Joe R says Californians like him have Southern sympathies. This was my reply:
Joe, that’s why I said the Old Confederacy et al.
National Review KEPT saying Tennessee was a border state, but they stopped that after they published two letters from me asking whatthehell. Buckley’s sister answered me personally on that.
The group that runs National Review now REALLY hates the South, but that statement has not been made since.
Even Senator Baker of Tennessee, turncoat of turncoats, referred to “Our blessed South.”
In a cover article for the Southern Partisan years ago I discussed “Southern Nationalism.” I pointed out that the South IS a nation. It is not a political unit. When Ireland was politically an integral part of Great Britain it was still a nation. When Poland was repeatedly split up into partitions by Prussia, Austria, and Russia, Poland was still a nation.
Less than a year ago the Prime Minister of the Holy Land Jehovists worship said that Hitler “killed six million people of our nation.” Israel did not exist when Hitler was alive, but everybody understood exactly what he meant.
Contrary to what the Jehovists say, white gentiles like the Irish and Poles and Southerners are human, and they have nations too.
A nation exists in the mind, not on a map.
People like you are part of our nation even if they’ve never seen the South.
#1 by Peter on 10/26/2004 - 7:13 pm
Could perhaps the Confederate flag be used for the whole Movement, then?
#2 by Bedford on 10/26/2004 - 8:05 pm
I just googled Southern Partisan – it still has no website but the enemy in the form of “Temple of Democracy” keeps track of it and has a nice list of links for “neo-Confederates” like me :-). Bob doesn’t want to read about N. B. Forrest because of the white blood shed but it’s a done deed! Forrest probably got more surrenders than anyone else during the war and saved the “unecessary effusion of blood”. There is much to be learned from Forrest and another one who doesn’t shed much blood is Captain Semmmes of the CSS Alabama. Semmes was an example to learn from and necessary for a complete Confederate education.
#3 by Mary K on 10/26/2004 - 8:47 pm
I see what you mean, Bob. Although a Northerner and a descendent of “Ellis Island” Americans, rather than “Plymouth Rock” Americans, I’ve always felt like a Southerner, even though I’ve rarely in my life had contact with anyone from the south. It wasn’t until my second year of college that I met a native Southerner – not someone who’d moved to the south, but a real Southerner with a twang. I think that culturally the whole “Southern” thing is more a matter of values than location, although I’m not sure that all native Southerners would agree with me. Some might just see me as a conservative Yankee and think “well, she may not be one of us, but at least it’s good that she respects us.” But growing up I always knew that there had to be something good about any group of people who so irritated the establishment. Southerners were one of the few groups that “sophisticated” people felt free to insult – along with our other national sacrifical lambs (and many of these categories overlap with Southerners) – evangelicals, farmers, members of moral reform societies, and small-town people. This last group got it so bad I ended up on their side for life. I got so sick of hearing about small-town people and their supposed hypocrisies and narrow-mindedness, that I will now vote for any small-town candidate who has not commited murder with an ax. Sorry for rambling, I just had to get this out.
#4 by Joe R. on 10/27/2004 - 3:51 am
“A nation exists in the mind, not on a map.” I wrote that inspirational line down. A glimmer of hope for the dispossessed.
#5 by Bedford on 10/27/2004 - 8:25 pm
Uh, Mary K., there used to be a lot of mixing between the elite of the South and North. Prior to the Revolution, A Georgetown rice planter owned the land that is now Newport R. I. He and his family would spend the mosquito season there and socialize with the people of the North who were then not “Yankees”. The White Sulphur Springs resort in then Virginia and spots in upstate N. Y. were summer social locations. The slavery question had a lot to do with a reduction in the social contact over the decades. The Old South of course had no air conditioning and the horse was an extremely important aspect of the culture. A lot of us Southrons are not as much like our ancestors as we imagine. We have the DNA but we don’t have the experience of the Old South.
#6 by JC on 10/27/2004 - 8:56 pm
Actually, I think “A Nation exists in the genome, not on a map” is even more accurate.