifically points out the problems with such stereotypes. http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/breaking.htm

Let me see, Southern Avenger episode No. 101, in the last episode, Pauline Pureheart was being cornered by Bart Blackheart, when the Southern Avenger spoke out, "Never fear, Miss Pureheart, I am here to save you." "My hero, replies Pauline Pureheart."

Like I said, who is kidding who?

John McCain's South Carolina Presidential campaign head Richard M. Quinn, another Hagee.

As people may remember, John McCain got a lot of political heat over the employee of Richard Quinn, editor of the Southern Partisan, as the director of his South Carolina campaign in 2000.

Later Quinn left the editorship and some erroneous information is circulating out there that the Southern Partisan doesn't exist anymore. It does exist and seems to be doing as well as ever. Another piece of misinformation that seems to be out there, is that Richard Quinn is no longer associated with the Southern Partisan.

Quinn is still involved with the Southern Partisan, he is one of two owners of Southern Partisan.

In the Vol. 24 No. 5, Sept./Oct. 2004, published date Oct. 2005, on page 34, has a statement of circulation. In the statement of circulation the owners are given as Charles Hamel, and Richard M. Quinn. The Southern Partisan now has a dual dating system, one date given is an "official" date and the other is a published date.

John McCain never has rejected Richard M. Quinn despite the expose' of the Southern Partisan. It seems odd that Obama is questioned about Farrakhan, but McCain is not questioned about Quinn.

Kevin R. Gutzman, author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution" claims not be a neo-Confederate.

Some how Kevin Gutzman, author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution" found out that I had blogged a reference to a review of his book at the Claremont Institute. The blog is here: http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2008/02/bizarre-claremont-institute-calls.html

The review of his book is here:

http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1513/article_detail.asp

Gutzman emailed me and in a short email he said that he wasn't neo-Confederate as claimed in the Claremont Institute review. The claim didn't have a lot of credibility with me, because he refered to an article at the www.lewrockwell.com site where in an article he denies that he is a neo-Confederate.

His name seemed familiar. So I searched my indexes and he came up as a contributor to Southern Partisan for several book reviews and a letter to the editor about a book review in Southern Partisan.

I replied that I would form an opinion based on reading his book reviews in the "Southern Partisan."

I have ordered his book, and I have also ordered the books he reviewed that I didn't already own. The books I have ordered have started to come in. I going to be reading his Southern Partisan book reviews this week.

I am thinking that I will blog something on Gutzman in a couple weeks. I need to write up something on who is and isn't a neo-Confederate. I suppose when the book, "Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction," is published there will likely be some people who will deny that they are neo-Confederate for one reason or another.

Southern Avenger's serious interest in professional wrestling. Avenger's further response to my idea that he might be on the papers staff for laughs.

Southern Avenger has this item as one of his latest blog entries.

http://southernavenger.ccpblogs.com/2008/03/01/multiculturalism-in-practice/

He thinks it is hilarious, but I am sure he will be outraged that I think it just reveals his neo-Confederate racism. (His blog is at http://southernavenger.ccpblogs.com/)

Southern Avenger did another blog continuing his theme that I am elitist. This time it was because I couldn't imagine him as merely being on the staff of the paper for his ideas.

http://southernavenger.ccpblogs.com/2008/02/27/neo-confederate-hunter-sebesta-responds-to-sa-with-even-more-elitism/

All I can say is come off your soap box. The name of your blog and column is "Southern Avenger." It isn't Southern Conservative, Southern Heritage, Southern Viewpoint, or some other name, it is "Southern Avenger." Some people who read the Charleston City Paper are reading you for amusement.

This is a few of the articles that run in the paper:

http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A40632

http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A41002

http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A40987

I am sure to the readers of these articles the Southern Avenger is delightful local color. Perhaps they will talk about him at the arts and wine festival or at Starbucks after seeing an art house movie.

William Buckley, the real story

Some years ago I went through all the issues of National Review from 1955 to 1964. (Or did they start in 1956?) William Buckley & National Review were opponents of the Civil Rights movement. There was no need for a Southern Partisan magazine then, because you had the National Review pushing what was called southern conservatism, or racism wrapped up with fine sounding rhetoric.

There is some effort to portray him as some gentleman conservative.

Here are some articles about him that see him clearly.

This article is about William Buckley white washing the reputation of a nasty racist reactionary Westbrook Pegler in the New Yorker.

http://www.slate.com/id/2096673/

This is an article by the racist American Renaissance from the Internet archive about when the National Review held their views.

http://web.archive.org/web/20001018141517/http:/www.amren.com/natlreview.htm

A lot is said about William F. Buckley later rejecting racism, but I don't think he would want to be brought down and the National Review brought down by a losing cause. Certainly he new what happened to American Mercury magazine.

Buckley's white washing of Westbrook Pegler I think shows where his heart was in 2004 and that he would promote racists if he thought no one would be the wiser.

Southern Avenger misrepresents my blog on Southern Avenger.

I think I have a classic example of a major tactic of neo-Confederate argumentation.

I recently blogged on Southern Avenger, a neo-Confederate blogger and writer for the "Charleston City Paper." It is the alternative weekly paper for that city, much like the "Dallas Observer" is for Dallas. This is the link to the blog.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2008/02/neo-confederate-ranter-columnist-for.html

This is the link to his blog. http://southernavenger.ccpblogs.com/

In my previous blog I was somewhat perplexed as to why the Charleston City Paper had him on their staff. Then it occurred to me that they might had him for amusement of their readers as some colorful character. This has been done by other papers, such as Joe Bob Briggs for the Dallas Observer. The other question is whether Southern Avenger understands this or not, and if he understands it, is he playing to his audience. That is consciously choosing topics and themes and writing his column to play to that audience. I blogged on Southern Avenger Feb. 19, 2008, and yesterday, Feb. 26, 2008, I get an email which just a heading, "Thanks for the Plug" and this link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgwWhPFsz5I

It is a You Tube video, which after describing me, goes on to take umbrage at this sentence in my blog, in fact Southern Avenger has it on screen in his video.

"Southern Avenger recently has had a couple columns on professional wrestling as if it is a serious topic. Perhaps Southern Avenger is trying to be the professionally colorful southerner."

I didn't actually say anything about my opinion about professional wrestling. I am discussing how Southern Avenger portrays it. Obviously saying "as if it is a serious topic" implies that others might write about professional wrestling differently. I want to make it clear how Southern Avenger writes on professional wrestling.

However, for the Southern Avenger, this means I am elitist for an opinion which I didn't express. This is a key tactic used by neo-Confederates.

You argue position A.

The neo-Confederate argues position anti-B, which implies you argued position B, when you did no such thing. Position B usually is some position which is indefensible and if you can lose the argument if you don't realize that the neo-Confederate has misrepresented your position or really fall for it and start defending position B. The best reply is simply to say to his argument, "What does that have to do with the question at hand?"

The other tactic here is to take one sentence and focus all attention on it to exclude attention from the major questions of the blog.

1. Why is the Charleston City Paper having him on the staff. Is it for amusement of its readers?

2. If the Southern Avenger is on the staff of the Charleston City Paper for their readers amusement is Southern Avenger aware of this, and even playing to it?

Inquiring minds want to know, however, I don't think I will get an answer to this. Some other issue will be pulled out of thin air on some rational and SA will go on and on.

There are other minor items. Southern Avenger claims I am angry, which I am not. Perhaps the SA's telepathy is on the blink. Also, claims I am a leftist, which is a surprise to me. Of course, when Thomas Fleming, editor of Chronicles has an issue, with the cover title, "Turn Left at the Renaissance," your realize that you are probably a leftist to someone. I like the Italian Renaissance.

At least the Southern Avenger isn't denying that he is a neo-Confederate like some others.

"The New Republic" article. I am mentioned in it.

The article is here about the white supremacist reponse to Obama.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=907272c4-54db-4fba-9149-e95b7293d6a0



I still haven't gotten the Bill Clinton story about his letters to the UDC in the news.The whole story is at this blog:http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2008/02/will-hillary-clinton-honor-jefferson.html

Another news story about neo-Confederates coming up, this blogger mentioned.

I will be posting when the news story is published. I am mentioned in it.

2/22/08 Update: The story is published here:

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=907272c4-54db-4fba-9149-e95b7293d6a0

I still haven't gotten the Bill Clinton story about his letters to the UDC in the news.

The whole story is at this blog:

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2008/02/will-hillary-clinton-honor-jefferson.html

Neo-Confederate Ranter a Columnist for the "Charleston City Paper"

Surprisingly enough, the Charleston City Paper has a neo-Confederate columnist who titles his column "Southern Avenger." Though it is a column title that might remind you of a character in a comic book, and even perhaps a title of a comic book, the picture of the columnist doesn't show someone in tights and sporting a cap.

In this column "Southern Avenger" is ranting and making Stalin and Lincoln comparisons. Kosovo independence is setting him off.

http://southernavenger.ccpblogs.com/2008/02/18/sa-radio-lincoln-and-secession/ (click on this link for column).

Perhaps the Charleston City Paper has him as a columnist to amuse their readers. Perhaps Southern Avenger knows this. Southern Avenger recently has had a couple columns on professional wrestling as if it is a serious topic. Perhaps Southern Avenger is trying to be the professionally colorful southerner.

http://southernavenger.ccpblogs.com/2008/02/15/the-post-couriers-mike-mooneyham-on-the-passing-of-johnny-weaver/

http://southernavenger.ccpblogs.com/2008/02/15/carolina-wrestling-legend-johnny-weaver-1935-2008-rip/

Or perhaps Southern Avenger isn't doing anything self-consciously, but the editors find it a classic stereotype southerner to add amusement to their paper. Who knows.

This isn't a good sign that Southern Avenger is published. He is mainstreaming neo-Confederacy. He might have a column because the editors are sympathetic to his view points.

The Dallas Observer used to have a guy like Southern Avenger called Joe Bob Briggs for the public's amusement. Then there is the whole Greater Tuna comedy that has proven to be popular, http://greatertuna.com/. Perhaps Southern Avenger is published by the Charleston City Paper for similar amusement.

Vermont Secession Reports Vermont Secession movement going nowhere.

A good blog to be kept abreast of the Vermont Secession movement is Vermont Secession. However, the writer of this blog isn't advocating secession, just reporting on it and the antics and bogus claims of the Vermont Secession movement.

I recommend this latest blog:

http://vermontsecession.blogspot.com/2008/02/finally-poll-on-secession-in-vermont.html

The blog reports that the Vermont Secession movement failed to get a single townhall vote for secession.

There are comical elements in tracking the Vermont Secessionists, in that they are engaged in various dubious representations of themselves and the strength of their movement.