The Secesh category archive

Jonathan Chait contemplates the veneration of the Stars and Bars:

It might seem bizarre to equate patriotism with treason, and to conclude that turning against the symbols of an army that went to war against the United States must lead to turning against the symbols of the United States itself. There is, however, a certain logic to this fear — a twisted logic, to be sure, but twisted by decades of propaganda.

Follow the link for his attempt to untwist that logic.

Via The Daily Banter.

Via Job’s Anger.

Thom asks about racism,

Why are we not calling this unpatriotic?

Before every courthouse in every city and county in the South stands a Confederate monument. It commonly takes the form of a statue of a soldier atop a pillar and bears some sort of inscription in memory of those who fought for the Secesh.

Unlike the Confederate battle ensign, Confederate monuments have not become symbols of contemporary hate; for most, I suspect, they fade into the background, though I must admit that this is my own not-black perspective. I have not yet seen a bumper sticker of a Confederate monument on a pick-up truck between the NRA sticker and the Gadsden flag license plate.

Nevertheless, the Charleston shootings and the recent decisions on the part of some stores and governors to remove the Stars and Bars from sale and display have rippled out to include them. In Jefferson Davis’s capital, someone had the gall, the unmitigated gall, to “deface” (in the words of the news story) one with the slogan, “Black Lives Matter.”

Closer to home, the resident curmudgeon of my local rag (working motto: “Other people can’t have nice things”), pretzels her logic to defend a local one as a benign symbol of another time.

Having lived in the Philadelphia area for 25 years, I loves me my cheese steaks, though I’ve never been to Geno’s or Pat’s Steaks; they are creations of hype. You can get better cheese steaks at other places.

In my part of the world, the best cheese steaks are at Elias; order a “Philly cheese steak” almost anywhere else in southeastern Virginia and God protect you. Most places in these parts seem to think that, if they put bits of mystery meat and cheese-like substances between two breadish things, plus heaven knows what other non-canonical ingredients (peppers, Kelly’s? really?), they somehow have created a “Philly cheese steak.” They are, as my first boss used to say, “in error.”

I can, nevertheless, congratulate Geno’s for doing the right thing.

Via Job’s Anger.

John Romano visits Charleston, South Carolina, for yesterday’s services and tries to understand white Charleston’s continuing veneration of the Secesh.

One more time: when persons speak longingly of the “Lost Cause,” ask them what, specifically, was the cause that was lost.

Via Raw Story.

Today’s edition of my local rag had a very good editorial about the Charleston shootings. Here’s a bit:

Echoes don’t fade in the South. The greatest chronicler of the South, William Faulkner, put it this way: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

And so nothing like this can happen in a place like South Carolina without stirring the memories of the racial violence that has torn the South for so long.

It was the kind of violence, both overt and psychic, that burned black churches and lynched black men and closed black schools and churches. It slaughtered black children. It attempted to turn black people into something less than people.

That historic persecution was systematic and organized, while Wednesday’s massacre appears the work of one entirely cowardly man whose history and mental state we know little about.

But the bloody consequences are a haunting reminder of the uncivilized horror that is a stain on this nation, and a signal of how far we still have to go to recognize that hate and terror serve only as a path to ruin.

Afterthought:

I’m still trying to wrap my head around Republican attempts to claim that the Charleston shootings had nothing to do with race, despite the shooter’s overt statements to the contrary. They lead me to wonder, are Republicans stupid, are they pandering to their followers, or both? (“Neither” is clearly not an option.)

I’m voting for the second choice. Nixon’s odious southern strategy was always about pandering to the basest of the base.

Ex Post Afterthought:

I reckon there’s some wishful thinking mixed in there too. There’s precedent, as the Republican Party’s economic policies are based solely on wishful thinking.

Via Job’s Anger.

Via C&L.

Don’t look away, look away.

Look back.

Will Bunch captures the ultimate betrayal embodied in the massacre in Charleston. Here’s the bit the matters; follow the link for the rest:

The fact that these people were killed by a man who pretended to pray alongside them for nearly an hour, . . . .

Until white America confronts and deals with its racists and their racism, disavows the Gone with the Wind and the land of gracious living myths for the lies that they are, repudiates the genteel racism of those who clutch their pearls, express their horror at the deed, while continuing to perpetuate racism by their own deeds, racist terrorism will continue. As Gunnar Myrdal said in the language of another era (roughly paraphrased),

The Negro problem in America is a white problem.

In the larger picture of American history, Charleston was just another lynching. There may not have been a rope, but it was a lynching nonetheless. Until and unless white folks deal with the problem of whiteness, lynchings will continue.

It’s the American way.

This should surprise no one.

. . . and anyone who doesn’t realize that the hysterical wingnut myth of Obama martial law is rooted in racism–in the Secesh’s subconscious dread of another Nat Turner seeking revenge upon the oppressor and the wannabe oppressor–is a damn fool.

Via The Bob and Chez Show Blog.

Invasive specious:

It can be hard to miss at first: a Confederate flag flying from the top of a scrawny tree rising up from the swampy waters just north of the Carolina-Virginia line.

(snip)

Smith said the (Virginia’s Department of Conservation and Recreation–ed.) department, which has just 13 people to oversee 55,000 acres, doesn’t allow the building of structures or postings by citizens on its preservation areas.

The hanging of the flag is “not something that we would condone,” he added.

Follow the link to see the reporter try to put a good face on sedition.

Via Job’s Anger.