NoShit....

[pbmus]

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Wounded Bear]

1. K & R...for truth...nt

[Lovie777]

2. K & R . . .

[Hekate]

3. Wow, Steve, tell us how you really feel!

[MyOwnPeace]

4. I'm amazed that it's gone this far......

CHANGE is SO difficult, especially when the basic foundation of your heritage/beliefs are involved. I'm not 'excusing' - 'right' is still 'right' - but so many people have been taught/have lived the 'myth' of so many things - it is truly amazing to see this moment arrive.

In the same way, but certainly a smaller scale - I was born and raised in a "steel-worker" town - blue collar/union, cigarettes and a shot-and-a-beer.

Times do change.

Steel is NOT this town anymore - but I NEVER thought I'd see a time when there was NO SMOKING in a bar!

[Mr. Evil]

8. Because of Covid...

And I smoke anytime I want!

[Mysterian]

5. Well said, Mr. Schmidt

[The Unmitigated Gall]

6. Yeah...but the car was cool

[Rhiannon12866]

7. Twitter replies:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[The Unmitigated Gall]

10. Lee..."Raged against Republican attempts to enforce...

...racial equality...”

Years ago, I watched the Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War. I was taken aback somewhat by the treatment Lee received, especially after his surrender where he was portrayed as this kindly, noble, scholarly and fatherly man who went right to work in the College repairing the divisions and the bitterness. Wow.

[Rhiannon12866]

11. I have Mary Trump's new book and she also brought up General Lee (and that whole historical period)

And she is very critical of President Ford since he did restore Lee's citizenship, not that he was around to hold office or serve on juries. And his family was reimbursed for his land that was appropriated, partially for Arlington National Cemetery. Mary Trump said that in that period, traitors were hanged, but instead Lee had a University named for him - Washington and Lee.

[The Unmitigated Gall]

13. Appalling. I remember thinking at the time

(And this is where I first comprehended the number six hundred THOUSAND dead) “Wait a minute. This is the guy who led the rebels into battles that killed hundreds of thousands, and he gets to retire peacefully and run a damn college??? Of course, there’s Shelby Foote practically ordering the nation to tear down the Lincoln Memorial and build a new one to Lee.
So there’s a tradition of light treatment for those who attack our democracy from within...take heart 1/6 traitors.

[Rhiannon12866]

16. That is an excellent point

She also said that the Confederate flag is still flown as a testament to the South - when the legacy it represents should have consigned it to the same fate as Germany treated the swastika. I've even seen it flown around here - and I'm in Northern New York. And I wonder what in the world these pickup truck owners who fly them are thinking...

And then there was the PBS series on Reconstruction. Andrew Johnson overturned the policy of giving land to former slaves who were now free. He just took it away and returned it to the wealthy land owners so they'd "owe" him. And that set a precedent for a miscarriage of justice that exists until this day.

[The Unmitigated Gall]

25. I'll have to see it. The documentary on Reconstruction, I mean.

Meanwhile, I hope they melt that statue down. Remove it entirely from existence!

[Rhiannon12866]

26. It was a series on PBS a couple of years ago. And it covered facts about the post-Civil War

That we didn't learn in school.

https://www.pbs.org/video/reconstruction-extended-trailer-pkhs21/

[Solomon]

33. Read Black Reconstruction by W.E.B. Dubois

and prepare to get your mind blown.

[The Unmitigated Gall]

38. Thank you!

[TygrBright]

22. Ken Burns was too lazy to do primary-source research. He let himself get snookered by Shelby Foote.

And Foote was pretty much of a lost-cause apologist. I made it through about half of vol 1 of his "Civil War" history, before the hagiography of various racist traitor losers made me too nauseous to continue.

reminiscently,
Bright

[The Unmitigated Gall]

24. I didn't really know enough at the time to think critically about it.

But Mr. Foote seemed to have some fond feelings for some of those confederate generals. It was troubling to see, though, General Lee stride into that little whatever it was at Appamattox, sign an end to his war against the U.S. that killed so many, and walk away to a continuing life of privilege. Nice precedent for these 1/6 bastards. I wonder a little what The Shelbster would have to say about our current shit-show...but not too much.

[calimary]

35. "States rights."

Sometimes it seems like this country is 50 different countries - lashed together, in some cases, against their will.

Sometimes in too many cases.

[Rhiannon12866]

39. Whenever I hear the term "States Rights," I think of the start of the Reagan campaign

Which was launched in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site of the murders of the 3 civil rights workers in 1964 - and that signal caused President Carter to lose the South. When are certain parts of this country going to get over the Civil War?

[calimary]

40. Shit, Rhiannon, I wish I knew...

[Rhiannon12866]

41. I've even seen Confederate flags here in by area of Northeastern New York!

Do these pickup drivers even know what they signify? A couple of years ago there was a controversy about selling Confederate flags and memorabilia at the county fair - and the vote was to continue allowing it! In her new book, Mary Trump said that it should have gone the way of the swastika in Germany - since it signified a traitorous action and even now is continuing to divide us.

[calimary]

42. I guess we have our own American swastika: the confederate flag

[Alice Kramden]

9. KnR

This is a time of reckoning for these myths to be exposed

[ymetca]

12. I have an ancestor

Who was a cavalry man on the "blue" side, and took part in General Sherman's "bloody march to the sea". A lot has been written about that, but his discharge papers are all my family knows of what he actually did. He served honorably, it says. But I'm sure it was all horrific.

Having grown up NOT in the deep South, we were taught as school children that the Civil War was fought to END SLAVERY, and it was BLOODY AWFUL, but absolutely necessary.

It was only when I moved further south in my wanderings here that I started to see all the absurd white-washing of history in this "neck of the woods".

Then I read Richard Brautigan's "A Confederate General from Big Sur", and I started to get a sense of it all.

Paula Deen can keep her big hats and mint juleps, but hide the lawn jockeys now, if you please...

[malaise]

14. K & R for truth n/t

[Evolve Dammit]

15. Revised history never taught in schools. Good post.

[Backseat Driver]

17. I took my single required History class in the 10th grade

My teacher, Americo B (of Italian heritage), was certain to tell us that the Civil War was first about SC seceding from the union of the USA, not the issue of slavery. We had to do a assigned report about someone from the Civil War - I was assigned Jeb Stuart, (LOL, dashing fashionista)...wonder now just what disinformation I brought to the class concerning the Confederate mythology complete with visual aide.

I also remember contacting our congressman when DH, a history buff, was job hunting in that city, and someone was stealing our newspaper w/classifieds to which we had subscribed; thereafter, we received it. Perhaps fate intervened when a great interview and subsequent job offer was abruptly withdrawn. Many years later, I had a co-worker who said that living there was NOT a good experience...hmmm...

[kairos12]

18. Grant kicked his traitor ass.

[ellie]

19. He should have

been hung as the traitor he was.

[plimsoll]

20. And Grant was slurred with "Unspeakable Slaughter"

When your odds of surviving under Lee were less. For a general who was usually on the defensive. Pickett's assessment was accurate, "that old man slaughtered my men."

[keithbvadu2]

21. A loyal right winger claimed that REL did not betray his oath to his country because he resigned his

A loyal right winger claimed that REL did not betray his oath to his country because he resigned his commission.

An excuse for a traitor.

[keithbvadu2]

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

Confederate flag & Party of Lincoln

(To the GOP): Thank God you republicans won that war back in the 1860s.

[Rhiannon12866]

27. Schools really need to do a much better job teaching U.S. history...

[niyad]

30. And spelling.

[Rhiannon12866]

31. Yes, definitely spelling!

I'm afraid that "spell check" has ruined spelling for a generation!

[keithbvadu2]

32. Yep! Spell check says you got the word right but does not care if you got the right word.

Yep! Spell check says you got the word right but does not care if you got the right word.

It's the same with voice to text.

It can 'hear' a word you did not say and change your message drastically.

[niyad]

29. Waving

[calimary]

34. Idiots.

That’s all I’ve got. And that’s all they are.

[calimary]

43. The American Swastika. I'm gonna start referring to that abominable Confederate flag

as that. The American Swastika. Exactly that. It needs that. It requires that. Smear it with “ick” that evokes the same revulsion as Hitler’s signature image that people wore and hoisted on flag poles and graffiti’d everywhere and stood by - with great pride in too many cases.

Until they didn’t, because it became an object of shame - AND SHAMING. And unfortunately, the shaming part is what we’re lacking, here. They’re fucking proud of it, and even violently in-yer-face about it. Heck, maybe that’s how we get to groups calling themselves “Proud boys.”

[Blue Owl]

28. "The Kindly General" my ass....

[Cha]

36. Rt TY!

[RVN VET71]

37. Thanks to Steve Schmidt, I read up on Lee's cruelty

Where before I thought him a traitor lured to betraying his country by a false sense of honor and loyalty to the State of Virginia, I now know he was a cruel son of a bitch, a sadist who thought so little of the people he “owned” that he tried to keep some of them enslaved when the law required him to free them and personally oversaw the torture of a brother and sister who sought to escape to the North -- even ordering the thug he hired to do the whipping, to lay it on hard and heavy -- presumably for his pleasure at their agony.

I had always regarded him as a traitor, but as a man who made the wrong choice because of a tortured conscience and a pained sense of divided loyalty. Now I know him as a beast, a terrible dishonorable man who betrayed his country because of slavery not despite it. And a man who felt sure enough of victory that he was comfortable participating in a war that killed almost as many Americans as covid-19. A man who hoped to destroy America to maintain a system of cruelty that embraced, even sanctified, the buying, selling, raping, and murdering of African Americans.