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Meme Of The Week (century, really) – Republicans / Conservatives Are Racist.

I found this opinion piece published by the New York Times quite amusing. It concerns the move by Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell to declare April Confederate History Month.

Before I write anything else, let me tell you my thoughts when I first heard about this…

OK, sorry, that wasn’t my first thoughts, here they are.

Meh, I don’t have a problem with it. As a history geek, here’s how I look at it. If you’re going to have a “_________ History Month” for everything else, then I suppose they are entitled to one for that too. On the other hand, the Libertarian in me says do away with all the “_________ H.M.’s”, it’s overdone, useless, and obnoxious, and just let a month be a month. That is just me retreating into my fantasy world. Let’s deal with what we have.

I posted that on a friends Facebook page when he lamented the action of the Virginia Governor.

With history, I’m a firm believer in studying and getting to know the past from as many angles as possible. It’s the only way to truly understand, as much as we can from the distance of place and time, all of the different things that contributed to the events we call history.

For instance, you may have learned that the American Revolutionary war was sparked by overtaxation. But what you may not know is that the colonists were not so upset about getting taxed per-se, but about not having a say in exactly how the taxes were going to be levied and collected. In a nutshell, the British had defended the Colonists, at great financial cost, during the French / Indian War. The colonists were, for the most part, grateful for the protection, and understood that it was, like all wars, very very costly for the Mother Counrty. They WANTED to help pay for the cost of the war. What started ticking the Colonists off was that the Parliament would not even consider the idea of letting the colonists decide for themselves how to collect the tariffs or determine which items to tax. And here is the sticky wicket. Parliament had a long history of regulating tariffs and taxes without input from the Colonists, and were doing nothing different from what had been done before…. Huh? What?

Yep.

Here is a list of a few taxes or duties imposed by Parliament during the 1700, with no input or complaints from the Colonists:

1704 – Colonists could export Colonial products, rice, hemp, molasses, etc., only to England.

1721 – Imports were only to come from England approved companies.

1722 – the White Pines act regulated the cutting of trees (England wanted to make sure there were plenty of tall trees to later use for ship masts).

1732 – regulation prohibited trade of American felt and felt hats, even between the Colonies.

And the list goes on. As you see, the Parliament did indeed have a long history of regulating the Colonies without input from them, and there was nothing in any of the charters that set up the Colonial governments that said or suggested anything different. To Parliament, their actions after the F & I war was business as usual. You don’t learn that dynamic which explains why the Brits wouldn’t change their actions, which might have actually prevented the Revolutionary war unless you research the history of the British side of things.

This is why I have no problem with the ideal of Virginia, home of the Confederate Government and the most famous Confederate General, Robert E. Lee, of having a Confederate History Month. The Civil War was NOT just about slavery, and maybe this will broaden the understanding of the whole nature of that period of our history.

OK. Now back to the New York Times narrative, as laid out by Newsweek editor Jon Meacham:

The governor originally chose not to mention slavery in the proclamation, saying he “focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.” It seems to follow that, at least for Mr. McDonnell, the plight of Virginia’s slaves does not rank among the most significant aspects of the war.

Advertently or not, Mr. McDonnell is working in a long and dispiriting tradition. Efforts to rehabilitate the Southern rebellion frequently come at moments of racial and social stress, and it is revealing that Virginia’s neo-Confederates are refighting the Civil War in 2010. Whitewashing the war is one way for the right — alienated, anxious and angry about the president, health care reform and all manner of threats, mostly imaginary — to express its unease with the Age of Obama, disguising hate as heritage.

Is he re-fighting the Civil War?…. Really? So, when we have a “Black History Month”, or “Women’s History Month”, are we re-fighting the Civil Rights movement, or trying to roll back the horrible consequences resulting from the victory of Women’s suffrage? Really? Is this what passes for intellectual analysis in today’s paradigm of journalistic analysis? Sure, part of this is McDonnell pandering to the base. But so what. Isn’t that what a certain otherwise useless Democratic legislative body does when they declare October to be “Filipino-American History Month“? (I really have to get over my disdain of all things California government, it’s going to drive me insane).

The writer goes on to say this:

Efforts to rehabilitate the Southern rebellion frequently come at moments of racial and social stress,…

Uhm…. Hello! When are we NOT, in the liberal mindset, in a moment of racial or social stress? Jeez, just get over your self aggrandizing pain and suffering already and opine on something useful for a change instead of being a Democratic party apparatchik.

One last thing to note. One journalistic trick that I can’t stand, no matter what side of the political isle it comes from, is being manipulated through the use of suppressing or omitting information. In the Meacham piece, there is no link to the actual McDonnell proclamation, so you just have to take Meacham’s word for it that it’s blatantly racist. In case you’d like to judge for yourself, and not be told what to think (which is the prevailing standard at the NYT), here is the link. The fourth paragraph is a new addition, which addresses the criticism and adds slavery issue to the proclamation. The language was added on or before April 8.

PS. If you want to find out more about the British side of things concerning the Revolutionary War, I highly recommend “The Long Fuse“, by Don Cook. A fantastic book on the subject, very illuminating.