NEO-CONFEDERATES, NATIONALISTS: CASTILLO ES "LA NETA"

By Juan Montoya
No sooner had Antonio Castillo started diffusing the site of the anti-Neo-Confederate website "Neta" that the word went out by the torch carriers that he was at it again.

"Antonio Castillo is at it again," said a Facebook post from something called the Texas Division Sons of Confederate Veterans-6th Brigade.

Now, the Civil War was over in 1865. If someone was the son of a confederate soldier they would have been say 5 or 10 years old. Let's say the ankle biter was 10 in 1865. Today he would be 142 years old. Not exactly a whippersnapper.

Ok. So let's say that the reference to "sons" is a symbolic one and that they refer to some long gone ancestor who fought on the wrong side and lost. Why would they be so apprehensive of Castillo promoting a website?

In the logo, Castillo calls "Neta," a bilingual, multimedia platform based in the Rio Grande Valley.

This led to a response by someone called Calvin Towery to comment that "This is America, English only."

Now we have learned that Towery is a Neo-Confederate who defends that obnoxious heritage of slaveholding and racial supremacy.

Ok. We've let this ignorance go on long enough. American is the continent stretching from the Arctic Ocean bordering Greenland and Iceland in the north (including Canada) all the way to the tip of Chile and Argentina in the south.

Wikipedia tells you this much:
"North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge approximately 40,000 to 17,000 years ago. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago (the beginning of the Archaic or meso-Indian  period).

The Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the Transatlantic migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery and the Early Modern period. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between european colonists, indigenous people, African slaves, and their descendants.

European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French and societies and states commonly reflect Western traditions."

So what does Towery mean about this is "America, English only?"

The word "America" encompasses the whole continent and all the countries in it, the United States of North America being but one of them. How can this country – and people like Towery – seek to usurp this name for one state on the continent?

It's like Columbus calling the natives he met "Indians" or the lands where he thought he was "Cathay," that is, China.

As Harvard University President Lawrence Lowell said: "When Columbus set out he did not know where he was going; when he arrived he did not know where he was; when he returned he did not know where he had been, but all the same he discovered America."

The Civil War is gone, guys. It's 2017 and that "America" of your nostalgia will never return. "Rednecks will never replace us."

Good luck to Antonio on his new website. To visit, click http://netargv.com/home/