Dissident Mama, episode 43 – Gene Andrews

Gene Andrews is a retired high school history teacher who served as a combat officer with the 3rd Marine Division in Vietnam. He’s a former Commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) Tennessee Division and current caretaker of the Nathan Bedford Forrest boyhood home in Chapel Hill, Tennessee.

The rebel-proud gentleman talks about the September 18 reinterment of Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife Mary Ann Montgomery Forrest, an event being held at Elm Springs, SCV General Headquarters in Columbia, Tennessee. Andrews also myth-busts some Forrest history, both antebellum and postbellum, and tells us a little bit about himself as a former educator and military man, as well as his longtime defense of the Southern cause, which is still the same cause of all right-thinking people today … whether they know it or not.

“I loved the old government in 1861. I loved the old Constitution yet. I think it is the best government in the world, if administered as it was before the war. I do not hate it; I am opposing now only the radical revolutionists who are trying to destroy it. I believe that party to be composed, as I know it is in Tennessee, of the worst men on Gods earth men who would not hesitate at no crime, and who have only one object in view: to enrich themselves.” — Nathan Bedford Forrest

A few related links:

SCV.org to register for the Forrest reinterment (deadline August 31)
Bust Hell Wide Open: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest” by Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr.
A fairly balanced Tennessean article on Andrews published just days after the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which Andrews attended
My critique of the US military and its mistreatment of Southerners, “You don’t want us? We don’t want you!” and my interview with The Political Cesspool radio host and native Tennessean James Edwards in which he too discusses the brilliance of Forrest. In fact, it was Edwards who suggested Andrews as a possible guest for the DM podcast. So, thanks, James!

Download this episode, watch on YouTube, or listen here. 👇

Source: Dissident Mama – Dissident Mama, episode 43 – Gene Andrews

Flannery O’Connor & the Southern Soul

Today I share an essay by Walt Garlington, a Southron compatriot and fellow Orthodox Christian. It honors the repose one of Dixie’s best authors, Flannery O’Connor, who departed on August 3, 1964, at age 39. Despite her young age, O’Connor left indelible marks in the genres of both Southern Gothic and nonfiction works on faith. Garlington uses one of her writings as a launching point for analysis on the state of Dixie in post-Christian America.

“New South and Old South: Flannery O’Connor and the Healing of the Schism in the Southern Soul”
By Walt Garlington

The South has been at odds with herself since the end of The War. The old ways of a quiet Christian life with one’s kindred on the farm have been replaced more and more by the ever-changing life of modernity: fast-paced, uprooted, dominated by skepticism of traditional Christianity and yet firm faith in science. Miss Flannery O’Connor, one of Dixie’s great writers, has much to say about this in her short story, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” (The American Tradition in Literature).

The main symbol she uses is the character of Tom Shiftlet. One may see in him a picture of the after-War South, drifting toward Modernity: He is called “a tramp,” that is, one who has left his home, a wanderer. His very name suggests one whose life is unsettled. Furthermore, his left arm is maimed, suggestive of the grave, a collective wound inflicted on the South during the War.

“He seemed to be a young man but he had a look of composed dissatisfaction as if he understood life thoroughly.” Recalling Richard Weaver’s statement that the South “is the most educated” section in the Union because of her experiences in the War (“The Southern Tradition,” The Southern Essays of Richard M. Weaver), here is yet another token of Shiftlet as a symbol of the post-War South.

Looking at the story itself, as it opens, it is evening, and “the sun … appeared to be balancing itself on the peak of a small mountain.” The South after the War was given a choice: to continue the straight path, faithful to her forefathers and their inheritance, or to forsake this narrow way for the broad road of destruction, the way of the Northmen and their materialist American Dream. When Shiftlet turns toward the sunset and lifts up his arms so that “his figure formed a crooked cross,” we are given a glimpse of which path the South was to choose.

Ms. Lucynell Crater, the old woman whose house Shiftlet comes upon, together with her land and belongings and daughter, is an icon of the Old South. ” … [S]he had a man’s gray hat pulled down low over her head,” suggesting the grey of a Confederate uniform. She is unreconstructed. Her name, Crater, like Shiftlet, brings to mind an image, this time of a cataclysm that had left nothing of the time before its happening whole and unbroken.

It is also of great significance that the old woman’s daughter shares the same name as herself – Lucynell Crater. For the old woman represents the inheritance of the South as it was manifested before and during the War: plantations, chivalry, hierarchy, evangelical Christianity, and so on. Her daughter is the essence of the Southern tradition in seed form, the potentiality of the flourishing of the Southern life in new forms in days to come. She is thus portrayed by Miss O’Connor as deaf, mute, and very childlike, one who must be cultivated and nurtured before all the good traits present within her can be manifested. The South’s fatherwealth (patrimony) must likewise be lovingly tended for it to take root and blossom in the lives of new generations of Southerners.

But we mustn’t run too far ahead. Most everything about the elder Lucynell’s homestead points to the Old South in its post-War hardship and humility: the absent husband, Mr. Crater (killed in the War?), its description as “desolate” and a “plantation,” the elder Lucynell’s lack of teeth for the gum Shiftlet offers her.”

Despite Shiftlet’s rejection of his place in that land, he still shares some things in common with it. He scorns science before Ms. Lucynell for claiming it can explain the mysteries of the human heart: “Why, if he [‘one of these doctors in Atlanta’] was to take that knife and cut into every corner of it, he still wouldn’t know no more than you or me.” He likewise scorns a life lived merely for earing money: “‘Lady,’ he said slowly, ‘there’s some men that some things mean more to them than money.’ … He told the old woman then that all most people were interested in was money, but he asked what a man was made for. He asked her if a man was made for money, or what.”

Shortly after the War, there was still some agreement of the New South with the Old, Miss O’Connor seems to be saying, but confusion about the New South’s identity was early creeping in. Mr. Shiftlet introduces himself to the elder Lucynell as “Tom T. Shiftlet … from Tarwater, Tennessee” but then adds, “How you know my name ain’t Aaron Sparks … from Singleberry, Georgia, or George Speeds … from Lucy, Alabama, or … Thompson Bright from Toolafalls, Mississippi?”

“I don’t know nothing about you,” Ms. Crater answers prophetically. For even as he begins repairing the plantation, his eyes are drawn to Ms. Lucynell’s car: That is, the New South’s longing to join the Industrial Revolution, to be governed by science and technology and all the mammon-materialism that comes with them, rather than church and family, will now begin to be realized.

Howsobeit, the New South continued for a time its loyalty to the Old. Indeed, Shiftlet’s work fixing up Ms. Lucynell’s place is beginning to bring into the world those new forms of Southern life which yet have the same inner essence as the old forms, as is shown by his teaching the younger Lucynell to speak: “He … taught Lucynell, who was completely deaf and had never said a word in her life, to say the word ‘bird.’ The big rosy-faced girl followed him everywhere, saying ‘Burrttddt ddbirrrttdt,’ and clapping her hands.”

But just as these new forms are coming into being, Shiftlet makes his terrible choice: “‘Listen here, Mr. Shiftlet,’ she [Ms. Lucynell] said, sliding forward in her chair, ‘you’d be getting a permanent house and a deep well and the most innocent girl in the world.’”

” … then he said in an even voice, ‘Lady, a man is divided into parts, body and spirit.’”

“… ‘A body and a spirit,’ he repeated. ‘The body, lady, is like a house: it don’t go anywhere; but the spirit, lady, is like a automobile; always on the move, always …’”

“‘Listen, Mr. Shiftlet,’ she said, ‘my well never goes dry and my house is always warm in the winter and there’s no mortgage on a thing about this place … And yonder under that shed is a fine automobile.’”

“In the darkness, Mr. Shiftlet’s smile stretched like a weary snake waking up by a fire. After a second he recalled himself and said, ‘I’m only saying a man’s spirit means more to him than anything else. I would have to take my wife off for the week end without no regard at all for cost. I got to follow where my spirit says to go.’”

He goes through the outward motions of vowing lifelong loyalty to young Lucynell, but his heart is far from her. On their wedding day, “Mr. Shiftlet didn’t even look at her.” In just the same way, the folk of the after-War South did not leave their homeland, but were unfaithful to the ways of their forebears. They cast them aside very quickly, as Miss O’Connor shows us in Mr. Shiftlet’s disgraceful leaving of Lucynell asleep by herself at a diner far from home while he fares onward.

The full beauty of the Southern way of life, of Southern culture, has lain asleep, unwelcome within the borders of its own land, ever since: “The boy bent over and stared at the long pink-gold hair and the half-shut sleeping eyes. Then he looked up and stared at Mr. Shiftlet. ‘She looks like an angel of Gawd,’ he murmured.”

“‘Hitch-hiker,’ Mr. Shiftlet explained. ‘I can’t wait. I got to make Tuscaloosa.’”

“The boy bent over again and very carefully touched his finger to a strand of the golden hair and Mr. Shiftlet left.” Perhaps that is as close as many of the New South Southerners have come to partaking of the fullness of true Southern life, daring to touch only a small strand of the slandered whole: using a few Southern sayings like “cain’t” or “Ah reckon,” going hunting, having a family reunion. Faint echoes of the living words they have tried to forget.

Nevertheless, some good remains in the New South. Shiftlet keeps a mite of Southern chivalry by watching for hitch-hikers: “He felt too that a man with a car had a responsibility to others and he kept his eye out for a hitchhiker.” And he shows remorse for leaving his mother (the old ways of Southern life), saying to the hitch-hiker he has picked up: “‘My mother was an angel of Gawd,’ Mr. Shiftlet said in a very strained voice. ‘He took her from heaven and giver to me and I left her.’ His eyes were instantly clouded over with a mist of tears. The car was barely moving.”

But the boy hitch-hiker he is confessing to bespeaks the mindset of most New Southrons towards their past: “The boy turned angrily in the seat. ‘You go to the devil!’ he cried. ‘My old woman is a flea bag and yours is a stinking pole cat!’ and with that he flung the door open and jumped out with his suitcase into the ditch.”

Here at the end, the sky for the first time in the story has become cloudy and stormy; Shiftlet’s sorrow is not the “godly sorrow [that] worketh repentance unto salvation” (St Paul, II Corinthians 7:10, KJV). In the very act of praying for forgiveness, “Oh Lord!” he prayed. “Break forth and wash the slime from this earth!” he goes on his way towards the turmoil of the city, Mobile (Modern America, Babylon, Mammon), and away from the quiet, settled life of Ms. Lucynell’s farm (traditional Southern life): “After a few minutes there was a guffawing peal of thunder from behind and fantastic raindrops, like tin-can tops, crashed over the rear of Mr. Shiftlet’s car. Very quickly he stepped on the gas and with his stump sticking out the window he raced the galloping shower into Mobile.”

One of the besetting sins of Southerners has been a passion for money-getting. The Rev. Robert Lewis Dabney saw this as the reason for Gen. Jackson’s untimely death and the fall of the Confederacy (“Stonewall Jackson: Lecture,” Discussions by Robert Lewis Dabney, Vol IV.: Secular“).

Allen Tate saw it in the very beginning of the South (“Remarks on the Southern Religion,” I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition). One may even see it in Dixie’s Old English forefathers more than a thousand years ago. In one collection of Maxims, the Old English writer wrote, ” … treasure is dearest, gold to everyman” (Mark Atherton’s “Complete Old English”).

If the South is ever to calm this passion and become herself Christian, close to the land, honoring the past, etc. she will have to enter the spiritual hospital of the Orthodox Church. Both the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches were founded by mere men, not the God-man, and thus can direct the South only to worldly living.

Only in the Orthodox Church will the South find healing for her soul, true life in God the Most Holy Trinity, just as her forefathers and foremothers in England, Ireland, Africa, Scotland, Spain, and elsewhere did, and became truly themselves as individuals and as whole nations. The beauty of their lives is reflected in the beauty of the culture that grew out from them. First and foremost the holy saints monks and nuns, kings and hermits, missionaries and martyrs, farmers and soldiers but also churches and monasteries, lovely manuscripts and hand crafts, a wonderful literature.

The schism in the Southern soul that Miss O’Connor was so concerned about will only heal when the South turns away from the Great Schism of 1054 that tore Western Europe away from the Orthodox Church and doomed her and her offspring to worldliness: wars, money-lust, falling away from God, and such like. Then, with the help of God, we will see the true beauty of the South blossom, first in the lives of homeborn Southern saints, then in all the fruits that holy living will bring forth in the material world.

But first we must stop “rac[ing] the galloping shower into Mobile.”

Walt Garlington is a chemical engineer turned writer and editor of the website Confiteri: A Southern Perspective. This Orthodox convert of 8 years makes his home in Louisiana where he attends a GOA parish.

Source: Dissident Mama – Flannery O’Connor & the Southern Soul

Dissident Mama, episode 42 – Scott Howard

Scott Howard is the author of “The Transgender-Industrial Complex.” The native Nebraskan, whose first-ever book has been predictably banned by Amazon, uncovers the trans phenomenon by fleshing out its revolutionary foundations and wretched aims. Connecting the dots of the players and pawns, Howard demonstrates through impeccable research, and prose that is both advanced and accessible, that this is no warm-and-fuzzy grassroots movement, as its proponents would have you believe. Part historical analysis and part journalism, “The Transgender-Industrial Complex” is a wake-up call for those who have been sleeping their way toward servitude and annihilation, and, Lord willing, a call to action for resisting this evil psyop dead set on smashing childhood, family, and God.

Howard and I talk about how the personal is political, Big Gay and its societal sodomizing, weaponized “science,” the systemic revolution that preys upon the vulnerable, the scapegoating of the archetype, the totalitarian tool of identity-less-ness, the depathologizing of pedophilia, the Great Reset, and “the mother lode of wrong think”: noticing and frankly discussing patterns within the complex’s web of institutional advocates. This assault on truth, beauty, and goodness must be discussed honestly, so I say, hurt feelings and triggered sensibilities be damned. Too much is at stake in this existential war.

Also mentioned in our interview are “The Culture of Critique” by Kevin McDonald, Dennis Prager, and even Jamiroquai, who prophetically called this madness back in the ’90s. So, here’s to saying “No!” to censorship and gaslit social-engineering, and “Yes!” to intellectual inquiry and taking the hill.

Download this episode, watch on YouTube, or listen to the episode here 👇.

Source: Dissident Mama – Dissident Mama, episode 42 – Scott Howard

Dissident Mama, episode 41 – Rick Dirtwater

Rick Dirtwater, an alumnus of Virginia Military Institute and an occasional opinion writer for Identity Dixie, gives us a deep dive into the cultural genocide happening at the historic school, which used to be the proving ground for making modern cavaliers and gentlemen warriors. So, Dirtwater shares his personal experience with the former VMI ethos and its Spartan lifestyle of regimented training used to build men of strong character. Unfortunately (and predictably), the institution has finally fallen victim to the cancer of wokeness.

We discuss how the devolution has occurred, including the abolition of the “old corps” via SCOTUS’s United States v. Virginia some 25 years ago, “turncoat” Ralph Northam’s totalitarian reconstruction of the Old Dominion and its premiere military school, and the fourth-estate hit pieces insisting that the college has a “racist and sexist culture.” Whereas “Save the males” used to be the rallying cry around VMI, the progressive precept is now death by 1,000 cuts and you’d better damn like it. Such barbaric times leave little room for honor, which is precisely by design.

Download this episode, watch on YouTube, or listen to the episode here 👇.


Some further reading on VMI and Virginians’ roots as a martial and dutiful people:
• “Death of the American Prussia: Virginia” by Padraig Martin
• “Say ‘No’ From the Start” by Tom Shackleford
• “Stonewall Jackson and VMI” by H.V. Traywick, Jr.
• “‘Chesty’ Puller and the Southern Military Tradition” by Michael Martin
• “Pseudo Shame at VMI” and other related content by Phil Leigh
• “The Real VMI: A Little Meritocracy 1839-2021?” and three other VMI essays by Forrest L. Marion
• “Citizen Soldiers of Dixie” by Anonymous
• “Grit and Grace Are What We Need” by Dissident Mama

Source: Dissident Mama – Dissident Mama, episode 41 – Rick Dirtwater

Dissident Mama, episode 40 – Neil Kumar

Neil Kumar is a Republican candidate for U.S. Congress, representing Arkansas’s Third District. He is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and Sons of the American Revolution, with blood that has been Southern since the 17th century. Kumar, who is a graduate of the University of Chicago and a native Arkansan, has written for numerous publications, including the Abbeville Institute, American Renaissance, Identity Dixie, The Political Cesspool, Clyde Wilson’s Reckonin‘, and VDare.

Kumar and I talk about his ancestry, his “rightist” political awakening, and his Christian conversion, how whites have racially disarmed themselves, how the power-hungry left has pathologized whiteness, how too many Southerners are on the defensive (instead of on the offensive and rightfully taking command of the moral high ground), and how his bold congressional platform aims to remedy these very deep and dangerous problems.

With a degree in anthropology and now knee-deep in law school, one wouldn’t think that such a young man could be so common-sense and so wise. But Kumar is and his writing proves it.

Here are some of my favorites:
Reconstruction in Arkansas
All that is ugly, broken, and foul
An open letter to Walmart
White open spaces
John Brown’s body: A review of ‘The Secret Six’ by Otto Scott
You reap what you sow

Also mentioned in our conversation are my interview with Lauren Witzke and the progressive and predictable hack job inventing an SCV “leak” along with its gaslit “aggressive neo-Confederates” narrative. I say, damn straight we’re aggressive!

So, on this 158th anniversary of Pickett’s Charge (the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg, which waged from July 1-3, 1863), let’s consider Kumar’s message and his candidacy as a much-needed frontal assault against the undeniable Southern genocide, the pathologization of whiteness, the destruction of the family, and the mass proliferation of godlessness and globohomo. “Come on, boys! Give them the cold steel!”

Download this episode, watch our discussion on YouTube, or listen to the episode here 👇.

Source: Dissident Mama – Dissident Mama, episode 40 – Neil Kumar

Dissident Mama, episode 39 – Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo

Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo is a former professor of economics from Loyola University Maryland. DiLorenzo, who received his Ph.D. in economics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, is a member of the Senior Faculty of the Mises Institute, a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, and an Associate at the Abbeville Institute.

He is the author of numerous books, including “The Real Lincoln: A New Look a Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War,” “Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe,” “The Problem with Lincoln,” “Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution – and What It Means for Americans Today,” and “The Problem with Socialism,” and his articles have appeared in publications such as Public Choice, The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and USA Today. DiLorenzo and I discuss everything from Dishonest Abe, mercantilism, and libertarianism, to Juneteenth, Thomas Sowell, and cats.

Download this episode, watch our discussion on YouTube, or listen to the episode here 👇


A few links pertaining to our conversation:
• “Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government
• “How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, from the Pilgrims to the Present
The Abraham Lincoln Problem
Misesian Destructionism Then and Now
The Last Time the D.C. Establishment Labeled its Political Opposition as “Insurrectionists” (And How It Taught Them About “National Unity”)
• “Civil War, Volumes 1-3” by Shelby Foote
• “Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream” by Lerone Bennett Jr.

Source: Dissident Mama – Dissident Mama, episode 39 – Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo

“Remember”

With a rainbow-colored, black-power-fist emoji, Republicans like Texan John Cornyn lecture us that Juneteenth is “a history lesson that must be taught,” while libertarian Rand Paul offers up platitudes that Juneteenth is a celebration of “the inherent freedoms we share as Americans.” Man, do I feel the freedom, y’all!

Kristi Noem, a supposed hero of federalism, quotes the deceptive and deified Gettysburg Address, saying that “the new Juneteenth Holiday celebrates & honors Lincoln’s words.” Heritage Foundation president Kay C. James says it’s a “teachable moment” for our “exceptional nation.” Even typically common-sense pundits like Julie Borowski are adopting the leftist language of “enslavement” to virtue signal for the new holiday. Ugh, a flourishing vineyard America is not.

The fake nationalization of Juneteenth (an annual occasion with Texas-only roots), its rebranding for the uninformed masses, and its fictional aim at bettering race relations really is too much for a sane person to bear. Why even try to counter the cacophony of presentism surrounding this “celebration of nothing” or the sheer ignorance bubbling up from the cauldron of anti-white reactionaries? After all, the Twitter “experts” demand that Dishonest Abe’s Emancipation Proclamation “freed the slaves.” Get your history right, racists!

The politicians are so busy waxing ahistorical about how “free” we are today, even though the evil empire was codified through blood and fire in 1865 and will-to-power progressives (and their scalawag Republican henchmen) are increasingly creating a society in which my white, straight, Southern, gun-owning, homeschooled Christian sons are second-class citizens, that there’s really no point in challenging the disinformation campaign. Ben and Jerry’s will have a Juneteenth flavor filled with dark chocolate chips and absolutely zero vanilla, and by golly you will buy a pint and bend yet another knee, citizen.

So while the quislings stroke their own egos and set the stage for blacktivists and their allies to have Juneteenth replace the 4th of July as the celebration of American independence, let me take this opportunity to push back against this virulent puritanism by simply telling you about something so outrageously in opposition to the status quo that it warms my Carolina heart.

My friend Richard Hines owns an Anglican parish in a tiny town in South Carolina. Back in January, I had the honor of visiting this Palmetto State jewel for the annual Feast of St. Charles the Martyr. Besides being a Southern compatriot, Richard is also a fellow Orthodox Christian. He purchased the church, which was built in 1879, when it was in disrepair and has taken great care of the chapel, filling it with many heirloom items that represent both Eastern and Western Christianity, as well as the American Southland.

The Anglican altar above dates back to the 16th century, making it older than the States of North and South Carolina, explains Richard. But also housed inside his parish [Neo-Bolshevik Trigger Warning!] is a lovely Confederate Memorial Chapel.

Ironically, the useful idiot Macy Gray wants to push the “transformational” Juneteenth envelope by redesigning the US flag, but little does she know that Southern-without-apology folks have deemed Old Glory “divisive” since 1861. Like the song “I’m a Good Ol’ Rebel” (see bottom of this essay) boldly proclaims:

“I hates the glorious union
‘Tis dripping with our blood.
I hates the striped banner,
And fought it all I could.”

Many of us haven’t been pledging allegiance to its “incorrect” and “democratic” agitprop for a long time, and instead have been flying our own flags of home and heritage. We’ve already got our symbols, and they’ve never been more relevant. You can keep your “tired” and allegedly “representative” flag, Macy, but I will take some of those reparations.

Above: the Confederate Memorial Chapel features the Battle Flag, the SC Secession Flag, the Bonnie Blue Flag, and a bass relief of Robert E. Lee. After the blessing of the Confederate Dead, we sang the first verse of “Dixie” to honor filial piety. Below: The SC Sovereignty Flag and a graphic depicting some of the more well-known flags of the Confederate States of America.

Below: A print of the H.L. Hunley funeral which depicts the ghosts of the 8-man Confederate crew. My friend Paul C. Graham discusses (at the 7:20 mark) the significance of the historic 2004 event which changed his life from mild-mannered Southerner to good ol’ rebel.

The service was Anglican, of course, so as an Orthodox, I could not partake in communion. But I listened and watched intently, taking note of both the differences and similarities of our faiths, and learning more about the Christian heritage of Charles I for whom the Carolinas are named.

“Remember him whose name is thine,
that martyred King of Stuart’s line,
And give thine all to Love divine,
Carolina, Carolina.”
— Offertory Hymn

The Book Common of Prayer (BCP) was one of the prescriptions that Charles I insisted upon to try to keep conformity within English Christianity in both its liturgical practices and social manifestations.

Found on page 20 of the BCP is a prayer of St. John Chrysostom, who was a “golden-mouthed” giant to whom all Christian people’s owe their inheritance.

Orthodox Christians recite the the original Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which states that the Holy Spirit proceeds only “from the Father.” The “and the Son” verbiage is known as the Filioque and was added in by the Church of Rome in the 11th century and was “one of the major factors leading to the Great Schism between East and West.”

In part 2 of my Puritans series, I discuss how early New Englanders viewed “King Charles I as Pharaoh, the Atlantic Ocean as the Red Sea, America as the Promised Land, and Boston as the new Jerusalem.” And today’s reformers are just as zealous in their religiosity, but have unfortunately forgotten God in their march toward “progress.”

Richard has adorned the parish with beautiful iconography, such as “Christ the Pantocrator” and St. Nicholas II “New Martyr” of Russia.

The Gospel reading from that day was from Matthew 21: “Jesus saith unto them, ‘Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”

This Parable of the Vineyard means to us Orthodox that “until the Second Coming,” the Church will stand “as long as we are faithful and just as long as we understand Who the Master is and who is the servant, as long as we understand that this is a gift given to us for the working out of our salvation and the salvation of others. As long as we remember that, this vineyard will flourish.”

Sure, the mishmash history that makes up These United States doesn’t lead any honest person to really believe that “we” were ever a “Christian nation,” but there are certainly some Christian roots within our polity … depending on where you look.

Bishop Paul Hewitt, Anglican Church of North America, wore this French-made Cope dating back to the 18th century. He delivered the homily, which included some additional history on Charles I and some theological and cultural introspection.

“Homily for the Feast of St. Charles the Martyr”

Robert Bork hit the nail on the head with his title “Slouching Toward Gomorrah.” The slope from Christian civilization to paganism is gradual, and pagans still have a sense of virtue and vice. But the slide from paganism to barbarism is steep and slippery. For barbarians, the ultimate moral absolute is power. He who claws his way to the top determines who lives and who dies. His own will to power replaces the rule of law.

In the 1930’s in Germany, Pastor Martin Niemoehler helped start the Confessing Church movement to witness against the barbarian take over of Germany. He lamented how many clergy acted on expediency, as appeasers of the new regime. Only a few acted on principle, the principles elucidated in Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition … the ultimate principle of the Word of God, defending this no matter what the cost.

One commentator has written, “When we consider the state of our nation and our world, the overall ‘mystery of iniquity’ and its fallout, we might be prone to despair. Yet, as we know, this path has been traveled before — and that by our Saviour and saints throughout history.”

In the time of King Charles the First, the central issue was whether the Church of England was going to hold with its ancient Catholic heritage, keeping the Book of Common Prayer and maintaining the historic episcopate, or allow itself to be reduced to a radical protestant denomination. Charles was steadfast in his support of the Church, faithful to the mind of the ancient fathers of the undivided Church. He would shed his blood for this vital commitment.

To some extent Charles was a victim of circumstances partly of is own making. As with all of us, he was, to some extent, the carpenter of his own cross. But because he was a man of great virtue and Christian character, and because he sacrificed his life to defend the Church, he is rightly called a martyr. He died a holy death, with great dignity, forgiving his persecutors and murderers. There is no feast day for Oliver Cromwell, but there are multitudes who remember Charles Stuart the First every year, and seek to follow his example and profit from his prayers.

Today the central theological issue of our time is the Incarnation. Is Jesus God in the flesh or not? This is an even greater issue than Charles faced, because as we get closer to the End, the devil keeps upping the ante. If Jesus is God in the flesh, then He is King of kings and Lord of lords. If He is not, then He is an ethical teacher from Palestine, on a par with Buddha or Mohammed or Confucius.

If He is not God in the flesh, the divine Logos, and He is not Lord of our lives, we can write the rules as we go along. We can re-define human nature without reference to Him. We can redefine masculinity and femininity and the family and make them mean whatever we say they mean. We can say that God made mistakes when he made men and women the way He did, but today we know better and can correct God’s mistakes. We can say that an unborn child, or any life deemed to be inconvenient, is only human when we say it is. Charles was devoted to his wife and family, to the rule of law and to his incarnate Lord, and would be shocked to see our slouch toward Gomorrah.

“If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” — Matthew 16:24

As a New Englander, one of the many things I appreciate about the South is the attention still paid to the gracious life … the life of chivalry, courtesy and manners, exemplified to a high degree by our Patron. The life of courtesy ultimately derives from the court, the Court of the King of kings, the mystical Supper, the Holy Communion. The source of the gracious life is the torrent of grace flowing inexhaustibly from Jesus’ Body and Blood. The gracious life is the “you first” attitude. Our King puts us first. He pours out His life for us. He sheds His Blood for us. The pagan and barbarian gods and goddesses do the opposite. They demand our blood, in war, genocide, abortion and euthanasia. Charles, our Patron, followed the pattern of his King.

Charles was willing to shed his blood for the life of the Church and his subjects. He put God first, the Church second, England third, his family fourth, and himself, last. In the South, there tend to be more men who uphold virtue, and love of God and Country … There tend to be more women who are not trying to be men, or competing with men, but who love what God made them to be. We are all to love our place in the Kingdom of God, where Jesus is known as our Lord, and His Mother as our Lady, and men can learn to be lords, and women can learn to be ladies.

God honors those who honor Him, and the brave sacrifice of Charles the First is honored today more than ever. Our God is so amazing because He brings greater good out of evil, than if the evil had never occurred. Through His Son, our heavenly Father has brought greater good out of Adam and Eve’s fall, than if the fall had never occurred. Through Jesus’ Resurrection, the Father’s ultimate masterpiece, greater good is spread abroad in the Holy Ghost than if Jesus had never been crucified. Our God redeems it all. He redeemed the plight and the suffering of Charles the Martyr. He writes straight with crooked lines in our own lives. He is making all our sufferings resurrectional. In our Communions this morning we will receive the Food of Immortality, resurrection food, the seed of fire which over and over again unites us with Jesus’ mighty Resurrection and makes us partakers of heavenly gladness.

Charles believed all this with heart and soul, and so he was calm and dignified in death. Let us prepare to die as he did, with calm and steady faith, eager for the glory that awaits us. We can see our death as our heavenly birthday, and let God guide our last words. Our forbears attached great importance to the last words of a dying person. St. Catherine of Siena’s were, “God, I thank you for creating me.” Stonewall Jackson’s were, “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.” King Charles’ last utterance was one word, “Remember.”

Today Charles is in the perfect monarchy called Heaven. We will meet him there one day, and today, we sing the Sanctus with him. Heaven is governed by an infinitely perfect, infinitely just, infinitely loving, infinitely glorious Monarch, Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, the King of kings and Lord of lords. There are no parliaments in Heaven, no political parties, no polls, no bureaucracy, and no income tax. No one votes in Heaven. There, God is All in all, and we rejoice to grow forever in our capacity to receive and share the splendour of all He lavishes out, grace beyond grace, and glory beyond telling. Amen.

After the liturgical feast, visitors gathered outside for another feast of fellowship, mint juleps, and BBQ. In the yard beyond this very alive-and-kickin’ Battle Flag is where I met many compatriots, including my new friend Walter B. Curry, Jr.

Jefferson Davis understood Dixie’s Charles I connection and the scourge that is puritanical-progressivism. In 1862, he stated to his fellow Confederate countrymen:

“Our enemies are a traditionless and a homeless race; from the time of Cromwell to the present moment they have been disturbers of the peace of the world. Gathered together by Cromwell from the bogs and fens of the North of Ireland and of England, they commenced by disturbing the peace of their own country; they disturbed Holland, to which they fled, and they disturbed England on their return. They persecuted Catholics in England, and they hung Quakers and witches in America.

“Having been hurried into a war with a people so devoid of every mark of civilization you have no doubt wondered that I have not carried out the policy, which I had intended should be our policy, of fighting our battles on the fields of the enemy instead of suffering him to fight them on ours. This was not the result of my will, but of the power of the enemy.”

Non incautus futuri (“Be mindful of the future”) is the Lee family motto, but we must also remember, for this seemingly small act can foster great strength in dismantling the raw power of the same old, tired purges, propaganda, and persecution, radical reforms and reconstructions, tyranny and totalitarianism. Stay resilient and know that you are in good company, rebels. That is truly a cause to celebrate.

Source: Dissident Mama – “Remember”

Dissident Mama, episode 38 – Scott Horton

Scott Horton is the author of “Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism,” “Fool’s Errand: Time to the End the War in Afghanistan,” and “The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004-2019.” He’s director of The Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, and host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles and The Scott Horton Show. The podcaster/broadcaster extraordinaire has conducted more than 5,500 interviews since 2003.

I tap into Horton’s vast knowledge in order to try to make sense of the Israel-Palestine crisis, its history and modern implications, especially the frustrating gaslit loyalty and heretical beliefs of Christian Zionists, the power of the pro-Israel lobby, the ignored plight of Palestinian Christians, Israel’s obstruction to peace, the Deep State’s fostering discord, and the US’s backing of the secular regime with money, arms, and unparalleled political support. And what does the Murica get in return for being Israel’s client state? Horton will fill us in.

I also tell Horton about my hypothesis that the conflict in Israel is akin to the War of Northern Aggression. Since we in Dixie have been under imperial occupation since 1865, her lands destroyed and given over to settler colonialism, her collective memory maligned, her culture reconstructed and razed, and her people scapegoated and force-fed a revisionist history that not only obscures US government crimes, but now actively promotes them, I think it’s a pretty good comparison, which I may expound upon in a future essay. Find out what he thinks.

Download this episode, watch our discussion on YouTube, or listen to the episode here 👇.

Links related to the show:

America’s Hebrew Republic, a Puritan idea
The roots of dispensationalism
Big Con and the modern State of Israel
Christian Zionism
Plight of the Palestinian Christians
Christians disappearing from Gaza
US-Israeli dual citizenship
Israel lobby manufactures anti-Semitism
The Israel Lobby Enters State Government


Source: Dissident Mama – Dissident Mama, episode 38 – Scott Horton

Dissident Mama, episode 37 – Lauren Witzke

Lauren Witzke is a former U.S. Senate candidate in Delaware and now spokeswoman for Hold The Line PAC. A survivor of the opioid epidemic, Witzke’s an outspoken America First advocate and also a catechumen in the Orthodox Church.

I talk with the busy and driven Witzke about her bold ideas, like Restore the Family, and current projects, like Reclaim the Rainbow. We also discuss some hot topics, from Republican charlatanism in the “hallowed halls” of state capitols and DC and the snake-oil salesmen at Turning Point USA, to moving beyond Trumpism, the very real and increasing political persecution of traditionalists and conservatives, and Witzke’s intriguing and inspirational bio. And what could a better time to interview the repentant Christian than June? Not because it’s “pride” month, but precisely because it’s #ChristianityMonth, today and everyday!

Be sure to check out Witzke’s co-hosting of TruNews with Milo Yiannopoulos (the show is already underway and will run for the next week and a half), as well as a few of my own “kindred spirit” essays that are quite pertinent to our chat: “Pedophilia is progress,” “Magnify the Theotokos, not Satan,” “The archetype,” “Loyal opposition,” “Identity-less-ness,” and “Twisted tongues.”

Download this episode, watch our discussion on YouTube, or listen to the episode here 👇.

Source: Dissident Mama – Dissident Mama, episode 37 – Lauren Witzke

Getting blood from a stone

“You have no reason to be ashamed of your Confederate dead. See to it that they have no reason to be ashamed of you.”

— Robert Lewis Dabney

Earlier this month, you may have heard about a woman from Upstate New York who could lose her multiracial child in a custody battle with the girl’s father because the mother has a Confederate Battle Flag painted on a rock alongside her driveway.

The story itself is already one of tragedy. This 7-year-old has a broken home and is exhibiting “behavioral issues, including ‘kicking, spitting, hitting and swearing a lot.’” The parents, who were never married, do not have an amicable relationship, so the child has become their battlefield. Even though they have joint custody, the mother is seeking to cut in half the father’s already-limited time with the girl.

My guess is that the father is using the Battle Flag because he’s desperate to get a leg up in the case, since family courts are overwhelmingly anti-male. And the mother is being told that she must “encourage and teach the child to embrace her mixed-race identity, rather than thrust her into a world that only makes sense through the tortured lens of cognitive dissonance.” (Read: white bad, black good.)

Gasp, look at the hate symbol hanging in that girl’s bedroom! Better call CPS. Oh, never mind, that’s me and my cousin Matt in the early ’80s.

I don’t know these people or all the details of this complicated situation, but what I do know is that the 5-0 ruling against the mother due to her flag-adorned stone should worry us all, especially those of us who have Battle Flag rocks of our own (see mine at top).

Attorney Michael Stutman sees the case as “a rather astonishing extension of wokeness” in that “someone’s political viewpoint” can now be seen as reflecting “on their fitness as a parent.” He added, “It is one of the clearest infringements on someone’s free speech by the state to have a court threaten to restrict a parents’ rights to their child based upon … the propriety of a person’s political beliefs.”

That “we have to stamp out ‘hate whenever we see it, even on private property” is a “very dangerous precedent,” explains historian Brion McClanahan. But what concerns me most is that we, as in Southerners and our anti-leftist allies, have allowed the denigration of Confederate symbols even to get to this point. Cultural Marxists are going to try to destroy truth, beauty, and goodness; it’s what they do. But we don’t have to give an inch. Ever.

Even the child’s attorney who “wondered whether the ruling could make political views more of a target in family court … [and said he thinks] ‘this thing opens a door to litigating … someone’s personal opinions,’” also “recognized the court’s concern for the Confederate flag’s presence.” This is how indoctrinated in their anti-Southern malevolence even semi-common-sense people have become.

Sure, it doesn’t hurt that this story is playing out in New York, where back in December Gov. Andrew Cuomo outlawed the public-property sale and display of Confederate flags and other “abhorrent symbols” like the “Nazi swastika.” But would “the nationwide push-back against Confederate symbols” even be a thing if “conservatives” hadn’t hopped on the neo-Bolshevik bandwagon? I think not.

Even in the most recent edition of Confederate Veteran magazine, a 24-year-old who joined the Sons of Confederate Veterans in late 2018 suggested in a letter to the editor that the organization should redesign their Battle-Flag logo in an effort to “change the narrative” and increase recruitment among young Confederate descendants. “‘Cancel culture’ has targeted no symbol like the Southern Cross,” he wrote.

And that is why I am wanting to get a Battle Flag tattoo, not necessarily the one above, but just a simple, reverent piece of art. Honestly, I can’t find one that hits the mark; most are way too ostentatious for my tastes.

Now, bear in mind, I’ve made it nearly 50 years ink-free. Sure, I had quite a few piercings back in the wild ’90s, but I never did get a tat one promise to my parents that I actually kept.

But the contrarian in me is half-seriously considering the idea of ringing in my half-century of life this summer with some cool rebel ink. And because I’m not supposed to even admit the thought of wanting to get a Southern branding these “daze,” well, of course it makes me want to do it all the more.

These feelings are reminiscent of when my family and I fled Evangelicalism, slamming the door on the self-loathing, self-promoting Southern Protestants who hate the South, and subsequently hate my children, my husband, and me. I toyed with the notion of visiting one final Sunday while wearing the above t-shirt. I mean, this was 2016, so I figured what’s the worst that could happen. Sure, I’d surely get a few politically correct glares, but at least the congregation serves up some dank coffee. Ultimately, I decided to leave well enough alone.

I also deliberated buying and donning the above dress if I had gone to my 30-year high school reunion in the fall of 2019. Alas, I could not bring myself to attend the event at my formerly Dixie-proud alma mater, which is now a progressive breeding ground in a city that doesn’t feel too much like home, even if it was to make a rebel stand.

“Those contemplating getting a tattoo should ask themselves why they want one in the first place, and they should ask whether this is really something that pleases God,” advises Fr. John Whiteford. On one hand, I do believe the Battle Flag in both its roots and its modern meaning fits that bill.

It was not only the the symbol of the fighting citizen-soldiers in their defense of home and resistance to centralization, but it has come to represent the last stand of Western civilization. Dixie defenders of yore powerfully and selflessly fought to “defend beliefs that were not concocted yesterday,” as Russell Kirk described the War for Southern Independence and the traditional descendants it bore.

And we rebels of today still rail against the imperial “indivisible” Union and the rootless nihilism it produces. The war may look different, but the battlefields are still the same: faith and family.

But since the main impetus for my potential tattoo is about triggering my enemies, I’m still on the fence about it. Is it a pride thing, as in haughty in the eyes of the Lord? Or would getting tattooed be a tiny act of remaining faithful to the discharge of my duty?

Would it be bending to a fashion that I have so long resisted, and I, just another sellout to postmodernity? Or would it be a real act of defiance in that I’d be forever memorializing the Civil War dead, which is a “Southern, Christian tradition“?

After all, Memorial Day has Confederate origins, no matter what ahistorical lies the Lincolnians and their globohomer comrades try to sell you. Both Southern widows who began Decoration Day in 1866 and those of us who reflect today on Confederate sacrifice see fallen Dixians as “martyrs for religion, as well as for liberty … [and their] solemn obligation to maintain the Christianity which sustained them amid the privations of a soldier’s life and the anguish of a soldier’s death.”

Hmmm, I’m still not sure what to do. Please let me know what you think in the comments.

But in the meantime, I will keep my own rebel rock just where it is in my yard. My mother in-law gave us that unique stepping stone, which was hand-painted by one of her Appalachian-artisan friends.

Interestingly, while it was in the back of our van, we attended a Divine Liturgy at a Tennessee parish, where it was sprinkled with Holy water. The Orthodox priest happened to do a car blessing that day, so our family’s special piece of slate really ain’t going anywhere now. Like it or walk on by, haters!

But really, none of this is about putting a rock, a tattoo, a t-shirt, or a dress above the welfare of children. In fact, it’s precisely about putting our progeny first. It’s about taking a stand for love.

They say you can’t get blood from a stone, but maybe this time you can. Happy Memorial Day, y’all.

Source: Dissident Mama – Getting blood from a stone