The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

64 Shots: Londre ‘KTS Dre’ Sylvester Gunned Down Outside Chicago Jail

Posted on | July 12, 2021 | Comments Off on 64 Shots: Londre ‘KTS Dre’ Sylvester Gunned Down Outside Chicago Jail

Getting murdered is a family tradition for some people in Chicago, and the death this week of Londre Sylvester, 31, was probably predictable. In June 2015, his younger brother, Devon “Kutthroat Von” Davis, was killed in a drive-by shooting. “Kutthroat Von” was only 21 at the time, and was a rapper best known for his song “Kill to Survive,” the lyrics of which are a paean to the violence of street gang life:

Bitch, I’m finna purge
When the Glocks load up
No lackin’, lil’ bitch look up
I was raised in the field with them demons, so what?
It’s kill to survive in the field, turn up …

Out lurking late night like a bat
That’s when a nigga aim be the best
Show no mercy, got it tatted on my chest
Kutthroat gon’ take a nigga soul
Damn Kutthroat heart so froze
Kutthroat don’t love no hoe
‘Cause a bitch ain’t shit, on Moe

“Show no mercy, got it tatted on my chest” — boasting of cruelty and violence, killing people with Glocks? Yeah, that’s popular entertainment for a certain segment of Chicago’s population for whom crime is a way of life and homicide is a hobby. The video for “Kill to Survive” shows the performer waving a laser-sighted pistol and has 4.3 million views on YouTube. So there is no surprise in the fact that “Kutthroat,” with his “heart so froze,” got gunned down by rival gangsters.

Devon “Kutthroat” Davis with his pistol

Oh, did I forget to mention that “Kill to Survive” (KTS) is actually the name of a criminal alliance of Chicago gangs (the 075 Vice Lords and Gangster Disciples from Lakeside and PocketTown)? The reference to “Moe” in Kutthroat Von’s lyrics is to “Moe Town,” a Southside neighborhood also known as the Motor Row District near I-55. The KTS “set” (as neighborhood crews are known in Chicago) is reportedly “at war with numerous sets such as NLMB, Sirconn City, GloryBoyz 3hunna.” It is alleged that Kutthroat Von himself perpetrated at least two murders, including the 2014 drive-by shooting of Keith “Keke” Bonds.

Hey, did I forget to mention that no one was ever charged with the 2015 murder of Kutthroat? Because in some years, 70% or more of the homicides in Chicago are never solved, there are literally hundreds of murderers walking the streets, if they haven’t themselves been killed in the endless violence, or sent to prison on other charges. So, the dead Kutthroat’s brother Londre Sylvester used the gang slogan “KTS” as a stage name for his own career as a rapper, and actually had “Kill to Survive” tattooed on his neck. Class act, these guys.

Murder is a family tradition, and in 2016, Vincent Davis Sr., 43, the father of Devon and Londre, was gunned down in Chicago. Five months later, prosecutors charged Devontay Murray, 19, who was already in custody on an unrelated robbery charge, with that murder.

Devontay Murray, accused of killing Vincent Davis Sr.

If you do the math, you realize Vincent Davis Sr. was only 17 when his oldest son Londre was born, one of eight children the senior Davis sired before his death at age 43. And judging from the short and violent lives of his sons, murder is the family business. Londre recently spent time in the Cook County Jail on a gun charge:

Court records indicate Sylvester’s fiancee had put up $5,000 on Friday to secure his release on charges of violating a previous bond in a 2020 gun case. . . .
Court records indicate Sylvester had been jailed in June for violating conditions of his bond in the 2020 gun case but had been living under house arrest since last December with a GPS monitoring device.
A judge had granted him four hours each Thursday to leave the house to run errands, but sheriff’s officials claimed he’d violated those conditions by visiting “various locations in Chicago and Wisconsin” on June 11.
Sylvester’s public defender called for a bond hearing, claiming Sylvester was arrested June 11 “after running errands during the allotted time on the allotted day of the week.” Judge Lawrence Flood set bond at $50,000, requiring a deposit of $5,000.
The gun case stemmed from an April 2020 arrest when someone reported Sylvester carrying a gun in his car in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood. Officers spotted Sylvester behind the wheel of a white Jaguar sedan, parked beside a pump at a gas station in the 8200 block of South Halsted Street, according to a police report.
When they approached the car, officers saw that Sylvester, who was on parole for a 2015 gun conviction, had a 9 mm Glock pistol in his lap.
One of the officers tried to grab the gun from Sylvester as Sylvester put the car in gear, the report states. Two officers struggled with Sylvester and wrestled him out of the car.

See, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon is a crime, but when murder is the family business, gun ownership is a prerequisite, so it was impossible for Londre “KTS Dre” Sylvester to pursue his criminal occupation without a gun, and that’s why he was in jail. Until his fiancee bailed him out, and he met his predictable fate:

A man who was apparently ambushed after being released from the Cook County Jail in Chicago suffered as many as 64 bullet wounds to his head and other parts of his body, police said.
The shooting Saturday night killed 31-year-old Londre Sylvester, who is also reportedly known as a rapper in Chicago, a police report said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Sylvester had just been released after being fitted for electronic monitoring and was walking to a waiting vehicle when several suspects “exited two separate vehicles and all began to shoot in Sylvester’s direction, striking him numerous times,” the police report said. . . .
Following Saturday night’s shooting, the suspects reentered their vehicles and fled the scene, police said.
A 60-year-old woman who was with Sylvester was shot in one of her knees and was hospitalized in good condition, police said. A second woman, who is in her 30s, suffered a graze wound to her mouth, police said.

Sixty-four bullet wounds.

The suspects are still at large — a frightening thought, but then you remember that as many as 70% of murders in Chicago go unsolved, so “suspects at large” describes hundreds of people in Chicago.

Out lurking late night like a bat
That’s when a nigga aim be the best
Show no mercy, got it tatted on my chest

My advice? Stay away from Chicago.




 

Category: Chicago, Crime

In The Mailbox: 07.12.21

Posted on | July 12, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.12.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Director Blue: How The Most Powerful Branch Of Government Could Control U.S. Public Policy
357 Magnum: That Is Either Ironic Or Idiotic. Or Both.
EBL: Trump At CPAC 2021
Twitchy: CNN’s Havana Bureau Chief Tweets From Cuba That It’s Impossible To Know The Real Picture There Since The Internet Is Down
Louder With Crowder: Five Things To Know About The Anticommunist Uprising In Cuba
Vox Popoli: The “Conservative” Defense Of Pedophilia, also, Schizophrenia At Google

 

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: False Compassion
American Conservative: Every Left-Wing Attempt To Prosecute Trump Has Failed
American Greatness: Trump Winds & Biden Whirlwinds, also, Biden Official Suggests Cuban Protests Are About Rising COVID Cases
American Power: Critical Race Theory Is Driving Educators Out
American Thinker: COVID Began Far Earlier Than We Were Told
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: When Oppressed People Have Nothing Left To Lose But Their Chains, also, Cuban Police Shoot Protesters While Pro-Regime Mobs trucked In To Incite Violence
BattleSwarm: Does Cuba Have A Little Revolution Brewing?
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, Virgin Galactic Finally Launches Richard Branson Into Orbit
Cafe Hayek: Which Decisions “Affect Nobody But The Individuals Who Perform Them”?
CDR Salamander: Midrats Post-July 4th Melee
Da Tech Guy: Make Woke Toyota Broke Toyota, also, The Glories of The Market
Don Surber: Black Parents Embrace Homeschooling, also, Trump Didn’t Make The Flag Divisive. You Did.
First Street Journal: It’s Being Set Up Again! also, Hold Them Accountable!
The Geller Report: PM Boris Johnson – “Obama Is Unacceptable”, also, DHS Says Trump Reinstatement Talk Is Dangerous
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Barnard 68
Hollywood In Toto: Chelsea Handler Says White Men Are The Only Targets For Comedy Left, also, How Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame Broke Some (But Not All) Of The Rules
The Lid: Epic Twitter Thread Gives Perfect Primer On Why MAGA Folks Doubt 2020 Election Results
Legal Insurrection: CNN’s Prime Time Lineup Fails to Crack 1 Million Viewers, also, Why Is Kamala The Last Democrat Arguing Against Voter ID?
Nebraska Energy Observer: Random Observations, also, Afghanistan – The Last Act
Outkick: American Flags Fly High In Opposition To Cuba’s Communist Regime, also, “Leave Family Out Of It”
Power Line: Will Cuba Finally Be Free? also, The Metaphysics Of Bacon
Shark Tank: DeSantis Infrastructure Plan Will Help Rural Communities
Shot In The Dark: Generation Gaslit, also, Over The Target
The Political Hat: All The Sinners Are Saints In NY, also, The Woke-Industrial Complex
This Ain’t Hell: An Inspiring Tale Of Five ANZAC Soldiers Who Escaped The Nazis, also, Horace Jackson – Phony Green Beret
Transterrestrial Musings: “The Worst Speech of Biden’s Presidency”, also, Branson’s Flight
Victory Girls: Tracy Stone-Manning Has An Ecoterrorism Problem, also, Oakland Families Rally With Police Against Antifa Thugs
Volokh Conspiracy: “We’re Getting Some Unexpected Rulings Because The Justices Don’t Want To Be Packed”
Weasel Zippers: Poll Says 58% Agree Media Is The Enemy Of The People, also, Internet Goes Down In Cuba As Regime Tries To Hang On 
The Federalist: Ignoring Georgia Illegal Voting Proves Democrats Don’t Care About Voter Integrity At All, also, Kamala Harris – It’s Almost Impossible For Rural Americans To Make A Photocopy
Mark Steyn: The American Press Comes Out for Media Surveillance, also, Spellbound – I Married A Witch

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Category: Linkagery

England Soccer: ‘Get Woke, Go Broke’?

Posted on | July 12, 2021 | Comments Off on England Soccer: ‘Get Woke, Go Broke’?

This is a subject that I am loath to raise because (a) I don’t know a lot about contemporary England, (b) I don’t understand soccer strategy, and (c) this involves accusations of RAAAAACISM!

England lost the European championship final to Italy in an overtime “shootout,” a sort of sudden-death situation where the teams, having finished in a tie (it was 1-1 between England and Italy after two 15-minute overtime periods) take turns with penalty kicks. As soon as it finished, England’s fans lit up in outrage at the defeat, with some claiming that the coach, Gareth Southgate, had blown it by choosing black players to take three of the team’s first five penalty kicks. All three of the black players — Marcus Rashford, Jaden Sancho and Bukayo Saka — missed, and the online abuse directed at these players caused a big controversy.

Here was what was suggested by some England fans: This happened because their coach wanted to make some kind of political “statement” by having one of the team’s black players kick the decisive goal. That’s why, according to these fans, the penalty-kick lineup went with two white players first, then the three black players, because it’s the player who kicks the last goal who makes the headlines and, had it gone as the coach hoped, this would create an “anti-racist” media narrative in England (where claims by Meghan Markle that she’s a victim of royal family racism have dominated the news for months now).

As I say, I can’t judge the likelihood of this scenario, but if it were actually true — if Gareth Southgate really did engage in a sort of athletic tokenism for political reasons — it would be insane. England is as crazy about soccer as Alabama is about football, and never in a million years would Nick Saban allow racial symbolism to affect his decision-making. Saban cares about exactly one thing — winning — and whether players are black or white (or Hawaiian, as with Tua Tagovailoa) is absolutely irrelevant in that calculus. So the suggestion that England’s coach would have sacrificed a chance to win the European championship in order to promote an anti-racist media narrative is so mind-boggling to me that I’d dismiss it as a conspiracy theory but . . . but . . .

But the choices Gareth Southgate made do seem rather suspicious. He claims that he picked the best available PK “takers,” and certainly no one could fault him for the first two choices — Harry Kane, 27, and Harry Maguire, 28 — both of whom scored on their kicks. But next up was Marcus Rashford, 23, who was nursing a shoulder injury and hadn’t played much in the game. Rashford managed to fake out Italy’s goalie, but his kick struck the post and bounced away. OK, it was still 2-2 in the shootout at that point, but then Italy scored on their next try, and next up for England was Jadon Sancho, 21, who only started two games during the tournament and, like Rashford, had only been brought into the final against Italy in overtime. Sancho’s kick was stopped by the Italian goalie. Next for England was 19-year-old Bukayo Saka. He had started four of England’s five games in the championship tournament, but this was the first penalty kick of Saka’s adult career!

Again, the coach swears his choices were entirely based on the ability of the players, but how could it be that the final kick was allotted to a mere teenager who had never taken a PK in a professional game?

Of course, the England fans raising questions about this can be dismissed as promoting a racist conspiracy theory, but the circumstances are such that you can’t say there’s no reason for their suspicions. And if they’re right — if Gareth Southgate was trying to arrange matters so that a black player could become a national hero — then he bears the responsibility for the backlash when that plan didn’t work out. If that was the plan.

But my knowledge of “metric football” is not sufficient to enable to me to evaluate this situation, and I only mention it because the sports media are denouncing English soccer fans as RAAAAACIST! Which, maybe they are. But sometimes, even racist soccer fans may have a point.




 

Category: Great Britain, Racism, Sports

Rule 5 Sunday: Natasha Romanova Redux

Posted on | July 12, 2021 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Natasha Romanova Redux

— compiled by Wombat-socho

So the new Black Widow movie is out, and it looks pretty good, but since I’m not driving 200 miles to pay $20 so I can watch Scarlett Johanson’s butt* on the big screen, I’ll have to wait until it’s available on some streaming platform I can afford. Also, a minor quibble – I have grown used to seeing Ms. Romanova in the black SHIELD uniform over the years, and that white Arctic uniform just doesn’t look that good on her. Here we have cosplayer Kalinka Fox in a more traditional view of one of SHIELD’s finest assets.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Ninety Miles From Tyranny: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1407, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Albertan Independence Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: MAGA DeSantis, Der Rosenkavalier, Arabella, Betty Gilpin, Noah Cyrus, Michael Avenatti, Salome, No Sudden Move, Julie London, Capriccio, Michaela Kennedy-Cuomo, Ariadne Auf Naxos, The Tomorrow War, Elektra, Evil, Der Rosenkavalier, Vanessa Williams, Amy McDonald, and Independence Day. 

A View From The Beach: Lindsey Harrod, Fish Pic Friday – Kelly Young, Election 2020: While Waiting on Elsa, Trucking into Thursday, NYT Dreads Patriotism, Flags and Pickup Trucks, Rule 5 Star Makes WuFlu News, The Wednesday Wetness, Some Tuesday Tanlines, The Monday Morning Eye Opener, Cave Women Found Not Guilty in Decline of Elephants, 2020 Election – July 4, 2021 Edition and Happy Fourth of July!

Brian Noggle: Ruth Hall

*To say nothing of her many other attractive features.

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious linkagery!

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Shop Sex & Sensuality Gifts




Category: Rule 5

In Defense of R.E. Lee

Posted on | July 11, 2021 | Comments Off on In Defense of R.E. Lee

Some have asked my opinion on the recent iconoclastic travesty of the savage vandal horde, but I have refrained from commenting directly on such matters for fear I might speak too sincerely. You may take yesterday’s Civil War history thread — including my recommendation of  Douglas Southall Freeman’s four-volume R.E. Lee, A Biography and his three-volume Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command — as sufficient comment. However, there is more to be said on the subject, and I find it from a remarkable source. During the 1990s, Christopher Caldwell wrote something that pissed me off so much I marked him down as a despicable cur. I’ve since forgotten what that was about, but his name had lodged in my memory so that I was pleasantly surprised when (hat-tip to Gail Heriot at Instapundit), I saw Caldwell’s remarkable article in The Claremont Review about the recent assaults on Lee’s memory, an article I highly recommend, despite some unfortunate errors about the War (e.g., the Confederacy indeed manufactured artillery, at the Tredegar works in Richmond, at the Noble iron works in Rome, Georgia, and elsewhere). Caldwell is certainly correct here:

Whereas earlier Americans understood slavery primarily as a problem of liberty, today’s Americans understand it primarily as a problem of race. It seemed for several generations that the end of slavery had removed the only obstacle to honoring both sides of the Civil War. But in the newest generation, the persistence of American racial prejudice can be a reason to honor neither.

Read the whole thing. This whole mess makes me sick. If Virginians today would dishonor Lee, in truth they dishonor only themselves.




 

Category: History

Death at Chuck E. Cheese

Posted on | July 11, 2021 | Comments Off on Death at Chuck E. Cheese

Google “fight + Chuck E. Cheese” and look at the results:

Hair-pulling, screaming brawl
breaks out at Chuck E. Cheese’s
— Miami Herald, Oct. 4, 2016

Women brawl in front of kids
party at Chuck E. Cheese’s
— New York Post, Dec. 19, 2017

Brawl at Chuck E. Cheese sends
three adults, one child to hospital
— WCPO-TV Cincinnati, April 28, 2019

Video of Sunday brawl at Beaumont
Chuck E. Cheese shared on social media
— KBMT-TV, Beaumont, Texas, Jan. 20, 2020

Police release body camera video during fight
in Mayfield Heights Chuck E. Cheese
— WJW-TV Cleveland, April 26, 2021

That is only a small sample of headlines from the past five years, and how weird is it that adults would be fighting at a pizza place best known as a location for little kids to celebrate their birthdays?

Who are these people? What kind of example are parents setting for their children, when they can’t even go to a birthday party without the occasion turning into an amateur UFC cage match? But it gets worse:

A Davenport woman was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday for fatally shooting another woman in a Chuck E. Cheese.
Treshonda M. Pollion, 25, was originally charged with first-degree murder, but in April she accepted a plea deal and pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. The plea deal included a mandatory sentence of 10 years.
Pollion was arrested on Oct. 25 for shooting Eloise Chairs, 29, after the two women allegedly got into a fistfight sparked by an argument about a game card.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more senseless crime than this one,” Scott County Judge John Telleen said during the sentencing hearing. . . .
Davenport officers were dispatched around 7:38 p.m. Oct. 25 to Chuck E. Cheese, 903 E. Kimberly Road, where they found Chairs with a gunshot wound. Chairs was transported to Genesis Medical Center East, Davenport, where she was pronounced dead less than an hour later.
Investigators said a number of witnesses described an argument among Chairs and others at the restaurant, sparked by a game card.
After the initial argument ended, a second altercation started between Chairs, Pollion and a witness. A Chuck E. Cheese manager tried breaking up the fight when Pollion and Chairs allegedly exchanged punches.
A witness who first argued with Chairs said she saw Pollion with a gun in her hand and heard Chairs warn others Pollion had a gun. Investigators said a single shot was fired during another altercation between Chairs and Pollion.

This line about an argument “sparked by a card game” didn’t make sense to me, so I dug a bit deeper and found more details:

Chairs had become involved in an argument with a mother after her son’s card game was taken by another child, her family told WQAD.
The other mother’s friend — identified as Pollion — allegedly took out a gun and shot Chairs in the shoulder, hitting a major artery.

So a kid steals your kid’s deck of Uno cards or whatever, and next thing you know, it’s shootout time at Chuck E. Cheese? But wait a minute — why is mom packing heat at Chuck E. Cheese? While I am a staunch defender of Second Amendment rights, what is going on in Davenport, Iowa, that a woman feels the need to be armed at a kid’s birthday party?

Perhaps I need to attend a seminar with Ibram X. Kendi or Robin DiAngelo so I can understand the “systemic racism” angle in all this.




 

Category: Crime

FMJRA 2.0: Shotgun Blues

Posted on | July 10, 2021 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Shotgun Blues

— compiled by Wombat-socho

SOTD
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

If Facebook were doing the job they ought to be doing.

Rule 5 Sunday: Agent Carter
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL
Animal Magnetism

@Timcast vs. the Journalistic ‘Midwits’
EBL

The Other Podcast Rides Again
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Never Call Retreat
A View From The Beach
EBL

Khaled Awad Update: Student Visa for Egyptian Who Stabbed Massachusetts Rabbi; Roommates Say He Hated Jews
357 Magnum
EBL

Harmful Extremist Content’? Why Does Facebook Want You to Be ‘Concerned’?
Transterrestrial Musings
357 Magnum
EBL

July 4: Why I Am a Populist
Nebraska Energy Observer
A View From The Beach
EBL

72 Shot in Chicago This Weekend
First Street Journal
EBL

‘Light Fuse and Get Away’
357 Magnum
EBL

Some Civil War Reading With Added Pulp
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.06.21 (Morning Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
Proof Positive
EBL

‘Gun Violence’ Propaganda
Dark Brightness
357 Magnum
Proof Positive
EBL

Andrew Cuomo’s Weirdo Daughter
Dark Brightness
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.07.21 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
Proof Positive
EBL

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 07.07.21
357 Magnum
EBL

The Ghost of Andrew Breitbart
Proof Positive
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.08.21
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
Proof Positive
EBL

CNN’s ‘Hero’ Voter Is a Felon
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.09.21
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
Proof Positive
EBL

Top linkers for the week ending July 9:

  1.  EBL (19)
  2.  357 Magnum (10)
  3.  (tied) A View From The Beach & Proof Positive (8 each)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

Civil War History: Kibbitzing

Posted on | July 10, 2021 | Comments Off on Civil War History: Kibbitzing

Last weekend, our faithful Wombat offered some suggestions for reading about the history of the War Between the States, and while I certainly endorse his recommendations generally, I must take issue with at least one of his comments specifically:

I am frankly unsure why Douglas Southall Freeman has the reputation he does. I tried reading Lee’s Lieutenants when I was younger, and compared to Bruce Catton, I found him turgid and prolix, on a par with the detail-obsessed official histories of the Army in WW2 that were nearly unreadable with their insistence on detailing what every single company of every single division was doing in (for example) the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest. Still, he had quite a reputation back in the day, and you can stick this, too, on your Kindle, and not throw out your back trying to lift the 400+ pages of the original edition.

If Freeman seems “detail-obsessed,” it’s because he had undertaken the demanding task of establishing the actual facts — in terms of troop strength, unit movements, command decisions, etc. — about Lee’s campaigns in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Somebody had to do the work of going through the Official Records of the war, augmenting these documents with on-the-ground studies of the battlefields, consulting the memoirs and other accounts from key participants, to write the definitive history of events.

Freeman’s monumental four-volume R.E. Lee, A Biography, won the 1935 Pulitzer Prize, and his three-volume Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command, published 1942-44, “shows how armies actually work” and “had a great influence on American military leaders and strategists,” to quote Wikipedia. Of Freeman’s work generally, let me make two solid points in his favor: First, that nearly all Civil War historians thereafter — including both Bruce Catton and Shelby Foote — were obliged to acknowledge their reliance on his work, and second, that so far as I am aware, no one has ever found a single error of fact in Freeman’s work.

As to other works, certainly Bruce Catton is the most readable of Civil War historians. Catton’s prose style, and his story-telling method, is a perfect model of narrative for any aspiring writer. I’ve re-read his Army of the Potomac trilogy so many times I’ve lost count. Sometime in the mid-1980s, I picked this up in a one-volume edition and was hooked immediately. Let any would-be writer consider how Catton begins the first volume, Mr. Lincoln’s Army, with the tale of an obscure figure, Col. Herman Haupt, taking a rowboat out to a ship docked at Alexandria, Virginia, where he fetches Gen. George McClellan to inform him about developments near Bull Run, where Stonewall Jackson has just landed on Gen. John Pope’s supply lines. As an example of feature writing — what we call the “anecdotal lead” — what Catton does here is perfect.

He has a complex story to tell, but instead of starting from the beginning and proceeding chronologically, Catton instead brings us into the story midway, at a crisis point in McClellan’s career, introducing us to the protagonist as a character in this historic drama, and then goes about the business of showing us the military problem that McClellan was called upon to solve. He does all this in such a way that even if you knew nothing at all about Civil War-era tactics and strategy when you picked up his book, by the time you reach the scene of the climax at Antietam, everything is entirely understandable. Catton’s prose style is clear and simple but also elegant, if you have an eye for such things, so that the reader finds himself drawn into the story with the excitement of reading a good mystery novel. Some of my Confederate friends have criticized me for preferring Catton, an unapologetic Yankee, to the Southerner Shelby Foote, but this preference involves no disrespect for Foote who, it should be noted, acknowledged his own debt to Catton’s work.

All of this is important to me personally, because it has something to do with how I acquired a notorious reputation as a “neo-Confederate” thanks to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Heidi Beirich. When I first gained Internet access circa 1995 — in the age of dial-up modems and Usenet groups — there were a couple of places where Civil War history was discussed in open forums. These became the online terrain of conflict because certain damned Yankees (among them Mark Pitcavage, later with the ADL) sought out every opportunity to turn discussion of even the most mundane matters of military history into an occasion to denounce the South for slavery and treason. Older readers will recall that the 1990 Ken Burns documentary on PBS had helped revive public interest in Civil War history leading up to the 125th anniversary of the war, and part of the effect of that was to attract a lot of liberal academics (Pitcavage was then a Ph.D. candidate at Ohio State) to pay attention to an area of history they might otherwise have ignored. This resulted in a politicization of history which has echoes to this day in the controversy over Critical Race Theory. Part of the reason for this was (a) in 1994, Republicans led by Newt Gingrich won control of Congress, and (b) in 1995, Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City federal building.

After the OKC bombing, Pitcavage made himself into an “expert” on radical militias (McVeigh was on the fringe of the militia movement) and seemed to think that Southerners defending their ancestors in Civil War history forums on the Internet were would-be right-wing terrorists. And by God, I was not going to be insulted by any damned Yankee Ph.D.

You may consult some of my acquaintances from that era — I’ll offer Jeff Quinton, George Kalas and Gary Waltrip as witnesses — who can testify what Southerners were dealing with in those discussions, and refute any accusation that my involvement was inspired by “white supremacy” or any other manifestation of dangerous extremism.

All of this got dragged into Heidi Beirich’s crusade to smear Southerners quite generally with the taint of RAAAAACISM! Now that the SPLC has ruined its credibility by reckless employment of the “hate group” label against innocent conservative organizations, many would consider my own experience as one of Beirich’s targets as trivial, but I assure you it was very serious — and quite damaging — when I was at The Washington Times and the SPLC was coming after me circa 2003-2006.

It is just such libelous and insulting smears, part of a high-handed moralistic style of politics, that incited the Civil War. If you have read Catton’s The Coming Fury, you know he begins that story at the 1860 Democratic convention, where William Lowndes Yancey of Alabama is the leader of those determined to split the party, a decision that ultimately resulted in Abraham Lincoln’s election, and thus, the war.

How was it that the hotheaded Yancey obtained such power? Wasn’t it because of the insulting Yankee propaganda that had been circulated so widely during the previous decade, fomenting in the minds of many Southerners an attitude of rage? Among those in attendance at the 1860 Democratic convention was Richard Taylor of Louisiana, whose father Zachary Taylor had been the last Whig president of the United States. The younger Taylor was opposed to the radicals led by Yancey, and sought a compromise approach that might have averted the party split, but the hotheads carried the day. Well, what was the sequel? Yancey eventually made himself so obnoxious in the Confederate Congress that Ben Hill of Georgia conked him on the head with a glass inkstand, and Yancey died a couple months later at age 49. Meanwhile, the moderate Taylor found himself called to service as commander of Louisiana’s troops, served with distinction under Stonewall Jackson in the Valley campaign of 1862, and later commanded Confederate forces in the West.

Taylor’s memoir, Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War is, from a literary standpoint, the best autobiographical account of that conflict, and one can read Taylor’s droll observations about the people and passions involved. Taylor was certainly not an admirer of the extremists (on either side) who fomented the deadly crisis, and this is perhaps the best lesson we can draw from that history.

The irresponsible rhetoric of politicians and journalists may incite a crisis that responsible people are required to solve, even though they strove to avert the crisis. When you behold the self-righteous demagoguery on CNN nowadays, ask yourself, what have any of those influential politicians and celebrity media millionaires ever done, personally, about the social problems they denounce in such lurid terms?

God forbid such propaganda should overwhelm the good common sense of the American people, and we repeat the tragedies of history.




 

Category: History
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