“The Attack on Robert E. Lee is An Attack on Us All, on Our History and Culture; It is Part of the Marxist Assault on Western Christian Civilization,” inveighs Dr. Boyd D. Cathey. It is “a war of cultural extermination,” an “ideological blitzkrieg,” waged by “an advance Red Guard of vicious cultural barbarians.” We can’t be “lily white about this.” You don’t “convince a King Cobra that we are nice folks who only want to work with them!” Time to fight back, demands Dr, Boyd.
In the early hours of this morning—one might say in the darkness, but it would be the “darkness” of a society that wishes, it appears, to commit cultural suicide and revile its ancestors—in those early hours the culturally Progressivist leaders of New Orleans took down the statue of General Robert E. Lee in their city. In removing the Lee statue they not only impugn the life of that noble Christian and unselfish man whom President Dwight D. Eisenhower admired above all other American military heroes, but they attempt to exterminate and erase entire portions of our collective history, that is, to ban and remove from sight anything that in any way would remind us of our past and the heritage handed down to us. They are, then, an advance Red Guard of the vicious cultural barbarians, cultural vandals, whose burning hatred for anything that even meekly questions their ongoing ideological blitzkrieg to “cleanse us” of the history and traditions of Western Christian civilization, is seen as an impediment and a danger to their revolution. Any opposition to their designs must, therefore, be attacked and wiped from public view.
Their next target is the imposing statue to General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Let me state here: I hold an honors Masters’ degree in history (Thomas Jefferson Fellow) from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. And I am a proud member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, having become a member well over thirty years ago (after I returned from grad school in Europe). I have been active on the North Carolina division level as well as on the national level. And, those who read these words (and read the Abbeville Institute and Confederate Veteran magazine) will know that I have written extensively in broad defense of not just Southern and Confederate heritage, but in defense of that heritage as an essential and pivotal part of American history. One cannot truly comprehend—one cannot hope to understand—our history as a nation or as a people without remembering who we are, and who we have been.
That does not mean that I—or any of us—have to worship at the statue of this historical figure, or of that historical personage. Just as I would not demand that Illinois take down its statues to Abraham Lincoln, I stoutly oppose removing statues to Lee, or to Jefferson Davis, or to Bedford Forrest. Whether one agrees with Robert E. Lee’s painful decision to leave the US Army and volunteer to fight for his home state of Virginia, or not, it is singularly important that we ALL be reminded that he not only existed larger than life, but that he had and continues to have an inordinate influence over us and our history. To attempt to efface his memory, to radically distort his beliefs and his actions, all to make him “fit” in a predetermined ideologically Marxist template, not only insults a great and decent man, but perverts and destroys history, itself.
This is what the cultural barbarians did in New Orleans and what they intend to do in Charlottesville.
The action in New Orleans followed a controversial and highly contentious period of debate, remonstrations, demonstrations, and legal maneuvers. Various pro-heritage and preservation organizations worked tirelessly to defend the monument. Sadly it seems, in too many of these defensive actions among heritage defenders there is division as to strategy and approach. And it was and is those divisions that have plagued far too often those who supposedly proclaim their opposition to the cultural genocide that gathers pace in our decadent contemporary society.
Up in the Old Dominion State, the Virginia Division of The Sons of Confederate Veterans have played an important role in defending the Lee statue now under attack. And they should be saluted for that. Yet, unfortunately, some of their public statements and actions betray a kind of pusillanimous response to this assault on not just Confederate heritage, but on the fabric of American history.
It has become increasingly clear that too many of the defenders of our heritage believe that opposition to the onrushing and take-no-prisoners revolutionary fanatics, those cultural barbarians, can continue as it was decades ago. In a real sense, they resemble those so-called “conservatives” and establishment Republicans who think that polite dissent is the only means to achieve success. They seem to say, “we must have none of those ‘flaggers’ and no demonstrations from those ‘unwashed deplorables’! And no outside ‘interference’ from more insistent and activist heritage groups!”
Unfortunately, we no longer live in those polite times. Our enemies are engaged in a war of extermination, and if we do not understand that, if we do not see that, then we shall surely become victims of it. The terms of battle have changed radically, and whether we wish it or not, we must respond using every legitimate weapon at our disposable.
Certainly, that does not mean joining hands with outright crazies, or Nazis. But it does mean that we should not turn away men and women of good will, even if they be not members of our organization or Sunday church-goers. Desperate times require desperate measures, always in keeping with integrity and faithfulness to the example of our ancestors.
My longtime friend and fellow compatriot Richard Hines, over the past thirty years, has contributed his time and fortune to the preservation and defense of the patrimony we have inherited from our ancestors. There is no stronger, no more unselfish and valiant defender of our heritage and the legacy of our Western Christian traditions then he. In the May/June issue of Confederate Veteran magazine his heritage defense organization ran a full page ad on the inside back cover, soliciting additional support (he had already made a substantial contribution) for a defense of the Lee statue in Charlottesville. You would think that the Virginia descendants of the noble veterans of that cruel war of 1861-1865 would have welcomed the support, but no, those near-sighted members of the Virginia SCV protested this “outside interference”!
Then, there was the press release “protest” by the official Virginia division, criticizing a torchlight march near the Lee statue, which included, it is said, members of the ”Alt-Right.” Obviously, the unending attacks by the cultural Marxists had had their effect, for the Virginia division scurried rapidly to the tall grass, forcefully declaring that it had nothing to do with possible “racists,” “white supremacists,” etc., etc.—all the “devil terms” of the cultural Left. One could almost hear the voices and the standard narrative of the leftist mainstream media echoed therein. And one could, justifiably, ask whether such aping of the dominant narrative will do anything, anything at all, to defend our heritage, or to ingratiate us in the eyes of the cultural barbarians who seek to destroy us?
Rather, is not such a polite attitude an admission that our older strategy, even if certainly the ideal in a civilized society, has failed? One does not get down on one’s knees and attempt to “reason” with a King Cobra, and, I dare say that operating by the old rules with our enemies these days—whether in Washington DC, or in New Orleans, or in Charlottesville, Virginia—will get us only that much quicker to the dust bin of history and the final end of our culture and our people. Seems like the cobras will strike us every time…but that too many of us have never learned, or may never learn, that lesson.
I send along, then, a rousing defense of “Marse Robert” by that superb columnist Ilana Mercer and the critical significance of Southern and Confederate heritage in the history of our nation.
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~ Dr. Boyd D. Cathey is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Abbeville Institute. He contributes to the Confederate Veteran magazine, the Unz Review, as well as to Barely a Blog. His articles are on this site under the “BAB’s A List” search category.