The Civil War's 150th Anniversary Divides the South

[Swede]

The SCV's controversial events often make the news, but their perspective on the war and its causes isn't getting much traction nationally. In December, the History channel refused to run one of the SCV's commercials that blamed the North for slavery, claiming that slaves were essentially forced onto South plantation owners. Another commercial, also refused by the History channel, claimed that the Civil War was "not a civil war... a war in which Southerners fought to defend their homes and families against an aggressive invasion by federal troops." (Comment on this story.)

"Lincoln waged a war to conquer his neighbor," Rand explains, "In our view he was an aggressor against another nation, just as Hitler was an aggressor against other nations." Most people, Southern or otherwise, are not likely to agree with such an inflammatory statement, but the sentiment underlying Rand's assertion has deep roots. "Coming out of the experience of the Civil War and Southern Reconstruction, there was a sense of wounded pride and grievance," explains James Cobb, University of Georgia history professor and author of Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity. But even if racism, intolerance, and discrimination still plague the South - as they do the rest of the country - the sense of regional separateness on those issues has largely diminished. "Time has passed," says Cobb. "To uphold the Confederacy in this way has become a fairly extreme position."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599205598100

[GSLevel9]

1. that's a fascinating article...

and deserves attention.

[Yavin4]

2. Racial/Ethnic/Religious Tribal Wars Never Really End

You find this in nations around the world. There's still simmering resentmenent among the tribes or even fighting the same tribal wars passed down from prior generations.

[rurallib]

3. rewriting history has a long history in the south don't it?

[GSLevel9]

4. A very long history... but not as long as "Victors writing the history" nt