May Day on the Mall - The Fundies Strike Back

In case you’ve missed it, on May 1st we’re going to be treated to the Right’s very own national revival, a ‘Pray-In’ of sorts on the national mall in Washington, D.C.

Officially entitled “May Day – A Cry To God For A Nation In Distress”, this event is the brainchild of Janet Porter, who heads up a right-wing organization called Faith2Action. (Janet believes, among other things, that President Obama isn’t a citizen; that America ‘made the choice of death’ by electing him, and that the Obama administration is planning to exterminate ‘millions of Christians’ in Federally-sponsored internment camps).

It’s intended to beg God’s ‘forgiveness’ for a nation which has elected an ‘evil man’ as its leader, and which has ‘forsaken God’ at nearly every turn – ostensibly by enforcing the First Amendment (which, according to their ‘scholars’, legalizes idolatry and ‘punishes Christians’ by banning religion in the public school system, etc.)

(Now, personally, I don’t feel that anyone’s ‘god’ has forsaken me, or America. I believe we’re in some pretty dire straits by way of electing thirty years worth of Neocons – many of them fundamentalist Christians – who’ve cut taxes, increased services, and printed or borrowed the difference; started wars we didn’t need and let the banking system pretty much run wild – but those are distinctly human failings, not the actions of a deity).

Saturday’s event will run from ‘sunrise’ until 2:00PM, and will involve some of the religious Right’s ‘rock star’ personalities – along with mainstays like James Dobson and Tim Wildmon, there’ll be David Barton (of ‘Wallbuilders’ fame; he’s the revisionist pseudohistorian who wrote the widely-discredited “The Myth of Separation”, in which he makes a very twisted point for America being a ‘Christian nation’ – along with the case for rewriting large parts of American history while ‘taking America back’, ostensibly to its ‘Biblical roots’ – in other words, a theocracy).

William Federer will be there – he’s another revisionist historian who’ll be speaking on Saturday; Cynthia Dunbar, a member of the Texas State Board of Education (the folks who’ve set the standards for revisionist textbooks for America’s high-schools) will also be speaking.

The religious Right has succeeded, like few movements before, in shifting the nation’s sociopolitical discussion to an extreme. Central to this strategy is the ‘Seven Mountains’ theology, created in 1975 by three fundamentalists (one, Francis Schaeffer, who has rejected the Right, is rarely mentioned today as one of the architects of this system). 

‘Seven Mountains’ theology comprises the ‘seven mountains of culture’ – arts; business; education; family; government; media, and religion. Each will be a focus of the May Day festivities on the mall.

Part of Reconstructionist/Dominionist theology, the ‘seven mountains’ are crucial to the efforts of the religious Right to ‘take America back’. The influence of this theological subset has grown in influence to the extent that it is now the central focus of the May Day activities.

I don’t know about you – but I’ll be watching this one, closely.

Casual Reading:

May Day 2010 (website of the May Day 2010 organizing committee)

Faith2Action (Janet Porter’s website – warning; there’s some pretty screwy-scary stuff here)

GodTV – (web-based fundamentalist Christian television; you can watch the May Day events here)

May Day Prayer Rally To Establish Theocracy (Right Wing Watch - April; 2010 - [Note: Plenty of information on the 'seven mountains' theology which drives this movement.])

May Day 2010 Program (PDF download)

Dominionism (definition; Wikipedia)

Far Right Leaders Vow To 'Take Back America' From 'Evil' Obama and Democrats (Right Wing Watch - September; 2009)

The Demonization of America – Lessons Learned from Oklahoma City, the Tea Party, and the Religious Right

I had something hit me the other day when I heard former president Clinton speak about the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombings – with all the force of a diesel-and-nitrate truck bomb, I realized the Great Truth of current American politics:

The Right – comprising a good deal of the Republican party, the conservative Christian church, and the oft-quoted Wingnut Fringe – hates America.

Ronald Reagan, with his support for gay rights and the First Amendment, probably couldn’t get elected today.  Eisenhower?  His well-founded fear of the military-industrial complex would get him branded a RINO.   Barry Goldwater?   He was in favor of ending discrimination against gays in the military – no chance for him, either.

I’m doubting Richard Nixon, who was in favor of universal health care as far back as 1968, would have a prayer in hell (pardon the pun).   He was a Quaker – and not extreme enough for the Fundies.

There’s a lot of talk in the Tea Party movement about ‘taking our country back’.   From what?   According to them, it’s from a ‘fascist/socialist/tax-and-spend government’.   It’s from a president who’s not really a citizen.

My question is, I believe, more telling:   You want to take your country back.   To what?

The ‘from’ and ‘to’ sides of the question are very different.  With every moron who can carry a misspelled placard now converted as if by some magic alchemy into a Constitutional ‘expert’, the ‘from’ side of the equation is now done-to-death.   We need to throw out the health care bill.  We need to dissolve the Federal Reserve.  We need to throw out president Obama, because he’s not a citizen. 

While we’re at it, we need to do away with civil rights legislation dating back to 1964; all of those Great Society entitlements (Medicare and Medicaid, among others) need to go away.  Hate crimes legislation is keeping preachers from denouncing ‘sin’.  The Second Amendment is under ‘attack’ by gun-control advocates.

In these statements, we have our answer.

To what?  To the very distant past – to a Colonial America, before there was a Constitution.  

The people advocating these things are really seeking a return to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where ‘freedom of religion’ meant that a resident was free to leave if they didn’t accept a very narrow religious worldview.  

Just think – it was an America without an army – people took arms to shoot Indians and other ‘bad people’ when the need arose. 

In truth, these people paid very little in taxes – the Crown taxed goods imported to the Colonies, which was a sore point for over a hundred years, and which finally resulted in one of the flashpoints of the Revolution, but taxation was a minor issue in the Colonies apart from that.

There was no safety-net, apart from the good graces of the local church, which like as not would chastise the unfortunate for his or her ‘sin’, while offering a bowl of soup.   The notion of unemployment insurance wouldn’t have gone over too well.

Education?   It was for the wealthy.  Jefferson’s notion of a universally-educated populace wouldn’t arise for another hundred years, along with the Enlightenment.  In Colonial America, if you had money, you could get an education.   If you didn’t, there wasn’t much chance of you becoming anything other than an unpaid and occasionally-beaten apprentice.

The very roads were private – in fact, that’s where we get the word ‘turnpike’ – a large timber was put on a pivot (pike), which was placed as an obstacle on a private road – the gate was manned by the owner or one of his employees; they’d collect a fee before the road could be used.

Care for the elderly?   Nonexistent.   You worked; then you died.   Life was simple.

This is the ‘America’ which the Tea Partiers and other extremists want.
 

Hating on America

Read a right-wing website lately, and take your pick – in their view, America is in trouble, and they’re getting more vocal about it.
 

Recently, I was apprised of a new right-wing symbol – a 13-star American flag with the Roman numeral “II” in the center of the blue-field; the flag of the Second American Revolution.

Just how is this ‘revolution’ going to take place?  A quick look at the Tea Party placards will give you a good idea.

“I’m Teabagging For Jesus”, read one in Florida, carried by an elderly woman who likely had no idea what the term “Teabagging” really means.   “Descent is Patriotic!”, and “Make English America’s Ofecal Language” , along with “Thank You Fox News For Keeping Us Infromed!” were all on prominent display recently.  (Note:  The flagrant misspellings on most of these signs have given rise to a new faux-language; ‘Teabonics’).

Some are more sinister.   “The American Taxpayers Are The Jews For Obama’s Ovens”, read one.  “Speak For Yourself, Obama – America Is A Christian Nation”, read another.   Religion, you see, isn’t very far from the core tenets of the Second Revolution, and in their warped worldview, is inextricably intertwined with the socioeconomic and political fabric of the nation.

These people have made it clear, both through the public display of their lack of education and the lack of civic knowledge that the America in which they live today is not a place where they want to live tomorrow.

Alternate Governments

Today, a group called the “We The People Foundation” are presenting something they call the ‘Articles of Freedom’ in every state capitol in the country.   Founded in 2008, this foundation called a convention which met in South Carolina in October of 2009, holding (in their words) a ‘Constitutionally correct election’, during which ‘delegates’ were elected to attend a ‘Continental Congress’ in Illinois later in November.

They claim that this ‘Congress’ represented the people of the United States.  

Lest we make the wrongheaded assumption that these people have little support among the broader public, they have support from the Constitution Party and over 30 other organization, both large and small.

So, who are these ‘delegates’?

The names read like a birther’s convention, rather than a ‘Congress’.   Even though her name is misspelled on their website, one of the ‘California Delegates’ is none other than Orly Taitz (you’ll remember her as the dentist-turned-attorney from California who made the infamous fake “Kenyan Birth Certificate” public last summer).

Fringe Organizations

Many of the people who support the Tea Party and the ‘new Continental Congress’ are also members of other fringe groups.   The ‘We The People Foundation’ states in their ‘Articles of Freedom’ that “We have an absence of well-regulated state militias, and we have federal gun control laws, all in violation of the Second Amendment….”

What do they mean by an ‘absence of well-regulated state militias’?   We can take their desire to return to ‘happier times’ in the 18th century as a clue.

Organizations like “Oathkeepers”, “Guardians of the Free Republic” and “Restore the Constitution” are promoting an increasingly antigovernment message – that it’s all right for members of the military, as well as police and firefighters, to refuse orders from the elected government; that it’s not a threat, after all, for hundreds of armed people to gather in a public park to listen to incendiary speeches about the excesses of the current administration, and that it’s all right to send a letter to all 50 governors to ‘stand down or be removed’.

I’m certain that ‘take our country back’ will be a major part of these rallies today, also.

Summing it Up

The steps necessary to accomplish their goals are brutal.   What amazes me is that they’ve already accomplished several of them:

1. A sense of overwhelming crisis, unsolvable by normal means.
2. The belief that the Right is being systematically victimized, justifying any and all subsequent actions, whether  legal, moral - or not.
3. Fear of the decline of the group’s influence (such as what happened in the aftermath of Obama’s election).
4. The need for a ‘purer’ community, by consent if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary.
5. The need for authority – which results in the rise of a leader.
6. The use, and even reverence for, violence as a means to the end.
7. The right of the "chosen" to dominate the rest, that right being ‘natural’ or ‘divine’, and hence beyond question.

I’ll hasten to state that while none of these seven items are necessarily a ‘given’ – I’ll also point out that when Sean Hannity runs a multiple-choice poll asking which avenue we should take to bring about change – military coup; secession; or armed rebellion – and armed rebellion is the winning choice – we have a clear indication that the national conversation has taken a serious shift.  

This, plus the demonization and objectification of their ‘enemies’ indicates that the extremists have moved from the talking stage to the planning stage.  (This, by the way, is why Janet Napolitano raised the alarm about right-wing extremist groups last year, and why both private-watch groups and government agencies alike keep an eye on these people).

Next, the retreat from reality has taken a turn for the surreal.   Alice was given an opportunity, at least, to wake up in her own bed rather than having to see how far down the rabbit-hole went.  The right isn’t according us this opportunity.

Obama is a Kenyan.  His presidency is illegal.  He’s going to outlaw preachers in their pulpits, guns from our homes, and our right to private healthcare.   He’s a Communist/Socialist/Fascist.  Never mind that those definitions aren’t true, and don’t even belong together – the fantasy, in each case, is better than the truth.

Secessionist talk has gone from parlor-room conversation to serious business.   That a group would convene a ‘Continental Congress’ purporting to represent the U.S., then present ‘Articles of Freedom’ in all 50 state capitols on the anniversary of the first battles of the Revolution should have anyone with the capacity for reason and logic more than alarmed.   Successive shocks lose their effect, and we’re now used to the rhetoric – the inmates have taken over the asylum; the extremists are now center-stage in the Conservative tent.

The insular society created by these people is now ready to act.  Millions of pissed-off people, creating their own stories of paranoia, armed to the teeth and answering to a ‘higher law’ have all the makings for a first rate showdown.  While these movements usually lose steam, this one shows no signs of slowing down.   Militia groups have doubled in the past year, and right-wing sites with ‘enemies lists’ have increased significantly (to the point where many are calling for the elimination of these ‘enemies’ by any means necessary).

It’s equally-dismissive for the progressive/liberal press to call for a ‘return to civility’ – as if giving these people a time-out and a swat on the backside is going to magically bring them back to the table to talk sense.  We dismiss these people at our own peril – and perhaps at the peril of the nation.

_______________________________

America is now in the unenviable position of proving to the world that Jefferson and the Enlightenment are still in vogue.   The decisions we make between now and the next twelve to twenty-four months will determine in large measure whether or not we make the leap toward a social democracy, or back to the 18th century.

That process, by the way, will likely involve some very unpleasant things.

The right – with the religious arm of their movement leading the way – has created an insular society.   Born and bred of the homeschool movement, an entire generation is now poised to make decisions based on a very narrow worldview; one which has more in common with 18th-century America than 21st.

That generation has decided, with the help of its parents and older siblings, to create a new America within the current structure, complete with all of the trappings needed to make it a reality.

These people hate the America which would feed the homeless; give a leg-up to the unemployed, and care for the least in society.   

They would replace it with a proto-feudalism which existed in the 18th century – where big business and armies were not only respected, but revered, and where ‘root, hog, and die’ were the watchwords of society.  

They would use the protections of the Constitution to spread their message – and then remove those protections in favor of their own view, both political and religious.

They chose April 19th, 2010 because it is the 235th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.   I don’t need to remind you of the symbolism.

You may feel compelled to disagree with me.  

But please don’t say you weren’t warned.

Reading:

"Articles of Freedom" (works of the 'Continental Congress' - 2009-2010)

"Oklahoma Republicans Conspire With Tea Parties To Form Anti-Federal Government Militia" (ThinkProgress - 2010)

"We The People" (Portal to givemeliberty.org and the Continental Congress - 2010)

"OathKeepers" (Website; 2010)

"Restore The Constitution" (Website of political-action group - 2010)

"Resist.Net" (Website of 'Patriotic Resistance' - 2010)

"Sean Hannity Website Poll" (through DailyKos - 2010)

"Prayer Warriors and Palin Organizing Spiritual Warfare To Take Over America" (Truthout.Org - 2010)

"Guardians of the Free Republic Warns Governors, 'Step Down or Be Removed'" (Liberty Guardian website; 2010)

"Governor Rick Perry:  Texas Could Secede; Leave Union" (Huffington Post - April; 2009)

"The Second Wave" (Southern Poverty Law Center - August; 2009)

"The Eliminationists - How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right" (David Neiwart; Polipoint Press - 2009)

"On Anniversary of Oklahoma City Bombing, Armed Right-Wing Activists Accuse Obama of Tyranny" (ThinkProgress - April; 2010)

All Right – You’re The First Human to Make Contact With Alien Life….

I was watching “Contact” (one of my favorite films) not long ago, and was taken with the whole idea yet again – ‘what if?’ Yeah, it’s heady stuff – with implications not only scientifically, but culturally as well. I thought, ‘What would I do if I were, for some odd reason, the one who found ‘em first?’

That, of course, led me to thinking, ‘What if someone I know were the first? What would I want ‘em to say?’

Losing Your Religion….

Yep. You knew I was gonna say that, didn't you?  Yet, this is the first thing you don't want to do – start blathering on about ‘god’. Chances are, they won’t know the first thing about our religions. Expecting them to catch the nuances of Buddha vs. Jesus vs. Mohammed is meaningless - if they have a religion at all, it's going to bear no resemblance to anything we've got - and if you start gibbering-on about your favorite Imaginary Friend, it's going to leave them wondering if we’re worth our weight in compost. Best to forget about this – and hope that, if you’re nodding your head, it’s you they find, and not Osama BinLaden, Ken Ham, or someone similar.

Remain Calm….

That’s right. Creatures which operate on blind instinct are usually thrashing around with exaggerated limb-movements and pronounced vocalizations in situations like this. Now, unless you’re a hip-hop artist or possessed of St. Vitus’ Dance, you don’t do this on a regular basis, anyway, so you ought to be in relatively good shape here. If you do, they’ll assume you’re something akin to a fish or other non self-aware creature which has been placed in a threatening environment. Act accordingly, take a deep breath, and keep your head.  Try not to vomit.


The fact that you're still alive tells you something, right there - if they were interstellar pirates or other nogoodniks, they'd've 'done' you right where you stood.


Any intelligence capable of this sort of travel isn't likely to send trigger-happy throttle-jockeys; they're likely to have more in common with Jean-Luc Picard than the Will Smith character in "Independence Day".  Chances are they didn't spend the resources to travel several thousand light-years just to blow us away - we're doing a pretty good job of that ourselves, and it really would be like going out of our way to kill a few microbes on an anthill in Africa (to use a quote from "Contact").

Think on your Feet….

Language is likely going to be useless – if they communicate with sound, yours is going to be unintelligible. Fortunately, there’s a universal language – mathematics.

They’re not going to know who Pythagoras was – but they’re sure as hell to know his theorem by another name. They won’t know who Darwin was – but they’ll be familiar with natural-selection. They won’t know any of our history – but they’ll want to know that we’re intelligent and self-aware enough to know our own.

Knowing our own place in the universe – at least, to the extent we’ve been able to do so – will be a plus. Showing them that you know orbits are elliptical and that the earth revolves around the sun will be a big plus toward convincing them that we’re more than useful animals which still haven’t figured out that shitting in our own food supply is a bad idea.

Whatever you do, don’t do what the average redneck American would do, and break out the shotgun to ‘defend what’s yours’ – leave the firearms in the closet. Any intelligence capable of genuine interstellar travel is probably going to be at least 1,000 years ahead of us. Just imagine the First Marine Division conducting the First Crusade – that’s how lopsided any fight would be. Bad move. Very Bad Move. Trust me on this – they don’t want your television set.

Communicate - -Fast….

Chances are, however you communicate, it’s going to be different. You might wind up drawing sand-pictures and using rocks. If you’ve a pen in your pocket, the chances are it’ll be useless to you and them – while we’ve evolved with opposable-digits, the chances they did the same thing are practically nil. Alien life is likely to be pretty – well; alien.

At best, you want them to know that we’ve got a basic grasp of things like geometry, science (the study of things in a systematic manner), our own selves and our history, and that we want to see them again.

If you’re worried that they’ll hurt you, don’t. All of the ‘alien abduction’ crap to the contrary, if they were going to do something, chances are they’d have done it immediately. The fact that you’re still alive and not in a giant jug of formalin is proof of their intentions. 

Leave the internal stuff for later. They’re not going to understand that you come from the United States, or anywhere else, for that matter (although if Ann Coulter is our first representative, she’ll make some statement like “We need to convert you to Christianity and level your cities”, which will result in the entire planet being turned to iridescent glass inside of a minute or two.)

They’re not going to understand our politics, our social-structures, or anything else. Comments like, “I’m an oppressed minority and I could sure use your help to kick ass on ________” is going to be met with puzzlement, if not a sense of “why are we here, and why are we letting these creatures pollute the universe, exactly?”

In fact, the notion of factions fighting each other is likely not going to go over very well – these critters probably gave that up thousands of years ago; the fact that they survived their own early stages, built faster-than-light craft and made it here is mute proof of that. 

Growing a little humility all of a sudden would be a good thing. Remember – while they appear to be willing to leave us alone, likely they’ve brought enough firepower with them to sort us out for good if they change their minds.  Behave.

Afterward, Involve the Media….

Yep. You’re going to be a celebrity. Get used to it.

What you do with this is up to you – but I’d strongly advise involving the best and brightest minds. Stephen Hawking over Larry King. NPR over Bill O’Reilly. You get the point. Every nutball group in the world is going to want a piece of your time, by way of either picking a fight or proving their point. Best to avoid the whole lot, and preach as much tolerance as you can.

Of course, you can use the event to concoct a 'get rich quick' scheme - but sooner or later we have to consider how history and our fellow man will view us, not just now, but hundreds or thousands of years from now.   If you want to be the guy or gal who spawned a billion t-shirts and plastic crap-gizmos; fine - but you've a greater responsibility to the rest of humanity.  Leaders are made; not born - at least try to behave like one.

You’re going to upset a lot of applecarts, all at once, simply by virtue of being in the right (or wrong, depending on your perspective) place at the right (wrong) time. Politics will all of a sudden become puny. Wars will become irrelevant – to most of us; there will always be some folks who will use this as a reason to fight someone over something. Religions will be upended, and a lot of people who have a vested interest in keeping this knowledge under wraps will want you dead.

Yes - at some point, the Head Nutball of one group or another is going to try to have you killed, so arrange some protection with the government if you can.

Good Luck….

You’re going to need it. There are a lot of human institutions which have a stock-in-trade of denying that this possibility even exists – and chances are, they’ve made a lot of money from that position, as well as kept a lot of people in ignorance. They will not be happy with you.

However, if you pull this off, you’ll be remembered forever – and you’ll probably get laid as much as you want.

There are perks to everything.

Huckabee, Atheists, and Discrimination - The Casual Commentary of Dismissive Arrogance

Recently, I was asked "Why do you think atheists are so reviled here in America?" 

This was followed offline by "I'd like to see more atheist political candidates.  Why don't you run for office?"   I replied that I'd be eviscerated by the Fundie media within a day - and anyone who wants to take on their formidable political machine can expect the same treatment.

Regardless, this got me to thinking, especially today, as a new interview of Mike Huckabee revealed a backhanded compliment he gave those of us who Don't Believe in Imaginary Friends.

“I’d rather have an honest atheist than a dishonest religious person,” he said.

“It’s better to have a person who says, ‘Look, I just don’t believe, and that’s where my honest position happens to be,’” he said. “I’m frankly more OK with that than a person who says, ‘Oh, I am very much a Christian. I very much love God.’ And then they live as if they are atheists, as if they have no moral groundings at all. That’s more troubling.”

Gee, thanks - I think.

Most of you have already picked up on the backhanded-compliment in this last statement - the assumption that atheists have no moral grounding, and that morality is impossible without a believe in one Imaginary Friend or another.

George Bush the First made a far more blunt statement:  "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots.  This is one nation under God."

While the simple-minded, dismissive arrogance of those statements is truly appalling, the truth is, atheists have a higher moral grounding as evidenced by our collective behavior than do religious people.   This is an ugly secret, and one the religious community would prefer not to address.   Some statistics are in order:

There are more non-religious/atheist charities than religious (the world's largest charity is run by an atheist).

Here in America, we're 10% of the population.   However, we're 95% of the nation's artists/actors/authors and other creatives; we're almost 90% of the nation's scientists and educators (including most of our Nobel prize winners), and are over-represented in every professional field.

Another ugly secret:  Compared to believers, we're also smarter.

From those stats, I'd posit that the nation's real moral and ethical anchor comes from those of us who don't believe.

On the other hand, 99.75% of America's convicts are believers.

Divorce rates, teen pregnancies and STD's among believers are actually higher than among non-believers.

Routinely, those of us who don't believe are called names ("idiot" and "silly" were two monikers I received just yesterday); we're also discriminated against by the other 90% in every area from employment to housing.   Recently, and in spite of the means-test proscription in Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution, a duly-elected city councilman in Asheville, North Carolina was actually denied his seat because he 'didn't believe in god'.

In retrospect, I wonder how the man got himself elected in a state which has a religious means-test in its own Constitution - but that's another matter, entirely.

While certain aspects of this discrimination have recent origins (the whole Cold War/godless Communists/pledge-of-allegiance thing), we have to look back on our own roots as a nation for the deeper, more enduring reasons for our national narrowmindedness - a strong dose of Calvinism, brought by the four major migrations of people from England, which formed the first colonies along religious lines (by example, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony of the 1620's, religious-freedom meant that a person wanting to live there had the 'freedom' to worship exactly as the Puritan founders stated in the colony's charter - and if not, the individual was 'free' to leave).

These notions persist today among many Americans who view America as a 'Christian nation'. 

Many of these people would be happy to deport anyone not believing in their 'god'.   I know.  I've got the emails and offlines to prove it.

They've also gone ahead and created us a 'religion' which they call 'atheism' - and no amount of telling them otherwise is going to change their minds - because unless we have a religion, too, there might actually BE something to our nonbelief (in point of fact, most atheists have little in common save for their lack of belief - but that's not acceptable to most believers; they can't relate to us on any terms save for the familiar).

Admittedly, there's no middle ground here - we nonbelievers as a stock-in-trade have been telling the Other 90% the moral-equivalent of 'your baby's ugly' for a long, long time.  As a result, we've had to accept the fact that we're also a long, long way from any kind of acceptance - there are just too few of us, and that Other 90% is convinced it's right.

Perhaps in another couple hundred years.

Roland Martin, The Confederacy, And The Truth About The War

Recently, the governor of Virginia announced that April (the month in which Fort Sumter was shelled, commonly accepted as the beginning of the Civil War, and also the month in which Lee surrendered at Appomattox) would be Confederate History Month, honoring the men who fought and died for the Lost Cause.

This triggered a firestorm of revisionists and pseudohistorians, who have pilloried governor McDonnell and labeled Confederate soldiers as terrorists.

What appalls me isn't the collective statement regarding the Confederacy so much as the abysmal understanding of American history and the dismissive attitude of seemingly-reasonable people in making these statements.

Roland Martin of CNN, perhaps the most-vocal of those who've called Confederate soldiers 'terrorists' and worse, clearly learned his history at the feet of Hollywood actors and from films like "Shenandoah".

Contemporary Commentary - A Revealing Look At The Past....

Lincoln himself made it very clear on several occasions, most notably in the letter he wrote to Horace Greeley clarifying his position on slavery vs the Federal union, that he neither regarded nor disregarded the issue of slavery as either germane or central to the conflict.   Greeley had raised the question regarding Lincoln's motivation for raising troops and invading the Confederacy - was it to free the slaves, to preserve the Federal union, or simply to punish?

In his own words to Greeley in August of 1862, Lincoln makes his position excruciatingly clear:  "I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the near the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, about the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union."

Was Lincoln a racist?   His behavior doesn't indicate any overt racism - but he used the word "nigger" in several of his private letters.   His first choice to lead the Army of the Potomac, General George McClellan,  also makes use of the then-common term:

"Help me to dodge the nigger--we want nothing to do with him. I am fighting to preserve the integrity of the Union and the power of the Govt--on no other issue. To gain that end we cannot afford to mix up the negro question--it must be incidental and subsidiary. The President is perfectly honest and is really sound on the nigger question." 

Was McClellan a racist?   Again, his private letters - as well as his public commentary - is offensive to modern ears.   It's also no more or less than many other public-figures - including some staunch antislavery types - used.

Perhaps the best view of the Federal government regarding the war comes from Congress, which passed a resolution in the wake of the Federal disaster at the Battle of First Manassas (or 'Bull Run'):

"Resolved, That the war is not waged on our part, in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest, or for interfering with the rights, or established institutions of these States (the Confederate states), but to defend, and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity and rights of the several States unimpaired."

No mention of the issue of slavery at all.

On the other side of the line, perhaps the most insightful statement comes from Jefferson Davis himself, regarding the right of the Confederate states to secede (taken from his inaugural address):  "Our present political position has been achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations. It illustrates the American idea that governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established."

The truth of the matter is this - the main participants on both sides, in their own words, simply did not view slavery as a core issue.   It was secondary; the core-issue being the question of secession.

The Dangers of Revisionism....

Americans have a hard time coming to grips with their history.   As a people, we've been imbued with a "good guy vs. bad guy" ethos, courtesy of decades of Hollywood scriptwriting.  This has led to a dismissive and polarizing attitude toward issues of history.   From Martin's CNN article:  "If a Confederate soldier was merely doing his job in defending his homeland, honor and heritage, what are we to say about young Muslim radicals who say the exact same thing as their rationale for strapping bombs on their bodies and blowing up cafes and buildings?

If the Sons of Confederate Veterans use as a talking point the vicious manner in which people in the South were treated by the North, doesn't that sound exactly like the Taliban saying they want to kill Americans for the slaughter of innocent people in Afghanistan?"

This exposes Martin's lack of logic.   

First, the events took place in two very distinct and different eras, on separate continents, acted out by people with two very different worldviews, values, religious beliefs and technologies.  Comparing the two with any intent toward reaching a logical conclusion is the result of a train of very shallow thinking.   Both sets of events took place and are taking place for different reasons, based on different ideologies, and are attempting to reach vastly different conclusions.

He might as well be trying to compare oranges and bicycles.

A Slippery Slope....

What Martin proposes in repainting Confederate troops as 'terrorists' is a slippery slope, indeed.

During the Civil War, Lincoln rightly accorded Confederate troops the status of enemy-combatants and prisoners-of-war; this dovetailed well with his strategy of preserving the Federal union, as to do otherwise would have stiffened resistance - and likely would have resulted in 'eye for an eye' treatment of Federal prisoners.   

The support for the war was tenuous throughout Lincoln's two administrations - the resulting slaughter, especially after the Confederate victories leading up to Gettysburg - might well have tipped the northern states toward advocating a peace between the two nations.  While an analysis of modern warfare and the resulting international laws governing it is well beyond the purview of this article, we should note that the label 'terrorist', at least in its more-modern context, is a new one - and is something which both nations and courts will likely spend decades resolving humanely.   Lincoln instinctively saw this.

It's a good thing Lincoln, and not Martin, was in charge at the time.

Conclusion....

Stating, as Roland Martin did, that "...if your great-great-great-granddaddy was a Confederate who stood up for Southern ideals, he too was a terrorist" doesn't insult the memory of my two Confederate ancestors, that of their extended families - or me.   

It simply exposes the dreadful and abysmal ignorance of the author.

Many Americans, now living all over the nation, had ancestors who either fought for the Confederacy or who lived there during the conflict.  I'm one of them.   I don't regard the service of my two ancestors as 'deluded', 'terroristic', or 'in support of evil.'  They were brave men who fought for their homes, which were in the midst of invasion.

The nation for which they fought was in the process of determining its own destiny - something which the Federal union was in the process of doing, also.  Many Confederates did not believe in the institution of slavery; most residents of the Confederacy did not own slaves, and never participated in the practice.  

Confederate General Patrick Cleburne probably said it best in 1861:  "I believe the North is about to wage a brutal and unholy war on a people who have done them no wrong, in violation of the Constitution and the fundamental principles of government. They no longer acknowledge that all government derives its validity from the consent of the governed. They are about to invade our peaceful homes, destroy our property, and inaugurate a servile insurrection, murder our men and dishonor our women. We propose no invasion of the North, no attack on them, and only ask to be left alone. If we are defeated, it means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision.”

There's a disquieting move toward historic-revisionism in America.   The state of Texas wants to remove Thomas Jefferson and the Enlightenment, along with a lot of other facts, because they don't square with the decidedly-rightist and religious worldview of current board of education members.

Roland Martin's attempt at historic revisionism in his CNN article is just another, albeit dangerous, manifestation of this trend.   As an historian and the descendant of Civil War veterans on both sides of the conflict, my heartfelt wish is that he fails, miserably, and is shown up for what he is -- yet another pundit with an axe to grind.

Five T.V. Shows Which Are Screwing Up America.....

That's Kim Kardashian's hand on the left.  Yes, the 'rock' is real.  Seven carats.  However, I'm ahead of myself.

First of all, I need to clarify something.   My title is a malapropism; T.V. shows don't have the power to screw up anything.   Art follows life; not the other way around.   It does, however, tend to reflect the nature of things.

If that's the case, then we're Pretty Screwed-Up Already - and folks, we're a long, long way from the era of Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone.

I'd like to believe that there's an America where intelligence rules - where people watched a couple of hours of 'tube' a week; mainly news and the occasional piece of entertainment - and that what they'd seek out would be high-order stuff, at that.   Unfortunately, that's not the case - those of us who can fog a mirror and who stayed awake in class are in a serious minority, and if art really does follow life, we're becoming a smaller and smaller part of the pie-chart every year.

We now have bilious drivel spewed to us through our privately-held national communication system, at speeds the folks at NASA would have killed to have in the '60's when they were shooting for the moon.  Bruce Springsteen was charitable when he wrote '57 Channels'; there are over 800 in my Comcast delivery; most are useless to me.

While I'm all for the idea of private-ownership, I've a notion that the nonsense we're seeing is also more than a bit self-reinforcing.  For my money, if the government wants something to regulate right along with the banks, the real-estate monstrosities and the stock-brokerages, they can clamp down on the media.   Even news is no longer objective - no one wants to be Edward Murrow; they all want to be Limbaugh or O'Reilly - because there's more money in pandering to the wingnuts.

In a sane America, we'd all be NPR-junkies for our news, and beating the hell out of them for ever-more-coverage of events not covered by the Pandering, Privately-Owned Prognosticators - but I digress.

It's a guilty pleasure to go slumming, especially when it's possible to do so at the push of a button from the couch.   If you've any question about America's intelligence, check out the five shows below - they're a snapshot of our ability to reason; our desire for greatness, and our capacity to chew gum and walk at the same time.

(Hint:  Those last three qualities I mentioned exist here in the U.S. in very small numbers.  If you're considering immigration to these shores, please think twice, unless your country of origin is run by malevolent cocksuckers who've destroyed everything from the municipal sewer-system to City Hall, and all but the last bridge out of town.)

5.   American Idol.   Simon Cowell is a pompous ass, and a moron.   He makes his living eviscerating people verbally, and made millions for it during his tenure.   A combination of "Lawrence Welk" meets "The Running Man", this live song-and-dance competition show was created to allow its audience to pick the 'next American Idol'; ostensibly an individual whose music we really wanted to hear.   

Packaged from the beginning to be a shill for the record companies, "Idol" has lived up to its charter.   

It's also damned popular, by any stretch.  More people in America voted by phone and electronically for an "Idol" contestant than voted in their last Presidential election.   It would appear, after all, that we're more interested in having a voice in whose CD's we buy next year than, say, whether we go to war - or stay in one, depending.  

4.   Keeping up with the Kardashians.    Nations which are growing and thriving pay attention to boring things like commerce and government; they pay serious attention to who runs the show, and they think it's a good idea to build things like roads and the like.  While they fund standing-armies, they don't engage in soldier-worship, and the wealthy people among them are also imbued with a solid sense of the common good.   

Declining societies engage in a lot of unhealthy behaviors; one of them being a fixation on physical looks and self-absorption.   This is where the Kardashian girls fit the bill, nicely.

Each episode is based on the 'adventures' of Kim, Khloe, and What's-Her-Name, plus Momma Kardashian.  They discuss deep and weighty subjects like clothes, cars, jewelery, breast-implants and who-has-them, plus plenty, plenty, plenty 'relationship drama' (read:  Who's screwing who and why). 

There is a world, I'm sure, in which this self-absorbed, spoiled, overindulged behavior is considered 'normal'.  In this world, the possession of large rocks like the one in the photo is highly-regarded, no matter how many boys from west Africa had to lose their hands and arms to mine them.  I'm also equally sure that most of America also finds it entertaining and even something to emulate, or this tawdry spectacle of heifers-gone-selfish wouldn't find sponsors and advertisers.

3.   Chopped.    Celebrity chefs are overrated.  Period.   When I go to a restaurant, I go because the food's good.   It's nice if the chef engages in a bit of art - but 'plating' isn't something on which I grade a good steak.

The folks who created this show have attempted to generate high-drama out of taking five people who cook for a living, giving them a sackful of groceries, telling them to go to work, and then trashing on what they made.   (Here's a hint - when someone cooks me dinner, I don't bitch, unless it's so bad I can't eat it.  Even so, I usually leave a tip, even if I won't go back.  That's how Mom raised me, and that's how polite people roll.)

There's a world where this sort of thing is important, however - and it's the same world occupied by the likes of Martha Stewart and the 'Barefoot Contessa', who lives in the Hamptons and agonizes over what cheese to serve on the appetizer plate, and whether blood-oranges are in season.  Conspicuous consumption and ingratitude - two ingredients America seems to have in ample supply, nowadays.

2.   Jersey Shore/Jerseylicious.    One word:   Snooki.   See, I've known some people from New Jersey.  They were gracious and kind; they were high-energy and decent.  Somehow, this whole group was replaced by changelings from another planet, where calling oneself a 'Guidette' is a good thing, and where aspiring to be a stripper, bartender, and DJ are all solid life-goals of which to be inordinately proud.  

The premise is something like "Lord of the Flies" meets a university psychology experiment -- eight oversized lab-rats are placed in the same living environment; they're each given a job at a shop down the street, and then the cameras are turned on.   So far, we've learned that hormones have an effect on them most of the time; they move away from bright lights unless nightclubs are involved, and they can navigate the most ingenious maze to find food and alcohol.   Plenty, plenty alcohol.

1.    Jerry Springer/Maury Povich.    I've lumped these two together as my Number One Pick.   Why?  Because they're the same thing, really.  

I have a friend in the media biz.  She works at a boutique-station downstate here in Oregon.  I asked her once why these shows even saw the light of day.    Her answer was quick, and brutal:  "Because they're cheap, and they sell."

This is the reason why Jerry and Maury both assault our airwaves for two hours in midday in nearly every market.   With more people out of work now than since the Great Depression, cheap entertainment which panders to the basest emotions is in demand, more than ever.   Both shows have high ratings - bucking every trend, really - and, as my friend pointed out so well, they're cheap.

There's no serious production cost - they're both filmed in Connecticut (I suspect in the same studio); there's no cost to the 'talent' (there is, apparently, no end to the number of semiliterate Americans willing to air their dirty laundry in public for the price of two coach tickets to Hartford and a stay at the airport Holiday Inn).

Ironically, Jerry got his start in politics after earning a B.A. from Tulane and a J.D. from Northwestern.  His show initially started as a political talk-show - but he and his producer had other ideas - and they were all about ratings.

Maury actually started out as a respectable journalist, working for several media companies on the eastern seaboard in the '60's and '70's.   Again, for ratings, his first venture into trash-TV was a segment called "Who's The Daddy?" when DNA testing became cheap and reliable.   This now comprises the majority of every episode, there being (again) seemingly no lack of semiliterates from all corners of this nation who (a) have no concept of birth-control, and (b) no compunction regarding airing their sexual ignorance for the price of a plane-ticket and a cheap hotel room.

They make #1 on my list because both of them know better.   They've sold out, P.T. Barnum-style, to the concept of "There's a sucker born every minute", and "No one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American public."

Meanwhile, it's Easter Sunday.  My Christian friends are going to services; things are placid -- there'll no doubt be reruns of "The Ten Commandments", "Barabbas", and "The Robe" to remind us of a time when cinema had value, and when "who be my baby-daddy?" simply wasn't a question we asked in polite company.

Yes; I mourn the passing of the better parts of America's past - some of you will be quick to point out that there were some very bad things we've done along with the good, and I'll agree. However, I also mourn the future - and, as with so many things, it's going to be a Matter of Luck.

Hope springs eternal, and all that.   

Me?   

I just hope - because if what I see on the telly is any indication, we're a pretty screwed-up lot here in the Good Ol' U.S. of A.

Be good to yourselves - and each other....