The SCV convention is now behind us. Needless to say, no Save the SCV supporter was allowed to speak nor would CIC Wilson agree that we wouldn’t be assaulted if we attended, so we did not send an official delegation to Asheville.

But there is good news. The Wilson/Lyons plan to complete their take-over of the SCV was NOT successful. All of their proposed amendments either failed to pass by the required 2/3rds majority or were withdrawn rather than suffer embarrassing defeats. Kirk Lyon’s request for a ten thousand dollar gift to his Southern Legal Resource Center was not acted upon; nor were there any votes on the expulsion of camps and individuals in North Carolina who had the courage to publicly support Save the SCV.

On the issue of the suspended camps and officers, we at Save the SCV now demand that the suspended camps and brigade commanders have their suspensions lifted and all their rights and privileges restored. If CIC Wilson’s radical faction of the SCV could not even muster enough support at the convention to bring these suspensions to a vote (much less have the suspensions sustained by the delegates), reinstatement should be automatic. (To do otherwise allows the CIC to suspend camps and individuals indefinitely in order to prevent them from ever voting against him or his policies.)

The bad news is this: voting patterns at the convention suggest a 60/40 split in the delegates: 60% support for the Wilson/Lyons regime and 40% opposed to them for various reasons. In other words, the good guys prevented a radical take-over of the SCV by only six percent of the votes cast.

While few of these folks will admit it in public, the activities of Save the SCV over the past ten months were a significant factor in the resistance that prevented CIC Wilson’s grab for more power. CIC Wilson’s high-handed suspension of camps, division officers and an army commander, all of whom had publicly supported Save the SCV, left many SCV members with serious misgivings about the CIC’s respect for the constitutional process. His over-ruling of the GEC and replacing ANV Commander Charles Hawks further troubled high-ranking SCV leaders.

While the purge of Save the SCV supporters in North Carolina met with initial success (and suppressed support for Save the SCV in other states) it also made the CIC, Kirk Lyons and their friends at the League of the South over-confident. They decided to go for broke at the 2003 convention and complete their take-over of the SCV by purging the GEC members who resisted the Hawks suspension, packing the GEC with pro-radical types, and allowing the current CIC to succeed himself.

This plan was hastily crafted into amendments that were introduced at various division conventions during the past several months. Any opposition to the amendments at state meetings was suppressed, bullied or threatened into silence.

The rush to radicalism was so bad in North Carolina that an anti-United States flag resolution (barring the U.S. flag from the C.S.S. Hunley crew’s funeral) was passed with the Wilson/Lyons amendments; and the N.C. Division Chief of Staff, Boyd Cathey, called for secession from the United States in his report on the division meeting.

North Carolina division meetings had already been marred by parliamentary misconduct by Division Commander Brian Carawan, the ravings of Boyd Cathey, and threats by Charlotte camp commander Terry Crayton to assault Save the SCV supporters. Even folks who don’t agree with Save the SCV’s willingness to resist the radical take-over of the SCV in the public arena began to wonder if they really wanted Ron Wilson’s North Carolina SCV to become the model for the entire Confederation. These factors and a lot of hard work by a lot of non-Save the SCV folks at the convention led to CIC Wilson’s defeat.

The radicals are re-thinking their tactics. They are talking in terms of going back to the "five year plan." They are now calling themselves "reformers" instead of "radicals." They no doubt will be working even more closely (but quietly) with League of the South leadership, who until just before the convention had stayed in the background. The SCV has too much money, too many members, and too much infrastructure for the League of the South to give up.

So where does this leave Save the SCV and the herein un-named others who want to prevent the SCV from becoming a neo-secessionist fringe-group like the League of the South? Well, we can wait for CIC Wilson purge more of us or we can work together to put the SCV back on the right path.

Thus far, Save the SCV has been the lightning rod for the entire resistance movement. Others have worked quietly behind the scenes while we have been taking the most severe and sustained pounding that any group of SCV members has been subjected to in several decades.

Many good and true compatriots have stood-by and done little to help Save the SCV supporters while we were suspended, threatened, lied to and about, bombarded with insulting e-mails and phone calls, and accused of being on the "payroll of the enemies" of our own ancestors. Compatriots knew that if they uttered even one word of support for us they would be subjected to the same smear campaign.

Many compatriots would rather see the SCV overrun with League of the South and Council of Conservative Citizen activists than admit that these extremists are among us and are growing stronger every day. No body cares that many of our SCV leadership positions are occupied by members of these groups and that their goal is to deliver the SCV into the ranks of neo-secessionists. (Jack Marlar, the SCV ANV Field Rep. admitted this fact at an Orangeburg Camp meeting.)

Some would rather condemn those who point-out the extremists and vilify Save the SCV for agreeing. By the way, not one of the forty SCV leaders who are currently, or recently have been, members of the LoS or CCC has even bothered to deny the allegation.

Many of you would rather see the SCV turn to extremism than agree in public that we have an image problem because we have allowed these fringe-groups to influence our organization. Instead, you rail against the liberal media, the Democrats, the NAACP, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The truth is that the SCV is much closer to extinction than any of these groups who oppose us; not because of what they are doing to us, but because we are playing into their hands by not cleaning our own house. If the SCV is to survive and have a positive impact in 21^st century America, we will have to function in a world that contains these opponents because they are not going to go away. We must show the American public that the SCV is not just a bunch of eccentric flag wavers feuding among ourselves.

The public needs to see that there are good guys and bad guys in the SCV and that it matters to all Americans which side wins. This can not be done with Memphis gag-orders, frivolous law suits, John Wilkes Booth Camp keg parties and secret meetings with modern-day secessionists.