← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Quantrill
Thread ID: 17499 | Posts: 24 | Started: 2005-03-24
2005-03-24 18:37 | User Profile
Okie has been advocating this for a while, so I thought I would start a thread. This is the thread for you to explain the 'deeper meaning' behind your choice of avatar. This includes, but is not limited to, why you picked both the name and the picture. We have some interesting folks on this forum, so I'm expecting great things.
I'll get the ball rolling. First some background. My avatar is William Quantrill, the leader of a band of partisans in Missouri during the War Between the States. In the West during the war, there was no regular Confederate military, so any man wishing to fight against the invaders had to become an irregular, or a guerrilla. Quantrill's raiders originally followed the accepted principles of war, including the taking of prisoners, until Union Major General Halleck ordered in 1862 that all Confederate irregulars were to be considered outlaws, not soldiers, which meant that they would not be allowed to surrender, but would be shot on sight. From this point on, Quantrill fought under the black flag, meaning he gave no quarter.
I selected Quantrill because I identify with him in many ways. He was born in Ohio, and only came to his Southern sympathies as an adult. I was raised as a non-Christian, and only came to my orthodox Christianity as an adult. He was originally a mild-mannered schoolteacher, but his convictions forced him to become involved in a conflict to save his adopted nation. I, too feel that my 'nation', Christendom, is being attacked, and I must do what I can to defend her. And like Quantrill, my way of life is offered no quarter by our modern age, which desires nothing less than its total destruction. Lastly, Quantrill did some pretty unsavory things in the course of the war, though his motives were just. This serves to me as a reminder of the fallenness of man, and the temptations to which even good men are subject.
2005-03-24 19:36 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Quantrill]My avatar is William Quantrill, the leader of a band of partisans in Missouri during the War Between the States. In the West during the war, there was no regular Confederate military, so any man wishing to fight against the invaders had to become an irregular, or a guerrilla. [/QUOTE]
Quantrill showed up in Ang Lee's [URL=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0783241909/qid%3D1111692483/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/102-3858053-2995340]Ride With the Devil[/URL], which I thought was pretty good.
There's not much to say about my avatar, except that it originally was accompanied by a quote from Ben Franklin about turkeys in my signature. I like the picture and my wife and teenage daughter both think it suits me (I'm not sure what to make of that), so after some to-ing and fro-ing I decided to keep it permanently, even though my signature changes from time to time.
Here's the Ben Franklin quote:
[QUOTE]"I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character; like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy. The turkey is a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America."
--Letter to Sarah Bache . [/QUOTE]
I totally relate to that. The eagle is so imperialistic. The Romans, the Russians, the Prussians and Heaven-knows-who-else presented themselves to the world as eagles and set about building empires. But that's not what we were supposed to be about. We were supposed to be all about building honorable lives through hard work.
Plus, I think there is no more handsome bird than the turkey.
And it's 100% Merican!
It's too bad that we adopted the eagle, IMHO. It's hard to imagine that any country with a Turkey on its seal could try to conquer the world.
2005-03-24 19:50 | User Profile
My avatar: [B]Fleur de Lys[/B]; origins unknown; allegedly first adopted as an identifying symbol by French kings sometime between the 12-13th Centuries. I use it here because I'd like to think that somewhere in my ancestry there's a French king somewhere. :king:
2005-03-24 20:00 | User Profile
My avatar is 'Vytis' (The White Knight). This is the historic coat of arms and national emblem of the Republic of Lithuania.
My late mom was very proud of her Lithuanian ancestory, so in a way I took it to honor her memory. But, just as importantly, I want it to make a statement to my family and friends about the kind of Christian man I strive to be with God's help.
My father was German, and his ancestry in this country predates the Revolutionary War, in fact my grandmother was a member in good standing of the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution). I could have chosen an avatar symbolic of his side, but in the end 'Vytis' won me over.
Thanks Quantrill for starting this thread. :thumbsup:
2005-03-24 22:23 | User Profile
Well I got the name [B]Faust[/B] from thinking about Oswald Spengler as well as Goethe. My Avatar is a [B]Prussian Hussar[/B]. One of my ancestor was an Austrian Hussar and later in the US Cavalry. One my other ancestors served under Nathan Bedford Forest. I used the Prussian Hussar picture because I did not a Austrian Hussar picture. And my Family was rather fond of the Kaiser. And I liked the picture. I used Richard Wagner as my Avatar at one point because I admire his work I also used Goethe and Pound at one point. My old name Piers Plowman came from the Poem by William Langland (ca.1330-1387).
2005-03-25 01:17 | User Profile
Well, you guys already know me, Ponce de Leon and fourteen grandson of Juan Ponce de Leon and also [B]El Conde de Villareal de Nuevo Leon Spain[/B], but of course even with all those name I still need money in order to buy a Coke, hehehehehehehehe.
Oh yeah, and don't forget my Irish side of the family.....O'Neal, that makes me a black Irish, nobody is perfect.
2005-03-25 01:53 | User Profile
My avatar changes periodically. The one I'm currently using is just a harmonious picture I found while googliing for Odin's ravens, which the avatar represents along with Odin's famous 8 legged horse.
Prior to that I used a picture of Alfred K Nock as my avatar. He is the author of the classic American autobiography of personal education called Memoirs of a Superfluous Man.
2005-03-25 06:09 | User Profile
Well I guess my avatar is gleaned from that great 30's metaphor of displacement [URL=http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17393]The Grapes of Wrath[/URL], and its classic tale about rural Americans dispossessed by their own country, the Okies, who blew across the country "like tumbleweeds blowing in the wind", after the dust storms blew the Oklahoma red dirt everywhere.
2005-03-25 08:27 | User Profile
[url=http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/TT/ftr3.html]William Barret Travis[/url]
To The People of Texas and All Americans In The World -- February 24, 1836
Fellow citizens & compatriots --
I am beseiged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna -- I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man -- The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken -- I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls -- I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism, & every thing dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch -- The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country --
VICTORY OR DEATH
William Barret Travis Lt. Col. Comdt.
P.S. The Lord is on our side -- When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn -- We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels & got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves --
Travis
.......................................
To David Ayers March 3, 1836
Take care of my little boy. If the country should be saved, I may make for him a splendid fortune; but if the country be lost and I should perish, he will have nothing but the proud recollection that he is the son of a man who died for his country.
.........................................
The letter to David Ayers is the last known letter written by Travis before the fall of the Alamo on the morning of March 6, 1836.
William Barret Travis died at his post on the cannon platform at the northeast corner of the fortress.
He was 26 years old.
2005-03-25 08:40 | User Profile
My avatar is the flag of Maryland. This is due in part because it has sort of a Confederate flavor (as well as an historic Roman Catholic affiliaton via Maryland's original founding under Lord Baltimore, which appeals to my 7/8ths Irish ancestry, and the tribal loyalties which tend to stem from it, even for an Agnostic like me), but mainly just 'cause I think it looks neat. I didn't choose the name "Kevin O'Keeffe;" my parents did that.
What I want to know is just who was that crazy-looking bald guy AntiYuppie was using at one point?
2005-03-25 12:12 | User Profile
Kevin,
AY was using Oswald Spengler.
2005-03-25 13:18 | User Profile
My avatar is pretty self-explanatory - a picture of a blood-stained, wild-eyed Bush with dark rays of evil emanating from him - like some kind of anti-Christ, a perversion of the divinely-annointed saviour that his supporters seem to think he is. I also like the maniacal, 50s-horror-movie-villian expression on his face and the allusion to the imagery of the Imperial Japanese flag.
I know it's a bit incongruous having Bush as my avatar in that I obviously don't identify with him, but we live in times where up is down and black is white so maybe that's appropriate.
Heh.. after re-reading this post in the preview window, perhaps I take myself a little too seriously.
2005-03-26 00:19 | User Profile
My avatar is a photo of Benjamin Ryan "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, governor of South Carolina from 1890-1894 and U.S. Senator from 1895 till his death in 1918. He led the movement to regain popular control from Wade Hampton and the wayward Low Country planter elite.
Like William Barret Travis (and James Butler Bonham), he is a native of Edgefield, South Carolina.
I chose his likeness because of my South Carolina background, and because he was a great champion of common sense and the common man: [QUOTE]March 23, 1900, speech before the U.S. Senate, in response to allegations of electoral violence in South carolina:
[url]http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/55/[/url]
I want to call [Wisconsin Senator Spoonerââ¬â¢s] attention to one fact. He said that the Republican party gave the negroes the ballot in order to protect themselves against the indignities and wrongs that were attempted to be heaped upon them by the enactment of the black code. I say it was because the Republicans of that day, led by Thad Stevens, wanted to put white necks under black heels and to get revenge. There is a difference of opinion. You have your opinion about it, and I have mine, and we can never agree.
I want to ask the Senator this proposition in arithmetic: In my State there were 135,000 negro voters, or negroes of voting age, and some 90,000 or 95,000 white voters. General Canby set up a carpetbag government there and turned our State over to this majority. Now, I want to ask you, with a free vote and a fair count, how are you going to beat 135,000 by 95,000? How are you going to do it? You had set us an impossible task. You had handcuffed us and thrown away the key, and you propped your carpetbag negro government with bayonets. Whenever it was necessary to sustain the government you held it up by the Army.
Mr. President, I have not the facts and figures here, but I want the country to get the full view of the Southern side of this question and the justification for anything we did. We were sorry we had the necessity forced upon us, but we could not help it, and as white men we are not sorry for it, and we do not propose to apologize for anything we have done in connection with it. We took the government away from them in 1876. We did take it. If no other Senator has come here previous to this time who would acknowledge it, more is the pity. We have had no fraud in our elections in South Carolina since 1884. There has been no organized Republican party in the State.
We did not disfranchise the negroes until 1895. Then we had a constitutional convention convened which took the matter up calmly, deliberately, and avowedly with the purpose of disfranchising as many of them as we could under the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. We adopted the educational qualification as the only means left to us, and the negro is as contented and as prosperous and as well protected in South Carolina to-day as in any State of the Union south of the Potomac. He is not meddling with politics, for he found that the more he meddled with them the worse off he got. As to his ââ¬Årightsââ¬Âââ¬âI will not discuss them now. We of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be equal to the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him. I would to God the last one of them was in Africa and that none of them had ever been brought to our shores.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]He acquired the name "Pitchfork Ben" as a result of this speech on the floor of the Senate in support of free silver, in which he threatened to go to the White House and "poke old Grover with a pitchfork" to prod him into action:
[url]http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/tillman.html[/url]
Excerpts:
So far as I know, I am the only farmer pure and simple in this august body. Yet out of the 70,000,000 people in this country, 35,000,000 are engaged in agricultural pursuits alone. If, then, one farmer has broken down the barriers and forced his way here, upon his head rests the responsibility of giving utterance to the feelings, the aspiration of his fellows and of giving utterance to the sense of wrong they have....
[President Cleveland] knows nothing about farmers, and more's the pity, he cares nothing about them. They are burning our candle at both ends, robbing us on one hand with the tariff and robbing us on the other hand with the single gold standard. And they have asked us like beasts of burden, like dumb driven cattle, to bear these things and say nothing but to vote the party ticket....
Rothschild and his American agents graciously condescended to come to the help of the United States treasury in maintaining the gold standard which has wrought the ruin, and only charges a small commission of $10,000,000 or so on one little transaction. Great God, that this proud government, the richest, most powerful on the globe, should have been brought to so low a pass that a London Jew should have been appointed its receiver to have charge of the treasury....[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]Speech at the 1896 Democratic Convention in support of free silver:
[url]http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5356/[/url]
I come now from a South Carolina which demands the emancipation of the white slaves.... New York for twenty years or more has been the one dominant factor and dictator of the National Democratic Party.... The Democratic and Republican political machines, by the use of money, have stifled the sentiments of the people on this money question. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE]February 7, 1899, speech on the Senate floor in opposition to annexation of the Philippines:
[url]http://www.assumption.edu/users/mcclymer/His130/P-H/burden/default.html[/url]
As though coming at the most opportune time possible, you might say just before the treaty [with Spain that ceded sovereignty over the Philippines in return for $20,000,000] reached the Senate, or about the time it was sent to us, there appeared in one of our magazines a poem by Rudyard Kipling, the greatest poet of England at this time. This poem, unique, and in some places too deep for me, is a prophecy. I do not imagine that in the history of human events any poet has ever felt inspired so clearly to portray our danger and our duty. It is called "The White Man's Burden." With the permission of Senators I will read a stanza, and I beg Senators to listen to it, for it is well worth their attention. This man has lived in the Indies. In fact, he is a citizen of the world, and has been all over it, and knows whereof he speaks.
"Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go, bind your sons to exile, To serve your captive's need; To wait, in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child."
I will pause here. I intend to read more, but I wish to call attention to a fact which may have escaped the attention of Senators thus far, that with five exceptions every man in this chamber who has had to do with the colored race in this country voted against the ratification of the treaty. It was . . . because we understand and realize what it is to have two races side by side that can not mix or mingle without deterioration and injury to both and the ultimate destruction of the civilization of the higher. We of the South have borne this white man's burden of a colored race in our midst since their emancipation and before.
It was a burden upon our manhood and our ideas of liberty before they were emancipated. It is still a burden, although they have been granted the franchise. It clings to us like the shirt of Nessus, and we are not responsible, because we inherited it, and your fathers as well as ours are responsible for the presence amongst us of that people. Why do we as a people want to incorporate into our citizenship ten millions more of different or of differing races, three or four of them? But we have not incorporated them yet, and let us see what this English poet has to say about it, and what he thinks.
"Take up the White Man's burden-- No iron rule of kings, But toil of serf and sweeper-- The tale of common things. The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread, Go, make them with your living And mark them with your dead."
Ah, if we have no other consideration, if no feeling of humanity, no love of our fellows, no regard for others' rights, if nothing but our self-interest shall actuate us in this crisis, let me say to you that if we go madly on in the direction of crushing these people into subjection and submission we will do so at the cost of many, many thousands of the flower of American youth. There are 10,000,000 of these people, some of them fairly well civilized, and running to the extreme of naked savages, who are reported in our press dispatches as having stood out in the open and fired their bows and arrows, not flinching from the storm of shot and shell thrown into their midst by the American soldiers there.
The city of Manila is surrounded by swamps and marshes, I am told. A few miles back lie the woods and jungles and mountains. These people are used to the climate. They know how to get about, and if they mean to have their liberties, as they appear to do, at what sacrifice will the American domination be placed over them? There is another verse of Kipling. I have fallen in love with this man. He tells us what we will reap:
"Take up the White Man's burden, And reap his old reward-- The blame of those ye better The hate of those ye guard-- The cry of those ye humor (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:-- 'Why brought ye us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?'"
Those peoples are not suited to our institutions. They are not ready for liberty as we understand it. They do not want it. Why are we bent on forcing upon them a civilization not suited to them and which only means in their view degradation and a loss of self-respect, which is worse than the loss of life itself?[/QUOTE]
2005-03-26 02:18 | User Profile
[QUOTE=mwdallas]My avatar is a photo of Benjamin Ryan "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, governor of South Carolina from 1890-1894 and U.S. Senator from 1895 till his death in 1918. He led the movement to regain popular control from Wade Hampton and the wayward Low Country planter elite.
Like William Barret Travis (and James Butler Bonham), he is a native of Edgefield, South Carolina.
I chose his likeness because of my South Carolina background, and because he was a great champion of common sense and the common man:[/QUOTE]I had no idea whatsoever Tillman had such insights. He truly was quite a bit different than the man I had pictured. Thanks for the information.
2005-03-27 04:12 | User Profile
My Avitar is Erich Hartmann.
Erich was a German fighter pilot in WWII where he shot down 352 planes on the eastern front. This makes him the leading ace of all times.
The best source of info on Erich is his biography; The Blond Knight of Germany, by Raymond F. Toliver and Trevor J. Constable
Erich had many qualities that are worth holding up as an example for all who came after him. A modest man, he said that the only thing about his war record that he was proud of, is that he never lost a wingman.
Erich spent ten years in Russian captivity after surrendering to [U]American[/U] forces at the end of the war. Through all this he and his young wife faithfully waited for the day that they would be together again.
Read the book, a more inspiring story is hard to find.
2005-03-27 05:57 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Blond Knight]Erich spent ten years in Russian captivity after surrendering to [U]American[/U] forces at the end of the war. Through all this he and his young wife faithfully waited for the day that they would be together again.
Read the book, a more inspiring story is hard to find.[/QUOTE]Yeah, it sounds like an interesting story. I'd heard the Russians were quite eager to learn from the man who so mastered them. He spent his time training pilots. I'm sure it cost us quite a bit in the Korean war.
I doubt it was easy either, working with men with with whom you'd killed a lot of their buddies.
2005-03-27 14:28 | User Profile
Okie,
Nothing I have ever read about Erich says anything about his training Russian pilots. While no doubt, some captured Germans did eventually work for their captors in this manner, Erich spent his entire captivity in prison or labor camps.
2005-03-27 19:05 | User Profile
Blond Knight,
As I recall he never worked for the Soviets or the GDR.
2005-03-27 22:56 | User Profile
Wow, you guys sure have some depth to your avatars!
I basically made up the word Drakmal because I liked the sound of it, and then tried to figure out what it was. Turns out it's a (Swedish?) trade name for an obscure Brazilian fish, which I used as my avatar for a while.
I have a habit on other forums of changing my avatar every couple hundred posts just for fun, and when it came time to change it here on OD I was inspired by a TV show about a Jewish child care professional, who smirked a lot in the episode that I saw. I thought the image was far more entertaining in the context of white nationalism, and thus my avatar title was born. I've changed the actual picture a couple times just to keep up the variety. (And in fact I'm thinking of changing it back; Gloria Allred is just so ugly...)
2005-03-28 01:20 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Blond Knight]Okie,
Nothing I have ever read about Erich says anything about his training Russian pilots. While no doubt, some captured Germans did eventually work for their captors in this manner, Erich spent his entire captivity in prison or labor camps.[/QUOTE]Guess you're right.
[QUOTE]After surrendering to the Americans at Pisek, Hartmann was turned over to the Russians by the U.S. authorities.Once the Soviets realized that they had the Black Devil as a prisoner, he was singled out for especially brutal treatment, including long periods of solitary confinement in total darkness.Using every persuasive device known, the Russians could not convert Hartmann to Communism, and get him to join the airforce of DDR. After a mock-up war-crime trial Hartmann was held in prison for ten years, far longer than the other POW's.While he was illegaly detained in Russia, Hartmann's 3 1/2-year-old-son, whom he had never seen, died. It was only after Chansellor Adenauer personally visited Moscow in 1955 and arranged for his release that a gaunt and haggard Erich Hartmann was released by his captors, broken in body but not in spirit.After surrendering to the Americans at Pisek, Hartmann was turned over to the Russians by the U.S. authorities.Once the Soviets realized that they had the Black Devil as a prisoner, he was singled out for especially brutal treatment, including long periods of solitary confinement in total darkness.Using every persuasive device known, the Russians could not convert Hartmann to Communism, and get him to join the airforce of DDR. After a mock-up war-crime trial Hartmann was held in prison for ten years, far longer than the other POW's.While he was illegaly detained in Russia, Hartmann's 3 1/2-year-old-son, whom he had never seen, died. It was only after Chansellor Adenauer personally visited Moscow in 1955 and arranged for his release that a gaunt and haggard Erich Hartmann was released by his captors, broken in body but not in spirit.
[url]http://www.virtualpilots.fi/en/hist/pdf/ErichHartmann.pdf[/url][/QUOTE]
2005-03-28 01:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Blond Knight]Erich spent ten years in Russian captivity after surrendering to [U]American[/U] forces at the end of the war. Through all this he and his young wife faithfully waited for the day that they would be together again.
Read the book, a more inspiring story is hard to find.[/QUOTE]
This quote says he surrendered to and was turned over by [U]the British.[/U]
On the last day of the war, Hartmann flew from his base in German-occupied Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic) and surrendered to the British in north-western Germany, shooting down a Soviet Yak-11 along the way. But the British handed him over to the Red Army and the Soviets held him in a prison camp for ten years. After his release in 1955, Hartmann turned down the offer of a position in the East German air force and joined the West German Luftwaffe instead. [url]http://wernerhartenstein.tripod.com/hartmann.htm[/url]
2005-03-28 06:41 | User Profile
Okie,
I'll check out the links in your posts.
In their biography, "The Blond Knight of Germany," the authors report Erich and his unit surrendering to the U.S. 90th division near Pisek on May 8th, 1945. On May 16th, the Americans turned Erich and his unit over to the Russians.
I do not have a clue as to where the information in the wernerhartenstein website came from. In the book cited above, the authors cite a radio message to Erich and his commander, Herman Graf, from a General Seidemann on May 8th ordering both of them to fly to Dortmund and surrender to British forces, and leave the rest of their unit's personnel to surrender to the Russians. Erich and Herman disobeyed this order and managed to get their unit moved far enough to the west to surrender to the Americans.
2005-03-28 17:11 | User Profile
Almost 2 years ago I posted the below information on Hartmann comparing his total of 352 to American aces.[QUOTE] * Richard Bong 40 ** * Thomas B. McGuire 38 ** * D. McCampbell 34 ** * F. Gabreski 28 D ** * G. Boyington 28 ** * R. Johnson 28 ** * C. H. MacDonald 27 ** * G. E. Preddy 26 ** * J. J. Foss 26* ** * R. Hanson 25 [/QUOTE]By himself he shot down more planes the best 10 Americans did combined.
2005-03-31 21:13 | User Profile
It's just an album cover... King Crimson's [I]Lark's Tongues in Aspic[/I].