How to Become Irrelevant

Posted on | July 19, 2012 | 32 Comments

The key to becoming irrelevant is to develop an irrational obsession — an idée fixe — and ride that hobby horse without regard for changes in circumstances or public interest. Become tedious by ranting against obscure scapegoats and obsolete controversies that have no signficance except to you and whatever tiny clique of like-minded kooks share your fanatical fixation.

About a half-hour ago, I learned that Edward “Crawfish” Sebesta is still online raving about the neo-Confederate menace. He’s got an entire blog devoted to the topic, and has been tilting at that particular windmill for more than 15 years now.

To make a long story short: Ed Sebesta is a guy from Up North who moved Down South, and immediately commenced to make himself obnoxious to his new neighbors, beginning in Dallas, Texas, where he lives. Like most towns in the South, Dallas has a Confederate monument. Sebesta decided this monument was a symbol of evil and petitioned the city to remove this awful blight.

His request was declined, and Sebesta’s resulting mad rage turned him into a one-man Permanent Committee of Vengeance, a bizarre single-issue derangement that endeared him to the Southern Poverty Law Center and to no one else. The controversies that consume Sebesta’s demented mind haven’t gotten any widespread attention since about 2006, when the absurd accusation that George Allen was a “neo-Confederate” got all tangled up in the “macaca” nonsense. (Fact: Jim Webb is a lot more neo-Confederate than Allen ever was, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Virginia supported Webb over Allen in 2006.)

Without regard for his irrelevance, Sebesta still toils away, evidently convinced that sooner or later this will matter to somebody again. And who know? Maybe he’s right. But it’s 2012 now, and most people are worried about issues like economics and deficit spending. However, the dim prospects for a revival of the “neo-Confederate” scare haven’t deterred Sebesta from carrying on in the same way he’s been carrying on since he declared a jihad against that monument in Dallas.

Sebesta reminds me of nothing so much as diehard 9/11 Truther kooks — “Fire can’t melt steel! Inside job! Bush lied!” — or perhaps a better analogy would be JFK assassination conspiracy theorists endlessly replaying the Zapruder film and muttering about the “grassy knoll.”

Sixteen years after I first encountered Sebesta doing his Chicken Little act, the sky still has not fallen, and the dreaded neo-Confederate menace still has not staged a bloody coup or whatever ever other evil clandestine activity he claimed they were up to.

That Confederate monument still stands 60 feet tall in downtown Dallas.

It’s a conspiracy!

Category: Conspiracy Theories, Texas

Comments

32 Responses to “How to Become Irrelevant”

Evilbloggerlady
July 19th, 2012 @ 2:00 am

But does he like The Rocky Horror Picture Show?
PaulLemmen
July 19th, 2012 @ 6:52 am

He keeps pushing articles and pamphlets written in the 1800’s through the 1950’s as proof of racism today in America. He equates the Tea Party folks as some kind of Southern Citizens Council. To quote Bugs Bunny: “What a maroon…”
smitty
July 19th, 2012 @ 7:20 am

I thought we might get something about She Who Must Not Be Named here.
Quartermaster
July 19th, 2012 @ 7:43 am

I don’t think we can talk about her above a whisper.
Jerry Wilson
July 19th, 2012 @ 8:59 am

As long as there are all-you-can-eat restaurants in North Carolina, SWMNBN will be relevant.
Mike Tuggle
July 19th, 2012 @ 9:20 am

Oh, you’ve just begun to appreciate the, uh, dedication of Ed Sebesta to his one-man jihad against all things Southern.

He once wrote that buying a Christmas tree from a plantation makes one complicit in the eeeevil conspiracy to bring back slavery:

Really:

http://www.lsrebellion.blogspot.com/2011/12/yes-virginia-ed-sebesta-is-for-real.html

Enjoy!
Red
July 19th, 2012 @ 9:42 am

LMAO!!
Red
July 19th, 2012 @ 9:42 am

OH for crying out loud…
M. Thompson
July 19th, 2012 @ 9:54 am

You can keep your monuments and the like, as long as us up North can keep the trophies won on the battlefield. Like the battleflag of the 28th Virginia, taken at Gettysburg by the 1st Minnesota Volunteers.
smitty
July 19th, 2012 @ 9:57 am

Ouch.
Finrod Felagund
July 19th, 2012 @ 9:59 am

It’s ok to have pet hopeless causes, as long as you don’t become obsessed about them. For example, one of my pet hopeless causes is to see the interstate Beltway around Washington DC renumbered from I-495 to I-666.
Alamocitypundit
July 19th, 2012 @ 10:10 am

You got a petition I can sign on that one, Finrod?
Andrew Patrick
July 19th, 2012 @ 10:12 am

Best Regiment Ever.
Evilbloggerlady
July 19th, 2012 @ 10:16 am

Ha! Where do I sign up?
Andrew Patrick
July 19th, 2012 @ 10:17 am

Why must everything be handled in terms of censorship? If he finds the Confederate Monument so offensive, why not simply build his own? A statue of Lincoln or Sherman would do the job nicely, and then dialogue could commence.

I always figured that’s what the NAACP should do in South Carolina, rather than trying to get the old rebel flag pulled down.
Pathfinder's wife
July 19th, 2012 @ 10:46 am

Well, here’s the problem though (imhao):

Yeah, the guy is obsessed and takes things overboard, but I have seen some of the things he writes about.
There are some people who have a pretty unhealthy, overly romanticized view of “the South” (whatever that entity is supposed to be, it changes with each group to fit the group’s individual desires or so it seems). Thing of it is, whatever the individual fantasy image, it isn’t reality; it isn’t truth; and, it leads to all manner of confused thinking (often with some pretty nasty tidbits of ideas promoted by nasty people who see an opening) which does absolutely nobody any good (especially the people who are directly affected by the lie). I suppose the same could be said for this fella…just look at the SPLC for how stuff grows into a monster.

This happens with everything it seems.
Finrod Felagund
July 19th, 2012 @ 11:08 am

I guess I should start a petition then!
Worsham Abbott
July 19th, 2012 @ 11:49 am

The regimental flags were supposed to have been returned many years ago and most were at least by those Northern states populated by people of honor. However, considering the fact that the troops from Minnesota and the rest of the Midwest were reknowned for their bravery in attacking women and children and burning homes their failure to return said regimental flag does nor surprise me. Whatever else you might say about the New Englanders they at least didn’t behave like white trash and had a sense of personal honor.
richard mcenroe
July 19th, 2012 @ 11:53 am

Honestly, just because I like to dress up as Edmund Ruffin and dance around my bedroom…
Red
July 19th, 2012 @ 12:35 pm

Pardon my ‘duh’ but is SWMNBN married to the SCOAMF? My anachronisms are running amuck in my head.
Jerry Wilson
July 19th, 2012 @ 2:21 pm

No. Read some — well, pretty much any — post by Stacy on BlogCon to learn SWMNBM’s identity.
Pathfinder's wife
July 19th, 2012 @ 3:35 pm

Because everything has to become censorship if we allow weak minded people to be led by evil minded people into doing very bad things.
And one of the ways the bad guys get the weak guys to follow a long is to use statues and monuments…symbols….as fetishes for the stupid and weak to fixate upon.So, yeah, like big gulp soda pops and everything else, if we as a society, as individuals, allow the weak minded to be led into doing bad/stupid things (or worse, we fall for bs or become the bad guys ourselves)….then other things get taken away from us.

Free societies have to be populated by people who are responsible and self-reliant in thought as well as deed 😉
Free societies have to be protected, even from ourselves — no sleeping on the job.

You want that rebel flag? (honestly, I’m ambivalent — what it stands for has been way too romanticized; the Democrat Party is a child of it…screw that)
You’re going to have to be extra vigilant that filthy mcnasties don’t use it as a promotional tool and fetish for dipshits to go out and do bad things (and how has that worked out?)

Sorry, it is what it is — life sucks, huh?
Red
July 19th, 2012 @ 3:46 pm

Ohhh yeah, okay. Thanks for the memory jog.
robertstacymccain
July 19th, 2012 @ 7:02 pm

Also captured at Gettysburg: My great-grandfather, Winston Wood Bolt, a private in the 13th Alabama Regiment, Archer’s Regiment, which was outflanked by the Union’s Iron Brigade on the opening day’s fight, July 1.

Things turned bad for the Confederates after that. Coincidence? I think not.
JeffS
July 19th, 2012 @ 7:25 pm

Hey, I’ll sign it!
Andrew Patrick
July 19th, 2012 @ 10:53 pm

150 years is a long time to remain butt-hurt over Sherman’s March.

Besides which, the First Minnesota was mostly renowned for kicking ass and taking names the entire time they were attached to the Army of the Potomac, prior to their sacrifice at Gettysburg. They never burned anything except Lee’s chances of putting Meade down on July 2nd. Among other reasons, the Army of the Potomac never got far South enough.
Andrew Patrick
July 19th, 2012 @ 11:14 pm

I’m sure my great-great-great-granduncle Dallas Patrick marched up the road while Pvt. Bolt was ferried down it. But Dallas didn’t show up until the following day, wherein his unit (40th Pennsylvania Volunteers, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division, 5th Corps) spent the day hanging out on Big Round Top.
Andrew Patrick
July 19th, 2012 @ 11:19 pm

This argument would be more persuasive if it was fifty years ago and there were actual evil things that the weak-minded were being jedi-tricked into. I find the romanticized image of the Lost Cause as nauseating as you do, but Fings Ain’t Wot They Used to Be.

And it strikes me that censoring arguably neutral things because of what COULD be done with them is a slope pretty well greased.
Bob Belvedere
July 21st, 2012 @ 12:10 am

Don’t feel bad, Red, I needed one too.
Bob Belvedere
July 21st, 2012 @ 12:13 am

And I’ve got the video to prove it!
Stogie Chomper
July 22nd, 2012 @ 3:00 am

And now they are burning in Hell, if there is a god…
Stogie Chomper
July 22nd, 2012 @ 3:02 am

Edward Sebesta has found a purpose in life, identifying us neo-Confederates and exposing our evil schemes. Rats, he’s on to us!