He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. ~ George Orwell, 1984
If there were any suspicions California Senator Steve Glazer was actually the same tired, liberal, left-wing, progressive Democrat we’ve been dealing with in the East Bay for decades, despite all of his attempts to present himself as a ‘moderate’ in the last election , all of those doubts have been thoroughly removed and yes, now we can confirm Steve Glazer is more of the same thing: a liberal sheep in lion’s clothes.
This past spring Senator Glazer presented himself as a different kind of Democrat—a Democrat who would stand up for fiscal responsibility and fight for government reform—one that would challenge useless regulations and be business-friendly. Why, Steve Glazer was going to stand up to the teachers’ unions, and even stand up to BART’s union! Steve Glazer was going to bring common sense back to Sacramento.
So what was the first thing Senator Glazer voted for, on the same day he was sworn into office? Senate Bill 600: A bill to protect illegal immigrants from being discriminated against based on their status as illegal, their non-citizenship and not being able to speak the English language. I don’t know about you, but this sounds like the same old California Democrat to me.
How about this? According to his Senate campaign material “Steve Glazer is a Democrat who is a ‘pragmatic problem-solver.” Problem-solver… or problem creator? The Sheriff of Mendocino County, Thomas Allman, said this about Glazer: “Are there people in Sacramento who have nothing better to do than to pretend there is a problem here and try to fix this problem that isn’t really a problem?”
The Sheriff was speaking about the attempt by Senator Glazer to rename the city of Fort Bragg, California. Why did Fort Bragg need to be renamed? Because when it was founded back in the 1850s–prior to the Civil War–it was named after the Mexican-American war hero, Captain Braxton Bragg. Years after the fort was christened with Bragg’s name, Braxton Bragg joined the Confederate Army, received a commission as a general, and fought for the nascent Confederacy. So Senator Glazer decided the entire city’s name had to be changed. Fortunately saner heads prevailed.
Instead of someone who is serious about tackling the actual problems the State of California is currently dealing with—from sanctuary cities that allow multiple convicted felons to keep illegally invading our state while raping and murdering citizens with impunity, to our burgeoning water crisis—the Senator from Orinda is fixated on an issue that barely concerned California 150 years ago and has even less bearing on the state today.
The over-riding concern for this self-appointed nemesis of anything to do with everything and everyone south of the Mason-Dixie line is to make all public references to anything remotely connected to the historic Confederacy a state crime.
And since another Democrat beat Glazer to the punch by banning the Confederate battle flag last fall, Glazer has discovered another way of posturing by going after prominent elected and military names associated with the Confederacy, no matter how obscure. When you’re tapping into emotion, no political stunt can be too cheap.
Instead of an effective and serious leader we get another busybody scold who is not content with the culture, legacy and history of California—or even the United States—but is already earnestly working as a loyal member of The Ministry of Truth to consign our shared recorded history down into “The Memory Hole.”
Glazer has wholly and enthusiastically merged with the current Groupthink which seeks to annihilate any public trace of the short-lived Confederate States of America from the collective memory of all currently living citizens.
Indeed, Senator Steve Glazer has frequently expressed, with numerous vilifying pronouncements and declarations, his contempt for General Robert Edward Lee specifically; writing of Lee’s honorable service to his fellow Southerners as a “treacherous attempt at defeating the United States.” And the schools named after Lee and his fellow generals? “Monuments to traitors.”
Anyone who knows the first thing about military history knows there are few armies which ever took to the field of battle better than the Confederate Army. Proponents of the “Lost Cause” and the “Righteous Cause” both agree on this self-evident fact.
Yet the Confederate Army was never an Army assembled to invade and conquer the United States. Although it could have easily done that very thing after the first Battle of Bull Run/Manassas, as Washington D.C. was ripe for conquest at the time. The only “defeat” Lee sought was the defeat of the United States against his homeland.
Yet now we are being ordered, on penalty of fine and/or imprisonment by our illustrious junior Senator, to neglect this pertinent historical truth from the body politic so he and his fellow Democrats can reinforce a historical myth.
Students of history who have examined and sought to appreciate the elusive essence of human valor know there were few American military men more courageous than Robert E. Lee. How easy it would have been for the man to simply remain with the United States and fight for it, to receive laurels and praise and higher accolades and recognition. But Lee was, unlike politicians, never about the easy way. All Robert E. Lee had to do was make war against his fellow Southerners. Something Senator Steve Glazer would have applauded. Drawing your sword against your people, your family and friends might indeed be admirable to a Democrat as they have certainly engaged in a Culture War—against everything from prenatal life to marriage—within their own country. To a man like Robert Edward Lee, however, such a position would have been unthinkable.
Slavery was not among the ideals which Lee espoused and he freed slaves (which he inherited) voluntarily. When the Confederacy seceded from the United States, chattel slavery was still legal in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and Delaware. The flag of the United States had flown over the entire country for more than “four score” (eighty years) already, during which time slavery remained legal.
Of course historical facts are irrelevant when you are gripped in a false moral panic.
General Robert E. Lee’s strategic genius was acclaimed throughout the world, gaining him the admiration of his own men and the respect of his enemies. He was a secessionist, yet an honorable one, and he bore defeat with greater dignity than most of his foes bore victory.
If General Lee, President Jefferson Davis, or any other civilian or military leader of the Confederacy was a “traitor” why were none ever tried for treason? When the war ended the Southern states were put under military authority, their civil governments dissolved, and each state had to be re-admitted to the Union. Now, unless my logic is wrong, you cannot be “re-admitted” to something unless you have been out of it. And if you were out of it, legally and constitutionally, as the Southern states maintained, then you cannot be in any way guilty of “treason.”
If you bring these leaders to trial, it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution, secession is not a rebellion. His (Jefferson Davis) capture was a mistake. His trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason. ~ Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase
Nonetheless, to the demagogues out there who share the same warped view of our ancestors as Senator Steve Glazer, this is all irrelevant. Damnatio memoriae is the Latin phrase literally meaning “condemnation of memory” in the sense of a judgment that a person must not be remembered. It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman Senate upon actual and real traitors or others who brought discredit to the Roman State. The intent was to erase someone from history.
This is what Steve Glazer is obsessed with as a California senator; erasing the valor, the distinction and the honorable legacy of truly great men who fought for their homes, their families, and their good names, as well as retroactively impugning these men based on his highly dubious judgment alone.
Has there been a groundswell from the people in his district, let alone the citizens of California, for this action? Of course not. But Senator Glazer is nonetheless relentless in condemning Robert Edward Lee to the status of damnatio memoriae – or what George Orwell described in 1984 (which was intended as a warning, not an instructional manual, Senator) as “the vaporization of unpersons.”
This is about raw, naked power, nothing less. Local cities and school districts are not allowed to decide what’s best for them any longer. Obscure road markers have to be ripped out. The “different” kind of Democrat actually says, “I believe deeply in local control.” (As long as localities have “elementary schools, plaques along an old highway route and local street signs” that Senator Glazer approves of.)
Must all symbols of America’s variegated history now be approved by the Steve Glazer’s we have in our midst? If this is true–and it is–we are never safe from the hands of those who may choose to despise any symbol at a given time, because, even as the official analysis of his bill concedes, the goalposts will constantly be moving.
Roger Scruton once observed that the reason Cultural Marxism holds such enormous appeal for our ruling elites is not because it is philosophically true, but because it confers on them the power to manipulate others and reconfigure the social order. This, and nothing less than this, is the driving force behind Senator Glazer’s proposal to sandblast inconvenient history.
What of the loyal opposition here in California? You can always count on the craven Republicans to go along with any pernicious decisions the Democrats—even the “different” kinds of Democrats, like Steve Glazer—make; and sure enough, right on cue, in a typically spineless motion to assure everyone he does not even have the appearance of being ‘racist’ Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff is scrambling to appease the Democrats.
To his credit, Senator Huff doesn’t label men like General Lee “traitor,” he at least accurately characterizes them as “secessionists,” yet he freely adopts the Cultural Marxist argument: If a symbol that represents something good, benign or even vile is offensive to a vocal minority that insist on being offended, then that symbol must be consigned down The Memory Hole, whether that symbol be the Cross, a sports mascot or the Confederate Battle Flag. Senator Huff states, “. . . but there’s no doubt now that you have the Confederate flag and other images that have been adopted by hate and extremist groups and you can’t deny that now…”
No one can deny a homicidal lunatic adopted the Confederate flag. What happens when a homicidal lunatic adopts the Gonzales flag? Pine Tree flag? Gadsden flag? The Biderman Flag? The POW/MIA flag? The Bear flag? And what happens when all of those symbols are banned, just as the Confederate Battle Flag is already publicly banned? What next? Do you follow Steve Glazer’s lead and start banning schools, road markers and street names as well? When does the politically correct bending over backwards end?
Have “hate and extremist groups” also elevated Robert E. Lee, Braxton Bragg and other Confederate leaders to exalted positions within their bigoted creeds? Perhaps. Does that justify mealy-mouthed caving-in to the Cultural Marxist agenda? What if “hate and extremist groups” decide to elevate John Fremont’s name? Do we ban him as well? John Muir? Jack London? Will you ever draw a line, Senator Huff?
I’m old enough to remember when Republicans praised Robert E. Lee. President Gerald Ford hailed Robert E. Lee as a “character (who) has been an example to succeeding generations.”President Ronald Reagan called Robert E. Lee “An American Legend.”
Boyd Cathay has written that these attacks on our shared heritage “are only the opening salvo in this renewed cleansing effort, and those who collaborate with them, good intentions or not, collaborate with the destruction of our historic civilization. For that they deserve our scorn and our most vigorous and steadfast opposition.”
Finally, the men whom Senator Steve Glazer and his willing ally Senator Bob Huff seek to impugn are considered by United States law to be American veterans. Senator Glazer should look up U.S. Public Law 85-425: Sec. 410.
Under the current U.S. Federal Code, Confederate Veterans are equivalent to Union Veterans. I respect American veterans from all wars, from the American War of Independence to the War in Afghanistan. I respect their sacrifices, I respect their valor and I respect their service. My fellow Californians used to as well, by the physical evidence of the very symbols Senator Glazer seeks to tear down. In addition to organizations such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans, now veteran’s groups such as the American Legion may also be interested in Senator Glazer’s attempt to besmirch the name of men like General Robert E. Lee.
For those of you who held out hope that Steve Glazer was going to be a different kind of Democrat, I am afraid you–we–were all misled.
The consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it. ~ General Robert E. Lee
