The American civil war didn't end. And Trump is a Confederate president

[Soph0571]

In the 158th year of the American civil war, also known as 2018, the Confederacy continues its recent resurgence. Its victims include black people, of course, but also immigrants, Jews, Muslims, Latinos, trans people, gay people and women who want to exercise jurisdiction over their bodies. The Confederacy battles in favour of uncontrolled guns and poisons, including toxins in streams, mercury from coal plants, carbon emissions into the upper atmosphere, and oil exploitation in previously protected lands and waters.
--------
Long after Trump is gone, we will have these delusional soldiers of the Confederacy and their weapons, and ending the war means ending their allegiance to the narrow “us” and the entitlement to attack. As Michelle Alexander reminded us recently: “The whole of American history can be described as a struggle between those who truly embraced the revolutionary idea of freedom, equality and justice for all, and those who resisted.” She argues that we are not the resistance; we are the river that they are trying to dam; they are the resistance, the minority, the people trying to stop the flow of history.

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/04/the-american-civil-war-didnt-end-and-trump-is-a-confederate-president|

This. Worth clinking on the link to read the entire article

[eppur_se_muova]

1. I believe it was William Faulkner who said, "In the South, the past isn't forgotten -- "

" -- it isn't even past."

Pretty sure I know what he meant.

[RHMerriman]

2. There was a choice between Lincoln's perspective and George Pickett's on a surrendered enemy...

There was a choice between Lincoln's perspective and George Pickett's on a surrendered enemy...

Grant, Sherman, and the rest chose to follow Lincoln's perspective.

[link:http://www.nytimes.com/1864/03/18/archives/horrors-of-the-rebellion-the-late-execution-of-north-carolina-union.html|]

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Great article, my dear Soph! I hope all of DU will read it. Even we need to see...

This paragraph really encapsulates the whole article, for me:

As Michelle Alexander reminded us recently: “The whole of American history can be described as a struggle between those who truly embraced the revolutionary idea of freedom, equality and justice for all, and those who resisted.” She argues that we are not the resistance; we are the river that they are trying to dam; they are the resistance, the minority, the people trying to stop the flow of history.

[Soph0571]

6. Thanks love! There can be no peace without reconciliation

We never cleaned up after the civil war, never made it anathema, as the Germans have since the second world war, to support the losing side. We never had a truth and reconciliation process like South Africa did. We’ve allowed statues to go up across the country glorifying the traitors and losers, treated the pro-slavery flag as sentimental, picaresque, fun, Dukes of Hazzard, white identity politics. A retired general, Stanley McChrystal, just wrote a piece about throwing out his portrait of Robert E Lee that he’d had for 40 years, and why a US soldier should celebrate the leader of a war against that country says everything about the distortion of meaning and memory here.

[love_katz]

4. Huge kick and rec.

[pecosbob]

5. I've always known this at a gut level.

I grew up hearing 'the South will rise again.'

Edit*...but what actually surprised me was who was actually coming out of the closet with the new 'it's OK to be racist' environment promoted by this administration and all it's enablers. I always new this about the South, but I really didn't know that it isn't much different anywhere else in the country. All the racist 911 ...while black bullshit. This depresses me.

[quickesst]

7. I'll pretty much agree with the article you posted

.....as long as it is understood and acknowledged that trumps confederacy encompasses more than just the south. There are plenty of people and states in the North who are also complicit, which in my mind, makes it not a continuation of the Civil War, but of a new Civil War with no boundaries such as existed when it was the north versus the South.

[MountCleaners]

8. In recent years, we've seen the mainstreaming

...of the Confederate flag and Trump feels comfortable defending Confederate monuments as "history". Defending these things has become mainstream in the Republican Party.

I'm from northern Illinois, where this stuff is treasonous and racist. Thanks to social media, I can see people from the north defending this stuff. It's sickening.

[Hortensis]

9. Carried juuust away a bit, imo. We've most of us never been in

a war, any war, but some of us can get an idea of what war is from others and be enormously grateful.

That's because of the liberal dominance of America during the New Deal era that ended in a conservative era beginning with Reagan. Failure to understand what our lives depend on protecting has caused too many peace-spoiled Americans to not bother. As our last election, and once again this unbelievably close one, show scarily clearly.

Those people were always with us. WE knew what they were, we knew they were a dangerous minority, but goodhearted but lazy and irresponsible people failed to keep control.

[The Liberal Lion]

10. It's a shame that being liberal/progressive means that we alone

embrace the highly regarded egalitarian principle of All Men (people) are created EQUAL and are endowed by their creator (their birth) with certain unalienable rights chief among these being LIBERTY!

[not fooled]

11. ...sound track

[link:?resize=590,236|]


gawd, I'm sick of these mofos blighting the 21st century.

[BigmanPigman]

12. Spike Lee said that racism will never go away in this country until

we have real discussions about the civil war and slavery. I agree 100%. We can not brush it under the carpet hoping it disappears on its own.

[keithbvadu2]

13. Thank God you republicans won that war in the 1860s.

Thank God you republicans won that war in the 1860s.

You certainly whipped those Southerners.

The Confederate flag was proudly flown alongside the Nazi flag in Charlottesville as the Nazis screamed about 'taking back America'.

When did the Nazis have America?

[Volaris]

21. When they got to call half the country the Confederacy .

THATS the country they want back. Don't kid yourself.

[elocs]

14. My only famous ancestor was General Sherman

and I wish he had done a much better job on his march to the sea.

[AllyCat]

15. When we get to the other side of this horror

No statues of these horrible fascists no remnants of their fascist subversion. Nothing. All of it gone.

[sandensea]

16. Quite the irony, given that he;s also a "damn Yankee"

who thinks Republicans - and Southerners in particular - are "really stupid."

[cwydro]

17. He's a fascist. There's no such thing as the confederacy.

He’s got nothing to do with the south.

Don’t put him on southerners.

[appalachiablue]

18. Agree on that, a NY fascist of German heritage who it's claimed

read Mein Kampf, not Dixie.

[keopeli]

20. I think it is on Southerners. I'm a Texan, born and raised. Trump's fascist racism is on Southerners

Yes, I'm a liberal. But my entire extended family in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina are Trump supporters (except my mom, dad and 1 sister, who have seen the light).

I wish I wasn't part of this blight and I fight against it mightily, but I can not deny that the South is full of arrogant, racist, misogynistic ignoramuses who would cut off their nose to spite their face.

Trump is a Yankee with German heritage, but he has aligned with the South to accomplish his fascist dreams, knowing that it is the only path to realize his glory in this country. Sadly, his progeny are as bad as he is. All of them once claimed to be liberal Democrats. But we now know that was a ruse used to get along with all of their neighbors in NYC. The Trumps are neither Democrats nor Republicans; they are opportunist money barons, grifters, cons and thieves.

All of the liberals from the South must realize that they are a part of this malignant cancer on our society. After all, if we are to ever overcome, then we must first admit the truth and then, those of us from the South who believe in the American Ideal, we will be the ones who carry our family and friends out of the morass of self-hatred and ignorance that grips our fellow Americans.

Today's fascism may not be confined to the land below the Mason-Dixon Line, but it knows that the South carries its heart and soul.

[keithbvadu2]

23. To the Donald, his southern supporters are useful tools.

[Codeine]

19. At the end of the Slaver's Rebellion

every single Confederate officer and politician should have been hung. Every single plantation should have been expropriated and given over to the newly-freed slaves.

And flying that stupid goddamned flag - in every variation, don’t give me that stupid fucking “battle flag” vs “Confederate flag” solipsistic nonsense - should have been deemed punishable by a lengthy prison stay.

But it should be pointed out that Trump is Nazi, not a Confederate. Different flavor of evil.

[cwydro]

22. Looks like plenty of NON-southerners are racist, so I'm not sure what good that would have done.

At any rate, Lincoln and Grant disagreed with your sentiment.

Seems so many instances of racism I read here lately take place in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Idaho...I could go on.

Even the recent case in Charlotte was a woman from Massachusetts. Sooo, people in glass houses, ya know.