A History Lesson for Russia Today

Russia Today, or RT, is a site I visit nearly every day for the very simple reason that they are not part of the establishment media and are unafraid to point to stories that our media/government complex don't want you to know.  Of course, they are going to do everything they can to give the world Russia's side of the story when it comes to world events.  Since no other "respectable" news agency will give Russia the courtesy of fair reporting these days RT really cannot be faulted for that.

Having said that it is also true that RT occasionally adopts some of the more questionable aspects of Western Big Media which has the effect of lowering one's respect for it.  When we see "celeb news" rearing its ugly and juvenile head into what was once a straightforward news site we begin to worry a bit.  This is a questionable route to take even if clueless readers demand to know what Tinsel Town dullards think about the world scene. Still, on many issues they do present facts that the world's media blissfully ignores.

But it must be said that there is one issue of which they are completely clueless, and, worse, refuse to try to understand.  That issue is the state of racial tension in America.  Perhaps understandably given the USA's despicable treatment of Russia, RT enjoys showing the worst side of America.  That's fair game in my opinion so long as they adhere strictly to the truth.  When it comes to racial problems in America however, RT does not stick to the truth, and is every bit as dishonest and mendacious as The New York Times.

For the benefit of the editors of RT then I present this history lesson from Mr Walter Williams.

Last July, Anthony Hervey, an outspoken black advocate for the Confederate flag, was killed in a car crash. Arlene Barnum, a surviving passenger in the vehicle, told authorities and the media that they had been forced off the road by a carload of “angry young black men” after Hervey, while wearing his Confederate kepi, stopped at a convenience store en route to his home in Oxford, Mississippi. His death was in no small part caused by the gross level of ignorance, organized deceit and anger about the War of 1861. Much of the ignorance stems from the fact that most Americans believe the war was initiated to free slaves, when in truth, freeing slaves was little more than an afterthought. I want to lay out a few quotations and ask what you make of them.

During the “Civil War,” ex-slave Frederick Douglass observed, “There are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels” (Douglass’ Monthly, September 1861).

“For more than two years, negroes had been extensively employed in belligerent operations by the Confederacy. They had been embodied and drilled as Rebel soldiers, and had paraded with White troops at a time when this would not have been tolerated in the armies of the Union.” (Horace Greeley, in his book, The American Conflict)

Read the whole article here.