Lost in the 21st Century

After all the negative publicity this week about the Governor’s Confederate History Month Proclamation ignoring slavery, it’s nice to see folks in my home state doing something to make it look good and positive again.  Standing upt to this hateful group, who pickets soldier’s funerals among other things, makes me proud.  Especially the classy way the Blacksburg folks did it.

They make me proud to be a native Virginian again.

Here is an excerpt from the Roanoke Times article at Roanoke.com and a link to the full story.

BLACKSBURG — Six protesters from Westboro Baptist Church — three adults and three children — spent about 30 minutes at their final stop outside Blacksburg Middle School and then left town.

At their first two protests in downtown Blacksburg — outside the Jewish Community Center and the National Bank — the Westboro Baptist group was flanked by about two dozen police officers and a crowd of nearly 350 counter-protesters. Among them were about 100 Virginia Tech students, who marched from their gathering on campus to join in.

Another 250 counter-protesters filled the sidewalks on Prices Fork Road outside the middle school. Their presence was supported by motorists navigating Prices Fork Road who honked their horns and made rude gestures toward the Westboro Baptist group.

The church is an anti-Semitic group founded by the Rev. Fred Phelps held three 30-minute demonstrations, carrying signs that read, “No peace for the wicked,” among other things.

Shirley Phelps-Roper said was happy to see all the counter-protesters in Blacksburg. “It makes a wonderful backdrop to our message,” she said.

The message? That that God has doomed America for its growing tolerance of gays, lesbians and other sexual minorities. “Their destruction is emminent,” Phelps-Roper said.

“Virginia Tech is just such a sweet spot in our hillbilly culture, and I will just not put up with this,” said Karen Carr, who drove from Galax to Blacksburg this morning. “I’m so proud of the Hokies for putting on a class act.”

More than 100 Virginia Tech students grouped together at Tech’s Graduate Life Center and divided into lines to walk the handful of blocks to downtown, where the Westboro protesters were gathered. The line grew as the students began their walk from campus and some estimates were that the crowd grew into hundreds.

The counter-protesters yelled “Hokies” and held signs that spoke of love and tolerance — such as “Love thy neighbor,” “Virginia Tech is about respect” and “God loves everyone” — to those with a more humorous message, such as “Free hugs.”
Student Johnathan Cace, who led one of the groups walking downtown, said the effort was all student-led and not affiliated with any one group on campus.

The effort was meant to show “Hokie pride” and spread a positive message to counteract the one coming from the Westboro group, which students said was one of hate.

Link:  Westboro Baptist protests come to an end in Blacksburg – Roanoke.com.

Thanks to my friend Kirk for making me aware of this!

It seems Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has finally realized slavery was a “significant” issue during the Civil War.

The good news is that, after this, if he runs for President, he can only carry South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama.

Of course this is not really his fault.  He was educated at Pat Robertson University, aka Regent University, so it’s not surprise his education is lacking….

Here’s a link to the full story:

Bob McDonnell Apologizes For Slavery Omission In ‘Confederate History Month’ Proclamation.

Another great comment about the situation in Virginia Governor McDonnell’s proclamation of April as Confederate History Month.  This one is from the African American- mixed race Great, Great, Great, Great,  Niece of Robert E Lee.  That’s another issue that’s not discussed very often in the white South…

As I said, I’ll have my comments in a couple of days when I have more time….

The shame is in the proclamation’s failure to acknowledge the full range of the truth about the Civil War and Virginia’s role in it. What about the sacrifices of whites who were part of the underground railroad and helped slaves escape to the North, or those who did not support the Confederacy, or the African slaves who actually fought on the side of the Confederacy? If we are going to celebrate and honor sacrifice, let us also celebrate the progress we have made since the Civil War, which should be a source of pride for every American, just as we must acknowledge the work that remains to be done.

For me this is very personal. My father, who is African American, is from Virginia. The Finney name comes from the man who once owned my family as slaves. My mother, Mildred Lee, is the great, great, great niece of Robert E. Lee, or “the General,” as he is referred to by my family. I am therefore the great, great, great, great niece of General Lee. That is my American story, a mixed race heritage that I am proud of, just as Virginia, the South and our country has a mixed history.

Link to full article:  Karen Finney: Virginia Shame.

Great column on DailyKos about the Virginia Governor’s decision to declare  April “Confederate History Month”.  My birth State’s new government continues to embarass itself at an alarming rate.  I hear he made an even bigger mess of this today before backtracking and trying to save himself.  Too late!

I’ll have more to say on my thoughts on all this in a couple of days when I have more time….

Here is an excerpt and a link to the full article:

Whereas Bob McDonnell Brings Back The Past

by BarbinMD

Tue Apr 06, 2010 at 02:20:04 PM PDT

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has decided to bring back Confederate History Month:

Here are a few excerpts from the proclamation:

WHEREAS,  April is the month in which the people of Virginia joined the Confederate States of America in a four year war between the states for independence that concluded at Appomattox Courthouse;

Another way to put it could be, “WHEREAS, in a four year war between the states to defend slavery that concluded with that general who will not be named whuppin’ our sorry asses and us being bitter over it for the next hundred-plus years.

WHEREAS,  it is important for all Virginians to reflect upon our Commonwealth’s  shared history, to understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War, and to recognize how our history has led to our present;

It seems that the part about trying to understand the sacrifices of centuries of enslaved people on their soil was omitted from the final draft.

WHEREAS, this defining chapter in Virginia’s history should not be forgotten, but instead should be studied, understood and remembered by all Virginians, both in the context of the time in which it took place, but also in the context of the time in which we live …

So, Bob McDonnell thinks that to understand American politics today, we need to understand why Virginia joined the Confederacy? Is this a nod to the “tenther movement”? Because it wouldn’t be the only fringe element that McDonnell decided to pander to with this proclamation:

This year’s proclamation was requested by the Sons of Confederate Veterans … “We’ve known for quite some time we had a good opportunity should he ascend the governorship,” Brandon Dorsey said. “We basically decided to bide our time and wait until we had more favorable politicians in Richmond.”

And who are the Sons of Confederate Veterans? An all-male group that believes:

The citizen-soldiers who fought for the Confederacy personified the best qualities of America. The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South’s decision to fight the Second American Revolution.

But nothing about slavery. McDonnell, like every protector of southern heritage before him, pretends that it was all about “freedom” and “protecting our way of life” … which makes sense given that the North was demanding everyone in Virginia eat New England clam chowder and see a Broadway show at least twice a year.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/4/6/854733/-Whereas-Bob-McDonnell-Brings-Back-The-Past

Daily Kos: State of the Nation.

A great column this morning from Leonard Pitts entitled “An Evil with Many Masters” that compares Christian and Islamic Terrorism.  This is a point I’ve written about before:  That domestic terrorism is every bit as dangerous as Islamic terrorism.  The real threat is fundamentalism of any kind.  Here is an excerpt:

And I suppose the first words should be about those words: “Christian terrorism.” The term will seem jarring to those who’ve grown comfortable regarding terrorism as something exclusive to Islam.

That this is a self-deluding fallacy should have long since been apparent to anyone who’s been paying attention. From Eric Rudolph’s bombing of the Atlanta Olympics, a gay nightclub and two abortion clinics to the so-called Phineas Priests who bombed banks, a newspaper and a Planned Parenthood office in Spokane, from Matt Hale soliciting the murder of a federal judge in Chicago to Scott Roeder’s assassination of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, from brothers Matthew and Tyler Williams murdering a gay couple near Redding, Calif., to Timothy McVeigh destroying a federal building and 168 lives in Oklahoma City, we have seen no shortage of “Christians” who believe Jesus requires — or at least allows — them to commit murder.

If federal officials are correct, we now have one more name to add to the dishonor roll. That name would be Hutaree, a self-styled Christian militia in Michigan, nine members of which have been arrested and accused of plotting to kill police officers in hopes of sparking an anti-government uprising.

Many of us would doubtless resist referring to plots like this as Christian terrorism, feeling it unfair to tar the great body of Christendom with the actions of its fringe radicals. And here, we will pause for Muslim readers to loudly clear their throats.

And here is the link to the entire column:
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/07/1566736/an-evil-with-many-masters.html#ixzz0kPhKDTxi

An evil with many masters – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com.

As the tax filing deadline of April 15th approaches, I found these articles very interesting….

ThinkProgress led me to it:

Last week, Forbes magazine published what the top U.S. corporations paid in taxes last year. “Most egregious,” Forbes notes, is General Electric, which “generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.” Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS:

Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.

Mother Jones’ Adam Weinstein notes that, despite benefiting from corporate welfare in the U.S., Exxon complains about paying high taxes, claiming that it threatens energy innovation research. Pat Garofalo at the Wonk Room notes that big corporations’ tax shelter practices similar to Exxon’s shift a $100 billion annual tax burden onto U.S. taxpayers. In fact, in 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that “two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005.”

UPDATEForbes has updated its article to include a statement from Exxon: “Though Exxon’s financial statement’s don’t show any net income tax liability owed to Uncle Sam, a company spokesman insists that once its final tax bill is figured, Exxon will owe a ‘substantial 2009 tax liability.’ How substantial? ‘That’s not something we’re required to disclose, nor do we.'”

Here is the link to the full story:

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/06/exxon-tax/

Here is the link to the original full story at Forbes:

via What The Top U.S. Companies Pay In Taxes – Forbes.com.