I've been investigating the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the League of the South and the Council of Conservative Citizens. These appear to be the largest neo-confederate groups operating publicly today. What are their commonalities of leadership?
From an article on rebel hunter, Ed Sebesta, in the 2003 Dallas Observer:
The third rail powering this train of thought is a deep-seated and bitterly resentful rejectionism--the belief that everything in America since midcentury has been wrong-headed and a tragedy for white males...
What Sebesta has gathered, he believes, is evidence of a serious movement among educated people who are racist advocates of secession and a second civil war.
I haven't read Sartoris since a teenager, but it seems to me that the current neo-confederate movement is run by a group of men who came of age steeped in the South as lamented by William Faulkner. Many more words have been written about Yoknapatawpha County than ever penned by Faulkner. Perhaps somewhere, there exist great thoughts on Faulkner and his effect on the depression era. Can you imagine the one, two punch and being a child of the Depression and weened on the tragic novels of William Faulkner? Why, it's no wonder these fellows sought to secede.
If I am right, the current neo-confederate movement will wane as Thomas E. Woods Jr., founder of the League of the South and senior faculty member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and his peers in this silly enterprise settle into their dotage.
Ironically, the same can be said of their main detractor, Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Until such time, Ed Sebesta will be on guard.