Sons of Confederate Veterans Says They Were Fighting for the Same Things.......

[Joanne98]

The fringe element of the Tea Party movement continues rear its ugly head, while conservative leaders fan the flames of racism by coddling extremists, no different than the actions of Confederates.

Last week, I had a Twitter war of sorts with Andrew Breitbart over his $100,000 offer to anyone who can produce evidence that Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) was called nigger during his walk to Capitol Hill with the other members of the Congressional Black Caucus for the historical health care reform vote. He called me a h8 - or hater -- because I took Rep. Lewis' side. The reality is that Rep. Lewis is a honorable man, who has been called nigger in the days of civil rights unrest for no other reason but the color of his skin, so I can't understand why it should be unfathomable that he was called that again by the fringe element of the Republican Party. After all, to echo Frank Rich, conservative leaders are enabling the extremism by remaining silent or egging it on with cries of “Reload!” to pander to the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base. Of course as Glenn Beck has said, President Obama is the real racist in this dogfight. Never mind the fact that his white grandparents raised him and he loved his white mother dearly.

During his appearance at the Freedom Works' rally, Andrew Breitbart took offense with Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) flashing the V-sign with her fingers to celebrate the historic legislation. Again, he said she was inciting the crowd. It was a racist act, if you will. Really Breitbart? So, in his estimation, I suppose the appearance of a gay, black and liberal legislator on the way to Capitol Hill, is an act of racism. They should not come up to the "big house" sah, they should start in the lower levels of the Capitol and let the Republican massas have their voices heard. He is fanning the flames of racism by his statements and I will continue to get under Andrew Breitbart's skin on Twitter.

For all the racial ugliness that is occurring in America, the conservative leaders have a hand in it. Take Virginia's dixiecrat governor Bob McDonnell, who issued a state proclamation celebrating April as Confederate History Month. In essence, he was resuscitated a dormant practice that had been initiated nin 1997 by George Allen, former Virginia, whose career imploded in 2006, when he was caught on camera calling an Indian-American constituent “macaca.” McDonnell was lobbied by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group linked to segregation and overt racism. He gave in to their wishes and deliberately omitted any mention of slavery from this so-called proclamation, only to insert it after taking heat from black leaders. McDonnell also decided to insert another requirement in the process for convicted felons to get their voting rights back. He wants the applicants to write an essay detailing why they should get these rights back. This is nothing but a tactic to keep blacks from voting in Virginia. Sorry, but there's a dixiecrat leading the state of Virginia. There's more to Bob McDonnell that the American public, specifically the people of Virginia need to hear about:


McDonnell isn’t a native Virginian but he received his master’s and law degrees at Pat Robertson’s university in Virginia Beach during the 1980s, when Robertson was still a rare public defender of South Africa’s apartheid regime. As a major donor to McDonnell’s campaign and an invited guest to his Inaugural breakfast, Robertson is closer politically to his protégé than the Rev. Jeremiah Wright ever was to Barack Obama. McDonnell chose his language knowingly when initially trying to justify his vision of Confederate History Month. His sanitized spin on the Civil War could not have been better framed to appeal to an unreconstructed white cohort that, while much diminished in the 21st century, popped back out of the closet during the Obama ascendancy. Source: NY Times
The actions of some conservatives, like Gov. McDonnell and Andrew Breitbart are deliberate and are stoking the racial fires, but I don't hear any leaders in the Republican Party or prominent conservatives issuing a denunciation. Instead, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said told Candy Crowley on CNN last weekend that the whole incident involving McDonnell didn't "amount to diddly" and he also issued a Confederate Heritage Month proclamation of his own. Don't get me wrong, I am like most Americans and I don't like President Obama's healthcare bill and people have a right to be angry, but not racist. The problem for me is the fact that there are elements in the Tea Party movement who are racist and they won't admit it. They are coddling these people, coupled with conservative politicians also encouraging this behavior.

Continued>>>
http://blackpoliticalthought.blogspot.com/2010/04/sons-of-confederate-veterans-says-they.html

[brewens]

1. I watched civil war historian/author Shelby Foote on C-SPAN2

a few years ago. I definitely remember him commenting on people that display the confederate battle flag. He said something like, "they are a bunch of yayhoos that should have never been born to see it fly."
I think rednecks with that on their pickups are saying to black people, if we had our way you'd be right back in the fields picking cotton. I worked with a guy that bragged about putting his confederate flag out on Martin Luther King Day. I don't need to quote what he said, you can't imagine much worse.
I'm sure there are a few people that can justifiably be proud of what their confederate ancestors did. Maybe poor people that fought bravely defending their homes.

[PSzymeczek]

3. My grandfather (yes, my mother's father)

was in the Confederate Army (Company C, 3rd Arkansas Infantry) for 6 months when he was 15. I sort of don't think he saw any action.

[Blue_Tires]

2. kick

[autorank]

4. This will get interesting

Here you go. Nice lineage:

"Civil War historian James M. McPherson has associated the SCV with the neo-confederate movement and described board members of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia as "undoubtedly neo-Confederate." He further said that the SCV and their equivalent for female descendants, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), have "white supremacy" as their "thinly veiled agendas." <29> The incident made McPherson a controversial figure among Confederate history groups and prompted a UDC boycott call and letter-writing campaign against him. In response to this boycott, McPherson stated that he did not mean to imply that all SCV or UDC chapters or anyone who belongs to them promote a white supremacist agenda. He further stated that some of these people have a hidden agenda.<30>"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_Confederate_Veterans#cite_note-29