April 16, 2018

MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey

TWO MOST RECENT PUBLISHED COLUMNS NOW AVAILABLE

ABBEVILLE INSTITUTE (“Victor Davis Hanson Hates the Confederacy…and the South”) and THE UNZ REVIEW (Is this the Beginning of the End for the Trump Presidency?”)

Friends,

Today I pass on links to my most recent columns that have been published by national web journals: First, “Victor Davis Hanson Hates the Confederacy…and the South,” which appeared on The Abbeville Institute site on April 12, and, then,  “Is This the Beginning of the End for the Trump Presidency?” which was published by The Unz Review, Sunday, April 15. Both are versions of items I placed on my blog, “MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey.”

On March 30:

http://boydcatheyreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/2018/03/march-30-2018-my-corner-by-boydcathey.html

And April 14:

http://boydcatheyreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/2018/04/april-14-2018-my-corner-by-boyd-cathey.html

As I tuned into Fox News’ much-ballyhooed program, “Legends & Lies: The Civil War,” last night—I literally forced myself to watch it—the sad truth of what I call “the great brain robbery of the ‘conservative movement’,” became once again readily apparent, even offensively so.

There was Fox’s co-host of its popular morning show aimed at professed “conservatives,” “Fox & Friends,” Brian Kilmeade, far over his head intellectually and sounding like Archie Bunker attempting to address a meeting of distinguished astrophysicists about nuclear fission. But that didn’t stop him from pounding hard—and with palpable ignorance—the narrative that he and the Neoconservative talking heads, writers and pundits share with those on the even farther Left: that the South—and the Southern Confederacy—were all about “defending slavery,” that Abraham Lincoln was inspired by the zealous Abolitionist and Communist-sympathizer Frederick Douglass (yes, Douglass was profoundly influenced by Karl Marx, through his mistress German Marxist and feminist Ottilie Assing—never mind that he was married), that the War was all about “defeating racism” and “recovering the real idea of America” which was “that all men are created equal,” and that “equality must be imposed” (okay, Kilmeade’s script didn’t use those exact words, but the meaning and context of everything he read—badly—from his prepared text said as much).

Kilmeade exemplifies the ideologically-tendentious Neoconservative view of American history, specifically of the War Between the States and its relationship to the American Founding. In his case and in the case of Fox’s “Legends & Lies,” it is both woefully pedestrian and offensively uninformed. But worst of all it adopts and assumes a blatantly Marxist view of American history and the war—America is all about “ending racism” and “establishing equality.” Indeed, it is a vision and interpretation that not only could but did come from the febrile minds of Marxist historians such as Eric Foner (remember, he is the “favorite historian” of vaunted GOP consultant Karl Rove) and which dominate the historical profession today. [Notice how many Marxist historians were invited to make comments during the Fox program. Where were Clyde Wilson, or Thomas di Lorenzo, or Philip Leigh, or William Marvel? ].

And like other thematic templates that undergird the philosophical and historical principles of the dominant Neocons who control both the so-called “conservative media,” but also the Republican Party, their American Founding and War Between the States narrative is essentially the same as that of their supposed enemies on the farther Left. Such “opposition,” then, cannot and will not succeed, as it cannot actually “oppose” those principles which it actually shares.

And what we have is essentially a Kabuki dance, shadow boxing…with enough posturing and mouthing of phrases to inveigle and mislead many well-meaning conservatives, but in the end resulting in continual defeat and retreat for those views and beliefs that we hold dear.

Here are the web links for the two columns:

“Victor Davis Hanson Hates the Confederacy…and the South,” April 12, 2018   [https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/victor-davis-hanson-hates-the-confederacy-and-the-south/?mc_cid=156c9e10a4&mc_eid=8639a6a6ea]

“Is This the Beginning of the End for the Trump Presidency?” April 15, 2018 [https://www.unz.com/article/is-this-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-the-trump-presidency/]