Missouri Senator Blunt Keeps Missouri in the Wrong and in the Past, the Racist Past

Sadly, frustratingly, we are advised today Missouri's Senator Roy Blunt plants his feet deeply in our state's and nation's racist past.

GOP senator blocks bill to remove 

Confederate statues from Capitol

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) on Thursday blocked the Senate from passing a bill to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) tried to pass the bill by unanimous consent, which allows legislation to pass without a vote but also enables any one senator to block it.

The measure would remove statues of individuals who voluntarily served in the Confederacy from the Capitol.

Booker called keeping statues of Confederate figures in the Capitol a "painful, insulting, difficult injury."

"The continued presence of these statues in the halls is an affront to African Americans and the ideals of our nation," he added.

Schumer added that passing a bill to remove the statues would be one step toward confronting the "poison of racism."

"Candidly, I don't think it would be too imposing to ask our states not to send statues of people who actively fought against this country. You know, there is a reason that Connecticut doesn't send a statue of Benedict Arnold," Schumer said.

But Blunt objected, noting that Congress had an agreement with states and that he wanted time to consider giving the issue a hearing in the Rules Committee, which he chairs.

"I'd like to ... get the opinion of people who are taking similar statues out of the building. I'd also like to find out what other states have in mind as their part of this agreement," Blunt said.

Excuse me, Senator, excuse us...   You want to get the opinion of people who are taking down similar statues??

Hello??  They're taking them down! They think they're wrong! They think they honor racists! What do you need to know?

Thanks for taking and keeping us backward, Senator. Thanks for not doing the right thing. Thanks for complicating things. We know you like and want "small government."

Right.   Got it.

The NYT Asks a Great Question Today -- Then Also Gives Great American History Lessons

Today's Sunday New York Times does just that today. That is, they ask an excellent question and then give what I hope is lots of Americans not just a great American history lesson, but in this one column, LOTS of excellent history lessons.

Why Does the U.S. Military Celebrate White Supremacy?

The information they give on Confederate General George Pickett alone is eye-opening and important, let alone all the rest they give in this one column. Here is just a snippet of what is an extremely full and very informative article:

Black recruits (in WWII) who volunteered to die for their country were mainly shut out of combat units, commanded by white Southerners who often resented being assigned to colored units. In some contexts, black servicemen were treated worse than prisoners of war. The actress and singer Lena Horne, for example, flew into a rage during World War II when she arrived at a military camp to entertain only to find that the best seats — in the “white” section of the audience — had been reserved for German P.O.W.s.

Far too many of us, far too many Americans, don't know our national history--our true, complete national history.

Please. If you can. If you will. Do yourself, and the nation, really, a favor and read it. No exaggeration.

Please.

Quote of the Day -- On Taking Down Confederate Statues

"The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered." 

--New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu

Links:

New Orleans begins to take down Confederate statues

New Orleans takes down Confederate monument

One More To Go: New Orleans Takes Down 

Civil War General's Statue

New Orleans Takes Down Statue Of Gen. Robert E. Lee

The case for taking down Confederate monuments

Final Confederate statue coming down in New Orleans

In New Orleans, Confederate monuments are gone _ Lee last 

Landrieu speech: The Confederacy lost 

New Orleans mayor made a speech on race 

and history we all need to hear

The 12 best lines from Mitch Landrieu's remarkable speech on race

Mitch Landrieu's Confederate monuments speech earning praise

Confederate monument removal in New Orleans inspires St. Louis

St. Louis, History, and Confederate Monuments

Little-Known Kansas City History

Early Kansas City home, possibly belonging to Bernoist Troost. Slave cabin in rear.

To dispel any notion that Kansas City was anything but a Confederate city, one has only to take a look at the town settlers. The first company, formed in 1839, consisted of 14 men and was spearheaded by John C. McCoy, William Gilliss, and a fur trapper from Kentucky named William Sublette. Town founder McCoy, according to the 1850 census, owned five slaves at his home on Pearl Hill. Gilliss, born in Maryland, was a slaveowner. The 1850 census shows he owned three male slaves, ages 18 -36. Although banished by Ewing in 1863, Gillis was allowed to stay, perhaps due to his age, wealth, position in the community, and by showing evidence that he had freed his last slave in 1862.

Fry P. McGee was a son of early settler James Hyatt McGee of Kentucky, reputed to have brought the first slaves to Kansas City in the late 1830’s. The 1860 slave census shows that Fry McGee, his brothers and his mother owned slaves. Jacob Ragan of Kentucky arrived in Jackson County in 1837. He was a known Confederate and was included on at least one of the Provost Marshal’s lists of “bad men.” William Miles Chick was born near Lynchburg, Virginia. He came to Kansas City in 1836. Chick, too, was a known Confederate and was one of the Provost Marshal’s “bad men.” Chick’s warehouse was located next to Jesse’s on the levee. Both were burned by Union soldiers in 1862. Col. Chick was was John C. McCoy’s father-in-law.

Five men of the 1839 company were farmers and slaveholders residing in Blue Township, Jackson County, just east of Kansas City:

Oliver Caldwell arrived in Jackson County in 1833. He farmed at Blue Valley and organized the Christian Church in Independence. The 1840 census shows that he owned 9 slaves; the 1850 census shows Oliver 58, wife Ann 54, 3 children 17-24, and 11 slaves.

George Washington Tate arrived in Westport in 1838. He became a Missouri state legislator in 1842. The 1850 census for Blue Township identifies Tate as a 53 year-old merchant, residing with his wife Lovey 46, and 3 children 14-27 and 1 male slave, age 15.

William Collins was a Kentucky native who lived in Liberty. The 1860 census for Liberty Township shows him with 4 slaves. James Smart of Virginia was a farmer who came to Jackson County 1834 with his brother Thomas and became Jackson County judge in 1846. He was a founder of the Christian Church in Independence and was Oliver Caldwell’s brother-in-law. The 1850 census for Blue Township shows Thomas 53, Nancy 48, and 3 children aged12-20. The 1860 slave census show that he owned 15 slaves.

Russell Hicks of Massachusetts came to Jackson County around 1827. He was a teacher, lawyer and judge who was called “one of the most eccentric members of the Kansas Town Company.” After the war he practised law in Sedalia and was counsel to Senator Thomas Hart Benton. The 1850 census places Hicks, 65, in Blue Township with two female slaves, ages 4 and 23.

The vast majority of the personal wealth in Jackson County prior to the war was contained among men who had been born in Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. These men and their families supported the Confederacy and its institutions. The children of the original town members were coming of age during the years leading up to the Civil War, as were the children of the thousands of southern settlers who came to Jackson County in the 1840’s.

--Text by John Dawson

Some Memorial Day/American History

On This Day

The treasonists surrendered.

Robert E. Lee surrenders - Apr 09, 1865

A wonderful, true, perplexing and ultimately frustrating, possibly to the point of maddening "Quote of the day"

Americans are wondrous optimists, looking to the upper class and expecting to join it someday. In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners. So poor white Southerners supported slavery then, just as many low-income people support the extension of George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy now.    --James W. Loewen, The Washington Post


Links:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths-about-why-the-south-seceded/2011/01/03/ABHr6jD_story.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/16/AR2010121606200.html

Newt Gingrich: Angry, white, negative, small-minded bully

Apparently this is how Newt Gingrich is going to run for the Presidency.

Did you see this?

It seems the Newt went way down South, to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference (read: room full of fat, white, rich rednecks, but I digress) and called President Obama "the most radical president in American history" who oversees a "secular, socialist machine."

Wow. That really took guts, huh?

Not.

And this is how you run for President?

Say, Newt, besides bashing the "big guy"--you know, the one who won the last big election--do you have any ideas for the country? Particularly any new ideas that would be your own?

Nah, we didn't think so.

Just like the rest of the Republican "Party of no" Party.

So let's just stir up those angry "good ol' boys", down South and see what we can make happen. Let's not try to work together as Americans and improve this place, no. Let's just tear the guy in the White House down and be ugly, stupid, short-sighted and relentlessly negative.

Unfortunately, for too many Americans, that's the way to run a Presidential campaign.

Side note: For this same group--the Southern Republican Leadership Conference--and the rest of the country, especially the rednecks and the ones who want to celebrate the "Confederacy", today is the day in history when Robert E. Lee and his Southern army surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant and the rest of the nation at Appamattox.

Just sayin'.

Link to original story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100409/ap_on_re_us/us_republicans_gingrich

Could we stop this?

 

I mean, after all, they did lose.