Tuesday, June 23, 2015

I'LL TAKE IT.

There are plenty of reasons to celebrate the sudden consensus on the Confederate battle flag. For one thing, since the ball really got rolling there appears to be practically no one left on the sidelines to claim that the neo-Confederates are being oppressed. Usually these days, when someone points out outrageous beliefs -- or even just promotes non-outrageous beliefs of his own -- the counter-strategy is to claim oppression. Schoolbook writers wish to inform AP U.S. History students that antebellum slaveholders believed in white supremacy? "Orwellian," says Daniel Henninger at the Wall Street Journal. Want to see more minority writers? Then you want to "crack down on the number of Fitzgeralds or Faulkners or Cormac McCarthys," says Ian Tuttle at National Review (because literature is a zero-sum game). Don't want public money used to pay for privatized schools? You're George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door, howls NR's Kevin D. Williamson! Conservatives have become the nation's biggest drama queens, yet scores of them are abandoning the Lost Cause and not even crying Boot Human Face Forever about it. That's impressive!

Well, not all of them. "Behold the Cultural Power of the Left," wails Rich Lowry at National Review:
On the Confederate battle flag, we are once again witnessing the sheer cultural power of the Left: take an irrelevancy (or at the very least a sideshow), make it the central, all-consuming issue, move the debate with astonishing speed, and then, after achieving the initial victory (in this case, removing the flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol), demand yet more (now Wal-Mart and other retailers aren’t going to sell Confederate-flag paraphernalia and there will be a broader assault on anything associated with the Confederacy). This is the grinding wheel of the Left’s cultural war in action.
Sarah Palin gave him starbursts, but Nikki Haley has left Lowry limp. Now, I know Haley's just made a calculation here to sacrifice this many goobers for this much national cred. And I suspect, as the tide turned, Republicans both Southron and otherwise looked on the bright side and saw the big upside in severing the Party's connection to this symbol of Treason in Defense of Slavery. (Some of 'em are even trying to pin the flag to Hillary Clinton!) But that's politics, kids -- the scumbags who rule us won't get their asses off the stove unless someone turns on the heat. And now a significant number of citizens won't have to explain to their kids why their town tells them every day that they would put them in irons if they could, at least by that medium. Let us enjoy the moment.

UPDATE. Jonah Goldberg makes everything worse!
I agree with you, of course, about the moral horror that was slavery. I basically agree with you about the ultimate issues at the heart of the war. I may or may not agree with you about the extent to which southern soldiers saw the war for what it was, but that’s probably as much a matter of my ignorance as anything.
No comment.
...As a matter of reason alone, the United States flag stood for “white supremacy” too, at least when looked at through the eyes of African slaves and Native Americans. But I think everyone here would agree that while that may have once been one of many arguable interpretations of the Stars and Stripes, it no longer is (though I have no doubt there are plenty of professors out there who would like to argue the U.S. flag still stands for white supremacy).
I wonder if Goldberg knows what flag the Union soldiers carried into Richmond, and which flew when Lincoln came and the city's freed slaves gathered to celebrate their emancipation?

UPDATE 2. How's this for a Forced March through the Institutions? Rand Paul is agin' the battle flag now! The same Rand Paul who just five short years ago was explaining that the Civil Rights Act is anti-freedom. I've heard politics makes strange bedfellows, but this is practically Man on Dog.

UPDATE 3. Now Mollie Hemingway is comparing taking down Confederate flags and statues with the Taliban blowing up Buddahs, bless her insane little heart.

UPDATE 4. "I’ve been getting the feeling over the past few days that the Left is trying to troll us into defending the Confederate flag, simply by way of the trivial, obnoxious, and gratuitously partisan way they’re campaigning against it." I wonder if Mollie Hemingway is miffed that Robert Tracinski apparently doesn't read her stuff. In short, Tracinski wants some of the traitor relics to come down, but because of "love," not for the eee-vil reason the Left (whoever that is) is asking for it -- that is, as part of their endless "chipping away at America’s culture and seeking to expunge the parts of its history that don’t suit their ends." For example:
I have no problem striking the name of Jefferson Davis from our roadways, but I wouldn’t entirely expunge Robert E. Lee, and here’s where I think the campaign smacks of totalitarian-style overreach, attempting to send inconvenient history down the memory hole.
Orwell! Drink!
Lee’s reputation is not as a tyrant or fanatic but as a good and honest man fighting for a bad cause. I think it’s worth honoring him here and there, just so we are reminded that this combination can in fact occur.
You can read here the testimony of one of Lee's slaves on Lee's goodness and honesty ("Gen. Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Williams to 'lay it on well,' an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine..."). Well, we all make mistakes; Lee probably had his slaves whipped but seldom, being so busy arranging to keep them in bondage through treason.

404 comments:

  1. tinheart2:05 PM

    After Charleston, they knew that they'd either have to backtrack on guns, or on the Confederate flag. They chose the flag.

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  2. Frank McCormick2:11 PM

    "This is the grinding wheel of the Left’s cultural war in action."


    Wow! What a great example: it only took 150 years!

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  3. redoubtagain2:12 PM

    Keep in mind that Rich Lowry writes for a publication founded by this man.

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  4. now Wal-Mart and other retailers aren’t going to sell Confederate-flag paraphernalia



    rich lowry, distressed wal-mart shopper

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  5. RogerAiles2:25 PM

    No Dixie Swastikas on tank tops made with child labor. Minimal pay raises for "associates." Barely plausible lip service to sustainability and equality.

    We've got Wal-Mart by the short hairs. Year One, baby!

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  6. Michael Klingensmith2:28 PM

    By everything that free-marketers hold holy, isn't this now the optimum time to open a Confederate flag factory and start cranking them out by the milliions? Certainly the elites like Nikki Haley don't speak for Americans from the Heartland. If what these guys are saying is true, it's time for an entrepreneur to make a zillion dollars off this issue.

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  7. OtherJimDonahue2:31 PM

    "... but that’s probably as much a matter of my ignorance as anything."


    Surely he could have one of his readers do some research on this and get back to him.

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  8. Shalimar2:33 PM

    I wonder if Goldberg knows what flag the Union soldiers carried into Richmond, and which flew when Lincoln came and the city's freed slaves gathered to celebrate their emancipation?

    If he didn't issue a plaintive request that his readers research it for him, the answer is no, of course Goldberg doesn't know.

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  9. I'm trying to imagine how I would explain the endurance of the Confederate Flag to a person from another country who had no understanding of our nation's history.
    FOREIGNER: Why is there another flag over that building?
    ME: That's the flag of the CSA. You see, 150 years ago, the southern part of this country declared war on the rest of the country. Over half a million people died before they gave up.
    FOREIGNER: And why did they do that?
    ME: They wanted to own human beings from Africa.
    FOREIGNER: ...I see.
    ME: That's not what they say, mind you. They say it's about culture.
    FOREIGNER: Tell me about their culture.
    ME: Well, there was a horrible class divide where the people who owned all those Africans owned pretty much everything else, too. They treated their own women like property and were so fond of ritual homicide that eventually the states had to start specifically outlawing it. Oh, and to this day they have some of the worst health, educational and economic outcomes in the nation.
    FOREIGNER: So they get to fly the same flag that their slave-trading, duel-happy insurrectionist forebears did when they killed hundreds of thousands of Americans?
    ME: Pretty much, yeah.
    FOREIGNER: But they have at least given up on the idea of armed rebellion, right?
    ME: Well...

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  10. redoubtagain2:36 PM

    Again, Goldberg: Google "black codes."

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  11. Shalimar2:36 PM

    The Left's cultural war wouldn't even have that grinding wheel problem if they hadn't stopped in at Walmart for maintenance. Everyone knows those assholes never use lube.

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  12. "I may or may not agree with you about the extent to which southern soldiers saw the war for what it was . . . " Fine. Yes, you are probably ignorant, as you admit, but we'll live it there for the time being.


    Point is, I'm okay with museum displays of Confederate uniforms and military hardware as long as the "You must be this tall to go on this ride" sign at the entrance of the museum says something like, "Yes, I know your great-grandpappy fought at Chancellorsville or wherever, and he didn't give a shit about slavery one way or the other; he was just fighting for his Southern heritage. Doesn't matter; this war was still treason and sedition in defense of slavery, no matter what your great-grandpappy knew or didn't know. Got it? Good. Now you can go in. And don't forget your fifteen dollars."

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  13. Downpup E2:41 PM

    Amazon is way ahead of you, doing a bang up business.

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  14. BadExampleMan2:48 PM

    Standing athwart history whining, "But the President said it, why can't I??"

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  15. Tracy2:53 PM

    Seems that quite a few of the Confederate flags sold at Amazon are made in China. The irony is no doubt lost on the purchasers.

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  16. I get that they are upset that someone is taking their dolly away but does Rich Lowry not know that the confederacy is not really a " thing"? I mean it doesnt exist. Can someone take a non existent, phantom, of a failed state "away" in any real sense?

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  17. MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report)—Many Americans are tired of explaining things to idiots, particularly when the things in question are so painfully obvious, a new poll indicates. According to the poll, conducted by the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, while millions have been vexed for some time by their failure to explain incredibly basic information to dolts, that frustration has now reached a breaking point.

    Of the many obvious things that people are sick and tired of trying to get
    through the skulls of stupid people, the fact that climate change will cause catastrophic habitat destruction and devastating extinctions tops the list, with a majority saying that they will no longer bother trying to explain this to cretins.

    Coming in a close second, statistical proof that gun control has reduced gun deaths in countries around the world is something that a significant number of those polled have given up attempting to break down for morons.

    Finally, a majority said that trying to make idiots understand why a flag that
    symbolizes bigotry and hatred has no business flying over a state capitol only makes the person attempting to explain this want to put his or her fist through a wall. In a result that suggests a dismal future for the practice of explaining things to idiots, an overwhelming number of those polled said that they were considering abandoning such attempts altogether, with a broad majority agreeing with the statement, “This country is exhausting.”

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  18. nomoremister3:10 PM

    "there appears to be practically no one left on the sidelines to claim that the neo-Confederates are being oppressed."

    Well, Todd Starnes:

    http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/the-cultural-cleansing-of-the-southern-states-begins.html

    And Bill Kristol:

    https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/613419998262992896

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  19. But I think everyone here would agree that while that may have once been one of many arguable interpretations of the Stars and Stripes, it no longer is

    Nobody tell Jonah about Public Enemy's Aint nuthin butta song:

    The red is for the blood that we shed
    As a people
    The blue is for those sad ass songs
    That we be singin in church to blues
    While white man's heaven is black man's hell
    The stars is what we saw
    When our ass got beat
    Stripes is for the whip marks in our back
    The white is for the obvious
    Ain't no black in that flag
    Land of the free, home of the slaves

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  20. So are the favorites for people that agree with Kristol or agree with the agenda? I'm thinking the latter.

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  21. susanoftexas3:14 PM

    Exactly. It was a cheap way to deflect criticism. Which makes Lowry and the rest even more of an ass.
    There is a major problem on the left: not enough anger and hatred. We stomp on roaches but never try to take out the nest. Sometimes you need to light a candle to banish the darkness. Sometimes you need a flamethrower, not a flame.
    We should be making them cry every time they try to defend the south and its racist history. I mean that literally.
    The right wants Christian sharia, a dead planet and millions of dying poor. That is, they want the policies that will result in them. They don't care what happens to the victims.

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  22. JennOfArk3:16 PM

    Bill Kristol has a sad:

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  23. RogerAiles3:21 PM

    Hemmingway thinks that CNN's "activism" forced Wal-Mart to say it was going to dump the Confederate flag crap, apparently because Wal-Mart lacks the moral fiber of Memories Pizza. No GoFundMe windfall for you, Walton family!

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  24. hellslittlestangel3:21 PM

    June 23, 2015: the day Bill Kristol got something right.

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  25. susanoftexas3:23 PM

    There were 8,000 people in Houston in 1860. There were 2,000,000 in 2000. Most of the people in the South did not come from here; they came here after air conditioning.
    And those who do descend from the first Texans were traitors to the US, Mexico, and Texas in that order--they defected to Mexico, then defected to a new country of Texas, then turned over Texas to the US again to settle debts, and finally defected from the US again.
    It's traitors all the way down.

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  26. The Left's 21st century agenda: expunging every trace of respect, recognition or acknowledgment of Germans who fought for the Third Reich.Yeah, I went there, Bill, you racist shitweasel. Godwin complaints can be addressed to all the European neo-Nazi groups who display the Confederate flag.

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  27. susanoftexas3:29 PM

    Now known as the American swastika.

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  28. tigrismus3:29 PM

    Oh boo fucking hoo. How's this for acknowledgement: they were traitors, and their heritage is hate, ignorance(even of our own history), and terrorism.

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  29. redoubtagain3:29 PM

    Ezekiel grinds the wheel
    Way up in the middle of the Left
    Ezekiel grinds the wheel
    To the dismay of some on the Left

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  30. mortimer20003:30 PM

    What you call a “whitewash” of the timeless meaning of the Confederate flag I might call the evolution of meaning.

    One can only guess how the meaning of the Goldberg war flag will evolve for Jonah's distant heirs: an emblem of a single Cheetoh on a semen-stained blue field.

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  31. hellslittlestangel3:31 PM

    Things that don't exist are often zealously clung to by the right. American Exceptionalism, for instance, and Jebus.

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  32. The left's grinding wheel of culture war action has to climb an awfully steep hill of conservative bullshit to get anywhere. This is why it tokk 150 years.

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  33. Midwest_Product3:31 PM

    Pretty sure Mollie Hemingway stole the "Taliban blowing up Buddha statues" directly from the comments section on Rich Lowry's post.

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  34. redoubtagain3:32 PM

    This. I've been calling it the Americanisher Hakenkreuz for years.

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  35. Downpup E3:33 PM

    Irony? No way! It's the only product where a "Made by Slave Labor" tag is a Badge of Authenticity.

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  36. JennOfArk3:35 PM

    Don't worry. He quickly reverted to form. Because, you know, not being able to fly the flag of a defeated and defunct nation over your official state buildings is JUST LIKE having your head chopped off.

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  37. susanoftexas3:35 PM

    I want to bring this comment a mint julep.

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  38. JennOfArk3:38 PM

    He descends into pathos and paranoia here:

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  39. http://www.cognitivedissident.org/images/20070728-confederateswastika.jpg

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  40. Symbolism over concrete improvements; baby steps.

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  41. hellslittlestangel3:43 PM

    "The Left's 21st century agenda: expunging every trace of respect,
    recognition or acknowledgment of Germans who fought for the Third Reich."


    True, and worse, we're doing it to spite Ronald Reagan.

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  42. I am not a slaver, but ...

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  43. and there will be a broader assault on anything associated with the ConfederacyOh, if only. They'd be getting the Jade Helm for reals.
    But I think everyone here would agree that while that may have once been one of many arguable interpretations of the Stars and Stripes, it no longer isOkay, I agree, Jonah. The Confederate flag, on the other hand, was the flag of treason in defense of slavery, and was deliberately reintroduced a century later in defense of racism. So what's your point? (Rhetorical question.)
    Now Mollie Hemingway is comparing taking down Confederate flags and statues with the Taliban blowing up Buddahs [sic]True Fact: the Buddhas were constructed in the 1960s to protest against black people claiming their legal rights. True Fact!
    Lee’s reputation is not as a tyrant or fanatic but as a good and honest man fighting for a bad cause. I think it’s worth honoring him here and there, just so we are reminded that this combination can in fact occur.Fair point, Robert. Here's the thing, though: we've already got the Confederate flags all over the place, the memorials to Lee, Nathan Bedford "Murderous Racist Monster" Forrest statues and parks, etc., etc. If it's worth honoring "good and honest men fighting for a bad cause," how about some Southern monuments complimentary to Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman? Hell, I'd be impressed if all those pro-Confederate pigfuckers would start celebrating Memorial Day.

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  44. hellslittlestangel3:49 PM

    Take heart, righties. They'll never take away your right to name your kids Jefferson or Jeb or even Nathaniel Bedford.

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  45. On the Confederate battle flag, we are once again witnessing the sheer
    cultural power of the Left: take an irrelevancy (or at the very least a
    sideshow), make it the central, all-consuming issueWe interrupt this Rich Lowry post to bring you Breathless Out-of-context Update Two Hundred Thirteen on how Obama said "nigger."

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  46. On the veranda. Under the spreading magnolia tree. With the relaxing sound of a cappella spirituals droning in the distance, broken only the the crack of the bullwh . . . I mean, the "corrective."

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  47. hellslittlestangel3:52 PM

    I believe it's called "Benghaziing."

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  48. take an irrelevancy (or at the very least a sideshow), make it the
    central, all-consuming issue

    "If you care so much about X, you'd focus on anything else but what you're focused on now!" cries every passive-aggressive dirt nugget who ever gnashed his teeth over oppressed people trying to better their lot in life.

    move the debate with astonishing speed,
    and then, after achieving the initial victory

    Yeah that only took what, nearly 200 years? Unless you want to count from the time S.C. raised the flag in the 60s as a big FU to desegregation or Mississippi added it to their flag for the same reason. Still, not what I'd call astonishing speed, but maybe time passes differently for people who have their heads jammed so far up their Robert E. Lee that they look at the world through their nipples.

    demand yet more (now Wal-Mart and other retailers aren’t going to sell
    Confederate-flag paraphernalia and there will be a broader assault on
    anything associated with the Confederacy).

    Where "Demand" = Say absolutely nothing. As always, the creeps who squeak about the Free Market are dismayed when it works the way that they promise it will work if we'll just let it do what it pleases.

    Of course, no one will ever ask Blowery why the super swift and sneaky "left" still struggles to get America to admit that an avowed racist killed nine black people because he was a racist, if it can get Old Gory banned from public spaces by snapping its fingers.

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  49. Found this in my hard drive (I like to collect examples):

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  50. Yeah, they might continue to re-enact poll taxes and other obstructions against poor minorities voting, but at least there won't be a Confederate flag flying over the proceedings.

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  51. Well, Bill, I'm sure that Lincoln didn't realize that "charity" wouldn't mean shit to Nathan Bedford Forrest and his ilk. I suspect he'd have had Forrest hanged if he'd lived long enough.

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  52. You first, you genocide-promoting monster.

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  53. tigrismus4:02 PM

    Lowry is so full of crap. Nobody's making it central except those clinging to it. The proper response to an irrelevant sideshow is to shrug and say, "yeah, change it, who cares?" Anyway, isn't that how everything works? You go for the low-hanging fruit first, then work on the harder issues after? Or has the entire push for right-wingers in low-level political positions and nibbling at the edges of reproductive choice laws escaped his notice?

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  54. move the debate with astonishing speed
    I assume this is his description of the backtracking & flip-flopping by virtually every Republican.


    No links from any of these outraged reactionaries to the League of the South, Conservative Citizens Council or Sons of Confederate Veterans as confirmation of this Commie plot?

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  55. Unfortunately, I fear that this will all be forgotten two weeks from now. And two years from now the stars-n-bars will still be atop the flagpole in South Carolina and elsewhere.

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  56. susanoftexas4:11 PM

    It is just as important to them that everyone agree with them as it is for them to get their own way, so this might actually be a meaningful action. They want physical proof in the public sphere of the rightness of their ideas. Everything is grist for the wheel of propaganda, so every time they fail, no matter how small the failure, they are frustrated.
    It's not much but it's a starting place.

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  57. tigrismus4:12 PM

    Hilarious. I wonder if he even knows what malice is? As Madge might point out, he's soaking in it.

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  58. LookWhosInTheFreezer4:14 PM

    I would like to invite this comment to come share a nice glass of cold lemonade on the porch with me while we reminisce about the Good Ole Days.

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  59. hellslittlestangel4:15 PM

    They got toAmazon too!

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/business/amazon-big-retailers-remove-confederate-flag-merchandise.html?ref=business

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  60. Someone somewhere in Republican land made the calculation/realization that standing for heritage will cost more votes than it's worth.

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  61. Cato the Censor4:18 PM

    As someone who's been reading military history for decades, I have had a gutful of Robert E. Lee hagiography. The man is vastly overrated as a general. Who ordered Pickett's frontal charge into well-built and organized defensive works? How many men died because of that? Who ended up ultimately losing to Grant? From what I've read about Lee personally, while he might have been the soul of honor, it was only when other white people were concerned, a glaring hole in most 19th century American gentlemen's "code."

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  62. hellslittlestangel4:19 PM

    Huckabee had to calculate how many cancer and diabetes cures sales he could afford to lose.

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  63. For people who know that flag is an FU directed at them, this is a concrete improvement.

    Don't forget that the reason this became flashpoint is the SC legislature in its wisdom created the image of the confederate flag being flown at full mast after a member of the legislature had been assassinated by a devote of Dixie.

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  64. RogerAiles4:21 PM

    Kristol hashtag: #NotAllSlaveLabor

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  65. The flag is up and locked at full staff, by the way, per Larry Wilmore last night.

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  66. Cato the Censor4:23 PM

    Toad.

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  67. DN Nation4:24 PM

    Goldberg:

    "I may or may not agree with you about the extent to which southern soldiers saw the war for what it was, but that’s probably as much a matter of my ignorance as anything."



    This guy never met a weasel clause he didn't love.


    Oh, I'm sorry: Jonah may or may not have ever met at some point or maybe never a weasel clause or not a weasel clause that he may or may not have loved.

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  68. Right and it takes I think a 2/3rd vote to take it down. Anyway, it gave the even more glaring image of the U.S. and state flags at half mast, while this thing was flapping around atop its pole. If it had been lowered to half mast ... people would have grumbled, especially when the pictures of Roof waving his around surfaced. But I doubt we see retailers dropping Dixie Bling like it is coated in santorum.

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  69. They only hate the Culture War when they're losing.

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  70. I really have to wonder how much of this would have happened had there been any opportunity to smear the victims, or if Rev. Pinckney hadn't been a member of the S.C. legislature.

    And the Speaker of the Miss. House seems to have remembered he's a Christian.

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  71. Even if we tell them what santorum really is?

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  72. I wish I could've been a fly on the wall wherever that decision was made.

    It was history in the making.

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  73. Downpup E4:29 PM

    Dang, that's fast. Also Ebay & Sears (which apparently still exists)

    Link for those over their limit on the NYT site : http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/22/politics/confederate-flag-walmart-south-carolina/

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  74. RogerAiles4:31 PM

    Kristol especially respects the Confederates who instituted a draft which contained exceptions for slave owners (the "Twenty Negro Law") and those who could buy their way out.

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  75. Anyway, isn't that how everything works? You go for the low-hanging fruit first, then work on the harder issues after?


    Or both at the same time. It's odd that Lowry and his pals screech about the vast left wing obamocommuislamhomo network with its hentainticles in every orifice of America, but at the same time the thought that these zillions of people can work on different tasks at once doesn't cross the tiny desk.

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  76. This is brilliant. One of yours?

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  77. N-ghazing. Its benghazi to the N.

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  78. RogerAiles4:34 PM

    Next, Kristol will assure us that the enslaved persons greeted the CSA as liberators.

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  79. DN Nation4:34 PM

    Can we somehow make the American Civil War another armed conflict, along with Iraq of course, that we can teleport this puke-breathed, Cheshire Cat-grinned asshole to?

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  80. Yeah well, Hitler was a Johnny-Come-Lately.

    The KKK was fascist before fascism was "cool."
    http://cursor.org/stories/fascismiv.php

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  81. DN Nation4:36 PM

    Cry some, Billy.

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  82. Just put him w/ a bunch of Civil War re-enactors. Wouldn't last five mins. even in fantasyland.

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  83. My god thats good.

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  84. Fair enough; I'm not insulted by that.

    To repeat the title of this blogpost: "I'll take it."

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  85. A mass shooting by anyone other than police officers is unlikely to bring out the victim blaming. (Not that it has quelled the press' need to run pics of a white murderer as a sweet little tot.)

    However, and without checking, I believe it was another member of the legislature (the man who sat next to him?) who first brought up the issue.

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  86. And "the Good Ol' Days."

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  87. Glad to see their hero is overrated. Sort of like biscuits and gravy. And grits.

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  88. Stopped clock, blind squirrel, etc.

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  89. I'd duel susanoftexas for the ahwnahw of holdin' this comments lily-white hand.

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  90. Sort of like biscuits and gravy. And grits.

    You go too far, sir. (Or Suh.)

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  91. susanoftexas4:47 PM

    The only such person I respect is Mark Twain. He deserted.

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  92. tsam1004:48 PM

    That symbolism is a tacit approval of racism and white supremacy. It makes a huge difference.

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  93. I suspect the people who don't have to see Ol' Gory in public places any more will remember.

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  94. Nothing personal, of course.

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  95. I'm going to make a little confession here... Even though I'm a Southerner, I've never tried a mint julep. In fact, it was only recently that I even knew what it actually is.

    I heard a reference to it, and said to myself, "Alright, what the hell IS a mint julep anyway?" So I looked it up and it turns out that it's just crushed ice and bourbon with a sprig of mint on top.

    That's all it is.

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  96. I spoke too soon. Symbolism is important, no argument.

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  97. tsam1004:51 PM

    They're the people who get mad at something, kick it, break their toe, then get REALLY MAD. They invented the culture wars so watching them lose battles here and there is pretty damn heart warming for me.

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  98. satch4:52 PM

    "Old times there are not forgotten..."


    Never... ever

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  99. tsam1004:52 PM

    Why don't you cry about it, Kristol?

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  100. Yeah, me too.

    They sure as hell DESERVE to lose this one.

    ReplyDelete
  101. I've kiwwed a man fo' less.

    ReplyDelete
  102. tsam1004:54 PM

    Oh, this is nice. He's bawling in his office chair like a 3 year old.

    ReplyDelete
  103. susanoftexas4:54 PM

    Now you say you're sorry
    For being so untrue
    Well, you can cry me a river

    ReplyDelete
  104. satch4:56 PM

    Two outta three ain't bad.

    ReplyDelete
  105. LittlePig4:57 PM

    Yes, I am a Southerner, specifically of varietus Hillbillius. Yes, I have Confederate ancestors, from my very own home town, a few of whom perished, mostly of disease. What I would tell my ancestors if I could speak to them today?

    "Now, fellers, I know y'all may have meant well, but that don't make it right. Now, lemme tell you about the Russian idea called 'useful idiots'...."

    If you don't understand that flag is far more about Brown v. Board than anything else (it being notably absent until the mid-1950s, for some reason), then your Southern history may bear a bit of a reality check.

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  106. Found it on the interwebs.

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  107. LittlePig5:07 PM

    Grits is an acquired taste, I find (butter is NOT optional, trust me). Biscuits and gravy was traditional Saturday breakfast at my grandmother's, which was Double A Fine with me and remains so to this day.

    So, like satch says, 'two outta three ain't bad'.

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  108. You forgot the teaspoon of powdered sugar; that makes the diff.

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  109. First they came for Walmart,
    but I said nothing because I was not a racist fucknozzle

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  110. DN Nation5:09 PM

    Incorrect take, friend. All can be phenomenal in the service of a good cook. (Yankee-fied Southern food is trash, but that's on the North, not us.)

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  111. LittlePig5:11 PM

    I find scrapple to be pretty good, but only in the right hands, so it's not like it's just a Southern thing.

    Of course, I'm the only person in the state of Arkansas that likes Moxie, though I have to import it in the dead of night.

    ReplyDelete
  112. susanoftexas5:14 PM

    The spring floods washing away the church are going to put a small damper on services.

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  113. I still haven't tried it.

    If I do, I'll remember that teaspoon of powdered sugar. Thanks.

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  114. Ha! I'll bet Kinkade never thought of THAT when he laid out this stupid painting.

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  115. M. Krebs5:17 PM

    Sounds pretty good -- without the sugar.

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  116. coozledad5:19 PM

    Lee’s reputation is not as a tyrant or fanatic but as a good and honest man fighting for a bad cause.

    Lee was an asshole who had poor bastards shot for desertion who were trying to get home to their subsistence farms. He approved of richboy homeguard units who mopped up the woods in the rear, hunting them like animals for cannon fodder or patriotic hangings.

    He approved of punitive killings of black soldiers without quarter.

    This is the one that galls me when people describe him as brilliant. The war is lost. You know it. And instead of surrendering on the spot, you make idiotic gambles that can only prolong the inevitable:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Stedman



    He was a fucking monster. The only thing good you can say about him is he wasn't a raving ass-kissing Jesus freak maniac like Jackson.

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  117. M. Krebs5:21 PM

    The confederacy is a state of mind. A failed state of mind, if you will.

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  118. LittlePig5:22 PM

    I think you are waaaaaay over-analyzing that one, my friend. The Dixiecrats, er, um, the southern wing of the Republican party, don't have nearly so much cortex betwixt gonads and mouth.

    When I grew up, the still-segregated portion of my home town was called, quite openly, 'Nigger-Town'. The theater was still segregated - I got in trouble as a young autistic by going in there,
    the 'Colored Balcony', to see what color it was (my mother was mortified, though proud of me for not making the connection). Adults of my childhood used the racial slur in common speech without a hint of shame.

    Some of my northern friends still scoff that this sort of thing was that present and that any vestige still exists. It makes me sad when I read those comments, because since I easily pass at fat jolly old redneck, while they are not as ordinary and perncious as they once were, they are still here, still real, and if you don't think the majority of white Southern VOTERS (not people, voters) wouldn't reinstate slavery tomorrow, well, then you think too well of us.

    Personally I think Tecumsah Sherman was just getting the hang of it, myself.

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  119. M. Krebs5:23 PM

    Does this Borowitz send out a newsletter?

    ReplyDelete
  120. You can get that at the bottom of this page:
    http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report

    ReplyDelete
  121. M. Krebs5:27 PM

    Note to Bill Kristol: Okay, fine. Works for me.

    ReplyDelete
  122. Lurking Canadian5:27 PM

    Surely, one shares a mint julep for such reminiscence.

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  123. Marion in Savannah5:28 PM

    HEY — WAIT A MINUTE THERE... You must be some kinda northerner... Mr. Marion in Savannah used to howl that "grits ain't groceries" until he had some GOOD grits. Which truly are good groceries.


    I'll agree with you about biscuits and gravy. Ugh.

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  124. Randy Gibbons5:30 PM

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4Fe797IL04



    ... Not fully relevant, but there it is.
    It's condescending and convenient, isn't it, to assume that these soldiers or those ones did not understand what was going on. You only have to understand so much to decide against fighting for a given cause. On the other hand, if as a partisan or leader you know that many soldiers do not understand well enough to make a decision, why then it's evil and dishonorable to send them off to fight -- and I think this is true of "good" wars, albeit to a lesser extent than "bad" ones. People who do not understand the "why" of the fighting frequently botch the "how" further in the direction of atrocity than is basic to war.


    If it is the height of virtue and honor to choose one's tribe, even when its mom-and-apple-pie list prominently includes the Holocaust or the Peculiar Institution, then the neo-Confederates are implicitly glorifying even worse things than are obvious. Darkness and suffering, until the race extinguishes itself, and there is nobody left to sing the praises of the warriors and warlords.

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  125. Marion in Savannah5:30 PM

    Scrapple is from Pennsylvania, or at least that's what I was taught at my mother's knee. And she cooked up some YUMMY scrapple. But, come to think of it, doesn't the Mason-Dixon line run through Pennsyltucky?

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  126. LittlePig5:33 PM

    That was my point, that there are Northern delicacies that, like grits, require the person at the helm know what the hell they are doing.

    My tastes are pretty eclectic (hence the Moxie mention); I am one of four state natives that know of it.

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  127. LookWhosInTheFreezer5:33 PM

    In my defense, I'm a Yankee.

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  128. LittlePig5:34 PM

    Pennsyltucky

    Never understood that (saw it in Popeye cartoons as a kid) until I drove across that fine state. Other than the hex signs on the barns, it was just like home.

    ReplyDelete
  129. coozledad5:35 PM

    Down here in Person county they celebrated with fireworks when George Zimmerman was acquitted.


    Plenty of rebel flags up and down the road. Most of them poor as owl shit.

    ReplyDelete
  130. Marion in Savannah5:35 PM

    I'm looking forward to taking this comment out to Sylvia's in NYC for some great soul food.

    ReplyDelete
  131. Marion in Savannah5:36 PM

    Thanks for sharing. You do realize it's going to be SOOO very stolen SOOO very often, don't you?

    ReplyDelete
  132. Grits are never to be eaten plain. They're best with lots of cheese, butter and salt, but butter and salt will do. Some people like them a la Cream of Wheat and put sugar or syrup on them, but I think that is some weird Georgian kink or something.

    I'd never heard of biscuits and gravy until I got to the People's Republic of Hoosierstan and if the biscuit isn't properly done ... No, sir. I don't like it.

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  133. LittlePig5:40 PM

    It really does go back to the 'at least I'm better than the richest...'. Unbelievable, I know, but stone truth.

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  134. coozledad5:40 PM

    If it ain't cheese grits, it's got no reason to be.


    With butter.

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  135. No shit, especially since there is (or was) a vogue for the stuff. And anytime you see double digits on the menu beside anything with grits in, that's your cue to leave.

    ReplyDelete
  136. Yes , that "probably" is just precious.

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  137. coozledad5:44 PM

    He was resentful and irrational.

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  138. Don't push your luck, asshole.

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  139. Fuck this shit. Surely we can find a way to acknowledge the futile sacrifice of the poor hillbilly schmucks who got their jaws blown off by Union musketballs so that owners of 20+ slaves didn't have to without honoring the fucking disgraceful cause for which said poor hillbilly schmucks suffered.

    ReplyDelete
  140. ohsopolite5:47 PM

    A single Cheeto? Heresy!

    ReplyDelete
  141. Mebbe I should have specified Republican Presidential Candidates. It may hurt in the short term & regionally, but the angriest crackers will either vote third-party loon or hold their noses & still vote R. At worst they'll win their gerrymandered districts by smaller but still huge margins.


    But Senators & governors w/ an eye on bigger & better political grifting are falling under the Cultural Power of the LEFT!

    ReplyDelete
  142. BigHank535:48 PM

    If you look up the rates at which Southern generals hanged deserters, I think you'll figure out exactly what southern soldiers were fighting for. The Yanks might kill him, but his own side definitely would.

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  143. Right. I don't understand why so many white liberals don't get this. The confederate glag is more than a symbol--its sn agressive act. Like someone wearing a "fuck you" t shirt. Its a deliberate insult to all non consenting, non confederate viewers. Its like a guy who wears rape themed clothing or who agressively cat calls you. Its hostile. Banning this behavior isnt a cure for all our ills but it may free up some breathing room gor our friends and neighbor who have otherwise had to suffer in silence.

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  144. I guess I don't know as many liberals as you do, so this comes as a surprise to me.

    I mean, really? There's people who don't get this?

    ReplyDelete
  145. It's a symbol of hate to everyone, yada yada, & both the haters & haters know it. One side just won't admit it.

    ReplyDelete
  146. The flag thing is a big deal, but the mad dash away from the Council of Conservative Citizens is even bigger. First, the GOPers had to run like hell away from fundamentalist child-molesters, now they have to run away from 'Murka's largest purveyor of racist stochastic terrorism.

    Pretty soon, their entire base will be gone.

    ReplyDelete
  147. Lurking Canadian5:55 PM

    It's fuckin Jonah, so I'm going full Godwin. There were also probably at least half a dozen privates in the Werhmacht who had nothing against Jews. Wouldn't make it OK to fly the Swastika over the Bavarian state house.

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  148. The CCC should be the GOP's ACORN.

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  149. coozledad5:55 PM

    Look away, look away, look away, it's a wreck.

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  150. M. Krebs5:57 PM

    Grits are made to be eaten with either a runny egg yolk or red eye gravy. The runny egg yolk is my fave.

    ReplyDelete
  151. take an irrelevancy (or at the very least a sideshow), make it the
    central, all-consuming issue, move the debate with astonishing speed,
    and then, after achieving the initial victory (in this case, removing
    the flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol), demand
    yet more


    Projection, projection, projection: in the mid-20th century, the racist holdouts took an obscure war banner of a losing army and decided to make it a cultural touchstone for racists and white supremacists, to the point that the flag was flown over state houses and courts all over the South.

    I know that "it's always projection" has become a bit of a cliche, but goddamn it, it's so true.

    ReplyDelete
  152. M. Krebs5:58 PM

    I assume that's the original? I never knew.

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  153. susanoftexas5:59 PM

    Does everyone else do biscuits and sausage gravy? When you need to add fat to your fat and flour, that's the way to go.
    Light, high biscuits, not-too-thick gravy, sausage or chipped beef (in the old days).
    Biscuits take practice but they're not difficult. When McArdle said that biscuits are not kneaded I knew she had to be a drop biscuit person. The woman is terrified of rolling out dough.

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  154. I find it interesting that the right's great black hope, Mia Love, received money from them. I guess the CCC can't be racist if they support a black woman or something else is going on.

    ReplyDelete
  155. BigHank536:00 PM

    Kinkade was a vacuous moron. I remember seeing one of his winter town scenes with fully-leafed deciduous trees in the background. I dunno, maybe the half-witted Californian thought they were eucalyptus trees...which don't grow anyplace it snows, either. Dolt.

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  156. I put tomato sauce and parmisian cheese on it and call it polenta.

    ReplyDelete
  157. She's a convenient "beard".

    ReplyDelete
  158. BigHank536:04 PM

    Look, if your State isn't constructed in such a manner as to allow the upper class to shit all over the lower classes, why'd you even both having a State at all?

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  159. susanoftexas6:05 PM

    They are just a little different; the corn is soaked in lye first with grits.

    ReplyDelete
  160. "Throw a few more clay-eaters into the meat grinder!"

    ReplyDelete
  161. billcinsd6:08 PM

    Lee's reputation as a good and honest man was mainly made by the Dunning school of historians and their desire to "frame[d his] their literary corpus to praise the Old South, glorify Confederate
    heroes, vilify northerners, and denigrate southern blacks."

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  162. Whoa, it's about time you showed up here, mister!

    ReplyDelete
  163. Would that be the regular iced tea or the motherfucking iced tea?

    ReplyDelete
  164. coozledad6:09 PM

    Expunging history in a fit of self-righteousness sounds familiar. Something about Babylonian artefacts Donald Rumsfeld something protect the oil wells at all costs debacle something.


    I like this French Revolution idea. Pikes have been woefully underused lately.

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  165. What passes for "honor" among these aristocratic monsters is simply class cohesion. Who cares about all of the blacks and poor whites who die so that their betters can live a life of gentility?

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  166. My people call them polenta.

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  167. The South believes it is an occupied country; therefore they are being amazingly courageous in flying "their" flag, spitting in the eye of the Northern Aggressors who invaded them and took away their possessions.

    ReplyDelete
  168. Another thing they lye about.

    ReplyDelete
  169. M. Krebs6:11 PM

    My childhood was similar. About 100 yards from my house was the town's elementary school, behind which there were a baseball field and the town garbage dump. And literally in the garbage dump was cardboard-walled shack that housed a black family. If I recall correctly, some embarrassment caused by an Atlanta newspaper resulted in that affront to decency being bulldozed.

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  170. Fucking Italians stealing our ideas.

    ReplyDelete
  171. Moxie makes Mainers mighty... your neighbors might think you're a Maj. Gen. Chamberlain sympathizer.

    For the record, I love the stuff too, mainely (sic) out of sheer contrariness.

    ReplyDelete
  172. Michael Klingensmith6:14 PM

    Tarheel here, but my mother was from Florida. Grits get butter, salt and pepper in my household. When I first heard about putting sugar on grits, my brain had to shut down and reboot.

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  173. Let's just call it a mass baptism.

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  174. Still waiting for Snapple to move on the MF-in' Tea.

    ReplyDelete
  175. susanoftexas6:16 PM

    Once I made grits and cream of wheat at the same time; wackiness ensued.

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  176. tigrismus6:16 PM

    I did it when I was a kid, but my mom always bought the nastiest damn grits. When I had real stone-ground grits, they were so good I didn't think they needed anything.

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  177. Uh, did the family get someplace else to live?

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  178. There's a reason why corn is soaked in lye or limewater before it's ground... not doing it can lead to horrific consequences (link not for the squeamish).

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  179. BigHank536:17 PM

    I know of a single store in Virginia that carries it. I'll be stopping by in a couple weeks.

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  180. Drop biscuits are the norm in New England.

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  181. What the hell's it taste like, if you have to love it out of contrarianism?

    ReplyDelete
  182. Derby McBowlerson6:19 PM

    That's the kind of thing that causes a rift to open between universes.

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  183. It tastes like root beer that's been adulterated with turpentine, though the bitter aftertaste actually comes from purple gentian root.

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  184. Yeah, snow snaps the branches off of eucalyptus trees and makes them hazardous to be around. We found that out when a rare snow damaged some trees at the local golf course.

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  185. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

    Big ol' cat's head biscuit with sausage gravy... yum! (Non-Southerners who are reading this; don't worry. There really isn't any actual cat's head in a cat's head biscuit. The term is simply descriptive of the size.)

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  186. susanoftexas6:21 PM

    So it's always soaked in lye, right? The links are very interesting, thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  187. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person6:22 PM

    Except that the Left lacks the all-pervasive dishonesty to push it to that extent. I mean, once they're gone, we wouldn't be resurrecting 'em every 15 minutes and blaming 'em for The Next Outrage™. With out congenitally lowered expectations, we'd have to settle for a one-off...

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  188. We should cut off all government funding to the CCC, What? They don't get any, well defund them anyways!

    ReplyDelete
  189. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person6:25 PM

    Let's not hatchet our Counts before they chicken, but so far it looks like they just might. I don't think I could be more surprised.

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  190. Osafki, the Creek hominy stew, was made with lye from wood-ash. I'd first heard of "sofky" when I read True Grit... still one of my all-time favorite books.

    ReplyDelete
  191. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person6:26 PM

    And indecision may or may not be his problem...

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  192. coozledad6:27 PM

    Have it with some motherfuckin' pie:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTXymNbPjvc

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  193. If the Left were to use their tactics, Democrats in Congress would be introducing legislation to defund the CCC, as gocart points out. They would be introducing resolutions condemning the CCC. They would be naming every GOP congressman who took CCC money and holding them up as tools of the racists.

    And every voting-rights restriction the GOP comes up with, no matter how minor or at what level of government, would be plastered on billboards across the land and denounced as evidence of the CCCs influence on Republicans.

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  194. Yeah. I cringed at the sight of any building (except a boathouse) so close to a creek.

    ReplyDelete