AM Show HR 2 - It's Time To Uncancel Robert E Lee

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yesterday we celebrated Columbus Day, which represents not the founding
of America, of course, that's not where Columbus arrived, not
United States of America anyway, but the modernization of civilization
in the Western world. The European influence that would lead

(00:24):
to a culture in a country that would be the
hallmark of things like self governance, equality, the concept of
natural rights put into effect. Those changed the world in
such a manner as to be mind blowing. It can't

(00:47):
imagine the world without the US in it because the
influence is so profound. It was important to President Trump
that we recognize that day, and he has demonstrated an
understanding of why it is important to celebrate our history,
celebrate who and what we are, and not to allow

(01:12):
groups among us to tell us we should be ashamed
of our history, should deny that history. You know, when
in Syria, when Isis was rolling through, they made sure
to shatter the great Christian artifacts. It's important to them
to do that. The idea is to destroy history and

(01:34):
deny history. It's the ultimate authoritarian move. It's a very
Ray Bradbury concept that if you burn all the books,
there is no knowledge. You create your own new knowledge,
the Orwellian notion of creating newspeak, your own language, where
up means down and down means up, and go means

(01:55):
stop and stop means go. And before long you control
the mindset and there is no history to burden you.
Well you know where I stand on the matter. I
was offered the opportunity to interview a gentleman by the
name of GiB Kerr, and he's written a book called

(02:18):
Uncanceled Robert E. Lee. You have my attention, GiB Kerr.
Welcome to the program. Oh sorry, I forgot the new
phone system. Give Welcome to the program, GiB.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Good boy, Michael, Yes, sir, thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yes, sir, First of all, tell me why write this book?
What is your interest in this movement?

Speaker 2 (02:51):
I wrote this book after Robert E. Lee was unfairly
canceled by the woe mob in twenty twenty twenty one.
You remember the statues coming down in Charlotteville, En Richmond,
and uh uh yeah, I don't think that it was.
This was in response to cancel. Like we're talking about

(03:12):
there trying to erase history, that kind of take what
I call the serve pro approach to history, like nothing
ever happened before. We've seen that with the radicals throughout history.
The French Revolution, they they did away with the calendar
and started with year zero. Is that nothing had ever
happened before. We saw with the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and

(03:34):
it really started here in America. I trace it back
really to Obama when he said he wanted to fundamentally
transform America. We found out what that meant, you know,
I meant teaching our kids to to to be ashamed
of their past and to be ashamed of the founding
fathers and everything that made America great. And we've been

(03:55):
through turmoil, I mean to the we went to years
where people were kneeling for the Natal anthem and on
and on and on and but you know, like every
radical movement before it, the American Cultural Revolution I think
finally went too far. And now it's flaming out and
we're in the middle of, thankfully, I think a great

(04:16):
restoration of American values and restoring Roberty Lee, I think
is an important component of that.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Roberty Lee's contributions service sacrifice have not been forgotten to
history by neglect. They've been intentionally obscured and erased. Why
do you think that is.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
That's a good question. You know, Lee was widely held
as a hero North and South up until you know,
recently as twenty or thirty years ago. But I think
it really I think he traced it back to modern academia.
You know, higher education has been completely taken over by
leftist historians like Howard Zen. You've probably heard of Howards Enn,

(05:03):
a Marxist historian who wrote the book People's History of
the United States, and Howards n said that history is
a weapon, as a direct quote from him, and that
he saw history as a quiet revolution to take over
the institutions from within. And so now you have historians
that dominate universities. Almost every PhD in America in history

(05:28):
is a radical leftist these days, and so that doesn't
leave very many people to preserve the past and to
tell the stories. So some of the greatest history books
right now are being written from outside of academia. Unfortunately,
that's where we are.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
By necessity, as it turns out. But you don't have
to tell you. I'm a Shelby Foot fan. I love
that style of this. These people that just pour themselves
into studying history and bringing history back to life and
not just telling the history, but giving you almost an

(06:10):
experiences as if you were in it. And as a child,
my oldest son's name is Crockett, and I knew by
third grade I wanted to have a son one day
whose name would be Crockett. I was so enamored of
the heroes of the Alamo, being a lifelong textan in
and that has affected, you know, many aspects of my
life and who I want to be, and what values

(06:30):
I consider to hold, and the idea of sacrifice, because
that was the ultimate I think it's interesting and you
make the point that so much of the best history
is being written outside the university today. I think that
is a reflection both of the changing of the guard
or changing of the mindset of faculty and their their

(06:53):
political views, their their biases. But I also think that
is a reflection of outside recognizing that this history has
to be kept alive. It is us like the protect
Philippe folks say, you know, you don't own a protect
filip You just you just hold on to it and
preserve it for the next generation. I think there's probably

(07:14):
that recognition, and I get the sense that that is
the reason for you to do this, because we can't
lose our history to history.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
That's right, you know. I always say truth is a
stubborn thing and it cannot be erased. They've tried, But
now history is being written by attorneys, commercial real estate
guys like me, people from outside of academia.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
And hold with me for just a moment. The book
is uncanceled roberty Lee like lackaberrition. My brother must have
been about twelve years old or so passes, and was
learning to play the guitar and the basic chords, and

(08:05):
of course you sing along to get a sense of it.
I guess I've never actually learned to play guitar, but
I'm told and the book that he used to learn
he would have to sing this song. And so it
takes me back to a good place to remember our uh.
In our little house, our rooms were right next to

(08:27):
each other, and the front doors both came at a
at a kind of a vortex of a triangle. So
I would hear him singing, and I would go and
uh and walk in on him while he was singing
and give him grief over that. So I don't know
what what what inspired you to play that gym, but
it takes me back to a good place. The book
is Uncanceled Robert E. Lee, an open letter to the

(08:49):
Trustees of Washington and Lee University. I guess it's not
technically a book. I guess it's it's a movement that
has a manifest So as part of it, let me
ask you. GiB Kerr is our guest. He's written this.
Have you had any you know, official communication with Washington

(09:12):
and Lee? What has been there their reactions so far?

Speaker 2 (09:17):
We've had communication kind of through back channels, I would say,
to various members of the board of trustees, but the
president essentially won't talk to us. It's kind of hard
to make any progress when the other sideling engage with you.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
So the man who was once the president of the university,
his successor won't speak to you about uncanceling this great man.
And that's interesting, right.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah. Lee's the one who saved the school after the
Civil War. He spent the last five years of his
life there. He's buried there on campus, in the chapel
that he built, and the university renamed the chapel. It's
no longer Lee Chapel. It's called University Chapel. And they
took his portrait down along with the portrait of George Washington,

(10:10):
and they built a wall in front of the statue
to block the view of Roberty Lee from the chapel,
so they essentially whitewashed it. And they act as if
they're ashamed of Lee or embarrassed by any affiliation with him.
You know, my take is that I've never felt the

(10:30):
need to apologize for Lee. But I do understand that
the way that particularly younger generation has been indoctrinated to
demonize Confederates, and to not just Confederates, but to really
hate a lot of American heroes, I understand that there's
a real need to tell Lee's story, and that's why
I wrote this book. To tell the truth about Lee.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
And what is that truth? What is important for people
to understand.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
Most people don't realize. The truth is that Lee was
opposed to slavery. Before the war, he called it a
moral and political evil, and after the war he said
that he was rejoiced that slavery had been abolished. The
truth is that he was opposed to secession. He did
not want Virginia to secede, but he felt like when

(11:20):
Virginia did seceed that he owed this primary allegiance to
his state, not to the United States. That's that people
viewed things back then. So he was motivated to fight
to defend Virginia from the invasion of the Union Army,
which he did magnificently, by the way. And you know,
the truth is that after the war he was a

(11:41):
leading voice for reconciliation. He did everything he could to
bring the country back together after the war, and he
bore all of his suffering nobly, never complained. He wasn't
a whiner, and he was a noble character. And you know,
you referenced George Orwell earlier. Arwell said that who controls

(12:02):
the past controls the future. And America's path is incomplete
without Roberty Lee. Because he's the greatest example of courage
and virtue in American history. That's why we need him.
That's why I wrote this book.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
What was your connection to this what interested you in
this subject in this movement?

Speaker 2 (12:21):
Well, I first got introduced to Lee in fourth grade
when I wrote a paper on him. I still have that,
by the way. And then I went to school at
Washington and Lee and Robert E. Lee was everywhere, And
you know, in the nineteen eighties and his portrait was
up in every fraternity house, even the grocery store at
a portrait of Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and people still

(12:43):
admired him in those days. And so and I was
in a fraternity to capa Alpha order. Roberty Lee is
considered the spiritual founder of Kappa Alpha. We were taught
to emulate General Lee's character as pledges. We didn't always
live up to that standard, but we tried. And you know,

(13:04):
I was fascinated that Robertie Lee was everywhere, and I thought,
could anybody really be that great? He was treated like
a saint in the South, and being from Missouri, you know,
I had that show me factor. I thought, I got
to find out more about this, and so the more
I read, the more fascinated I became. That Lee really
is I think the most remarkable example of character and virtue,

(13:28):
maybe next to George Washington in our country's history. And
so that is I think a large reason why cancel
culture is targeting him to get rid of him, because
when they eliminate heroes, they're really eliminating the values, the
belief systems that those heroes stood for. And that's Christianity,
that's the love of liberty, and you know that's what

(13:50):
the Panic fathers thought for.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
You know, give me you made a pointed. It got
my mind spiraling. So I think about historical events that occurred,
in this case one hundred and sixty years ago, but
in some cases even more two hundred years ago, and

(14:18):
I think about a relative consistency in the way in
which those events and moments and people and personalities were
perceived all the way or say, one hundred twenty thirty
years after. And all of that then changes after the

(14:39):
events and the personalities are long gone. They changed dramatically,
beginning I think probably sometime in the nineties and then
at the turn of the century, and within one generation,
heroes are villains and villains are heroes, and good is bad.
And it's an amazing thing. We're not talking about how
Lee was perceived shortly after the Civil War, because he

(15:02):
was revered. You know, it's interesting, Uh, there's a connection
with Robert E. Lee in the state of Texas. The
song and the Eyes of Texas are upon You, which
every University of Texas Longhorn knows, actually comes from the
then leader of the University of Texas who had been
at Washington. Lee under Robert E. Lee, and Robert E.

(15:24):
Lee would famously say, as you know, you know, conduct
yourself with chivalry and decency, because the eyes of the
South are upon you. And he considered that a great admonition.
Hold on just a moment, GiB Kerr is our guest.
The book is Uncanceled, Robert E.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Lee, Michael Very.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
They're all Duncans. And do you know duncan means yo yo.
Give Kerr is our guest. You pronounce it kurror carr
ker okay kat e r R. He is the author
of Uncanceled, Robert E.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Lee.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
GiB. I think it's interesting that there are a number
of folks with whom I am in communication who are
interested in preserving American history, even American history that the
Obama crowd has managed to extinguish and to paint with

(16:23):
a really, really bad brush. And a number of other
people who were not raised with this as their perspective
are afraid to say anything. So they just they just
back away and say, well, we'll just we won't think
about it, we won't talk about it because we don't
want the we don't want the hive to be buzzing

(16:45):
around us. It's just easier that way, there's a lack
of courage, But you don't have a lack of courage,
and yet you're not an individual who is retired, which
is usually the situation. I find you have a professional
career to consider as well, and you believe in this,
and so you're doing it. I respect that.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Tell me about that, well, I appreciate that. Yeah, I
did write this book at some considerable risk, knowing that
not everyone is going to agree with my point of view.
I've worked for a large, publicly traded commercial real estate firm,
and you know, I could have been fired, and I
might still be fired. I don't know, But that's a

(17:26):
risk that I'm willing to take because I feel strongly
enough about preserving the legacy of Robert E. Lee that
I think people need to stand up and tell the
truth about him, and you know, I'll deal with the consequences.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
What has been the reaction that has emboldened you, that
has delighted you people you've heard from students, teachers, whatever
that may be.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, you know, I've been very pleasantly. I expected the
worst and there you know, there's been some haters on
social media. They're always out there, people that leave nasty
Amazon reviews and that sort of thing. But for the
most part, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. It's been
people saying thank you for standing up for Robert E.

(18:18):
Lee and for what he stood for. And you know,
it's kind of taught me a lesson, which is that
the the woke mobsters there are a bunch of cowards.
They don't like it when you when you stand up
to them. They're like bullies. And you probably remember when
you're a kid, the best thing you can ever do
to a bully is punch them in the nose. Most

(18:38):
of the time they back down. So this book is
kind of a uh, you know, in a in a way,
sort of a proverbial punch in the nose to the left.
And I hope more books like it follow.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
I'm I'm amazed by the moment. I'm not sure how
well it's known that Robert E. Lee is summoned to
the White House to consider leading the Union forces. And
I think it was winfild Scott was involved.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
And Lee's.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Leadership and he was just revered. His leadership was legendary.
And he has this tough decision and he comes home
and he chooses his state which of course would bring
ruin upon his reputation, his family, his wealth. And yet
I never got the sense that he regretted that decision.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Did he? No, he did not, he said, I think
after the war he would have done everything the same way. Yes,
he was offered command of the army that Abraham Lincoln
announced he was going to raise in April eighteen sixty one.
Seventy five thousand troops. Would have been the largest army
ever symboled on North America and the North American continent.

(20:03):
And Lee, you know, he had toiled away in obscurity
for about thirty years in the US Army, never surpassed
the rank of colonel, and he was given this opportunity
to be in charge of the biggest army ever and
to be the commanding general and his chance for glory
and fame, and he turned it down because he could
not take part in an invasion of his home state.

(20:26):
Those were his principles, and so he chose to suffer
the consequences. They lost their home at Arlington, which is
now Arlington National Cemetery, lost everything. And you know, it's
interesting that Lee never owned his own house, and his
whole life he lived in his wife's house at Arlington,
and then after the war he lived in the president's

(20:47):
house at Washington College. But no, he said that he
would not have done anything differently.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
Talk about his move to what became Washington and Lee
his move to be the university president, how that came about,
how it went.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
You know, the school had been raided by the Union Army.
It's right next to the Virginia Military Institute, which the
Union Army had essentially destroyed. And so after the war
they were down to only about forty students, and they
were really teetering on the on the verge of insolvency.
And as a hail Mary, they wrote a letter to

(21:28):
Robert Eli said, well, you come be president of the school,
And to their shock and surprise, he said yes, and
he wrote into town on his famous horse traveler and
assumed the presidency, and they went from forty students to
over four hundred. Money came flowing in to support to
rebuild the school from both the north and the south.

(21:48):
By the way, and he really he not only saved
the school, but he he shaped the character of the
school by emphasizing the honor code and by his one
the students asked him, what are the rules here in general?
And he said, we have one rule, and that is
that every student must conduct himself as a gentleman. And

(22:09):
so that was the tradition at Washington and Lake that
he established.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
It's amazing to me that after that war he should
seemingly be broken, and yet everything I've ever read was
not that. It was that he was very measured and
very thoughtful. But as I said at the beginning, which

(22:36):
has always struck me about him, that there was not
a sense of regret. He was a proud Virginian. He
loved Virginia. He did his duty, and I think he
left it on the field, and he felt that he
had done what he believed to be the right thing.
And that says a lot about the man. You have
not spoken about his deep faith, but that was the man.

(22:56):
It was family and faith and his state, which at
the time was like like his nation.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
That's right, and his faith was very important to him.
I mentioned he built the chapel where he's buried, and
he worshiped there every morning. I encouraged the students to
join him there, read the Bible every night with his family.
A very deeply religious man, and he also studied the Stoics,
as did most Americans at that time, studied the ancient

(23:25):
Greeks and the Romans, and he was particularly fond of
quoting the Roman emperor, the Stoic Marcus Aurelius, and his
meditation misfortune nobly born is good fortune. And I quote
that in my book because I think those words sum
up Roberty Lee perfectly. Misfortune, nobly born is good fortune.

(23:46):
And so he turned his misfortune into our fortune today,
which is his legacy. That we still remember him today.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
And that you proudly carry the torch to remember as
we all should. The book is uncanceled, Roberty Lee. GiB
Curry is our guest.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
One more thing with him committed, had nothing going on
down there.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Probably give Curry's our guest. The book is uncanceled, Robert E. Lee.
An open letter to the Trustees of Washington and Lee University. GiB.
I was reading through some of the materials I had
on this, and there was a timeline Will Dudley being

(24:32):
appointed president of Washington and Lee in twenty seventeen, and
then in twenty twenty begins this effort to just scrub
from the university its namesake and his influence on this school, which,
as you noted, the school was almost abandoned when he

(24:52):
comes in and makes this a very prestigious university with
now a great legacy of character and the sort of
thing and values that we would want kids to have.
But I was reading about, let's see if I can
find it here a group called the Generals Redoubt. Tell
me about that.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, that's as an alumni organization that I'm a member of,
I'm on the board of. And the General's re Doubt
kind of popped up organically among a bunch of the
alums who were upset about what was going on at
the university. And so the General's for Doubt has been,
you know, spreading the word, raising raising awareness among alumni.

(25:37):
We send out a weekly email to about twelve thousand
alumni and keep them informed about what's going on on campus.
We've raised a considerable amount of money. We purchased a
property outside of town by the university where we have
a national headquarters now, so we've planted our flag. We're
not going away, and we're there to preserve the traditions,

(26:01):
the values, the history of the university, and we're engaging
with students and you know, it's funny. The students love us.
The students wear are you know, hats and T shirts
and whatnot. The faculty in the administration that don't really
care for us too much. The faculty, by the way,
voted over is it seventy or eighty percent in favor

(26:25):
of removing Roberty Lee's name from the university, which is unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, I'm seeing here seventy eight percent after the president
appointed a commission to determine such things. You know, it's
a very it's I have a friend named Davin James
and he has a song called a Bucco and Spreeway
and it's about the music in Texas and how Nashville
has changed. And there's a line he has in there.

(26:54):
I bet they wouldn't let Waylan on the Rhyman stage today.
And the idea that you know, the Grand Lobbrary wouldn't
allow this great country music scener because it is so
changed to skinny jeans and pop music with a tway.
But good on you, good on you, GiB for doing this.
I think I have my own personal respect and lifelong

(27:19):
study of Roberty Lee, which made this quite interesting to me.
But on a bigger scale than even that is the
idea that ideas matter, and that courage and conviction should
be our driving force, and that cancelation's greatest power is
the fear of it, because then no one stands up

(27:40):
for anything. And so I admire you for that, especially
because you are in the middle of your career rather
than being someone who has nothing professional per se to lose.
And I think that's fantastic. I think that means you
believe in what you're doing because you can talk about
it during the daylight hours to people who wear suits

(28:01):
and and and our potential clients and and of course colleagues.
I think that's incredible that that that is incredibly commendable,
I must say, And I hope that serves to inspire
other people as as it should. At the end of
all of this, what have you come to learn? Are

(28:22):
you more hopeful than you were in the people of
this country and and their courage or have you been
disappointed at how many people said, yeah, Roberty Leave is
a very important figure, but let's not fight this.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
What what you know?

Speaker 1 (28:38):
What what do we gain from it?

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Well? Well, first of all, thank you for those nice words,
and yes I am optimistic and like I said earlier,
truth is a stubborn thing and truth always wins out
in the end. And we see, uh, we see the
small signs of progress. Roberty Leaf's actually making a comeback.
You probably saw recently they restored the twenty foot portrait

(29:01):
of Robberty Lee in the library at West Point last month.
And I know on your show you've talked in the
past about the Midland Lee High School. There's a high
school in Nandoah County, Virginia, the Stonewall Jackson High School.
They restored their name, and I'm actually involved in as
an expert witness in a suit where they're being sued

(29:22):
by the NAACP to remove the Stonewall Jackson name. But
that's taught me that we need to stand up to
these bullies, because that's what these wocome mobsters are. They're
trying to intimidate us in the silence, and we've got
truth on our side. We just need to stand up
for the truth and have the courage of our convictions.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
I think the great scourge of this nation is an
inability to confront difficult aspects of history, and racism being
one of those. But it's important to remember that this
does not happen in a vacuum. There are people who
stand to gain from it personally, professionally, financially, by stoking
things and encouraging things and stretching things into untruths. And

(30:07):
it's very hard to have the slings and arrows of ridiculous, absurd,
hurtful things said about you and what you stand for,
and yet you have to do it right. There is
nobility in that, to go back to your Marcus Aurelius quote,
there is nobility in that. There's a strength in that,

(30:28):
and it sustains itself. Yeah. I think this is fantastic. GiB.
I wish we had more time, but keep up the
good work. You are truly an inspiration. The book is
called Uncanceled. Robert E. Lee, thank you for taking time
to speak to us today, Concern.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
Thank you so much. Michael really appreciate being on a show.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
Don't give up, folks. Don't give up on our people,
don't give up on our land, don't give up on
our system. There are good people out there, and they're brave,
and they're courageous and their self less, and they stand
up and do what they believe to be the right thing,

(31:12):
knowing good and well that they will be called the
worst of names for it, and yet they persist. Wow,
that is just amazing to me. It really is. I
used the word when our guest was on. But it's
an inspiration. Let that be an inspiration to you and

(31:33):
be an inspiration for the next person behind you.