From: morphy@cco.caltech.edu (Jones Maxime Murphy)
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
Subject: Re: Confederate flag, Swastika, etc....and an apology (!)
Date: 23 Aug 92 14:57:57 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena

trev@hubcap.clemson.edu (Trevor Bauknight) writes:

>I responded with an attempt to point out that there were other motivations
>among white non-slave-owning Southerners than simple greed and racism,
>contrary to Jones Murphy's assertions.  

Similarly, 38% of Germans, in a recent survey, felt that there were other
reasons for the Holocaust besides greed and racism. Unfathomable.

>Simply, I was responding to his followup to the article "A fresh start," in 
>which he asserted that the motivations of Southerners were simple greed and 
>racism, and that considering the plausibility of other arguments, in an 
>effort to avoid being divisive, was the same as considering the plausibility 
>of Hitler's arguments for the same reason.  I tried to point out my opinion
>that there were other motivations which I could understand, and that I
>objected to being compared with Nazis for this reason.  My comments
>about "culture and heritage" were in no way related to the discussion of
>the Confederate flag.

Then what were they related to, exactly? There were no attacks on Southern
culture as such, except where it involved a massive war on Africans. I realize
that doesn't leave much, but whatever's left I didn't attack.:)

>(By the way, I do love it, but certainly not blindly.  Instead of despising
>it because of aspects of its history, I love it in spite of them.  I won't
>apologize for that...)

Here you appear to confuse "the South" with the white South, a rather common
problem in this newsgroup. An appreciation for the actual extent of the
misery and degradation of AFricans in the South would make it quite difficult
to hold the sentiments you are expressing. I will make sure you acquire this
appreciation.:)
 
>I'm sorry for my strong wording, but I had already attempted to gently
>point out my objections, and reiterated my statement that I abhor
>slavery and racism.  Jones Murphy merely accused me again because I
>refused to denounce the CSA and everything it stood for.  I went off,
>and I apologize for that.  

It's OK. This is an issue that strikes close to home for me as well.

>Perhaps the abolitionists would have lost enthusiasm if the war had been
>fought primarily in the North instead of in the South.  Sherman's campaign
>to personalize the war for every Southerner were certainly effective.

Good point. An unpopular war is certainly more palatable if not personalized.

>Self-determination certainly played a role in motivating Southerners then,
>just as it does now.  I'm thinking of the recent attempts in the South to
>prevent the rest of the country from continuing to treat the South as its
>dumping ground, and of the fact that they are not really able to accomplish
>this because of the rulings of centralized government, heavily influenced
>by big-business interests outside the South.  This isn't such an outlandish

Be specific. If you mean "white self-determination", then simply say so. For
that was what it was.Southernerns didn't fight for self-determination *per se*.
This was a hypocritical pretext for "we want to keep enslaving and humiliating
the niggers". Black self-determination was simply out of the question,
especially in the states with a black majority! How on earth can this obscenity
be viewed as a defense of self-determination? One of us is blind.

>parallel to the situation in the first half of the nineteenth century, 
>except that then, instead of trying to protect its environment, it was 
>trying to protect its economy.  And yes, its economy was propped up by a 
>decidedly horrible institution, but the interest in self-determination 
>remains.  Some believe that the institution of slavery would have died a 
>natural death without "agitation" from the North.

And some don't. And some, like me, simply couldn't care less, because of the
desperate need of the Africans for relief from the crushing burdens imposed
on them by white Southerners. War was already being fought, in a very real
sense. It simply became a little less one-sided. And now the blacks could shoot
back, a real novelty to be sure.

>>Back to the issue of psychological comfort, it needs to be pointed out that
>>non-slaveholding whites enjoyed numerous social perks at the expense of 
>>blacks.

>I hope it isn't racist of me to point out that some white Southerners,
>even some slave owners, treated blacks as fellow human beings.  The evil

It is simply a contradiction in terms to say that someone who attempts to 
impose "ownership" on someone else can then "treat them like a human being".
This is so farcical as to be beneath rebuttal. You should be ashamed of
yourself.

Indeed, white scientists at the time were still often classifying blacks as
a separate species, "Homo sapiens afer", in order to rationalize the global
onslaught by whites on blacks. Why treat animals like human beings? And blacks
were surely oxen in the eyes of the vast majority of whites.

>of legal ownership was indeed still present and resulted in a feeling
>of superiority among whites, but not all of them were cruel and harsh.
>Many of them were simply doing what they learned was proper.  Remember

This is great. I love it. It cogently summarizes the whole issue. To what
extent are people justified in inflicting pain on others because that's what
"they were taught was proper"? And this was industrial-strength pain!

>that the South was (and is) an extremely religious section, and the
>fact remains that slavery is sanctioned and its details legislated, by
>the Christian God, according to the Old Testament.  One defense of 
>slavery I read which is based on this was Albert Taylor Bledsoe's 
>_Liberty and Slavery_.  He said it...not me.

I agree entirely. It is difficult to understand why AFricans in the US are
so overwhelmingly devoted to an instrument of their destruction, Christianity.

>>I stand by my original statement. The Confederate flag is an insult to the
>>sensibilities of those who abhor the brutality and repression that it is
>>emblematic of.

>Would you say this of every Confederate flag, or just the naval jack which
>has accumulated significant racist baggage in the hands of the Klan and 
>others

I'm not familiar with the other Confederate flags to recognize many of them,
I suppose.  The naval jack was born carrying racist baggage. It would have
been a symbol of horrific crimes even if the "klan and others" had never 
existed.

> (oddly, this hasn't happened with the Bible and the Stars and Stripes,
>which they also carry to symbolize their hatred.)  Is every symbol of the
>CSA offensive to you, and if so, why are they more offensive than the 
>symbols of the USA, which you also declared "morally bankrupt?"  My point
>is that the flag of the USA is emblematic of a country filled, even today,
>with brutality and repression; so why are 132-year-old symbols of a 
>defunct country more offensive?

The CSA is hardly defunct. It's values live on, as you demonstrate. And I'm no
great fan of the flag of the USA, either. But it's ideals are certainly loftier
than the preservation of the "beneficient institution of slavery". The USA's
shortcomings have tended to be much more a refusal to implement it's ideals of
total egalitarianism by white Americans, then an avowed intent to pursue ideals
like the preservation of slavery, etc.

Sadly, the CSA makes the USA look like a veritable paradise of equality.
Jones
-- 
Jones M Murphy Jr                                        (212) 602-4375
NatWest Investment Bancorp, National Westminster Bank PLC
100 Wall Street, New York, NY10005                   FAX (212) 269-0113
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa