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.