That being said. Not everything Isreal has done has been defensive. They have innacted an array of crimes of aggression & was (many that the US has been implicit in) that we should not attempt to justify within our own morality.

Too bad for them.
War sucks and innocent people pay the price for what their "leaders"
choose to do.
I'm so sick of the victim mentality of so many people in the South.
The war is over, the Confederacy lost.
The whining must stop.

Poor Southerners treated black people like garbage, too.
WTF should anyone feel sorry for them?

Oh, and all those "ruins" you are lamenting?
So what? Again war sucks. Damage happens.
They could have rebuilt all that stuff, and in most cases, they did.
Additionally, when black people were demanding their Constitutional
rights, instead of acknowledging that they were due their civil rights,
they erected monuments to the "glorious dead".
That was done specifically to remind blacks that they were slaves once,
and not to get "uppity".

There isn't a white Southerner alive today who deserves an apology from
anyone, for anything.

They knew they were fighting for the right to keep black people slaves. There was no ambiguity on that matter at all. This disgusting attempt to romanticize traitors is the same kind of BS that perpetuated racism in this country for over 150 years after that bitter war was fought. The idea that there was some way to normalize a society that wanted to keep slaves and would fight and die for the right to do so.

Spare me.

@redbai Those who seem to believe that, somehow, white people in the South were "victims" of the Civil War, are simply trying to deflect and justify their still rampant racism.
White nationalism is insidious.
They spew their bullshit in an effort to make their irrational beliefs seem
palpable.
Well, here's one old Southern white woman who is calling BULLSHIT.

White men need to stop their incessant whining.
They're becoming a minority and it scares the shit out of them.
To which I say, GOOD!
Turnabout is fair play, motherfuckers!

Everybody thinks it ended with the end of the civil war. But Reconstruction and Jim Crow South was no less dehumanizing. And the death toll to Southern blacks during this era was no less insignificant. Vestiges still exist of this old hateful culture as we've seen reassert itself under Trump.

@KKGator Look, that's not what I am doing. I am not romanticizing or excusing anything. My morals on war are consistent rather it's over the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses despite the injustices towards the Kurdish people; or rather it be the invasion & robbing of Mexican territory despite it being 180 years ago.

To hold an entire peoples responsible under a blanket of implication to the state wouldn't seem much dissimilar to me than implicating those pine nut farmers in Afghanistan for the culture in their state; or to implicate each individual soldier or you as a US citizen (assuming) for the entirety of the crimes of mass genocide that this country has been acting out in the middle east for decades with numbers of lives beginning to rival that of Hitler.
& believe it or not, that is not hyperbole.

So no, I am afraid I can never just shrug it off with a "So what, war sucks, innocent people pay, damage happens."

@gNappyHead Do try to stick with the topic
It was Southern stubbornness and hurt feelings.

@KKGator The tragedy of war is the topic. & my heart bleeds for the lives lost in the south. As it does for all conflict, but where I live I just so happen to be able to see the remnants of this particular one & they are abundant. That is my only message. I'm not asking for an apology. That would be ridiculous. But I also won't apologise for how I feel.

@gNappyHead Nobody is asking you to apologize for how you feel. They are reacting to the insulting idea that southern traitors are somehow suffering and that the war they started is something the deserve sympathy for because it's somehow not their fault they were traitors. Your ridiculous comments totally ignore that those people did it all to own slaves. They nearly destroyed the country so that they could own people. Then for generations after that they treated the descendants of those slaves as second class citizens and terrorized black people, destroying whole communities and doing everything that they could to maintain superiority over people just because of the color of their skin.

That wasn't done by the government, that was done by the people who voted for and rationalized Jim Crow laws. That ignored and had dinner every night with KKK members while raising their children to embrace the generational racism of their "culture". The government wasn't who had lynching picnics where white people cut off trophies of black people they had hung while enjoying a Sunday afternoon. They weren't the ones riding down the roads at night an picking up black people at random to torture and harm them for what some random white person considered a slight. The government wasn't who was burning crosses on hillsides and in the lawns of black people to terrorize them. The government didn't blow up a church with 4 little girls in it decades ago and the government didn't kill 9 people in at point blank range in Charlsoton in 2015.

So again. Until you recognize ACTUAL history instead of what you want to believe, spare me your pathetic whining about racist traitors not getting their due.

Thank you. It is important to know what humans have experienced to understand how to change us all for the better.

@Jacar Yeah, that's some more horseshit.
Humans aren't going to change for the better.
If we were going to do that, it would have happened already.
I live in the South, I don't give a flying rat's ass how "sad" some
Southerners still feel about the war that their ancestors started.
They don't get any sympathy for their "losses".
Their losses are non-existent. Especially when compared to the losses
of those they enslaved.
Boo-fucking-hoo.

@Jacar "It is important to know what humans have experienced"

Maybe you should consider that concept from a non-white perspective. It's not the only one relevant in the dialog.

@KKGator
What we are experiencing today is the last remnants of Imperialism, expressing itself in the form of white privilege. Wherever, the world experienced colonization from Europe, white privilege came with it naturally.

We may have shed the European connection, but we still find ourselves plagued by a white demographic that feels its grip on society waning. As such, this demographic is paranoid over their loss of control. This is nowhere more evident than in the South and in the Bible Belt of this nation. Happens elsewhere in the nation of course, but it's an ingrained portion of the Southern culture, more so than elsewhere.

@t1nick I know why it has manifested itself. I'm just saying I'm not putting
up with it.
I hear it all the time down here, and I'm going to keep calling bullshit.
I understand it's origins. I'm going to keep telling these little whiners to
get over it.
I don't care who I piss off.

@KKGator
I know you are aware, but wasnt sure where to add in the thread so others could read and hear my opinion. We shared these sentiments on multiple previous posts.

@redbai Well, I agree with you 100% there. Not only is it not the only perspective relavent in this dialogue, it's not even nearly to most important perspective relavent in this dialogue.

@gNappyHead Israel: an invasion by racists supported by racists: all based upon the premise that the hallucinating Moses had his imaginary friends' blessing.

@Jacar & I definitely do not disagree with this either.

So because people don't agree with your insulting lie about the virtue of slave holders who attempted to overthrow the country they are haters? What rubbish.

Pointing out your arguments are pathetic and ignorant is no more hate than telling a theist to keep their delusions to themselves.

@redbai Read again. I am not defending evil. I just stated that people suffered. And that the wounds were so deep and broad that they have not healed.
You're the one that took it to hate. Shame on you.

@Jacar Where did I say anything about hate? You keep throwing that word around as if it's some playing card you can use to quiet down expressions of disgust of the ridiculous idea that the founders and foundations of a racist culture being put in the past is a bad thing. Disgust is not hate, it's an expression used to demonstrate that the idea expressed is so out of character with conventional thought that it causes ridicule and aversion, not hate.

Try defending the "culture" that those people represented and long for instead of trying to negatively characterize the people who see it for what it was, the root of most of the bane in this country, racism and bigotry institutionalized for white privilege. Now those who no longer have that privilege want pity? Screw that.

@Jacar The "wounds" some still feel are norhing but their own inability to LET IT GO.
They are not deserving of anyrhing.

@Jacar any "suffering" the Confederacy did was a consequence of its own terrible behavior, and it wasn't nearly severe enough to atone for the harm it did. No sympathy.

@Deb57 . . .You will regret spewing such inhuman crap. . . The 99% had no real idea about why they were dying. . . "They deserved it." That is so very Jimmy Swaggart of you.
Be ashamed that you are more interested in attacking me than understanding why you are wrong.

@Jacar was that a threat?

This is about history. Real history. Many millions suffered. For horrible reasons. Most had no idea why. Many still do not. But the wounds are obviously so deep they still are felt.
Continuing to blame the 99% for something they did not understand is pretty lame. Don't ya think?

@Jacar What I think is "lame" is making excuses for people who knew that they were definitely fighting a war against the United States government, thus making them traitors no matter what facile excuse given for them fighting. And this idea that "the 99%" did not know that fighting that war would mean that a white man could own a black man is just a blatant lie.

@Jacar i don't know anyone who is blaming angone, personally, so i won't comment on that. Im also fairly sure youre right that 99% of the people who actually fought in the war werent able to have anywhere near the insight into the dynamics at hand (or the official version (TM) thereof), than we do, decades later. (Even though, like redbai said, they werent all that stupid either). I guess i don't quite understand what you think youre defending against, but like i said, it seems to be some kind of legacy of hurt, and who deserves more victim cards. Imho that sucks. Are you trying to justify the feelings of the people who fly confederate flags because their ancestors were clueless, so its ok for them to be clueless? Why are you playing identity politics?

@redbai Most did not know. No internet, no phones, limited literacy and general education.

Just like now.

@Jacar I believe that's a lie. But hey, maybe you have something like EVIDENCE to demonstrate that 99% of southerners fighting in the Civil War were to ignorant to know that it would mean leaving the USA (making them traitors) and allow them the right to hold people a slaves (making them people of low moral character).

@Jacar Blame the slave masters, not the Northerners who came to free the enslaved.

@Jacar That is just so much bullshit.

@redbai And 99% of the northerners also did not know why they were dying.

NO internet. NO phones. Most everyone was illiterate and lied to.

Obviously you would have been more informed. Time to buy a vowel.

@Jacar We aren't talking about the people from the north, we're talking about those in the south, and they knew exactly what they were fighting for. You are simply lying.

There must be a reason for these wounds to continue to be felt. If we do not understand we cannot change the circumstances.

@Jacar The reason that these "wounds" are still felt is because too many Southerners refuse to accept that the South LOST.
They are whiners who can't let it go, and still want their racist views to prevail.
There are NO "circumstances" to change.
None.
The ONLY thing we need to "understand" is that they are sore losers.

What is YOUR motivation for wanting to give their abject irrationality credence?
Are you a racist? Are you a white nationalist? Are you a fascist?

@KKGator Trump won. Get over it. Bullshit:::: the election was stolen. That is one of the reasons we are all about the congress doing its job. To stop it happening again.

@Jacar You are unnecessarily conflating two completely unrelated issues.
The South losing the Civil War has nothing to do with 45 being unfit for office.
Apples and oranges.

(see what I did there?)

@Jacar I see that you live up north. Do you have southern roots?

In my experience northern people are the ones who are still feeling wounds—I’ve seen it many times and have learned to make no mention of the Civil War in the presence of Northerners. But where I live in the South I don’t think I’ve heard a single conversation about the Civil War since I came back ten years ago. There are two or three Confederate flags on display in the county but mostly they are flown underneath US flags and are nothing but ornaments, of little significance.
Might be different in other locations.

I used to have very defensive feelings about the war but through counsel with my parents and neighbors, I have somewhat cleansed myself. Maybe some sort of course in forgiveness would be in order. To forgive is to shine the light of awareness on our mistaken thoughts and allow them to be corrected. Untrue judgmental thoughts about ourselves and about other people will melt away under the spotlight of conscious awareness.

The truth is that we are all brothers and sisters and all are worthy of the utmost love and respect. I think that it is a much happier state of mind than the other way.