Eric Muller has a really interesting article on his blog about Thomas Woods' new book Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, and his many other writings. This book is getting an enormous amount of attention in the media, especially on the right, with Woods making appearances on Hannity and Colmes, Scarborough and the like, and it is doing well on the NY Times Bestseller list at the moment. Woods is one of the folks that Sandefur often refers to as "doughface libertarians", though I don't know what this is a reference to (perhaps he'll stop by and tell us). These are generally southern nationalist types and militia types who rail against Lincoln and the civil war; generally they think that states' rights trumps individual rights. It boggles the mind to think that people who actually think of themselves as libertarians would defend slavery, but they often do and Woods is no exception.
Woods is a founding member of the League of the South, a southern nationalist organization that actually still pushes for succession if they don't get their way, which means the "restoration of Christian liberty to the South". In other words, a return to the time when white people got to own black people like all good Christians should. They yearn for a return to glory for the "Anglo-Celtic" people. Sound familiar? It should. This is basic KKK doctrine. Also fascinating to note that Woods wrote an article after 9/11 in, of all places, Pravda, arguing that the attack was inevitably a result of the "barbarism of recent American foreign policy", our support for Israel and our interference in the middle east. Sounds a lot like Ward Churchill, doesn't it? A good example of how the far left and the far right often sound very much alike, yet no one is calling for Woods' job. Rather, he is feted in the right wing press and his book is pushed to the bestseller list. Interesting, that. Anyway, check out Muller's article for insight into the mind of the southern nationalist. And if you really want insight into this and how it mixes with conservative Christianity, look at this article by Woods on a theology website. It's stunning.
- Log in to post comments
Did you mean, "secession"?
Ed-
I am not sure it is entirely fair to characterize the League of the South as a racist organization (although I am quite sure some of its members fit that description). Some of LOS members have actually written some rather interesting articles/books (e.g., Thomas Fleming and Clyde Wilson).
Nevertheless, the LOS is certainly on the hard paleo fringe. No doubt about that. And no, Ed, I am not a member. :) I am not even close to being paleo enough for that crowd. :)
BTW, we've had a fairly healthy debate going over at SA between the pro-Woods and pro-Boot forces (Max Boot of the Weekly Standard wrote a scathing review of Woods's book recently).
Here are the links if you or your readers are interested:
http://southernappeal.blogspot.com/2005_02_13_southernappeal_archive.html#110873558256468989
http://southernappeal.blogspot.com/2005_02_13_southernappeal_archive.html#110863570814000579
Professor Woods even joined in on the fun in the comments section.
"Sounds a lot like Ward Churchill, doesn't it?"
That's precisely what I thought, assuming the quote is accurate. I wonder if Joe Scarborough et al knew or cared?
I am not sure it is entirely fair to characterize the League of the South as a racist organization (although I am quite sure some of its members fit that description). Some of LOS members have actually written some rather interesting articles/books (e.g., Thomas Fleming and Clyde Wilson).
Well, after reading several articles written by Woods over the last day, I feel quite safe in saying that he, at least, is an apologist for slavery and that he, at least, makes arguments that sound very much like slightly cleaned up versions of KKK rhetoric. The only thing he's missing are occasional references to "uppity niggers". The article that I linked to above is just stunning. He actually claims that the civil war was not about slavery, but was a battle quite literally between good and evil, between atheists and Christians, between "socialists, communists, red republicans, jacobins" and "the friends of order and regulated freedom". And Christianity, in his formulation, was decidedly on the side of the folks who wanted to insure their right to enslave blacks. It's astonishing to me that anyone could seriously accuse the abolitionists of advancing "moral relativism", when the fact is that on the question of slavery it is people like Woods who are the moral relativists. The abolitionists took a bold and decidedly non-relative moral stance - owning another human being is morally wrong, in all times and all places, period. Woods is the one equivocating. If slavery is in fact a moral evil, then all of his talk about the federal government taking away the rights of "Anglo-Celtic Christians" is simply nonsense. To assert, at this late day, that they actually had a right to own slaves is so absurd that it hardly deserves an answer.
I did read over the posts at Southern Appeal. The major problem with them is that the discussion was merely a comparison of the ideas of two people who are clearly both wrong. Compare Woods' ideas to a far more compelling critique than Boot's and that would make for an interesting exchange.
What floors me is that Woods' book has been moving on the NYT bestseller list. I wish someone could explain that to me. Are we really moving backwards that much? Or is it more like gawking at the scene of a disaster of some sort? I find it depressing that in this day and age, such crapola sells and sells well.