In his book, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory by Yale historian David W. Blight describes in detail how the history of the Civil War-its meaning, cause, purpose and effect-was completely rewritten to reflect the views of Southern racist ideology over a period of 50 years after the war. Blight describes the interactions of three different broad visions of Civil War memory-reconciliationist, emancipationist and white supremacist-which contended with one another over time. Eventually, the reconciliationist narrative, which had its roots in revulsion at the sheer horror of the war itself, became completely subsumed by the white supremacist narrative, simply because the South refused reconciliation on any other terms, thus resulting in the virtual elimination of the historically accurate emancipationist narrative, which did not fully re-emerge until the Civil Right era in the 1950s and 60s. I wrote about Blight's book at some length in my December, 2008 diary, "American Amnesia: The Cost of Accommodating The South".
In turn, something very similar to the process Blight describes has been underway to rewrite the history of the Civil Rights Movement itself, and the recent uproar over Harry Reid's clumsy remarks about Obama's appearance and speech is a classic illustration of that process at work. Another example is the Facebook invitation I recently received to attend the Republican Party of Los Angeles County's "first annual" Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy Awards Dinner. The event description began:
Please join the Republican Party of Los Angeles County as we honor two great Republicans who embody the courage and spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. - A Republican who stood for individual responsibility and spoke eloquently and boldly in defense of liberty and justice for all.
The dreams of Dr. King live on in scores of Republicans today. This year our first annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Legacy Award will be presented to Star Parker and Walter Allen.
This crude attempt to reinvent King as a conservative Republican is laughable to anyone the least bit familiar with the real King, a democratic socialist well to the left of the entire white political spectrum. Most particularly, as I pointed out in my 1995 MLK Day essay republished here last night, "Martin Luther King - A Different Drum Major", King's concept of character-as reflected in his speech, "The Drum Major Instinct"-was the polar opposite of the acquisitive conservative ideal, touted by the likes of Parker.
We've been waiting for Obama to make his decision on what to do with troops going into Afghanistan to attack Al Qaida (who aren't in Afghanistan any more) after the rerun of the election which was proven to be fraudulent and allowed Karzai to win.
Whew.
I'm really sick of our playing games in the world. With Karzai's brother accused of being a top Heroin Chief, with General McChrystal calling for more troops (while being criticized for his dealings with the Pat Tillman controversy), with a Civil War going on amid the Afghans that WE CANNOT CORRECT (just ask the Russians)... we are perceived as Occupiers and we should get out.
This blog was written by Robert Blair at Huffington Post. We received permission from Mr. Blair to cross-post it here. We ask that, if you have a Huffington Post account, you leave any comments there.
A diary I wrote last week, "Northern Racism--Yes, I Know It Exists", sparked a response at Street Prophets, "Neo-Confederate Thought and Racism" by Matthew Krell, that inadvertantly helps make my point clearer in the larger argument crititicizing Southern political culture as distinct from individual Southerners.
I have no reason at all to think Krell a racist. For all I know he's a fine upstanding progressive. And yet, his diary is devoted to yet another argument that slavery was not the cause of the Civil War:
On the jump, I explore (but do not claim to make a definitive statement on) the idea that the Civil War (as a war, not as a conflict that could escalate to war) was caused not by slavery, not by federalism or any of the "neo-Confederate" bullshit that Rosenberg calls apologia, but by a simple problem - the weakness of the rule of law.
Well, let me just say this about that: every war there ever was could be said to be caused by the weakness of the rule of law. At least every civil war. But it takes a certain sort of cultural myopia that's endemic in the South not to recognize this obvious fact.
The South's attempt to kill the North's auto industry is the latest battle in an ongoing conflict. It's time for a Third Reconstruction to put an end to it.
Dec. 18, 2008 | It is just as well that Barack Obama is emulating Abraham Lincoln by traveling to his inauguration in Washington by train. As the regional politics of the automobile bailout controversy demonstrate, the Civil War continues. If the major U.S. automobile companies go under, it will be partly because timely federal aid for them was blocked by members of Congress like Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, whose states have created their own counter-Detroit in the form of Japanese, Korean, and German transplant factories. The South will have risen by bringing down the North. Jefferson Davis will have had his revenge.
The most shocking thing about the alliance between the Southern states and America's friendly but earnest economic rivals to destroy America's most important industry is the fact that so few people find it shocking. Contrast the U.S. with the European Union. The nation-states of the European Union collaborate with each other in order to compete against foreign economic rivals, including the U.S., Japan, and China. By contrast, many states, particularly in the South, collaborate with foreign economic rivals of the U.S. in order to compete against other American states. Any British or French or German leader who proposed collaborating with Japan or the U.S. in order to wipe out industry and destroy jobs in neighboring EU member states would be jeered out of office. But it is perfectly acceptable for American states to connive with Asian and European countries in the destruction of industry elsewhere in the U.S.
Is it really that simple? In a word: yes!
I mean, look, these people are traitors. They tried to destroy the country in order to preserve slavery. They are the last people to be lecturing anyone on patriotism. And yet, quite unlike them, we cannot respond by trying to make them suffer.
