confederates and white supremacists Are American nazis

A few years ago I drove my family down to Florida. I used to love driving across the United States. There’s something purely American about getting into your vehicle, turning on the ignition, and hitting the road. When you drive, you don’t have to worry about an airline schedule, or standing in line, or talking to people. You just get in and go.But the last time it just wasn’t fun anymore.First of all, there were all the jerks on the highway. I’m older now and perhaps I’ve lost my sense of youthful invulnerability. Now, I recognize the dangers. It makes me nervous to go flying down poorly maintained roads at 80 miles an hour while jerks in white pickup trucks go swerving in and out of their lanes.Then there are all the confederate flags.You see them waving outside of homes, sometimes flying OVER the American flag. You see them on bumper stickers. You see them for sale at businesses.What would happen if you walked into a retail store and saw a display of gigantic nazi swastikas? At the very least, you’d turn around and leave, right? Perhaps you’d snap a picture and denounce the business on social media. Perhaps you’d try to report it to some local law enforcement authorities. Civilized societies don’t tolerate symbols of genocide, hatred, and fascism.We need to have the same response when we see a confederate flag. When you see a confederate flag, you need to point at it and scream, “American nazis” to alert the other people in your community of the danger. We have free speech, we’re allowed to warn each other when a monster is loose. We need to overcome the social grooming which has led us to believe this response is somehow “inappropriate.”The confederate flag is everywhere and it is toleratedWhen I was growing up, the confederate flag featured prominently on The Dukes of Hazzard. I think that’s a terrifying example of how American society grooms kids to grow up to become American nazis.That’s the show I used to watch when I was little. What did I know? Back then we only had one channel.I’d sit down and listen to the theme music about the “good old boys” and wait for them to jump the car and go “Yee-haw!” There would be a few minutes in every episode where the boys talked about how hot their sister was. Then they’d spend the rest of the time breaking laws in front of the police who’d see them later and laugh about it.The whole show is a cartoon version of white entitlement. The car is called the General Lee. Not once do the good old boys ever suffer any repercussions for their disrespectful, irresponsible, lawless behavior.Would you let your kids watch a show featuring a car called Uncle Adolf with a big swastika on the top? Maybe there could be a couple comments in every episode about how the sister needs to have babies to preserve the fatherland. If that makes you recoil, that’s appropriate, but that’s also the way you need to respond to The Dukes of Hazzard.American children have been groomed to become American nazis for decades. In fact, this grooming has been going on pretty much since the end of the Civil War.You’ll encounter hostility if you try to educate the publicI’ve spent years writing article after article about how the confederate flag represents American nazis. I’ve had access to a couple different nationwide distribution mechanisms. I’ve received comments and emails from all over the country telling me that “I don’t know history,” or that “it’s their proud heritage.” I get plenty of insults and death threats too.The time we’re living in now is what you get when rampant grooming is allowed to go on unchecked for decades. If you go into a community meeting and make a polite request for schools to teach that the confederates were American nazis, you’ll hear a gasp from the crowd.They’ll be appalled!In fact, in good conscious I have to warn you all to take precautions if you decide to publicly denounce the confederacy in the United States. There’s a very high chance that somebody will commit an act of violence against you.The United States is a land of hate symbolsWe have bizarre conversations in the United States of America. We have nonsensical justifications for abhorrent behavior that the general public has been conditioned to accept.Consider the absurd perversions of logic gun rights activists trot out in defense of their “right” to own military grade weapons. All the stuff about “overthrowing tyrants” or “protecting families” or “a good guy with a gun” is complete nonsense.It would be laughable except for the fact that it’s so disgustingly dangerous, and it’s getting our kids killed.Equally dangerous and disingenuous arguments are trotted out when it comes to the absurd idea that the Constitution protects everyone’s “right” to display the Swastika or do the nazi salute. These arguments are distributed with the insistence that it’s “for our protection.” Fascism apologists contend that if we don’t permit these symbols of hate and genocide, our government will transform into an entity of hate and genocide.Basically, they’re saying that for us to avoid hate and genocide we have to endure hate and genocide. This is the baseline belief of our country. This is the ignorant foundation that supports many of our other cultural beliefs.It’s nonsensical.The truth is, American nazis have special privilegesIn America, you can do nazi salutes all you want. However, if you commit a furtive movement, the police are allowed to respond.“He’s going for a gun!”Why can’t we just define the nazi salute as a furtive movement? Why doesn’t anyone try to argue that restrictions on furtive movements will instantly turn our government into an entity of hate and genocide?The answer to that question is that a nazi salute isn’t perceived as a furtive movement because of the race of the person doing it.Americans don’t think about these things because they’ve been groomed through cartoon representations of authoritarian white entitlement since they were children. With the new restrictions being imposed on our universities, we might soon see Mel Gibson’s ‘The Patriot’ replacing textbooks as an “accurate” representation of American history.The grooming isn’t a threat. The grooming is here. The grooming has been at work for decades.In addition to being evil, confederates were just plain incompetentWe won’t have a decent society until every single American becomes physically sick at the sight of the confederate flag. That flag doesn’t even represent history. It’s not the flag they used. In fact, the first flag used by the confederacy was so similar to the Union flag that confederate soldiers ended up getting confused and shooting each other.That’s hilarious when you think about it. Every lesson about the Civil War should begin with, “confederate soldiers were so ignorant that the first time they marched into battle, they slaughtered each other because their uniforms and flags were too similar to their opponents. This example illustrates how, in addition to being evil, the confederates were just plain incompetent.”But, again, the ridiculous reverence for all things American and all things military has groomed everyone into believing it’s “disrespectful” to call confederates incompetent. You’re more likely to get scolded for calling them incompetent than you are for calling them evil. They marched into battle using the same uniforms and flag as their opponents, and then they complained about how “unfair” it was! There’s nothing to respect about them!The true lesson of the Civil WarThe thing that I find most troubling is how often I’m forced to abide by a belief system that I know to be fundamentally wrong. How did the confederacy expect to win the Civil War? All the work of that society was done by enslaved Black people. What were they going to do, oblige the enslaved Black people to fight on their behalf?“What are we fighting for?”“We’re fighting to keep you enslaved. Now go out there and win this war!”“No.”The truth about the Civil War that’s rarely brought up in history class is W.E.B. Du Bois’s assertion that enslaved Black people who refused to fight on the side of their oppressors represent the group that most deserves credit for the victory. Often, our perception of history is overly focused on the “glory” of battle, and completely disregards the economic circumstances that truly end conflicts.There’s an endless supply of reckless people willing to shoot each other. Wars end when not enough responsible people are left over to grow the food.Despite the confederacy’s efforts to suppress the news that Black people were now free, the word spread and the economic system of the South collapsed. That proved to be devastating for the rich “job creators” (as we think of them today). We should learn from this.If you don’t compensate your laborers, your society is doomedThe suppressed lesson of the Civil War is that when too much scarcity is imposed upon an oppressed labor force, the house of cards comes tumbling down. Ultimately, the privileged class is exposed for the frauds that they are. They lose everything.Societal collapse forces the elite to endure the condition of the marginalized. If nothing else, that should motivate the elite to embrace fairness with their treatment of labor. But they’re too entitled, so they keep marching on towards avoidable destruction. They ruthlessly prohibit any discussion that they perceive as a threat to their way of life.This is probably why the true history of the Civil War and its consequences isn’t adequately discussed in public schools.The confederate flag is the symbol of lazy white people who don’t want to work. If you say that to somebody driving a rusty pickup truck with a confederate bumper sticker, they’ll mumble some incomprehensible garble about state’s rights and northern aggression. It’s your job to make sure the crowd of onlookers drowns out any rebuttal with thunderous mockery.Once we’ve dismantled the lies about the confederate flag, we can move on to dismantling the lies about wealth inequality. The Civil War shows us how unjust systems are fated to collapse. From there we need to pivot to how we’re still living in an unjust society to this day.Think about that the next time you see a confederate flag bumper sticker.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! I have payment tiers starting at as little as twenty dollars a year.Upgrade at 30% offUpgrade at 40% offUpgrade at 50% offUpgrade at 60% offI’m so happy you’re here, and I’m looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.My CoSchedule referral linkHere’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. If you sign up through this, it’s another way to support this newsletter (thank you).I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe