Ok folks, we know that the UDC will do nothing about this and the SCV is only going to produce a "statement" of concern to continue the practice as in years past....so what say you ????
notice that the letter is signed by Bill Ayers (radicial) & James McPherson ("civil war" historian)
Dear President Obama: Please Don't Honor the Arlington Confederate Monument By Edward Sebesta and James Loewen This letter was written by Edward Sebesta and James Loewen and signed by the scholars listed below.
May 18, 2009
President Barack H. Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Obama:
Since the administration of Woodrow Wilson, presidents have sent annually a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument. Prior to the administration of George H. W. Bush, this was done on or near the birthday of Jefferson Davis. Starting with George H.W. Bush, it has been done on Memorial Day.
We ask you to not send a wreath or some other commemorative token to the Arlington Confederate Monument during your administration or after.
There are several reasons as to why this monument, a product of the Nadir in American race relations, should not be honored, and we list and explain them in this letter.
The monument was intended to legitimize secession and the principles of the Confederacy and glorify the Confederacy. It isn’t just a remembrance of the dead. The speeches at its ground-breaking and dedication defended and held up as glorious the Confederacy and the ideas behind it and stated that the monument was to these ideals as well as the dead. It was also intended as a symbol of white nationalism, portrayed in opposition to the multiracial democracy of Reconstruction, and a celebration of the re-establishment of white supremacy in the former slave states by former Confederate soldiers. In its design it also tells wrong history, boasting fourteen shields with the coat of arms of fourteen states. Thus it claims that Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland were part of the Confederacy. They weren’t.
The monument was given to the Federal Government by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), which raised the funds to erect it. The UDC’s reasons for the monument are instructive. In the address of Mrs. Daisy McLaurin Stevens, President General of the United Daughters of the Confederacy at its dedication, she makes clear that the monument is to glorify the ideas of the Confederacy:
Great ideas and righteous ideas are alone immortal. The eternal years of God are theirs. The ideas our heroes cherished were and are beneficial as they are everlasting. These were living then; they are living to-day and shall live to-morrow and work the betterment of mankind. Thus our heroes are of those who, though dead, still toil for man through the arms and brains of those their examples have inspired and quickened to nobler things.
Since the United Daughters of the Confederacy upheld in multiple publications in the early 20th Century that the Ku Klux Klan was the heroic effort of the Confederate soldier, we have an idea what the “noble past” and “ideas our heroes cherished” were. Of course one of these “ideas” was secession to preserve the institution of African slavery.
Likewise General Bennett H. Young, Commander-in-Chief of the United Confederate Veterans also defends the cause of the Confederate soldier, the neo-Confederate cause of their descendants, and defends secession in his speech as follows:
At this hour I represent the survivors of the Southern army. Though this Confederate monument is erected on Federal ground, which makes it unusual and remarkable, yet the men from whom I hold commission would only have me come without apologies or regrets from the past. Those for whom I speak gave the best they had to their land and country. They spared no sacrifice and no privation to win for the Southland national independence.
I am sure I shall not offend the proprieties of either the hour of the occasion when I say that we still glory in the records of our beloved and immortal dead. The dead for whom this monument stands sponsor died for what they believed to be right. Their surviving comrades and their children still believe that that for which they suffered and laid down their lives was just; that their premises in the Civil War were according to our Constitution….
The sword said the South was wrong, but the sword is not necessarily guided by conscience or reason. The power of numbers and the longest guns cannot destroy principle nor obliterate truth. Right lives forever, it survives battles, failures, conflicts, and death. There is no human power, however mighty, that can in the end annihilate truth.
In fact, most white Southerners in 1914 agreed that both slavery and secession were wrong. Not Young. No apologies. No regrets -- despite the historical record of Confederate soldiers having committed racial atrocities of massacring surrendered African American soldiers on at least eight occasions.
Hilary A. Herbert, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Arlington Confederate Monument Association, makes it clear that the monument stands for the legitimacy of secession, in opposition to Reconstruction, and for white supremacy. In his History of The Arlington Confederate Monument at Arlington, Virginia, he writes:
In 1867 the seceding States were subjected to the horrors of Congressional Reconstruction, but in a few years American manhood had triumphed; Anglo-Saxon civilization had been saved; local self-government under the Constitution had been restored; ex-Confederates were serving the National Government, and true patriots, North and South, were addressing themselves to the noble task of restoring fraternal feeling between the sections.
Within a generation after Congressional Reconstruction, American historians condemned it …. as “a crime against civilization,” and public opinion seems to have approved the verdict.
Herbert goes on to refer to the Confederate soldiers who joined the Ku Klux Klan and Red Shirts as being heroes for restoring white supremacy and overthrowing Reconstruction, referring to “the soldiers who fought the battles of the Confederacy and … by their courage and devotion during the two decades after the war, were saviors of Anglo-Saxon civilization in their section.”
The monument itself has a Latin motto, “Victrix causea Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.” It translates, “The winning cause pleased the Gods, but the losing cause pleased Cato.” This is a classical reference which to the cognoscenti implies that Lincoln was a despot and the Union cause unjust; Cato, the stoic believer in “freedom,” would have sided with the Confederacy.
The Arlington Confederate Monument is a denial of the wrong committed against African Americans by slave owners, Confederates, and neo-Confederates, through the monument’s denial of slavery as the cause of secession and its holding up of Confederates as heroes. This implies that the humanity of Africans and African Americans is of no significance.
Today, the monument gives encouragement to the modern neo-Confederate movement and provides a rallying point for them. The modern neo-Confederate movement interprets it as vindicating the Confederacy and the principles and ideas of the Confederacy and their neo-Confederate ideas. The presidential wreath enhances the prestige of these neo-Confederate events.
Fr. Alister C. Anderson, as Chaplain-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), at the 85th anniversary of the dedication of the Arlington Confederate Monument in 1999, gave a lengthy speech explaining its meaning. His understanding of the Arlington Confederate Monument can be said to be fairly representative of modern neo-Confederate opinion.
Anderson believes that the Civil War was a holy war between an orthodox Christian nation (the South), a view widespread in the neo-Confederate movement, and what he feels was an un-Christian and heretical North, as he explained in a series of articles in the Confederate Veteran as Chaplain-in-Chief of the SCV. This explains some of the passages of his speech at the Arlington Confederate Monument. In his speech Anderson explains regarding the monument:
… It reveals and concentrates in beautiful, rugged bronze nearly every idea that a true Southern historian, theologian, statesman, and patriotic citizen could present about the religion, culture, morals, economics, and politics of a civilization from out of which the Confederate States of America evolved. The monument captures the ideals and accomplishments that still existed at the end of the War for Southern Independence. Thank God it does not depict the beginning of the Reconstruction Era, the most disgusting and destructive period in United States history from which the South has never really recovered.
Anderson goes on to note Washington’s presence in bronze:
It depicts George Washington on horseback with the Latin inscription DEO VINDICE, which means, “God Vindicates.” Southerners believed under the Constitution they had the right to secede if they were being harmed by a tyrannical government.
To Anderson, as to other neo-Confederates today, the Arlington Monument exists to glorify the ideas of the Confederacy, which he sees as the ideas of the neo-Confederacy.
Anderson goes on to explain, correctly, the meaning of the main inscription on the monument, “Victrix causea Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.” This is a line from a poem Pharasalia by the Roman poet Lucan, used to represent Lincoln as a tyrant and the North as tyrannical. Fr. Anderson explains:
Victix causa, “the winning cause (or side)”, referring to Julius Caesar’s inordinate ambition and his lust for total power and control, is compared with President Lincoln and the Federal Government’s desire and power to crush and destroy the South. Next we read diis placuit which translates “pleased the gods.” In this context, gods are with a small “g” and refer to the gods of mythology; the gods of money, power, war and domination, greed, hate, lust and ambition. Next we come to the noble climax of this quotation, sed victa cantoni which translates “but the losing side (or cause) pleased Cato”. Here Lucan, the poet, refers to Pompey’s fight to retain the old conservative, traditional republican government of Rome. Even though Pompey was defeated by Caesar’s greater military power, his defeat, nevertheless, pleased the noble Cato. And here, of course, Cato represents the noble aims of the Southern Confederacy. The South fought politically to maintain the Constitution which had guided her safely for eighty-seven years. She merely wanted to be left alone and governed by it. The aggression-minded totalitarian Northern government would not permit that and so she pleased the gods of abolitionism, transcendentalism, utopianism, state centralism, universalism, rationalism and a host of other “isms.”
Anderson here denounces abolition, the anti-slavery movement that ultimately led the United States of America out of the moral evil of slavery, as an evil itself.
Sending a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Memorial Monument enhances the prestige of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization with a long history of racism from praising the Ku Klux Klan in the early part of the 20th century, to publishing articles against the Civil Rights movement in the Civil Rights Era, to promoting neo-Confederacy today. When the president of the United States of America enhances the prestige of this monument and of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, he strengthens a group working to set back America’s progress in race relations.
Finally, in 2009, the main speaker for the annual observance at the Arlington Confederate Memorial is Ron Maxwell, director of the movie “Gods and Generals,” whose neo-Confederate meaning he made clear in an interview in Southern Partisan. He also has written expressing his fear of Hispanic immigration leading to civil war in the notoriously racist Chronicles magazine, the organ of the ultra-right Rockford Foundation.
For the president of the United States of America to send a wreath to the monument this year would contribute to providing Ron Maxwell with a more prestigious setting for his speech. It would aid and abet the ongoing use of presidential prestige and this monument for their neo-Confederate agenda.
We ask you to break this chain of racism stretching back to Woodrow Wilson, and not send a wreath or other token of esteem to the Arlington Confederate Monument. This monument should not be elevated in prestige above other monuments by a presidential wreath.
Sincerely yours,
Last Name First Name Institution Biographical Information (for identification purposes only) Alexander Shawn Leigh Langston Hughes Center, Kansas University Assistant Professor African and African American Studies, Interim Director, Langston Hughes Center Attie Jeanie Long Island University Associate Professor of History Ayers Bill University of Illinois, Chicago Professor of Education Barber David University of Tennessee, Martin Assistant Professor of History Blakely Allison Boston University Professor of European and Comparative History; George and Joyce Wein Professor of African American Studies. Bridges Roger D. Rutherford .B. Hayes Presidential Center Executive Director Emeritus Brown Joshua The City University of New York Executive Director American Social History Project/ Center for Media and Learning, Professor of History, Ph.D. Program in History, The Graduate Center. Burton Orville Vernon Coastal Carolina University Burroughs Distinguished Professor of Southern History and Culture at Coastal Carolina University. Formerly he was Director of the Institute for Computing in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (ICHASS) at the University of Illinois, where he is Professor of History, African American Studies, and Sociology. He is also a Senior Research Scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), where he is Associate Director of Humanities and Social Sciences. In addition, he is Executive Director of the College of Charleston’s Program in the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World. Christie Thomas Lincoln Public Schools, Lincoln, Nebraska Multicultural Administrator Davis Simone Mt. Holyoke College Professor of English Ewert George Former Director of the Museum of Mobile Farley Jonathan Institute fur Algebra Johannes Kepler Universitat Linz Teaching and Research Fellow Fellman Gordon Brandeis University Professor of Sociology Fink Leon University of Illinois, Chicago Distinguished Professor. Director of WRGUW (Graduate Concentration in the History of Work, Race, and Gender in the Urban World) Department of History Finkelman Paul Albany Law School President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law Gundaker Grey College of William & Mary Professor of Anthropology Hague Euan DePaul University, Chicago Professor of Cultural Geography, editor of "Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction." Hayes-Bautista David E School of Medicine, UCLA Author of numerous articles on Calfornia Hispanic history Hicks David Virginia Tech Associate Professor of History and Social Science Education Jackson Kenneth T. Columbia University, NYC Professor of History and Social Sciences Jennings Matt H. Macon State College Student Katznelson Ira Columbia University, NYC Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History Kennedy Roger G. National Museum of American History (ret.), National Park Service (ret.) Director Emeritus, National Museum of American History, Former Director, National Park Service Key Barclay Western Illinois University Assistant Professor of African-American History Key DeWayne Mars Hill Bible School, Florence, Alabama Knapp Peter Villanova University Professor of Sociology Leib Jonathan Old Dominion University Associate Professor of Geography Loewen James Univ. of Vermont Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Univ. of Vermont; author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me," "Lies Across America," "Sundown Towns," etc. Love David, A. Commentator Columnist at www.blackcommentator.com McPherson James Princeton University Professor of History Miller Willaim Lee Univ. of Virginia Mitchell Don Syracuse University Professor of Geography Mizell Linda University of Colorado at Boulder Assistant Professor, School of Education Murray Paul Siena College Professor of Sociology Nieto Sonia University of Massachusetts at Amherst Professor Emerita, Language, Literary, and Culture Owens Deirdre Cooper University of Mississippi Assistant Professor of History Parenti Michael On advisory boards of Independent Progressive Politics Network, Education Without Borders, the Jasenovic Foundation, New Political Science, and Nature, Society and Thought. Author of many books in political science. Phillips Michael Collin College, Plano, Texas History Professor, Author of "White Metropolis" Roisman Florence W. Indiana University School of Law William F. Harvey Professor of Law Schmeeckle Maria Illinois State University Associate Professor of Sociology Sebesta Edward H. Independent researcher. Editor of "Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction," University of Texas Press. Shabazz Amilcar University of Massachusetts at Amherst Professor and Chair of the W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies Sinha Manisha University of Massachusetts at Amherst Associate Professor of Afro-American Studies and History Sleeter Christine California State University Monterey Bay Professor Emerita, College of Professional Studies Sowa Maureen Bristol Community College Professor of History Webster Gerald Raymond University of Wyoming Chair, Department of Geography White George, Jr. York College, CUNY Assistant Professor of History Wiener Jon University of California, Irvine; The Nation Magazine Contributing Editor at "The Nation"; Professor of History at UC-Irvine.
Frankly, I agree wholeheartedly with the signatories and, in fact, I hope that they also do not honor your noble dead.
The dishonorable, corrupt, malignant, tyrannous and wicked cannot “honor” anything – and this whole group starting with the Fraud-in-Chief and including the signatory “scholars” – are incapable of bestowing honor or grace or decency or any other noble attribute. Frankly, I would sooner that a decent drunk urinated on my grave than that any one of these creatures paid it homage.
In fact, if I were the SCV and the UDC and the LoS, I’d have a cordon of good Southrons surrounding the monument to make absolutely sure that no politician of any stripe, pseudo-historian or academician went anywhere near it! Remember, it is as praiseworthy to be despised by the despicable as it is to be admired by the admirable. I hope your noble dead are spared the attentions of the present government and creatures like those who signed this "letter". Let them go honor Lincoln, a man who deserves the praise of the hypocrites, grafters and murderers.
Further, I call for a groundswell of letters by Southerners - and especially those in leadership roles in the movement - to newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations, internet blogs et al. demanding that this request be honored to the point at which no individual who has any connection ideologically, politically or morally with the current illegal occupant of the White House is permitted within 100 feet of any Confederate monument or the graves of its noble dead! Bet that would get a whole lot of notice in the media!
Ask yourself, gentlemen and ladies, would Lee or Jackson or Stuart or my Mosby be happy to see old Obammy comin' up the hill with his coterie of hangers-on to get his "photo-op" at their graves? I think we all know the answer to that question!
Write (edit) the above into a letter and I will get some signatures on it ASAP. It is too late to send to Obama, but I think we still have time to get our point across. The only restriction I know about SHAPE and politics is that we are not supposed to try to Federal influence legislation AFTER we are granted our 501C status.
Once it is done I am going to send a copy to Owens Deirdre Cooper University of Mississippi Assistant Professor of History.
I am thinking that we can just use the edit button and add our names to the letter. If you get time try it with this post. I am an admin so I know I can do it. Not sure about nonmembers. I am gonna sign off and give it a try as a non member,
Here is a draft of a possible letter. If it is not suitable, let me know where the problems lie and I'll try to "tweak it up". -----------------------------------
The “scholars” who have petitioned President Obama to ignore the Confederate monument in Arlington on Memorial day are absolutely correct. Indeed, it is to be devoutly hoped that Obama, representatives of the present “government” and the likes of these bastions of failed academia avoid all contact with and desecration of the monuments and graves of the noble Confederate dead together with any hypocritical acts of pretended homage.
The dishonorable, corrupt, tyrannous and wicked cannot “honor” anything; it is a contradiction in terms. This whole cabal - beginning with a man whose constitutional legitimacy to hold the office of President is highly questionable and including the signatory “scholars” - are incapable of bestowing any noble attribute, much less one worthy of the men honored by this monument.
Indeed, those organizations and individuals who value and honor Southern history and heritage should provide a cordon of good Southrons around the monument to make absolutely sure that no politician of any stripe, no pseudo-historian or self-acclaimed academician goes anywhere near it! Remember, it is as praiseworthy to be despised by the despicable as it is to be admired by the admirable. Let us hope that the South’s noble dead are spared the attentions of the present government and the "signatory scholars". Let them go and honor Lincoln, an earlier corrupt product of the infamous Illinois political machine and a man who deserves the praise of hypocrites, grafters and murderers.
We must ask if Robert E. Lee would rejoice at the current occupant of the White House with his coterie of knaves and sycophants using his grave for crass propaganda? All those who fought and died during the War of Secession spilled their blood to oppose the tyrants in Washington. Will we beg the current tyrant to use Confederate heroes as a tawdry “photo-op” in hopes that he will bestow upon us the lesser descendants of greater ancestors, legitimacy and relevance in the coming New World Order? God forbid!
I am glad it is to your liking. But please do not feel it necessary to give any mention of myself in its formation. I did it for you as Southerners. I certainly do not mind being associated with it as I have already posted similar statements on the web, but my involvement might tend to "muddy the waters" if it is seen to be a "Yankee" effort to put words in the mouths of Southrons.
Of course, when you send it to various persons or groups, you can certainly mention its origins since I am very much against folks who haven't the courage to sign their names to their opinions, but I have no desire for acclaim public or otherwise though I do not fear criticism or worse - getting used to it, you know!
Yankee or not I tend to agree Obama has not earned the right to have anything to do with honoring my ancestors. He is against everything they fought for. Also you are a member of SHAPE in good standing and that is good enough with us.
We are working on getting it posted as a petition, although it will not be a petition in a true sense it will just be a letter which people sign, I intend to print it up and send to some of those biased, liberal scholars.
It will be good to feed them some of their own medicine.
George we do not have our Federal 501(c) status yet do we? if not then let's push this to the max. I think the letter is good to go. I just sent it to my 2 Senators and Congressman with my own letter attached( highlighting Bill Ayers endorsement) They are most likely unaware of this, and honestly I cannot find anything out there that would suggest this letter was received/acknowledged/endorsed by the President and his office plans to NOT go through with the wreath laying ceremony. Anybody out there got any other news on this?
gpthelastrebel wrote ...
Val,
Write (edit) the above into a letter and I will get some signatures on it ASAP. It is too late to send to Obama, but I think we still have time to get our point across. The only restriction I know about SHAPE and politics is that we are not supposed to try to Federal influence legislation AFTER we are granted our 501C status.
Once it is done I am going to send a copy to Owens Deirdre Cooper University of Mississippi Assistant Professor of History.
Not at this time and our only restriction as a 501 group is that we not try to influnece legislation. If we could find the email address for the site Obama put up----
Both in my opinion, also need a lead in/ preface or something, like: After reading the letter sent to Mr. Obama by this so called esteemed group of intellects and historians including the self admitted terrorist Bill Ayers we offer this as our response........
I love the idea of an outright REJECTION of the whole rotten crew. They believe that we'll be crying in our beer at being spurned by such important people. Dolts! Who cares what they think (IF they think, most of them!) In fact, if any one of them had something good to say about me, I'd dress in sackcloth and throw ashes on my head for whatever terrible sin I committed that gained their approval!
It's time we stopped trying to be loved. I really do "dig" that saying about being despised by the despicable... it fits the bill here right enough.
Thanks Pat can you note somewhere or perhaps even paste on the petition the letter Mr. J. W. Booth posted. That way everyone will know what they are signing.
Signed and left comment (naturally). I'll post its site where I can.
Have contacted a lot of folks and asked them to contact others. I know that some have signed on already. Hopefully, the thing will "mushroom" as it becomes known, but we have to "beat the drums" for it until it gathers its own momentum.
