Confederate History Month Lives Again In Old Virginny

[Isolder74]

Justificationists then I do know what it is suppose to mean but it still seems to send the wrong impression for me. I've always hated that use of the word as I see it sending the wrong impression of their motives as it seems to make it more rational sounding then it usually is.

[eion]

Justificationists then I do know what it is suppose to mean but it still seems to send the wrong impression for me. I've always hated that use of the word as I see it sending the wrong impression of their motives as it seems to make it more rational sounding then it usually is.

That's only because the word apology has shifted from its original definition and has acquired a connotation of regret in common parlance. In theological and political ciricles it still means to explain or defend.

[FSTargetDrone]

Didn't mean to drop out of the thread, but I've been serving on jury duty yesterday and today while enjoying the flu. Pat Buchanan is on Hardball jizzing all over the SCV and this move by Virginia's governor. It'll be repeated at 19:00 EST. He's laying on the states' rights bullshit pretty thick, among other things.

[Anguirus]

Obama smack down

"I don't think you can understand the Confederacy and the Civil War unless you understand slavery,'' said Mr. Obama, who sent a wreath, as presidents have done since Woodrow Wilson, to the Confederate Monument at Arlington National Cemetery last Memorial Day. (Moreover, first lady Michelle Obama is a descendant of Southern slaves.)

McDonnell's initial omission of slavery in his proclamation was "unacceptable," Obama said.

The president's statements, made to ABC News correspondent George Stephanopoulos, were an unusually harsh rebuke – reminiscent of his first comments on the controversial arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. last summer at his home in Cambridge, Mass.

Obama's entry into the debate about the Confederate legacy shows that the president, though careful, speaks his mind about race when he feels it's warranted. Indeed, says one expert on race in America, the subject of race becomes ripe for discussion after certain events.

"Race has been just beneath the surface of recent politics. So I think it's healthy to every once in a while get [someone like McDonnell] to set something up so it can be made explicit in a very safe context," says Thomas Pettigrew, a social psychologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "In other words, [race] is sort of the elephant in the room: No one wants to mention it, but every once in a while something comes along to make it possible to mention it."

But the damage has already been done, apparently: Blowback from Confederate History Month could affect McDonnell's national political aspirations, writes The Washington Post. And many black Americans took offense – not at the overall historical debate, but at McDonnell's original proclamation. As Mr. Pettigrew says, "The original statement by the governor sounded like, oh, what a terrible thing it was that the South lost and the implication that we couldn't still have slavery."

That's what Obama appeared to take away, too.

"It's just a reminder that when we talk about issues like slavery that are so fraught with pain and emotion, that, you know, we'd better do some thinking through how this is going to affect a lot of people," Obama said.

[aieeegrunt]

The problem is with the word "South", since a geographical region cannot have intrinsic good or evil. What they really should be called is what they are; Slaver Apologists.

[Einzige]

The more liberals on a national level lash out at this, the more McDonnell is going to be able to justify himself to his supporters by saying, "Look at those mean old liberals! They're trying to impose their values on you! Big gub'mint! Big gub'mint!"

Now, that's a lie and completely dishonest (not to mention irrational), but that's the way local politics often works. What would be far more effective would be to line up local liberals, particularly well-respected ones, and have them absolutely lambaste "Confederate History Month". That way the pride of the state wouldn't be wounded - however inane it is for it to have been wounded in the first - by a reprimand it deserves.

[eion]

The more liberals on a national level lash out at this, the more McDonnell is going to be able to justify himself to his supporters by saying, "Look at those mean old liberals! They're trying to impose their values on you! Big gub'mint! Big gub'mint!"

My mom voted for McDonald, Hell she even gave him money. After this and the repeal of the non-discrimination order she thinks he's an idiot. That's the product of this, pissing of the moderate Republican voters he needs to move any higher in politics. A month ago he was being touted as the future of the Republican party and as a "modorate" voice, now he's on his way to being seen for the joke he always was.

You can only go so far appealing to the fringe, at some point you have to convince the center that you're worth electing too.

[Knife]

Indeed. He was touted as the future leader of the GOP, now he is just another pandering to the Tea Baggers, no different a fate than Palenty (sp?).

[Einzige]

The more liberals on a national level lash out at this, the more McDonnell is going to be able to justify himself to his supporters by saying, "Look at those mean old liberals! They're trying to impose their values on you! Big gub'mint! Big gub'mint!"

My mom voted for McDonald, Hell she even gave him money. After this and the repeal of the non-discrimination order she thinks he's an idiot. That's the product of this, pissing of the moderate Republican voters he needs to move any higher in politics. A month ago he was being touted as the future of the Republican party and as a "modorate" voice, now he's on his way to being seen for the joke he always was.

You can only go so far appealing to the fringe, at some point you have to convince the center that you're worth electing too.

The goal isn't so much to appeal to the fringe as it is to co-opt the rational element of their argument (that an overly large government can be, in some instances, a threat to civil liberties - usually when they're the ones at the helm of said government) and turn it against them: McDonnell wants to impose Confederate History Month on Virginians, especially black Virginians? Then he's obviously a Big Gub'mint Lubber.

I don't have a huge deal of faith in moderate Republicans. They never seem to know what they want, and always seem to be prepared to give into the wing-nuts just to defeat the Democrats. The Democrats, meanwhile, are always expected to moderate. See also: the entirety of the 1990s, Bill Clinton, the DLC, etc.

[Patrick Degan]

And true to form:

Miss. gov: Confederate History Month flap “doesn’t amount to diddly”
By Associated Press
WVTM-TV
updated 8:46 p.m. ET, Sun., April 11, 2010

WASHINGTON (AP) - Mississippi’s governor says the dustup over Virginia’s proclamation for Confederate History Month seems like a lot of noise over something that “doesn’t amount to diddly.“ Virginia’s Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, apologized for leaving out of his proclamation any reference to slavery. He reissued the decree after criticism for reviving what many Virginians believe is an insensitive commemoration of its Confederate past.

Fellow GOP Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi says he doesn’t think the proclamation was a mistake. He calls the situation “a nit” and not significant. Barbour also notes that Mississippi celebrates a state holiday, Confederate Memorial Day.

He appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union.“

The modern, "new and improved" GOP: the party of Jefferson Davis.

[eion]

The modern, "new and improved" GOP: the party of Jefferson Davis.

Which makes perfect sense when you learn the identities of two other states that don't mention slavery in their ANNUAL Confederate History Months.

The only reason we're talking about Virginia and not Georgia and Mississippi is because Virginia governors (Democrats admittedly) realized it probably was political luddism to single out the people who waged an ideological and actual war in support of slavery for praise, even if you decry slavery in the proclamation.

Thank god this idiot can't run for a successive term.

[FSTargetDrone]

Mississippi’s governor says the dustup over Virginia’s proclamation for Confederate History Month seems like a lot of noise over something that “doesn’t amount to diddly.“ Virginia’s Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, apologized for leaving out of his proclamation any reference to slavery. He reissued the decree after criticism for reviving what many Virginians believe is an insensitive commemoration of its Confederate past.

Hardly surprising coming from a state, the only state in the United States of America, which has a Confederate element (the Confederate Battle Flag) as part of its state flag: