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US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ?
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 04 Aug 12 - 07:57 PM It was a war over real estate. Look at all the coastline the United States Government would have lost. The lands. The propagandists turned it into a morality conflict. Made us recite that stupid Pledge of Allegiance. The North invaded the South when they wanted out.President Grant wanted to deport all the Negroes to the Dominican Republic. Abraham Lincoln said he never intended the Negro to be the equal of white people. Remember the riots in the 70's in Boston over integrating the schools? The Yankees didn't want them. They wanted to maintain control. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Greg F. Date: 04 Aug 12 - 08:23 PM So, Krinkle: what planet do you spend most of your time on? Or are you trying (unsuccessfully) to be amusing? |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 04 Aug 12 - 08:30 PM If the colonies had lost their battle against British tyranny George Washington and Co. would be considered treasonous terrorists and reviled to this day. If the South had won Robert E. Lee and Co. would be called great patriots instead of rebels. The winner gets to write the history. And tell any lie they want. What would the story be in Britain if Adolf Schickelgruber had triumphed? Germany freed the English people. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 04 Aug 12 - 08:34 PM And I ain't just whistlin' Dixie....... (:-( D)= |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 04 Aug 12 - 08:53 PM And there's Greg F resorting to insults. I suppose namecalling comes next. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Greg F. Date: 05 Aug 12 - 08:05 AM Lighter: generally correct. However, if you check the reviews & etc., you'll find that most serious historians of the Civil War - both North & South - have major problems with Foote's 3-volume |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: JohnInKansas Date: 05 Aug 12 - 09:25 AM It seems that most references here to "Civil War Songs" are to songs that have been the better known ones, some of which are remembered simply because they were "fightin' words" at the time (and some still are). While that's probably the more important part of the subject, it might be worth mentioning that I've seen quite a few "Civil War Songbooks" (in antique shops, mostly) that are quite a bit different than what most people think of in that context. If would seem that every "civilized community" both in the North and in the South had a piano teacher (that's how they decided civilization had arrived) and every piano teacher with a pretense to competence must have produced a "self-published songbook" of the songs that they composed while all their students were off at the war. Most of the ones I've seen are ... I suppose the gentlest term would be "unsophisticated" ... but "maudlin" also comes to mind; but if one looked at enough of them it might be possible to get an idea of the "community feelings" of the time in particular places. Arranged for performance a few might be decent prospects for "audience education"(?), perhaps with a little background on their origins. "Civil war songs" shouldn't necessarily mean just the ones we all know, although all of these "minor sources" offer pretty scant possibility of finding much that's really outstanding. I can say that the quality of composition, and even most of the lyrics, tend to be a little better than the (political) "party songbooks" and prohibition songs from times nearer those war/reconstruction years. John |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Greg F. Date: 05 Aug 12 - 09:42 AM Also under the heading of "Civil War Songs" would be the entire Stephen Collins Foster catalog - sung North and South. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 05 Aug 12 - 10:36 AM If Nathan Forrest was a war criminal, what was William Sherman? Waging war against women and children. Shameful. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Greg F. Date: 05 Aug 12 - 12:00 PM IF Forrest was a war criminal? Its a documented FACT. I suppose in your cosmos he had nothing to do with the KKK either, which was only a social club, after all. Get a life, Hank. Or go watch "Gone With The Wind". |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 05 Aug 12 - 12:12 PM You haven't answered my question,sweetcheeks. What was William Sherman? A parson and schoolmarm? (:-( O)= |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Greg F. Date: 05 Aug 12 - 12:38 PM Mommy, Mommy! But Johnny did it, too! Time for you to read up on Sherman & his tactics without your neo-Confederate specs on. Man, next thing you'll be defending Goebbels. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Bill D Date: 05 Aug 12 - 01:01 PM Jeez, folks... the question was about singing the songs!. It is not necessary to re-fight the entire war to answer the question. We get enough of that in threads about the Middle-East... and not long ago, about Ireland. No matter WHO wanted what, or who tended toward excess to win, it was long and sad and emotional... and it led to songs to express the many emotions. The songs tell much of the story, and ought to be heard. Carry the debate over naughty soldiers to PMs! Or have a separate thread. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: GUEST,Lighter Date: 05 Aug 12 - 01:34 PM For the benefit of our international friends, Confederate General Forrest, a former slave trader and postwar founder of the KKK, would not or could not but certainly did not prevent his troops from slaughtering hundreds of African-American prisoners at Ft. Pillow, by far the worst such incident of the Civil War. (And they weren't very common.) When Union General Sherman, a graduate of West Point, marched on Georgia he gave orders that property was to be destroyed but that civilians were to be left unharmed in their persons. Of course, neither fact bears on the relative justice of the Union and Confederate causes. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Greg F. Date: 05 Aug 12 - 01:49 PM Thanks for the assist, Lighter. Well done. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Amos Date: 05 Aug 12 - 01:49 PM I wonder about the assertion that The Unreconstructed Rebel was a parody. There's nothing in it that strikes me as parodic; certainly not comedic. There are thousands of songs about unpopular views and about grim events people would just as soon forget. But the solution to a distasteful past is not forgetting; it is confronting fully and honestly. Forgetting the Civil War is one of the things that produced the brutal slaughters of the Civil Rights era--dramatizing the buried anger instead of facing it squarely. Singing those songs is a good way for those long-ago positions and actions to be remembered. Not glorified but understood. That's my humble opinion anyway. Of course, that requires the intention to understand on the part of the listener, and there are some folks who can't hear "The Bonnie Blue Flag" without wanting to kill a few more Yankees. Maybe you just have to choose your audiences wisely. A |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: GUEST,Lighter Date: 05 Aug 12 - 02:20 PM Amos, I can't prove that "I'm a Good Old Rebel" was intended satirically, but it seems likely. The author, Major James Innes Randolph, Jr. (1837-1887), was a Confederate topographical engineer as well as a lawyer who had been educated in New York State. After the war, he became a newspaper editor and an occasional sculptor. The song is printed in a semi-illiterate backwoods dialect, which tells me that Randolph is manufacturing a backwoods speaker utterly unlike himself. When nineteenth-century poets intended to be serious, they almost always wrote formally and with as much artistry as they could muster. What's more, the first critical mention of the song, in 1869, comments on its "happy vein of broad humor." Randolph's song (the one usually sung) differs considerably from the much nastier and more xenophobic version collected by the Warners many decades later. But the point is that it doesn't matter what Randolph intended. Nowadays, without some kind of explanation, the average audience will take his song as a straight glorification of killin' Yankees and hatin' the Freedmen's Bureau (not to mention the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and the Yankee Eagle, etc., etc.). As I've said on another thread, most people just don't seem to "get" irony. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Bonzo3legs Date: 05 Aug 12 - 02:24 PM "They bought him a box of tin soldiers He threw all the Generals away He smashed up the Sergeants and Majors Now he plays with his Privates all day." |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 05 Aug 12 - 02:26 PM He burned their farms and made them starve. I attended a KKK rally once at Stone Mountain ,Georgia out of curiousity. The cross burning got rained out. But everyone was very nice to me. I wonder if there are any good Klan songs out there. (:-( D)= |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 05 Aug 12 - 02:39 PM Of course you could refer to it as "the Second Civil War", in recognition of the fact that as many Americans were on the other side back in the time of the Revolution. But I imagine that might be too confusing for many people. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 05 Aug 12 - 02:48 PM You know Clark Gable channeled Groucho Marx for his role as Rhett Butler. (:-( P)= |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Amos Date: 05 Aug 12 - 03:07 PM The countryside was dark and still The old cross stood upon the hill. The cross it bore a flaming hood To hide its rotten heart of wood. He who travels with the Klan, He is a monster, not a man. For underneath his thin disguise I have seen him to his eyes. Mother I hear the iron sound Of footsteps on the frozen ground. (Segment from a poorly-remembered Klan song) The Klan are often chivalrous and mannerly individuals, some quite charismatic. They are none the less despicable for the acts they have undertaken collectively in the name of racial purity. If you want a real slice of life, I recommend Morris Dee's "A Lawyer's Journey". He spent forty years pulling those strings and exhuming the facts often at the risk of his own life. Brilliant guy. A |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 05 Aug 12 - 03:15 PM Morris Dee. He should be hung,drawn and quartered. Him and his Southern Poverty shenanigans. (:-( P)= |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 05 Aug 12 - 03:41 PM Morris Dees. Not Morris Dee.....see? http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/morris-dees-pathological-narcissist-and-ultra-creep/ |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Richard Bridge Date: 05 Aug 12 - 03:55 PM There would be I think legitimate concerns particularly outside the religion-obsessed USA (I would add, despite the treaty of Tripoli) that there is a risk that the USA may, historically, regress and become a heavily armed theocratic threat to the rest of the world. I submit that songs from the secessionist causes should be no more acceptable than the Horst Wessel Song or Die Lindenbaum. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 05 Aug 12 - 04:56 PM You sing what you want. You say what you want. And if someone doesn't like it they don't have to listen. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: JedMarum Date: 05 Aug 12 - 08:54 PM Wow. I thought I was participating in a serious and genial discussion on a subject in which I have spent many years of study, and in which I still have a great deal of interest. But the vipers jumped in, spewing their ignorance and venom. Thankfully, the reasonable comments from reasonable people are easy enough to sort out - and the fools easy enough to ignore. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: DannyC Date: 05 Aug 12 - 09:10 PM "The best estimate is that between 1880 and 1930, Southern lynch mobs summarily executed, without recourse to legal niceties, 3,320 blacks and 723 whites." (from "Better Day Coming" / Adam Fairclough) FDR created a Civil Rights Section (CRS) within the Justice Dept. in 1935. In 1942 the CRS instituted the first federal investigation of a lynching. This grim reality sits squarely between us here in the present and songs from the 1861-1865 Bloodbaths. I'd be very careful in selecting material - or perhaps I would first make sure that I'd read and thought about Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Julian Bond and the martyred Medgar Evers - before I went out and sang a song from the Civil War Era here in Kentucky. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: GUEST,mg Date: 05 Aug 12 - 09:40 PM I don't see why you couldn't sing one that was respectful and fairly generic..I miss my home/girl/mother/cow type of song. Southerners had an indefensible cause in the slavery issue, but Northerners were far from decent in their taking advantage of the terrible situation post-war. Misery enough on all sides. What is not needed is a feeling of superiority, condescension, scorn, holier than thou. We all participate in some sort of slavery..unless we consciously don't..in terms of our buying habits etc. And one thing is that is strangely not mentioned in discussing the Civil War is that a war was actually fought over it...oh yeah..forgot about that..that people left their homes and families to stamp out slavery..and they died horrible deaths in horrible battlefields or concentration camps to do so and they are almost never mentioned in that context. They might just have been unable to escape the draft and not known all the sociopolitical ramifications, but I think the average Irish or German immigrant (on either side)..or the Kentucky rifleman, or the Southern gentlemen thought he was doing the right thing. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: DannyC Date: 05 Aug 12 - 10:40 PM My wife and I go out and sing nearly every Thursday night in downtown Lexington. In doing so we are playing music within 200 yards of a place where human beings were sold like livestock (in chains rather than in pens), within a few hundred yards of the family home of Mary Todd Lincoln who witnessed these barbaric human auctions, and within three (3) City blocks of Transylvania University where Jefferson Davis attended school. I've stood over the mountainside graves of my wife's Orphan Brigade ancestors, (Capt. This and Lt. That) and in the hollar where Red String bushwhackers sought, caught and killed her "rebel scout" relation on a snowy night in his home (Jan. 1864, I think). In fact, The Red String were opportunists seeking to grab the land (and the mineral rights attached thereto) The Red Strings' killing spree that night initiated Kentucky feuding that lasted for generations and nearly to our present day. Some people still call the County "Bloody Breathitt". Nah... Prolly best to just keep singing songs about lonely train whistles, long black veils, n' Blue Moons n' such... |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Bill D Date: 05 Aug 12 - 11:31 PM ...........amen, Jed. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 06 Aug 12 - 05:15 AM Have they changed the state song of Kentucky yet? My Old Kentucky Home?And the namecalling has begun. Vipers? Idiots? Fools? Stick to reasonable discussion rather than fighting words and you might have a tiny bit of credibility. If you are going to namecall, do it face to face instead of behind the safety of your cowardly keyboard. And I was born in Kentucky too. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Richard Bridge Date: 06 Aug 12 - 07:11 AM I am struggling to see what you are going on about, Krinkle. Why do you want to sings songs (at least it seems you want to sing songs) glorifying slavery and lynch mobs? Do you offer a justification other than "I'll sing it if I want to"? Is that your real name? This is mine. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: matt milton Date: 06 Aug 12 - 07:56 AM "You sing what you want. You say what you want. And if someone doesn't like it they don't have to listen." Yes. And if you have a repertoire of songs so hateful that all your audiences walk out, you won't get very far. Equally, not only do they not have to listen, but they can also elect to slow-handclap you, greet you with a sustained stony silence, heckle you or boo you offstage. These negotiations are what makes live music situations superior to recorded music albums: performer/audience interaction, which is in my experience more common in folk clubs than at rock gigs. Ususally it's of the genial variety, but that's not to say that an edgy or tense situation is a bad one. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: GUEST,mg Date: 06 Aug 12 - 03:22 PM If you are getting state or federal money to put on a performance, I would hope that songs are not put in a performance intended to insult one side or the other, but to honor those who fought on either side..brother against brother, father against son in the border states. Ancestor against ancestor. Singing combined with smugness is not a pleasant combination. Singing combined with some sort of humbleness, as in there but for the grace of God go I, is, it seems to me anyway. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: GUEST,mg Date: 06 Aug 12 - 03:29 PM I think I shall call that musical narcissism..as in I know all the answers, all the facets of any situation. My opinion is the only one, my song is the only one. I just avoid singers like that like the plague and would never sing most of the songs with that attitude. Other songs and singers I flock to.."as I have suffered so have you."" as Kipling said... |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Greg F. Date: 06 Aug 12 - 06:21 PM Well, Mary, I'll let Frederick Douglass comment on your post: Neither the victors nor the vanquished [in the Civil War]can hurl reproaches at each other, and each may well enough respect and honor the bravery and skill of the other. Each found in the other a foeman worthy of his steel. The fiery ardor and impetuosity of the one was only a little more than matched by the steady valor and patient fortitude of the other. Thus far we meet upon common ground, and strew choicest flowers upon the graves of the dead heroes of each respectively and equally. But this war will not consent to be viewed simply as a physical contest.... We must not be asked to put no difference between those who fought for the Union and those who fought against it, or between loyalty and treason. ... There was a right side and a wrong side in the late war, which no sentiment ought to cause us to forget, and while to-day we should have malice toward none, and charity toward all, it is no part of our duty to confound right with wrong, or loyalty with treason. ... Frederick Douglass Excerpts, Speech delivered at Union Square, New York City, on Decoration Day, May 30, 1878 |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 06 Aug 12 - 07:24 PM I just want everyone to be able to sing what they like. No PC censorship. I love Blackface Minstrelsy. I don't care about singing in clubs. I don't drink or smoke and I don't like being around it. So I stay away.If I want to put on some greasepaint and burnt cork you can like it and stick around or you can go away.If you want to curse me, go ahead. I should be able to curse you back. It's called freedom of expression over here. Do you have freedom of speech and expression over there? |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Greg F. Date: 06 Aug 12 - 09:07 PM No Henry, its called being a jackass and a fucking idiot. And yes,unfortunately, you can find jackasses anywhere. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 07 Aug 12 - 03:25 AM Oh my goodness Greg F....Cursing and namecalling. Is that something your parents taught you to do? It's a substitute for violence,you know. Why do you want to be violent? It's immaturity of the highest order. I should think you nedd a spanking. Cheerio! |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 07 Aug 12 - 03:28 AM Need. Sorry for the misspelling. (:-( D)= |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 07 Aug 12 - 03:39 AM And the spanking would be me freely expressing myself. (:-( P)= |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: GUEST Date: 07 Aug 12 - 03:57 AM "I just want everyone to be able to sing what they like. No PC censorship. I love Blackface Minstrelsy. I don't care about singing in clubs. I don't drink or smoke and I don't like being around it. So I stay away.If I want to put on some greasepaint and burnt cork you can like it and stick around or you can go away.If you want to curse me, go ahead. I should be able to curse you back. It's called freedom of expression over here. Do you have freedom of speech and expression over there?" Well if you're only singing songs to yourself at home, there's nothing really to talk about. Nobody around to hear the song, so "you can like it and stick around or you can go away" doesn't really apply, does it? There isn't much "expression" there to be free about: defending freedom of expression is wholly unnecessary when there's not even anybody else around to get offended. But were you to "put on some greasepaint and burnt cork" in public and start performing, you should be aware that "freedom of expression" cuts both ways. It does not simply mean anyone has the right to say anything and the other person should just put up with it or leave. It means the audience has the right to "stick around" and boo, heckle etc. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: GUEST,matt milton Date: 07 Aug 12 - 04:12 AM post above = cookieless moi. |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 07 Aug 12 - 04:59 AM Boo me. Heckle me. Just don't resort to violence. And cursing in public is cosidered Disorderly Conduct. A misdemeanor. You'll be carted off to jail. And when you're online, you are considered to be in public. A friendly warning. (:-( D)= |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 07 Aug 12 - 05:53 AM And about lynchings. If George Bush and Dick Cheney were lynched by a mob, eould you cheer? Or protest? Some folks deserve to be lynched. (:-( 0)= |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 07 Aug 12 - 05:57 AM would. another misspelling.these tiny smartphone keypads are a pain in the arse. (:-( D)= |
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Subject: RE: US Civil war songs - civil to sing them ? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 07 Aug 12 - 07:04 AM And someone has to play the Devil's Advocate. Preaching to the choir is pretty dull and lifeless. (:-( D)= |
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