Which Ones are the Enemy?
For Southerners, the hatred of so many of their “fellow Americans” comes so steadily and predictably that it is usually best simply to ignore it and let the heathen rage. We are an easy-going, non-ideological, and Christian people, so most of us don't even notice. However, the Washington Times has usefully exposed a particularly egregious example, an article published in a “respected” military journal. The article projects the takeover of the small city of Darlington, South Carolina, by “right-wing extremists” of the “tea party” variety. In such a case the full military force of the United States should be deployed, and “once it is put into play, Americans will expect the military to execute without pause and as professionally as if it were acting overseas.” Indeed, “the Army cannot disappoint the American people” in such a case.
One wonders exactly who “the American people” are. Apparently the American people consists of those who share the liberal fantasies of the authors. The rest of us don’t count. One of the authors is an historian, credited with one bad if fashionable book on the 19th century, who doubtless received a fat consulting fee. The other is an Army officer, who I am reliably informed is from New England, always the fount of murderous hatred against other Americans. He ought to be cashiered but, of course, won’t be.
That such ideas are being circulated among the military brass as future scenarios should alarm every decent American citizen. The authors set the scenario in South Carolina because they know it will be much easier to win support for an invasion in the South than elsewhere. For a large part of the public there will be a knee-jerk approval. Unlike illegal immigrants, we are not really "Americans." But as a practical matter, don’t we South Carolinians have the will and resources to preserve law and order? Let's suppose that the insurrection was not by "right-wing extremists" but by black nationalists. If the insurrection were on the part of black nationalists, you can bet that the Armed Forces would be sent to prevent the state from mistreating the insurrectionists. The rebels would be telling their story to sympathetic audiences on Oprah and the networks, and the armed forces would most likely be employed to put them in power as the state government. It has happened before.
Don’t these people know that, according to the former Constitution, the feds can only invade a state to put down insurrection at the request of the State? Have they never heard of the Posse Comitatus Act? But, of course, constitutions and laws mean nothing to such people, a characteristic they share with their fascist and Marxist cousins. And you can be sure that the Republican “conservatives” will urge on the troops as gleefully as the leftists and the Supreme Court will solemnly approve.
I know the Armed Forces have a lot of planning scenarios, and I suppose we should not take this too seriously. Except as a clue to the minds of our rulers, in which case it should be taken very seriously indeed. I wonder if they have any plan in case the Mexicans take over Los Angeles, or black gangs take over Chicago or Detroit. Those scenarios seem a good deal more likely, but I doubt if our rulers worry much about that.
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"That such ideas are being circulated among the military brass as future scenarios should alarm every decent American citizen. The authors set the scenario in South Carolina because they know it will be much easier to win support for an invasion in the South than elsewhere. For a large part of the public there will be a knee-jerk approval. Unlike illegal immigrants, we are not really 'Americans."'"
With all due respect to Dr. Wilson, I think there are other factors at work here. The South has taken its stand again and again--behind Jackson instead of Calhoun, behind Polk instead of Clay, behind Joe Wheeler when he helped invade Cuba, behind Wilson and his war, behind FDR and his war, behind LBJ, behind George W.....
Southerners take their stand at the Pentagon and Fort Bragg and Camp Lejune and Parris Island and Fort Jackson and Mayport and Pensacola and Fort Stewart and Fort A.P. Hill and Camp Meridan and....well the sad part is I can go on.
Darlington, SC is targeted for this exercise for the simple fact that the South has embraced empire and relies heavily on the military--and, as Congressman Paul's poor performance in Dixie shows, the South does not question the military or its role in the world.
While I can appreciate Dr. Wilson's sentiments, such a people may be "easy-going" but they are not "non-ideological" and barely qualify as Christian--which is why they will soon be voting for a Mormon from Boston with little reservations.
The South has taken its stand for empire and all of us who call it home are impacted and enslaved by it. Take the University of South Carolina, Dr. Wilson. Your career and pension were helped kept afloat by Title IV, Pell and Montgomery GI. Look away, look away, all you want but the South has taken its stand and is no innocent by any means.
Another example of imbecilic behavior brought to you by our very own and very unaccountable military-industrial complex. One would think it would have better uses for all that borrowed Chinese money that keeps the sorry racket going, like working up ideas to end its excellent overseas adventures that have been leaking excellence all over the place for lo these last 10 years. But hey, when the money is free, why not plan for something that ain't never gonna happen no way no how outside of the feverish brains of the most dimwitted boobs on earth.
"Southerners take their stand at the Pentagon and Fort Bragg and Camp Lejune and Parris Island and Fort Jackson and Mayport and Pensacola and Fort Stewart and Fort A.P. Hill and Camp Meridan and....well the sad part is I can go on.."
So sad but exemplary : " The corruption of the best is at least the saddest, if not the worst. She may come back but she will need to embrace her backwardness as a virtue like Wendell Berry does and continue to seek more solid principles in her holy religion.
Both Dr. Wilson and Rob are right about Southerners. Dr. Wilson is talking about those left who are really Southerners. Rob is talking about the rest. They probably only disagree about how great a percentage falls into which group. I imagine that Rob is a much younger man. It is a tendency of older people to see their own kind as they once were. This aureole of benevolence wrapped around the image of one's neighbor is a loving gift of the provident Creator to those bent down by the sorrows of a long life.
Sadly, Southern agrarianism was already mostly on paper by the time *I'll Take My Stand* appeared, and the South really bought into the Empire during the FDR administration. Why shouldn't the rich folks up North be taxed in order to send us New Deal benefits? The centennial of the "Civil War" in the early sixties was a "reconciliation" love-fest designed to soften us up to swallow "civil rights" and violently enforced de-segregation, and most Southerners just rolled over. It's been all downhill since then.
I remember telling my late father - born and bred in Louisiana - that I had joined the League of the South. He was indescribably angry. As far as he was concerned, the Washington government and the "indivisible Union" *were* America. Most of the Southern men of the misnamed greatest generation came back from Europe and the Pacific and Korea not as Southerners but as re-fashioned generic Americans, eager servants of the Washington empire. Therefore, the vast majority of those who should have been the natural leaders to fight the cultural genocide of the South were pre- programmed to believe that it was really a good thing.
"This aureole of benevolence wrapped around the image of one's neighbor is a loving gift of the provident Creator to those bent down by the sorrows of a long life."
Sorrows, sacrifice and a deep abiding love for things as they really are seem always to be related. Most of the wise men I know today seem to be sad courageous men as gentle as dove and wise as serpents with a disproportionate number writing for Chronicles. Thank you, Father, for the post.
I am in mid 20s so point taken frsteven. While both branches of my family come from Carolinas, one of them remains distinctly Southern while the other is more "Americanized" so I hear where you are coming from.
I think you may be right about the South already changing when "I'll Take My Stand" and "Who Owns America?" came out (which I am finally reading....took me forever to find the thing) though I suspect the South was starting to turn at the time of Woodrow Wilson's presidency. I read George Tindall's book from the LSU History of the South series and was horrified by how all the Southern leaders celebrated Wilson's coming to power and made themselves complicit with where he was taking things.
Dr. Wilson's musing about the military protecting black and Hispanic insurrectionists and installing them in power in local and state capitals jumped off the page at me, not unlike what the PTB are perfecting in the ME and Eastern Europe. Why have the DHS and FBI profiled white Christian supporters of the Constitution, especially military vets, as potential domestic terrorists? of all things. Obama's proposal for a domestic army of armed, disaffected blacks comes to mind as well as the hundreds of millions of rounds of hollow-tipped ammo ordered by the DHS and other fedl agencies.
If the MSM and entertainment world, and particularly TV commercials of late, are elements of and reflect the views of the ZOG, then the ZOG sees the "real" America as black, Hispanic, Jewish, and Asian, with white Christians as fit material, so far, only for denunciation and mockery. I'm sure Russian Christians thought "It can't happen here" a century ago as well.
A holy elder (that is, a monk with the prophetic gift) in Russia prophesied at the time of the Revolution,
"What began in Russia will end in America."
I know for a fact that in nooks and crannies, in redoubts and in strongholds across that territory which was once the South, that there are, yet today, those of us who intend, as Faulkner asked us to do in his Noble Prize Address,to endure, to hold out until that day comes, which President Jefferson Davis foretold, when the cause for which we contend appears in a new time and in a new form.
I also know for a fact that there are far too many of us Southerners who have become the willing Janissary of the very empire which "drove ol' Dixie down." We have been in ever growing numbers the bleeding edge of the empire's spear in the Spanish -American War, in WWI, in WWII, in Korea, in Vietnam and in scores of other immoral, unconstitutional and unnecessary wars in and out of the Cold War. In Pavlovian mindlessness we say the Jacobin pledge which has been imposed on us, to whatever god, it is in the pledge. In far too many of our churches we chorus the blasphemy of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Yet, Dr. Wilson is correct. The empire, perhaps unconsciously, senses that the real remnant of the threat against it resides in the South, even if that South is more a figment of its imagination than a reality. The empire is running mental maneuvers against the day when its old foe might take shape and become a threat at the cultural heart of the South, namely South Carolina. Even as the enemy attempts, and quite successfully, to rid history of our traditions, customs, habits and orthodox faith, it seems to fear us or perhaps simply need us to give meaning in the antithetical to the anti-culture of which it is on the one hand a product and on the other hand an agent.
Thank you, Mr. Peters, for words of hope. It was Robert E. Lee, I believe, who said that history should teach us to have hope.
BTW, do you mean to say that the cultural heart of the South *isn't* Louisiana?
On second thought, don't answer that question.
frsteven,
South Carolina led the way in so many instances, and most of us north Louisianians, scratched deeply enough, are either Sandlappers or Tar Heels. Those good folks are our kinsmen, and we are theirs.
Rob,
I don’t disagree with the facts, but I do disagree with your conclusion. It seems, at best, erroneous to attribute Southern support of the military with a vote for empire. I can't speak to generations long before us (like you, I reckon I fall into the category of "younger" vice "older"), but most folks tend to operate on a more immediate level. Southern boys have been joining the military for years and years, before and after the Civil War, because of a desire to serve their country, to make sacrifices, to receive discipline, to slake a thirst for danger, to be a part of the great brotherhood of men at arms, and/or to carry on a family tradition. Southern families, at least today, support the military because they see our soldiers and sailors not as agents of an empire but as good boys who have desired, in a nominally noble fashion, the things I just mentioned. Ask any Southerner today if they give a fig about Afghanistan or Iraq or spreading Democracy or any such nonsense, and most may mumble some vague snatches of the party line but ultimately would admit that they believed our leaders when they said "in order to protect our country we have to go fight over there." You can fault them for being naïve in believing Bush about WMDs, but to believe a lie is not the same as willfully supporting the agenda of the liar.
I think that's at the heart of my beef here. Most folks in the South aren't as cynical as they ought to be and want to believe the best of their country. Add this inclination to the demolition of education, the stripping of the Southern legacy, the constant guilt being heaped upon Southerners, the collapse of most mainline Protestant churches (and, for the Catholics, the complete absence of any strong Catholic leadership in the South, or, by most accounts, anywhere in the USA), and the decay brought forth by the ubiquitous pop culture rushing by cable, satellite, and smartphone into every brain, far and wide, and is it any wonder that folks are confused and don’t know what to think? You can’t expect someone like Sen. Paul, whom I respect and admire, to come riding up on a horse and tell everyone to forget everything they’ve ever known and follow him (it doesn’t help that he does, at times, give off an unsettling vibe of being just ever so slightly off his rocker – my admiration for the man cannot prevent me from critiquing his public speaking skills). Most folks nowadays just aren’t deep thinkers when it comes to politics and philosophy and history and the like, but if you think them voting for a Mormon means they don’t take their Faith seriously or that they want to support the idea of an empire is to do them an injustice.
I think Dr. Wilson’s rue is appropriately placed. For the empire to turn on the poor folks who have unwittingly supported it is unabashedly wicked. That there is even the glimmer of a sense that this Tea Party movement is a threat to empire is in recognition that the South may have been taken advantage of over the years but has not, knowingly, supported the agenda of the ruling class. I can personally attest among those Southerners I know, old and young, that the scales have started to fall from their eyes, albeit slowly. This little military scenario shows us that the enemy is also aware of this, and, to some small degree, frightened and threatened by it.
As an aside, this is the monstrosity of the modern world – it is no longer possible for a normal man to eke out an existence without being manipulated and taken advantage of by all comers. The simple life, not to be mistaken for some notion of an easy life, is long gone. One must not now simply worry about working hard and feeding the family, but one must now work to educate himself on history, on economics, on theology, on philosophy, and in turn work to educate his family, especially his children, on the same. This is in addition to trying to recover those parts of the legacy, both of families and of regions, that should be handed down to the next generation. Parents have to also master the ever-changing technology, so that they can know how to protect their families from it and teach their children how to master it and not be mastered by it. And somewhere in there is supposed to be time for the important things like teaching kids how to fish, how to shoot, how to hunt . . . etc. Not all men are born to be scholars, but the burden of our times is that no man can afford not to be.
The simple life, not to be mistaken for some notion of an easy life, is long gone. One must not now simply worry about working hard and feeding the family, but one must now work to educate himself on history, on economics, on theology, on philosophy, and in turn work to educate his family, especially his children, on the same. This is in addition to trying to recover those parts of the legacy, both of families and of regions, that should be handed down to the next generation. Parents have to also master the ever-changing technology, so that they can know how to protect their families from it and teach their children how to master it and not be mastered by it. And somewhere in there is supposed to be time for the important things like teaching kids how to fish, how to shoot, how to hunt . . . etc. Not all men are born to be scholars, but the burden of our times is that no man can afford not to be.
God Bless You, Mr. Cornell. You spoke well. The new, Bishop Conley, recently appointed to Lincoln, Nebraska is about the only one I know for sure as a strong leader, but look for him to be martryed in the press as soon as possible because he is not only courageous but he is also quite intelligent with a genuine charity. Other than that, I can't disagree with a word you have written.
Dr. Wilson's piece, once again, enlightens, enrages, and saddens me due to the truth he writes of. The responses here are almost as good. I often imagine many of you long-time contributors here collectively smiling and nodding at one such as I, charitably avoiding pointing out that "Indeed, David, we've long since understood how things are. You're really expressing nothing new here."
That said - and as one Southerner whose eyes having comparitively recently been de-scaled - the sense of outrage at all of this is simply staggering. I remember the truce, as I believe Dr. Wilson termed it, existing between North and South, that it was entirely okay for a young Southern boy to be proud of his ancestors and heroes like Jackson and Lee. I remember enlisting and commissioning and genuinely believing (Oh, the naivete!) that my pledge to support and defend the Constitution was something that this government (with conservative Republicans at the helm, of course!) actually honored. And, as I have written about in this forum previously, I actually believed my service as a chaplain in Iraq was part and parcel of the effort to defend my home, "my kith and kin."
AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!
"The truth has always been there, David, "hidden" in plain sight!"
What, pray tell, is an American? What does that mean anymore? If some of these folks Dr. Wilson and others of you have written about are Americans, then I'm something else! What is worth saving about the United States of America when its soul no longer exists?!?
Our commander in our local SCV camp informed us that there will be a Confederate monument dedication at our neighboring county's courthouse, and please-come-out-and-support-this-because-there's-been-some-resistance. Are you kidding me?!!? Who dares to offer resistance in our own home?!!!? We can make some pretty safe guesses as to who it is, I"m sure, but what and whose country am I living in? (Again, I have read of these things happening elsewhere, but, remember, I have come to these realizations only recently - the shock is therefore greater).
I, like many of you here (Dr. Wilson, Dr. Peters, Mr. Cornell et al.), hope and pray that, although so many of us Southerners have forgotten who we are and whence came our distinctive ways, that there is yet some ancient neural pathway of culture, for a good while now fallen into disuse, that can be revived in the coming crisis that will bring us back to some semblance of our old dignity.
I hope this makes sense!
Thanks to frsteven, Dr. Peters, and Mr. Cornell for your most apposite wisdom. Rob, I do not entirely disagree with you. However, while the South was dominant, the American soul was one of honour. Lincoln's triumph has meant that the American soul is one of money. You really can't blame Southerners for trying to get back a little after all that was stolen from us over so many decades, not to mention the 40% of our substance that was deliberately destroyed. The South is not entirely responsible for the location of military bases. Climate was a major factor in their location. They are a mixed blessing. They have brought in a little money, though not as much as is thought, but they have also brought a lot of social degradation. Our local infantry base is a moral cesspool.
The expansionism of Jackson and Polk, to acquire land FOR AMERICANS in nearly empty portions of our own continent cannot be likened to the use of American military force for "global democracy." They are opposites. And I insist that, even today, as several commentors have pointed out, very few Southerners join the military because of fantasies about spreading democracy.
Yes, many Southerners will vote for the Mormon from Boston and the Randian from Illinois, two men from the Deepest North who have absolutely nothing in common with them. However, it was not the fault of the South that American politics has been so constructed that there is no choice except the African from Chicago or the Mormon from Boston. That is not our doing. As the Southener who was the last honest and creative force in U.S. politics used to say: "There's not a dime's worth of difference." And you know how much a dime is worth.
Having lived for years in the south, I witnessed the attitudes which color Mr. Wilson's article and can attest that southerners, or some of them, still nurture feelings of persecution and resentment against what they see as their enemies in the north. Many otherwise intelligent people like Mr. Wilson even assume that Yankees in general and especially the folks in New England hate the south and actively work and scheme to harm it. If it wasn't so sad, it would be very funny. The truth is that Mr. Wilson's perceptions of Yankees are projected from his imagination and are very far from true. Having also lived for years in the northern climes of the U.S. I can attest that finding anyone in New England or anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon who spends more than two seconds a year thinking of the south, much less plotting against it, would be nearly impossible. Unless it was something to do with college sports of course. The Yankees actually waste their time thinking about the same things most people think about, the things which are relevant to them day to day. You know, work, beer, family stuff, sports, chores, etc. It may be sad to hear but fostering antagonistic feelings against the south isn't on the radar in the north. Those feelings are the exclusive domain of misguided southerners who can't get past 1865. Sure, the antebellum south was a lovely, genteel, classy time when men were noble and the women chaste, pure and pretty. The horses were fast, the crops harvested themselves and no evil deed went unpunished. And then those danged Yankees came down and imposed welfare on everyone. Amen.
As for the larger, pertinent issue of using federal troops to suppress American civilians, Mr. Wilson has a point. Of course it conjures up all of the unpleasant images of civil war, race riots, draft riots, desegregation riots, tent cities full of unemployed ex-soldiers and all the rest. As it should. But, it's not a northern plot. Nope, it's really just the logical extension of what has been happening for many years. The government continues to grow, both parties love big and bigger and biggest government and that trend is reflected in plans like deploying thousands of drones, monitoring, editing and censuring the web, arresting movie makers and anyone else who makes trouble and making plans to deploy troops to put down political enemies of the state. The state is a large, living organism and it will protect it's interests. Since the Tea Party folks don't want to feed the government more money, that makes them enemies of the state. Government control will even include strip searching all travelers and requiring five forms of ID to go outside. What, they do that already? Oh, the humanity!
W.C., I am quite aware that most Northerners go about their daily business without thinking about the South. However, there are indeed more than a few noisy Northerners who do make a noisy career of jumping on the South. I have written at length about the historical origins of this tendency, and its major role in American history, which is closely related to the same people's tendency to interfere abroad as well. A short-hand might be "absentee moralism." I often in talks make a witticism out of the news reports that students at the University of Washington (State) rioted in opposition to the Confederate flag in South Carolina. One cannot imagine a South Carolinian to whom it could even possibly occur that it was his business or that he could care about what is going on out there. You are ignoring one of the salient features of the "American" national character.
As far as the South relates to this: If the Branch Davidians had been located in New Jersey or Iowa, do you think that the federal government would have carried out a military assault and massacre like they did at Waco? Why is the South still treated in media and legislation as the bigoted region that needs stern correction on racial matters when it is actually now the most integrated and the most racially peaceful part of the country---far more so than New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois.
You should know more about your adoptewd country before commenting on it.
I have lived in the north all my life. As W.C. Taqiyya says, people here do not spend a lot of time thinking about the South. They have, however, bought into the projections of imagination by which the North invaded the South and engaged in a savage war for four years in defense of the transcendent ideals of freedom The savagery of this war put a strain on the American notion of exceptional blessedness, so the carnage and destruction have been rationalized as necessary because the South was so intransigent in its embrace of evil that it could only be dealt with this way.
That people in the North have a jaundiced view of the South is not a figment of imagination.
W. C. Taqiyya,
Dr. Wilson and Mr. Porreca have, naturally, beat me to the punch with salient comments. But, speaking for no one but myself, I find it bordering on the insulting that you think I could be simple minded enough to think the Yankees are plotting and scheming against Southerners at their backyard barbecues and soccer league games. Naturally I know many Northerners and count them as friends. In fact, the Godmother to two of my children is a lady born and bred in Chicago, and the Best Man at my wedding is as true blooded a New Yorker as your likely to find. Heck, I even lived a while in Rhode Island, which I enjoyed (probably because of the mild winter that year). No one here is saying or suggesting that all folks North of Virginia are wicked, just like no one here would be fool enough to suggest that all folks South of that mark are angelic. One thing most folks in this fora hold firm is that human nature will be what it is regardless of geography.
But all this does not negate the truth that people can have an identity beyond that of their individual person. To deny this is to buy whole hog the modern myth that we are androgynous automatons, interchangeable at will. The great resurgence of nationalism all across the globe, despite the elite’s attempts at trans-national empires and peoples (e.g. the EU), should be enough to testify that this idea is not much longer for this world. An American is no more like a Russian than a Northerner is like a Southerner than a Texan is like a Northwesterner. We may all share some things in common, but we also share many differences despite the attempts made by many to homogenize our food, our entertainment, and even our thoughts.
However, to so lightly ignore Dr. Wilson’s comments is to ignore some important questions. Do you really believe there was absolutely no reason that, of all the places in this vast country, South Carolina was singled out for this pretend exercise? I of course agree that the State is grown large and, in its thirst for power, is grown intolerant of those who oppose it. But from whence did this State come from? Who has been purposely feeding it for years upon years? Who has clamored for this juggernaut since from the beginning? Is this State truly a bland and benevolent entity, as the secularist claim, or does it reflect very specific ideas of its own (that it consequently tries to force upon those who oppose it)? If so, where did it get those ideas? If you say from a “Ruling Class” – from whence came that Ruling Class? Again, speaking for myself, the more that I study the Civil War (shoring up an unforgivable lacuna in my education, and this was in Alabama schools for crying out loud!), the more I can say that light is shed upon our current predicaments. It was not the beginning, nor was the end, but it was, perhaps, the climax of this story.
Perhaps it would help if you divorce yourself from geography entirely and consider instead the ideas that shape lives and motivate actions. Where do you find the anti-Christian agenda (often known as the liberal agenda) most prominently pushed in public life? Where do you find the broadest public acceptance of the Christian Faith? Actually, just pick your own issue. Same-sex marriage? Socialized health care support? Rabid feminism? Pro-abortion? . . . .etc. Does this mean everyone in New England is an anti-Christian, socialist, rabid pro-abort? No. But if you think that its mere coincidence that the ideological lines fall along geographical lines, I’ve got some ocean front property in Arizona you’ll just love.
Robert,
Thank you for your kind words, but I must confess I left something important out. I neglected to mention "teaching a child how to ride a horse" as one of the important things, but that's because I have to find someone to teach me first!
I know there are a few good bishops out there, and there are more bishops who have good hearts and intentions but lack strong leadership skills. I blame a lot of it on 1) - the absurdity known as the USCCB and the temptation to shift personal responsbility to a bureaucratic non-entity and 2) - the emphasis of being a good administrator over being a good leader (i.e. how much money your diocese takes in supersedes any concern about how well your diocese is catechized).
"I know there are a few good bishops out there, and there are more bishops who have good hearts and intentions but lack strong leadership skills."
I don't know. I thought that 'once upon a time' but She is in pretty bad shape today. Needs to get more vocations who want to serve instead of be served. That has always been her strength -- "a broken and contrite heart" is still a sacrifice to God. We started all those, schools, hospitals and missions a hundred fifty years ago because folks needed them --- it was something that needed done that we could do. What Dr. Wilson calls the shanty Irish were not ashamed of poor people because they were also. Once we got involved in politics, and lost our nuns, we lost our heart and then our head. We went to hell fast. Now we need houses of studies and the intellectual life -- the monastic -- work and pray, just to have something to pass on in the next hundred years --- even if it is the distant sound of the Angelus being rung by a few contemplative monks and nuns ringing ancient bells.
Thanks to all for an absorbing discussion. I don't have much to add other than the personal testimony that as a lifelong Northerner, I believe that the animus towards the white South is real, though in the 1950s and 1960s, when I was in school, we were taught great respect for the South's Civil War leaders, especially Robert E. Lee. It was the portrayal of Southerners by CBS, NBC, and ABC television news during the black civil rights agitation of the same time that tilted most Northerners against white Southerners, not any images of the perfidious Confederacy. My feelings about the civil rights movement remain conflicted to this day, though about its legacy of Black Panthers, Affirmative Action forever, political correctness, hip-hop, etc., I am certain--it's all evil.
The other caveat with regards to generalizing about the North is that in certain parts, such as much of the State of New York (at least in Rochester-Buffalo-Niagara Falls, where I grew up), the Yankee WASP has been largely displaced by swarths of Irish, Italian and Polish Catholics as well as German Catholics and Protestants and Jews. (There is even a bit of Southern Baptist transplant thrown in there for good measure). But New York was not really settled much in the western portion at independence, so it's not surprising that its culture has been shaped by other forces at least as much by WASP-ism. My own home country is in some ways culturally closer to Pennsylvania or the Midwest than to New England.
Meanwhile, in New England proper, it is true that many of the 19th- and 20th century immigrant stocks have assimilated the worst of Yankee WASP behavior and attitudes without any of the stuffy priggishness that made the Yankee WASP (except for the most rabid Puritain) at least marginally presentable in public. Indeed, this explains the Kennedy family pretty thoroughly. I cannot attest much to the "good" Irish, Italian and Québécois Catholic elements that remain in that region, though I have seen evidence that they exist. But if New England is ever to be anything but a post-Puritan hotbed it needs to be colonized by these wholesome types in a way that goes deeper than population and ancestry.
Then of course New England might no longer be New England in much but name and fading memories - not really a terrible idea, after all.
Mr. Moses, you will enjoy my essay on James Fenimore Cooper and the culture of New York State in Brion McClanahan's and my book just published, FORGOTTEN CONSERVATIVES IN AMERICAN HISTORY
" It was the portrayal of Southerners by CBS, NBC, and ABC television news during the black civil rights agitation of the same time that tilted most Northerners against white Southerners, not any images of the perfidious Confederacy"
Ray,
Yes, as always, Mr. Olson hits nail on head with precise description. Southerners are always portrayed as god fearing bigoted idiots who are suspicious of carpetbaggers, bankers, blacks, Catholics and Jews. This by Northerners who think they always know best about religion, bigots, the intellectual life, strangers, the ethics of Big Business and who should and should not be considered real americans.
Although my Grandaddy McCarty's family was decidedly Irish, the very mention of the Kennedy clan was greeted with nothing but contempt. I don't know when that side of the family arrived on these shores, but they were thoroughly Southern, through and through, with little in common with what has since developed as the "typical" idea of an urban Irish-American hailing from NYC, Boston, Chicago, etc. I suspect we maintained more of our traditional conservative, rural, and, yes, Celtic, identity (with a nod to Dr. McWhiney) that we had back in the Old Country than those of our folk who ended up in the North with its socialized machine politics.
That said, I served with a number of western and upstate New Yorkers while in the Army and found that, other than the accent, they shared a great deal more in common with us "Redneck" folk down here in the South. They were no more enthused about NYC'ers, and other Yankees than we were.
That said, I served with a number of western and upstate New Yorkers while in the Army and found that, other than the accent, they shared a great deal more in common with us "Redneck" folk down here in the South. They were no more enthused about NYC'ers, and other Yankees than we were.
Even in New York City, one must distinguish between several very different subcultures. In Manhattan there are the yuppies, the hipsters/artists and the moneyed Old Families of the Upper East Side. The first two are intolerable; these last folk are stuffy but occasionally sufferable. Then there are the hipsters of DUMBO but in Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx and Staten Island (especially) one finds folk who are perhaps citadine but every bit as family-oriented and wholesome as the Upstate folk. These are the descendants of Irish, Italian and Polish immigrants (and a number of of them still speak Italian or Polish among one another, at least partially) and Orthodox Jews. Their numbers have been dwindling of late, of course.
Dr. Wilson: thank you for the recommendation. When I have time to read again, I will check it out.
Mr. Cornell,
let us consider what is and is not pertinent and impertinent, shall we?
"For Southerners, the hatred of so many of their “fellow Americans” comes so steadily and predictably that it is usually best simply to ignore it and let the heathen rage. We are an easy-going, non-ideological, and Christian people, so most of us don't even notice....The other (offending author) is an Army officer, who I am reliably informed is from New England, always the fount of murderous hatred against other Americans."
These are the words of Mr. Wilson. "So many" And his resentment is directed against an article in some obscure military magazine few people even know exists. And yet, Mr. Cornell finds it, '..bordering on the insulting that you (meaning me) think I (meaning him) could be simple minded enough to think the Yankees are plotting and scheming against Southerners at their backyard barbecues and soccer league games.'' But, Mr. Cornell, I didn't suggest anything of the kind. Mr Wilson did. And your name wasn't even mentioned. Let's be clear. Mr. Wilson colored his article with sweeping statements. Mr. Wilson said, southerners were easy-going, non-ideological Christian people and that New England was always the fount of murderous hatred. So, any advice or insults about painting with a broad brush or whatever should be directed to Mr. Wilson. Just as I did. Let me repeat myself. I did not refer to your Yankee friends as heathens. Mr. Wilson did. Got it? Nor did I say most or many southerners shared Mr. Wilson's active imagination. I said some. Use the scroll thing and scroll up for yourself. So, who under or over exaggerated geographical boundaries or the cultural differences inherent in different regions? So much for your impertinence. And, because of your misreading, what you thought was pertinent.
Now, the civil war was a big deal. And yes, some people still resent that it happened, how it happened and what came afterwards. That is perfectly normal. Some Jews still harbor ill will towards the Nazi regime. Even though the Nazi's are dead. And, most of the Yankees who burned their way through the south are dead. Except maybe for Sherman's mule, Bessie. See what I'm saying? But is it over for Mr. Wilson? Mr. Wilson seems to interpret an obscure article or a demonstration against the battle flag or whatever and concludes that the heathens in New England are planning an invasion. Not all of them to be sure, some of them are good enough, once you get past their poor taste in furniture, their sour disposition and the irritating habit they have of bragging about being descended from the first few boatloads of immigrants. As if they chose their fine, heroic and obviously superior ancestors. Little do they know that the indentured servants who landed in the south were superior to the religious refugees who landed in the north. So sad that they know so little about their adopted country...
So, I reply with a gentle rebuke to Mr. Wilson's over broad conspiracy theory and you guys choose to see a slap at grits, abandoned rice plantations and pulp mills. That's what I call overkill. And I love grits. Personally, I still resent the Mexicans for the Alamo slaughter, we never got closure on that and my hero Daniel Boone was kilted thar.
Your questions about the probable cause of those disturbing military plans were answered in the second paragraph of my first comment. That scroll thing again. It's great if you choose to believe the liberals are behind it, no harm done. Frankly, since the Islamic, commie in the White House is pushing his flavor of total government right now, you aren't far wrong. It's just that the larger truth is that most Americans in every region support total government in one form or another. Some from fear, some from simple self interest and some because they think the government's proper role is to take care of everything. And some because all they wanna know is if the taxes are paid and the sheriff isn't banging on their door.
As for Waco. Mr. Wilson, I love that you think the south always gets the shaft. It's quaint. Up here the cops shoot people all the time. They don't bother to call the feds. And the shootings are always justified. Google it. Google that tax resister in New England a short while back. Google Ruby Ridge. Google the 'Move' cult in Philly a few years back. Do I think Waco would have happened up here? Yes and no, they wouldn't have bothered to use tanks.
Finally, as Mr. Cornell said, "Perhaps it would help if you divorce yourself from geography entirely and consider instead the ideas that shape lives and motivate actions.'' A wise sentiment.
Well, OK, hip-hop is merely offensive and loudly boring as a rule. Not necessarily evil.
Mr./Ms. Taqqiya,
I believe you accurately score several sins of exaggeration and special pleading. But it wasn't Daniel Boone who perished at the Alamo. It was Davy Crockett.
Also, and please don't take this amiss, is your given name Taqiyya? I ask only because I'm under the impression that taqiyya refers to dissimulation practiced to advance the interests of Islam and Muslims.
"And, most of the Yankees who burned their way through the south are dead. Except maybe for Sherman's mule, Bessie."
I always hated than damned Mule! Still do.
My apologies to all. I made the embarrassing mistake of taking Mr./Mrs. Taqiyya's original comment seriously. I won't make the same mistake twice.
Professor Wilson,
Will you be making available any excerpts from your new book? My maternal grandfather's people came from upstate NY, in the foothills of the Hudson, I believe. Grandfather Williams was driving some livestock to or from Connecticut when he espied the maid who was to become my grandmother, the story goes. This was the early 1880's.
Mr. Jacobi, alas, no plans at this time.
The article to which Professor Wilson's refers contains, I think, some points even more pertinent for traditionalists than its selection of a Southern city for the locus of its scenario.
It does start off with a supercilious dismissal of the Posse Comitatus law as merely "stem[ming] from bad feelings about Reconstruction", going on to complain that, as a result, "the military’s domestic role is highly circumscribed." In other words, having one's country destroyed and one's culture cleansed of most of its unique content produced some "bad feelings"; but feelings, after all, can be handled, gotten over. Nothing there that can excuse continuing to keep the military's domestic role highly circumscribed. If this is the attitude of those with influence over Defense Department policy, it does not bode well for what's left of American liberty.
But it goes on to implicate Tea Partiers, small businessmen, the entire middle and lower middle classes, whites and native-born Americans, and "race-baiting and immigrant-bashing .... right-wing demagogues" – that would be people like us who read and write Chronicles. Oh, and along the way we all morph into highway robbers, or toll-booth attendants, or something.
I think the most depressing part of the article for me (a tough choice with so much to select from) was learning just how weak – circumscribed, let's say – the Posse Comitatus act already is. The Insurrection Act seems to pretty well gut it, and all the president has to do is invoke it.
Citing Eisenhower's sending of bayonet wielding federal troops to Little Rock in 1958 as cover for taking out these hypothetical Darlington rebels was another nail in the coffin of the affection I used to feel for "Ike". (And if, as Father Steven says, "Most of the Southern men of the misnamed greatest generation came back from Europe and the Pacific and Korea not as Southerners but as re-fashioned generic Americans, eager servants of the Washington empire.", that means they as well as I were deceived, or enthralled by, Eisenhower, and goes a long way toward explaining why Southerners let those federals come in and force their children to go to school with blacks, something I've always had trouble understanding.)
Professor Wilson,
Well, all the more motive for me to tackle Longfellow himself, then, which is not a bad thing.
It's not a big deal. admit it. you screwed up. i do that all the time. we still love you. please don't be a commie.
'But it goes on to implicate Tea Partiers, small businessmen, the entire middle and lower middle classes,'
Wow! That attitude comes right out of Leninist-Stalinist doctrine. These lunatics may as well have been Soviet political commissars occupying Hungary or Rumania in 1945, or Moscow in 1917. They doubtlessly think they are being such original thinkers, but there is nothing new under their dim sun.
Concerning the way that Southerners came back as 'Americans' after the war, all of us, North and South, East and West, need to finally understand that we have all been victims of indoctrination and conditioning by the establishment for well over a century now, in their institutions of 'education' as well as the military. It goes far deeper than we realise or even wish to see.
I have had more than once heard some shallow minded teacher or holder of an 'education' degree say that 'there are backwards people out there, and we need to take their kids and.....' and what? make those kids as shallow minded and willfully ignorant as they themselves are?
I have come to suspect that the people of this country have been brainwashed to such an extent that a feedback loop has developed which has slowly backlashed on the elites, and caused the elites themselves to become victims of their own brainwashing, and thus they have also become more ignorant, more dumbed down over time as they slowly have come to believe their own propaganda. If that is true, then they entire system is unsustainable and the end is not far off.
Actually, excerpts are available for his book on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Conservatives-American-History-McClanahan/dp/145561579X
I didnt realize you had a new book; I own all of your others. I intend to get it.
I was surprised that Coolidge didnt make the list. I suppose he wasnt exactly Jeffersonian but still a decent Yankee.
I dont believe it is entirely accurate that Southern men fighting in WW II bought entirely into the Yankee Empire. Many did not and in fact disapproved the federal invasions of the Sixties. I doubt if the experience of real war contributes to such an arrogant and unrealistic view. It was the generation raised during the Cold War that got all the propaganda in school and in the peacetime service about the UN and world peace, etc. Strom Thurmond rode a glider into Normandy on D-Day but he headed the Dixiecrat party in 1948. In Ridley Scott's (a Brit) film about the Somalian debacle, he has a regular American soldier talking about doing good and a Southerner (played by an Australian and with a good accent) talking about fighting for his comrades. Some of that spirit still survives. In fact, I would not be surprised if current and recent Southern (and others, too) military men had not joined up for the training, to be used in the future if needed during the tyrannical death throes of the Yankee Evil Empire.
Dr. Wilson:
While I'm not at all sanguine about a majority of service members, including some Southerners, standing by their homes, "kith and kin", when the empire does indeed come unwound, I do believe from my private conversations with buddies, both active and retired, that they get what is happening and will be willing to defend what needs defending against the dying beast. It may not be the majority of the military - you have commented with accuracy in the past on the moral rot and incompetence that runs clear through the leadership down to the lowest enlisted man (and unfortunately, woman!) - but, it will be a motivated and grounded minority who understands what's at stake and where their true loyalties lie. . .
. . . at least I pray my analysis is correct.
Dr. Wilson, I hope there are enough men with such training and foresight to be around to prepare others to defend whom they hold dear.
Of course you are right, Dr Wilson, and Mr Smith and Mr Chan. There are some who have indeed joined for the training they will need. Of course this is on an individual basis and not as part of some organised plan. It's those against whom the propaganda was least effective who will stand up when everything goes down. I have met more than one disillusioned vet. I wouldn't be surprised if there turned out to be an Arminius or two out there, or even a Karageorge.
Is it similar to the situation General Franco took over at the begining of the Spanish Civil War? Unfortunately, while what y'all have said may be true of many good soldiers & sailors, I'm afraid I don't hold out much hope for any of the Admirals or Generals. They seem to be, almost to a man, politicans first and military men second (if at all).
Is it similar to the situation General Franco took over at the begining of the Spanish Civil War?
Not quite. Franco (and his French counterparts) were major players working within military infrastructures that were themselves largely counterrevolutionary at all levels. Meanwhile, a Right-thinking American marine, soldier, shipman or Air Force pilot would almost certainly not take any significant portion of the infrastructure with him; I doubt his training would be useful beyond giving him valuable insight as to how to raise up something from scratch. (See the contemporary Admirals and Generals you mentioned to understand why.)
" . . . I'm afraid I don't hold out much hope for any of the Admirals or Generals. They seem to be, almost to a man, politicans first and military men second (if at all)."
Very true, Mr. Cornell, but - and I want to be careful here (good leadership is worth its weight in gold) - frankly, I often think it has been the common soldier, NCO's, and lower to mid-level officers who have accomplished the mission throughout the history of warfare, often IN SPITE of many of these kinds of generals. We'd be better off without them anyway.
Professor Wilson,
I've read that sports, as in big-time college football, played a significant part in greasing the skids for the South's rapid acceptance of deseg. If memory serves, there was one team, Ole Miss or the Red Tide, that had a liberal leaning coach who wanted to integrate his team. The fans were sold on the idea that the black players would increase the team's chance for victory, and, after some back and forth, the team was integrated and began to win. All the rest soon followed suit, thus producing a major chink in the pro-segregation stance.
While this may be a tangent, can I wheedle a few words from you about segregation? Specifically, about the so-called Jim Crow laws? I admit, this has largely personal significance; I'm the lucky one who was bopped on the head in 1963, you may recall reading in one of my posts, by those black punks screaming "ain't got yo dogs, now, do you, honkey?" Every American has been deeply and deleteriously affected by forced desegregation, of course, but since my person was an actual part of the battlefield, I feel a special connection to those times and actions. Something in me won't rest until I can find some way to assign moral responsibility for their attack (and the many subsequent racially motivated attacks). Twelve and thirteen-year old boys surely were old enough to know better, and I have not forgiven them or their successors. But how much, if any, of their actions may be laid at the feet of the Jim Crow regime?
My mother went on a trip to the South in the 1920's, and when I was a young boy, she told me how the colored men would cross the street when she passed. She did not relate this with shock, or moral outrage; it was just, to her, what people did in the South, and she took it, I believe, in the spirit of "when in Rome...", etc. I did not know what to make of it at the time she told me, but when the trouble in the South became national news a little later, and especially as I became a target on the streets around my house, I began to wonder, in spite of my anger at the blacks tormenting me, whether there was not also some blame to lay at the feet of Southerners. In the past two decades or so, I've become convinced that segregation was not only nowhere near the evil it was portrayed as during the "civil rights" era, but in fact, may have been the only possible response to the sudden release of the slaves postbellum. I guess what I still don't know is if there could have been any amelioration of its more onerous conditions (if indeed, there were any such) before the federals and their radical allies came South looking for trouble. I know you are occupied with the tribute to Dr. Genovese, but any little bit you can contribute, even a reference to some other work, to my attempt to deal with this will be greatly appreciated. I of course welcome comments from the other Southerners on this site.
Mr. Jacobi, this is not the place to get into the big slice of American history that you suggest. I would say that, contrary to received wisdom, segregation was established by benevolent people who feared in the atmosphere of the late 19th and early 20th century, after the accommodating relations of slavery had fully disappeared, that otherwise the blacks would be annihilated in a conflict with whites---something that was expected or wanted by many people in that time, Northern and Southern. Segregation had many cruelties, but the South, out of its extreme poverty (mostly induced by the federal govt.) devoted considerable resources to black education and a substantial black middle class had developed prior to 1954. Probably today relations between the races are more friendly and peaceful and the degree of integration tolerated is greater than in the great liberal regions of the North. But segregation, violence, and hatred in imitation of the North is making great progress.
I dont think your point about sports is on target. College sports were actually later to be integrated than many other areas. In the days when LSU, Ole Miss, Alabama, and Texas had top football teams, I dont think anyone particularly thought they needed integrated teams. LKater one, the carpetbaggers who came to control Ole Miss did banish Confederate flags and the "Rebel" mascot.
Professor Wilson,
I have to run right this minute, but just wanted to thank you for the reply. Will read and think later. Thanks again.