As a former native of Maryland:
That's right Chris - "There ain't no need to put her down". And I definitely prefer Randy Newman to the the whining liberal Neil Young.
Instead (from a safe Pacific Rim distance) I propose we bash New York City on this list. It is the center of American Zionism, and this officially acceptable racist, segregationist apartheid movement now occupies the far right space in the Democratic Party once held by Strom Thurmonds' Dixiecrats. Indeed Zionists ARE the Dixiecrats of our time. The officially sanctioned form of US racism today. From the NYC-centric lame duck Zionist-in-Chief on down. The Democratic party has not changed much in its basic structure since Jim Crow times.
Further, in the next american revolution, I predict New York City will be the capital of reaction. I'm with the chicano playwright Luis Valdez on this: culturally conservative, eurocentric NYC turns its backsides on the rest of us. It will be the revolutionized Pacific coast, the Southwest, Rockies,Texas, Mexico and the peoples of the "old" South against the Northeast, with the Midwest (and Maryland and Virginia, again!) as the 'border states'. Canada will be a wild card. Should the revolution require a civil war, heaven forbid.
Oh and for the record, yes Lee is overrated as a military leader and his politics misrepresented for the turn of the century reasons mentioned on this list. Lee sent thousands of his finest Virginians to a useless death on the 3rd day of Gettysburg (Picketts Charge), though he knew the battle was lost on the 2nd, when Longstreet and Hood failed to turn the Union flank on the Round Tops. And politically, he wasn't even a Rommel (who at least had the decency to commit suicide - all reactionaries should posses this kind of 'decency', it would make our tasks a lot easier - in connection with the plot against Hitler). No, Lee fought to the bitter end, well after the Cause was more than Lost.
Grant, on the other hand, was the superior operational and strategic commander of the Civil War. This is overlooked by the focus on his (admittedly bloody and ruthless) tactics. But attrition, in a war where the advent of the rifled musket favored defense, was the Unions' main strategic advantage. Look at his operational skill in the Mississippi campaigns - Lincoln did. And what nobler President has there ever been than the one who (however ex post facto) condemned the Mexican War (of the 1840s), a war the Grant himself had fought in as a young officer?
-Brad Mayer Oakland, CA
> continues to make the South a sump
> of glorified stupidity and reactionary politics.
>
> Carl In stark contrast to the modest brilliance and consumate progressive-ness of the North, Midwest, and West. God, what is it with the Southern-bashing on this list?
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