This page was last updated on July 1, 2017.
Makes You Wonder Dept; Carl Davidson (KD); Facebook; March 12, 2017.
You can learn more about BCR’s leftster management here. “Leftster” is the combination of leftist and gangster, inspired by the left-originated “bankster.”
Carl Davidson (KD): “MAKES YOU WONDER DEPT: Why are so many of these folks who ‘want to make America great again’ carrying Confederate flags?”
This review is different than most because it focuses mostly on the comments of participants in the discussion instead of KD.
According to his Facebook page, Denis Mueller (DM) is “a documentary filmmaker and a Jacobin.” Guys like DM are why guys like me tend to treat documentary and propaganda as synonyms.
DM – Mar 13, 2017 @ 12:19am: “[‘White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America’] Sounds like a good book. Who wrote the Times review? I find everyone kind of misses it. Rednecks are racist but without a GOP Supreme Court to make all of this legal (Plessy vs Ferguson) there would not have been segregation. It is the GOP who really set the agenda for racism and KKK violence when they put the violation of the 13th and 14th amendment in the hands of state courts. It is the 1% who instituted this racist/fascist oppression. Never forget it.”
[RWC] Homer Plessy was a Republican.
As you will read, DM is desperate to absolve his ideological/political ancestors of their “racism and KKK violence” so he blames “a GOP Supreme Court.”
DM’s “GOP Supreme Court” for “Plessy v. Ferguson” (PvF) consisted of four Democrats and five Republicans; the Chief Justice was a Democrat. Regarding PvF specifically, all four Democrats and three of the Republicans were in the majority. The lone dissenter was a Republican. The fifth Republican did not participate because he was not present at the hearing due to the death of his daughter.
Louisiana’s Separate Car Act “[required] railway companies carrying passengers in their coaches in that State, to provide equal, but separate, accommodations for the white and colored races, by providing two or more passenger coaches for each passenger train, or by dividing the passenger coaches by a partition so as to secure separate accommodations; and providing that no person shall be permitted to occupy seats in coaches other than the ones assigned to them, on account [p538] of the race they belong to; and requiring the officer of the passenger train to assign each passenger to the coach or compartment assigned for the race to which he or she belong; and imposing fines or imprisonment upon passengers insisting on going into a coach or compartment other than the one set aide [sic] for the race to which he or she belongs.”
PvF didn’t happen by accident. The Comité des Citoyens (CC), aka the Citizens Committee, devised a test case to prove the unconstitutionality of the law.
The CC “recruited Plessy to deliberately violate Louisiana’s 1890 separate-car law. To pose a clear test, the Citizens’ Committee gave notice of Plessy’s intent to the railroad, which opposed the law because it required adding more cars to its trains.”
I have no idea if the PvF justices were in “the 1%” and I doubt DM does either. In any case, what does it matter? As a reminder, “the 1%” really means “non-lefty one-percenter.” That’s why we never hear leftists complain in public about lefty one-percenters like the Clintons, the Obamas, George Soros (Wall Street hedge-fund manager), Tom Steyer (Wall Street hedge-fund manager), and the Manns/Warrens. Yes, yes, I know; the Clintons and Obamas aren’t lefties. <g>
As noted above, Homer Plessy was a Republican.
Ken Handel (KH) – Mar 13, 2017 @ 12:27am: “I disagree. Racism has always been a part of America--from the first European ‘explorers.’ The Supreme Court validated the rights of slave owners in 1858 in the Dred Scott case, four decades before Plessy v. Ferguson, states like Kansas were at war over the issue before the Civil War began, and the issue wasn’t even mentioned at the Constitutional Convention because it would have torn apart the founding fathers. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. It was the Southern Democrats that transformed Reconstruction into a century of legal segregation prior to Brown v. Bd. of Ed in 1954. Abe Lincoln was a Republican.”
[RWC] “[Slavery] wasn’t even mentioned at the Constitutional Convention because it would have torn apart the founding fathers?” Seriously? Here’s part of what I posted on the BCT website for a different discussion thread:
“One faction (predominantly the South) supported slavery, the other opposed it. In Article I, Section 2, the ‘three fifths of all other Persons’ (‘all other Persons’ meaning slaves) portion of paragraph three reflects the difficult compromise struck. For representation purposes (seats in the House of Representatives), slaves counted as only three-fifths of a free person. The intent of the anti-slavery faction was to cut the representation – and thus political power – of slave states, not to assert slaves were inferior to free persons. Applying only to states existing when the Constitution was ratified, Article I, Section 9 promised Congress would prohibit slave importation no sooner than 1808. As we know – and the Founders knew, our conflict with England was not really over and the U.S. would not have survived as two separate countries.”
There are more details in my review of KD’s letter “Is torture OK if it works?”
DM – Mar 13, 2017 @ 12:37am: “You are wrong. Lincoln was also quite racist see Frederick Douglas [sic] and If you are telling me that there was slavery well of course..duh..They could not have done post civil war segregation if it was not legalized by an upper-class GOP court. Please read Eric Foner book and then follow it up with Race and Reunion. This does not even count the racist wars of the west (Grant during reconstruction) and T. Roosevelt who lies about San Juan Hill. He is saved by blacks and then calls them cowards. The founders were the 1%. Except for Thomas Paine.”
[RWC] DM doubles down, twice. It appears DM thought he could bully other contributors into shutting up. Sound familiar?
First, not only did “an upper-class GOP court” “really set the agenda for [Democrat] racism and KKK violence,” DM asserted “Lincoln was also quite racist see Frederick Douglas [sic].” I haven’t seen any credible claims President “Lincoln was also quite racist.” President Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were friends.
The “Eric Foner book” is “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.” I read three reviews and none of them supported DM’s assertion “Lincoln was also quite racist.” According to Wikipedia, “Foner praises Lincoln’s ‘capacity for growth, the essence of [his] greatness’, and speculates that had he not been assassinated, he could have helped to prevent the disenfranchisement and segregation of blacks that followed emancipation. Foner concludes with a quotation by abolitionist Lydia Maria Child:
“I think we have reason to thank God for Abraham Lincoln ... With all his deficiencies, it must be admitted that he has grown continuously; and considering how slavery had weakened and perverted the moral sense of the whole country, it was great good luck to have the people elect a man who was willing to grow.”
DM may be one of those guys who assumes no one will check his claimed sources.
Second, not only were the PvF justices “the 1%,” so were “the founders … Except for Thomas Paine.” As for the claim “the Founders were the 1%,” it depends whom you consider Founders. If you include only the core like Jefferson, Washington, and so on, the one-percenter claim is likely correct. I tend to cast a wider net, however. I don’t know why DM singled out Thomas Paine. In any case, what does it matter? According to Frederick Douglass, “interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.”
Throughout my writing I respectfully refer to the Founders, but they were neither gods nor saints. The Founders were simply fallible, ordinary people like you and me who did something extraordinary. In his play “Twelfth Night” (aka “What You Will”), William Shakespeare wrote, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” The Founders were a mix of these circumstances. That all these people came together at a single point in time in a veritable backwater of colonies is remarkable.
DM also appears to think repeating the “GOP court” BS will eventually make it true.
Bruce Bostick (BB) – Mar 14, 2017 @ 3:25pm: “Denis Mueller you are, as some try incorrectly to do now, put Lincoln’s politics into the context of present day politics, after the civil rights mvmt victories, etc. Lincoln was one of the most advanced thinkers of his time, staunchly standing up to the slaveholders. Without his leadership, it is very unlikely the 13th amendment would’ve passed. He was strongly opposed to, fought expansion of slavery. He opposed slavery itself, had to walk a political tightrope to put together, hold together, a wide alliance that defeated slavery. Racist views were nearly universal in the mid-nineteenth century and Lincoln was influenced by them. Please do read Freddrick [sic] Douglass on how he matured, shifted, found ways to grow, strengthen the fight agst slavery/racism. His last speech, the one Booth cited as reason for his murder, called for voting rights for former slaves/soldiers. Foner, as well, strongly disagrees w the formulation you cite for Lincoln. Personal influences are one thing, but as ML King stated, it is your actions that define you!”
[RWC] According to his Facebook page, BB “works at US Steel Corporation” and is “Director/Coordinator - Ohio at Ohio Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees.”
If “racist views were nearly universal in the mid-nineteenth century,” what was the Civil War about? Slavery was at the foundation of all the reasons for the Civil War.
Perhaps I read too much into “Personal influences are one thing …,” but it seems like BB was telling DM to get his bias under control and get his facts straight.
DM – Mar 14, 2017 @ 4:04pm: “The supreme court, as I said, was the key instrument in the establishment of Jim Crow. That is fact. They (GOP Court) led the way for segregation and allowed murder to happen.”
[RWC] Translation: “Okay, BB, maybe you got me on President Lincoln not being ‘quite racist,’ but it wasn’t my key argument anyway.”
BB – Mar 14, 2017 @ 4:10pm: “Some of what you state is on target, Denis, not all. That court was more a ‘democrat’ court (Plessy v Ferguson--1896) at that time, than GOP. Those parties have reversed their positions since then. I agree w your sentiments, but do not agree w the chacterisation [sic] of Lincoln. He was key to ending slavery, marched society fwd, was a friend, who communicated w Marx. But, good discussion.”
[RWC] As for President Lincoln “communicated w Marx,” this tends to get exaggerated by lefties who want to be linked with President Lincoln. For example, an AlterNet.org piece reads, “[President Lincoln] was also friendlier to workers than most presidents, an affinity noted by Karl Marx, who exchanged letters with Lincoln leading up to and during the Civil War. (You won’t see the GOP acknowledging that!)” In truth, there were only two letters and they were exchanged near the Civil War’s end. Further, President Lincoln didn’t reply; our British Ambassador performed that task.
The letter (referred to as an “address”) to President Lincoln was from the “International Working Men’s Association (IWMA),” not Marx. Marx simply wrote the letter for the IWMA. This is commonplace. In one of my assignments, my group would be asked to analyze a proposal. Our results were reported in a letter from our group’s manager to the requesting entity. The engineer wrote the letter for the manager’s signature, however, not the manager. The engineer’s initials appeared somewhere after the signature line along with the typist’s.
The response to the IWMA letter was neither from nor written by President Lincoln. That letter was from and signed by our British Ambassador, Charles Francis Adams.
I think BB’s “But, good discussion” translates to “you’re wacky and I’m outta here.”
I hope you didn’t miss BB’s assertion “Those parties have reversed their positions since then,” referring to racism. Lefties want us to believe there was a mass movement of racist Democrats to the Republican Party after the civil rights legislation of the mid-1960s while the “good” Democrats stayed Democrats. Since Republicans were historically and are currently stronger on civil rights than Democrats, why on Earth would segregationist Democrats think the Republican Party would take up their racist policies? After all, Republicans supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act more than Democrats. If racist Democrats became Republicans in hopes of furthering racist policies, the strategy was a horrible failure for them. What policy opposed by Republicans but supported by Democrats truly helped minorities? (Note: Yeah, I know, everything Republicans do is racist, but I had to ask. <g>)
KH – Mar 14, 2017 @ 4:14pm: “I think it would help you if you didn’t seek one villain in this enduring story. Yes, the Supreme Court was a factor, but so were state legislatures throughout the South thst passed racist legislation and segregated facilities. Individuals also put their bodies on the line to defend segregation--as in lynchings and daily intimidation of black communities. The entire society was racist, as Bruce Bostick noted. As late as the 1920s, the KKK had millions of members and staged a march that went past the White House. And in the 1940s, millions of isolationists sought to defend White, Christian culture. The armed forces were not desegregated until after WWII.”
[RWC] Again, if “the entire society was racist,” what was at the bottom of the Civil War?
DM – Mar 14, 2017 @ 4:26pm: “The legislation would have been overruled if the court were not total upper-class racists. The American upper class led the way. Look at the words of racist warlord T. Roosevelt. The KKK of the 20’s was most powerful in Indiana where a GOP governor was their boy. The court also were the ones who led the way in Plessy vs Ferguson. The ruling was GOP thought of the day. There was no difference in the parties. And, Bruce the court was a GOP court with the exception of John Harlen [sic] who had promised Grant that he would uphold the 13th and 14th amendment. All the GOP members voted for segregation. You are entitled to your opinion but you do not have the right for your own facts. Bruce. think. The GOP had run the country since the civil war and appointed GOP members. I am correct on this.”
[RWC] DM wrote, “the court was a GOP court with the exception of John Harlen [sic].” False. As noted previously, the Supreme Court consisted of four Democrats and five Republicans, and Chief Justice Melville Fuller was a Democrat.
“All the GOP members voted for segregation?” False. As noted previously, three Republican justices voted with the majority, one dissented (Justice John Harlan), and one did not participate. All four Democrat justices voted with the majority, including Chief Justice Fuller.
“You are entitled to your opinion but you do not have the right for your own facts … I am correct on this?” It’s too bad DM doesn’t practice what he preaches. DM is either ignorant or is lying. Are we to believe a guy who produces “documentaries” is this bad at fact-checking?
DM – Mar 15, 2017 @ 7:32am: “A lot of this would not have been possible if the Supreme court ( Supreme bigots) had not let the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments die. That was because the court are white intellectual racists with whose support racism would not have power.
DM – Mar 15, 2017 @ 9:24am: “Steve I am making a film about Russell Banks and what you say is where his literature and you converge. I think everything you say is right. Maybe I should say in addition the Supreme Court carries the standard for elitism racism. What I am saying is that culture would not have developed as it did had troops stayed as the radical republican’s wanted. If the GOP Supreme Court had struck down these racist laws in the south that culture would not have grown as it did. Remember it was voters who make up over 100,000 where trump had his most support.”
[RWC] More “GOP Supreme Court” BS.
“What I am saying is that culture would not have developed as it did had troops stayed as the radical republican’s wanted.” Perhaps, but DM failed to mention Democrats got control of Congress before Reconstruction ended, and Congress controls the purse strings. According to Wikipedia, “The Democrats gained control of the Senate, and had complete control of Congress, having taken over the House in 1875. Hayes vetoed bills from the Democrats that outlawed the Republican Enforcement Acts; however, with the military underfunded, Hayes could not adequately enforce these laws. Blacks remained involved in Southern politics, particularly in Virginia, which was run by the biracial Readjuster Party.”
I have no clue what “Remember it was voters who make up over 100,000 where trump had his most support” means.
Finally, KD is a slavery expert, a self-described “Truthseeker,” and knows most of DM’s “facts” were false, yet he didn’t correct any of them.
In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity. <g>
© 2004-2017 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.