What can and should we do now? We need to frame this fight differently. We start by realizing the Civil War never ended. Appomattox was not a surrender, it was a strategic retreat, followed shortly after by the Battle of Ford's Theater, with one casualty, the return of a Confederate sympathizer to the White House, and the adoption of non…
What can and should we do now? We need to frame this fight differently. We start by realizing the Civil War never ended. Appomattox was not a surrender, it was a strategic retreat, followed shortly after by the Battle of Ford's Theater, with one casualty, the return of a Confederate sympathizer to the White House, and the adoption of non-military tactics for all battles thereafter. We have been fighting that war since 1865, except only one side realized the war was still on.
What do we do about it now? We treat the combatants as what they are. Political and social battles require political and social responses. Jail terms for seditionists, and a reassertion of the principles of the Constitution that many people formerly and currently in power have walked away from multiple times since 1861.
It's easy to list the battles of the post-Appomattox Civil War. The end of Reconstruction. The Klan. Jim Crow. "Birth of a Nation". Stone Mountain, which was partially funded by issuance of a commemorative coin by the US Treasury. The battles against civil rights. Redlining. Nixon's Southern Strategy. Reagan's "welfare queens". Trump - all of Trump. January 6th. Book banning, book burning, vote suppression old and new. The rise of the evangelical churches. Subversion of the electoral system before the 2022 and 2024 elections. All of these are battles fought by one side with the tacit permission of the other.
What can and should we do now? Treat the continuing Confederacy as the defeated movement they were and still are, and stop allowing them to eat away at the foundations of the country they were created to subvert. We need the DOJ, Congress and every other branch of the Federal government capable of creating policy to do that, ASAP, and end the Civil War once and for all.
Finally, we need the majority of citizens who care about the United States that was conceived by the Founders, imperfect as they realized it was, to make clear to those policymakers that they should continue the 250 year experiment to build that union better and more perfect, without the interference of the modern-day copperheads doing everything they can to turn back the clock. Make America truly great again, and for the first time.
Mobiguy Many folks still believe in the Lost Cause (the southern rationale that they didn’t lose the Civil War). Then and now this was/is a white/racist rationale that is deep in their bones and is exacerbated by Trump’s white fear’ mantra. Only by teaching the unvarnished history of the United States (regarding Blacks, women, Native Americans, and waves of immigrants) can we begin to chip away at this iceberg of prejudice. Hopefully, this is less of a problem with our younger generation, but the reality process seems mighty slow. Meanwhile, the latest ‘ban those books’ assault is a Luddite effort to ignore change.
This is quite a reply. There is a lot of information to digest here. Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates wrote a wonderful book on the Reconstruction backlash when it happened and when Barack Obama got elected. That election woke the Southern rage anew according to Gates.
Barbara, many of us who wept with joy when Barack Obama won knew that it would probably end very badly. I prayed that it wouldn’t be an assassination. Living in the south, we felt the smoldering heat of white rage slowly building in some areas, but never could have imagined the way things would turn out as they have. It is no longer a Black President; now it is a multi-racial Vice President and soon a Black Justice, and every other grievance that mostly low functioning people — who actually do the violence for the instigator/financiers — have been nurturing, including “freedom.” Now it spreads to Canada? What? Seriously?
Thanks for this insight. I also (naively) thought the elections of Obama and Biden would herald in new days. And now Canada. Oh Canada. I have a sincere question Gus. What exactly do you think the "it" is that is spreading?
What can and should we do now? We need to frame this fight differently. We start by realizing the Civil War never ended. Appomattox was not a surrender, it was a strategic retreat, followed shortly after by the Battle of Ford's Theater, with one casualty, the return of a Confederate sympathizer to the White House, and the adoption of non-military tactics for all battles thereafter. We have been fighting that war since 1865, except only one side realized the war was still on.
What do we do about it now? We treat the combatants as what they are. Political and social battles require political and social responses. Jail terms for seditionists, and a reassertion of the principles of the Constitution that many people formerly and currently in power have walked away from multiple times since 1861.
It's easy to list the battles of the post-Appomattox Civil War. The end of Reconstruction. The Klan. Jim Crow. "Birth of a Nation". Stone Mountain, which was partially funded by issuance of a commemorative coin by the US Treasury. The battles against civil rights. Redlining. Nixon's Southern Strategy. Reagan's "welfare queens". Trump - all of Trump. January 6th. Book banning, book burning, vote suppression old and new. The rise of the evangelical churches. Subversion of the electoral system before the 2022 and 2024 elections. All of these are battles fought by one side with the tacit permission of the other.
What can and should we do now? Treat the continuing Confederacy as the defeated movement they were and still are, and stop allowing them to eat away at the foundations of the country they were created to subvert. We need the DOJ, Congress and every other branch of the Federal government capable of creating policy to do that, ASAP, and end the Civil War once and for all.
Finally, we need the majority of citizens who care about the United States that was conceived by the Founders, imperfect as they realized it was, to make clear to those policymakers that they should continue the 250 year experiment to build that union better and more perfect, without the interference of the modern-day copperheads doing everything they can to turn back the clock. Make America truly great again, and for the first time.
Mobiguy Many folks still believe in the Lost Cause (the southern rationale that they didn’t lose the Civil War). Then and now this was/is a white/racist rationale that is deep in their bones and is exacerbated by Trump’s white fear’ mantra. Only by teaching the unvarnished history of the United States (regarding Blacks, women, Native Americans, and waves of immigrants) can we begin to chip away at this iceberg of prejudice. Hopefully, this is less of a problem with our younger generation, but the reality process seems mighty slow. Meanwhile, the latest ‘ban those books’ assault is a Luddite effort to ignore change.
This is quite a reply. There is a lot of information to digest here. Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates wrote a wonderful book on the Reconstruction backlash when it happened and when Barack Obama got elected. That election woke the Southern rage anew according to Gates.
Barbara, many of us who wept with joy when Barack Obama won knew that it would probably end very badly. I prayed that it wouldn’t be an assassination. Living in the south, we felt the smoldering heat of white rage slowly building in some areas, but never could have imagined the way things would turn out as they have. It is no longer a Black President; now it is a multi-racial Vice President and soon a Black Justice, and every other grievance that mostly low functioning people — who actually do the violence for the instigator/financiers — have been nurturing, including “freedom.” Now it spreads to Canada? What? Seriously?
We are not done with this in any way.
Thanks for this insight. I also (naively) thought the elections of Obama and Biden would herald in new days. And now Canada. Oh Canada. I have a sincere question Gus. What exactly do you think the "it" is that is spreading?