Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Monday, November 17, 2014

Understanding the threat of a confederate insurgency by Nancy LeTourneau of Horizons



Nancy LeTourneau over at Horizons has written an insightful post about something I've talked and thought about for a long time, but had not tackled in a post.

She posted the video below that explains how the modern GOP is slowly and surely dragging our country back to a modern version of Jim Crow:  James Crow, Esq., in order to suppress voting by minorities. 








That's just one point.

Read the whole post:



Understanding the threat of a confederate insurgency


The basic right wing message we've heard for the last six years has been to challenge this President's legitimacy. We've seen that in everything from the birther movement and charges that he's somehow "un-American" to criticisms of Barack Obama that have never been leveled against a United States President (i.e., how much golf he plays, the fact that he takes vacations and that he signs executive orders). 

Call me naive, but I don't believe that all white Republicans buy into this insurgency. But their leadership has used this message of illegitimacy to undermine President Obama and convinced too many people that he is somehow a threat to the country. To the extent that they (and the media) have bought into the lies, they have given credence to a movement that is dangerous to our democracy.

 I am reminded once again of something Derrick Jensen wrote in his book The Culture of Make Believe. 

From the perspective of those who are entitled, the problems begin when those they despise do not go along with—and have the power and wherewithal to not go along with—the perceived entitlement...

Several times I have commented that hatred felt long and deeply enough no longer feels like hatred, but more like tradition, economics, religion, what have you. It is when those traditions are challenged, when the entitlement is threatened, when the masks of religion, economics, and so on are pulled away that hate transforms from its more seemingly sophisticated, "normal," chronic state—where those exploited are looked down upon, or despised—to a more acute and obvious manifestation. Hate becomes more perceptible when it is no longer normalized.

 Another way to say all of this is that if the rhetoric of superiority works to maintain the entitlement, hatred and direct physical force remains underground. But when that rhetoric begins to fail, force and hatred waits in the wings, ready to explode. Change to our "social order" is coming, whether we like it or not. The traditions, economics, religion that mask our entitlement are being stripped away and the hate is becoming more perceptible. As a result, the confederate insurgency is threatening to explode. 

 Black people are noticing. But too many white people are in denial about what's really going on (including a lot of Democrats/liberals). We need to wake the f*ck up!!! I'm not suggesting that everyone needs to support President Obama's policies. But what I am saying is that we all need to recognize the threat posed by this confederate insurgency...and take on the task of ushering in a third reconstruction.


NOTE:  I'm ready for the usual suspects to come to this blog and repeat the usual talking point that those confederates were DEMOCRATS.  Yes, that was the name of the party they belonged to, but they were first and foremost CONSERVATIVES.  

President Lincoln was a LIBERAL Republican.  His Secretary of State, William Seward, and his Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, didn't think Lincoln was LIBERAL ENOUGH in support of abolition  as were they, and as was the LIBERAL position on slavery in that era.  In America at that time, the Republicans had a more PROGRESSIVE position on the question of slavery than did the southern CONSERVATIVE Democrats.   The southern Democrats wanted to CONSERVE/PRESERVE the institution of slavery.  The LIBERALS in the newly formed Republican Party were, for the most part, anti-slavery (although the Democrat/Republican parties were not a solid bloc of liberals and conservatives)  . The new Republican Party had northern conservatives in it and the southern Democratic Party had liberals in it as well.

Most people who use Democrat/Republican labels in discussions on this particular era in our history fail in understanding this.  As a liberal, I would have been a Lincoln Republican and would have fought against the conservative Democrats who wanted to preserve slavery.

Keep in mind that after the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, the traditionally Democratic southerners left the Democratic Party, and the Old Confederacy has been a solid conservative Republican voting bloc since then.  


More reading on the subject here:

Not a Tea Party, a Confederate Party

22 comments:

Ducky's here said...

This is their dirty little secret. The so called "states rights" militants are neo-conservatives. States right is just a dog whistle.

It's a pretty unshakeable belief which gets even more severe with the religious right wingers. The Constitution becomes a religious document which is not open to interpretation. As a nation we were formed by God and any deviation from early 19th southern culture is apostate.
Oh, we can free the slaves but they better learn their place.

The attitude isn't new. It's just that they really feel threatened and we are seeing the culmination of their resistance to the social movements of the 60's and 70's.
Women, minorities, gays ... they just all got so uppity.

Les Carpenter said...

America is a strange land in this era.

Ruled by emotions and blind to reason Tea keep saner leaves rustling themselves.

Shaw Kenawe said...

We're in a period of change and transition, and that always brings fear and resentment from those who most assuredly know that their power is slipping away.

One only has to look at the period of Reconstruction and how the white Confederates reacted to their former slaves who began to take seriously their freedom and who tried to participate in governing.

Abetted by US presidents, other US officials, and complicit northerners, the southerners stripped away everything gained by former slaves' emancipation and plunged them back into servitude, only this time with the threat of certain death if the freed men and women tried to retain and exercise their rights.

People afraid of change double down in resisting it.

President Obama is the single most obvious symbol of this coming change.





Infidel753 said...

I can see why the baggers would be nostalgic for the Confederacy. Unlike the US Constitution, the Confederate constitution explicitly said that it was a Christian nation. And of course white supremacy was enshrined in it as well.

What's unforgivable is that the rest of the country is letting them get away with this stuff. They already delayed the real implementation of black civil rights by a century, from the 1860s to the 1960s. Now all this vote-restriction crap is coming back. It seems like the Confederate insurgency is well under way.

Les Carpenter said...

President Obama is certainly the most obvious symbol, there are others as well.

And, there are indeed black conservatives as well as white conservatives.

Perhaps the day will come when reasonable meaningful discussion over
issues will be the norm between
conservatives and liberals rather than the exception.

Catherine Fartburn said...

If they could, they'd drag the entire country back to the 18th century where black folks knew their places.





--------------->Catherine Fartburn

Les Carpenter said...

And THAT is bullsh*t!!!

It is also why it is very likely there will NEVER be that time when

REASONABLE and SINCERE folks
will find common ground.

It us either 100% your way or fuck
it. News flash feartburn, since that
is the way you want to play it...
then FUCK IT.

Infidel753 said...

If they could, they'd drag the entire country back to the 18th century where black folks knew their places.

The objective fact is that this is an accurate description of what the teabaggers and neo-Confederates are trying to do. Their revival of Jim Crow vote-suppression laws aimed at minorities is part of what proves this.

(The Christian Right element, by contrast, wants to drag us back to the 18th century BC.)

Demonstrable, verifiable fact. Not opinion. Yelling obscenities at the messenger does not change that.

Catherine Fartburn said...

Shaw, your friend has an anger problem. I gave my opinion without cutting anyone down and Rational Nation USA went berserk.

The fact is what Infidel said, the neo-confederates, the Tea Party, have reinstituted voter suppression laws for what they call voter fraud that doesn't exist. Just look at the states that are setting up all of these things to cut down on voters being able to vote. It is a throw back to Jim Crow days and the modern Republican Party is leading the way.


------------------>Catherine Fartburn

Wank Files said...

The truth of it is hard for wankers

Dave Miller said...

Les... come on dude... you've got to be able to express yourself without resorting to extreme language.

You're better than that...

A Rational guy does not use that type of language in polite company, whether they've been provoked or not...

Les Carpenter said...

Berserk, anger problem? Stating how I see it. Nothing more.

Good evening.

Tao Speaks said...

RN,

I am a very "reasonable" and "sincere" person and it appalls me what the Republicans and the vast majority of all the various factions that make up what we refer to "the right" have done to what we refer to as "democracy," or to our "republic" as you call it.

Its not just the organized and systematic attack on Obama and his legitimacy but lets not forget the organized and systematic attack against Bill Clinton when he was President.

We tend to be very shortsighted and as such we lose sight of the fact that the Republicans spent all their time during the Clinton years focused on Whitewater and wasted a lot of time on the impeachment.

You may want to believe "that both sides do it" but that is not true.

You may want to claim that Fox News and MSNBC are equal in their tactics, but they are not.

Exactly how do you perceive that we can "return" to the principles of our Founding Fathers when one party refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the other party?

The tactics of the right is fascism plain and simple. Its always been the tactics of the right as they are usually the minority party.

Its not "bullshit" but its real and its represented by gerrymandering, voter intimidation and suppression, and the constant brain washing of Fox News.



Les Carpenter said...

It seems both parties refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the other.

I thank you for comment but there is no point in carrying the discussion further.

I and others have acknowledged the often ridiculous positions the right has taken. Including some of what you mention.

The left rarely if ever recognizes they are fallible. Vilify ALL conservatism is Vilify all conservatism which is what the left does therefore the left insures reasonable and sincere conservatives who actually agree 40 - 50% of the time will back away. Leftists are what they are. Ir maybe it's just some leftists? Don 't know and no longer care.

It is what it is.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Did the Democratic Party delegitimize Mitt Romney by implying that he wasn't really American? That sort of slander against Mr. Obama went on for years when even members of Congress, not just the fringe wingnuts, kept the idea alive that Mr. Obama wasn't really American. No GOP top leader, that I'm aware of, came out and told everyone to stop the slander on this president regarding his citizenship. Why not? Perhaps to keep the voters wondering if Barack Obama was really American, and if that doubt was still there, then his whole presidency comes under suspicion?

The left has certainly recognized that Mr. Obama has made and makes mistakes, and proof of this is in reading all the criticism directed at him by many leftist politicians, pundits and bloggers.


Where are the Jon Huntsmans of the GOP, a reasonable and decent man who was not afraid of saying climate change is real and who got ignored by the base because of that? Instead the base embraced a fire-brand, Ted Cruz, who's very much like Glenn Beck, only with a few more brain cells.

This blog and its commenters express just about the same sentiments as does The Swash Zone. We are, afterall, left-leaning, but not on all issues. If you read Capt. Fogg regularly, you know that.

The commenter Katherine Fartburn appears to be a parody of Free Thinke's alter ego, but I couldn't be sure. As long as s/he doesn't attack anyone here, s/he is allowed. For all I know, it could be a troll, but so far, it's behaved.

Dave Miller said...

Les... two things...

1. To reiterate, divergent ideas are fine with me... extreme language, by left, or the right, is not. What does it accomplish besides a poisoning of the well?

2. Addressing TAO's point, I would agree that I have never seen an attempt by the left to essentially disqualify someone from the presidency by questioning his claim to be an American.

Can you cite any example of the left doing that in modern history?

It's like the race issue. I don't believe the GOP is full of racists, despite claims by some on the left that it is true.

But once, just once, I'd like someone who leans right, maybe you, to give me an example of what it would look like to treat a black president in a racist way.

And then maybe someone on the right could address Shaw's point... if the GOP leadership agrees that Barack Obama was born in the USA , won the election fair and square and has a right to be president, why won;t they step up and say, for the good of the country, enough?

Les Carpenter said...

Dave,

Answers to your questions are obvious.

Both you and I know what racism looks
like. Curious you asked me that.
Apparently you have not read my position
with respect to President Obama's
citizenship and right to occupy the White House.

In as much as I do not speak for the
republican party leadership, in fact I am
not even a member of the party, I can not
answer your final guestion.

Frankly, when all is said and done, life is too short for this sh*t. There will likely never be a time in the remainder of my life where left and right find common ground.

Both are stuck in their respective paradigms. I'll leave it at that.

Dave Miller said...

Les... addressed to you as probably the most conservative of folks commenting here regularly...

That's all...

Les Carpenter said...

Are you comparing me to skud? Seems to me he us more conservative than I.

Not that it is important really.

Tao Speaks said...

Personally, I think its time to stop with "the both sides do it" because there can never be an intelligent, rational, and sensible discussion of anything based on false assumptions.

Lets take something as simple as gerrymandering and the assumption that both sides do it:

http://election.princeton.edu/2012/12/30/gerrymanders-part-1-busting-the-both-sides-do-it-myth/

As this study concludes, in 2012 the House would have been 213 D, 222 R rather than the 201 D, and 234 R it is now. That is a difference of 12 seats.

The assumption that "both sides do it" assumes that then the net result is equal and it obviously is not.

Les Carpenter said...

No, it does not always follow that because both sides are dishonest, the results will be equal. Some crooks are more successful at being crooks than others.

okjimm said...

ok Les, //never be a time in the remainder of my life where left and right find common ground.//



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