Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell just had to do it:� renewing a strange symbol entitled �Confederate History Month.�� Once again, we are reminded that the US Civil War never really ended and that certainly the Reconstruction period that followed the Civil War did not simply end, but was truly defeated.

What is always amazing with Confederate flags, uniforms, money, and, once again, Confederate History Month, is the celebration of an insurrection against the US Constitution by those who like to speak about �American values.�� The Confederacy was a treasonous regime, pure and simple.�

What is more striking is the manner in which the political Right, which celebrates the Confederate past, walks around the question of slavery to the extent of actually suggesting that slavery was only one of a number of causes of the South�s secession and the subsequent Civil War.� Yes, the Civil War involved a number of issues including the matter of �free trade� which the British, French and the Confederacy supported, while the North opposed it.� The matter of slavery, however, was central to the conflict, a point that became evident in the aftermath of John Brown�s courageous raid on Harper�s Ferry (where he was seeking arms to start a slave uprising).

In any case, I am a big boy so, I can get over this.� If we are going to have a Confederate History Month I insist that we also have a �Tory History Month.�� After all, at least one third of the colonists in the thirteen colonies supported Britain at the time of the War of Independence.� They fought courageously for their beliefs.� They suffered from various forms of terrorism, such as being tarred and feathered.� And, after the 1783 settlement of the War, thousands were driven out of the USA, or left voluntarily, forsaking their lands.

So, why not commemorate these brave champions of their beliefs?

There are many people who believe that when there are protests over Confederate symbols that this represents a political lack of seriousness.� One could not be more mistaken.�� The Confederacy, and all that it symbolized, is antithetical to the notion of democracy.� Not only was the Confederacy the home of slavery, but it was�no coincidence�an extremely repressive nation-state.� It was not a different sort of democracy; it was not a democracy.

The Confederate symbols are regularly brought out by the political Right to lend a narrative to those who wish to advance reactionary causes.� It is a way of laying claim to an alternative history of the USA, one that asserts that slavery was a necessary �evil� in order to build the USA, and one that asserts that a national government should be restricted in its authority to military and police matters.� When the Right wishes to reaffirm its opposition to any sort of politics that approaches redistributionism, it calls upon the symbols of the Confederacy.

Defeating the Right, and ultimately crushing right-wing populism, means that we must take on the symbols of the Confederacy.� Each symbol of the Confederacy is not only an insult to African Americans, but a reminder that there is a revenge-seeking right-wing political movement that, like herpes, lies within the system only to emerge at times of crisis.

If McDonnell wants to renew Confederate History Month then let�s make sure that central to the curriculum for the month is W. E. B. Dubois� Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880.

Let the games begin�

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and co-author of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice (University of California Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher.