Think They Will Stop With The South? If you do, you are naïve!

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

Many of you will recall that old story from decades ago about how evil came along and took over everything because no one would stand up for anyone else.

It went something like this: “First they came for the Poles and I wasn’t Polish, so I didn’t do anything. Then they came for the Hungarians and I wasn’t Hungarian, so I didn’t do anything. Then they came for the Jews, and I wasn’t Jewish, so I didn’t do anything. Then, they came for me–and there was no one left to stand up for me.” I can’t recall all the nationalities in this little story, but you get the idea. No one bothered to stand up for others when they were under attack and so the forces of evil, One World Government, the Deep State, or whoever you want to call them, rolled up those groups that opposed them one by one until none were left who could oppose them.

Sadly, this little tale is not all that inaccurate, even in our day. All you have to do is look at the cultural genocide being practiced on the States of the Old Confederacy in regard to their monuments, flags, and symbols, to realize that we are  presently seeing a repeat performance of this tale re-enacted right before our eyes. The cultural Marxists on the far left, at the behest of  those that finance them, are in the process of trying to kill off the culture of the South and replace it with some grotesque form of hyper-Marxism so perverse that even Marx might not recognize it.

This has been going on for quite some time now and I have a question. Where are those other cultural groups in this country that should be trying to help the South out, but are, instead, just sitting this cultural battle out? Where are the historical groups, the patriotic groups, the alt-right groups, and a host of others that claim to believe much of what Southern folks believe but do nothing to help the South fight this cultural battle? Where are y’all? Have the reality shows claimed so much of your attention that you just can’t be bothered, or what?

I’d be willing to bet one thing at this point, when the cultural Marxists really start coming after some of the rest of you, then you are going to start howling for Southern folks to do their “patriotic duty” and support your efforts to combat the cultural Marxists. So why aren’t you helping us now in the same struggle?

Oh, I can hear your protestations now! Well, the South was “racist” and we can’t support that. I’ve got news for you. Whatever part of the country you now live in was “racist” just like the South was. And don’t try to tell me different. I grew up in the Northeast, which was every bit as racist as the South. The only difference is no one talks about it.

And then I can hear the cry–Well, the South had slaves! More news for you–so did the North! They just got rid of their slaves a little earlier than the South did, but they had ’em! Slavery was legal in all 13 of the original colonies, and considering that most of the slave traders came from New England and New York, when the North takes that “holier than thou” attitude toward the slavery question they are only kidding themselves. Anyone who has done the history homework knows better.

Anyone who tells you the South only seceded from the Union so she could keep her slaves is either totally naïve or they sincerely hope their listeners are. Either way, that canard is a total croc–and most of  those that peddle it know it is.

So most of those who claim they can’t help the South fight her cultural battles because of their opposition to slavery are kidding  precious few people beyond themselves. In reality, most of them are just sitting it our, hoping the minions of cultural Marxism won’t bother them too much. I’ve got news for you folks. When they get through trashing us, then they are coming for you next!

If they manage to beat the Southern folks into the ground, who are you going to get to help you protect your history and heritage? The folks in the far West? The ranching, farming, mining culture in the West is under assault  just like our heritage here in the South is. What do you think the Bundy Ranch situation in Nevada five  years ago was all about? It was about the destruction of the Ranching and farming culture in the West–which is under assault just like our Southern culture here in the South is.

Seems to me that all of the patriotic and historical groups in this country ought to be out there trying to help out like-minded folks in all regions of the country. Sadly, it does not seem to work that way.

The Lincoln Assassination Deception

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

Recently I borrowed a book from the local library by David O. Stewart called The Lincoln Deception. It was historical fiction about the circumstances involving the Lincoln assassination and I thought it might be interesting reading. I enjoy good historical fiction once in awhile as long as it stays relatively close to the historical facts.

Well, Stewart’s book did that, for the most part, but it was still a disappointment. It ended up being yet another of those “blame the Confederacy for Lincoln’s assassination” books.

Stewart usually writes historical books. I don’t always agree with his take on some of them, but maybe he should stick to history. I have his book Impeached which is the story of Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial and subsequent acquittal, and while I don’t think it’s great, it’s not too bad either.

Stewart notes that he got his idea for the Lincoln Deception book from one of his footnotes in Impeached. In chapter 4, beginning on page 36, Stewart notes, in a note on John Bingham, taken from page 40 (the footnote is on page 357 at the back of the book) that: “…Bingham had a complex relationship with the Lincoln assassination. On his deathbed, the Ohio congressman claimed he experienced a vision, as Lincoln was being shot, of the tragic event. Also, while on his deathbed, Bingham supposedly told his doctor that Mrs. Mary Surratt–one of the executed conspirators–had revealed to him and Secretary of War Stanton certain information ‘so shocking that its publication would threaten the Republic.’ Bingham and Stanton agreed it should not be disclosed, and Stanton on his own deathbed made Bingham swear to preserve the confidence. Bingham took the secret to his grave with him, saying, ‘The truth must remain sealed’.”

To the best of my knowledge no one has ever discovered what the secret that “would threaten the Republic” was. Whatever it might have been, it may have been potent enough that it sealed Mrs. Surratt’s fate for good and all. Supposedly this was taken from a book by Erving E. Beauregard, Bingham of the Hills: Politician and Diplomat Extraordinary, published in 1989. I had never even heard of this book, much less seen it.

It seems hard to believe that Mrs. Surratt would have had such a secret that she would have shared with both Bingham and Stanton. Of course  Stewart posits that the secret may have been that the Confederate government really planned Lincoln’s assassination. I suppose I shouldn’t have been all that surprised that that is where Stewart came from. This is the establishment’s favorite pipe dream–the way they really wish it was and, knowing how the establishment works, they will find ways to promote this falsehood even though it is a falsehood.

No real evidence to promote this has ever turned up. In fact I have written about some of this over the years. It’s on about the same level as the attempt to prove Jeff Davis was guilty of treason when even some of the Deep State Republicans of his day noted that it would be next to impossible to convict him of treason. That’s the reason they finally turned him loose. Davis wanted a trial and they knew if they gave him  one and he won in court, their whole entire rationale for having fought the War of Northern Aggression would be open to questions and so rather than have the public begin to question their omnipotence, they just shoved Davis out the back door and told him to go home.

Davis. to his credit, never sought a pardon for anything he did, even though some Union officials hinted that one would be forthcoming should he only request it. Why ask for a pardon when you have committed no crime?

So why Mrs. Surratt’s “secret”? Did she really know who was responsible for Lincoln’s assassination and it wasn’t the Confederate government? Did she really,  somehow, know that those who wanted Lincoln dead were Northerners, some of them in Lincoln’s own administration? That alone would make sure she hung. Dead women tell no tales. Bingham didn’t die until sometime around 1900. Was Mrs. Surratt’s “secret” so potent that, even at that late date, it would have threatened the republic? Or rather, would it have threatened the reputations of some of those in Lincoln’s own administration? To me, that seems much more likely.

The same holds true in our day for the Kennedy assassinations. Do you think we will ever see the real evidence of what happened in Dallas on that November day in 1963? There will always be some “compelling” reason why the public is not allowed to see this stuff. Will the truth threaten the “republic’? That’s long gone anyway. It might, however, threaten the reputations of some very highly placed  politicians, even though many of them are now dead–and the history books would have to be rewritten–someday–probably later than sooner. Same with the Lincoln assassination!

Is The Demoncrat Agenda Even More Devious Than We Imagined?

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

James Howard Kunstler had an interesting article on http://www.lewrockwell.com on June 25th. Mr. Kunstler observed: “The week’s doings left the impression that the Democratic Party has turned into one big race hustle, with reparations for slavery as the centerpiece on the banquet table and recriminations for ‘white privilege’ as the main course. Senator Warren added a gender hustle…to the menu over the weekend with demands for ‘reparations for gay and lesbian couples’  who had to file income taxes as individuals  in the pre gay marriage days.” Seems as if one of the main agendas for the Demoncrats, outside of impeaching Trump, is to try to “outreparate” one another. I know that’s not a real word, but it fits here.

Kunstler notes that black Americans comprise about 12.3 percent of the population and the sodomite/lesbian, transgender crowd amounts to about 4.5 percent of the population. So the Demoncrat agenda panders to about 17 present of the population. The rest of us they’d probably shoot if they could get away with it, but they can’t, not yet.

So I ask myself, do they really think they can win in 2020 with a platform that is so far outside of absolute reality? I know they will get a batch of goofy white liberals to vote for them, but how much of a chance do they really have, even with that? You can see why they want  so badly to sack the electoral college. Most of their fruits and nuts are in Commiefornia and New York and they’d love it if those two “states” could elect Demoncrat presidents for the next century or so while the rest of us were forced to live with the results of that–if they were not able to shoot us!

I watched a video interview with Joel Skousen the other night. For those who might not know him, Mr. Skousen is a political analyst and researcher. One of his relatives, W. Cleon Skousen wrote the book The Naked Communist several years back now. So Mr. Skousen has grown up in the research arena. He knows whereof he speaks.

Mr. Skousen posited an interesting theory in this video that most of us, myself included, had not considered. He stated that, what if, the Demoncrats had already concluded that, with what they had running for president, any of them, they could not beat Trump in 2020? What would they do in that case? Might they not concede 2020 to Trump because they know they do not have what it would take to defeat him?  However, in doing that, they could continue to bog him down with endless stop-gaps to his agenda as they have done for the past three years.  Every time Trump has sought to do something with the immigration situation some Obama-appointed judge somewhere has issued a ruling that says “Sorry, Donald, you can’t do that.” No matter what Trump has tried to do the Demoncrats have opposed him. Now you expect some of that, but these people have been nearly demonic in their opposition. They want to do the Mueller investigation all over again, and again if necessary, because Mueller couldn’t give them what they wanted, although he tried mightily, up to and including that post-investigation “new conference” he gave.

In 2020 you will see more impeachment malarkey and subpoenas from Congress until they are coming out your ears. All this, and more, slows down Trumps implementation of his agenda, just like the Mueller investigation did. If the Demoncrats can continue this stalling of the Trump agenda long and hard enough they will render Trump, for all intents and purposes, dead in the water. Though he may end up occupying the White House for four more years, if they can tie him down enough that he can’t do what he promised his base he would do, then how much chance does any honest Republican (and there are a few, not many, but a few) have in 2024? Stop and think about this for awhile. Once you grasp where this is going, it makes a Satanic kind of sense.

Trump has himself to blame for some of this. He has picked people to staff his administration that hate both his guts and his agenda and until he figures this out and gets rid of them he will continue to have problems.

Pompeo and Bolton are determined to get him into the war he wants to avoid, but yet there they sit, working to undermine his  agenda. He revoked John Brennan’s security clearance, only to find out, four months later, that whoever was supposed to do that little chore had not bothered. So Brennan still has top security clearance. Has  he followed up on this? Why hasn’t whoever was supposed to do this been  fired? Trump has so much on his plate he has probably forgotten about it. How many other such orders has he given that have been routinely ignored by those in his own administration who wish him anything but well?

If he doesn’t get some of these housekeeping chores taken care of there are some folks that are going to start to wonder if he really cares, and that will not bode well for him. If the Demoncrats can keep Trump “otherwise occupied” for the next three years or so they can basically shut down his agenda, and I am beginning to think, along with Joel Skousen, that, at this point, this may be their game plan.

 

Sometimes Even The Well-Intentioned Get It Wrong!

by Al Benson Jr.
Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

I have followed InfoWars for quite awhile now and I agree with their efforts to present news the mainstream media ignores or misinterprets. I have noted the efforts of “Big Tech” to suppress and censor them and I totally disagree with that. They are a legitimate news forum that needs to be heard whether Leftist politicians agree with them or not. In fact they need to be heard because Leftist politicians and other assorted liars disagree with them.

Having said that, what I am going to deal with now is meant as constructive criticism and not as a put-down.

I read Jon Bowne’s article about reparations for slavery on their site on June 22nd and, in principle, I agree with his position. What I don’t agree with is his interpretation of history. Mr. Bowne noted that his ancestors were New York abolitionists and so he feels he should not have to pay reparations for slavery. He won’t get any argument from me on that–but he should have stopped there.

He went on to state that 360,000 Union soldiers fought a war to emancipate the slaves. Of course, if that were actually true then, supposedly, all those who fought for the Confederacy were fighting to keep the slaves in bondage–particularly if they were Democrats. Actually, neither premise is true. I am not accusing Mr. Bowne of intentional falsehood here. I am saying that the history he has picked up and accepted is very faulty.

Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” notwithstanding, most Union soldiers did not fight to free the slaves. Most of them didn’t care about slavery one way or the other. Most of them fought to preserve the Union, which was what Lincoln had initially said the war was all about. Only in late 1862, when the North was losing the war, did Lincoln begin casting around for another reason for his invasion of the South, and in so doing, he landed squarely on the “emancipation” bubble, and, as that seemed to work for him, he ran with it.

It didn’t work for many Union soldiers, however, and there were many desertions in the Union Army when it was discovered that the reason for the war was undergoing some revisions. In fact, if you stop and think about it, the idea that the North fought to free the slaves is downright ludicrous. If such had been the case, then why didn’t the Lincoln administration first free the slaves in Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and Missouri? All those states, though Southern in character, remained in the Union! They would have been the logical place for the Union to have begun the process of emancipation–if that’s what it had really been all about.

So Lincoln, if he was serious about emancipation, should have issued a proclamation that would have emancipated Northern slaves first. Instead he issued one that freed Southern slaves in territory he had no authority over and that left Northern slaves in bondage. Seems like kind of a backwards way of doing it, but then, the federal government is noted for doing things backwards so I guess we should expect as much.

Mr. Bowne needs to do a bit of homework as to what the War Between the States was really all about and a Northern war to free the slaves just doesn’t cut the historical mustard no matter how sharp your knife might be in other areas.

Mr. Bowne will probably never read what I write here, but, if by some wild chance he does see it, I would like to suggest a little reading he could do on the subject of the Northern “crusade” to free the slaves. I will list three books here he should be able to locate.

They are: Slavery Was Not The Cause Of The War Between The States  by Gene Kizer Jr. Published by Charleston Athenaeum Press, Charleston, South Carolina in 2014. Myths Of American Slavery  by Walter D. Kennedy. Published by Pelican Publishing in Gretna, Louisiana. Slavery And The Civil War by Garry Bowers, M. Ed. Published by Shotwell Publishing in Columbia, South Carolina in 2019.

These books should give Mr. Bowne, or anyone else who may read them, the truth about what the War Between the States was really all about. Subtle hint–it wasn’t slavery!

The Reparations Scam De Jour

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

The reparations scam is like the proverbial bad penny–it keeps on coming back and back and back. And now we have a batch of Demoncrat congresspersons that want to try to foist it upon us yet again.

Do you think they know it’s a scam? Of course they do. They are trying to shaft the public, particularly the white public and they hope we are too stupid to realize that. Well, some are and some aren’t. The ones that are will just go along with it in the name of “racial equality” (which really has nothing to do with it) and the ones that aren’t will just be labeled as “racists” by the mainstream media. They think that labeling us all racists will automatically shut us up. It won’t, but in their omniscient wisdom they haven’t quite figured that out yet.

One of the sponsors of this pernicious legislation is Rep. Jerrold Nadler from New York. That fact alone should tell you that this bill has to be a project of the far left in the Demoncrat Party (although you have to wonder if there’s anything other than the far left amongst the Democrats anymore. Any Democrat who is not part of the far left is probably in hiding!

So this bill is supposed to create a commission to study slavery in the US all the way back to 1565 through the end of the War of Northern Aggression. Anyone want to bet that most of their main effort will cover the years from 1860-65 in the South? I didn’t think so.

So supposedly this commission will study the whole slavery banana. I hope that means they will take account of all the slavery that went on in the Northern states up until  around 1830 or so–states like Massachusetts, Rhode Island. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and wherever else up there that slavery existed. It will be interesting to see how this commission goes about finding the descendants of slaves in Massachusetts in 1800. I could be wrong, but I’d bet they will end up deciding that is a non-starter and they will go to concentrating on slavery in the South after 1860.

Mitch McConnell in the Senate will supposedly ignore this bill. We’ll see. It’s easy to see how some of these elastic congresspersons end up getting “persuaded” to change their minds at the midnight hour.

Just so you all realize it, any reparations bill that ends up getting passed will be a bill that redistributes your wealth to some other group for a situation that, in our day, neither you nor they had any  part in. Like so much legislation that gets passed in our day, it is little more than legalized theft.

I’ve asked these questions before, but I will ask them again because I have never heard a satisfactory answer to them. Will descendants of black slave owners have to pay reparations also?

What about people whose ancestors were not here during the slave days? Will they have to pay too, and if so, why? And please don’t tell me they also benefitted from slavery too. That’s a croc and we both know it. And what about whites that were slaves in this country? There were some–and we are not talking indentured servants here we are talking slaves. Do their descendants get reparations too? Bet they don’t. Bet they are not even mentioned or considered. And what about American Indians that were slaves–particularly in the North? Do their descendants get reparations? Bet they don’t!

If I had a suspicious mind, I might be tempted to  think a reparations bill being introduced at this time might just be a crude Demoncrat attempt at buying the black vote for the 2020 election. Of course we all realize such would never happen–would it? Next question!

Discerning black folks need to be aware of smiling Demoncrat legislators bearing reparations gifts that leave lots of unanswered questions.

Scripture And The “Chosen”

by Al Benson Jr.

This will be one of those articles guaranteed to make some folks mad. I don’t pick these things to make people angry, but somehow, they seem to turn up anyway. And. let’s face it, the truth always makes some people angry because they don’t want to believe it. Many would much rather believe the lie, and so truth angers them. You might say, in today’s current terminology, that it “offends” them. Well, for those it “offends” their “safe spaces” and “crying rooms” await.

I want to look at a few passages of Scripture here. Lets start with 1st John 2:18. It says “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist will come, even now there are many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” The last time John is referring to is the first century, not the 21st century. In the first century John notes that there were many antichrists, not just one big one at the end of the world, which is what is taught in so many churches in our day.

Look at 1st John 4:1-3. It’s a bit long to print out here, but it points to those that deny that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. John talks of false prophets. So, implicit here is the idea of false teaching. Second John, verse 7, bears this out. It says: “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.” John is warning those in his own day who to look out for

Now we turn back to the lightning rod of verses, Genesis 12:3, where God tells Abraham: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” This verse has been wildly misinterpreted in the last 150 years. We have been told that God will bless all of Abraham’s physical descendants, including the modern state of Israel, many of whose present inhabitants are not physical descendants of Abraham in any way, shape or form, but because they have, somewhere along the line, embraced the religion of Judaism, we are told this verse also applies to them. Sorry, folks, but it doesn’t! This verse does not say what people attribute to it today. The verse only says God will bless or curse people dependent upon how they treat Abraham, not how they react to the modern state if Israel!

Now, look at Galatians 3:16 “Now to Abraham and his seed (singular) were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.” The promise made to Abraham referred to Jesus Christ, not any future glory for the state of Israel, which is how it is taken in our day. The next few verses note that the law was a “schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” Faith in Christ, not faith in the law, not faith in the nation of Israel, but faith in Christ, to whom, alone, we must come for salvation.

And he says in Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” And Galatians 3:29 is the clincher, or at least should be, though many today try to get around it. It says “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

Then Paul drops a bomb in Romans 2:28-29, when he says “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter (of the law). He goes on in chapter 3 to note that no man, Jew or Gentile, is better than another because we are all under sin. In verse 10 he says that “There is none righteous, no, not one.” We all need Christ’s righteousness, otherwise we are not saved and there is no “different” salvation for Jews than there is for Gentiles.

Check out Romans 9:6-8, where it says “For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.”

Charles D. Provan, in his book The Church Is Israel Now  commented on Romans 9:6-7 and said: “Yet God stated to Abraham that the descendants of Abraham would be reckoned through Isaac, the child born to Abraham through faith in God. Paul says that this fact demonstrates that the true children of Abraham are reckoned as those who have the faith of Abraham, not those who can trace their physical descent from Abraham.”

Mr. Provan states, in the forward for his book: “The privileges and responsibilities of ‘Racial Israel’ now belong to believers in Christ. a verse which demonstrates the transition quite clearly is Matthew 21:43, which reads “Therefore, I say unto you,, the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” The results of Jesus comments here to the Jews was that they “sought to lay hands on him” to do Him physical violence for what He told them. The parable of the vineyard in Matthew 21 is a good example of this, particularly Jesus’ explanation of it in Matthew 21:43.

Maybe, in light of some of this, Christians in our day need to begin to rethink some of the questionable theology we have been fed for the past 150 years that has so neutralized much of the church that we can’t seem to do much of anything except castigate those who will not offer unswerving support to the state of Israel, no matter what they do.

Paul Craig Roberts and the Attack On the USS Liberty

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

Back on June 11th of this year I did an article on the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty back in 1967, a subject I felt was legitimate to comment on since there is still stuff floating around on the internet about it.

I got flack from fellow Christians who seem to feel that no one is supposed to ever say anything against Israel, no matter what. It seems that is an unspoken 11th commandment that has been added to the first Ten which states: “Thou shalt never speak a word against the government of the state of Israel, no matter what!”

I received a comment back from one man which asked “Are we now supposed to hate all Jews?” Who said anything about hating Jews? Does being critical of the government of Israel automatically mean we hate all Jews? If so, then, I suppose, being critical of our own government in Washington must mean we automatically hate all Americans!

Unfortunately, whether they realize it or not, many American Christians have been placing their loyalty to the state of Israel over their loyalty to Jesus Christ. This is the result of generations of bad theology. This bad theology is now coming back to haunt us, of which I will say more in future articles. Having said that, and possibly making more of the brethren angry at me, I will now deal with Paul Craig Roberts’ commentary on the attack on the USS Liberty.

I just recently ran across an article by Paul Craig Roberts on the internet for July 26, 2016 https://www.paulcraigroberts.org in which Dr. Roberts made many statements that should make thinking Americans take a second look at a large part of our foreign policy.

For those who know nothing about Dr. Roberts, he has a doctorate from the University of Virginia. He has taught at Stanford University and the University of New Mexico. Later, he became an analyst and advisor “…at the United States Congress where he was credited as the primary author of the original draft of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. He was the United States Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under President Reagan…A former associate editor at The Wall Street Journal…and he is the author of more than a dozen books…” So Dr. Roberts has been around the barn a couple times and knows what the game is.

Dr. Roberts noted, in his July, 2016 article that: “For a number of years Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chief of Naval Operations and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was my colleague at the Center for Strategic and International Studies…expressed to me his concern that US politics and foreign policy was in the clutches of Israel and that America was being led into war with the Arab Middle East. Admiral Moorer and the State
Department and Pentagon at that time did not think that war with the Arab countries served the interests of the United States. However, Admiral Moorer thought that the war could not be avoided because of the hold Israel has over the US government. What convinced him of this was Washington’s coverup of the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty which resulted in 208 killed and wounded Americans…I raised the issue of the USS Liberty eight or nine years ago in a syndicated newspaper column, which, as I suspected would be the case, only a few news sources dared to publish. However, the article editor at Hustler magazine saw the article and contacted me. He said that Hustler was popular among US sailors…Would I write the USS Liberty story for the sailors so they would be aware or the betrayal that might await them?”

It’s a pity that, to find out some of what the government is doing to people, you are forced to read something like Hustler.

Here are some of Dr. Roberts’ comments from the Hustler article. “The Liberty was an intelligence ship. Its purpose was to monitor Soviet and Arab communications in order to warn both Israel and Washington should the Soviets enter the war on behalf of its Arab allies. The Liberty was armed with only four machine guns to repel boarders. It’s request for a destroyer escort had been denied. The assault on the Liberty is well documented. With no warning, the Liberty was attacked by successive waves of unmarked jets using cannon, rockets and napalm. The attacking jets jammed all of the US communications frequencies, an indication they knew the Liberty was an American ship. The air attack failed to sink the Liberty. About 30 minutes into the attack three torpedo boats appeared flying the Star of David. The Israeli boats were not on a rescue mission. They attacked the Liberty with cannon, machine guns and torpedoes. One torpedo struck the Liberty mid-ship, instantly killing 25 Americans while flooding the lower decks. The Israeli torpedo boats destroyed the life rafts the Liberty launched when the crew prepared to abandon ship, sending the message there would be no survivors.” If this is what a supposed ally does, one can only imagine what an enemy would do!

Roberts continued: “The US government’s official position on the USS Liberty corresponds with Israel’s: The attack was unintentional and a result of Israeli blunders. This is the official position despite the fact that CIA Director Richard Helms, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Assistant Secretary of State Lucius Battle, and a long list of US Navy officers and Liberty survivors are on record saying the Israeli attack was intentional.

So the question has been asked by Roberts “Why did Israel attack the Liberty? Was something super secret going on that is so damaging it must be protected at all cost?”

Apparently, Dr. Roberts has spoken with survivors of the attack because he wrote: “Survivors with whom I spoke said the attack was the easy part of the experience. The hard part has been living with 40 years of official cover-up and betrayal by the US government.” This next comment, I felt, displayed where a significant part of the Christian church in America is really at regarding Israel. Dr. Roberts noted: “One survivor said he was asked to leave his Baptist church when he spoke about the Liberty, because the minister and fellow church-goers felt more loyalty to Israel than to a member of the congregation who had served his country. His church’s position was that if our government believed Israel, the survivors should also.” As I read that, I thought How sick is this??? A Christian man asked to leave his church because, as a survivor of the attack, what he experienced on the scene dared to differ with what Israel said about the attack! I thought–how many other churches in America would have done exactly the same thing? Dare to question anything the state of Israel does and, buddy, you are out of here!

This is a sad, sad, commentary on the state of many of our churches. What the state of Israel says is really law in these churches–in spite of evidence to the contrary.

And we dare to talk about “revival” in this country? Who are we kidding? As long as our churches are in such a state that will be no revival, and that’s something we really need to think about.

Another False Flag–This Time Iran

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

The Shadow Government wants us in a war against Iran. No telling how many of Israel’s chestnuts this will pull out of the fire or how many American boys will have to spill their blood.  If it helps Israel, well then, it’s worth spilling American blood for–isn’t it? Some of those who read my recent article on the USS Liberty seem to feel that it is. The thought of asking Israel to fight its own battles when it has demonstrated that it is more than capable of doing so never seems to occur to them.

This perpetual idea of expecting the US to clean up the mess in the Middle East no matter who makes the mess is getting more disgusting.

So now someone has attacked an oil tanker in the Middle East and our Shadow Government oligarchs, Pompeo and Bolton, have rushed in where angels fear to tread and said it looks, naturally, like Iran did the dirty deed. What would Iran have had to gain by this? Well, they don’t tell us that. We aren’t supposed to be bright enough to even ask–just take their word for us and get the American boys ready to ship over there to fight for God knows what.

Columnist Caitlin Johnstone had some interesting comments about this on https:medium.com  She noted that: “In a move that surprised exactly zero people, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has wasted no time scrambling to blame Iran for damage done to two sea vessels in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday, citing exactly zero evidence.” I mean, who needs evidence? If the Shadow Government tells us what is supposed to have happened, isn’t that enough? As I’ve asked before–if you can’t trust your government, then who can you trust? Nobody ever answers that one.

Caitlin Johnstone noted: “Pompeo is a known liar, especially when it comes to Iran. Pompeo has a well-established history of circulating blatant lies about Iran and the behavior of the Iranian government, and he recently told an audience at Texas A & M University that when he was leading the CIA, ‘We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses’.” And Johnstone noted that “The US empire  is known to use lies and false flags to start wars.” Should you wonder where–how about the USS Maine in Havana, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, weapons of “mass destruction” in Iraq? And these are just for starters!

Johnstone observed that “The US-centralized power alliance  has an extensive and well-documented history of advancing preexisting military agendas  using lies, false flags and psyops to make targeted governments appear to be aggressors. This is such a well-established pattern that ‘Gulf of Tonkin’ briefly trended on Twitter after the Gulf of Oman incident. Any number of government agencies could have been involved from any number of the nations in this alliance, including the US, the UK, the KSA, the UAE, or Israel.”

Ms. Johnstone also observed that John Bolton has openly endorse lying to advance military agendas. Watching Bolton operate over the years, I have come to the conclusion that he never saw a war anywhere he didn’t love if he could find some way to get the United States involved in it. I think it’s what he lives for!

These people never stop to consider the tragedy they inflict on Americans who have to get involved in their agendas of Empire. Either that or they just don’t give a rip. After all, it’s our young folks that end up bleeding, not theirs!

So polish off your rifles, dust off your artillery pieces and get ready for a war with Iran, whether it’s really warranted or not makes no difference. They want it and so we’ll have it, and that’s all there is to it!

“A Fatal Mercy”

A review of Thomas Moore’s latest book

by Al Benson Jr.

This book is a work of fiction, historical fiction, about a family from the low country of South Carolina at the time of the beginning of the War of Northern Aggression and for over half a century after that. Having said that, let me hasten to add that it is good historical fiction, good because it has a fascinating story to tell, and good because Mr. Moore knows the history he uses for the backdrop of this story. Once I started reading, I had a hard time putting it down and it seemed to get better as it went along, in spite of the sadness of some of the incidents written about.

The main character is Drayton FitzHenry, the middle son of a family that raises rice on their plantation in the low country of extreme eastern South Carolina. The story covers the period from January, 1860, all the way through to July, 1913, when Drayton, his older brother, Cabell, and Tommy, his grandson, go to the 50th reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Although he was initially reluctant to go to the reunion, Drayton was eventually talked into it by his older brother, and it was good for him that he did go, for it allowed him to unburden himself of a secret about the battle that had haunted him ever since 1867. It was a burden he needed to get rid of.

Let me say this here. I have been to Gettysburg three times over the years, going all the way back to 1961, and then twice after that. I have been across most of the battlefield from the Confederate side to the Yankee side. I’ve stood where Chamberlain’s men stood as they fired on the attacking Confederates, trying to get a feel for what happened to our boys as they crossed that wide open stretch marching into the Yankee guns. I guess, in my mind’s eye I wanted to see if I could see them coming. I couldn’t bring up the vision at that time. But, then, I still had a lot to learn at that time.

One thing I will say about Mr. Moore’s description of the battlefield and the battle, it made me feel  Gettysburg all over again as I had on our visits there. It was a mark of the caliber of this book that it made me feel what I had experienced previously only on the battlefield.

Our protagonist, Drayton FitzHenry, marries the one love of his life, his first wife, Cecelia before he goes off to war. She is a Northern girl, in South Carolina with her father, a professor from the North, yet she marries Drayton, initially against the wishes of both her father and his. Yet once married, she becomes part of his family and remains with them the rest of her life, short though that unfortunately is.
Neither Drayton or his family really wants to see this war come. Yet, when it does come, Drayton, his older brother, Cabell, and his younger brother, Ranse, all go off to fight in defense of their native State.

Cecelia extracts from Drayton the promise that he will not let the war make a heartless brute out of him, but that he will exercise mercy as much as is possible in whatever situation he finds himself. To his credit, Drayton does this, but the doing of it, which happens at Gettysburg, is something that causes him heartache for all the years until he goes back to Gettysburg in 1913.

Drayton’s problem begins on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, when General Longstreet, for whom Drayton is a courier and scout, is asked by the general to scout the Yankee army’s left flank to see if there is a way to get around the Northern army that the Confederates can use to turn the Yankee left flank and change the course the battle seems to be taking.

In the course of his scouting, Drayton comes to Little Round Top, and as he scouts out this area, he discovers that there are no Yankee soldiers on Little Round Top. As he is about to depart to inform General Longstreet he hears a noise and discovers that two Yankee officers have also gotten up to the top of Little Round Top. He gets into the trees out of sight and observes them. With him he has a Spencer repeating rifle that has been appropriated from the Yankees in battle, and his first thought is to shoot the two Yankee officers who are up there with him. But then, the admonition of his wife to show mercy wherever possible comes to him and he hesitates to shoot two men in cold blood from ambush, and so he eases his finger off the trigger and the Yankees leave. At that point, Drayton leaves also and gets back to Longstreet as quickly as he can. But he has further to go than the two Yankees do. He gets back to Longstreet and tells him what he found, but before Longstreet can really do much in the way of moving troops there, the Yankees have already started moving men up to the top of Little Round Top, and we all know the rest of that story. And so, for the time being, although Drayton is sad that the Yankees beat us to Little Round Top, he doesn’t think all that much more about it. His future reflections on that situation come two years down the road.

In February of 1867, Drayton gets to visit with former Confederate General Edward Porter Alexander when both are teaching at the University of South Carolina. Alexander shows him an article written for the New York Times, a tribute to Union General Gouverneur Warren, written in July of 1865.

The article explains that General Warren was the Union officer, part of Meade’s staff, who was responsible for securing Little Round Top for the Yankees, which made the difference in the outcome of the battle. This was the officer that Drayton had seen up there and declined to shoot from ambush, and that act of mercy, a fatal mercy, made the difference in the Battle of Gettysburg, and eventually in the war as a whole. At this point, Drayton feels the eventual loss of the war is his fault for his act of mercy. He lives with the horrific burden on his shoulders until 1913, when he goes back to Gettysburg and is able to unburden his soul at that point in a speech to his comrades in arms of fifty years ago. And while a handful of them react with anger, the majority do not.

Drayton’s second wife, Annalee, (his first wife, Cecelia, the real love of his life) died in 1864 of typhoid fever while he was away fighting and later on Drayton ends up marrying Annalee. She is no carbon copy of his first devoted wife. She is a control freak who wants to dominate every aspect of his being and she does not want him going to Gettysburg for this 50th reunion because he is out from under her control while he is gone. His whole relationship with Annalee and their “marriage” is an interesting sub-plot in this story, but it would drag this review on too long to go into it in detail here. It’s one of those fascinating parts of this book that you will have to get the book to discover. In the end, Drayton is able to resolve it to his (and our) satisfaction.

You may be able to tell from this review that I really enjoyed this book. I have always enjoyed good historical fiction and this book filled that bill. I hope Mr. Moore will go on and do more work in this area. Good historical fiction always imparts a certain amount of historical knowledge and this book does that. I recommend it strongly.
It was published by Green Altar Books, which is a division of Shotwell Publishing in Columbia, South Carolina.

The Attack On The USS Liberty

by Al Benson Jr.

This is one of those “forbidden” topics all the politically correct bend over backwards to ignore. We are all supposed to pretend it never happened. Books have been written about it by men who were crew members on the Liberty. They are routinely (and always have been) ignored by the mainstream “news” media. What’s more, they have been ignored by Christians who should know better, but because they subscribe to a skewed theology, in most cases they don’t.

There was an article about this on http://www.lewrockwell.com on June 10th, written by Ray McGovern, originally written for Consortiumnews.com  In it Mr. McGovern noted: “On June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War, the Israeli military attacked the USS Liberty, an American spy ship which had been monitoring Israeli transmissions about the conflict. Intercepted Israeli communications indicated that the goal was to sink the Liberty and leave no survivors.” This from our “ally”–so called, in the Middle East.

McGovern noted that Terry Halbardier  “…slid over the Liberty’s napalm-glazed deck to jury-rig an antenna and get an SOS off to the Sixth Fleet. The Israelis intercepted the SOS and broke off the attack immediately. In effect, Halbardier prevented the massacre of all 294 onboard. Still, the infamy of the attack on the Liberty was two-fold. First, the Liberty, a virtually defenseless intelligence collection platform prominently flying an American flag in international waters, came under deliberate attack by Israeli aircraft and three 60-ton Israeli torpedo boats off the coast of the Sinai on a cloudless June afternoon during the six-day Israeli-Arab War. Second, President Lyndon Johnson called back carrier aircraft dispatched to defend the Liberty lest Israel be embarrassed, the start of an unconscionable cover-up, including top Navy brass, that persists to this day.”

There is a message here for those, even among Christians, who are willing to listen. And it is this–If you are the nation of Israel you can do whatever you want to whomever you want, even to the point of killing American military people and it will all be overlooked because, after all, Israel is our “biggest ally” in the Middle East. That fable excuses anything they want to do.

I ran into a Christian doctor once, several years ago now, who, when this subject happened to be brought up, tried to  tell me that it was all  an unfortunate “accident” that Israel fired on the Liberty. When I took the trouble to correct him on that point, explaining that it was no accident, he almost became unhinged. He stridently informed me that we, as Christians, have to support the state of Israel, no matter what they decide to do  or the manner they decide to do it in. That was, he said, the duty of Christians–support the State of Israel–no matter what! He upbraided me for daring to question anything Israel decided to do, I assume, even to the point of killing Americans.

Well, he convinced me–convinced me he was so in error theologically that I never went back to him again. But he proved something to me that I had become convinced of over a period of years–that there is a whole branch of the Christian community that, whether they even realize it or not, puts their loyalty to the Nation of Israel over their loyalty to Jesus Christ. I realize that some will be ticked off at me for saying that, even some of my own relatives, but that’s how it seems to work out.

If you doubt me, get a copy of the Scofield Reference Bible and read Scofield’s notes regarding the nation of Israel. And after you’ve done that, find a copy of Joseph Canfield’s informative book The Incredible Scofield and His Book. It was published by Ross House Books in Vallecito, California  and the last edition I am aware of was published in 2004. You might check Amazon to see if they have it.

Joe Canfield is now deceased. He lived into his early 90s. I knew Joe personally. He spent seven years researching all the material he had in that book. He traveled across the country hunting down documentation for this book, back in the days before the internet. Joe knew whereof he wrote.

You won’t truly understand where all of the “Israel first” stuff we get in so many churches today originally came from until you read Joe’s book and then check out the notes in the Scofield Bible in light of what Joe has written about them. This is an area that, in our day, we need much more discernment in than many Christians seem to possess.