A white Southerner on Free State of Jones
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/the-free-state-of-jones-cms-23535
shareEvery society has its demons. Maybe the American public is tired of the constant bashing propagated by the left in order to do eternal penance for our past sins. What a society we live in where self-flagellation is expected. Nobody says that the US doesn't have those demons. But to be constantly reminded of it in the two predominant institutions that communicate to the masses - public schools and the media - is old, very old. We get it. The US practices slavery and some ugly things happened as a result. The Germans have been allowed to move on from their Nazi past. Why can't we? Enough already.
shareDo you think German schoolkids don't learn about WWII, about the Holocaust? Of course they do. Germany strictly prohibits the display of Nazi symbols. Yet, in the South, we have to look at Confederate flags, statues dedicated to the glorious losers of the Civil War. Schools named after war criminals like Nathan Bedford Forrest. The KKK still exists (and Duke gave his support to Trump), white supremacist organizations like the "Sons of Confederate Veterans" thrive or, rather, try to thrive.
No less a white arch-Conservative Southerner than Rick Perry (reputed to have at one time been a member of those "Sons") refused to allow the SCV to promote Confederate flags on Texas license plates because "it divides people when we should be trying to unite them".
I'm a Southerner. If you are too, you should ask yourself why is it important to invent a romanticized fantasy about a war that not only you, your parents, your grandparents and your great-grandparents didn't fight in, but one that was lost - and should have been lost.
Emancipation segued into Reconstruction which segued into Jim Crow. Jim Crow only ended "officially" in the late 60s but the prejudice continues.
How does a movie that shows how poor white Southerners were exploited by the planter class, threaten you?
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"why is it important to invent a romanticized fantasy"
FSOJ is a romanticized fantasy.
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"What IS properly covered in the movie are the important historical elements of Southern dissention, planter class...etc"
-If it had been presented as a fictional tale of those subjects...but it wasn't.
It was proclaimed to be the true story of Newt Knight. It ventures from the truth at every relevant point.
"The actual documented evidence exposes their incredibly clumsy lies."
Documented evidence of what? The movie? LOL. Show us this "documented evidence."
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Knight volunteered for the Confederate army in 1861 (that's from his service record). Is that in the movie? No.
He was dropped from the roll. The reason isn't stated but probably had something to do with problems back home.
He volunteered again in 1862 with the rank of corporal and was later promoted to sergeant (again, from the record). Is that in the movie? No.
The movie chooses to tell Knight's "Unionist" alibi - that he would serve, but only to tend the sick and wounded (nurse) - when the truth is readily available.
There is nothing in his record about being a nurse, medic, or anything associated with tending sick and wounded soldiers.
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"So, because it doesn't excruciatingly detail his formal Confederate service record..."
"Excruciatingly detail"...? It's not even close. The historians that were consulted know his service record. They used Knight's alibi (lie) instead-
"I was always a Union man. I told them I would just nurse the sick and wounded."
"...you think the entire movie is a 'fantasy'and misses the most "relevant points"? Is that your argument?"
The service record was just a starter set.
"So Knight 'volunteered' because of the intimidation and death threats that followed those who didn't."
What intimidation and death threats? Do you have a source?
"Given the paucity of Confederate records, there's no way to verify whether he was, or wasn't, in a medical\orderly role."
A sergeant assigned to nurse duty? Really?
He's on every roll from enlistment to desertion. The only extra duty he was assigned to was that of provost guard.
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You haven't seen this movie. You've posted hundreds of times trashing a movie you haven't seen.
If you'd seen the movie you'd know it's 'based on a true story'. Documentaries are supposed to be totally factual. Movies aren't. Maybe if you went to a movie occasionally you'd know that.
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Speaking of 'factual' this guy posted what he claims is a 'historian' criticizing the movie. A historian is somebody who has a Ph.D. In some specific historical domain and teaches at college level. The author he claims is a historian is a wannabe Tea Party politician who self published a book about Grover Cleveland and wants to run for governor of Mississippi. Beyond that he doesn't seem to even have a job, much less as a historian. Google's a bitch..
share"Those 300,000 southern white Unionist sharp-shooters"
All sharp-shooters eh? Didn't know that...
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I'm waiting for its premiere at the K-Mart 99¢ bin. I don't think it will be a very long wait...
shareThe writer of your Smithsonian article uses a letter written in July of 1862...
...to describe conditions in 1861-
"In April 1861 the American Civil War began. Many Mississippians, including Newt Knight, were opposed to secession and war. They viewed the rebellious Confederate government as the invading body. But the state was swept up in war-fever, and those who opposed the new Confederate government were labeled cowards or traitors. All across Mississippi, the opponents of the Confederacy were often persecuted in what witnesses described as '… a reign of terror … Many are forced into the army, instant death being the penalty in case of refusal, thus constraining us to bear arms against our country ….' Under these circumstances, Knight reluctantly enlisted in the Confederate Army in the early fall of 1861."
Letter written July 11, 1862-
https://books.google.com/books?id=17s9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA129&dq=%22many+of+us+are+forced+into+the+army,+instant+death+being+the+penalty+in+case+of+refusal%22+%22thus+constraining+us+to+bear+arms+against+our+country%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjw142epIPOAhUHZCYKHfvGClwQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=%22many%20of%20us%20are%20forced%20into%20the%20army%2C%20instant%20death%20being%20the%20penalty%20in%20case%20of%20refusal%22%20%22thus%20constraining%20us%20to%20bear%20arms%20against%20our%20country%22&f=false
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^THIS
shareI can't read their posts. I put all the Confederate flag wavers on 'ignore'.
They're fighting a 150 year old rear action. They hate that the general public will find out what BS the "Lost Cause" is. And it's political. No historian believes in that fiction, only manipulative politicians do.
Bill Moyers recounted a conversation he had with LBJ.
"Fleecing the Poor
We were in Tennessee. During a motorcade, the President spotted some ugly racial epithets scrawled on signs by a few plain, he called them homely, white women on the edge of the crowd. Late that night in the hotel, long past midnight, he was still going on about how poor whites and poor blacks had been kept apart so that they could separately be fleeced-. ''I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it," he said. "If you can convince the lowest white man that he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll even empty his pockets for you."
This is what many Southern politicians are still doing. By reassuring poor whites with a chip on their shoulder that all their problems are caused by - now it's dogwhistles - they can get elected, get financial support and pull a smoke and mirrors on their electorate so they don't notice the politicians are doing nothing to help the white working class or white middle class - they are too busy getting financial perks for the 1% (today's "planter class" that the Confederate flag wavers revere). Though the Confederate flag wavers themselves are no doubt descended from farm laborers who were exploited by the planters.
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As a Southerner myself, I have zero patience with Confederate flag wavers. They aren't deluded. They know the truth. They simply allow mendacious politicians to manipulate them to reassure them that no, they aren't prejudiced. THEY are the real victims, not minorities. White guys just can't catch a break! And, as LBJ said, they give these people somebody to look down on. So reassuring when you are at the bottom of the social ladder (and neoConfederates invariably are... we're talking dumb, unsophisticated guys and the politicians who exploit them).
You're absolutely right
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Rich man's war and a poor man's fight. The Confederacy imploded from within. It was a only a matter of time. It didn't stand a chance. Taxes, unpaid foreign loans to add to the poor morale.
I am the Alpha and the Omoxus. The Omoxus and the Omega
Penace, for what? The South was the victim. The South wanted liberty and states rights. The (damned) Yankees wanted to impose their elitist capitalist regime on the South. Having killed millions of people, they succeeded. The Confederacy not only had nothing to apologise for, they ought to have won.
Years of anti-Southern propaganda does not alter facts.
The South wasn't an elitist capitalist regime based on slave labor? Crazy.
shareHAHAHAAHAHAHHA
IDIOT
Every society has its demons. Maybe the American public is tired of the constant bashing propagated by the left in order to do eternal penance for our past sins. What a society we live in where self-flagellation is expected. Nobody says that the US doesn't have those demons. But to be constantly reminded of it in the two predominant institutions that communicate to the masses - public schools and the media - is old, very old. We get it. The US practices slavery and some ugly things happened as a result. The Germans have been allowed to move on from their Nazi past. Why can't we? Enough already.
What does any of this has to do with politics? We have tons of Civil War, WW1, WW2 and Vietnam films. God knows about the plethora if Holocaust films. We have films about The Civil Rights movement, 9/11 etc...
It's HISTORY . If anything, there are very few films about Slavery. Most of them covering the same things. Just because it's a painful part of U.S history. It seems to stand out. It's as integral to American History as the heart is to the body. It's like scars and damaged tissue after an operation. It's like a a forgiven mate after being cheated on several times. Sure, the person has been forgiven and the cheater is genuinely repentant. But that doesn't take away the incidents or the memory of it. Heck. Even if the innocent person has doubt that creep up from time to time. It's not his/her fault. The cheater should be a lil bit understanding. After all he/or she was the one that cheated in the first place.
You can't discard history. Good or bad.
I am the Alpha and the Omoxus. The Omoxus and the Omega share
Perfect Post
shareThe Nazi movement is unique to Germany. Slavery was not unique to the US.
Almost every nation had slaves, and those that didn't just profited from them through trade.
Even nations like Haiti had black people trying to maintain slavery over other black people while simultaneously declaring independence from France.
So, it's not explicitly about race either.
It was an economic plague that infected the entire world.
And it was abolished almost everywhere due to economic evolution without civil war and the deaths of 500,000 people.
And yet, every single aspect of life in the United States has to be analyzed through the lens of RACE and racism because of that history.
A history that is shared with the entire world, except for how the US shed more blood than anywhere else to end the practice.
If anything, the US should be the most guilt-free nation regarding race, instead of the most burdened.
Additionally, it's important to remember that unlike almost every other country that profited from slavery, the descendants of the slaves share the same geographic location with the parent country/colony.
The European countries all started, maintained, and increased slavery, yet today only a tiny fraction of their populations are descendants of those slaves.
Imagine the race relations in France if you took the population of Haiti and placed it inside France!
European nations didn't start slavery which existed for thousands of years, going back as far as the Neolithic Revolution. Nor did they end it because it wasn't profitable. In St.Domingue/Haiti, it ended due to revolution. Elsewhere growing restrictions on the slave trade reduced the power of planter interests making possible the triumph of antislavery movements.
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