Attempts to harness the moral dynamics of America’s racial past to support new conservative ventures continue. The hot new thing is to compare the ongoing war in Iraq to the post-Civil War South, usually to argue that “we” shouldn’t “cut and run,” like those Northerners did when they gave up on Reconstruction.

For example, David Ignatius, a columnist for the Washington Post, reports on a Pentagon discussion led by Civil War historian James McPherson about parallels between reconstruction in Iraq and in the American South. Ignatius (following McPherson) draws straightforward analogies between the unrepentant white South and the Iraqi insurgency, on the one hand, and the freed slaves of the South and Iraq’s Shi’a majority, on the other. The lesson, according to Ignatius, is that to withdraw from Iraq now would be the moral equivalent of the failure of Reconstruction, which condemned Southern blacks to the depradations of Jim Crow and lynching.

Ignatius’s analogies are at least amusing, because of their potential to make neo-Confederates sputter; but the historian Edward Ayers of the University of Virginia provides a lengthier, more thoughtful take on the same subject in the latest New York Times Magazine. Ayers’s argument, in the end, is perhaps less different from Ignatius’s than I might have hoped, though he does refrain from drawing simplistic parallels or taking explicit positions on Iraq. This is how he concludes:

A hard paradox lies at the heart of all reconstructions: the reconstructor must transform a society in its own image without appearing selfish or self-righteous. An effort at reconstruction, our nation's history shows us, must be implemented not only with determination and might, but also with humility and self-knowledge -- and with an understanding of the experience of defeat that attention to Southern history can give us. Otherwise, America risks appearing as the thing it least wants to be, a carpetbagger nation.

I think it’s fair to say that the U.S. has passed the “risk” stage in “appearing” to be a “carpetbagger nation.”

One difficulty with the comparison, of course, is the vast difference between the two wars. Here’s a stab at a few of the major contrasts:

1) Unlike the Confederacy, Iraq was a sovereign country before the war started, with languages, cultures, and predominant religions that differed significantly from those of the United States.

2) The invasion of Iraq was very much a war of choice, engaged in despite the opposition of most of the world; attempts to paint it as a defensive or preemptive war of necessity turned out to be based on lies.

3) White Southerners and Northerners shared strong familial and cultural ties, and were almost immediately able to reconcile on the basis of their common whiteness.

4) The social and cultural differences between Iraq and its occupier are far greater than differences between North and South during the U.S. Reconstruction (no matter what Southerners or Yankees might say).

5) Unlike Saddam Hussein, who possessed virtually no ability to project his power beyond Iraq’s borders (or even into northern and, in some cases, southern Iraq), the slaveocracy was in fact a malignant and growing force, attempting to spread into the west, upper Midwest, and even the Caribbean; the slave states maintained disproportionate power in Congress, and extended their system into the free states via the Fugitive Slave Act.

6) As oppressive as the Baathist regime was, there was no real equivalent in Iraq to the human exploitation, degradation, and suffering caused by American slavery, though one could argue that American moral culpability was similar to that of the North for slavery, due to U.S. support for Iraq in the 1980s.

Let me quote another passage from Ayers’s essay, which is instructive for anybody interested in Southern myths of white victimhood and the “Lost Cause,” and how these have seeped into the national consciousness at large:

Check out this post by Andrew Dobbs of Burnt Orange Report on how Texas Republicans treat the poor both as their “punching bag” and as “their personal ATM” (how versatile these poor folks are!):

Poor folks were the punching bag for frustrated Republicans all session. When they needed cash to make up for their proposed (and ultimately, failed) school finance/tax restructuring plan, they raised taxes on poor and middle class Texans. The less you made, the larger the tax increase so the Republican plan would have raised taxes a staggering 5-6%. And poor schools would have seen less money under the "equity" proposals than wealthy schools-- not just in dollars, but in percentage increase. This session could have been a disaster for the poor, but since the Republicans failed miserably in virtually all of their efforts they ended up coming out just beaten and not bludgeoned to death.

In the wake of the cross burnings that marred Durham last week, there is going to be a city-wide Unity Rally on Sunday, June 5th at 4 pm. The location is still being finalized. The rally is being put on by the Durham Human Relations Commission. We'll keep you posted as we learn more details.

As for the crime itself, the Durham People's Alliance -- a city-wide progressive advocacy group -- has stepped up to offer a $1,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest (I guess city officials hadn't done it already?).

As the same news story notes, the national KKK has denied involvement (of course), which has led some to continue speculating about whether they were really involved, or if this was an isolated "prank." But as Rev. George Allison noted,

"Crosses are not burned for a prank or recreation. They are burned to send a message," he said. "It is a message of hate. It is a message of lack of tolerance. ... Maybe the [Ku Klux] Klan is not responsible. We don't know. But whoever did it was trying to get a reaction from the community."

We’re back from the Memorial Day weekend, luckily without any new cross burnings to report.

I do have one quick thing: the Greensboro Truth and Reconcilation Commission, which we’ve mentioned once or twice, has its own blog. They’re not posting regularly, but some posts have drawn a good number of comments, ranging from supportive to hostile, rather ignorant to deeply knowledgeable. If you’re not familiar with the issues, it will give a good idea of the various viewpoints involved.

As we sign off the Memorial Day weekend, here's wishing you a good holiday. We also remember the 1,654 U.S. troops and 180 troops from other "coalition" countries killed in the Iraq tragedy, as well as the tens of thousands of Iraqi dead.

It's offical: David Wilkins, Speaker of the South Carolina House, has been confirmed as U.S. Ambassador to Canada, a country with which the U.S. supposedly has a "deep, close and enduring relationship."

Although it's hard to imagine someone worse than Bush's previous rep to Canada, the abrasive Paul Cellucci, Canadians like this poster at DKos are underwhelmed by the decision: "David who?"

As the Canadian press wryly notes, Wilkins appears to be lacking in credentials:

Canada will be new territory for Wilkins. His first and only trip there was in the 1970s when he was in the army Reserve. Wilkins also doesn't speak French, although he did take three years of the language in college ... He is preparing for his job by "reading a lot of materials and getting briefed by a lot of smart people in the State Department."

Nothing like on-the-fly international diplomacy -- it's worked so well elsewhere.

It also appears that Wilkins' nomination process was something less than rigorous: although news accounts point to a "screening" conducted by Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which he was "quizzed on trade, border access and other security issues," I doubt Wilkins sweated the ordeal:

Mr. Wilkins arrived at Room 419 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to find Mr. Coleman was the lone interrogator, sitting at a table full of empty chairs. His hearing was bundled together with those for diplomatic nominees to Latin American outposts like Panama, Ecuador, Belize, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

And while Canada is the United States's largest trading partner and a frequent target of U.S. criticism over border security, Mr. Wilkins faced less than seven minutes of perfunctory questions about the Canadian job before being excused.

So where did they find this Wilkins character? Apparently in Bush's "political favors" rolodex:

While Mr. Wilkins lacks specific expertise on Canada, supporters said his strength is a strong personal relationship with Mr. Bush. The South Carolina lawmaker was instrumental in helping Mr. Bush secure his state's backing in the 2000 Republican primaries.

Nothing but the best for our "deep, close and enduring" friends.

A couple smaller points I didn't make in my last post about the Durham cross burnings, because that post was getting way too long:

*** I did a short interview with Good Morning America last night. One of the questions they asked was, "was this really the work of the KKK?" I answered that whether or not this was some official plan hatched in klavern headquarters was beside the point. I talked to someone this morning whose son works for the Durham Police Department, and they still don't know if this was an "official" KKK action. But the fact remains that someone or some people out there, either because they thought it was funny or because they thought it was a good idea, decided that associating their work with the Klan was a good idea, and that's all that matters.

*** I think Pam Spaulding is right-on in speculating that anti-gay bigotry was just as much a factor in the burnings as racism. St. Luke's Episcopal Church, where one of the crosses was burned, is known as a gay-accepting church, which is why it was recently picketed by Fred Phelps and the detestable Westboro Baptist Church. The flyers left behind by the cross-burners targeted "gang bangers," so there's reason to focus on the racial aspect, but -- unlike some progressives -- I think the hate-mongers see a clear connection between anti-gay and racist bigotry.

I made a brief stop at vigil in downtown Durham, site of one of the three cross-burnings that scarred our city Wednesday night (couldn't stay long, the kids were really cranky). Somehow I missed Pam Spaulding, who was also there and gives a good run-down on the vigils here.

The mood was alternately somber and defiant; there was also a spirit of good will that the community was coming together. Many of those who came up to speak were saddened but not really shocked, which has been the dominant media theme: "how could this happen here, and now?"

My view? Given the current social climate, it's a wonder these things don't happen more often.

You may have noticed that North Carolina has become something of ground zero for wingnuts lately. Consider this (incomplete) sampling of news items over the last few months:

*** Last December, it was revealed that Cary Christian School was using as a textbook "Southern Slavery, As It Was," which gives a biblical justification for slavery and claims enslaved African-Americans enjoyed "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures."

*** In early May of this year, a church in Waynesville voted out nine of its members because they refused to "repent their sin" of not voting for President Bush. After controversy flared, the Associated Press reported that the minister says "he'll do it again because he has to according to the word of God."

*** Later in May, Danieltown Baptist Church in Rutherford County displayed a sign outside its church declaring that "The Koran Needs to be Flushed!" Seema Riley, a Pakistani woman who moved to Rutherford County, observed that the church's actions created a "hostile environment."

But, you might say, these are just the antics of local yocals and the extreme fringe, right?

How the Texas legislature became the fine deliberative body it is today. From the Associated Press (via truthout):

The treasurer of a political committee formed by US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay violated Texas election code by not reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, a judge ruled Thursday in a civil case brought by Democratic candidates.

State District Judge Joe Hart, in a letter outlining his ruling to attorneys in the case, said the money, much of it corporate contributions, should have been reported to the Texas Ethics Commission.

The ruling means Bill Ceverha, treasurer of the group, called the Texans for a Republican Majority political action committee, will have to pay nearly $200,000. It will be divided among those who brought the suit against Ceverha, five Democratic candidates who lost legislative races in 2002.

The Democrats who sued TRMPAC claimed Ceverha violated the state election law, designed to keep elections free from "the taint of corporate cash."

The Democrats alleged that some $600,000 in corporate money was illegally used to influence Texas House races in 2002, the year Republicans won control of the House for the first time in 130 years.

Continuing with the theme of atavistic racist behavior: this goes back a few years, but Rex Chapman, one-time “Boy King of Kentucky,” has recently been giving interviews about some less savory aspects of his basketball career with the Wildcats in the 1980s. The main reason he left for the NBA draft after only two years was because the athletic department was pressuring this “Great White Hope” to stop dating African-American women. And it wasn’t just the administration. From the Louisville Courier-Journal:

“I went down to my car one morning and somebody had keyed ‘nigger lover’ into the door,” Chapman said. “It’s the climate of how things were. People were bothered by the fact that sometimes I dated black girls. Most preferred that I keep it confidential and hide it.”

[…]

On one hand, Chapman said he was the object of adulation from fans and students. Lexington was referred to as Rexington. A group of students staged a campaign to elect Chapman as president of the Student Government Association. Women wore T-shirts that read, “I love Rex.”

At the same time, vandals scarred his car, Chapman was the subject of obscene jokes and somebody who didn’t appreciate his interracial dating called his mother in the middle of the night, he said.

Nice. Chapman says he has seen the effects of racism throughout his life, in his hometown of Owensboro, Ky., for example, where most of his friends were African-American, or at his first NBA stop in Charlotte, N.C.

Sometimes, despite everything you think you know about progress, human decency, the New South, and all that, the history we so often want to forget slouches rudely into the open. Last night, for the first time in recent memory, the Institute’s hometown, Durham, North Carolina, was the site of three cross-burnings.

I’d like to think some dumb old boys got to drinking or nibbling on the kudzu, and this won’t amount to anything. There doesn’t appear to have been any warning, and white supremacists don’t usually exhibit themselves so aggressively in this liberal, half-African-American city. But one of the targets, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, had recently been picketed by the infamous Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps (of Topeka, Kansas) and his weird clan of homophobes as part of his campaign against a performance of “The Laramie Project” at the Durham School of the Arts.

From the Durham Herald-Sun:

Burning a cross without the permission of the property owner is a misdemeanor in North Carolina. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that, under the First Amendment, cross burning could be barred only when done with the intent to intimidate.

I’m curious: under what circumstances would burning a cross – anywhere – not be considered an attempt to intimidate somebody?

Also see what Pam Spaulding has to say about this over at Pam’s House Blend.

UPDATE 2 P.M.: There will be three community vigils tonight (Thursday) in Durham -- see the comments for details. There will also be an emergency community response meeting at the Mad Hatter Bakery in Durham (corner of Broad and Main streets) at 8 am Friday morning to discuss next steps. -- CK

Readers of Facing South may not know this, but today is a special day on the far-right evangelical circuit. It was on this day 25 years ago -- May 25, 1980 -- that the legendary Oral Roberts claims to have come face-to-face with Jesus in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

And not just any Jesus, mind you -- the Savior described by Roberts (in a fundraising letter, of course) was 900 feet tall. The following is one account of this "miracle," which was widely criticized by fundamentalist Christians who maintain that God speaks to humans today only through the Holy Scripture:

The letter which triggered the most resounding outburst of public ridicule and criticism [to that time] was a September 1980 description of Oral's vision of a 900-foot-tall Jesus. Roberts reported that late on the afternoon of May 25, he stood looking at the unfinished skeleton of the City of Faith, distraught over his financial difficulties, when "suddenly an unusual feeling swept over me":

"I felt an overwhelming holy presence all around me. When I opened my eyes, there He stood ... some 900 feet tall, looking at me ... He stood a full 300 feet taller than the 600-foot-tall City of Faith. There I was face to face with Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. I have only seen Jesus once before, but here I was face to face with the King of kings. He reached down, put his Hands under the City of Faith, lifted it, and said to me, 'See how easy it is for Me to lift it!'"

Oral recalled that his eyes filled with tears, and Jesus assured him that He would speak to the ministry's part ners and that the City of Faith would be finished.

Southern history buffs should definitely check out Institute friend Judy Richardson's documentary "Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters," which will premiere on the History Channel tomorrow, May 26, from 8-10 p.m. The film offers a look into the world of slave policing -- "enforced by militia, armed community slave patrols, paid slave catchers, and federal law" -- as well as the ingenuity of slave resistance.

As the film's press release points out, the documentary gives vivid stories that debunk the idea that African Americans passively suffered oppression:

While the stories show the brutality of the slave system, they also reveal another, often-overlooked side of the history -- the strength and ingenuity of the enslaved. As historian Peter Wood observes, “Would they [the enslaved] go willingly into a situation of perpetual racial servitude? No way!”

In the South, we portray slave hunters and their bloodhounds, who sometimes lost against the intelligence and fight-to-the-death courage of the enslaved. And in the North, we show slave catchers who were sometimes blocked by an organized – and armed -- black community. Historian James O. Horton comments: “Boston is not a safe place for slave catchers to operate… Blacks – and sometimes whites – formed as groups to protect fugitives.”

Even in the South, plantations were like pressure cookers. Sometimes they exploded into full-scale rebellions -- like the 1739 Stono Rebellion in South Carolina or the 1831 rebellion led by Nat Turner in Virginia.

However ... the main problem for slave owners was not rebellion, but runaways. Historian Loren Schweninger notes, “A minimum number of slaves per year that ran away was 50,000 and probably many more... It was almost routine.” Most ran simply to be reunited with family members who’d been sold away.

Judy, whose activism started with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s, is a Senior Producer at Northern Light Productions. Definitely worth seeing.

Are you a progressive Southern blogger? Know of a good blog operating from the Southland? As mentioned here last week and in an announcement in DKos today, here at the Institute we're making a first stab at compiling a list of progressive Southerners in the blogosphere.

Nominations are welcome in the comments below or by writing to us here.

Southern progressive bloggers unite!

In 1963, historian Howard Zinn was fired from Spelman College, where he was chair of the History Department, because of his involvement in the black freedom movement. This year, he was honored by the school and invited to give the commencement address. Although his history scholarship is considered too "light" for most academics, I've always loved Zinn's ability to tell the story of our country's hidden progressive history in a plain and accessible way. He also takes the long-term view, and is an eternal optimist -- a great uplifting read when I'm wondering if fundamental change is possible. Here is the text of his speech at Spelman, given on May 15, 2005.

I am deeply honored to be invited back to Spelman after forty-two years. I would like to thank the faculty and trustees who voted to invite me, and especially your president, Dr. Beverly Tatum. And it is a special privilege to be here with Diahann Carroll and Virginia Davis Floyd.

But this is your day -- the students graduating today. It's a happy day for you and your families. I know you have your own hopes for the future, so it may be a little presumptuous for me to tell you what hopes I have for you, but they are exactly the same ones that I have for my grandchildren.

My first hope is that you will not be too discouraged by the way the world looks at this moment. It is easy to be discouraged, because our nation is at war -- still another war, war after war -- and our government seems determined to expand its empire even if it costs the lives of tens of thousands of human beings. There is poverty in this country, and homelessness, and people without health care, and crowded classrooms, but our government, which has trillions of dollars to spend, is spending its wealth on war. There are a billion people in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East who need clean water and medicine to deal with malaria and tuberculosis and AIDS, but our government, which has thousands of nuclear weapons, is experimenting with even more deadly nuclear weapons. Yes, it is easy to be discouraged by all that.

But let me tell you why, in spite of what I have just described, you must not be discouraged.

Both the Birmingham News and Raleigh News and Observer are running good series on how lax trucking regulations are damaging highways and endangering motorists in their respective states. The latest Birmingham News piece starts this way:

By the time Julius Blackwell saw the truck coming, it was too late.

He and other workers heard the tires squeal while they were trying to remove a tree from a power line off Alabama 89 in Wilcox County. When they looked up, the big truck loaded with logs had left the road and was barreling toward them. They scattered.

Blackwell didn’t make it. He died that morning, just before 10 o’clock on Feb. 10, 2003.

The log truck that killed Blackwell should not have been on the road, troopers learned later. They listed “inefficient braking power” as one of the causes of the accident, and found that the truck should have been pulled off the road sooner because it had suspension problems and bad tires and the driver had a suspended license.

Thousands of big trucks travel Alabama’s highways with bad brakes, bad tires and bad drivers, according to a Birmingham News analysis of federal inspection records. Many of those dangerous trucks in recent years have been involved in accidents that have killed hundreds, injured thousands and cost millions in highway repairs.

So it seems that the answer to the epidemic of binge-drinking among teenagers and college kids is, literally, all around us, at least if you live in the South. According to the AP (via the Birmingham News), a Harvard researcher has discovered that pills made from kudzu, “that ubiquitous vine,” can reduce the desire for alcohol. Apparently anecdotal evidence from China has suggested this effect for a while, and a 2003 study at the University of North Carolina found a similar phenomenon in rats, but now its efficacy in human, college-age drinkers has been definitively established.

It is, however, pretty funny that the story has been given an anti-alcoholic spin. As it turns out, the reason kudzu pills make you want fewer beers is that they increase blood alcohol levels, making you feel the effects of inebriation after fewer drinks than it would ordinarily take. That’s right – kudzu makes you drunk faster, which somehow doesn’t seem like such good news for the forces of temperance.

Kudzu, normally seen as an invasive nuisance, does have its uses (and an “amazing story”), but this seems to open up new avenues.

Perhaps we can look forward to a new Southern tourist industry based on picturesque kudzu vineyards and relaxing weekend leaf-tasting tours for bourgeois vacationers.

Or maybe a darker future awaits us. Instead of sniffing glue, will juvenile delinquents hang around chewing kudzu leaves? How long before the rural South teems with kudzu-pill-making labs, our inner cities with smoky, crime-infested kudzu dens inhabited by the lost and desperate?

Also: how does one get picked as a subject for one of these experiments?

Researcher Scott Lukas, with Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, had no trouble finding volunteers for the study, which required them to hang out in an “apartment” complete with television, recliner and fridge stocked with beer. This apartment-style laboratory was set up in the hospital, and the volunteers were told to spend a 90-minute session drinking beer and watching TV.

Those who took kudzu pills drank an average of 1.8 beers per session, compared with the 3.5 beers consumed by those who took a placebo.

The Texas legislature isn’t all bad; in what the San Antonio News-Express (reg req’d) called “a stunning rejection of the Republican leadership’s wishes,” a bill to establish one of the most extensive school vouchers system in the country was just defeated. The News-Express quoted Republican legislator Carter Casteel (New Braunfels) on her opposition to vouchers:

“We are not funding textbooks for schools. How on earth can we fund a program like this?” she charged in an emotional discussion that several times turned into a screaming match with fellow Republicans who favored the bill.

“This might send me home,” she said, referring to possible opposition from within her party next election cycle, “but our job here is to throw a lifeline to schoolchildren, not some of them, but all of the schoolchildren of Texas, and we have failed to do that.”

Yesterday's New York Times had a good piece about an important court battle developing over Custer Battles, the scandal-ridden company in Virginia that was contracted to provide security in Iraq. The first few paragraphs tell the story:

To its accusers, the security company Custer Battles exemplifies corporate profiteering in post invasion Iraq , when officials were pumping out hastily written contracts for everything from air conditioners to armed guards.

In a lawsuit now in federal court, two former associates of the company say it bilked the American-led coalition out of millions, turning in hugely inflated invoices from phantom supplier companies among other misdeeds. If successful, the suit, brought under the False Claims Act, could recover triple damages for the government and handsome rewards for the whistle-blowers.

Custer Battles has denied wrongdoing and the accusation remains to be proved. But before a trial can proceed at all - before any company can be sued for fraud in the chaos of occupied Iraq - a federal judge in Virginia must issue another, more basic ruling that is now anxiously awaited by the company, its accusers and the Justice Department.

Lawyers for Custer Battles argue that the False Claims Act -- the prime legal tool against contractor fraud -- does not apply because the company signed contracts with the Coalition Provisional Authority, not the American government, and was mainly paid with Iraqi money seized or managed by the United States, rather than with money appropriated by Congress.

Lawyers for the whistle-blowers and the Justice Department argue that the law does apply. All sides agree that the case will set a precedent and that the stakes are high, and not only for Custer Battles.

Stay tuned -- this ruling could affect the entire landscape of profiteering corporations in Iraq.

The Houston Chronicle ran an important news story yesterday, which reported the encouraging news that "Death sentences are at the lowest point since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976," including states in "the venerable Southern 'death belt."

Even in Texas, home to the nation’s busiest execution chamber and terra non grata for death-penalty opponents, the trend is pronounced. Since 1999, its yearly tally of the condemned has sunk from 48 to 23.

As eye-opening as those numbers may be, they are more dramatic elsewhere. North Carolina has dropped from 24 death sentences in 1999 to three last year. Florida, which once rivaled Texas in its taste for the death penalty, dipped from 25 in 1998 to eight in 2004.

The article runs through a few theories for the decline -- which has been national in scope -- and one in particular stood out: capital defendents are getting better representation in court.

Capital defense lawyers are better-trained and have more resources than in the past. States across the country, especially in the South, have been relentlessly criticized by death-penalty opponents, national media and sometimes federal judges for the quality of representation given to capital defendants. Numerous jurisdictions, both county and state, have responded with higher standards and more resources. Georgia, for instance, recently opened a statewide public defender program for death-penalty cases.

“The quality of defense lawyering is much better,” said Stephen Bright, a nationally known Atlanta defense lawyer, author and death-penalty opponent. “Georgia went away from a system where local judges appointed local lawyers, and many of those lawyers were unqualified. Instead of just any local yokel who happens to have a bar card, it will now be somebody who has experience and is trained and knows how to investigate a case and put on mitigating evidence.”

North Carolina also created a statewide indigent-defense system in 2001. The head of its capital section, Robert Hurley, said it is a big reason that death sentences are down there, along with a new state law that gave prosecutors more discretion in pursuing death sentences.

This is a clear case where relentless progressive advocacy has paid off, and has resulted in a more humane and fair justice system.

Yesterday's Tampa Tribune brought more news of tragedy from the disaster in Iraq:

Andrea Pringle had been busy planning a party. Her 22-year-old son, Antwan Walker, was coming home to celebrate his birthday after serving a year in Iraq.

"Coming home - that was all he could talk about," Pringle said.

On Thursday, Pringle got a call from her brother. He said there was a man at her house who needed to talk to her. In that moment, she knew.

Pringle said an Army representative told her that her son, an Army sergeant, had been killed the previous day by a bomb blast in Ramadi.

Walker called his family from Iraq often but didn't want to talk about war. Instead, he talked about coming home to start a career in real estate. He constantly reminded his mother to make sure his beloved Chevrolet Tahoe would be ready to drive when he returned. But mostly, Walker talked about his three children, who he had raised alone after his divorce. Walker's parents and aunts helped while Walker was overseas.

"He was such a good dad," Pringle said. "All he wanted to do was make a good life for his kids."

Pringle said telling Walker's children about their father's death has been the most difficult part of the past few days. She said Walker's 2-year-old twins, Antwan Jr., and Antwannaja, are too young to understand, but 4-year-old Antwanette knows her dad isn't coming home.

This experience, coupled with the lack of any convincing strategy for success in Iraq coming out the Pentagon, is pushing the U.S. towards what DKos and others note is the military's worst nightmare: the "hollow army," a military that is extensively deployed but losing the personnel to carry out the imperial dreams of the leaders.

As of December 2004, over 5,000 enlistees had already deserted. And yesterday's Los Angeles Times points to a growing problem in the officer corp:

With thousands of soldiers currently on their second combat deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan and some preparing for their third this fall, evidence is mounting that an exodus of young Army officers may be looming on the horizon [...]

Last year, Army lieutenants and captains left the service at an annual rate of 8.7% — the highest since 2001. Pentagon officials say they expect the attrition rate to improve slightly this year. Yet interviews with several dozen military officers revealed an undercurrent of discontent within the Army's young officer corps that the Pentagon's statistics do not yet capture.

As we've noted often before, this is an especially big issue in the South, where over 40% of our country's troops hail from, and where over 50% are based.

As Bob Herbert asks in today's New York Times, "How does Donald Rumsfeld survive as defense secretary?" And deeper than that, when will it dawn on the Washington establishment that they are deep into a crisis of their own making?

This may or may not become a regular feature (and no offense intended to our vegetarian readership), but I have to put in a plug for my friend JoAnn Wypijewski's recent excellent survey of the BBQ fare and social scene in Lockhart, Texas -- "Barbecue Capital of Texas." Just reading it makes me want to pop down to Durham's own Q-Shack.

And if you're wondering "why a post about BBQ?" here's an introductory thought on the subject, from Southern Food by John Egerton (also the author of Speak Now Against the Day, the definitive history of Southern progressive politics before the civil rights movement):

For as long as there has been a South, and people who think of themselves as Southerners, food has been central to the region's image, its personality and its character . . . . Accents and attitudes and life-styles may change, but fondness for Southern food persists; for many people it lingers in the mind and on the tongue as vividly as the tantalizing aroma of barbecue on the pit hangs in the air and penetrates to the core of thought and remembrance.

Bon appetit, y'all.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We are pleased to welcome David Fellerath, one of our favorite movie critics who is based at our fabulous local Independent Weekly. Below is his first installment of what we hope is a regular feature at Facing South: “Friday Film Blogging.” Take it away David ...

In most cultures, even ours, Friday nights mean new movies. Thanks to a half-dozen art houses, several universities and more multiplexes than you can shake a fist at, there are always alternatives to the Blockbuster of the Week. At the invitation of the Institute for Southern Studies, I’ll be posting on Fridays about movies worth catching, and I’ll try to draw attention to films that lack the marketing budget of say, Revenge of the Sith.

Still, Revenge of the Sith is a good place to start. I’m no fan of the series – like a lot of people, I blame George Lucas (and Steven Spielberg) for the demise of the New Hollywood of the late 1960s and early 1970s. With the release of Jaws and Star Wars, the era of Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown and The Godfather came to a crashing halt.

The aesthetic influence of Jaws and Star Wars is obvious, of course, but they were also revolutionary in the marketplace. Jaws was the first movie to get open nationwide on a single date, in an effort to create a National Event and to make the advertising dollars operate as efficiently as possible. And now, opening weekend box office numbers – once the sole province of the green eyeshade men – are the stuff of common conversation and hype-building.

But, enough of the ritual breastbeating of the purist.

The media has so far only given a passing glance to the major report issued this week by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security about misuse of FEMA money in the wake of Florida's 2004 hurricanes.

That's too bad, because the stinging report -- which was inspired by excellent investigative coverage in the Florida Sun-Sentinel -- opens a window the way politics has plagued "natural disasters" policy for years, affecting millions of people. Among the agency's findings, as reported in the Washington Post yesterday:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency made $31 million in questionable payments to residents of Miami-Dade County for damage from Hurricane Frances last September even though the storm caused only minimal damage in that area of Florida, government investigators said yesterday.

More than $8 million of that amount was given to 4,300 people to rent temporary housing even though they had not asked for the money, and in many cases their homes were almost completely undamaged by the storm.

FEMA paid to replace thousands of televisions, air conditioners, beds and other furniture, as well as a number of cars, without receipts, or proof of ownership or damage, and based solely on verbal statements by the residents, sometimes made in fleeting encounters at fast-food restaurants.

Most news stories about FEMA's loose purse in Florida have played the "inefficient government" angle, but the real story is the politics:

Greetings Facing South readers, especially new readers coming in from DKos, CounterPunch, Cursor and elsewhere. We're glad to have you here at the blog of the Institute for Southern Studies, a progressive research, education and action center.

A few odds and ends for our fans, old and new:

Facing South (The Newsletter): We've had some technical headaches with our listmailer program for the Facing South newsletter. Hope to get it sorted out soon. (If anyone knows of some great open source listmailer software, let us know!)

BlogAds: Yep, we're selling out and hosting ads. So if you want to reach thousands of progressive Southerners and South-watchers about your event/book/product/etc., look for the ad space that will be opening up here soon.

Calling Southern Bloggers: As part of our efforts to build progressive community in the South, we're making a first stab at generating a list of Southerners in the progressive blogosphere. So if you're based in a Southern state or have other solid Southern credentials (please explain!), send us a link and 1-2 sentences describing your blog.

Keep your eyes on the prize.

Last week, we gave you the run-down on the Correctional Corporation of America and their plans to build the world's largest privatized, for-profit jail and "penal farm" in Shelby County, Tennessee.

In addition to putting a huge jail in the hands of a corporations with a scandalous record, the move by the majority-white county commission also puts 1,500 jobs at risk -- mostly African-American members of AFSCME Local 1733, the same union Martin Luther King, Jr. was marching with when he was shot in Memphis in 1968.

Our friends at Grassroots Leadership are leading up the fight to stop the for-profit jail, and need your help. They're calling on everyone to write to the Shelby County Commission, and tell them that people all over the country don't want to see Memphis create the largest for-profit jail in the world.

Write your letters to:

Michael Hooks, Chair of the Shelby County Commission: mhooks@co.shelby.tn.us

Also cc your letter to:

Commissioner Walter Lee Bailey, Jr.: wbailey@co.shelby.tn.us
Gail Tyree, Grassroots Leadership Organizer: gtyree@grassrootsleadership.org

For more about the Shelby County case and CCA's dubious track record, read this excellent overview by Si Kahn of Grassroots Leaderhip.

Yesterday we brought attention to a news clip about protests at Halliburton's annual shareholder's meeting in Houston, which included the startling news that the energy services giant and military contractor was considering leaving Iraq. Here's what the original news from the Houston Chronicle said:

Dave Lesar, Halliburton's chief executive officer, told reporters this morning that the company is considering whether to withdraw from Iraq but for now remains committed to supporting America's efforts in Iraq. He declined to comment on Washington's investigations into Halliburton's billing practices.

However, as reader MT alerts us, the story has now been re-written:

Halliburton Chief Executive Dave Lesar told reporters after the meeting -- which was closed to the media -- that the company's still evaluating a contract to rebuild southern Iraq's oil industry. That rebuilding contract, however, won't affect Halliburton's larger contract to provide meals, shelter, and other support to the troops. "We are committed to see that contract through," he said.

But that's not in line with what the Associated Press reported yesterday, a story they're still sticking with:

Dave Lesar, Halliburton's chairman and chief executive, said after the meeting that Halliburton "is still evaluating" how to separate KBR from the parent company.

As Facing South reporter Jordan Green showed when he first broke the story about Halliburton's war profiteering three years ago, KBR is the Halliburton subsidiary that landed the lucrative no-bid "LOGCAP" contract in 2001 for "logistical support" to the troops. This contract covers, in the words of Reuters, "food and laundry services, trash collection, mail delivery, and other support services." The contract has netted KBR over $7 billion so far, and they are slated to receive $1.5 billion more despite evidence of rampant abuse, fraud and cost-overruns.

So which is it: has Halliburton decided to completely pull out, and is now leaning on reporters to change the story to avoid the public relations fiasco of being viewed as a "get rich and run" mercenary? Or are they just giving up on the Iraq oil business, which due to ongoing violence hasn't turned out to be quite the profit center they had envisioned? Stay tuned.

UPDATE 5/19/05 3:08 PM: In a separate story about the Halliburton shareholders meeting, the Houston Chronicle confirms that "the company is still evaluating a contract to rebuild southern Iraq's oil industry" and "the company also continues to examine when would be a good time to sell or spin off its subsidiary KBR." In other words, Halliburton is reconsidering both its oil contract and its logistics contract (which is carried out by KBR). Also, we should point out that Halliburton has been talking about selling off or similarly stepping back from its KBR subsidiary since last September.

As we reported this morning, Halliburton held its annual shareholders meeting in Houston today. The Houston Chronicle provides an update on the protests that ensued:

About 250 people protesting Halliburton's involvement in Iraq marched, danced and screamed today around the downtown hotel where the Houston company's annual meeting was being held.

Police said 15 protesters were arrested, including seven who dressed in business attire, snuck into the Four Seasons hotel and chained themselves to a stairwell and other fixtures to block entry to the meeting.

But down in the seventh paragraph of the Chronicle story, we learn a very interesting piece of information:

Dave Lesar, Halliburton's chief executive officer, told reporters this morning that the company is considering whether to withdraw from Iraq but for now remains committed to supporting America's efforts in Iraq. He declined to comment on Washington's investigations into Halliburton's billing practices.

I guess the Iraq war was good enough when they were raking in $5-9 billion in contracts, but not so hot now that things have gotten a little dicey. So they might cut and run.

Who says mercenaries and war profiteers aren't patriotic?

Taking a page from the Pentagon’s Abu Ghraib playbook, BP Amoco has decided where the blame lies for the deadly March 23 blast at its Texas City refinery: with a few bad apples “low- and mid-level workers who it said were lax in following written company procedures during one of the most dangerous times in refinery operations.” According to the Houston Chronicle, some workers have been fired and more will follow. The plant’s manager has been placed on leave, but not as punishment; it’s just to enable him to participate full-time in the company’s investigation.

But not everybody accepts bungling workers as the only explanation. BP is, as Jordan at Confined Space reports, the