What does this bumper sticker mean?

Its our brand new DEAD AIR holiday bumper-sticker-deciphering contest! WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?-- please offer your 2 cents.

I haven't thought of any cool prizes yet, but working on it.


I took this photo about two miles from here in a public parking lot in a nice suburb. Not in the backwoods or anything. But of course, this is still the South.



~*~



I understand the basic assertion of the bumper sticker: The Confederacy would never have "left" the POWs and MIAs in Vietnam. (And that's some deliberately-inflammatory rhetoric right there, that they were somehow "left" deliberately. By whom?)

1) Does this mean the Confederacy would have had a Vietnam war too, in some alternative universe that never happened?

2) Does this include the African-American soldiers, too? (Can they be forgiven for thinking that your word ain't much, on this particular score?)

Any other questions, please ask in comments. Play along at home!

~*~

PS: This also gets put in my "You Yankees don't know how easy you've got it!" file.

Confederate Memorial

We went down to Springwood Cemetery, because Mr Daisy discovered that one of his favorite mystery authors was buried there, John Dickson Carr.



And so, while we were there, we had a look around. It was cloudy and overcast, giving off a perfect Halloween vibe. We saw some interesting tombstones, many very old.

This statue was on a toddler-aged child's tombstone, very poignant:




This being the South, lots of references to heaven:




Springwood Cemetery is well-known as a famous Confederate resting place. There are countless tombstones accompanied by the historic CSA (Confederate States of America) marker. Many are unmarked stones. It is a popular site for genealogical researchers, as well as history buffs.

Memorial to General Robert E Lee:



Interestingly, it is now known as Main Street, and hasn't been called "Dixie Highway" since I have lived here.


And there is a Confederate Memorial with some sobering words on the side. I knew as soon as I read it, I had to share it here.




The monument reads:

All lost, but by the graves
Where martyred heroes rest
He wins the most who honor saves
Success is not the test
The world shall yet decide
In Truth's clear far-off light
that the soldiers
who wore the Gray and died
with Lee, were in the right.


Obviously, speaking from 2013, Truth's clear far-off light has decided the opposite. But see, how utterly certain they were? As certain as today's war-partisans are.

And I often wonder, how will history judge us?

A way down south in Dixie

At left: Alexander Gardner's famous historical photo of the hanging of co-conspirators Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt, 1865.



Locally, the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War has brought them all out of the woodwork to dress up like rebel soldiers. (As I've said here before, I think a crucial aspect of this is the long-suppressed desire of grown men to play dress-up.) Before any of the rebels yell at me [1], let me present my credentials: I have an ancestor who risked his life to run away, and I qualify for this discussion. (And in my genealogy, there are a few more where he came from, on both the Union and CSA side. But great-great-great-granddaddy Hatcher is my pacifist DNA and my favorite confederate ancestor.)

I have never bought into the whole southern glamour of the Civil War, although I like Vivien Leigh as much as the next person. But getting starry-eyed and romantic over lost causes is not something I was raised to do. However, I have been paying attention, and I have figured out that much of this Civil War Nostalgia is bluntly nationalist in origin. White southerners still feel dissed by the mass culture, and this is a way of honoring those who feel continuously insulted. Just as there is a secessionist vibe all over Texas that has never quite abated, there is a similar tone running through discussions of the vanquished Confederate States of America. This is why so many of them protest that "It isn't about slavery!"--since for them, it isn't. It's about where they live NOW. It's about southern pride, about place, about the mass culture employing actors with bad southern accents to be the butt of sitcom jokes and commercials. It's about people making fun of rednecks for being uneducated. It's about global capitalism colonizing old neighborhoods, old folkways and rearranging everything so that it is unrecognizable to the people who grew up here. It's about yankees not understanding WHO DIED in the Civil War and/or who decided to swim across the river like Thomas Hatcher: poor white people. Not Stonewall Jackson.

We were used as cannon fodder, as always. [2] That is something to MOURN, not celebrate, and that is where I get off the bus. WE WAS HAD, WE WAS USED, a buncha rich planters USED us to jab at Abraham Lincoln. That should make you angry, not make you want to organize a charity costume ball.

I'm glad the Civil War anniversary has at least produced an interesting film; I do want to see the new movie The Conspirator. Lots of people do not know who Mary Suratt was, and that she was the first woman executed in the USA. Nice to see some of this history brought out in movie-form, where people will actually see it... those of you who think all southern white women were Melanie Hamilton Wilkes, you should have a look. I don't know if the movie takes the position that Suratt was guilty or innocent, but she was likely guilty. Death by hanging, of course, is rather harsh.

But you know, you kill Abraham Lincoln, people are going to be pissed.

~*~

How SHOULD we commemorate this awful, violent period of American history? Is there a way to honor the dead (including dead slaves) in a respectful way that includes everyone? Or is this simply impossible?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

~*~


1) I knew if I tried hard enough, I could work "rebel yell" into the post, so congratulate me. That's as close as I could get.

2) We are being used as cannon fodder right now too, but they don't seem too worried about that. (((Daisy scowls in disapproval)))

Odds and Sods - Aries 2011 edition

Happy Aries and happy April. Hope all is well in Blogdonia!

As for me, I am doing much better than, say, Ashley Judd, who started a controversy with this quote from her recent book:

"As far as I'm concerned, most rap and hip-hop music -- with its rape culture and insanely abusive lyrics and depictions of girls and women as 'ho's' -- is the contemporary soundtrack of misogyny."

And now everybody is mad at her. (sigh)

See yesterday's post. This is why the current discourse remains at kindergarten level, because public figures are chronically afraid of "offending" someone by offering an honest opinion. As Ta-Nehisi Coates writes at the above link, Judd is already backpedaling and trying to minimize the impact of her statement.

~*~

By way of Suzan, here is the always-amazing truth-teller Chris Hedges:

Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the “Texas Miracle,” is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.

Passing bubble tests celebrates and rewards a peculiar form of analytical intelligence. This kind of intelligence is prized by money managers and corporations. They don’t want employees to ask uncomfortable questions or examine existing structures and assumptions. They want them to serve the system. These tests produce men and women who are just literate and numerate enough to perform basic functions and service jobs. The tests elevate those with the financial means to prepare for them. They reward those who obey the rules, memorize the formulas and pay deference to authority. Rebels, artists, independent thinkers, eccentrics and iconoclasts—those who march to the beat of their own drum—are weeded out.

Amen, amen! Preach it!

(And my kindest, most loving thoughts go out to my favorite teacher, whom I hope is reading.)

~*~

If you eat fish or even take fish oil supplements, please read this account from TIME magazine, titled How My Mercury Level Hit Double the Safety Limit:

But here's what I want to know: How was I exposed to mercury? I don't exactly handle the metal in my job, so I probably wouldn't be directly exposed to it. But I do eat seafood — a lot. I probably have a tuna sandwich twice a week for lunch, and I eat sushi — a habit I picked up during my reporting stint in Japan — almost as often. I always thought those choices were healthy — and indeed, fish like tuna are a valuable source of protein and omega-3 fatty acids, which are good for the heart. But those same fish can have high mercury levels.

~*~

This post is a MUST READ work of art, hands down. Thanks to the intrepid Mr Daisy for forcing me to read it. The graphic alone is worth an award!

Money quote:

I’ve spent the last month helping my neighbors deal with their current health care crisis. She’s not really my neighbor, as she and her sister live next to my parents down the street, but when you live in a town of 300, everyone is your neighbor. They’ve lived next to my folks since I was thirteen. The elder sister (76) was married to an American, and they fled Beirut to America in 1983. Her husband died, so now it is just her and her sister (70.) Her sister had been having some problems, so they went to a doctor, then went to an endocrinologist, and long story short, it appears that she has a thyroid tumor the size of a canned ham in her chest. If she does not have it removed, it will continue to grow and kill her. We don’t know if it is cancerous, and there is no real way to know for sure, as it is so big that any biopsy of one area may not show anything, but cancer may exist elsewhere. Over the past few weeks, we have been to ENT doctors, cardiologists, thoracic surgeons, general practitioners, we’ve had biopsy, nuclear stress tests, cat scans, EKG’s, EEG’s, the works. In a couple weeks, she will have life-saving surgery, and she is healthy as a horse and will probably live for another twenty years.

Why am I telling you this? Because Medicare is paying for it. You, me, and everyone else who pays taxes is keeping this woman alive, and I am here to tell you it is worth every penny. She’s a wonderful, witty, charming woman with a lot to give the world. Without medicare, and under the Ryan “plan,” there is no chance she would be able to afford insurance, no one would insure a woman of her age with this health problem (just like it was before there was no medicare), no chance she would be able to afford the work that has and will be done, no one to provide the care she will need after surgery, and this tumor would be a death sentence. Her options would be… to die.

~*~

Sometimes, you think they must be making this stuff up. For instance: GOP Marks Oil Spill Anniversary With Drilling Push. Are they joking with that?

Nope.

We're one week away from the first anniversary of the worst oil spill in the nation's history, and to commemorate it, House Republicans spent Wednesday marking up a trio of bills that would dramatically increase drilling in the US.

The bills, all from Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, would open new areas for drilling in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans, as well as Alaska's Bristol Bay. They would also speed up the process of approving drilling permits; after 60 days permits will be considered approved regardless of whether an environmental review is complete.

(((screams)))

~*~

And when I read stuff like the following, I just shake my head, stunned... see, in these parts, the dispute would be that someone did NOT want to say the Pledge of Allegiance:

Town wrestles with Pledge of Allegiance

BROOKLINE, Mass., April 13 (UPI) -- A Boston suburb is embroiled in a dispute about saying the Pledge of Allegiance in its public schools.

The policy approved last week by the Brookline School Committee requires the recitation of the pledge once a week in all K-8 schools. School officials said they were trying to find a policy that would meet both the state mandate on the pledge and court rulings banning students or staff members from being forced to say it, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday.

The school committee specifically said no student is required to join in, but those who do not must maintain a respectful silence. At the same time, the committee said children who do recite the pledge must not make fun of or harass those who do not.

The pledge became an issue when Gerardo Martinez, principal of Devotion School, one of the eight K-8 schools, sent parents a letter in December. He said the Pledge of Allegiance, which had not been recited at Devotion for about five years, would be said voluntarily once a week.

Brookline, a liberal enclave in one of the most liberal states and the hometown of former Gov. Michael Dukakis, who was accused of lack of patriotism when he ran for president in 1988, became a target on conservative blogs.

Parents and other residents have lined up on both sides. Katie Tagliavia said she found it "horrifying" that most of the girls in her Scout troop did not know the pledge, while Martin Rosenthal, a former selectman and father of a Devotion student, said he does not see any educational value in reciting it.

It's like news from another country.

Maybe it is. After all, for four years, this WAS another country, called the Confederate States of America. I hope to address the Civil War nostalgia of the moment (150th anniversary of the war) in a later post. Simply put, I believe the election of a black president has brought the nostalgia to a rather noxious boiling point. Ugh.

~*~

And finally... your much-delayed dose of cute: Harley and Daisy endure necessary housing repairs!

This would very much upset my (quite spoiled and overprotected) kitties, so I think they are doing GREAT! I hope everything is back to normal in your home soon, Harley and Daisy! :)

More fun in the Carolina sun

At left: Frank Murray, Sen. Glenn McConnell in a Union uniform, and Sharon Cooper-Murray. (Photo from the Columbia State)





I never knew Senator McConnell was once in a movie about the Hunley... I assume it was The Hunley (1999), the most well-known cinematic account... where he got to play Civil War dress-up as a movie extra. (And FTR, I think it's perfectly fine when grown men engage in Cos-Play, but I wish they'd just own up to what they're doing!)

As for these photos, though? Dumbfounding. McConnell is a Confederate re-enactor, so is anybody really surprised?

From FITSNEWS:

The National Federation of Republican Women (NFRW) held its annual fall Board of Directors meeting in Charleston, S.C. last weekend – a decision the organization is likely regretting after several controversial pictures from one of the meeting’s sponsored events began surfacing on the internet.

One of the pictures shows S.C. Senate President Glenn McConnell - who FITS readers will recall enjoys dressing up as a Confederate General – posing in his Rebel garb with a pair of African-Americans dressed in, um, “antebellum” attire.

The event in question – dubbed “A Southern Experience” – was held last Friday evening at the Country Club of Charleston. Hosted by the South Carolina Federation of Republican Women, it was included on the national conference’s official itinerary.

In addition to McConnell, S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford attended (and spoke at) the event – although it was not listed on his weekly public schedule. S.C. Republican Attorney General nominee Alan Wilson also attended.

Invited speakers to the NFRW conference included U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, RNC Chairman Michael Steele, Rep. Joe Wilson, House Speaker Bobby Harrell, former U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins and GOP gubernatorial nominee Nikki Haley.

Many more photos at the link, all posted right on FACEBOOK.

From Roddie Burris of the Columbia State, by way of the Spartanburg Herald:

A photo of Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, outfitted in a Union Navy captain's uniform and posing with two African-Americans dressed in “slave garb,” is making the rounds on the Internet.

McConnell, easily the most powerful state senator, said the photo depicts friends greeting each other after a re-enactment performance to showcase several genres of South Carolina history to conferees from across the country. The picture was taken during a Republican women's conference in Charleston last week.

But the image — with the slave dress, the period military uniform and McConnell, who is widely known in South Carolina for his avid participation in Civil War re-enactments and for preserving the Confederate Hunley submarine — is viewed by some as offensive.

McConnell, a Charleston Republican, said the uniform he's wearing in the picture is the same uniform he wore in a movie about the Hunley, in which he had a nonspeaking role. He also points out he is not wearing a Confederate uniform, but a Union uniform that the hosts asked him to wear.

McConnell said there is nothing racist about the picture and people should “receive (the re-enactment and subsequent photo) in the spirit in which it was presented that evening,” meaning a learning experience.

But others say the image evokes painful memories of historic oppression in this state, as South Carolina once had the nation's second-largest slave port in Charleston, where the photo was snapped.

“That's the senator's unfortunate world view,” said Rev. Joe Darby, first vice president of the state NAACP, speaking of the photo depicting a Civil War era white military officer alongside black slaves. “The troubling question is how much does his world view affect his approach to public policy?”

Yet to be seen is how much such an image might affect the Republican Party, which has been trumpeting its gains among minorities this year.

Ya think?

I'm more amazed by how they're not ashamed of anything they do.

Which brings me to...

Rebel Jim DeMint sparks GOP Senate civil war
By MANU RAJU
Updated: 9/16/10
POLITICO

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint accidentally walked into a room full of lobbyists Wednesday morning and declared that “Republicans are not prepared to take over the Senate,” according to people in the room.

Some Republicans agree — and say he may be part of the reason why.

Senate Republicans are now even more embroiled in an intraparty civil war in which DeMint has been the lead rebel, and the victory by conservative Christine O’Donnell over establishment favorite Rep. Mike Castle in Delaware only deepened GOP divisions that could haunt Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell well into next year.

Behind closed doors Wednesday, Republican senators tried to assess the damage. Several senators at the lunch, including Scott Brown of Massachusetts, raised concerns that the party has sent a message that it had no room for moderates, even from left-leaning states, according to people familiar with the exchanges. And others expressed frustration that the GOP had essentially given away a pivotal seat that Castle could have won.

DeMint was pressed by several of his colleagues at the closed-door session Wednesday to pony up money from his high-spending political action committee to boost O’Donnell’s chances against Democrat Chris Coons, who already leads by double digits in a race that was a Republican lock had Castle won.

“In other words, put your money where your mouth is,” said a senior Republican official, who characterized the exchange as cordial.

DeMint agreed that he would — and tried to play the role as a peacemaker.

“Every Republican senator has a responsibility to help Christine build the resources she needs to win in November,” DeMint told POLITICO. “The primaries are over, and now is the time to unify as a party. I’m certainly going to do everything I can to support Christine and other Republican candidates to defeat the Democrats this fall, and I expect others to do the same.”

A DeMint aide said the senator’s PAC, the Senate Conservatives Fund, was on pace to raise $100,000 by the end of Wednesday, with an initial goal of dumping $174,000 into the race.

Read the whole thing.

THIS is the kinda thing I was talking about, when I wrote "What's the matter with South Carolina?"... the MAJOR POLITICAL ERROR, wherein progressives and liberals decided to write off our state. This was a huge mistake. Not simply for the (I hope) obvious reasons, but because it gave the American Tea Party-Right wing a consolidation-point, a working power-base of operations.

The Upstate, my district, Jim DeMint's home (he lives only a couple of miles from here), is GROUND ZERO of the Right-wing network. They can do all of this meddling in the affairs of OTHER PLACES (like your district) since they face no genuine electoral threat from progressives at home. We have been neutralized, so they are free to do what they want, which means no end of the mischief.

See, what if you had funded us ON THE GROUND, like before DeMint even got into the Senate, and was still in the House? How might that have worked out?

During this next autumn, as you watch Nikki Haley light up network TV as designated Tea Party darling, think it over.

Get back to us, we're here. Take a lesson from the Tea Party, and consider funding the insurgents for a change.

Confederate Memorial Day

CSA Battle Flag image from The Palmetto Scoop.



Today is officially Confederate Memorial Day. This day in history marks the capture of Jefferson Davis. From the Greenville News:

COLUMBIA — All state agencies, 10 counties and one school district in South Carolina are observing Confederate Memorial Day.

The state holiday is officially May 10, but employees get Monday off.

The holiday marks the death of Confederate commander Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

South Carolina is among several Southern states that designate a state holiday to honor Confederate soldiers, although they do so on different days. Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi observed Confederate Memorial Day on April 27th. Texas honors Gen. Robert E. Lee's birthday, Jan. 19, as Confederate Heroes Day.

May 10 was renewed as an official holiday in South Carolina in 2000 as part of a compromise that also made Martin Luther King Day a permanent holiday.

I have my issues with "Confederate Memorial Day" and its questionable political genesis, but then again, I figure I can use this day any way I like.

I'd like to take this day to honor one of my ancestors, a CSA Army deserter named (by most accounts) Thomas Hatcher. A native of Virginia, he deserted the Confederate army at about the Civil War's mid-point, and swam across the Ohio River, eventually taking up residence in Pittsburgh. He was variously known as TA Hatcher and TJ Hatcher, as well as several other names; I don't know anything else about him, except that he appeared to stay on the move, even after the war's end.

One might presume that deserting the CSA was some risky business, and that is why he moved around a lot and changed his name. Was he proud or ashamed? What made him do it? Whatever his reasons, I am extremely proud of him. This decision cost him his family and his former life. He stayed in the north, and from all I have been able to discern, never went back to the south.

As I have written here before, I don't know if he was sick, injured or just fed up and disgusted. I like to think it was the latter, and he had seen enough. I trace a direct line from great-great-great grandfather Hatcher to my own anti-war sentiments that have sustained me throughout a lifetime. I enjoy believing that pacifist convictions are encoded in my DNA.

On this day, I honor you, Thomas Hatcher, for having the courage to lay down your arms and beat swords into plowshares. I am lighting a candle to honor your great decision not to continue fighting in a racist war.

Far between sundown's finish and midnight's broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing

Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
And for each and every underdog, soldier in the night
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

(Bob Dylan, Chimes of Freedom)

NAACP wages new effort to bring down Confederate flag

CSA Battle Flag image from The Palmetto Scoop.

~*~

My first confederate flag thread is here, in which I said all I am going to say (too much, as usual). The NAACP's new campaign against the flag starts on October 2nd.

NAACP wages new effort to bring down Confederate flag

Governor says he won’t get involved

By Tim Smith • STAFF WRITER, Greenville News
September 23, 2008

COLUMBIA -- The South Carolina and North Carolina chapters of the NAACP called the Confederate flag that flies on Statehouse grounds here a symbol of evil and terrorism and said Monday they will join in their efforts to remove it.

“As long as this flag blows, it pushes a foul wind of separatism, division and racism that is not contained by the borders of South Carolina,” said the Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP. The two chapters of the organization used the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation to announce new efforts.

North Carolina’s NAACP plans to fight any cooperation between that state and South Carolina in film projects until the flag is removed, Barber said.

Dr. Lonnie Randolph, president of the South Carolina NAACP, said press conferences supporting a boycott of South Carolina were held simultaneously in seven southeastern states.

“This is not a South Carolina issue,” he said. “This is a national issue.”

The battle flag was moved to its current location near the Confederate Soldiers Memorial on the north side of the Statehouse in 2000 as a result of a legislative compromise to take it off the Statehouse dome. The NAACP has protested its location ever since and organized a tourism and travel boycott of the state.

On Monday, Gov. Mark Sanford repeated his previously stated reluctance to get involved in the flag fight.

“That would consume the two years I have left, and I have to stay focused on the things that I originally made pledges to voters on,” he said.

This summer, Randolph revealed the civil rights organization was working with some officials in Hollywood to keep film projects from locating in the state as part of the NAACP’s campaign.

Randolph said Monday that he couldn’t yet disclose who in Hollywood is assisting the NAACP but said the organization planned to announce some “high-profile names” in time for the NAACP’s 100th anniversary early next year.

Both men said they are also working to block collaborative agreements between the two state’s film offices.

“We don’t believe our film industry in North Carolina ought to be doing collaborative work with South Carolina until such time as this flag is removed,” Barber said.

Barber said the battle flag is wrong morally “because it supported the evils of slavery.”

“We wouldn’t allow al-Qaida to fly their flag,” he said. “We wouldn’t allow the Bloods and the Crips to fly their flag. We wouldn’t allow another country to fly its flag. We should not allow that which represents terrorism and secession to be flown.”

Randolph said little progress has been made in the Statehouse on the issue but said change that benefits blacks in the state rarely occurs except as a result of war, constitutional changes, an executive order or the death of someone.

“The Klansmen don’t wear white sheets anymore,” he said. “They wear three-piece suits and carry briefcases. But they do the same damage that they used to.”

Randolph said the state’s 67th annual convention will be held in Charlotte, beginning Oct. 2, the eighth year the NAACP in South Carolina has moved out of state for its convention to observe the flag boycott.

----------------
Listening to: Louis Armstrong - Stardust
via FoxyTunes

Still fighting over THAT flag...

Left: Yes, you know what it is. (Image from The Palmetto Scoop.)

~*~

For foreign readers (and Americans who didn't memorize their history lessons): South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union in 1860. Largely for this reason, Union forces fired on Fort Sumter, which is considered the official beginning of the Civil War. Yes, it all started here!!!!

How to honor such history respectfully, is the question.

It seems we still can't agree on that.

Although the CSA battle flag is on South Carolina statehouse grounds, it is no longer in the front and is displayed as part of a memorial to the deceased CSA soldiers. No one objects to the memorial itself (that I know of); it's the flag that raises objections and gets everyone all stirred up.

From the Greenville News today:

Confederate group plans response to flag flap

Organization denies comments about flying more flags to counter NAACP

By Tim Smith • CAPITAL BUREAU • July 17, 2008

COLUMBIA -- The Sons of Confederate Veterans plans a response to the NAACP's push to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds but denied Wednesday one of its officers' statements that it would fly flags around the state in reaction.

Meanwhile, in response to questions by The Greenville News on Wednesday about whether he supported moving the flag, a spokesman for the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. John McCain said the issue of the flag has already been resolved.

"Sen. McCain has said repeatedly that he could not be more proud of the overwhelming majority of the people of South Carolina who have come together to resolve the issue," said Mario Diaz, a spokesman for the campaign.

A spokesman for the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama couldn't be reached for comment.

State NAACP President Lonnie Randolph said Tuesday the national organization had asked actors and movie studio representatives to observe the NAACP's economic sanctions against the state until the flag is moved off Statehouse grounds. He said the civil rights organization had received "very positive" responses.

The battle flag flies behind the Confederate soldiers' monument near a busy Columbia intersection, the result of a legislative compromise in 2000 to bring the flag off the Statehouse dome.

Randy Burbage, who leads South Carolina members in the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said the group's officials will consider proposed responses to the NAACP actions when they meet in two weeks.

"We're weighing different options," he said. "We always respond to attacks on our heritage, and we feel like that's what this is."

He said he was "not at liberty" to describe what was being considered, but he denied the comments of another officer earlier in the day who said the organization planned to raise flags across the state in response to the NAACP's latest campaign to remove the flag.

"That's not true," he said. "He misspoke on that. There's no plan to do that. I'm puzzled as to why he even said that. He's not the spokesman for the organization. I've already spoken to him today, and he admitted that he misspoke on that."

Burbage said it was also untrue that the organization planned to raise a flag each time the NAACP complained or that the organization was negotiating with a landowner to raise a giant flag near a Midlands interstate, just as supporters have raised such flags in Florida.

"I don't know how I can put these fires out at this point," he said. "That's him speaking for himself, not this organization."

My observation? It never ends.

----------------
Listening to: Yo La Tengo - Moby Octopad
via FoxyTunes

October 16, 1859

The biographies either emphasize what a mild-mannered fellow he was, or how crazy he was; fire in the eyes. I would like to have met him, and seen for myself.

I assume his demeanor changed, depending on the subject at hand.

Radicals from Ohio swear he was from Ohio, as radicals from New York swear the same. In fact, he was born in Torrington, Connecticut:

During his first fifty years, John Brown moved about the country, settling in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts, taking along his ever-growing family. (He would father twenty children.) Working at various times as a farmer, wool merchant, tanner, and land speculator, he never was financially successful -- he even filed for bankruptcy when in his forties. His lack of funds, however, did not keep him from supporting causes he believed in. He helped finance the publication of David Walker's Appeal and Henry Highland's "Call to Rebellion" speech. He gave land to fugitive slaves. He and his wife agreed to raise a black youth as one of their own. He also participated in the Underground Railroad and, in 1851, helped establish the League of Gileadites, an organization that worked to protect escaped slaves from slave catchers.

In 1847 Frederick Douglass met Brown for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts. Of the meeting Douglass stated that, "though a white gentleman, [Brown] is in sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery." It was at this meeting that Brown first outlined his plan to Douglass to lead a war to free slaves.

Brown moved to the black community of North Elba, New York, in 1849. The community had been established thanks to the philanthropy of Gerrit Smith, who donated tracts of at least 50 acres to black families willing to clear and farm the land. Brown, knowing that many of the families were finding life in this isolated area difficult, offered to establish his own farm there as well, in order to lead the blacks by his example and to act as a "kind father to them."

Despite his contributions to the antislavery cause, Brown did not emerge as a figure of major significance until 1855 after he followed five of his sons to the Kansas territory.

And in Kansas, it got ugly.

It's important to remember that he was a violent man. He fully believed that he who lived by the sword, died by the sword.

Literally, he used swords:

In Aug. 1855 he followed 5 of his sons to Kansas to help make the state a haven for anti-slavery settlers. The following year, his hostility toward slave-staters exploded after they burned and pillaged the free-state community of Lawrence. Having organized a militia unit within his Osawatomie River colony, Brown led it on a mission of revenge. On the evening of 23 May 1856, he and 6 followers, including 4 of his sons, visited the homes of pro-slavery men along Pottawatomie Creek, dragged their unarmed inhabitants into the night, and hacked them to death with long-edged swords. At once, "Old Brown of Osawatomie" became a feared and hated target of slave-staters.

Of course, I have been to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. I have seen the armory's engine house, which isn't even as big as a typical contemporary suburban house. I remember being startled at it's wee size: Did he really think he could hold them off from there? Good lord. A suicide mission!!! Or did he really believe a mass slave rebellion would ensue? Perhaps he had reason to be optimistic, but in retrospective, such an endeavor seems like madness:

...Brown had only 21 men (16 white and 5 black - three free blacks, one freed slave, and a fugitive slave). They ranged in age from 21 to 49. Twelve of them had been with Brown in Kansas raids.

On October 16, 1859, Brown (leaving three men behind as a rear guard) led 19 men in an attack on the Harpers Ferry Armory. He had received 200 breechloading .52 caliber Sharps carbines and pikes from northern abolitionist societies in preparation for the raid. The armory was a large complex of buildings that contained 100,000 muskets and rifles, which Brown planned to seize and use to arm local slaves. They would then head south, drawing off more and more slaves from plantations, and fighting only in self-defense. As Frederick Douglass and Brown's family testified, his strategy was essentially to deplete Virginia of its slaves, causing the institution to collapse in one county after another, until the movement spread into the South, essentially wreaking havoc on the economic viability of the pro-slavery states. Thus, while violence was essential to self-defense and advancement of the movement, Brown's hope was to limit and minimize bloodshed, not ignite a slave insurrection as many have charged. From the Southern point of view, of course, any effort to arm the enslaved was perceived as a definitive threat.

Initially, the raid went well. They met no resistance entering the town. They cut the telegraph wires and easily captured the armory, which was being defended by a single watchman. They next rounded up hostages from nearby farms, including Colonel Lewis Washington, great-grand-nephew of George Washington. They also spread the news to the local slaves that their liberation was at hand. Things started to go wrong when an eastbound Baltimore & Ohio train approached the town. The train's baggage master tried to warn the passengers. Brown's men yelled for him to halt and then opened fire. The baggage master, Hayward Shepherd, became the first casualty of John Brown's war against slavery. Ironically, Shepherd was a free black man. For some reason, after the shooting of Shepherd, Brown allowed the train to continue on its way. News of the raid reached Washington by late morning.

In the meantime, local farmers, shopkeepers, and militia pinned down the raiders in the armory by firing from the heights behind the town. Some of the local men were shot by Brown's men. At noon, a company of militia seized the bridge, blocking the only escape route. Brown then moved his prisoners and remaining raiders into the engine house, a small brick building at the entrance to the armory. He had the doors and windows barred and loopholes were cut through the brick walls. The surrounding forces barraged the engine house, and the men inside fired back with occasional fury. Brown sent his son Watson and another supporter out under a white flag, but the angry crowd shot them. Intermittent shooting then broke out, and Brown's son Oliver was wounded. His son begged his father to kill him and end his suffering, but Brown said "If you must die, die like a man." A few minutes later he was dead. The exchanges lasted throughout the day.

By morning (October 18) the engine house, later known as John Brown's Fort, was surrounded by a company of U.S. Marines under the command of Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee of the United States Army. A young Army lieutenant, J.E.B. Stuart, approached under a white flag and told the raiders that their lives would be spared if they surrendered. Brown refused, saying, "No, I prefer to die here." Stuart then gave a signal. The Marines used sledge hammers and a make-shift battering-ram to break down the engine room door. Lieutenant Israel Greene cornered Brown and struck him several times, wounding his head. In three minutes Brown and the survivors were captives. Altogether Brown's men killed four people, and wounded nine. Ten of Brown's men were killed (including his sons Watson and Oliver). Five of Brown's men escaped (including his son Owen), and seven were captured along with Brown.

We need to go back to my post on Saturday morning, and play the James Brown refrain here: I'm a bad mother. Indeed, by all accounts, Brown dazzled all the soldiers and authorities he encountered, with his utter lack of fear and total righteous attitude.

And then, his trial, which for it's day, apparently made OJ's look like a tea party. His famous final words, upon his death sentence:

I have, may it please the Court, a few words to say.

In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted: of a design on my part to free slaves . . .

Had I interfered in the matter which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved . . . had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, or the so-called great . . . and suffered and sacrificed, what I have in this interference, it would have been all right. Every man in this Court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.

I see a book kissed which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament, which teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do unto me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me further to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say that I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, I did no wrong, but right.

Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked,cruel and unjust enactments, I say, let it be done.

John Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859, virtually the eve of the Civil War. Some people blamed him for the Civil War. And certainly, his unapologetic, incendiary abolitionist presence hovered over Union troops, and they even made up a marching song about him, which they sang with enthusiasm. The Battle Hymn of the Republic was taken from the Union marching song:

John Brown's body lies a moulderin in the grave
John Brown's body lies a moulderin in the grave
John Brown's body lies a moulderin in the grave
But his soul goes marching on

Yes, I do like Julia Ward Howe's Christian rewrite, but I have always preferred the original.

The discussion of vigilante/street justice and whether it is ever warranted continues today; on the right, regarding violence against abortion clinics, doctors and employees; on the left, regarding direct-action groups like Earth First and the Animal Liberation Front. In the 70s, the Weather Underground, as well as radicals such as Karl Armstrong and David Fine, rekindled a long-standing feud between those radicals who held to pacifism at all costs, and those who thought pacifism rendered one a sitting duck.

And in every such discussion, there is his name, waved about like a bloodied banner: What about John Brown? His name is invoked as an indictment, as well as a blessing.

His soul goes marching on.




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Listening to: Patti Smith Group - Till Victory
via FoxyTunes