Secesh's Web Log

A running commentary from Western Dixie

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THE LONG ROAD TO VICTORY

 

Monday, June 23, 2003

Jim Langcuster has decided to drop out of the movement and end his website.  I am disappointed that he would do this, as I agree with him on many points and I think the movement needs some good alternative thinking.  Jim provided that.

 

One of the topics Jim hammered home was that we should know when to quit on a particular issue, like the Georgia State flag.  Now unlike most Neo-Cons (Neo-Confederates, that is), I think he is right on this.  I prefer the 1956 flag that features the Confederate battleflag, but the Sonny Perdue compromise flag based on the First National ain’t half bad.  It’s beautiful and gloriously Confederate.  Yet the dedicated Flaggers are now flagging Governor Perdue because he was unable to get a referendum that included the 1956 flag.  If they don’t get one, they will try to oust Perdue like they did his Democrat predecessor, Governor Barnes.

 

Sonny Perdue should remain as governor and we should support him.  He is on the right side of the political aisle and the right side of history.  The Georgia flag, or Colonel Rebel for that matter, are all Southern icons that have been removed by the evil and harmful forces of political correctness and “diversity.”  This leftist mindset says that, in America, people of color should never be offended by anything or anyone at anytime, and great social penalties will be applied to any who fail to pander.  A kind of racial reign of terror has been unleashed, backed up by the EEOC which can declare companies “racist” for arbitrary statistical reasons and impose fines of millions of dollars on businesses who are, literally and legally, guilty until proven innocent.  The extremist, un-American nature of this evil agency is well documented.  Other people in politics, the media or the arts have had their careers abruptly ended by innocent remarks that were misconstrued as having racially derogatory content (remember the official who was fired for using the non-racial adjective “niggardly”?).  It is this same fear and mindset that has carpetbaggers and scalawags rushing to remove all Confederate references from universities, lest black enrollees or ivy league snobs interpret them with the same popular ignorance.

 

I am currently reading John Perrazzo’s “The Myths That Divide Us.”  It is one of the most potent debunkings of affirmative action, race preferences and “diversity” that I have yet read.  Perrazzo makes it clear that this hyper-sensitivity to race that permeates business, government, academia and the media is very harmful to all races in the United States and corrosive to race relations.  It is this racial obsession now gripping American culture that is at fault in our loss of Southern symbols, because the obsession gives power to racial demagogues like the NAACP, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.  Major corporations, terrorized with the prospect of being branded racists, are subtly blackmailed into supporting the NAACP and the Rainbow/Push Coalition with grants and fees.  They are victims of a kind of racial protection racket – support the racialists with money and moral support and (maybe) they will leave you alone.

 

If we want to restore our symbols to public use and view and make it safe to be Confederate, then we have to change the whole political landscape and destroy the Gramscian Marxist foundations on which the racial diversity scam is built.  The chief way that can be done is to vote Republican and support governors like Sonny Perdue.  We can’t fritter away the whole war on one skirmish.  Making the Georgia flag our entire Raison D’Ếtre is like trying to build a house without first having dug a foundation.  It isn’t going to stand. 

 

We are losing our culture because of extreme leftist, racialist politics that were borne of the Left’s political dominance over the past 40 years.  However, the political landscape has changed and the un-American, traitorous Democrats are no longer in control.  To regain our culture, we must build on the political successes of the Right and continue to support, vote for and elect Constitutionalist, conservative politicians.  The road to victory will be a long one, and may take another ten or fifteen years before we see Southern symbols returned to their previous places of honor.  Patience and planning and strategy will be necessary.

 

We can remain divided into small political parties and groups and viewed as eccentric cranks by mainstream America – or we can hitch our wagon to a broader political movement with real power to create the societal and cultural changes we want.

 

The most immediate and most effective way to do that is to register and vote Republican.  Anything else is pissing in the wind.

 

War and Peace, Life and Death

Saturday, June 14, 2003

 

On Memorial Day, my Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 1440 in San Jose, California went to San Jose’s largest cemetery, Oak Hill Memorial Park, to pay our respects to the 14 Confederate veterans who are buried there.   We Neo-Confederates spend a lot of time in cemeteries, pondering the lives of our nation’s soldiers who died, vainly, for our independence.  Sometimes it’s hard to understand that they were more than just marble and granite markers with an engraved name.  They were real people.

 

Our newest member, Roy Nunn, showed us the grand tombstone of his great great grandfather, William Franklin Chambers, private, 12th Tennessee Infantry.  Roy is an unusual California Confederate in that he lives in the same county where his ancestor is buried.  Most of us have to go South to visit family graves.   Even more rare, Roy has William Chambers’ written memoir about his experiences in the War, and Private Chambers spoke to us, through Roy’s reading of his words, as we stood by Chamber’s grave in the sun-drenched cemetery. 

 

William F. Chambers was in action in the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, and wrote how the victory seemed to be Confederate as a stillness fell over the scene of carnage and hostilities ceased.  The terrain was littered with dead and dying Yankees, and some of Chamber’s fellow Rebs searched the slain for gold pocket watches.  Chambers figured he would do the same, so walked out among the dead where he found a handsome Union officer lying face down.  Turning the body over, Chambers found the man had been lying in a pool of his own blood.  He had a beautiful pocket watch, soaked in gore, and Chambers lost all desire for it.   He rolled the body back into its original position and began walking back to his lines. 

 

However the sounds of moans and groans from the wounded were all around him, and Chambers tried to help some of them.  He found one young Union soldier, fatally wounded, crying for his mother.  Chambers wrote, “I … offered to do what I could to alleviate his suffering.  He was begging for his mother, and I wished I could bring her to him.  I lifted his head, and gave him a drink, then I placed the canteen within his reach, and said goodbye.  I presume he died.”  I can only wonder about that Northern mother of so long ago – her son never came home and she probably never knew that he died crying for her.  I could picture my youngest son in that situation (he graduates from college today).   Multiply that by 620,000 and it isn’t hard to understand why we still despise Lincoln all these decades later.

 

Chambers found a second wounded Yankee and repeated his charity.  He writes, “With the same zeal I administered to him, filling his canteen with water from the river, and leaving it within his reach.  I never thought to remove his gun, which was lying by his side, and as I was going away, he picked up his gun and shot at me.  I felt like going back and killing him, but I did not.”

 

Chambers was a good Confederate soldier.  How amazing to find him buried here in the heart of Silicon Valley.  But he isn’t the only one.  Other former Confederates settled here after the war and they too never ceased being Southerners, even when removed from the South.  One of them, a former Virginian living in San Jose prior to the war, went South to fight for the Confederacy, returning to San Jose after the war to practice law and became a prominent lawyer.  He was William Benjamin Hardy, who died in 1913.  His tombstone proudly proclaims “A Virginian.”

 

Yes, poking among the tombstones satisfies more than morbid curiosity.  It is a chance to contemplate good men who lived through terrible situations and went on to build successful lives in spite of losing a war and a country.  War and peace, life and death.  It’s enough to make you think.

 

Read about William F. Chambers and his memoirs at these links:

 

http://www.scvcalifornia.net/SJHistories.htm and

 

http://www.scvcalifornia.net/SJCampevents.html.  

The webpage of us Silicon Valley Southerners is at http://www.scvcalifornia.net/SanJoseP01.htm.

 

 

CALIFORNIA CONFEDERATES?

They are more ardent than you might guess.

by Secesh

Saturday, January 4, 2003

REMEMBERING ROYCE APPLEGATE

This week Royce Applegate died when his Los Angeles mansion caught fire and he burned to death.  As soon as the TV news flashed his face on the screen, I turned to my wife and said, “General Kemper!”

During the filming of “Gettysburg,” I was part of Kemper’s Brigade in the assault on the stone wall, a member of the 3rd Virginia Infantry.  An actor I had never seen before was chosen to play General James Kemper.  The actor was Royce Applegate, chosen for the role because he physically resembled Kemper, i.e., he was somewhat overweight and had whiskers on his chin.  The film “Gettysburg” portrays Kemper fairly accurately, as a man who passionately loved the South and the Confederate cause, and who loved to argue.  During “Gettysburg,” Royce as Kemper explained to British visitor Colonel Arthur Fremantle that Americans believed in the “consent of the governed,” and that the South seceded because “We do not consent!”

On location in Gettysburg, Royce was an affable guy who fit right in with us reenactors.  I took a couple of photographs of him during the filming of “Pickett’s Charge,” and those photos are linked here and here.  The second photograph shows Royce inspecting a flag of the 3rd Virginia Infantry, one of the regiments in Kemper’s Brigade, and the regiment I was assigned to.

Before we began filming, we reenactors walked along the markers lining Seminary Ridge, and I found the marker for Kemper’s Brigade, the spot where the Brigade rested before the grand assault.  A couple of cannon marked the spot, green with age.

Royce is not the first veteran of “Gettysburg” who has died – the great actor Richard Jordan, who played General Armistead, died a year after the filming of a brain tumor.  A friend of mine, also a member of Kemper’s Brigade, died at Gettysburg a couple of days after filming “Pickett’s Charge” on the actual site, of a heart attack.  He was buried in his Confederate uniform.

Royce Applegate also portrayed General Kemper in the film “Gods and Generals,” which is due for release in February 2003, and which some say is the most pro-Confederate film ever made.

Farewell, brother Applegate – may you meet the real James Kemper in a better world than this.

CALIFORNIA CONFEDERATES – MORE ARDENT THAN YOU MIGHT THINK

Confederates are all over the map, and the ones in California are every bit as ardent as the ones in Georgia, Alabama or South Carolina.  I volunteered to become the webmaster of the California Division Website (www.scvcalifornia.net) and in the process, have become a working comrade with Vernon R. Padgett, Adjutant of the California Division as well as the Los Angeles Camp, and Farrell D. Cooley, Commander of the Los Angeles Camp.  I am Commander of the San Jose Camp.

“Actually, only about 97% of all Californians are nuts, yet they make a bad name for the whole state.”

One of my tasks as webmaster is to convert California newsletters to Adobe format and post them on the website.  In the process, I get to read some great newsletters, complete with pictures of scenes and events.  If you need something Confederate to read or need to borrow some articles for your own newsletters or websites, please feel free to check out these newsletters.  Just go to scvcalifornia.net and follow the links.

Recently, my California compatriot Vern Padgett wrote a series of essays on black Confederates.  When I gave him some anti-Confederate links of pseudo-historians denigrating the possibility of black Confederates, he told me he would not read them.  “I would get too upset,” he said.  I had to smile.  Here was a kindred spirit who feels it personally when the Confederacy is insulted.

Farrell D. Cooley, the Los Angeles Commander, is ardent for defending our heritage, and recently wrote to House Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi, of San Francisco, to protest her opposition to the Confederate flag, as she voiced on c-Span.  Farrell has also been active in rallying the California compatriots to oppose the planned Lincoln statue in Richmond.  He wrote, “I am so angry I can’t even type.”  Remember that the next time you want to write off the State of California.  Actually, only about 97% of all Californians are nuts, yet they make a bad name for the whole state.

There are now 10 camps of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in California, with more on the way.  I am proud to be involved with these good men.  Welcome to Western Dixie!

WHAT KIND OF CONSERVATIVE ARE YOU?

I have always been a bit confused with all of the terms thrown around about the differing camps of conservatives:  paleocons, neocons, traditional conservatives, the Old Right, the New Right, blah blah blah.  If someone calls you a neocon, it is usually not intended as a compliment. 

Well a palecon at LewRockwell.com named Gary North has devised a “Neocon Litmus Test” to determine what kind of conservative you are.  I expected the test to be somewhat biased to reflect Mr. North’s world view, but it isn’t too bad. 

I took the test and found out that I am a member of the “New Right.”  At least I escaped the terrible classification of neocon, which surprised me, because I thought for sure I was a neocon -- I believe, for example, that people who plot to crash planes into American skyscrapers should be tracked down, to the ends of the earth, if necessary, and killed. I also believe that highly civilized pro-western states like Israel shouldn’t be abandoned to pagan, homicidal savages.  What would the paleocons have done about 9/11?  One gets a strong impression that they would have done nothing at all.  What would the paleocons do about Israel?  Leave them to their fate, to be killed en masse?  One of the most striking characteristics of the paleocons is that, with regard to Israel, they seemingly have no empathy whatever for the Jews. 

To many Americans, including this one, an isolationist foreign policy seems naďve, in light of the fact that certifiable psychopaths like Kim Jong-il (leader of North Korea) and Saddam Hussein of Iraq are working on nuclear weapons and the missile systems to deliver them.  In the face of nuclear annihilation, armchair politicking must take a back seat to national survival. 

To learn more about this subject, do read George Kalas’ article on Isolationism and Pacifism.

 

Tuesday, November 19, 2002

 

BLACK CONFEDERATES AND OTHER SUBVERSIVE IDEAS

 

People outside our Confederate family sometimes believe we are white supremacists in disguise, or at least find it politically expedient to cast us in that light.  For most of us, that isn’t true.  I am not sure what “white supremacists” believe, but it seems to be that nonwhite persons shall be accorded an official second-class citizenship and segregated or deported elsewhere.  White Supremes would make laws outlawing interracial marriages (whoops, I’m busted) and not allow other races to vote, participate in juries, hold office, or serve in the armed services.  I guess you could say their platform is identical to that of the Democratic Party --- of 1840!  But not completely, since nonwhites have always served in our armed forces, for the most part, honorably and bravely.

 

Most of us seek to preserve what was good about the times of our ancestors, the patriotism, loyalty to one’s state, Jeffersonian Democracy, Constitutional government, morality, bravery, gallantry and sacrifice.  That doesn’t mean we want to bring back the racial caste system that existed in those times, any more than we want to disavow electricity, flush toilets and automobiles in exchange for whale-oil lamps, outhouses and horses-and-wagons.  Anyone of wisdom knows what to preserve and what to discard.

 

But alas, the racialists (as they prefer to be called) are always with us.  Like liberals, they see a Confederate flag and think “Klan”!  Liberals see evil in us, dragons to slay, enemies to denounce, a fertile field for racial demagoguery.  Racialists see opportunity – a fertile field for recruiting.  Sorry boys and girls, we ain’t buyin’ it. 

 

Lately we’ve seen black Confederates seek to join our cause, in particular, H.K. Edgerton, who is even now marching across Dixie in a Confederate uniform, carrying a Confederate battleflag, to draw attention to the fact that blacks were Confederates too and our heritage is a shared and multiracial one.  It is by no means exclusively white or Christian protestant, as it included Jews, Catholics, American Indians, Hispanics and blacks, and even a couple of Asians (that we know about).  H.K. Edgerton has been embraced as a brother by most of us, as has black Confederate Bob Harrison, of the 37th Texas Cavalry reenactors.  

 

Who would refuse the hand of these men, if offered in sincerity and friendship?  Racialists would, and that’s why they are fools.

 

However, not all black people are as fair-minded and loyal as these two good men.  Black haters of the South exist in abundance.  One such hater is described in the article that follows.

 

Monday, October 21, 2002

 

Confederate Sub Commander Now A Deep Sea Explorer

I have located Commander Dan Greeson, of the Nuclear Submarine USS Robert E Lee! (See my article on him here.)  Dan is still living in Hawaii, where he has acquired a PhD in Engineering and now works at the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL), University of Hawaii as Chief Engineer. 

Dan writes that HURL operates two deep diving research submarines and a remote operated vehicle, which are used primarily for oceanographic research.  Two months ago, on August 28, 2002, Dan and his associates were on a training dive off Hawaii and located the Japanese mini-sub that was sunk by the USS Ward during the early hours of December 7, 1941.  You may have seen photos/video of that find on CNN, and other news media. 

 

This is exciting news, since Robert Ballard, the Oceanographer who found the Titanic and also the German battleship, the Bismarck, searched for that sub a year or two ago (and made a TV documentary of the search) but failed to find it.  I guess it just takes a good Confederate sailor to do the job!  You can view photos of the Japanese sub, still intact and bearing both of its torpedoes, at the following link:  www.soest.hawaii.edu/HURL.

 

Dan leaves for sea again this week, and will be gone for two months.  He is a life member of Sons of Confederate Veterans and an active member of the Heritage Preservation Association and the League of the South.  We have some fascinating and talented people in our Confederate family!

 

Sunday, September 29, 2002

 

“SWEET HOME ALABAMA” WARMLY CELEBRATES SOUTHERN HERITAGE

 

“SWEET HOME ALABAMA” will not receive any Oscar nominations.  It is a sweet and simple love story, a bit predictable perhaps, without any complexities of plot or challenging roles.  But I loved it and you will too.  It is a film that is warmly celebratory of the South and Confederate heritage, which is displayed prominently through most of the film.  Reenactors in Confederate uniforms and Confederate battle flags are visible throughout the Southern scenes, and no one seems the least bit offended.  The Sensitivity Patrol must have been on vacation, and I hope they stay gone.

 

The story is about an Alabama girl (Melanie Carmichael, played by Reeth Witherspoon) who has gone to New York to seek her fortune, and has achieved great success in clothing design.  The mayor of New York, an arrogant Yankee played by Candice Bergen, has a handsome and very rich son Andrew, played by Patrick Dempsey, who proposes marriage to Melanie.  There’s only one problem, Melanie is still married to her estranged Alabama husband, Jake played by Josh Lucas.  Melanie returns to Alabama for the first time in seven years, to confront Jake for a divorce.  But Jake resists.

 

Marge makes contact with old friends from high school as well as her parents, and starts to reconnect with the South.  Her parents live in a simple home, with the couch cushions covered in a Confederate battle flag design.  Her father is a reenactor, a Confederate officer, and we see him and other reenactors in their uniforms often.  Everyone seems quite proud of their Confederate heritage, and there is virtually no undercurrent that this is somehow wrong or “ignorant” or “redneck.”  The Alabamans seem downright NICE, and there is no violence in the film, not even a fistfight.  (Well, there is one punch thrown, and it is well deserved, but you will have to see it for yourself.)  Furthermore, there is no Klan presence and no one seems to be a “racist,” either overtly or implied. 

 

Reese Witherspoon, a beautiful blonde, is a true Southerner from Tennessee, and she and her family have a long interest in reenacting.  The reenacting scenes in the film are actual footage of the Battle of Franklin reenactment.  Reese knew how Southerners really feel and think, and it shows in the film.  The use in the film of the great Lynyrd Skynyrd song, “Sweet Home Alabama” only adds to the feeling of Southern pride.

 

Finally, Andrew and his mom the mayor come to Alabama to meet the parents of the bride.  It is culture shock to the New Yorkers, especially to the Mayor, who can barely contain her contempt. 

 

I will go no further to avoid spoiling the film for you, but I will say this:  this is a film about someone who left her heritage to become properly Yankified, but who learned the error of her ways and found her way home again.  The story is in many ways a metaphor for all of us, who at one point woke up to the fact that our heritage is worth fighting for and worth preserving. 

 

Friday, September 20, 2002

 

VIRUS ATTACKS ON CONFEDERATE WEB USERS - UPDATE AND READERS' COMMENTS

 

I received several emails from readers who state that they too noticed a big increase in email with the Klez virus, after writing web articles with Confederate themes.  Only Michael Kelly, leader of the 37th Texas Cavalry reenactors, disagreed.  Colonel Kelly says that you can't tell who sent the virus or from whose address book your name was selected, because the sender may be 16 times removed from the person whose address book contained your name.  However, nothing I have read on the internet about the Klez worm indicates that high a level of sophistication.  My understanding is that the worm can only send email to persons included in the infected computer's email address books, such as Outlook, Outlook Express, and a few others.  I will keep you posted when new information surfaces about the latest version of the worm.

 

Colonel Kelly did point out one important fact, however, and that is this:  the latest version of the worm is more sophisticated at disguising the true sender.  With older versions, you can simply display the headers of the email message and find the "return path," which (was) the true sender of the email.  The latest version apparently can insert a fictitious "return path" into the headers so that you can no longer track the true sender.  I have tested this on the last 3 emails I have received, and got the email I sent to the return path simply bounced.  I also took Colonel Kelly’s advice and sent friendlier email inquiries to the sources, rather than my initial hostile ones, and did get a better response.  The black Christian family in Illinois called to apologize (God bless them), as well as the leader of their Illinois-based homeschooling group.  Apparently, the family’s computer had been infected without their knowledge.  Although it isn’t clear why my email address was in their address book, the leader of the homeschoolers told me that he is a Confederate, and has discussed the Civil War with the family, and someone may have been doing research at my website.  In any case, I consider the matter resolved.

 

Here is the email I have received from readers:

 

Read your posting in the southern heritage news&views newsletter about receiving viruses.

 

I've been running a website for 6 years. While it is sports-related, I've been known to write a politically inclined editorial or two. After my first "pro-south" editorial last year I noticed I was receiving 2-3 virus infected files per day. I wasn't aware that you could track down the culprits?

 

I did buy norton antivirus 2001 and subscribed to symantec's automatic update feature. For 10 bucks/year the program automatically updates all virus definitions. The viruses are usually contained in an attached file which the program picks up immediately as soon as it downloads.

 

The program itself is around $40 as I remember. One of the best investments I ever made.

 

Good Luck

Bill Vallante

 

SECESH:

I had a big feeling that what u write about in your recent article was happening to me, but now u confirm it....For the past week I have been hit daily with one form or the other on the KLEZ, but my Norton system has caught it....I am not a great expert on the puter, so thanks for the help on getting to the headers to trace these people...I had told my friend and fellow party member the other day that what you are saying is what I suspected....What, if anything, can I do to put a stop to, or report them....My e-mail is checked on the way out too, so I trust this is a safe send....

 

Jimmy Rogers, VICE-CHAIRMAN

SOUTHERN PARTY OF GA.

 

PS...I guess that they are getting my e-mail from our web site...SPOFGA.ORG

DEO VINDICE,NUNQUAM OBLIVISCOR

 

I have received most of my "Klex" e-mail as Undeliverable e-mails that were returned to me.  As you pointed out on Chuck's list, the worm can insert both To: and From: addresses...

I changed my e-mail address about two months ago, and the Klez traffic has slowed considerably.  I also pleaded with my distribution lists to either install a virus detection program or delete my address from their address books.  Unfortunately, my e-mails are widely forwarded. so gradually the Klez traffic is reappearing.  But, the lull was nice while it lasted.

I have a folder full of these Klez notes, (minus the worm, of course, which Symantec stripped).  I kept them just in case there might be some way to fight back. 

I'd appreciate your sharing exactly how you tracked your Klez mail to its actual origin.  I'd rather spend my online hours keeping my lists advised of Confederate happenings and on genealogy research, but perhaps I could chip away at these invasions a note at a time.
 
Regards,

Linda A. Thompson

 

 

 

It is like a pyramid marketing scheme...you CANNOT tell who originated the virus or how you got on the mailing list

 

If someone infected has someone they infect in their Email addresses, and they have someone in their Email addresses whom they infect, and so on and so forth you might be sixteen levels away from the originator and be in THAT person's address book.  The person who apparently sent you the Email may never have had you in his/her address book, but someone they knew knew someone who knew someone who knew someone they knew and you wound up on the list.

 

The version that screens the IP is a second-generation version of the eKlez virus.

 

I received MANY messages from people I did not know and when I sent them a polite message informing them that their computer had apparently been infected with a virus which was replicating itself through Email being sent WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE the messages generally stopped shortly (some people do not check their Email often enough).  Sometimes it took several tries to inform them, but the messages stopped.

 

Some responded, some did not.

 

My recommendation is that you simply send the apparent sender of each infected Email a polite note informing them that they have been infected and recommending them to run a virus program.  Some folks are VERY intimidated by a message that even hints they might have done something intentionally wrong and one even said he was afraid I would sue him if he acknowledged.

 

It took me about two weeks, but being helpful to the infected resolved the issue and I have not received an infected message for some time now.

 

Your Obedient Servant,

 

Colonel Michael Kelley, CSA

Commanding, 37th Texas Cavalry (Terrell's) http://www.37thtexas.org "We are a band of brothers!"

 

Original Virus article of September 16,  2002

Almost every day I receive an infected email message containing an internet worm, the EKlez virus.  Not being a fool, I have Virus scanning software that scans all email, incoming or outgoing, and have not been infected.  But it is obvious that there is a group of people out there in web land that are trying to infect Confederate groups by sending them this worm.

 

W32.Klez.H@mm is the technical name of a nasty little internet worm that spreads itself through email.  It sends phony messages to people in your Outlook address book or your ICQ address book, asking you to click on a link in the body of the email.  Once you do, your computer is infected.  The worm does more than just send itself – once on your computer, it overwrites files and messes up your system.

 

Once infected, the worm then sends itself to other people in your email address books, disguising itself as a message from still another name in your address book.  Groups of friends who share common addresses, such as chapters of Sons of Confederate Veterans, may open the email, thinking it is from a trusted compatriot, only to be infected. 

 

This happened to me just yesterday, except that I did not take the bait.  I could tell by the subject line “A Special Funny Website” that it was a virus – none of my friends talks like a third-grader.  I noted that the infected email was addressed from a friend called Joe.  However, Joe did not send the email.  By viewing the headers of the email message, I could see that the true return path was from another friend, let’s call him Horace.  I contacted Horace and informed him his computer was infected with the internet worm, and that he should take steps to clean it immediately.

 

How do you turn on the headers to your email?  All email systems are different, but it usually involves merely selecting an option.  Go to your email options and search for “headers.”

 

A state division of the Sons has been a target of this worm.  It seems there are anti-Confederate folks out there that want to infect our computers.  They probably think we are “racists” for being Confederate, which means they are as ignorant as they are malicious.

 

I regularly receive infected email from a Mr. Cargile.  Mr. Cargile has failed to respond to my inquiries as to why I am receiving infected email from him.  In fact, I received another infected email from him just today.  Yesterday I filed a formal complaint with his ISP provider, asking them to investigate the apparent abuse of his email account.

 

Today I received yet another infected email from a black family in Illinois.  I have written to them to request an explanation.  I know they are a black family, because I traced their email address to the website that provides their email, a homeschooling Christian group in Illinois.  I did a search for their last name, and a web page came up with a family picture, including the email address that had sent me the virus.  The family looked very nice and wholesome – they probably have more in common with me than they do any Yankees.  Perhaps one of the younger family members thinks I am a racist because of my Confederate website and sent me the virus – I don’t know for sure, but I am hoping the family will reply to my inquiry so we can get to the bottom of it. 

 

In any case, all web-based Confederates would do well to have virus scanning software installed and updated regularly.   To learn more about this worm virus and how it propagates itself, and how to get rid of it, go to this website:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.klez.h@mm.html .

 

Monday, September 9, 2002

 

DAVID HOROWITZ LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN TO RETAKE THE UNIVERSITIES

David Horowitz, possibly the most effective leader of the modern conservative movement, has announced his campaign to retake the university from the Marxist-Leftist monopoly and return the campuses to America.  David’s goal is not to replace one monopoly of thought for another; but to make the university what it was intended to be – a place for many competing opinions, theories and thoughts.  Before this can happen, the leftist extremists now in charge are going to have to embrace a new kind of diversity – a diversity of ideology.  They won’t acquiesce quickly or quietly, as moderation, fairness and balance are words not in their erudite vocabularies.   To read more, please visit Frontpagemag.com, where many talented conservative writers dissect the problem from many angles.

THE CAMPUSES – A HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT FOR NORMAL PEOPLE

When I was attending San Jose State back in the 1970s, the campuses were already a being monopolized by leftist thought.  Conservatives were being branded as racists, conservative students were being beaten up and physically intimidated, and conservative speakers on campus were being shouted down by the hirsute thuggery known as the political left. 

 

I was a member of Young Americans for Freedom in those days, a conservative Republican student group.  YAF often hosted information desks on campus, like other groups, and handed out mainstream Republican literature, but it was dangerous.  There was a roving gang of Marxists, most of them not even students, who would attack YAF members.  One of our members at the booth was attacked, without provocation, and beaten up.  The YAF president, an Irish woman with guts and gumption, pressed the administration hard to have the offender arrested.  Eventually, he was.

 

In another incident, a YAF member criticized the Chicano movement in the YAF newsletter, stating that it was adopting the same divisive racial-identity politics as black leftist groups like the Panthers.  The Chicano student organization crashed the next YAF meeting wielding baseball bats, and dictated to the terrified conservatives the resolution they were to make denouncing the article.  Needless to say, the resolution passed.   A great deal of controversy and student anger was unleashed in letters to the Spartan Daily, which shortly cut off debate by refusing to print any more letters on the subject.

 

I have been a dedicated anti-communist since I was eight, and did what I could to fight the campus left.  I attended meetings of the Marxist group and listened to their speakers plan disruptions, which I then promptly reported to the San Jose Police.  I listened to one self-described Marxist promise that, after “the Revolution,” there would be a “Fascist hanging from every light pole.”  To this jerk, a Fascist was anyone who opposed Communism.

 

At that time, Angela Davis was in jail and about to stand trial for her alleged participation in the George Jackson fiasco.  Jackson was a black murderer on trial for his life.  Jackson’s younger brother tried to break him out of jail by smuggling arms into the courthouse, kidnapping the judge at gunpoint, and trying to make a getaway in a van.  The police shot the two animals to death, but the judge was executed by the Jacksons before police could rescue him.  The Jacksons were heroes to the Left, as indeed, the Left always seems to revere the worst kind of human vermin.

 

The slogans all over the campus were “Free Angela!”  Herbert Apetheker and his nerdy daughter Bettina Apetheker, both well-known members of the Communist Party, appeared on campus to give speeches about the angelic purity of Angela Davis.  Davis was eventually acquitted, and today has a prestigious chair at a university.  If I am not mistaken, I believe the woman Panther leader who undoubtedly murdered Betty Van Patter has one as well.

 

The Radical Left is just plain EVIL.  It is high time we took the fight to THEM.

 

 

Sunday, August 18, 2002  

 

THE MAKING OF “GETTYSBURG,” 1992

It’s been ten years this month since my brother Ted and I trekked off to Pennsylvania to be Confederate soldiers in the Turner Network Television film, “Gettysburg.”   The film starred Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee and Tom Berringer as General Longstreet, with Jeff Daniels as Union General Joshua Chamberlain.  Remember the dorky guy who played Jim Carrey’s sidekick in “Dumb and Dumber”?  That was Jeff Daniels, a versatile actor to say the least.  In “Gettysburg” he was gallant and believable, whereas in “Dumber” he was simply hilarious.

 

We spent a week in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania filming the “Pickett’s Charge” scene.  It was rough – we slept in Civil War tents, showered in cold water, sweated in our wool uniforms in the humid August days, and marched and marched and marched.  The film crew ladies sprayed gunky stuff in our hair, rubbed charcoal on our faces, and dusted our jackets so they would look realistically dirty.    

 

The best day was when a couple of thousand Confederate reenactors marched in quiet reverence past the statue of Robert E. Lee on Seminary Ridge and onto the “Hallowed Ground” of the actual battlefield of Pickett’s Charge, a huge grassy expanse.  We formed our ranks and tried to keep our lines straight as we unfurled our battleflags to the Pennsylvania breeze, marching towards the copse of trees on the horizon, as did the original Confederates.  We were marching where the real soldiers marched, bled and died, and it was a religious experience.  Many of the men in the ranks wept. 

 

The filming was dangerous.  We had rockets streaming overhead while “shells” exploded around us – actually theatrical charges set off by remote control.  Being the soldier that wouldn’t die, I was blown up in route to the Stone Wall, was shot off the wooden fence on the replica Emmitsburg Road (actually, I slipped and fell, very realistically on my face, bending my bayonet sideways).  Then I was shot at the replica stone wall.  You just can’t keep a good Rebel down.  That scary guy in the many sequels of "Halloween" has nothing on me.

 

We were at fixed bayonets, and were required to plunge our ramrods down our rifle barrels when loading our blank cartridges.  The danger in this is that someone could forget to pull the ramrod out and then fire it, harpoon like, towards the opposing line.  Fortunately, no one was hurt.  Not by the acting itself, in any case.  Two men did suffer fatal injuries that day, heart attacks, both in our regiment.  They did not die right away – one was hospitalized that night, and died a few days later. The other died after the filming.  Actor Sam Elliott later led a memorial service for our real casualties.

 

It was great rubbing elbows with the real actors.  Martin Sheen was very cordial, as was Richard Jordan, who played General Armistead, and who died one year later of a brain tumor.  The actors treated us reenactors with great respect, as they considered us real “experts” on the Civil War.

 

The filming had its humorous moments, like the greatest beer commercial that will never be shown on television.  It happened right before the grand assault on the stone wall at Cemetery Ridge – in this case, a replica of same about four miles from the original.  (It should be emphasized that we would were not on "hallowed ground" when this rather irreverent event took place.  We were always sober, serious and reverent while on the actual battlefield.)

 

The Yanks were stationed behind rough walls of stacked boulders, the fields were littered with dead horses (real ones, but stuffed like giant bean bags with Styrofoam pellets), wrecked caissons and bodies (actually dummies).  The grim-faced, visage-blackened Rebels formed long lines at fixed bayonets and prepared to begin Pickett’s famous charge.  Then some damn Yankee started a new argument over why the war was fought.  He yelled, “Tastes great!!”  A mighty roar went up from the Confederates, “LESS FILLING!”  A great chorus of Yanks responded in kind:  “TASTES GREAT!!”  Then it was verbal thrust and parry, “LESS FILLING!”  “TASTES GREAT!!”  “LESS FILLING!” “TASTES GREAT!!” as several thousand men yelled back and forth across the flowering meadow.  I am sure the beer company would love to have the film of that exchange. 

 

The filming had some very serious moments as well.  After we charged across the actual site of Pickett’s Charge, we reached the wooden fence in front of the Emmitsburg Pike , where we were halted by the physical barrier of the road.  In 1863, the Confederates had broken down the wooden fences or climbed over them to assault the stone wall another hundred or so yards beyond the road.  The road was only a cow path back then; now it was a paved highway, whizzing with cars.  From the fence we could easily see the Angle and the Stone Wall; in my imagination, I could see the ghosts of 10,000 Yankees behind that wall, armed to the teeth.

 

We reformed ranks in front of the Emmitsburg Road , which was filled with spectators who must have found the assault thrilling. They regarded us, wide-eyed and speechless.  As we were awaiting our orders to return, a reenactor from Tennessee laid his rifle on the ground, and heard a metallic sound.  Searching in the grass, he retrieved a shell fragment, put there by a Yankee cannon 129 years before -- a visible reminder that the scenes we had just reenacted for the camera really happened, and in the same place!  As I examined the shell fragment, I couldn't help but feel that the present was sandwiched over the past, like a new coat of the same paint overlaying the old.  As I held the jagged piece of metal, I momentarily felt that somehow the past intersects the present in ways that we do not completely understand...it was as if I might somehow fall through a crack in the fabric of time and find myself back in 1863.

 

Another such moment occurred one night when we went into town. After having drinks at a bar, we wandered outside and spied a sign on a house right next door. The sign identified the structure as the Wills House, where Abe Lincoln slept the night before he gave the Gettysburg address.  

 

Gettysburg is said to be lousy with ghosts, and there are many stories and legends to entertain and frighten the credulous.  Personally, I never felt afraid, even while walking through fog-shrouded fields at night, where real Confederates once had a field hospital – and where many of them died.  I felt I was among friends. 

 

Before we retuned home, we drove to Richmond to visit Hollywood Cemetery where Jefferson Davis, Jeb Stuart and Fitzhugh Lee are buried, along with several thousand other Confederates.   We had just made a realistic filming of Pickett’s Charge, and while wandering among the tombstones, found that of a Confederate Captain who was a member of the same regiment we portrayed as reenactors – the First Virginia Infantry.  His inscription read, “Fell at Pickett’s Charge, July 3, 1863.” 

 

 

Thursday, August 16, 2002