Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for May 07, 2010

“But a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest” – Paul Simon.

(Of course, Simon is a Yankee …)

We texted Pickett to haul his blooming behind and blew them yankees.

The proof is that the North won, Lee surrendered, and the Confederacy no longer exists.

I smell “home schooled”.

Military reenactments with one army missing, run by people who aren’t history buffs? What alternate reality is Trudeau in? Even the Bearded Spock universe isn’t that warped.

Civil War reenactors are war buffs. Buffs are people who pay a little extra-geeky attention to the subject at hand. At the very least, war buffs will know battle timelines and who won which. (And that Andersonville wasn’t a battle, BTW.) Trudeau’s just a bigot. And usually boring - although he’s sometimes quite funny when he gets away from politics.

And how does an airhead like Roland Hedley know about Five Forks?

To quote Apu:

The south will come again!

Re: “And how does an anirhead like Roland Hedley know about Five Forks?” Probably Googled:

“The Union victory at Five Forks and their presence near the Southside Railroad forced Lee to consider abandoning Petersburg and Richmond.

Seeking to take advantage of Sheridan’s triumph, Grant ordered a massive assault against Petersburg the next day. With his lines broken, Lee began retreating west towards his eventual surrender at Appomattox on April 9. For its role in keying the final movements of the war in the East, Five Forks is often referred to as the “Waterloo of the Confederacy.”

American Civil War: Battle of Five Forks

Had to Goggle - Not a Civil War History Buff. Wish I was a bit more “buff” but not about War.

Yeah Joe, I was thinking about Granny on Beverly Hillbillies, and her faulty history.

\\//_

@AKHenderson:

If GT is so terrible, why do you keep coming back? This comic is satirical and political most of the time, at least on some levels. If you don’t like it, you leave it.

Well put AK -

Jungverdorben - what good is listening to and reading things you DO agree with 100 percent of the time? You learn nothing that way.

I don’t read the comments just for pun. I enjoy interacting with people with different backgrounds and political beliefs. Being from NH, I was taught that the King gave us the land to the NY line like he did Mass. Since Vt wasn’t in the original 13, Ethan Allen was a 18th century terrorist who stole what rightfully belonged to NH.YEAH, I want that taught in the public schools? A small element of truth does not make the whole.

Didin’t Pickett send his troops into slaughter? Sort of like the Charge of the light brigade? a 50% casualty rate has nothing romantic about it. For the record, the assault on Fort Wagner was also futile, but haye at least it inspired “Glory” and the creation of more Black Regiments.

AK Henderson, I’m fine with Garry living in his “Spock Goatee” universe through exageration in order to get a laugh. I admit that it does get confusing when GT’s story line goes after Fox’s tendancy to over-dramatize while doing the same thing himself, while being much looser with the facts than Fox ever is. There’s a touch of hypocrisy going on when a critic uses the tools of whom he’s criticizing.

But from the applause, it does get scary finding out how many others don’t actually know that the real Spock doesn’t wear a goatee.

Potrzebie, if you are thinking of Picket’s Charge, Picket was not the one that ordered the charge, Lee was. Picket was just one of the generals that carried it out.

Nemesys, I’ve also been dissapointed in GT of late, and knocking the reinactment folks, turning those nerds into biggots is just silly. I’m convinced he has no idea what he’s talking about this week.

Not to pick nits, but… “Pickett’s Charge” occurred at Gettysburg. At the Battle of Five Forks, he established a defensive position along the White Oak Road.

“according to history, wheres the Proof”, sounds like the texas school sysem. with Macarthy was a a great American than Jefferson and Jesus wrote the Bill of Rights.

There are re-enactors and then there are southern re-enactors. In any case I think GT is not criticizing them he is criticizing the Civil war “celebration” that neglected to mention slavery.

bradwilliams, I think he started out criticizing the civil war celebration, but he ended up hitting the wrong target. IMO he completely lost his original point days ago.

I assumed Potrzebie knew Picket’s Charge was at Gettysburg.

Well, off to work - I’ll check out the posts this evening

One thing that is obvious during this week’s Civil War discussions is that for many people who post their comments, not knowing what you are talking about is no handicap at all. Some of the misconceptions I have read on this board are truly mindboggling.

BTW: The Battle of Five Forks, fought on April 1, 1865, was a Confederate disaster which led about a week later to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Almost by definition, an actual Civil War reenactor is a “living historian” and would undoubtedly know the significance of Five Forks. In contrast to the yahoo deplicted by Trudeau, in reality the reenactor would be eager to explain to a genuinely interested person the impact of the battle, with none of that “Yankees skedaddling” BS. To me, that last panel in today’s strip was particularly off-base.

The right-wing mantra of the 21st Century; “If it’s not on Youtube, it didn’t happen.”

I seemed to recall Gettysburg. I’m not a CW fan. BUt in military history, Pickett is known as a classical blunder. I’m just wondering why a re-enactor would mention Pickett delivering a whooping when his charge was infamous. Thanks to all you posters I wiki’d the Charge and Five forks. What do you know? I’m a few miles away from Dinwiddie!

I’m impressed with the intelligence of our posters today. Must have a lot of Civil War buffs, or maybe all American History.

GT conflates Civil War re-enactment with staunchly defending the Confederacy to make points about the latter. And to this Northerner, there is at LEAST an element of that in re-enacting. Could GT have found a better framework on which to hang his mocking of people who are still (figuratively) fighting the Civil War? Maybe…but a humorist doesn’t HAVE to follow reality precisely.

Crisnp, GT is simply stereotyping this week. He’s getting laughs among his political cronies through regional bigotry, using prejudice to make sweeping degrading generalizations against people he doesn’t know.

Since Garry loves to stereotype lately, I wonder when he’ll chime in on the new Arizona law?

…goes after Fox’s tendancy to over-dramatize while doing the same thing himself, while being much looser with the facts than Fox ever is. There’s a touch of hypocrisy going on when a critic uses the tools of whom he’s criticizing.

You are comparing a “journalist” to a cartoon. Unfortunately, in this case, it’s entirely appropriate.

Mythreesons,,,, It is not just that the posters are Civil War buffs, We all remember it. Let me count my Confederate money again…

Nemesys,

“He’s getting laughs among his political cronies…”.

Trudeau has an AUDIENCE not cronies.

Kinda wish you guys would let go of some of the paranoia.

Nemesys and others criticize GT for satirizing Fox’s way of overdramatizing the news yet “doing the same thing himself while being much looser with the facts.” These criticisms fail to distinguish between news and history. Fox can make of the news whatever it wants until the facts are known. But history is based on facts (what really happened) and can be changed only by uncovering new facts, not by making them up.

Trudeau knows that Civil War buffs understand history. These “reenactors” he invents are a comic species (Alabama Al calls them yahoos) created to mock Faux news–which no self-respecting historian should trust any more than she’d trust undocumented facts quoted from Wikipedia.

According to an article on Garry Trudeau that appeared in the Washington Post Sunday Magazine a few years ago, one of his ancestors was an officer in the Confederate army. The guy was apparently so inept that he is probably one of the top ten reasons why the South lost the war!

Lew, the King had no rights to the land. Ethan Allen did not steal Vermont. The U.S. granted Vermont statehood, taking the land from New York.

Warthog, thanks for making the correction about Pickett’s Charge.

This week of DOONESBURY is not making fun of Civil War re-enactors. It’s satirizes Governor McDonnell’s reviving Confederate History Month while trying to gloss over the horrors that the seceding states wanted to preserve, protect, & continue to practice.

I appreciate all those who have contributed to correct misconceptions about different Civil War battles.

“Save yer Confederate money! South’s gonna rise agin!”

Can’t be worse than the Euro these days.

GJ_Jehosaphat,

I questioned Hedley’s knowledge about the less-commonly-known Civil War battles. He’s always had a long cluelessness streak. Doesn’t strike me as the sort who would actually do his homework before going out on interviews.

Jungverdorben,

Trudeau isn’t always terrible. It only takes a few seconds to read the strip. Lots of times it’s gonna be moronic, given his straw-man tendencies (this week has been one long straw man fallacy), but he has his moments, and he does get away from politics now and then. His Polanski sendup was his best recent work.

I’m of ‘yankee’ descent, and I’m fascinated by the Civil War. Morality, revisionism, and contentiousness aside …

It was incredibly dramatic, passionately fought, and eloquently described by the participants …

History has always been written by the winners, re-written by the losers, and misunderstood by their kids.

Actually GT is trying to keep up the media notion of the stupid southerner. This is the one the media beat Carter over the head with while he was in office, which should have made GT leery to begin with.

The Beverly Hillbillies existed while America was transitioning from a rural country to an urban one. Many in the cities came from the country so the humor was still both pointed and poignant. The rural folks were stupid to stay behind but when they got lucky, they kept their values of family and friends and that was more a guiding light to them than the money that made the city folks nutsy. The same values imbued the country music scene, whether they were completely true or an illusion to live up to.

It was a reflection of the Civil war’s rural vs. urban values, as this comic really is.

The result was Southern folks that sell water to Yankees, (something my old friend Beau from Texas, used to laugh about over a beer.) Only now they package it in bottles and tell you it’s good for your health because it didn’t come from the city in national ad campaigns instead of from roadside stands by the highway. And they still think you’re stupid for buying it. They take the fact the Yanks see them as stupid and use the way it drops their guard to their advantage. It’s actually a lesson learned from the slaves.

The reaction to the Civil war portrayer is justified and founded in sensitivity to that bias. The only thing missing is the guy going home to his hovel with the old car up on blocks in the front yard. If Jeff Foxworthy wrote the comic, a lot of folks would laugh. He’s got best selling books full of this take off on the image.

See, just as it was okay to laugh at Rich Pryor when he did N jokes, it’s okay to laugh at JF when he does RN jokes, but not at a Yankee who tries the same gambit. It’s not REALLY funny when anyone does it, but the bias just stands out more with the wrong accent.

Be careful, you don’t want to ask an objective question on FoxNews!

BTW, AKHenderson, I don’t think you get it

Pickett’s Stand was one of the great triumphs from the War of Northern Aggression. At least that’s the way we learned it in Amarillo.

Actually the south won the war …… look at the the south’s complete destruction of the Republican Party resulting in the election of Reagan and Bush the lessor.

“DirtyDragon”: “Pickett’s Stand”? I do hope you were trying to make a a joke.

Freeholder, THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES was broadcast long after America had moved from a rural to an urban society. Indeed, by the time of THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, America was becoming a suburban society. As to the values of THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, they are quite problematic: The Clampitts were seen as both sensible & strange. They had millions of dollars but did not care about it & had garnered them through no effort of their own. One could go on & on, but there are several good critical essays on THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES.

By the way, DOONESBURY is one of the best comic strips of the last fifty years. I defy anyone to find many better current ones. It is thoughtful, reasonable, intelligent, broad-minded, & humane.

Victors write the histories but victims write the memoirs.

BRIAN From whom did you learn your NY history, Washington Irving? The land that is now Vermont (used to be more cows than people, but now more displaced liberals than sense) was royalty granted to NH so that it would stretch to NY like its neighbor Mass.

As a young naive schoolchild I read a book portraying Ethan Allen as a patriot because of his limited use to the Revolution despite his inability to follow orders, after that he was a terrorist. He broke laws, crossed boundaries preached sedition,and let an unruly militia that forced his will upon a rural population He had no government backing.

Although I was born in a state who.s motto is “Live Free or Die”, I don’t believe in armed rebellion.I reside in a state whose motto is “Land of Steady Habits.”Before you burn something, have blueprints to build it back up.

@Nemesys, the difference between Garry Trudeau and FOX News is that the latter claims to be presenting the truth. Garry knows better - that’s the farthest thing from his mind.

And I freely admit to knowing almost nothing about the American Civil War - I’m a Canadian. Altho I do have a friend who lived in Louisiana for a few years.

The most interesting thing that I know about the Civil War is that in the South they call it the War Between the States.

Lew, the French took the region now known as Vermont from the Abinaki & Iroquois. The English took it from the French. New York & New Hampshire both laid claim to it. The Green Mountain Boys initially sided with New Hampshire but then chose to make Vermont its own state. When the Second Continental Congress refused to recognize Vermont’s statehood, Vermont created itself as an independent republic. Some ten years later, Vermont paid New York & joined the United States of America as the 14th state.

You may call Ethan Allen any names you want, but your claims lack standing without citation. I do not see your reason for calling him a terrorist unless you want to demonstrate that this continent has grown & fostered terrorists for over 200 years.

Rina, I think “War Between the States” is relatively common north and south – A staunch Southerner might call it “The War of Northern Aggression,” whereas in politer company it might be “the recent unpleasantness” :)

If this whole week may have been about Virginia’s confederate history month, but for the last four days all GT’s been doing is portraying reenactors as simple minded bigots, rather than the amateur historians most of them are. It may have been about Fox news, but for the last three days, Rolland hasn’t been giving the rebels any breaks. Whatever GT intended to do, he just ended up making fun of a group who’ve likely spent more time learning about the Civil War than he has.

And another thing – where does he get off using the term “poor, white trash” in Thursday’s strip? In GT’s world, I guess it’s ok to refer to human beings who have been economically oppressed as trash – as long as they are white. As freeholder1 pointed out, someone like Jeff Foxworthy might get away with it, but someone like Trudeau just comes off as a liberal elitist hypocrite.

That said, I’ll probably continue to read Doonesbury, because when GT is good, he can be one of the best, and I’ve been a fan for decades – although lately I’m beginning to know what a Cubs fan feels like.

@RinaFarina - Also the Wat of Northern Agression.