What makes America great? Any illiterate can rent a plane, that's what!

[struggle4progress]

Richmond is hosting the 2015 UCI Road World Championships this week, and cyclists from around the world will compete

The championships showcase Monument Avenue, Richmond's street shrine to the Lost Souls of the Confederacy, such as Bobby E (who helped hang John Brown for treason and whose former plantation aptly became our national cemetery), Stonewall, and Jeff

I was, of course, disappointed to learn that Jeff's statue does not feature him dressed as a woman fleeing town, but perhaps I should not have been surprised: the statues mostly date from that era when Jim Crow laws swept across America. Jeff seems to have been long been remembered in the South for his defiant last proclamation from Danville -- again and again will we return, until the baffled and exhausted enemy shall abandon in despair his endless and impossible task of making slaves of a people resolved to be free -- which at least recognized, if in somewhat garbled fashion, one of the main ideas behind the war, namely, that no one normally prefers slavery to freedom

From time to time, neo-confederates still stroll Monument Avenue en-masse with rebel banners flapping. In 2012, the Sons of Confederate Veterans paraded down the street in commemoration of Jeff's 1862 inauguration; but I only heard about it later, and I'm not sure I would have been able to go, since on 18 February I try to celebrate Cow-milked-while-flying-in-an-airplane Day when I remember

There was an effort, lasting about three months, to persuade the Road World Championship organizers to call attention to something other than the monuments, but it failed

So the cyclists will behold the major confederate statues of Richmond, including the big bronze of Jeff Himself, with his arm stuck uselessly out in front of him in some meaningless gesture that may have been popular with poseurs of his era

But, lest the foreign visitors somehow miss the point of Monument Avenue, the Virginia Flaggers hired a plane to trail the banner Confederate Heros Matter

Maybe some kind soul could remind them that spelling matters too

[Half-Century Man]

1. I see them as being institutionalized.

So trapped within the popular recreation of the confederacy they are scared of a world without it. To reject it is to reject a core component of what they have been trained is their personal past.

There are no confederate heroes to matter.

Absolute fact: There are no Confederate Veterans of the American Civil War. They died long ago.
I am pretty sure there are no actual surviving children of Confederate Veterans of the American Civil War. Grandchildren of CVOTACW are elderly.
This is removed by time far enough to be viewed impersonally. Honor whatever bravery there is to be found, and acknowledge any villainy that is there as well.

The fighters can be honored, as fighters. The lies which put them in battle need to be confronted and acknowledged. The leaders who sent the fighters to their maimings or deaths need to be accountable. Like Jefferson Davis or George Bush. Weapons of mass destruction or states rights my ass; it was slaves and oil.

[struggle4progress]

3. Actually, a number of soldiers had second or third marriages late in life to much younger women

so there might be two dozen or so children of civil war soldiers still alive today; a National Geographic article last November said fewer than 35

Clifford Hamm was mentioned in that article. He was in the news again at the end of June:

Charlotte woman removes Confederate flag at SC Statehouse
Updated: 8:28 p.m. Monday, June 29, 2015
Posted: 8:40 a.m. Saturday, June 27, 2015
... The Sons of Confederate Veterans Mechanized Cavalry held a rally outside the Gaston County Courthouse Saturday. Men and women waived the Confederate flag and held signs that read, “Don’t erase our history.” In the crowd was Clifford Hamm, 91, who told Channel 9 his father fought for the Confederate army ...
http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/woman-removes-confederate-flag-front-sc-statehouse/nmm4Z/

[Half-Century Man]

4. Quick Search

found documentation of 4 here
http://www.militaryorderofthestarsandbars.org/programs-services/real-sons/

I had thought them to be likely dead.
Be that as it may, confederate heroes no longer exist. Those with close ties are diminishing over the years.


I sincerely hope Mr. Hamm has more about his life to be proud of than his elderly grandfather married a much younger woman. His father most likely would have been in his seventies when Mr. Hamm was born in 1924, I hope the veteran lived long enough to give his son some good memories of himself.
I think it would be tragic to only know of your father by stories told to you about some job he had a one time instead of someone you knew loved you.

[struggle4progress]

5. I agree and certainly don't regard the confederacy as heroic in any way: the only point I was making

is that a small handful of children of civil war soldiers do still exist

[Half-Century Man]

6. I got that.

I also got a link showing Mr. Hamm. at a rally.
The MC was a reenactor sporting a duck dynasty beard. Spoke with such reverence you would have thought the guy next to him lead Pickett's charge at Gettysburg.
I felt sorry for Hamm.

[struggle4progress]

7. I was really only checking if he was still alive

and that was the one link I found

[Rex]

2. "dressed as a woman fleeing town"

Good inside joke.