League of The South - What keeps me from joining
When I first read about the Southern League (later changed to League of The South), I was excited about what I was reading - an organization dedicated to preserving Southern culture. I was excited about the concept of “Hedge Schools” and gave a lot of thought to how that might work and spread throughout The South. I went to a local meeting made up mostly of men in my SCV camp to discuss the possibility of creating a local Southern League group. At the time, I was already over-committed to other projects, so I put that on the “back burner” for a bit. The name changed to League of The South (LoS) due to a trademark issue with a sports league. I continued to receive the email newsletter and follow LoS publications. At some point, the focus changed.
I read a League of The South report about a national LoS meeting. In that report, they made a very clear statement that the goal of the LoS is to be the establishment of a new Confederacy. The statement was framed in such a way as to make it clear that there was some sort of internal struggle within the organization about this and that the new goals of the LoS would now focus on a political outcome rather than a cultural outcome. They were seriously aiming at a new secession movement that would reinstitute a new Southern nation. I certainly have no problem with that if it were possible to wave a magic wand and completely change the demographics and the social and cultural and political makeup of the Southern states. Not having access to such a magic wand, we are left with having to deal with the reality of the current situation - here, now, today. Having stated my reasoning in detail in other posts, I won’t try to repeat it here, but I will repeat what I believe to be the key point - Nothing changes until the culture changes.
The culture must change before any major political changes are attempted. Most political “leaders” are leaders only because they see which way the crowd is going and then run ahead to the front of the line and claim to be “leaders”. A leader who tries to gain and hold power without first shaping the culture to match his objectives is doomed to eventual failure. That is why the “Reagan Revolution” is now just a footnote in history - the culture was not there to support his leadership, great as it was.
You might ask, “What is the problem with having political power as a goal?” One problem is that you attract the wrong kind of people to leadership positions. Before we go any farther, let me make it clear that I am NOT referring to any specific persons in the LoS. I have no reason to believe that the leaders of LoS are anything but honorable men. In fact, other than Dr. Hill, I can’t name a single person in a leadership position in LoS. However, by making LoS into primarily a political movement, they are more likely to attract those who are willing to try to take the shortcut and go directly to political efforts without first doing the long hard work of trying to change the culture.
Let me offer a specific example of what happens when an organization - in this case, the LoS - gets into the political business rather than first working on the culture. Several years ago, I received a phone call from a field agent with the FBI (from a field office on the west coast of Florida). It’s a long story of how that phone call came about, but that’s not the point here. They wanted to know what this organization was all about - was it a potential terrorist group? Was it a harmless group that had or could be taken over by hot heads (or, unmentioned, by agents provocateur)? The reason that I was willing to talk with them was to try to put their minds at ease that, to the best of my knowledge, they were completely open, honest, and harmless; on the other hand, in my own mind, I had to wonder about the possibility of a rogue group within LoS that could truly be someone to worry about. It turns out that the reason they popped up on the FBI’s radar screen was a naive attempt to tell the FBI that they were NOT anything to worry about. Before that contact, the FBI (or at least this particular field office) had never heard of the LoS.
What is the point of bringing that incident up? Simple - at a time when the government is looking for boogymen behind every bush and tree (calling them “homegrown terrorists”), a group with the stated objective of secession is painting a big target on themselves. We have to ask, “to what point?” That is pointless, self-destructive behavior - unless that organization exists to gain a perceived future political power by being at the head of the line should some “black swan” event occur that would make secession possible.
Let me say again - Nothing changes until the culture changes. Without a culture change that would make a large portion of the population actively support a revival of the Old South, the only way to effect such a political change would be to do so by force. That would be absolutely intolerable - something that no Southern Gentleman could ever stand for. That takes us back to the need for the LoS to return to their founding purpose - a sharp focus on restoring Southern culture. It takes time and effort and determination and generations of time, but it is the only way for an honorable return to the traditions and ideals of the Old South - and the traditions and ideals of America’s Founding Fathers.
I firmly believe that the League of The South is an honorable organization founded and headed by honorable men who have simply lost sight of the larger goals. It is my sincere hope that the LoS will realize this and make a clear shift to focus exclusively on building Southern culture in the certain knowledge that, if successful, political change will follow cultural change. They need not seek political leadership of the people - if the LoS is successful in rebuilding Southern culture, the people will look to those who lead the cultural revival for leadership.
June 20th, 2009 at 8:48 am
You and I clearly agree on the goal for any real and meaningful Southern activism, and that is to preserve our culture and protect our people.
What is threatening them? It’s an out-of-control Federal government, an alien, occupying force that’s assaulting basic Constitutional rights, brainwashing our young people into abject self-hatred, and engineering a demographic revolution — all while robbing us of our tax dollars and undermining our economic security. Those are the things that are destroying our culture, and they all stem from the same rotten source, the District of Corruption.
The Southern people are remarkably resilient, and are capable of restoring their culture to vitality to where it can again become self-sustaining.
But before the wound can begin to heal, we have to remove the foreign body that is harming it. Just like the American secessionists of 1776, and the Confederate leaders of 1860-61, we must energize our people with a clear message that wakes them up to what’s being done to them, and organize them to action.
In other words, we must organize politically. Once we have restored real self-government, and can then work for our values and our goals, rather than for the enrichment of a globalist elite, our culture will self-heal and self-organize around the existing elements that are still alive and fighting.
Your clear-headed analysis tells me you’re someone we need on our side. I hope this response shows our sincerity and commitment to reach out to you and others like you with similar questions.
June 21st, 2009 at 11:10 pm
The League of the South, which has been mistaken as a Confederate organization, is led and controlled by “counterfeit Confederates” who have deceived many well meaning true Confederates, is sponsoring what they claim to be a new nation for the South. BEWARE, this so-called new nation is NOT CONFEDERATE in organization nor in planned operation, but is rather being designed as a top down monarchical type government which is a Federalist form of government that is centrally controlled. which is opposite a Confederate type of government which is anti-federalist and pro State’s Rights. It is the diametrical opposite of a Confederate type of government such as the C.S.A. which is anti-federalist and pro State’s Rights. This false Confederate group (CSS) is, apparently, another front organization of the self-styled, “Premiere leader in the modern-day States’ Rights struggle,” the League of the South who only poses as being State’s Rights and are actually a tightly controlled, top down organization. This false Confederate group (the League) is now sponsoring another tightly controlled, top down organization which they claim is to be the New Southern Nation called the Confederation of Southern States (CSS). We believe their intentions and purposes in all of this are three fold.
First, their intent appears to be to stop, foil, confuse and confound any effort to restore a Southern Nation in Dixie called the CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA (CSA) and create as much dissension as possible among the various Confederate organizations. Their stated desire is to create for themselves a “Southern Nation” in Dixie they call the Confederation of Southern States (CSS) which will be similar to that Federalist government in Washington, D.C. only with a Southern flavor.
Second, they hope to gain great power and money by setting up this “New Southern Nation” and remaining at the top.
Third, they intend to quietly maintain the present Establishment Control over the South by creating Federal type courts, personal wage taxes, and a Federal Reserve type central bank which will all be reduced in the extent which they tax and control the people of the South in order to sell the program, but in reality will play into the hands of the internationalists who have long planned to divide up the United States into districts for more effective control of the people. This “New Southern Nation” should be quite acceptable to these internationalists but defeating and enslaving to the people in the South.
True Confederates should know or learn the difference between counterfeit Confederate organizations vying to build a new Southern Nation, based on top down enslaving control, and the legitimate Government of the Confederate States of America which is based on State’s Rights where States are established from the bottom up by the citizens and much more power is in the hands of the Citizens at the local and county levels.
Proof of the Federalist type rule and beliefs of a few establishment oriented men in the League of the South is not only in the history of their statements of Core Beliefs but their actions for the past decade or more, as well as shockingly proven in their current plans as published in their own “Grey Book”. Their name sounds good (League of the South) and they show Confederate flags at times on their web page, but the fruits of their type of government lets us know the truth. They are, in fact, very damaging to the Restoration of the Government of the Confederate States of America and they have misled hundreds of good Confederate people across the South. They have tried hard to disrupt the true Restoration for over a decade, initially covertly attacking the Confederate Society of America and later the Federation of States who sponsors the Southern Independence Parties in Southern States.
Today, the Citizens of the Confederate States of America, which is currently being re-staffed and resurrected by the Citizens from the bottom up, have the duty and the obligation to speak out on this matter. The Government of the C.S.A., whether in the infancy of re-staffing or later in its full restoration, should not become involved in politics. Such things as politics exists in all nations and political groupings naturally occur.
Responsible government should abstain and remain as neutral as possible in such matters as political differences of its citizens in order to avoid having a government violating the rights of the States and their citizens.
Since we, the Citizens of the C.S.A., are re-staffing our Confederate State Governments by registering southerners as voting C.S.A. State citizens, we have the duty to warn real Confederates against what we see as a direct threat against the Confederate States of America and the principles for which it stands, of State’s Rights and bottom up rule.
In fact, so bad is the deception that has been perpetrated, by the League of the South, against true Confederates and against the blood of the Confederate troops who died fighting for the principles of State’s Rights and thus our freedom that this deception must be exposed. The actions of this group of men is not only severe appeasement being handed to the controllers of the Federal Union, the Bank of England, but it smacks of out right TREASON against the Confederacy. The actions and plans of these traitors stabs such organizations as the SCV, the UDC and the Order of the Confederate Rose in the back while it works to misdirect true confederates away from the Restoration of our Nation which won its independence in 1861and now only needs re-staffing and liberation from occupation to restore our Nation, the C.S.A., to its place of sovereign Nations in the world.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:48 am
Rich Borris - thank you for your reply. I really appreciate hearing a different perspective. Perhaps I should have titled the original blog post “Southern Nationalist organizations - What keeps me from joining”.
(As a note, when I refer to “we” and “Confederate Colonel”, I am referring to the group of Southern Gentlemen and Ladies at the Confederate Colonel forum.)
I suspect that there are also other groups working to create a new Southern nation in one form or another. For those who find that appealing, they will have to make their own judgment as to which to support. One thing that Confederate Colonel will not be doing is getting involved in the pros and cons of the different Southern political plans/strategies/philosophies. We explicitly do NOT support any sort of movement for a Southern nation - either a resurrection of the dormant Confederate States of America or a completely new Southern nation. That is not what we are about here. It is an interesting discussion, and it is good to hear from representatives of the different organizations, but it is not our battle.
We will assume that those who organize and back these movements are honorable and well-intentioned men. It is our opinion that they are simply misguided. Unfortunately, misguided movements are easily used by those pursuing raw political power; that would be a very real danger if there were any realistic chance that they could actually gain any significant political muscle. That isn’t going to happen though.
If there were a strong revival of Southern culture that would support such a Southern political movement, then we would need to be looking closely at the different “parties” and decide which one to support. As it is, there is simply no significant cultural support for such a movement. That means that the discussions either 1) are irrelevant, or 2) are about which new form of tyranny (even more brutal than what we now suffer under) we want to rule over us.
True power and authority comes from the bottom up (ultimately, all power and authority comes from God). That means that the culture must be restored first before any sort of political movement could even be considered. Do we think there is any realistic possibility of that happening on a wide enough scale to support such a political movement? No. That is why we here at Confederate Colonel emphasize the revival of Southern culture on a small scale. We have no influence over the larger things affecting this country, but we do have influence over our own families and friends and associates. We cannot stop the rest of the world from wallowing in the mud and feeding on the rotting corpse of America, but we can control our own lives. That is what Confederate Colonel is all about.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:49 pm
As a note, Mr. Tuggle responded to Mr. Borris’s post. The gist of it was that Mr. Borris was making unfounded claims - something that I will have to agree with Mr. Tuggle on.
I appreciate both of your posts, but I have decided not to approve that reply because I don’t want this to serve as a place that those who hate The South can point to and gloat over the fact that we can’t get along among ourselves. There are other forums, I suppose, that are appropriate for Southerners fighting among themselves. That, however, is clearly not what we are trying to do at Confederate Colonel.
I am convinced, now more than ever, we have taken the right road by dismissing any and all such Southern nationalist organizations, and the whole idea of advocating any sort of Southern nation.
I will be glad to approve any further replies as long as they are on the subject and are written/spoken as Southern Gentlemen.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:39 pm
I do believe that part of being a Southern gentleman includes a sense of fairness. The flip side is being willing to fight back when unjustly maligned. And an accusation of “treason” against men who put their names and reputations on line for a Cause they believe in is clearly more than any Southern man could tolerate.
We clearly agree that Southern culture is under attack. Hollywood presents us as unenlightened barbarians who deserve extinction, and DC works to bury us under a Third-World invasion it orchestrates. How best to reassert that culture and rescue it?
In fact, there is more resiliency there than we realize. The red state-blue state divide is very real, and a recent article on the most liberal and most conservative cities said this:
“The list of Americas most liberal cities is dominated by cities with large African American populations that are concentrated in the Northeast, Midwest and California.
Conversely, the study found that the staunchest conservative cities are clustered in the South and interior West and have extremely low numbers of African American residents.”
So we continue to confound those who wish us dead.
As to reinvigorating Southern culture, I believe we’re doing many of the right things, inclduing organizing political action while also working on the cultural and educational fronts. We’ve conducted Hedge Schools, based on the models used by the Irish in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Our leaders have published numerous books and articles on the Southern political and cultural traditions.
As we agreed early on, it’s a mutually reinforcing cycle of communication and action, of cultural renewal and political activism. That’s how the successful independence movements of the past were brought to fruition, and how we, too, will ultimately succeed.