Good Friday Morning Frank and all Disenfranchised Folk,
Here it is, the day before Independence Day. As I look about my great
Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, I have to ask myself...self,
just where are those Free and Brave People? Are we talking about the
people who used to own homes and property with growing equity? Or are
they the people who used to have decent paying jobs, but are now
out-placed?
Maybe its the free folk living in rat infested ghettos, or sleeping in
doorways and under overpasses.
Or is it the growing number of modern Slaves incarcerated in our
newest industry, private prisons, working for pennies an hour. Talk
about how Plantation Slaves were mistreated. Try living year after
year in a 6 by 8 cell. In these new slave quarters there are no
Sunday Church gatherings, and certainly no Fish Fries or Clam Bakes
like in Green Pastures.
No, as I wander through my Land of the Free, I see little evidence of
Independence. Oh sure, folks can grab a few days, pack the old family
bus and head for the Parks and beaches. Or they can take an afternoon
to suck up some suds and cheer their home team to victory. But even
then they are losing their Independence. Surveillance cameras, armed
police, and the piles of new laws, rules and regulations that control
more and more of folks lives.
Even the Ruling Class are not so brave these days. They hunker behind
gated estates and travel with body guards and in private planes.
We need to draft some new songs and poems to replace the, "America the
Beautiful" theme.
"Americans, Americans, once so free and proud. You hunker down in your
ghetto town,
And breathe the toxic cloud.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/3/15, Frank Ventura <frank.ventura@littlebreezes.com> wrote:
> Carl, was it really that short lived? When you witness the actions of our
> nation's police forces I think Davis's values are still well practiced, as
> are those of those other persons you mentioned.
> Frank
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
> Sent: Thursday, July 2, 2015 12:53 AM
> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
> Cc: my blog carl jarvis
> Subject: [blind-democracy] Confronting Southern 'Victimhood'
>
> Jefferson Davis defied the laws of his government, and he became a traitor.
> He left his job as a senator of the United States, and allowed himself to be
> crowned president of the confederacy. Davis was certainly not a noble man,
> being president, he was ultimately responsible for all the deaths and ruin
> brought about by this unholy war. But Evil? As far as I'm concerned,
> Jefferson Davis was just another puffed up loser. No more and no less than
> Adolph Hitler or Czar Nicholas II, or
>
> chang kai shek, or many many others. So why do we spend so much of our
> energy lifting Jefferson Davis up as if he were a fallen hero?
> And by the way, Jefferson Davis is my great-great-great uncle. My great
> grandmother Sarah Davis Hickman was his niece. But I feel no kinship, nor a
> need to hold him up. He did what he did for his own reasons, and he paid
> for them. Just as do each of us.
> What should concern us, trouble our Souls, is the fact that those who
> worship the likes of Jefferson Davis, are actually yearning for a return to
> those long ago days. No, say what you will. But tell me this, how many
> Black people do you know who hold up Jefferson Davis as some fallen hero?
> Davis represents all that was ugly then. And worshiping him today is simply
> a sign that bigotry and racism continue to be seen as acceptable. And the
> same is true of the Confederate Flag. And so is dressing up in the Losers
> Uniforms and play acting that we are back in those "glory days". We are in
> deep denial if we believe in any part of what the confederacy stood for.
> When the Colonies took up arms against England, there were many local folk
> who supported the King. But look around the history books and tell me if
> you find any English Flags fluttering above local court houses following the
> establishment of the Union.
> Today, none of us have any control over who we are related to. Past or
> present. In fact, none of us living today have any claim to that short
> lived Confederacy. Some of my relatives fought for the Union, and some for
> the Traitors. But that was what was going on back then.
> We have no say, nor in fact do we really have a firm understanding of the
> events and the forces at play back then. We have enough on our hands
> sorting out today's mess.
> Jefferson Davis was just a man who lived and went about his business back in
> another time. And that flag, and all the other trinkets of the Losers,
> should be tucked away for our grandchildren to see as a backdrop to lessons
> about how our ancestors failed to treat one another with respect. The flag
> now posted at the Charleston Court House should be shown as a reminder to
> future generations, that once upon a time our People did not know how to
> treat one another. That flag represents the collective shame of All People
> in All of these United States.
> And upon you, uncle Jefferson Davis, I close the cover of the book.
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
>
> On 7/1/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>>
>> Parry writes: "Unlike the Germans after World War II who collectively
>> shouldered blame for the Holocaust and the war's devastation,
>> America's white Southerners never confessed to the evil that they had
>> committed by enslaving African-Americans and then pushing the United
>> States into a bloody Civil War in their defense of human bondage."
>>
>> Supporters gather for a rally to protest the removal of the flags from
>> the Confederate Memorial Saturday, June 27, 2015, in Montgomery, Alabama.
>> (photo: Julie Bennett/AL.com)
>>
>>
>> Confronting Southern 'Victimhood'
>> By Robert Parry, Consortium News
>> 01 July 15
>>
>> Many white Southerners are getting their backs up again over demands
>> that the Confederate flag and other symbols of slavery be removed. But
>> the core problem is that the South never admitted that slavery and
>> then segregation were wrong, instead offering endless excuses, writes
>> Robert Parry.
>>
>> Unlike the Germans after World War II who collectively shouldered
>> blame for the Holocaust and the war's devastation, America's white
>> Southerners never confessed to the evil that they had committed by
>> enslaving African-Americans and then pushing the United States into a
>> bloody Civil War in their defense of human bondage.
>> Instead of a frank admission of guilt, there have been endless excuses
>> and obfuscations. Confederate apologists insist that slavery wasn't
>> really all that bad for blacks, that the North's hands weren't clean
>> either, that the Civil War was really just about differing
>> interpretations of the Constitution, that white Southerners were the
>> real victims here - from Sherman's March to the Sea to Reconstruction.
>> Some white Southerners still prefer to call the conflict "the war of
>> Northern aggression."
>> Indeed, Southern white "victimhood" has been at the heart of much
>> bloodshed and suffering in the United States not only during the Civil
>> War and the ensuing decades but through the modern era of the civil
>> rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s to the present bigoted hatred
>> of the first African-American president and the coldblooded murders of
>> nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina.
>> Dylann Roof, the alleged perpetrator of the Charleston murders,
>> apparently was motivated by racist propaganda that highlighted
>> incidents of black-on-white crime and led Roof to believe that he was
>> defending the white race, under siege from blacks, another excuse used
>> to justify the Confederate cause.
>> Yet, the overriding reality has been centuries of white racist
>> violence against blacks - from the unspeakable cruelties of slavery to
>> Jim Crow lynchings to the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and other
>> civil rights leaders to recent police shootings targeting blacks.
>> Considering that grim history, what is perhaps most remarkable about
>> white Southerners is that they as a group have never issued an
>> unequivocal apology for their systematic abuse of African-Americans,
>> let alone undertaken a serious commitment to make amends. Instead,
>> many white Southerners pretend that they are the real victims here.
>> We see this pattern again with the white backlash against public calls
>> from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and others to retire the
>> Confederate battle flag and other pro-slavery symbols. This weekend,
>> news reports revealed a rush among white Southerners to buy the flag
>> and clothing items featuring the flag. And across the Internet,
>> Confederate apologists rushed to reprise all the sophistry that has
>> surrounded the pro-slavery cause for generations.
>> In Arlington, Virginia, I encountered some of that when I again urged
>> the County Board to petition the state legislature in Richmond to
>> remove the name of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from roadways
>> that pass Arlington National Cemetery (founded to bury Union soldiers
>> killed in the Civil War) and that skirt historic black neighborhoods
>> in South Arlington (conveying a racist message of who's still the boss).
>> Jefferson Davis's name was put on the stretch of Route One in the
>> early 1920s amid a surge of Confederate pride, a period of increased
>> lynchings of blacks, a growth in Ku Klux Klan membership, and release
>> of the movie, "Birth of a Nation," celebrating the KKK as the brave
>> defender of innocent whites endangered by rampaging blacks. In 1964,
>> as a counterpoint to the Civil Rights Act, Virginia extended Jefferson
>> Davis Highway to a roadway near Arlington Cemetery and the Pentagon.
>> 'Rankled' and 'Crazy'
>> A year ago when I first suggested removing Jefferson Davis's name, the
>> local newspaper treated my appeal as something of a joke, referring to
>> me as "rankled" and prompting angry responses from some Arlingtonians.
>> One hostile letter writer declared, "I am very proud of my
>> Commonwealth's history, but not of the current times, as I'm sure many
>> others are."
>> A top Democratic county official confronted me after a public meeting
>> and upbraided me for raising such a divisive issue when there were
>> more practical and immediate issues facing the county. The official
>> said the state legislature would think Arlington County was "crazy" if
>> it submitted a recommendation on removing Davis's name.
>> However, after the Charleston massacre, I wrote to the board again:
>> "When even South Carolina's Republicans say it's time to retire old
>> symbols of the Confederacy - especially ones associated with slavery,
>> white supremacy and violence - isn't it time for Arlington County to
>> petition the state legislature to rename Jefferson Davis Highway
>> something more appropriate to our racial diversity?
>> "As we've seen tragically in recent days, symbols carry meaning. They
>> encourage behavior, either good or bad. And, in the case of
>> Confederate symbols, it is clear how individuals like Dylann Roof
>> interpreted them, as a license to murder innocent black people. As for
>> Confederate President Davis, not only was he a white supremacist who
>> wished to perpetuate slavery forever, but he also authorized the
>> murder of captured or surrendering black soldiers of the Union Army,
>> an order that was acted upon in some of the final battles of the Civil
>> War.
>> "There's even an Arlington connection to some of those U.S. Colored
>> Troops murdered based on Davis's order. Some were trained at our own
>> Camp Casey before marching south to fight for freedom. Some Camp Casey
>> recruits fought in the Battle of the Crater in a desperate effort to
>> save white Union troops who were being slaughtered in battle. However,
>> after the fighting stopped, Confederate troops - operating under
>> President Davis's order - executed captured USCT soldiers." [See
>> Consortiumnews.com's "The Mystery of the Civil War's Camp Casey."] My
>> letter continued: "As a longtime resident of Arlington, I have often
>> wondered what we think we are honoring when we name a major highway
>> after Jefferson Davis. Are we saying that we think slavery was a good
>> idea? Are we saying that we believe in white supremacy? Are we saying
>> that we favor murdering black people simply because of the color of
>> their skin? What message are we sending to our children - and indeed
>> perhaps to some troubled young people like Dylann Roof?
>> "Please, finally, petition the legislature to remove Davis's name from
>> these Arlington roadways - and keep at it even if it requires multiple
>> efforts.
>> It
>> is way past time to do so."
>> I have received no reply from the County Board. My guess is there will
>> be the same timidity about riling up the Confederate defenders who
>> will draw fury from their bottomless well of victimhood. When my
>> letter circulated on some local message boards, it did prompt a number
>> of hostile responses (as well as some supportive comments).
>> But history should tell us that a grave injustice that is not
>> confronted - that is allowed to lie dormant while its perpetrators
>> nurse their imaginary grievances - will resurface in a myriad of ugly
>> and destructive ways. It is best, albeit difficult, to take on the
>> injustice and demand accountability.
>> (Update: Sadly, some of the comments to this story only prove my point.
>> Confederate apologists just can't bring themselves to admit that
>> American slavery was one of history's great evils. Instead, they
>> engage in endless sophistry, obfuscation, excuses and misdirection.
>> The goal apparently is to confuse the topic and distract from the
>> heart of the matter - that many of them still believe in slavery and
>> white supremacy. If they don't, why don't they just say so.)
>> Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra
>> stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can
>> buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here
>> or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can
>> order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to
>> various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes
>> America's Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
>> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
>> valid.
>>
>> Supporters gather for a rally to protest the removal of the flags from
>> the Confederate Memorial Saturday, June 27, 2015, in Montgomery, Alabama.
>> (photo: Julie Bennett/AL.com)
>> https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/29/confronting-southern-victimhood/https:
>> //consortiumnews.com/2015/06/29/confronting-southern-victimhood/
>> Confronting Southern 'Victimhood'
>> By Robert Parry, Consortium News
>> 01 July 15
>> Many white Southerners are getting their backs up again over demands
>> that the Confederate flag and other symbols of slavery be removed. But
>> the core problem is that the South never admitted that slavery and
>> then segregation were wrong, instead offering endless excuses, writes
>> Robert Parry.
>> nlike the Germans after World War II who collectively shouldered
>> blame for the Holocaust and the war's devastation, America's white
>> Southerners never confessed to the evil that they had committed by
>> enslaving African-Americans and then pushing the United States into a
>> bloody Civil War in their defense of human bondage.
>> Instead of a frank admission of guilt, there have been endless excuses
>> and obfuscations. Confederate apologists insist that slavery wasn't
>> really all that bad for blacks, that the North's hands weren't clean
>> either, that the Civil War was really just about differing
>> interpretations of the Constitution, that white Southerners were the
>> real victims here - from Sherman's March to the Sea to Reconstruction.
>> Some white Southerners still prefer to call the conflict "the war of
>> Northern aggression."
>> Indeed, Southern white "victimhood" has been at the heart of much
>> bloodshed and suffering in the United States not only during the Civil
>> War and the ensuing decades but through the modern era of the civil
>> rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s to the present bigoted hatred
>> of the first African-American president and the coldblooded murders of
>> nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina.
>> Dylann Roof, the alleged perpetrator of the Charleston murders,
>> apparently was motivated by racist propaganda that highlighted
>> incidents of black-on-white crime and led Roof to believe that he was
>> defending the white race, under siege from blacks, another excuse used
>> to justify the Confederate cause.
>> Yet, the overriding reality has been centuries of white racist
>> violence against blacks - from the unspeakable cruelties of slavery to
>> Jim Crow lynchings to the murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and other
>> civil rights leaders to recent police shootings targeting blacks.
>> Considering that grim history, what is perhaps most remarkable about
>> white Southerners is that they as a group have never issued an
>> unequivocal apology for their systematic abuse of African-Americans,
>> let alone undertaken a serious commitment to make amends. Instead,
>> many white Southerners pretend that they are the real victims here.
>> We see this pattern again with the white backlash against public calls
>> from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and others to retire the
>> Confederate battle flag and other pro-slavery symbols. This weekend,
>> news reports revealed a rush among white Southerners to buy the flag
>> and clothing items featuring the flag. And across the Internet,
>> Confederate apologists rushed to reprise all the sophistry that has
>> surrounded the pro-slavery cause for generations.
>> In Arlington, Virginia, I encountered some of that when I again urged
>> the County Board to petition the state legislature in Richmond to
>> remove the name of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from roadways
>> that pass Arlington National Cemetery (founded to bury Union soldiers
>> killed in the Civil War) and that skirt historic black neighborhoods
>> in South Arlington (conveying a racist message of who's still the boss).
>> Jefferson Davis's name was put on the stretch of Route One in the
>> early 1920s amid a surge of Confederate pride, a period of increased
>> lynchings of blacks, a growth in Ku Klux Klan membership, and release
>> of the movie, "Birth of a Nation," celebrating the KKK as the brave
>> defender of innocent whites endangered by rampaging blacks. In 1964,
>> as a counterpoint to the Civil Rights Act, Virginia extended Jefferson
>> Davis Highway to a roadway near Arlington Cemetery and the Pentagon.
>> 'Rankled' and 'Crazy'
>> A year ago when I first suggested removing Jefferson Davis's name, the
>> local newspaper treated my appeal as something of a joke, referring to
>> me as "rankled" and prompting angry responses from some Arlingtonians.
>> One hostile letter writer declared, "I am very proud of my
>> Commonwealth's history, but not of the current times, as I'm sure many
>> others are."
>> A top Democratic county official confronted me after a public meeting
>> and upbraided me for raising such a divisive issue when there were
>> more practical and immediate issues facing the county. The official
>> said the state legislature would think Arlington County was "crazy" if
>> it submitted a recommendation on removing Davis's name.
>> However, after the Charleston massacre, I wrote to the board again:
>> "When even South Carolina's Republicans say it's time to retire old
>> symbols of the Confederacy - especially ones associated with slavery,
>> white supremacy and violence - isn't it time for Arlington County to
>> petition the state legislature to rename Jefferson Davis Highway
>> something more appropriate to our racial diversity?
>> "As we've seen tragically in recent days, symbols carry meaning. They
>> encourage behavior, either good or bad. And, in the case of
>> Confederate symbols, it is clear how individuals like Dylann Roof
>> interpreted them, as a license to murder innocent black people. As for
>> Confederate President Davis, not only was he a white supremacist who
>> wished to perpetuate slavery forever, but he also authorized the
>> murder of captured or surrendering black soldiers of the Union Army,
>> an order that was acted upon in some of the final battles of the Civil
>> War.
>> "There's even an Arlington connection to some of those U.S. Colored
>> Troops murdered based on Davis's order. Some were trained at our own
>> Camp Casey before marching south to fight for freedom. Some Camp Casey
>> recruits fought in the Battle of the Crater in a desperate effort to
>> save white Union troops who were being slaughtered in battle. However,
>> after the fighting stopped, Confederate troops - operating under
>> President Davis's order - executed captured USCT soldiers." [See
>> Consortiumnews.com's "The Mystery of the Civil War's Camp Casey."] My
>> letter continued: "As a longtime resident of Arlington, I have often
>> wondered what we think we are honoring when we name a major highway
>> after Jefferson Davis. Are we saying that we think slavery was a good
>> idea? Are we saying that we believe in white supremacy? Are we saying
>> that we favor murdering black people simply because of the color of
>> their skin? What message are we sending to our children - and indeed
>> perhaps to some troubled young people like Dylann Roof?
>> "Please, finally, petition the legislature to remove Davis's name from
>> these Arlington roadways - and keep at it even if it requires multiple
>> efforts.
>> It
>> is way past time to do so."
>> I have received no reply from the County Board. My guess is there will
>> be the same timidity about riling up the Confederate defenders who
>> will draw fury from their bottomless well of victimhood. When my
>> letter circulated on some local message boards, it did prompt a number
>> of hostile responses (as well as some supportive comments).
>> But history should tell us that a grave injustice that is not
>> confronted - that is allowed to lie dormant while its perpetrators
>> nurse their imaginary grievances - will resurface in a myriad of ugly
>> and destructive ways. It is best, albeit difficult, to take on the
>> injustice and demand accountability.
>> (Update: Sadly, some of the comments to this story only prove my point.
>> Confederate apologists just can't bring themselves to admit that
>> American slavery was one of history's great evils. Instead, they
>> engage in endless sophistry, obfuscation, excuses and misdirection.
>> The goal apparently is to confuse the topic and distract from the
>> heart of the matter - that many of them still believe in slavery and
>> white supremacy. If they don't, why don't they just say so.)
>> Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra
>> stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can
>> buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here
>> or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can
>> order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to
>> various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes
>> America's Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
>> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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