XPost: alt.appalachian, rec.music.country.western, tn.general   
   XPost: nc.general   
   From: norton@cybertrails.com   
      
   "crosstar"  wrote in message   
   news:70uqe.82437$6k7.68523@bignews4.bellsouth.net...   
   > FROM SOUTHERN TO AMERICAN MANIFESTO   
   >   
   > Richard Barrett   
   >   
   > The reader is constrained to ask for whom the author speaks.  Is it for   
   simply a region, in some   
   > provincial manner?  Is it a narrow view, parochial toward the interests of   
   but a select few?   
   > Or, are there elements of the common good, touching, perhaps ennobling,   
   those both far and   
   > near?  Insofar as John Jay counted America as most-fortunate to be of one   
   mind, blood and accord,   
   > if it be alleged that the nation no longer exists as one united and   
   homogeneous body, then is   
   > the appeal made to the "fortunate" areas, where the ambuscade of alien and   
   incompatible elements   
   > has not fallen?  Or, are those places, imperiled by threats, takeovers   
   and, even, extinction   
   > the object of these words, because they are more attenuated to the dangers   
   of the day?  If a   
   > family encountered a "black sheep," it would have no trouble excluding   
   him.  But, when a nation   
   > aspires to a "more perfect union," the question becomes, "Where can or   
   should lines be drawn?"   
   > Or, "Who may be drawn into the circle of the nation, without renting   
   asunder the bonds of   
   > nationhood, itself?"  Mississippi, with its largest per-capita population   
   of Negroes, has had   
   > a long and venerable record in holding back the "tide-of-color," be it red   
   or black or, in actuality,   
   > a hybrid of both.  Amid the founding-stock of the nation in decline,   
   borders being crashed,   
   > economy in shambles and life-force ebbing, however, a Sixties'   
   anti-Communist is placed on   
   > trial in the Magnolia State, prompting, what I shall call, "From Southern   
   to American Manifesto."   
   >   
   > The issue is the cause of all Mankind, insofar as men group themselves as   
   nations in order   
   > to preserve and advance those characteristics, appearances and traits as   
   draw them together,   
   > in self-defense.  I will not dwell upon why some peoples impart   
   civilization to the world,   
   > contrasted to others, who lack the genetic material to rise above mere   
   savages.  Suffice it   
   > to say that those who gaze at their own reflection, be it in a fine mirror   
   hanging on an ornate   
   > wall or in a pond in some remote clime, and are pleased by what they see,   
   are strengthened   
   > by events in Mississippi, which neither muddy the waters nor crack the   
   glass. To that end, I   
   > shift from the hope of Lincoln that this "government" not perish from the   
   earth to the wish   
   > that this "people" not become extinct.  And, I appeal, as did our   
   forefathers, once again, to   
   > a candid world, to consider not just the plight of Mississippi but your   
   own.  For, what   
   > government might there be without a people, any more than blood without a   
   body?  The vessel   
   > which holds our vital organs together, in a political sense, is the   
   nation.  While the lobbing   
   > off of an appendage, which may have become gangrene, may regenerate the   
   whole, the grafting   
   > of the decayed and morbid onto the body withers the whole.   
   >   
   > Some may wish to concoct themselves as some San Marino or Goa.  Indeed,   
   there are those   
   > who crank out the line that Mississippians are simply "separatists," who   
   want nothing less than   
   > to "shoot it out" on some hilltop with "outsiders."  True enough, those   
   having been forced   
   > out of their homes by the influx or growth of minorities or watched,   
   through tear-filled eyes,   
   > as their children are wooed away from their own kind and, even, their own   
   language, might rejoice   
   > to erect a fence around Mississippi and say, "Now we have kept you all   
   out," to the cheers of   
   > detractors who would rejoin, "Now you are all in jail."  Such a notion   
   would have to be based   
   > on the premise that all else is rancid or lost.  Or, that the spinners of   
   yarns and hurlers of   
   > threats have somehow, been right, all along.  The premise would have to be   
   accepted that   
   > resisting disenfranchisement, following the Civil War, was wrong.  That   
   overthrowing the   
   > Reconstruction, by ushering in the Redemption, was in error.  That   
   imposing segregation,   
   > to keep minorities "in their place," was egregious.  And, that mounting   
   continued resistance,   
   > to "diversity," integration and amalgamation, was futile.   
   >   
   > But, it behooves thoughtful men to ask, "What impels those who undertake   
   yeoman struggles   
   > and expose themselves to great dangers?"  Should a woman fight off and,   
   even, kill a rapist,   
   > she would be applauded as brave and courageous.  When resources were   
   stolen, the vote   
   > plundered, corruption installed and oppression affixed, Redemptionists did   
   all that any   
   > honest man, in any land, would do.  They fought back, at Liberty Place and   
   wherever else   
   > they had been reduced to bondage.  They did not need to be deputized,   
   except by the Judge   
   > of the World, who is the author of liberty.  Thoughts of their own   
   insignificance were   
   > banished by words of hope from their own kinsmen, compatriots and friends.   
   They could   
   > not have regained their land and precious rights, however, if they had   
   been ruthless   
   > subversives or ugly sectionalists.  They had to touch a nerve, throughout   
   all the land, among   
   > those who concluded that their cause was just and, even more, that there   
   was common   
   > ground upon which to build or rebuild the most vast and vaunted expanse of   
   America, of   
   > the highest virtues and noblest blood. For a hundred years, statesmen and   
   diplomats,   
   > writers and thinkers, prevented retreat and retrenchment by way of   
   carefully-crafted laws,   
   > ringing oratory and hallowed charters.  Re-adoption of the Confederate   
   flag in 1894 was   
   > an expression that "we dare defend our rights," but not unlike the motto   
   of Iowa that "our   
   > rights we will maintain."   
   >   
   > The question then became, "With what audacity shall our rights be   
   maintained?"  And,   
   > "What are our  rights?"  When two-hundred seventy-three Red Coats lay dead   
   at Concord   
   > Bridge and Lexington, the question was not, "Who is responsible?" but,   
   "What are the rights   
   > of Englishmen?"  Likewise, as three Communists lay dead in Neshoba County,   
   the cry is not,   
   > "Who to blame?" but, "What are the rights of Americans?"  The rights of   
   Americans are the   
   > rights of Englishmen.  There was no Magna Carta to proceed from jungles,   
   no juries comprised   
   > of Pygmies, no Blackstone among Aborigines.  So, when we speak of our   
   thousand-year heritage,   
      
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