According to the September 17th, 2008 issue of the Springfield News-Leader:
"Several southwest Missouri residents have been appointed to the 18-member Missouri Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission by Gov. Matt Blunt.
The commission’s duties will include helping Missourians recognize the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and Missouri’s role in the conflict, according to Blunt’s office.
It also will act as a link between other states and other public and private sesquicentennial committees to coordinate and plan activities that foster recognition of the Civil War"
No doubt by looking at the list of who is on the commission from Southwest Missouri, one of those states will be Kansas. According to the News-Leader Terry Ramsey, Director of the Bushwhacker Museum in Nevada, Missouri, is confirmed as a commission member. The paper reports that:
"Ramsey is a staff member at the Bushwhacker Museum in Nevada. She is an energetic supporter of Civil War and other heritage tourism activities in southwest Missouri. She is active in the Missouri Civil War Heritage Foundation and the Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area planning committees."
With Ramsey on the commission, the Republican alliance between Missouri Governor Matt Blunt, former Missouri Senator Jim Talent and Kansas Senator Sam Brownback will continue its mission of ceding the role of interpreting Missouri history to Kansas but just for good measure , perhaps, the News-Leader reports that Mike Ussery of Springfield, Missouri has also been named to the Civil War Sesquicentennial commission. According to the News-Leader Ussery " is director of Constituent Services for Gov. Blunt"
It was brought to my attention that following my September 27, 2007 radio interview on the Political Cesspool radio program, that Mrs. Ramsey was not happy with my mentioning of her name and her involvement with the Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area but according to the March 29th, 2008 issue of the Nevada Daily Mail newspaper, Ramsey has been involved with "Freedom's Frontier" from the very beginning...
"It's a huge project with national impact and Bushwhacker Museum Di-rector Terry Ramsey is in the thick of it. Ramsey is on the steering committee for the proposed Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area. According to the Web site for the FFNHA history, culture and landscape within the Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area combine to tell the stories that contribute to our national and individual freedoms.
"This is a process where we had to create a bill, it had to go through Congress and it had to be signed by the president," Ramsey said. "This was a long, drawn-out process. We started this as a group of partners, just a group of grassroots partners almost nine years ago. We had to prove that we have a nationally important story that can be told here, and that can't be told anywhere else in the United States."
The Nevada Daily Mail article continues with another quote from Ramsey that makes me wonder why she was even upset with my mentioning of her to begin with...
"When you think of all the different definitions of freedom and all the things that happened right here in this 41-county area with slavery being a major issue"
With this quote, Ramsey finally admits (even if it was a Freudian slip) just how Missouri's history will be interpreted under "Freedom's Frontier". Never mind the fact that Union General James Lane burnt Osceola, Missouri to the ground, stripped it of all its wealth and killed 10 citizens long before William Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, Ks.
Never mind the fact that most Missourians wanted to stay out of the war prior to foreign soldiers firing on Missouri citizens in St. Louis, Missouri in 1861.
Never mind the sociological and economical differences between Missouri and Kansas during the Border War and War Between the States, to the folks over at Freedom's Frontier, it is an open and shut case of slavery.
Even the geology of Missouri and Kansas is suspect to the "interpretation" of those who are coordinating the Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area. According to the September 20th, 2008 issue of the Nevada Daily Mail...
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