COUP WATCH: Restoring the Confederacy -- From Red Rock Eater News Service\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/b> \r\n
COUP WATCH: Restoring the Confederacy\r\n-- From Red Rock Eater News Service<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
By Phil Agre<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Fri, 12 Jan 2001 12:55:45\r\n-0800<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
[The movement to restore\r\nthe Confederacy is really picking up steam. John Ashcroft's alliance with\r\na wide range of far-right groups is but the tip of the iceberg. I\r\nwas particularly struck by Gale Norton's comments lamenting the defeat\r\nof the Confederacy. Is she advocating the restoration of slavery? \r\nProbably not. But she is certainly part of the movement to undo the\r\nlegal reforms that overthrew Jim Crow. The pattern is clear. You\r\nwill recall that the conservative wing of the Supreme Court, in its breathtaking\r\nconcurrence with the decision that ended the vote-counting in Florida,\r\ntwisted the Court decisions that overturned States' Rights defiance in\r\nthe South into an instrument for deciding the election. And that\r\nwas just the culmination of a long-term trend.<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Until now, the States'\r\nRights party has been sufficiently marginal that we haven't had to look\r\nhard at their arguments. But now they control the country, so we\r\nhave to start looking more closely. And when you look closely at\r\nthe arguments of States' Rights and Property Rights proponents, you generally\r\nfind something surprising: despite what they say in their headlines, they\r\nare not actually claiming a right to be left alone. Quite the contrary,\r\nthey are arguing for a right to inflict harm on others. Gale Norton\r\nworked for an industry- backed legal foundation that supported so-called\r\nproperty rights in environmental cases. She also strongly supported\r\nsimilar positions as attorney general of Colorado. But in most cases\r\nthose \"rights\" consist of activities that cause pollution to enter other\r\npeople's air and water, or that cause erosion of neighboring land or beaches,\r\nor that harm migratory animals that had provided benefits to others long\r\nbefore such a thing as property existed. And as Nathan Newman points\r\nout below, the controversies over slavery that led to the Civil War were\r\nnot just a matter of permitting southern whites to buy and sell human beings\r\nwithout interference from the north; in fact they were attempts by the\r\nsouthern states to compel northerners to abet these evil practices.<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Of course states have\r\nrights, and so do property owners. Nobody is contesting that. \r\nThe real controversies begin when the exercise of putative \"rights\" spills\r\nover the borders and property lines and affect others. That is why\r\nwe have a federal government, and it is why we have laws, and democracy,\r\nand a judicial system. The \"leave me alone\" party is, in fact, the\r\n\"do unto others\" party. Their modus operandi is to go around hitting\r\npeople while yelling \"stop hitting me\". This was entirely clear during\r\nthe election, and it is becoming plain as day right now.<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Here are a few more related\r\nitems:<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Southern Partisan: \"Setting\r\nthe Record Straight\"<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.fair.org\/press-releases\/southern-partisan.html<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Ashcroft Appearance on\r\nSchlafly's 1997 Conspiracist Video<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.publiceye.org\/conspire\/Global_Governance\/Ashcroft.htm<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
1998 article on Ashcroft<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/news_wire\/ashcroft_repost.html<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
The President Elect Sails\r\ninto the Storm<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/christianity.about.com\/library\/weekly\/aa011001.htm<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Considering a Convention\r\nto Propose Constitutional Amendments<\/b>\r\n
http:\/\/i2i.org\/SuptDocs\/OpEdArcv\/op080896.htm<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Thanks to everyone who\r\ncontributed.]<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
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Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001\r\n13:30:39 -0500<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
From: \"Nathan Newman\"\r\n<nathan@newman.org><\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
HOW SOUTHERN VIOLATIONS\r\nOF STATES RIGHTS CAUSED THE CIVIL WAR<\/b>\r\n
by\r\nNathan Newman<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
The comments of Interior\r\nSecretary nominee Gale Norton talking about the \"loss\" of states rights\r\ndue to the Civil War just once more highlights the lie that the Civil War\r\nwas fought over states rights, rather than fought to preserve slavery.<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
In fact, if anything,\r\nthe Civil War was caused by Southern States using their control of the\r\nCongress and the Supreme Court to use federal law against Northern states\r\nwhich resisted slavery within their own territory.<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
The primary example of\r\nthis was the Fugitive Slave Law used by the federal government to force\r\nfree states to return runaway slaves to their masters in the South.<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
In fact, Southerners took\r\nthis law and assumed the right not only to go to court to force the return\r\nof slaves but would go into Northern states and kidnap blacks, often not\r\neven slaves, while claiming that they had the right of \"self-help\" in recovering\r\ntheir \"property\".<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
In 1842, the US Supreme\r\nCourt in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. 536, made this right of southerners\r\nto defy Northern laws against self-help kidnappings IN NORTHERN STATES\r\na constitutional right. The decision explicitly repudiated Northern\r\nstates' rights to regulate their own affairs in regard to kidnapping in\r\ntheir own borders. This repudiation of states rights is clear, as\r\nJustice Story wrote: \"It is scarely conceivable, that the slave-holding\r\nstates would have been satisfied with leaving to the legislation of the\r\nnon-slave Holding states, a power of regulation, in the abscense of that\r\nof Congress\". Where Southern interests in slavery mattered, they were all\r\nfor extinguishing local state power in favor of that of the federal government.<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
The next blow to Northern\r\nstates rights was of course the much more famous 1857 Dred Scott decision\r\nwhich declared that Southerners were free to bring slaves to free states,\r\nand yet keep those slaves as slaves in defiance of Northern anti-slavery\r\nlaws. The Court declared that no state had the right to grant freedom\r\nand citizenship to such slaves or prevent them from being brought in to\r\ntheir states. The case makes a big deal how such control is vested\r\nsolely in the federal government.<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
It was the South that\r\ndeclared war on states rights in the North, using the Congress and the\r\nUS Supreme Court to de facto extend slavery into Northern states. \r\nIt was the reaction in the North that three years after Dred Scott elected\r\nAbraham Lincoln into office, not on a platform of abolishing slavery in\r\nthe South, but of refusing to allow the South to extend it anymore to the\r\nNorth.<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
And the South reacted\r\nto this threat to slavery, NOT TO ANY THREAT TO STATES RIGHTS, by seceding. \r\nIt was the South that had abused states rights to support slavery and when\r\nit looked like they could no longer do so, they protected slavery by seceding.<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
It was all about slavery\r\nand racism. Nothing more, except possibly the North being the ones\r\nasserting their states rights against the abusive power of the federal\r\ngovernment that had been controlled by the slave states.<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
In a similar manner, those\r\nwho talk about \"states rights\" are the ones who are the first to support\r\na rightwing US Supreme court intervening in the Florida election, the first\r\nto support federal government in interfering in state tort claims, the\r\nfirst to support the federal government in overturning laws like the Massachusetts\r\nBurma law to resist buying goods from that human rights violating country.<\/b><\/b>\r\n<\/p>
Conservatives talk about\r\nstates rights, but when local governments do anything they don't like,\r\nthey are the first to invoke federal power to overturn those state laws. \r\nThis is usually done for the sake of property rights, and that is the real\r\ntradition of the Confederacy - the supremacy of property rights over human\r\nrights.<\/b>\r\n
\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/dlis.gseis.ucla.edu\/people\/pagre\/rre.html","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"The movement to restore the Confederacy is really picking up steam. John Ashcroft's alliance with a wide range of far-right groups is but the tip of the iceberg. I was particularly struck by Gale Norton's comments lamenting the defeat of the Confederacy. Is she advocating the restoration of slavery? Probably not. But she is certainly part of the movement to undo the legal reforms that overthrew Jim Crow.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2001\/01\/rre_1.html","filesize":"12.9 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2001\/01\/5095.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}