Good Ole Mountain Dew

Via Cousin John

What Lee Said About Monuments in 1869

 

Monuments are not for what we are now.  They are for where we were and what the community was then.  Monuments are stone bookmarks.  They prompt you by reminding you of past events.  They are meant for you to learn your history.  After seeing one, you go look up something about the person, place, event, that it memorializes.  Then you learn your history.

A frequent argument against Confederate monuments is a “sound bite” of a quote from General Robert E. Lee in 1869 in some variation to “I think it wiser not to keep open the sores of war.”   The time of the event and the Monument Movement is significant.  Understanding this connection changes the meaning of the “sound bite” entirely.  Here the context.

The letter cited is Lee’s decline to attend a reunion of Gettysburg veterans from the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association.  The Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association was chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on 13 April 1864, to preserve the Gettysburg Battlefield.^[1]  David M^cConaughy was the president.^[2] 

Lee wrote on 4 August 1869 his reply to David M^cConaughy’s invitation to participate in the  “reunion of Gettysburg veterans, who identified specific, historic battlefield sites, and offered personal accounts of the engagement.”^[3]  Many letters in the Gettysburg College, Gett Digital collection of these letters are responses to David M^cConaughy’s invitation. They declined to attend for a variety of reasons, some even naming others to consider inviting for the desired information.^[4]  Lee was not alone in his absence from the event.  The entirely of Lee’s letter is:

More @ The Abbeville Institute

Unceasing Blows and Sheer Attrition

 

In early May 1864, Grant moved across the Rapidan River in Virginia to pass quickly through the Wilderness before giving battle. Instead, there he lost some 26,000 men in the dense thickets. On June 3^rd Grant lost “more men in the eight minutes of hottest fighting than in any period of the war.”

 Though this carnage intensified the peace movement in the North, Lincoln provided Grant with an endless supply of immigrants, substitutes and conscripted men to continue this fearful slaughter.

Lincoln, despite ruling the North with near-dictatorial powers, was well-aware 1864 was an election year and victories at any cost were needed before November.

More @ Circa1865

Lee’s Only Chance

 

Though Lincoln doubted that he would be reelected in 1864, and was heard to state that he hoped another Republican would replace him as he feared being imprisoned by a Democrat for his numerous unconstitutional acts, his Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana said “the whole power of the War Department was used to secure Lincoln’s re-election in 1864.” By that time there were far too many whose careers and wealth depended upon the powerful centralized government Lincoln had created, and which the Radical Republicans wanted to rule.

The starving, ragged soldiers of Lee and Johnston were the last remaining barriers to full Radical control of the destiny of the “nation conceived in liberty” declared at Gettysburg in November 1863. 

More @ Circa 1865

[Photos] The City That Never Sits Still: Traffic in 1965 Saigon

Half a century ago, Saigon was home to many familiar sights as well as some surprising interlopers from across time and space.

In 1965, the city's streets contained the same motorbikes, cyclos, stuffed market stalls and cross-walk scoffing pedestrians that it does today. But a series of photos by Lawrence V. Smith depicts a few oddities amongst the easily-recognizable elements of modern-day Saigon. A variety of large, steel-body cars seemed to take up a more significant percentage of the roadways while a snazzy police officer maintained order from what looks like a stage elevated in the middle of the street. Of course, there are more trees, some of which cast shade upon the Cong Hoa Swimming Pool frequented by foreigners.

This amalgamation of the commonplace and bygone helps illuminate viewers on the origin and development of the city.

More @ Saigoneer

Just Want To Be left Alone

Via Oleg

Ford Foundation With Biden Campaign Ties Funding Leftist Agitators On U.S. Streets

Via Jonathan

“How to Topple a Statue, How to Tear Down a Wall” conference kicking off in Durham! #DefendDurham #SmashWhiteSupremacy #AbolishICE #DoItLikeDurham #TakeEmAllDown pic.twitter.com/0a1XfrlWgn

— Workers World Party (@workersworld) August 25, 2018

While activists Ford funds desecrate cities and terrorize regular folks, the foundation gives millions to the ‘Defund the Police’ movement.

Last Sunday, the site of the Republican National Convention in Charlotte witnessed a night of violence leading to at least five arrests. Since Friday, Black Lives Matter activists terrorized the Queen City, including beating police officers, in an effort to intimidate GOP attendees and business owners.

By contrast, the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee brought only a small gathering of peaceful activists, who declared: “We decided that it would make sense for us to make the emphasis of our action the one point of unity that deals with police crimes.”

Here we have a real “tale of two cities.” To understand the disparity of these two convention host cities separated by only a week, let’s examine some financiers of organizations fomenting the riots now taking place across the country.

More @ The Federalist

Red Mirage: When Trump Election Day Landslide Flips to Biden Victory from Votes by Mail

Via Red Pill Jew

On racism - a definition. (More meaningless meanderings in the Wee hours)

 

 

 Reverse Discrimination Ruling

 

“Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the unwarranted belief that one’s own race is superior.”

'Unwarranted'  my edit.  If one, in ignorance, considers assumes superiority of the Caucasian over the Asian, say, then he, in his ignorance, is wrong. 

One lacking experience, knowledge, objectivity making such judgement proves the validity of the ASS of U + ME trope.  Being ignorant is not in itself a sin,  I myself am ignorant of too many things to list, and I lack interest and ambition to study Turkish Literature of the Nineteenth Century, for example.

Many people hate and despise Pit Bull dogs, with no experience or knowledge of the breed.  They "heard' things.  We are free to be stupid, and many luxuriate in their stupidity.

BUT, one has a responsibility to know, to seek knowledge and experience, to form his opinions and judgements.  Failing that, one forfeits his right to  expound on his beliefs or act on his opinions.  In essence, "Shut Up and Sit Down!"  He is unwarranted in his assumptions and presumptions.

In short, you can't go around shooting Pit Bulls because of shit you "heard".

BUT, let's say one has personal observation, experience, objective knowledge.  You have spent time, money, energy, effort, and good will on a project, all to no avail.  You now know that the subject is not amenable to training, discipline, is ill behaved, and hardly civilized. Is your bad opinion now justified?  

In the specific case, I say 'yes', but in general, I say never generalize.  Individuals differ.  Each should have his fair chance at proving up. 

BUT, at what point do we recognize the point of diminishing returns.  98% of your effort is spent on 6% of your subjects. Hardly seems a profitable exercise.  You are close to bankruptcy, when is it permissible to throw in the towel and accept failure, and make the necessary accommodations.

Shooting all the Pit Bulls is a non-starter.  'Just not done, old man!'  Not in a pseudo-Christian society.  Muslims and Communists can get away with it, and do.  Genocide is their most favored tactic.

OK, so, I've called my subjects Pit Bulls to illustrate my point and to avoid the usual histrionics and fist shaking.  I hope it worked.  The subject is racism, and racism can and does only affect blacks, according to their own edicts.

I say, we have four hundred years' experience of negroes in this country.  Two hundred years of that was, for the majority, in bonded servitude.  Slavery for those in Rio Vista.  The very word raises the temperature in the room, but hear me out.  The truth matters, and the truth is that American Slavery wasquite benign.  Let me expound on this a bit, while you sharpen your blades.

American Slavery held sway in milder climates, no one froze to death.  American Slavery was Agricultural, outdoor, physical labor.  Supposed to be good for one, I hear from the doctors.  

 

Generally, Plantations worked a ten hour day, from first light to approximately 1500, with lunch and rest breaks.  The work varied;  field work, logging, ditching, building, livestock, poultry, fishing.  Some drove wagons, others manned boats, some served the House, some served the Quarters.  

 

Understand this, and it's key, every Plantation was a self sustaining unit.  They ate what they grew, wore what they made, lived where they built. 

Women were taught to spin, weave, sew, make and mend, and to manage their enterprise.   Women were taught to cook, and to manage her kitchens, gardens, and logistics;  Women were taught to keep house, organize and manage a household.  Women were taught to care for the young, ill, elderly & infirm. They were generally left to their own devices in planning and executing their work. Women not capable or not willing of learning worked in the fields and gardens.   

Men were taught every trade needful to the operation . . . Sawyer, Wheelwright, Blacksmith, Boat and Wagon builder, Plumber, Carpenter, Tiler, Roofer, Hunter, Fisher, Horses, Dogs, Timber and forest management, Tinker, Glazier, Field Foremen, Section Supervisors. Crop managers, Factors and Agents.

Some served the House, others served the Quarters, all served the 'Homeplace'. 

The Owner and his family kept a general oversight, but the 'people' managed the operations.  Owners were known to tour Europe 'in season' while thePlantation forged along, managed by the 'people'.  

 

Consider this . . . when the War came, most white men went to fight, yet the business continued.

'Massa; left his family, property and worldly goods to the care and keeping of the 'people'.  Not one instance is ever recorded of the 'people' violating that trust.  Even when 'Massa' was killed, they stayed, loyal to their 'people'.  (Both sides had 'people' and all were the Homeplace people.) 

Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Archdemon of Yankee imagination, bragged that his black soldiers were the best Confederates he ever saw, and with 3000 of them, he could have taken Chicago.  Forrest's funeral was attended by many hundreds of black southerners, and they raised a monument to him.

More truth for another day, perhaps.

All the foregoing by way of saying those who knew blacks best, knew most were unready for freedom, and when it was forced at bayonet point, warned  of exactly what we see today.  A reversion to the primitive state.  Which by the way, is exactly the case in Africa.  South Africa is a basket case, and a genocide is underway against white South Africans,  Zimbabe nee' Rhodesia,went the same way, now begs white farmers to come back, after murdering hundreds, and destroying properties worth millions, they want 'Massa' back.  The Congo, Chad, Nigeria, anywhere in black Africa; Haiti, Brazil, black crime and violence abounds.  The old Planters were right, the black man is not ready for self governance.  Detroit, Atlanta, Memphis, Baltimore, Chicago, the litany rolls on.

No one knows how many blacks there are in the US. Estimates run about 30,000,000 or 13% of the total.  My guess is that 15,000,000 of those are good folks doing the best they can, or so I'd like to believe.  The rest are the 6% consuming 98% of our effort. 

One cannot countenance 'racism' applied to innocents, good people, but we need another 'ism' to describe the not innocent, the not good people.  

I remember once, a rattler appeared in a corner of a crowded hall, and that one beady eyed buzzer had the full attention of a hall full of people, the preacher finally tailed off, when he realized he'd lost his crowd.  Nobody breathed.  nobody moved.  An Usher thought to take broom and trash can, and sweep Mr Snek away.  I can see, in my mind's eye how well that went, and hear the 'thud' when Ol' Slither dropped out of that bucket in the middle of the aisle.  Mad rush to the walls and exits.  Girls jumping flatfooted onto the benches,  upsetting a few of them, causing even more panic. 

So we are fascinated with our 6%. 

I'm concerned because we crackers are no longer the majority, and the rising cohort has little love for D'hood and its denizens.  That's the race war I would not want to see.

~~4Branch

Victor Davis Hanson: The cowards of 'cancel culture'

Dated

 

Each generation deals with its own manifestations of age-old mob frenzies, bullying and public shaming. Salem, Mass., had its witch trials in the 1690s. The 1950s endured its McCarthyism. And we now are enduring our “cancel culture.”

But 21st-century public shaming reaches not thousands but tens of millions. And it does so instantaneously on the internet and on social media — too often, all under the cloak of masked Twitter handles.

Our generation’s bane is a many-headed hydra of doxing, revenge porn and canceling out the careers of public figures. Smears are predicated on the assumption that those targeted will panic; they will apologize and seek penance, reducing themselves to timid careerists and fawning toadies. The aim is electronic Trotskyization — making one disappear from computer screens as if they had never existed.

More @ The Hill

DHS: Feds 'Targeting and Investigating' BLM & Antifa Leaders and Those Who Fund Them

Via Richard

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is "targetting and investigating" the leaders of Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and other violent leftist groups, the Department of Homeland Security has confirmed.

Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson on Monday night that the DOJ is also going after those who are funding the radical-left protest groups behind the national unrest and rioting.
The Justice Department has already launched an investigation into the heads of BLM and Antifa over their roles in the violence that has broken out in Democrat-controlled cities across America.

More @ NEONNETTLE