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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

No, and I will put forward why I think this is so.  Those who are *real* 
Southerners can pipe in.  My thinking is based on travels there as a child, 
travels there showing, buying and selling horses as an adult and things I 
heard from my nanny, her son and Grampa Charlie.

Bottomline is that the South has never been allowed to be the South.  The 
North and the bookwriters and the balance of the U.S. have been pounded with 
absolutely nothing but negatives and phoo phooing of all that is the South. 
They have been painted as something evil and told to sit down and shut-up.

The overall picture that is presented is either one of the evil slave 
holder, the "silly" woman, the ignorant inbred hill people.  The continual 
pounding of the war being about freeing the slaves and those narrow-minded 
bigots down there living in the past and still reliving the war.  Plus, the 
very real violation of the Constitution.

The South isn't and never was all about slavery or plantation.  Gone With 
the Wind isn't the South.  It's a movie.  Scarlet isn't "the" Southern 
woman.  Jeff Foxworthy isn't "the" South.

However, when anyone tries to correct the deliberately reframed negative 
image, they are painted into the corner of *supposedly* trying to defend the 
indefensible.  They are "refighting the war."

James and Bev and Grampa Charlie are the South.  They are good, bad and 
everything else that everyone else is. Sometimes quite stubborn and annoying 
<g>  Plus a whole rainbow of other people.  They aren't reliving the war, 
and what some are still trying to do is get the truth out there about what 
really happened and what it was really about.  They aren't excusing what was 
happening, they are just tired of having it reframed and a total spin put on 
what happened "back then."

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gene GeRue" <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
> On Apr 29, 2008, at 1:40 PM, Lynda wrote:
>
> One of the best sources, for sure. One would, of course, make
> allowance for any individual showing himself in the best possible
> light. And keeping in mind the intended reader or readers. Sounds like
> you do, in fact, have solid material, with these caveats. To the point
> we were discussing, I think the record shows that in addition to
> punishing those considered wrong, or bad, that military expediency had
> to come first. Considering the nature of the uncivil Civil War, all
> superior officers did what they could to win.
>
> Think we will ever stop fighting the Civil War?