David,

I feel you're becoming a bit defensive now. But at the risk of making things worse, I'll have to ask you to stop saying I don't know what carpetbagger means. I've always known what it means. It is you who have misunderstood one of the term's current usages. The third definition is particularly pertinent:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=carpetbagger

The term has also been good enough for the NY Times to use in their letters:

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/09/opinion/l-is-hillary-clinton-a-carpetbagger-531790.html

I think your comment, 'The whole case was about racial vilification. Every single paragraph.' apart from obstinately ignoring everything I've said, betrays a personality weakness in many academics. Us commoners call that weakness 'not seeing the wood for the trees'.

Joe, yes I hope that qualified Indigenous candidates will edge out less worthy candidates as well. I think that this will happen over time and especially with a community-wide commitment to education. All the best and I'll chat to you on another thread.

Dane, 'urban dictionary' and the letters page of the New York Times? Please. I'm embarrassed for you. You might as well have cited Wikipedia. Oh wait, that wouldn't support you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpetbagger

I can see why you never made the grade at university level. Ciao.

Dave,

'Ciao'

Are you going? Don't want to talk any more? Those big bad people on the internet not agreeing with you again, hey? Naughty.

But I am sorry to see you go. There was so much still to say. You never told me if you really were an academic or if you did have a PhD?

I suspect not. PhDs do original work and I haven't seen an original idea from you yet - just parroting second rate left wing undergrad stuff. Your writing style is more caricature than serious. You obviously have no background in linguistics.

But then again... you are ideological and unoriginal so you could be a senior academic. It's all too hard. I do hope you return and let us know one day.

The term "Carpetbagger" came from General Ulysses S Grant.
During the war and reconstruction he accused Jewish "merchants" from the North of taking advantage of the impoverishment of Southern Whites and of corruption.
Grant issued and order banning Jews from traveling south and tried to purge the War Department of Jewish "racketeers", he was over ruled by Lincoln and the order was rescinded.
There's a longer story here relating to Lincoln's re-issuance of treasury notes as currency and his attempts to deal with usury and corruption but it's outside the scope of this discussion.

http://www.rense.com/general63/waron.htm
HDQRS. THIRTEENTH A. C., Dept. of the TENN,.

Oxford, Miss., December 17, 1862

Hon. C. P. WOLCOTT,

Assistant Secretary of War, Washington, D. C..:

I have long since believed that in spite of all the vigilance that can be infused into post commanders, the speice regulations of the Treasury Department have been violated, and that mostly by the Jews and other unprincipled traders. So well satisfied have I been of this that I instructed the commanding officer at Columbus to refuse all permits to Jews to come South, and I have frequently had them expelled from the Department, but they come in with their carpet-sacks in spite of all that can be done to prevent it. The Jews seem to be privileged class that can travel everywhere. They will land at any wood-yard on the river and make their way through the country. If not permitted to buy cotton themselves they will act as agents for some one else, who will be at a military post with a Treasury permit to receive cotton and pay for it in gold.

There is but one way that I know of to reach this case; that is, for Government to buy all the cotton at a fixed rate and send it to Cairo, Saint Louis, or some other point to be sold. Then all traders (they

are a curse to the army) might be expelled.

U. S. GRANT,

Major-General