There is. Unsurprisingly, it’s run by former Louisiana state congressman David Duke, and is best described as “the Klan with coats and ties”. There’s also the Council of Conservative Citizens for those who are really into semi-closeted group racism.
Contradictions again:
“I don’t find it surprising…” “Never thought I would see the day…” (Well, did you think Rand Rover and I would agree or not?)
“You are making me sick as in, you are working my last nerve…” “I’m much too laid back for the likes of you.” (Can you not hear yourself going back and forth?)
You are playing an old game called “Look What You Made Me Do.” I am not making you sick, Monstro. I am not working your last nerve. I am not making you wish for anything.
I am not in charge of your emotions or feelings. You are. You have already posted in other threads that you have been diagnosed with a mental illness. That is what is making you sick. That is what is affecting your judgment and getting on your nerves. Ironically, it is the exact same diagnosis that I have had: chronic, low-grade depression also known as Dysthymia. I hope that you will be able to find a therapy that will provide some relief for the symptoms. Mine is successfully treated with medications.
Your judgment is so poor and distorted that you think that Rand Rover and I are in “full agreement in this thread.” Did you not even bother to notice that I said that his “racial” information was irrelevant?
You talk about my histrionics and yet you are the one who is using theatrical and dramatic language. You are the one who has been putting your ass in my face in other threads. I challenge you to show me one single thing prior to this thread where I have been personally critical or contempuous of you. I have not criticized you even in the private email that you mentioned and which you are welcome to post here if TPTB will allow you. You talk about my histrionics while using the word “darkies” and “the likes of you” for effect.
I have remained patient with you until this thread. It is you who have carried a grudge, Monstro. It is a grudge against white people. You have resented the fact that there actually ARE white people out there who have cared and who have done something about it. It would ruin the picture you want to paint in your head.
The next time you want to remain friends with some “faceless” person, may I suggest that you not continue to berate her in threads and expect her to remain loyal? I have no problem with telling you that I am angry at your callousness. Sometimes anger is a very appropriate emotion.
Monstro claimed that all of those honored on Monument Avenue would have shot Arthur Ashe on sight. I doubt that the Union would have offered the Command of the Union Army to someone who just automatically shot black people. You seem to agree that this was not his practice anyway.
So all Confederates beat black men at every opportunity or was this just the leaders? I don’t think all of these men were in the Cavalry.
By the way, I believe that one of those men had been in the navy rather than the army. But yes, they were traitors to the Union. (Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, George Washington were traitors to the Crown before them.)
There are actually more slaves than at any other time in history. I didn’t claim that the United States Government has a policy enforcing slavery. I’m sure the children could care less whose policy it is. And of course, not all of the slaves are children. There are young women sold into prostitution, men forced to work in diamond mines, people of all ages forced into hard labor. It’s going to take more than just the United States to put a stop to it. But it begins with individuals working together to bring the people who run these slavery rings to justice. (And I did provide a link in another post.)
Monument Blvd. is not designed for the purpose of honoring anti-Union leaders.
Of course the Confederate States were wrong and it was right that the Union won. It was the worst miscarriage of justice that our country has ever known that blacks were enslaved in both the North and the South for over two hundred years. And things weren’t much better after the liberation. But you need to know what is true and what is not. And you don’t have to exaggerate to make men look completely evil when they were not. Whether you are white or black, another background or mixed, you can bellyache and blame and wallow or you can do things to make it better.
And that’s the great thing about the South, they put all that Civil War stuff behind them.
You don’t think there were vicious racists in the Union Army? There were slave owning officers in the Union Army. The evil of the Confederacy, and lets not deny it was an evil institution, doesn’t automatically imply that all who opposed it were sweetness and light.
The implication that I got wasn’t that they would shoot any black person on sight. Even ignoring that the shooting aspect was so unbelievably clearly hyperbole, don’t you think it was referring more to a black person who didn’t ‘know his place’?
Not all. But Confederate leaders were defending the institution of slavery, which involved, correct me if I am wrong, beatings on a somewhat regular basis. And the Confederate military officers were killing their fellow Americans in order to defend the institution of slavery.
And even though I would hope you realize again that the ‘cavalry boot’ aspect wasn’t intended to be 100% serious, it is worth pointing out that one didn’t have to be a cavalry officer to wear cavalry boots.
And had one aspect of the Revolutionary Wars not been the independence of the colonies, do you think there would be statues of Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson in the streets of American cities (assuming continued British rule)?
Simply for the record, if I was actually doing that in GD I’d almost undoubtedly have been banned by now. I do, without a doubt, point out when posters’ arguments are based on fiction, double standards, etc… I also tend to point out why certain arguments are objectionable (Jews have Dual Loyalty, the International Jewish Community controls the United States government, no politician can dare oppose AIPAC except of course when they do dare and nothing happens but still… the Zionists are Occupying our Government! And so on.)
And as XT points out, I’m used to/remember the behavioral patterns of specific posters. DSeid and I, for instance, differ on certain key points, ranging from the proper response to attacks (I don’t believe that his “snapping turtle” plan is the most effective), and so on. But I’ve never found him to be anything but knowledgeable and honest.
Other people simply have patterns of behavior that I’ve gotten used to over the years. BrainGlutton likes to spout off without knowing what the fuck he’s talking about, Luc’ couldn’t care less to engage on any substantive issue but will do his best to disrupt a discussion with vapid snark and one liners, and so on. And yeah, some posters really are bastards, like Sevastopol who really is a racist and who’s argued that it’s perfectly natural for Americans to want to destroy Judaism by fire and that we mustn’t constrain Iran’s ability to “liquidate” Israel. Or posters like you with the face who came into a multi-page thread where a specific cite had been discussed, cited multiple times, its language analyzed and quoted, repeatedly, and then simply claimed it hadn’t while pretending that I’d made the whole thing up, or what have have you (thereby coupling dishonesty, thread-shitting and stunning stupidity all in one compact, handy dandy package).
Others simply have a very bad habit of wanting to Say Something even when they’re totally clueless, like folks who alleged that I was a “neocon” or spouting “right wing talking points”, or wanted to bomb Iran (after having said repeatedly that I did not) when I pointed out that Iran had refused the IAEA access to a certain site and then, after granting them access but before they could get there, bulldozed it and that the IAEA could verify with confidence that lack of an Iranian nuclear weapons program if the Iranians agreed to the Additional Protocols whose implementation Iran had (and has) been blocking. When I posted the cites (by such noted neocon warmongers as Hans Blix) the response was deafening silence, or worse, repeated rote denial and accusations that my hideous Dual Loyalty and warmongering neoconism were blinding me. As, unfortunately, it usually is when the response to facts isn’t to simply ignore that the factual underpinnings of an argument have been cut while trying to find (or invent) new facts to support their pre-judged conclusion. Like people who’ll argue that Iran has never attacked anybody and then when shown evidence of hundreds of thousands of FBI man hours which confirmed that was exactly what had happened, they’ll ignore that evidence and then try to find another way to disagree, and then when that rationalization is shot down they’ll move onto another one. And another. And another. It’s like whack-a-mole, except even more horrible and less fun.
There are some posters who, while posting the same, tired, often-debunked (often by me, repeatedly) bullshit, do not get any benefit of the doubt from me at all. Not even a little.
~sigh~
I’d love to have an honest debate on ME issues without having to spend 98% of it trying to sweep the field of dishonesty, fiction, and stupidity. I haven’t gotten my wish yet. Give me a thread filled with posters who know their shit, don’t resort to lying when their argument becomes too difficult to support with actual facts and don’t simply rationalize a new unsupportable position when their old one gets cut down? Hell, you’ll see me happy as a clam. (For the purpose of this hypothetical, assume clams are very happy).
See, speaking of that kind of bullshit from a certain kind of poster:
This is of course fictional. In and around 1948 a roughly equivalent number of Jews were expelled/driven out of/fled from Arab countries as Arabs who were expelled/driven out of/fled from what would become Israel. But while the UNRWA was created for the Arab refugees (and went as far as to rewrite the UN’s definition of refugees only for that population) there was no organization set up for Jewish refugees and, in fact, even to this day there is virtually no traction, at all, for getting them compensated for their lost property/assets.
And this is the sort of casual fictional that’s tossed off all the time in GD.
It’s done continually, without remorse, retraction or regret on the part of those who make fiction their stock in trade.
It’s terribly difficult to discuss the best interpretation of the facts and their implications when virtually all of a thread has to be spent pointing out that, yah it actually matters if something is a fact or just sounded good to a poster at the time they were typing.
Coming from some people I make allowances and post multiple cites and spill huge seas of electrons while explaining the context/nuance in as much depth as I have energy for, all while I try to be as patient as possible.
But coming from people who I know have deliberately used dishonesty and trickery to make their points, when they’re not simply saying whatever sounds good to them without the bothersome step of fact-checking (or fact-finding)?
Then I’m more than happy to drop the cluestick and go straight for the clue-by-four.
It’s not really about seeing ‘markers’ for general arguments, but seeing the same exact posters making the same exact ‘mistakes’ that have been debunked time and time and time again and which just so happen to support their political agenda (how fortunate!).
This sort of stuff happens all the time. And in a discussion where nuance matters, where the immediately relevant history can go back 100+ years and context is vitally important, having to spend the vast, vast, vast majority of a thread trying to deal with the bullshit in it simply gets frustrating.
Want to place odds against the next knock-down-drag-out GD I/P thread having someone claiming/suggesting that all/most the land in the Levant was owned by the Palestinians and ignoring the roughly 400 years of the Ottoman land code that was carried forward by the British and Jordanians and the distinctions between mulk, miri, waste land, etc…?
If so I’ll happily take your money. 
What? 27 Million? Are you at all familiar with the Russian Empire?
You asserted that slavery is being practiced in the United States. “Slavery” differs from “kidnapping and false imprisonment” by the extent of the government’s participation.
Yes, but I care, because in a democracy I take responsibility for the policies of the government. The entire “worldwide slavery” line of argument is nothing more than a red herring to confuse the issue of American slavery. Throughout human history, slavery has been the rule, and freedom the exception. The United States was designed to adhere to a higher standard.
I couldn’t agree more, that shit will get me to lose respect for someone quicker than almost anything. Well, the 1st, 3rd, and 5th ones, cuz I never heard of the 2nd or 4th. Thankfully.
New insult I heard from an apparently persecuted-feeling drunk white man last night: he was trying to start shit with the black dude I was with and my guy kind of pushed past him and kept walking and the man goes, “Ooh! You must be our president!” 
:dubious:
Ha! But, that’s funny as hell, isn’t it?
Yeah, that one definitely falls into the “been called worse” category.
Although for the 8 years before last January it would have been pretty offensive.
I’ve been thinking about this thread, and I can’t help but feel now that reparations, whether owed or not (and I lean strongly towards “owed”), are unlikely enough that they’re becoming a red herring to other, possibly more effective steps our country can take to reverse the effects of slavery: ending the drug war and its attendant prison industry, and investing heavily to bridge the education gap. Then again, to me reparations is less about bettering society in and of itself and more about giving people what they’re owed. So I guess we’re looking at two different beasts here.
On that last point, I’m surprised mega-capitalists aren’t all about reparations. The United States stole billions of dollars from millions of black people who were slaves. If those slaves had been paid appropriately for their labor (not to mention their lost possessions, family ties, emotional and physical trauma, etc.), their descendants would have significantly different assets than they do. It is a clear case of theft. And apologies for crassly putting such egregious crimes in financial terms.
Also, the idea that Israel is reparation for the Jews of the Holocaust is particularly inapt. First off, none of the expense (economic, human, etc.) of Israel came from the actual offenders-- the mainstream populace of continental Europe. All of the expense was laid at the feet of a completely unrelated third party, the Palestinian Arabs. This would be like repairing American slavery by giving a parcel of the Pine Ridge Reservation to every African-American. Second, the “reward” (though I have a hard time thinking of anything related to the state of Israel as rewarding) went to an unspecific group including many more than just victims of and descendants of victims of the Holocaust. This would be like repairing American slavery by giving things to random people in Uganda because they’re black.
Beginning to see what I mean, Ichini?
This too is a popular fiction. “Europeans committed the holocaust and then the Palestinians were forced to pay for it!!”
The only problem, of course, is that it simply isn’t true. The Partition (which the Arabs didn’t follow anyways) called for division of land along rough ethnic majority lines along tracts of land which the Jews had already bought from their owners. And the state of Israel called for full property and citizenship rights for any Muslims/Christians who stayed and wanted to become peaceful citizens of a new Jewish state. The only reason any “expense” was laid at anybody’s feet was because the Arabs chose to start a war of extermination that they then lost. Then they did it again a couple decades later.
The idea that anybody took land away from the Palestinians in order to 'compensate" Jews is fiction. The idea that anybody really did anything to bring about the events of 1948 other than the proto-Israelis who fought on with virtually no international help except from their (primarily) their American-Canadian non-state-actor allies who supplied them with money and material, is fiction.
“The world gave Palestine to the Jews because of Holocaust guilt, at the expense of the Palestinians!” may make good copy, but it’s slightly flawed as it has nothing to do with actual reality, at all.
Again, see what I mean, Ichini?
If this poster, having expressed this opinion, makes the same ‘mistakes’ again should I grant him the benefit of the doubt?
Of course, what it would really be like is finding a place in Africa which had a sovereign for several centuries that fell, was administrated by a foreign power for a short period that then got the fuck out of Dodge while the international community made some supportive noises about the creation of new states in the region but didn’t actually do jack shit and the state(s) themselves were created only via defensive war when the administrative power left… and then people claimed that the supportive noises were what did it and that, further, it just showed the inherent injustice of the whole situation since they should’ve made supportive noises about only American slaves, instead.
In my family it was a burden to have had Confederate participation in the war. We have made it a point not to have membership in any of the organizations observing it even when that cost my father money when I was in college. (The Confederate dorm was subsidized.) We don’t go to any reinactments and I don’t no of any one who does except one history teacher. We literally live where the battlefields were and it is, after all, part of the history of this land. Those Confederate battle flags aren’t as prevalent here or in Alabama as Monstro says they are in Richmond. In two trips through Alabama from one end to the other and back, I saw one.
Most of the South – at least the part that I live in – was not even established during the Revolutionary War. Do you expect us to ignore our history altogether? Should we be ignorant of our history or just revise it?
I do not know that all slaves were beaten on a “somewhat regular basis.” I suspect that the military officers did less killing than than the average soldier. Defending slavery? Most of the soldiers didn’t have slaves. They were fighting for the same reason that young kids fight today. That’s where the war was. But one of the official reasons on the books was defending slavery.
Do you think that if there had not been a desire for independence of the Confederate States there would be states of Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis on Monument Blvd?
Did you ever wonder if the Brits crack up when they see the play 1776? They don’t seem to view the Revolutionary War quite the way we do.
Hmm, I don’t agree. Look at factory workers today–are they able to leave large sums of money to their kids? The vast majority are not.
Not if you’re white and poor. Fuck that “white privilege” nonsense.
Indeed. Some others were in fact raped on a somewhat regular basis. But really, if you are trying to oppose the statement that “slavery … involved … beatings on a somewhat regular basis” you are going to end up losing.
Indeed, officers tend to do less personal killing. But giving the orders doesn’t remove the responsibility for the killing. Officers are far more responsible, IMHO. And it is officers we are talking about here. There are not many statues of privates on Monument Boulevard, unless they have been added since I last went down there.
All four of the ‘gentlemen’ that you mention went to West Point, and served in the US Military. They all swore an oath of allegiance to the United States. They all violated that oath. They were all traitors. I don’t subscribe to the view that every person who fought for the CSA was a traitor, because the overwhelming majority were not in violation of such an oath.
There was a desire for independence that sprung up when a fear that slaves would be taken away. And that desire for independence was strongest in those who would be most affected, the ruling classes of the Southern states. Unfortunately it was the working class that had to bear the burden of defending the rights of the rich to own slaves.
I think I have somewhat of an insight into how the British view the Revolutionary War. Maybe even more than you do. You probably have a better insight into how Southerners view the Civil War than I do. But that doesn’t give me more of an insight into the actual Revolutionary War than you…
And oddly enough, British people don’t sit around bemoaning the loss of the thirteen colonies, and Cornwallis isn’t revered as a hero. In fact, I’ll go even further and say that most British, if asked, would think that, on a very superficial level at least, the Americans were on the right side.
Dude, you’re waaaaaaaaaay late, where the hell have you been? Did the Nefarious League of Not White People cut off your internet or somethin’?
Nope, I meant they were rounded up and buried…
Ah well…don’t you love what spell checking software does some times?
-XT
Aw, sweet cheeks, don’t be that way. I’m starting to think we can’t be fuck buddies any more.
Sorry hon, I like my men like I like my coffee, sort of tan colored, and not bitter.