Southern Manifestos

Christmas Morning in Greensboro. Delivered from bed to the couch,
the Wii was on again in our neck of the woods-- this time they chose golf instead of a morning walk by the water.

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When "inflamed by outside meddlers," my uncles (irregardless of their respective distances from the primordial mountains of John Boorman's exposure) may cast themselves as characters in Deliverance if you bring up the Southern Manifesto at dinner.

Signed by 101 politicians from every state in Dixie, the 1956 declaration of Master Thurmond is on the whole an embarassing document. Carrying forth in the phenotypically rac(e)y form of a 'standard' Manifesto, on the one hand the plea stands as a list of binding-demands directed at the US Supreme Court's decision in Brown vs. BOE.
[Stay out mah business, Protect State's Rights, Defend self-determination.]
Most importantly, between-the-lies, colloquially: "We ain't integratin on nobodys timetable but Jim Crow's." Within a structural linguistic genealogy of J.L Austin's infelicitous speech-acts-- the Southern Manifesto writes intending to contract and bind its addressee, who in turn adjurns unscathed. The 101 addressers rest in the doomed-performative graveyard alongside Commies and SCUM. Yet as Ronell (2004, Verso) has reminded Austin and other linguistic-determinists, classifying the reception of the manifesto as infelicitous, a nice try, is a formalism in and of itself-- an attempt at regulating the force of the written-law where Andy Warhol and Oliver Brown's bodies stand as the limit-test.

Yet the Southern Manifesto's nonpresence in the living-archive of my family's speech illuminates more than Freud's discovery of the Mystic-Pad Thai (1925) wherein the (and every) Manifesto's trace is selectively perceived, yet permanently stored, online, unrustled by diverted glances and geopolitical amnesia.

Not having a computer can make it difficult to integrate these days. The merciful stroke of ignorance projected upon the South as Deliverance from the shadow of evil of technology reifies the Southern consciousness of radical separation from "alla y'all." The intentions of production and means of distribution of the Southern Manifesto circulates within a Northward diaspora (business as salvation)-- where artifacts go to be saved from their primitive makers. Taken as contraband in a war of civil rights, the Southern Manifesto rests close to its enemy, The US Supreme Court, only 4 city blocks away: [In Congressional Record, 84th Congress Second Session. Vol. 102, part 4 (March 12, 1956). Washington, D.C.: Governmental Printing Office, 1956. 4459-4460.]

*The Southern Manifesto is unarguably a white supremacist event, providing further evidence of the impossibilities faced by forced (and often failed) integration in the South. The fact of the original document's containment in Congressional archives is one of the countless practices of Northern (or appropriation of Southern history in the name of "preservation." The Smithsonian is currently "displaying" four of Woolworth's barstools and part of the lunch counter from the first sit-in of the Civil Rights era in Greensboro, NC. Woolworth was converted to a Civil Rights museum years ago, yet eight feet, and four stools of its main attraction is missing-- as the Smithsonian acquired the artifacts immediately after the store closed, before the Greensboro museum had adequate support and finances to resist the appropriation. One local rumor around the missing pieces is that the Smithsonian refuses to return the stools and counter until Greensboro promises to build a multi-million dollar preservation device (something of the cryogenic sort) to protect the stools from our region's offensively dank humidity.

We might not know how to access our archival history stored in dusty DC or search-savvy student sources, but we got that Wii on the big-screen to deliver us from technosavagery.

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SSG, footnote to The List: For a Ruthless Manifesto of Everything Existing

"Like a Nympho, the Info"

"The few remaining men can exist out their puny days dropped out on drugs or strutting around in drag or passively watching the high-powered female in action, fulfilling themselves as spectators, vicarious livers: [It will electronically possible for them to tune into any specific female they want to and follow in detail her every movement. The females will kindly, obligingly consent to this, as it won't hurt them in the slightest and it is a marvelously kind and human way to treat their unfortunate, handicapped fellow beings.]" (SCUM, 79)

The touch-pad of the mouse has always been an auto-erotic favorite of the hacker. Now in presently-democratized form, the invisible-bluetooth hack of the signal can connect your chosen surveillance device to the touch-screen-mouse of your choice surveiller. Whether it's in the Hummer in Baghdad or down the street on Broadway, if you're having girl trouble I feel bad for you son cause I got 99problems but her mouse ain't one.

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GrandCentral: receive calls and post voicemail with your blog

February 22, 2008 — permalink

With GrandCentral, a free service from Google, you can receive phone calls and post voicemails right on your blog. Though GrandCentral is currently in a private beta test, bloggers can skip the wait and get a free account immediately. Sign up now

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When you add GrandCentral’s WebCall button to your blog, your readers can easily call your phone or leave voicemails without ever seeing your telephone number.



In the spirit of GoogleAds, I couldn't resist post-tagging your discovery with more information:

for e-baby,


I'm going to avert putting the I in skype and call our phone-phreak historian in residence to place the blog-phone within a greater genealogy of telewiring, umbilicord cutting, and tone generation(s). E-baby, call me back!


Is the dial-tone already another nostalgia of my-so-called-life?

Is the compuphone safe for wireless tumor-conspirators?

How do you hack something that's already free?