Is Nimrata Randhawa Haley Trying to Back Pedal on the Confederate Flag?

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

Back in 2015 when Dylan Roof shot those black folks in their church in Charleston, South Carolina no one was quicker to denounce the Confederate flag than the governor of South Carolina, Nimrata Haley.

Almost instantaneously she had the Confederate Battle Flag removed from the capital grounds in Columbia, and she said: “I think the more important part is it should never have been there. These grounds are a place that everybody should feel a part of. What I realized now more than ever is people were driving by and felt hurt and pain . No one should feel pain.” Sounded nice and sentimental back in 2015. No one  should feel pain. What about those people who had ancestors that fought under that flag, not for slavery, but for the rights of their states? It would seem as thought it’s okay if they feel pain. Their pain did not matter. It still doesn’t.

Ms. Haley’s actions in Columbia started a mad binge of anti-Southern and anti-Confederate bigotry and hatred that has continued until this very day. How many Confederate flags, monuments, and plaques have been taken down in the past four years, all under the noble-sounding euphemism of “fighting racism” when all this has really accomplished is fostering the birth of a virulent new racism–only this new birth of racism is all okay–because it is anti-Confederate. And that makes all the difference in the world. You see, racism is perfectly permissible as long as it is anti-Confederate racism.

The fact that Confederate monuments and plaques had nothing whatever to do with racism is just lost in the shuffle. What the far left prays for (if they ever pray for anything) is that you never discover that fact.

None of this makes any difference to Ms. Haley. Her ancestry is East Indian Sikh, so Confederate history and heritage are meaningless for her. None of it  makes any difference to her and, hence, she probably can’t understand why it makes any difference to the rest of us.

We had a governor here in Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, who also had East Indian ancestry. He was a decent governor, but he never seemed to grasp the idea that Southern history and heritage meant something to us here in Louisiana. He was never willing to issue a proclamation noting Confederate heritage month here, no doubt because such heritage was meaningless to him. It was not part of his heritage so it didn’t affect him.

Anyway, for all the damage to our history and heritage Ms. Haley caused, now, four years later, she seems to be back peddling a bit where the Confederate Flag is concerned.

In an article that appeared on The Hill, written by Marty Johnson, on December 6th, it was noted:: “Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley says that Dylan Roof,  who shot and killed nine black Americans in a Charleston church in 2015, ‘hijacked’ the meaning of the Confederate flag…People saw it as service and sacrifice and heritage, but once he did that, there was no way to overcome it.” Well, Ms. Haley, that’s a little bit too late. The damage was done. Too bad you didn’t have a little more foresight back then, you might have avoided some of the misery your actions have put us all through in the last four years as we have seen our heritage and history thoroughly trashed not only by the far left but by lots of other folks who should have known better.

But at that point, you were not overly concerned. You were pursuing a political spot higher in the Republican Establishment pecking order and trashing our Southern heritage was an easy price to pay for that, wasn’t it? Didn’t cost you a thing! The only ones it cost were those who had Confederate ancestors–who your actions branded as automatically racist. No skin off your nose!

And now, here you are, back four years later with a bit of literary legerdemain, telling us now that Roof only “hijacked” the Confederate flag instead of it representing him and what he did. Why the sudden burst of generosity toward our flag on your part now?

It couldn’t be, perchance, that you now have a new book out that you are seeking publicity for, could it? And it couldn’t be that you are hoping for some healthy book sales for your new book here in the South that you so thoroughly trashed four years ago could it? I’m jus guessing, mind you, but it seems like a pretty fair country guess.

Us poor rubes here in the rural South are supposed to have forgotten what you did to our heritage four years ago and we are all supposed to now run out and buy your new book because you have backed off just a bit on your thoughts about our flags and heritage–just a bit–but not enough!!!

After what you started with your actions regarding our flag and our heritage, I have to be honest with you. I would not spend a thin dime for your book and I don’t think a lot of Southern folks will either. Your pious commentary about not wanting people to be hurt does not seem to extend to those who love and cherish their Southern heritage and the memory of their Confederate ancestors, the vast majority of which never owned a slave or supported slavery. It’s obvious to us that, to you, we don’t really count–and that being the case–you should not count on the dollars we won’t spend for your new book.

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Stanton and the Deification of “Father Abraham”

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

On December 4th Professor Thomas DiLorenzo, a noted Lincoln scholar, had some commentary published on http://www.lewrockwell.com about people comparing the popularity of Donald Trump with that of Abraham Lincoln. He noted an opinion poll that found that Trump was a better president than Lincoln was, according to 53% of the Republicans polled.

Professor DiLorenzo observed: “The Lincoln cult–especially the neocon/”Straussian” wing–must be tearing its collective hair out over this affront to their ‘Father Abraham’ (the official title bestowed upon the sixteenth president by the late Harry Jaffa and his fellow cultists). But, lo and behold, the news is even worse.”

Dr. DiLorenzo then went on to explain to us how really reviled and unpopular Lincoln was in his own day. He noted that: “Lincoln has the advantage of more than 150 years of deification through government propaganda, hundreds of false histories about him written by court historians like Jaffa, and the statist lapdog ‘popular culture’  with such propaganda films as Steven Spielberg’s ‘Lincoln.'” However, all this manufactured adoration has taken place since his demise and the deification of Lincoln has become a gigantic cottage industry that has made lots of money for those willing to  prostitute themselves telling us what a really grand fellow Mr. Lincoln was. Some who partake of this foolishness may actually believe the stuff they write. I am willing to wager that others, knowing the real truth, choose to ignore it because they have read the handwriting on the wall–and, for them, that handwriting consists of dollar signs.

In his article Professor DiLorenzo notes a book by a Larry Tagg, The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln: The Story of America’s Most Reviled President. He notes how even the Northern press had major problems with Lincoln. And well they should. He shut down all kinds of Northern newspapers that would not say to the public what he wanted said, and jailed their owners and editors, along with all manner of political prisoners.

Dr. DiLorenzo has a new book about Lincoln coming out next June, something to look forward to. He has already given us such books as The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked. Both well worth your reading time, and you are guaranteed to learn more about Lincoln than you will ever get out of your school “history” books, most of which are not real history to begin with.

Author Larry Tagg has noted of Lincoln that: “Lincoln was deeply reviled by many who knew him personally, and by hundreds of thousands who only knew of him.” In his day he was condemned as a “bloody tyrant, a dictator,” and a man who was “stretching the rules of the Constitution to allow arbitrary arrests, the suspension of habeas corpus, and the suppression of newspapers.” Tagg observed that there was actually “pervasive cheering and celebrating in the North when Lincoln was assassinated.” I sincerely doubt your “history” books mention any of this.

Professor DiLorenzo has observed, accurately, that “…all the typical American over the age of 35 knows about him is the few slogans that Americans  are all taught in grade school–that he supposedly ‘freed the slaves with a stroke of a pen’ and ‘saved the union,’ both of which are undeniably false. The under-35 population knows even less.”

I contended in an article awhile back that Lincoln was really our first Deep State president. The actions of Edwin Stanton immediately after Lincoln’s death seem to have verified what I said at that time.  Professor DiLorenzo stated that: “Immediately upon his death the Republican Party propaganda machine, led by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, set about to turn this hated and reviled despot, who had launched an invasion of his own country that led to as many as 850,000 deaths according to the latest research, into a symbol of the ‘virtuous’ American state. He would become the murdered martyr who, like Jesus Christ (so they said at the time) died on Good Friday for the sins of his country, just as Jesus died for the sins of the world.”

And DiLorenzo also noted that “Pastors all over the North, who were part and parcel of the Republican Party machine, began comparing Lincoln to Jesus and Moses. Republican Party thugs  who had vandalized and destroyed Northern state printing presses and newspaper offices that supported the Democratic Party during the war bullied and brutalized those who dared to criticize “Father Abraham” in public. Tagg writes of how a Chicago man was shot and killed in a hotel lobby after saying ‘it served Lincoln right.’ There were dozens of eye witnesses but no arrest was made.” It just wasn’t nice to criticize “Father Abraham.” It could, literally, cost you your life!

DiLorenzo closes by noting that, if the real truth about Lincoln were known in our day, Trump would win any popularity contest with Lincoln “by at lease 99-1.” I can’t argue with his contention. He is right on the money. I still contend that Lincoln was our first Deep State president and that Stanton and others in the Republican Party of that day were Deep State operatives who used Lincoln as long as he was willing to  be used. When it came to a divergence of opinion within the Deep State between Lincoln and Stanton, then Stanton and the Republican Deep State exercised the ultimate solution to all such problems. But they made sure they deified their victim for future use.

Ugly Southern Politicians

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

The Kennedy Brothers, in their informative book Punished With Poverty http://www.ShotwellPublishing.com had a chapter, chapter 11, in which they dealt with the death of Southern statesmanship. Needless to say, that death has had a deleterious effect on the South, all the way from 1866 thorough our day. We have, as long as most of us have been alive, been subjected to politically correct politicians here in the South, and both parties must share in the burden of guilt for that.

On page 142 the Kennedys note: “From that point forward, (1965) the South fell under the leadership of ugly politicians.” They were not referring to the physical characteristics of said politicians but rather to the policies those politicians enacted, most of which have been anything but beneficial to the South at large.

One of the most prominent of these ugly politicians of late has been the former governor of South Carolina, Nikki (Nimrata) Haley. Her hasty actions after the tragic shootings in that black church in Charleston, in pulling down the Confederate Battle Flag from the grounds of the state capitol in South Carolina started a nation-wide stampede among politicians and their leftist hangers-on to purge the South, and other places as well, of all Confederate flags, monuments, and statues that continues to this day. How many Confederate monuments have been literally pulled down, or taken down in secret, at night, in places like New Orleans, Dallas, Virginia, North Carolina, and other places in the South–all because leftist or just plain cowardly politicians have decided it was time for them to go, regardless of what the local folks wanted.

And I am sure, in Ms. Haley’s case, it was seen as something she could do to ingratiate herself with the Republican political establishment, in hopes of gaining herself a better position at the Party’s national level. Whether that worked for her or not I don’t know, but I do know that she has been on Facebook and the internet of late  promoting herself for something. She leaves such a bad taste in my mouth I have not bothered checking out exactly what she is trying to do. But you can bet the farm that, whatever it is, it will benefit her political career, with no benefit to the South as a whole.

The Kennedys commented on her actions by observing: “The removal of that Confederate flag at South Carolina’s state capitol and her endorsement of the Republican establishment’s candidate (Marco Rubio) were rewarded with a nationwide address in reply to President Obama’s State of the Union speech in 2016. In her response she viciously attacked  the character of those who opposed Obama’s policies–that is those who were supporting Republican presidential primary candidates  who were opposed to the Republican establishment and its donor class. This is but a continuation of the betrayal of the white South by the Republican Party that has been going on since 1965.  Republican President Nixon sent word to the NAACP and other left-wing groups to not worry about his so-called ‘Southern Strategy.’ His spokesman told them, ‘Watch what we do not what we say.’  The Republican Party establishment viewed the white South as captive to the GOP because there was no other place for Southern conservative votes to go.”

With Trump in office the situation may be a little different than it was then, but the Republican establishment is no different. Most of them hate Trump because he has not been “one of the boys.” When the Bush’s came out and admitted they would probably vote for Hillary in 2016, you had to know that the Republican establishment was no different than the Deep State, was actually a part of it, right along with the Democrats, the lying media, Hollyweird, and all the rest of the leftist loonies. Such people will never benefit the South and never intend to. They view us all as “deplorables” right along with Hillary.

And the Kennedys also noted that: “In the 2014 Senatorial elections in both Mississippi and Louisiana the national Republican Party dumped millions of dollars into the campaign to defeat popular senatorial candidates who represented a threat to the state and national Republican establishment. The sad truth is that both national political parties are ardent defenders of the political status quo–a system of government (the Federal Empire) that provides them with unlimited perks, privileges and power.”

The Kennedys have stated, also, that: “As bad as the betrayal of the white South by the Republican Party has been, the betrayal of the black South by the Democratic Party is far worse. Black Southerners have been the recipients of more lies (unfulfilled promises) from politicians than any other group in America.”

Americans, as a whole, have not been taught how to discern between what politicians say and what they do. They have been conditioned only to respond to hot button issues and not taught how to reflect on what politicians tell us and how to ask those politicians the difficult questions–the ones they don’t really want to have to answer.

Here in the South we have been taken for granted, and until we learn what the political establishment is really all about, that is not about to change.