Anyone see " Confederate States of America"?

[Todd33]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.S.A.:_The_Confederate_States_of_America

C.S.A. is shown as a British-made documentary about American history, disagreeing with American people in many aspects. The two main historians featured are white conservative Sherman Hoyle and black Patricia Johnson. Throughout the film, an American politician, Democratic candidate John Fauntroy V, great-grandchild of one of the people who made the C.S.A. possible, is interviewed. A voice-over narrator is also featured over false images and footage, including a false D.W. Griffith movie about how Abraham Lincoln, disguised in blackface, tries to flee to Canada after the Confederacy's military victory. After serving for two years in prison, Lincoln is pardoned and exiled to Canada, where he dies in June 1905.

A friend lent it to me, it was pretty good. While it's not news, it is political in a sense. Just think of it as if the current Bible belt ran the country, yes it's that scary. I'm a bit of a Civil War buff, so it was interesting to see a fake but realistic timeline of that era.

 

[Genx87]

After reading that, I think this could be one of the dumbest movies ever produced.
It also assumes a closed society would somehow prosper, of course is on the side of Nazi Germany, and Slavery is a commercial business in 2004 in the CSA eventhough the west has since outlawed the practice. I'd also like to know how a nation of a few million would control all of central and south America, obviously enslaving the non-white races.

I'd probably watch it to get a good laugh at how they try to show the dominance the CSA has while obviously being sanctioned by the west, blocked off from the rest of the world, and not relying on trade to prosper.

This sounds more like some underhanded film to paint the south as rascist and fufill some stupid lefty's wet dream.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Genx87
After reading that, I think this could be one of the dumbest movies ever produced.
It also assumes a closed society would somehow prosper, of course is on the side of Nazi Germany, and Slavery is a commercial business in 2004 in the CSA eventhough the west has since outlawed the practice. I'd also like to know how a nation of a few million would control all of central and south America, obviously enslaving the non-white races.

I'd probably watch it to get a good laugh at how they try to show the dominance the CSA has while obviously being sanctioned by the west, blocked off from the rest of the world, and not relying on trade to prosper.


This sounds more like some underhanded film to paint the south as rascist and fufill some stupid lefty's wet dream.

Nah, it was just an interesting movie that was way over the top.

 

[Schadenfroh]

The CSA had about the same desire to annex the United States as the United States had to annex the British Isles after the American Revolution. The Civil War was a war for independence, not for trying to conquer the US or change the US government.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

interesting tidbit, thanks for the heads-up!

 

[yllus]

I find it interesting that the overarching tendency of regarding the South during that time period is that if it had won, policy and public sentiment in regards to race would be any different than they would be today.

My personal research into the Civil War found the North to be nearly equally as racist as the South, with President Lincoln on more than one occasion delivering racist speech in public, and that the war was mainly fought for political and economic reasons - slavery being used only as a tactic to galvanize support in the North, to instigate trouble in the South, and to keep foreign powers out of the war.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Some habits die hard Southern Poverty Law Center.

On the ground floor, a United States Army brass band commemorated the victims of 9/11. One level up, not far from the museum's permanent Confederate Army exhibit, the state chapter of the League of the South (LOS), a neo-Confederate hate group, hosted a barbeque in honor of Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, head of the House Immigration Reform Caucus and likely contestant in the 2008 GOP presidential primary.
---
Dressed casually in a yellow t-shirt, Tancredo addressed the standing-room audience of 200-250 from behind a podium draped in a Confederate battle flag. To the congressman's right, a portrait of Robert E. Lee peered out at the crowd of Minutemen activists, local politicians, and red-shirted members of LOS and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The Confederate trappings of the event found a mismatch in Tancredo's standard nativist polemic, which stayed clear of references to Southern heritage or direct plaudits for the LOS, a Southern white nationalist organization dedicated to "Southern independence, complete, full, and total."
---
Rising to his friendly audience, Tancredo blasted South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham for being too soft on immigration and basked in the long applause that followed his harangues against illegal immigrants and "the cult of multiculturalism" that glorifies disunity and refuses to acknowledge the "Christian principles enshrined in the U.S. Constitution." (Tancredo did not appear to grasp the irony of addressing the "lack of unity" in America in front of a group dedicated to Southern secession.)
---
At the close of Tancredo's speech, several men in confederate-themed clothing stood up and bellowed the first notes of "Dixie," the Confederate anthem. They were soon joined by voices from throughout the large hall, which was now entirely on its feet. Tancredo, a second-generation Italian-American from Denver, appeared confused by the sudden burst of strange song. He quickly worked his way toward the exit with his staff.

Tancredo's encounter with the League of the South continued outside. On the steps of the museum, Tancredo held court with LOS officials and supporters in Confederate clothing. He held a batch of the materials being distributed at the barbeque, among them a copy of the The Citizen's Informer, the newspaper of the Conservative Citizens Council, the racist organization that grew out of the segregationist White Citizens Councils of the 1950s. When questioned about the newspaper, Tancredo responded that he did not know its history.

Terri Willingham Thomas, currently a district judge in Cullman County, is the Republican nominee for the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals.

The Montgomery Advertiser first reported Thomas' family ties to the Ku Klux Klan and CCC, both of which have been identified as hate groups by the Center, on Aug. 28. The story revealed that her mother, Violet Willingham, was arrested in August 1979 for transporting guns with an expired permit at a Klan march in Montgomery and that her father, Joe Willingham, received a national appreciation award from the CCC in 1993. In that article, Thomas denied having ever heard of the CCC.

But the Center's Intelligence Project, which tracks hate groups, found a photograph of Willingham recently attending a CCC monthly meeting in Cullman. The photo, in the group's May-June newsletter, shows CCC director Leonard Wilson urging members to support Thomas in her July 18 runoff election, which she won.
---
Contacted again by the Advertiser, which published the photo on Sept. 4, Thomas again claimed ignorance, telling the newspaper that she didn't know anything about the organization and attended the meeting only to hear a history lesson about Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Founded in 1985 by Gordon Baum, a lawyer and longtime white-power activist, the CCC rose from the ashes of the Citizens Councils of America (CCA), a coalition of white supremacist groups formed throughout the South to defend school segregation after the Supreme Court outlawed it in 1954.

Though the organization remained a mystery to many through the 1990s, a 1998 Intelligence Report investigation exposed the group's racism. The organization routinely denigrated blacks as "genetically inferior," complained about "Jewish power brokers," called homosexuals "perverted sodomites," and accused immigrants of turning America into a "slimy brown mass of glop."

Obviously, these people do NOT epitomize the South. BUT . . . the War of Northern Aggression still resonates generations later.

 

[K1052]

Originally posted by: yllus
I find it interesting that the overarching tendency of regarding the South during that time period is that if it had won, policy and public sentiment in regards to race would be any different than they would be today.

My personal research into the Civil War found the North to be nearly equally as racist as the South, with President Lincoln on more than one occasion delivering racist speech in public, and that the war was mainly fought for political and economic reasons - slavery being used only as a tactic to galvanize support in the North, to instigate trouble in the South, and to keep foreign powers out of the war.

Slavery could best be described as a (if not the) primary catalyst that politically made the civil war inevitable, IMO. The conflict (actual bloodshed in Kansas even) over new states and federal territories allowing slavery was a major lead-in to the war.

Lincoln cleverly spun it into the primary reason for the war to keep the English from helping the CSA and to promote slave uprisings in the Confederacy that would draw troops from the war. Lincoln personally disliked slavery, even if he echoed some of the racist tones of the period.

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by: yllus
I find it interesting that the overarching tendency of regarding the South during that time period is that if it had won, policy and public sentiment in regards to race would be any different than they would be today.

My personal research into the Civil War found the North to be nearly equally as racist as the South, with President Lincoln on more than one occasion delivering racist speech in public, and that the war was mainly fought for political and economic reasons - slavery being used only as a tactic to galvanize support in the North, to instigate trouble in the South, and to keep foreign powers out of the war.

The "economic" issue was the right to own people, like cattle. The "political" issue was the right to keep having slaves, and expand it.

The South tried to leave the Union, violently, pretty much entirely because they wanted to expand slavery, and the Union tried to stop them, violently, from leaving the Union.

But either way you look at it, it was slavery that was at the bottom of the Civil War. The only reason some people don't accept this is, fighting to preserve slavery doesn't seem as noble a cause as preserving "a way of life", which is just a euphemism for a culture based on the right to own human beings.

 

[fitzov]

It was slightly humorous. I expect it might offend the typical cracker.

 

[judasmachine]

If the South had won it's struggle for independance, it would have been a poor backwater for sometime while it tried to bring in foriegn shipping to do what the North had been doing for it, albeit at a price. It would not have had the will or the power to conquer the rest of the US. Slavery would have died out albeit painfully and slowly as they searched for labor to support their economic imbalance. They would have had a helluva time keeping the blacks from revolting and deserting when the North waged a propaganda war against it's lost brother. Anyhow, the South would not have been an instant superpower.

 

[Theb]

I made it to the point where they expelled the Jews and then I stopped watching. It just wasn't that funny or interesting to me.

If the South had won it's independence I think it would probably be similar to Saudi Arabia today. A lot of religious fundamentalism, a wealthy elite propped up by oil money and a lot of poor people.
I don't know about slavery. Certainly most of the arguements at the time would work just as well today, but there could've been any number of events between the war and now that would've brought slavery to an end.

 

[Todd33]

I liked how JFK ran for President as a Republican (the moderates of that alternate universe) and was accused as a abolitionist then assassinated for his anti-slavery views. Also the Cold War was between Canada and the US, Canada was a free country and anti-slavery.

 

[BoberFett]

Sounds like the leftist equivalent to Reefer Madness.

 

[alchemize]

It's interesting to see where slavery still exists today.

Haven't seen the film, is it on a torrent?

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Sounds like the leftist equivalent to Reefer Madness.

It's not. It also might be worth your time watching is you already have a preconceived attitude towards it. It really is just a satarical "what if" movie.

 

[Jaskalas]

The civil war is in regards to the question of if we have a right to oppose our government?s demands on us by voting through succession. The day the civil war ended is the day our states died and we became enslaved to the will of the majority to do unto us whatever they desire ? lawful or not.

Imagine if your state had the right to succeed the Union because you oppose the Patriot act. Such an unlawful act would more easily be defeated.

 

[OFFascist]

A movie I wish they would make a movie of the book "Guns of the South" by Harry Turtledove.

The American Civil War + AK-47s =

 

[Puwaha]

Originally posted by: OFFascist
A movie I wish they would make a movie of the book "Guns of the South" by Harry Turtledove.

The American Civil War + AK-47s =

Oh, I loved that book! Those sneaky South-Africans!

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: Tom

Originally posted by: yllus
I find it interesting that the overarching tendency of regarding the South during that time period is that if it had won, policy and public sentiment in regards to race would be any different than they would be today.

My personal research into the Civil War found the North to be nearly equally as racist as the South, with President Lincoln on more than one occasion delivering racist speech in public, and that the war was mainly fought for political and economic reasons - slavery being used only as a tactic to galvanize support in the North, to instigate trouble in the South, and to keep foreign powers out of the war.

The "economic" issue was the right to own people, like cattle. The "political" issue was the right to keep having slaves, and expand it.

The South tried to leave the Union, violently, pretty much entirely because they wanted to expand slavery, and the Union tried to stop them, violently, from leaving the Union.

But either way you look at it, it was slavery that was at the bottom of the Civil War. The only reason some people don't accept this is, fighting to preserve slavery doesn't seem as noble a cause as preserving "a way of life", which is just a euphemism for a culture based on the right to own human beings.

The key issue was the industrialization of the North versus the agrarian economy of the South, and impossibility of compromise when it came to promoting one over the other. When the last federal party that had some semblance of state-wide representation broke and the North took control of the federal government, the South decided to opt out so it could better pursue its own economic goals. Everything comes back to this fact.

Tarriff policy disagreements: Tied to economics and the differing concentrations (industrial vs. agrarian).

Culture change disagreements: Tied to economics. We had here a relatively few plantation owners acting as a ruling class because of the nature of their agrarian economy, versus the more egalitarian capitalism of the North where it was possible to be at least a bit more mobile in changing social classes.

 

[International Machine Consortium]

Originally posted by: Genx87
After reading that, I think this could be one of the dumbest movies ever produced.
It also assumes a closed society would somehow prosper, of course is on the side of Nazi Germany, and Slavery is a commercial business in 2004 in the CSA eventhough the west has since outlawed the practice. I'd also like to know how a nation of a few million would control all of central and south America, obviously enslaving the non-white races.

I'd probably watch it to get a good laugh at how they try to show the dominance the CSA has while obviously being sanctioned by the west, blocked off from the rest of the world, and not relying on trade to prosper.

This sounds more like some underhanded film to paint the south as rascist and fufill some stupid lefty's wet dream.

Ahhh yes, gather 'round and listen to the Red Stater prattle on aimlessly

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: yllus
The key issue was the industrialization of the North versus the agrarian economy of the South, and impossibility of compromise when it came to promoting one over the other. When the last federal party that had some semblance of state-wide representation broke and the North took control of the federal government, the South decided to opt out so it could better pursue its own economic goals. Everything comes back to this fact.

Tarriff policy disagreements: Tied to economics and the differing concentrations (industrial vs. agrarian).

Culture change disagreements: Tied to economics. We had here a relatively few plantation owners acting as a ruling class because of the nature of their agrarian economy, versus the more egalitarian capitalism of the North where it was possible to be at least a bit more mobile in changing social classes.

very few people recognize the almost-colonial (mercantile, imperial, whatever) relationship the northeast in particular and the north in general has had with the south and mountain states for the past several hundred years. it's lessening as more and more people with money and influence move to the sun belt, but it's still there.

for all that, though, how many presidents have there been from the northeast? over the last century only 6 presidents have been from the northeast, and the last two of those (the bushes) you would struggle to call northeasterners.

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: yllus
The key issue was the industrialization of the North versus the agrarian economy of the South, and impossibility of compromise when it came to promoting one over the other. When the last federal party that had some semblance of state-wide representation broke and the North took control of the federal government, the South decided to opt out so it could better pursue its own economic goals. Everything comes back to this fact.

Tarriff policy disagreements: Tied to economics and the differing concentrations (industrial vs. agrarian).

Culture change disagreements: Tied to economics. We had here a relatively few plantation owners acting as a ruling class because of the nature of their agrarian economy, versus the more egalitarian capitalism of the North where it was possible to be at least a bit more mobile in changing social classes.

very few people recognize the almost-colonial (mercantile, imperial, whatever) relationship the northeast in particular and the north in general has had with the south and mountain states for the past several hundred years. it's lessening as more and more people with money and influence move to the sun belt, but it's still there.

for all that, though, how many presidents have there been from the northeast? over the last century only 6 presidents have been from the northeast, and the last two of those (the bushes) you would struggle to call northeasterners.

For a country with such a rich and interesting history, it's surprising that key periods like the Civil War aren't taught in finer detail than, "It was about slavery." I guess that just sounds a lot more grand and egalitarian than, "It was about money."

Heheh, it's like Canada and Quebec. The rest of the country finds the province sort of distasteful because of all the antics they get up to, and yet a large majority of our prime minister have come from Quebec.