Not About Slavery. Most Certainly Not.
o
Yesterday, in an attempt to disgrace the entire Great State of Texas, as if Rick Perry wasn’t handling that job well enough, the Brazoria County Commissioners Court passed a resolution naming April “Confederate History and Heritage Month” and encouraged “all Texas schools and citizens to join in the effort to become more knowledgeable in the role of the Confederate States of America in the history of our country.”
Juanita believes you need to know two things about this.
#1 thing: Our beloved and wonderful Governor, Sam Houston, resigned as Governor rather than go along with secession. Wise Texans have built monuments and cities to Sam for his wisdom and courage.
#2 thing: A direct quote from the 1861 document entitled, “A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union”
That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.
That’s shameful.
That’s all you need to know.
Brazoria County abuts my county. I will never spend another dime in Brazoria County and invite my Democratic friends in Brazoria County to some spend their dimes in Fort Bend County.
One thing I’ll never understand: a bunch of people yelling about heroes and honor based on a socio-economic system entirely dependent on and fed by theft–the stolen lives of enslaved peoples.
1While it is shameful, two Democrats signed that document. “Dude” Payne and Mary Ruth Rhodenbaugh.
You would think they have better things to do with their time than put out crap like this.
2Like I really needed a reason NOT to live in Brazoria County, but, this will do nicely.
And regarding becoming “more knowledgeable in the role of the Confederate States of America in the history of our country”? Two thoughts:
1. It’s “of the role”, not “in the role”.
2. I’m glad the North won (so are my ancestors, for that matter).
Isn’t it reassuring how politicians will ignore the unimportant stuff (like building roads and repairing bridges) in order to concentrate on “important” things like this? Your tax dollars at work!
3Well they need something to fill the text books that had all that unimportant stuff removed. Evolution…Jefferson…majority rule…
4If I hear the term gracious applied to life in the “old south” again I think I will throw up. How gracious can people who enslave an entire race of people be??
5The thing that always worries me about these Neo-Confederates is how myopic they can be.
They’ll claim the War wasn’t about Slavery, oh no, it was about States Rights and Economics.
Well, yeah it was.
It was about economics because Slavery provides VERY cheap labor that the South didn’t want to lose.
It was about the States Rights to keep slaves.
It all goes back to Slavery sooner or later.
6The four comments before me are “right on”. The hot topic of the day has to do with the expulsion of illegals from our country. Would it be possible to include the Brazoria faithful with them – after Due Process, of course?
7Oh, good lord, just when we’d handed the Dumbest State in the Union crown back to South Carolina…
8I can’t make any comment that says it better than all the comments before now.
9This is just unbelievable.
Bud, I live in Brazoria County — can I please stay? You can send all the redneck bigots that surround me to another country with my blessings!
I swear, I think I am the only Democrat down here…
10Those ruffians should have listened to Sam Houston, but I think many of them were just looking for a fight. All Texans should be disgusted and embarrassed about this. If some parents think this sorry stage of our state history should be more thoroughly taught to their children, let them do it at home, along with their version of the bible. The Declaration makes it very clear that the issue was slavery, not states’ rights.
11JJ, When I first moved to Texas I would joke with my NorthWest friends that the South (including Texas) hadn’t yet joined the 20th Century (now 21st.). I told them that as near as I could tell they were NOT teaching that the South LOST the Civil war and had the opinion that “The South shall rise again!”
I thought that idea was changed here and I was proud to be in Texas. I made numerous African American friends who I love dearly and would stand beside through and thin. Now I am as concerned about my friends driving through Brazoria County as I was when I first moved here and worried about my friends driving through Mississippi.
In the NW I lived in a neighborhood when my daughter was in college and would bring her friends home. They were from every state and country. We we load them into the car and drive to the beach. When we got there and unloaded the kids my husband would tell those who looked at us funny and say “It’s OK, they each have different fathers”.
12I’m an Okie by birth and upbringing and a Montanan by choice. I suppose either of these, especially the first, automatically disqualifies me from having anything other than an opinion informed by unenlightened ignorance. That said, I join with the benighted majority in saying that everything Texas is just plain silly. And sad.
13“Oh, good lord, just when we’d handed the Dumbest State in the Union crown back to South Carolina”
Agreed someday girl although Arizona may have claimed that “honor” today with the governors signing of the henious stop and search bill.
14Another marvelous way to get people to vote against their own self-interest by getting them riled over something emotional. I’m just ever so glad that Great Grandpa Ambrose was on the winning side at Gettysburg (and even gladder that he made it home after the war in one piece dontcha know).
15I posted a comment on a local message board and the response was “Who cares”.
We’ve always been ashamed of our commissioners, only one is a real Democrat and she is going to have some explaining to do about this .
16Further evidence that Reconstruction was interrupted before its 1870 completion. Texas still has lessons to learn. Brazoria County heads the list.
17If ignorance is bliss then southern Brazoria County, not Disneyland, is the happiest place on earth.
18When Sam mentioned ignorance and Brazoria County, it reminded me of a funny story.
I grew up in Angleton and also lived in West Columbia and Lake Jackson at various times in my life.
One day I was building with my husband a herb garden in the backyard. Actually, he was building, I was watching. He was using some old bricks and cement pavers left over from the previous owners.
I looked over to my right and a group of my neighbors were watching us.
After a couple days, I got the garden planted, and was out watering it in place. The neighbor who has assemble the others to watch us motioned for me to come to the fence.
Yes, whats up I asked? Well he said, I am so glad that is a garden you have planted cause we were all convinced it was a alter for Satan since you don’t go to church.
He was serious, dead serious.
19What just kills me is blacks are supposed to get over slavery/Jim Crow/lynchings/segregation because it happened a long time ago, and besides, “I never owned any slaves, so get over it”.
20Why can’t the rednecks get over the Civil War? Really. It ended nearly 150 freaking years ago!
It can’t be a racial thing, because all the teabaggers say it isn’t. They wouldn’t lie about that, would they?
While Texas can lay claim to the biggest and best of most everything, the prettiest women and best tasting tacos the world has ever known we also have the most damn fools you can find anywhere. If the damn fool commissioners in Brazoria County want to focus on the history of the Confederacy we should help them do that. We should make sure they focus on the fact that the civil war was the bloodiest waste of Texas lives ever recorded. The families that lost fathers, sons, cousins and uncles on both sides in an insane effort to protect the interests of the wealthy slaveowners who stole their slaves live for their own benefit. Today a similar situation exists with the bankers and financial “Masters of the Universe” on wall street. They have stolen the lives of Americas working people in the form of the lost value of their pension savings and the constant devaluation of the currency. The recent Supreme Court Ruling allowing unlimited corporate expenditures in our politics is just another link in our own slave chains.
21Well, I wasn’t gonna comment, because, what can I say except to be embarrassed and ashamed…but Harold Huff’s comment made me think of a saying I dearly love:
“The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.”
Mr. Mark Twain’s comment is as pithy today as it was when he first wrote it…
22Kathy, as I live in West Columbia now – after 32 years in Missouri City – I can so relate to what you are saying…Lord help us all!
23Well Carol, that was my Lake Jackson story, now for my West Columbia story.
We lived in this lovely community, gated of course (hint hint).
Our next door neighbors fought like cats and dogs. My god, for all their Christian words, nobody hated each other like these two.
One morning, about 3 am, the door bell rings, lo and behold the husband is standing there with one of his children in his arms. He is covered, and I do mean covered, in blood after one of their more violent fights.
He says,” I don’t think this marriage is gonna work so I need to get some help from you folks.” Here I am thinking he is gonna hand me this precious child, instead he hands me twenty thousand in cash to hide from his wife.
24Is there a recall process to remove these commissioners from office?
My wife and I moved here in 2007. Our newer neighborhood seems to be a fairly even mix of many races and everyone seems to be nice. Before we moved here we asked our friends, who already lived here in Pearland, whether we (a mixed marriage) would be comfortable living here. They said it would be OK and we found it to be nice, but then after about a year there was the noose incident in the high school…and now this crap from our commissioners.
The majority of the population is now in Northern Brazoria county (Western Pearland) is more liberal than the rest of the county. I believe that if we were to get the word out to our Democratic brothers and sisters about this kind of garbage from the Southern part of the county, maybe we could get them out to vote and replace our elected officials with people who actually have been enlightened with equal rights for all.
25We had 500 show up for precinct caucuses in 2008 and 2 in 2010. We’ve got to motivate them. Here’s a link to what you’re dealing with in Pearland.
http://pearlandprogressive.blogspot.com/
26While they were democrats, the Democrats of the 18th and 19th centuries aré not if The dame ilk. Remember, Abraham Lincoln was the anti-slavery Republican who issued the Emancipation Proclaimation that started the secession of the southern states. As a Democrat, I am happy to claim Lincoln as as my favorite modern day Democrat.
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