View source for 471A3--Week 12 Questions/Comments--Tuesday

One of the most interesting people Horwitz meets - and certainly one of the most provocative - was Walt, the cable-box repairing, Star Trek-loving, anti-Semitic vegetarian.  Walt's extremism and white supremacist ideas evolved out of the tumultuous politics of the 1960s and a lack of faith in government.  For Walt, the Confederacy represented subjected peoples around the world and he fit them into an obsessive, self-deduced picture of the conspiracies that run the world.  Naturally, Walt is a crazy person, but does this progression from the unrest of the 1960s to a neoconfederate position have some kind of linear path?  --Erin B.

How does the grandson of a Russian Jew from "between Minsk and Pinsk" get interested in the Confederacy? R.King

On page 149 Shelby Foote talks about the "difference between North and South", is this 'difference' why the South still clings to the memory of the Civil War and believes such a distorted history of the event? R. King

While Horwitz is in Vicksburg, he notices a different kind of racial divide than he saw in some other places.  What is different about the culture of Vicksburg?  Or is any place in the South a Guthrie waiting to happen?  --Erin B.

When Horwitz is talking to the African American preacher Michael King, he asks him "if there was any way that white Southerns to honor their forebears without insulting his." King responded with: "Remember you ancestors, but remember what they fought for too. and recognize it was wrong." (pg. 44) I was just curious what yall's thoughts on this was... -MK 

In Chapter 6, Horwitz is at the reenactment of the Battle of Wilderness. He discusses some of the draws for reenactors to either fight for the North or South. One of the reasons for siding with the South was "Americans' instinctive allegiance to underdogs." (pg. 136) How much do you think this plays into the general public's minds about the South? -MK

Before reading this book, I never realized how hardcore some Confederate re-enactors really were, although it does seem to be the select few. These guys, like Hodge, try really hard to get everything exactly right and are willing to re-enact in the dreariest of weather conditions. It makes me wonder, if they try so hard to get the clothes, rations, and battles exactly right, do they try really hard to get the political or social history of the war right as well? - Angie

After our recent discussion of the Confederate battle flag, the section on Michael Westerman, the man with the flag on his truck who was killed in Kentucky, really struck me. I think that this shooting really shows how controversial and dangerous this symbol has become. Horwitz says that during the war, the majority of that county did not even support the Confederacy. The flag seemed to have no real history in the place, yet it became an enormous problem anyways.  - Angie