The critics' verdict is out on Ron Maxwell's new civil war movie, and that verdict is guilty. Of portraying southerners as decent human beings, that is. We can't have any of that, what with the government-approved version of history that said Southerners were backward racists and the North freed the slaves. Reading these reviews make me want to actually sit through all 220 minutes of this movie. Here's the Village Voice take:

If a Confederate flag flying in South Carolina is cause for uproar, how is this movie escaping into theaters without precipitating an NAACP press conference? Ballooning, jingoistic goat spoor, Maxwell's movie, with its relentless nationalism, mooning over the soldiers' steeliness of nerve, purity of heart, and evangelical self-justification, is all too relevant today. Unfortunately, in a nation where the word 'evildoers' is used by straight-faced adults, the film might end up being effective propaganda.

Courageous soldiers, religious conviction, a strong moral sense and loyalty to one's home. We can't have any of that confederate garbage around. The New York Press said, "it was truly a whitewash of the past". No, the whitewash was wherever that reviewer studied history.

All this South-bashing is truly troubling. These holier-than-though Yankees want everybody from the South to be ashamed of their ancestors and forever bound by guilt. They view history through the prism of the present. They judge the Old South by today's standards, but don't hold that same standard to their own past. Every society has skeletons in its closet, but the South also had many virtues that are almost lost today. But I wouldn't expect these bigoted "critics" to understand that.

Sorry for the delay, folks. I've been snowed in a little bit.

But back to complaining. I can't think of enough bad things to say about this article. I'm going to ignore the part about Lincoln, because that's a whole other can of worms. What I can't believe is that this author is actually trying to use George Washington as a president who would be pro-war today. Yes, he chose war when he had to, but that was to overthrow an oppressive regime here on American shores. Washington would never support a foreign war for another country's independence, and he said words to that effect in his farewell address. How dumb does the War Party think we are?