Wet-nosed College Students and Critical Theory

By Al Benson Jr.

My comments in this article are not intended to be a blanket condemnation of all college students, but rather those college students that, thinking they are absolutely brilliant, really don’t know much of anything. I have run across several like this over the years, kids who think they have all the answers for everybody and that the world would be so much better off if it just absorbed the ageless wisdom they have to impart.

I recall talking to one student who told me seriously that he thought folks in this country should just listen to what students had to say about politics, the economy, and the world because the students are the ones that have the time to do all the research in these areas. This kid was one of many I knew that blindly swallowed the blather spewed by his leftist professors with no critical questioning or comment. And he was going to teach the rest of us how to live. I almost said to him “Junior, you’re not even dry behind the ears yet and you’re going to impart political wisdom to us older folks? Wait until you’ve lived  a few more decades and lets see how much political wisdom you have then.” But this seems to be the attitude of many (not all) young folks at this age level. They seem to “know it all” already, so one wonders why they even need college.

What led me to this line of thinking now was an article I just read on the San Antonio Express-News webpage about the student government at the University of Texas in Austin wanting to remove a statue of Jefferson Davis from the campus supposedly because Davis was a “racist.” The head of the NAACP for Texas, Gary Bledsoe, said “I think its offensive that you exalt Jefferson Davis but you don’t exalt Abraham Lincoln.” Another case of a leftist that just doesn’t know his history. Lincoln’s history of “racism” is apparently unknown to this man, or does he just hope it’s unknown to the rest of us? So he’d replace the “racist” Davis with the “racist” Lincoln and think he’d done something noble! What a farce!

However, the agenda of removing the Jefferson Davis statue at the University of Texas goes a little deeper than that. It seems that it just might be part of the Marxist Critical Theory program.

The students at the University of Texas recently elected, as the head of their student government, two sterling individuals named Xavier Rotnofsky and Rohit Mandalapu. I don’t know if the selection of these two worthies was a tribute to student diversity or what, but they ran what some have called a “humerous” campaign and I can see that, by some adolescent standards it might be considered so. This pair, as part of their platform, promised to “increase transparency in student government by mandating everyone in student government wear only cellophane so that they can be perfectly see-through.” Also they promised to “…reduce the hours that the PCL and FAC are open because less study time means more party time, baby!” They had a couple other farcial ideas to put forward, but sandwiched in amongst all this foolishness was “…we plan on taking down the Jefferson Davis statue…” One serious piece of cultural genocide hidden among all the foolishness!

Rotnofsky told a local radio station that “Jefferson Davis stood for some things that are pretty abominable today; Slavery, racism. They’re just not in line with the university’s core values.” And so, yet another attempt to remake history into what we think it ought to be rather than what it was. Unfortunately, these kids are not yet old enough to have any sense of history—and history is usually not what you would like it to be. You need to take it as it is rather than trying to make it into what you wish it was. But, then, in all honesty, slavery isn’t the real issue here. Cultural genocide is.

So we take a brief look at Rotnofsky’s running mate, Rohit Mandalapu. According to www.academia.edu  Mandalapu’s  research interests are “…Globalization, Transnationalism , Business, and Critical Theory.” So Mandalapu is into Marxist Critical Theory. Suppose that minor coincidence has anything to do with the removal of the Jefferson Davis statue, which has already been vandalized, from the university campus?

Awhile back, December 16, 2014 to be exact, I quoted from an article on http://www.discoverthenetworks.org  that dealt with Critical Theory. The article said, in part, “Critical Theory was essentially destructive criticism of the main elements of Western culture, including Christianity, capitalism, the family…morality, tradition…patriotism, nationalism, heredity, ethnocentrism,…Critical theorists recognized that traditional beliefs and existing social structure would have to be destroyed and then replaced with a ‘new thinking’ that would become as much a part of the elementary consciousness as the old one had been.” Stop and read that again and begin to grasp what is being said. They plan to replace everything with their “new thinking” so that nothing will remain of Christianity, Western culture, honor, patriotism,–nothing. This seems to be where Mandalapu, at least, is coming from. I watched a video of these two students on one of the sites I looked up while checking into this. Mandalapu seems, to me, to be much more the vocal of the two.

So it seems, unless the rest of the students at the University of Texas suddenly wake up, which hardly seems likely, that the Jefferson Davis statue on campus will become yet one more victim of the Marxist Critical Theory technique as it is being applied all across this country. Just remember—in order for Marxist Critical Theory to succeed, all that came previously, Christianity, Western civilization, Southern history and heritage—must all be destroyed so the “new thinking” can be implemented.  This is where we are at today in the South and across the country as well. And the shocking leftist condition of many, many of our college campuses is something that really needs to be researched and exposed. Exposure might be a good place to start—if anyone is even interested anymore.

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Liberation (Marxist) Theology

By Al Benson Jr.
Who says the Devil isn’t interested in theology? It’s one of those things, like history, that he enjoys getting in there and monkeying with, that he might twist its meaning and message to suit his own agenda and thereby fool a lot of undiscerning people who should know better but apparently don’t seem to.

One thing he enjoys immensely is taking an anti-Christ thought system like Marxism and making it over just enough so that totalitarianism is made to sound compassionate and rank humanism is made to sound like Christian love. He can’t fool everyone with this theological sleight-of-hand, but he can fool enough that it makes the effort worthwhile in his truncated sight.

One of his main efforts has been to dress up Marxism with enough of a veneer that it sounds downright Christian—until you take a good close look at it, and if you do that, with prayer, you can often see the Red showing through. Otherwise you miss it.
Several years ago now, the John Birch Society published an informative booklet entitled Apostasy and the National Council of Churches. This dealt with how Marxists had infiltrated and influenced much of what the National Council of Churches in this country had done and it backed up the old truth that “not many ministers become Communists, but a lot of Communists become ministers.”

An article on Discoverthenetworks.org gave a few examples of this: “One notable religious leftist who embraced communist and socialist causes was the late Rev. Lucius Walker Jr. In the 1960s Walker was a sponsor of the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee, a Communist Party front group…and from 1973-78 he served as Associate General Secretary for the National Council of Churches. A longtime critic of American policy toward Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Walker in 1994 was an initiator of the International Peace for Cuba Appeal (IPCA), which called for normalized trade relations with Castro’s island nation. IPCA was an affiliate of the International Action Center, which was itself a front group for the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party.” Almost seemed like Walker lived in the Communist front group world.

Another “minister” that falls into this group is Rev. Je$$e Jackson. Jackson’s leftist views have long been known to anyone who takes the trouble to look and one of the farthest to-the-left ideas he ever came up with was the one where, in return for the $600 billion that blacks spend each year, black business owners ought to be guaranteed an equal share of the service and manufacturing contracts awarded by U.S. companies. In other words you get your service contract because of your skin color. No “white privilege” here, just a bit of “black privilege.”

Then there is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the president’s (former) pastor. His church, Trinity United Church of Christ, has a “ten point vision” which seeks the cultivation of “economic parity and the eradication of America’s economic mal-distribution.” In other words, redistribution of the wealth, Marxist-style.

And let us not forget James Cone, who wrote the book Black Theology and Black Power. In yet another http://www.discoverthenetworks.org article Cone is quoted as saying: “What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of Black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.” How’s that for man telling God what to do? And Cone further advocates and calls for “the destruction of whiteness, which is the source of human misery in the world.” Not only that, Cone advocates Marxism as a tool for social analysis to enable Christians to see “how things really are.” How many of you were ever told any of this about Liberation Theology in any article you ever read about it? Its Marxist origins and intent have ever been glossed over whenever the “news” media touches any of this and all you are ever told about is their “compassion for the poor and suffering of the world.” That’s all a lot of horse radish! The only concern the Marxists have relating to the genuine poor and oppressed is to figure you how to use them to promote their own agendas. In other words, the poor and downtrodden are cannon fodder for the Marxist program.

Back in 2008 Anthony B. Bradley, a research fellow at the Acton Institute, and an assistant professor of theology at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, published an article on http://www.acton.org entitled The Marxist Roots of Black Liberation Theology. Although he almost seems to soft peddle in some areas, yet he does make some worthwhile observations regarding Black Liberation Theology. He notes: “Black Liberation Theology actually encourages a victim mentality among blacks…Reducing black identity to ‘victimhood’ distorts the reality of true progress. For example, was Obama a victim of widespread racial oppression at the hand of ‘rich white people’ before graduating from Columbia University, Harvard Law School, or after he acquired his estimated net worth of $1.3 million? How did ‘rich white people’ keep Obama from succeeding? If Obama is the model of an oppressed black man, I want to be oppressed next! “

Bradley mentions a book by John McWhorter called Losing the Race, in which McWhorter says that “Victimology is the adoption of victimhood as the core of one’s identity.” And Bradley continues: “McWhorter articulates three main objections to victimology: First, victimology condones weakness in failure. Victimology tacitly stamps approval on failure, lack of effort, and criminality. Behaviors and patterns that are self-destructive are often approved of as cultural or presented as unpreventable consequences from previous systemic patterns.” In other words, “I committed this crime, but it’s all Whitey’s fault, not mine. I’m not responsible.”

It is stated by Bradley that: “Black Liberation theologians have explicitly stated a preference for Marxism as an ethical framework for the black church because Marxist thought is predicated on a system of oppressor class (whites) versus victim class (blacks). Black Liberation theologians James Cone and Cornel West have worked diligently to embed Marxist thought into the black church since the 1970s. For Cone, Marxism best addressed remedies to the condition of blacks as victims of white oppression. In For My People Cone explains that ‘the Christian faith does not possess in its nature the means for analyzing the structure of capitalism. Marxism as a tool of social analysis can disclose the gap between appearance and reality, and thereby help Christians to see how things really are’.” So what he’s saying is that in order for Christians to begin to grasp where the rubber meets the road, they need the assistance of Marxist thought and critique. No longer is the Bible your guideline. Now Marxist thought becomes the way to go.

When you strip all the fancy jargon away from all this, it amounts to nothing more than a theological excuse for promoting the old Marxist class struggle technique. And of course the Devil is downright ecstatic when Christians buy into that lie because he realizes that this subverts the real meaning and reason for the Christian church. In truth it is Marxism that oppresses people, not Christianity.

You have to question, with these modern “liberation” theologians, just who their master really is.

A Little Community Organizing in Charlottesville, Virginia

By Al Benson Jr.

There has been a big flap recently in Charlottesville, Virginia over Confederate statues being taken down. It goes without saying that this is yet one more exercise in Marxist Cultural Genocide in the South, yet many of our people do not seem to be aware of what is being done to them and their culture. This is not just a happenstance occurrence, it is part of a planned agenda to strip the South of its culture, history, and heritage and to replace all these with some sort of Marxist monstrosity parading as “history” that almost no native Virginian would ever recognize. And if they manage to pull it off your grandchildren will not know from whence they came.

Well-known Western fiction writer Louis L’Amour made a prescient statement in one of his books To The Far Blue Mountains. He said: “We must not lose touch with what we were, or what we had been, nor must we allow the well of our history to dry up, for a child without tradition is a child crippled before the world.” Mr. L’Amour, without realizing it, was accurately describing what the Marxist mentalities in our day (and before) are trying to do to our children—to make them cripples before the entire world—a people with no real knowledge of our history, where we came from or what we should be doing or why. This is the agenda of Marxist Cultural Genocide in the American Southland—the crippling of future generations—and if we don’t begin to wake up and realize who is doing this and why, they may well be able to pull it off while we futilely oppose them for the wrong reasons and on the wrong track.

These people are doing this for evil reasons and they need to be opposed and exposed.

The city of Charlottesville, Virginia has a City Council member, Kristin Szakos, who would dearly love to see statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson removed from Charlottesville. She has been on this kick for something like three years now. For electing this woman the voters of Charlottesville need a verbal “slap upside of the head” without doing some homework as to her background. Because her background is Pink, boys, deep Pink! Szakos questions the “relevance” of the statues. That word “relevance” can be used so many ways to twist a dialogue that shouldn’t even be happening in the first place. The “relevance” of the statues is that they are part of this history and heritage of Charlottesville. She wants to have a “conversation” about that. Why? Some of the local historians don’t agree with her. In fact the president of one of the local historical societies, Steven Meeks, said taking down the statues would be like rewriting history. What do you think it’s all about? Exactly that—rewriting the history of Charlottesville and the entire region. Marxists always want the history rewritten so it will say what they want it to say instead of what it really says.

So let’s look at Ms. Szakos and see where she’s coming from. Turns out she’s married to Joe Szakos, who is, of all things, a community organizer, just like our beloved president was before his political boat came in. Wikipedia says of Mr Szakos: “In a 2005 paper Szakos emphasized the need for a collective recruitment plan for community organizers. He has completed two books on community organizing with his wife Kristin Layng Szakos. One book (We Make Change, 2007) is based on more than 75 interviews with community organizers across the country about what they do and why they do it.” This offering was printed by Vanderbilt University Press in 2007. Vanderbilt should be ashamed to print books that promote community organizing, but they probably aren’t. They probably agree with it as do most schools nowadays. Whether it’s in Charlottesville or Memphis or Selma, community organizers do mean to change your history and make you ashamed of that history in the process. It’s part of their agenda and we had better wake up and realize that.

There was an article about Ms. Szakos published online by The Hook—Charlotteville’s weekly newspaper back in August of 2013 under the People to watch section. It said of her: “While professionally she’s been a reporter/writer/translator, community organizing has always been close to the vice mayor’s heart—she’s written two books about it and her husband runs Virginia Organizing. Early on, she led the local campaign of another community organizer, Barack Obama, and her website photo of the president is not the standard grip and grin, but one in which it looks like he actually knows her…She’s running for council again, and if she’s elected, odds are pretty good that she’s going to be Charlottesville’s next mayor. Pet peeve: Civil War Monuments.” So people should have known right up front where she was coming from. It was all laid out before she was elected. So why did the people of Charlottesville even vote for her? Hadn’t they had enough of the community organizer we have in Washington? Did they want a repeat performance at the local level?

Just in case, at this late date, people still do not realize what a “community organizer” really is, I will quote a few brief passages from Stanley Kurtz’ book Radical-In-Chief—Barack Obama and the untold story of American Socialism. Mr. Kurtz has noted, near the beginning of his book: “Community organizing is a largely socialist profession. Particularly at the highest levels, America’s community organizers have adopted a deliberately stealthy posture—hiding their socialism behind a ‘populist’ front. These organizers strive to push America toward socialism in unobtrusive, incremental steps…Altlhough contemporary community organizers deliberately hide their socialism, with a bit of digging, their secrets can be revealed.” Kurtz observes that community organizers will often “consciously mask a hard-edged socialism in feel good euphemistic code.” But the “hard-edged socialism” is there if people are willing to dig for it.

We in the South have got to realize the reason and intent, and political persuasion, of those who seek to tear down our culture and history, and we have got to start exposing that intent and political persuasion. From what I’ve been able to read, the people in Charlottesville were informed that this lady was a community organizer. Did they even realize what that was and the socialist intent of that profession? If not why not? Do our people who are protesting what she is trying to do in Charlottesville realize where this lady is coming from and, if so, have they been able to expose her socialist position to those who view their protests? This is something they need to start doing if they haven’t been doing it. If this woman is a socialist, people need to be aware of it and they need to be aware of the sort of profession (socialist) that community organizing really is. These people have permeated the South for generations (some of the earlier ones were outright Communists) and most of our people don’t seem to have a clue. Those who practice Cultural Genocide on the South are Marxists and they are trying to replace your accurate Southern history, heritage and culture with their Marxist version of the New World Order. These people don’t plan to cease and desist. They are out to tear down your culture because it is Southern, but primarily because it has been Christian and they vehemently hate Christ and Christianity.

I almost wish we could create some sort of seminar that would deal with exposing these people for what they are and that would propose ways to combat their efforts.

“Critical Theory” and Confederate Heritage–Part Two

by Al Benson Jr.

Stop and analyze what has just been said in the first installment in light of your Confederate and Southern history, in light of your Southern culture, in light of the Christian faith most of us embrace, which truly recognizes the eternal truth that Jesus Christ IS the way, the truth, and the life, and that no man or woman gets to God the Father except through Him. All of this represents the “old” thinking and so it has to be done away with–and the Marxist Critical Theorists are working overtime at that, while most Christians slumber on–totally unaware.

Those people realize, and have for generations now, that you can’t do all this in one fell swoop–that shocks too many people. And so they work on it gradually–the classic Fabian approach–a street name changed in this town, or several street names, or a Confederate soldier’s statue removed from the town square because it supposedly represents “racism” or a Confederate monument desecrated, as was done awhile back in Selma, Alabama, with a concerted effort being made to ensure the monument would not be rebuilt. In this particular case in Selma, it didn’t work, thanks be to God, and a group of people there fought back against the (local) Marxists that were trying to destroy their culture. They went to court with solid evidence on their side and they won. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way.

The end result, if people are unaware and allow this brand of Marxism to proceed, is that, eventually, every vestige of your old Christian and Southern culture will be totally removed from the town you live in. You can see the not-so-subtle beginnings of this now in Kennesaw, Georgia if you follow the news on the Internet.

If this is unresisted, your kids will walk down Malcolm X Boulevard or W.E.B. DuBois Avenue on their way to Karl Marx Middle School–if you are still naive enough to believe your kids can really get an education in these institutions we charitably refer to as public schools. Actually, what they really are is government schools. Any sign of your old real history and heritage will be gradually and totally removed and the “history” your kids will imbibe in their “social studies” classes at Karl Marx Middle School will carefully omit any mention of anything Christian or Confederate or Southern–except for the slavery issue. And this will be summarily dragged out from time to time to make sure you remain on your “stool of everlasting repentance.” “Teaching moments” in these schools will make sure your kids are ashamed of their “white privilege.” The slavery issue, like the public school, is one of the most sacred of sacred cows, and the Critical Theorists can use it most forcefully in the destruction of your Christian culture if you don’t learn the truth and resist.

And if you still think this is all just spontaneous and unrelated events from place to place, having no connection with anything else that is going on, then I have a bridge in Tucson, Arizona that reaches all the way across the desert to Phoenix–all made with gold bricks, that I’d love to sell you at bargain basement rates.

This is all Marxist Critical Theory, in living color, and its intent has always been, as now, the total destruction of our faith and culture. It is not happening by accident. It might be an interesting exercise sometime to check out various cities where such hooliganism is going on and notice the various “civil rights” groups involved in different places. How many Southern towns have these problems where the NAACP is “called in” or how many towns are threatened by the possible presence of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or by an appearance by Rev. Je$$e Jackson or “Rev” Al Sharpton? Folks, most of this stuff is orchestrated and done in such a way as to intimidate any potential opposition. And of course the prostitute press we foolishly continue to refer to as the “news” media plays right along with it. That’s what they’re paid for. These are the same people who refuse to see any problems with Comrade Obama’s “birth certificate” or his social security number from a state he never lived in. The favorite mantra of the “news” media is “nothing to see here, folks, just move along,” unless it happens to be a story about ‘white privilege’ and then it’s dealt with ad nauseam.

If we are going to protect our faith and our culture we have got to start to realize who our real enemies are–and it ain’t just some of the local black folks, who have been fed the same hogwash we have–most of them are pawns in the game, cannon fodder for the Marxists, who, in truth, care no more about black people than Lincoln did. The Marxists behind the people in the streets are some of those we need to start checking out and exposing, and then we need to start checking out the people behind them, because there are people behind them–the ones that pay for all the planned mayhem and culture destruction. We need to start checking out and exposing their political connections and what groups they belong to.

There are some organizations that try to do this, to their credit, but Southern Christians as a whole need to start educating themselves as to who these Marxists and their puppet masters are and what their real intent is. Helping local blacks that have, in some instances, been discriminated against has nothing to do with their real agenda. That’s all a convenient cover for their real program for the total destruction of Christian culture and Confederate heritage in the South–and once they have that accomplished here, then they will play the same game in other areas of the country. And it might be easier for them in other areas which have less Christian influence than there is in the South. We are somewhat of a stumbling block to those people. Once they shut us down it will get easier for them, so they hope.

Never forget–their primary aim is to destroy Christian culture and faith in America. We need to start realizing what their game is and, as the Lord enables, we need to expose and oppose what they do. “Contending for the faith once delivered to the saints” is still vitally important in our day.

Recently I read an informative article on the Accuracy in Academia web site, written by William Lind back in February of 2000. It was entitled The Origins of Political Correctness. For anyone wanting more background on Political Correctness and its originators it would be worth checking out.

“Critical Theory” and Confederate Heritage

by Al Benson Jr.

There are many who view, with continuing alarm, the blatant and relentless attacks on Confederate and Southern history, heritage and symbols. They can’t seem to fathom why this or that group seems to hate Confederate flags, symbols, and heritage so much. They are not “racists” or hate-mongers. All they want is to be able to enjoy their culture and history and they cant figure out why some groups are so opposed to letting them do that.

They fail to recognize that there is a coordinated rationale behind all these attacks on the South. It is not just a random “liberal” group here or there that happens to not approve of Confederate symbols locally–in fact there is nothing random about any of it. It is all part and parcel of what we know as Marxist Critical Theory.

It is a major part of what we refer to as Cultural Marxism–and a major part of the Cultural Marxist agenda is the planned cultural destruction of anything even remotely perceived as Christian, Confederate, or Southern.

An article I recently read on http://www.discoverthenetworks.org dealt with this. It noted that Political Correctness, also a major part of Cultural Marxism, is not something to be taken lightly. Many folks sniff at it and regard it as a minor annoyance. It is much more serious and insidious than that. The article observed that: “…Political Correctness is deadly serious in its aims, seeking to impose a uniformity of thought and behavior on all Americans. It is therefore totalitarian in nature. It’s roots lie in a version of Marxism, which sees culture, rather than the economy, as the site of class struggle.” These folks have taken Marxism to a new level and we need to be aware of that.

The article noted that Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci and Hungarian Marxist Georg Lukacs were the two that contributed most significantly to Cultural Marxism. Gramsci believed that a “new Communist man” had to be created and it had to be done via a changed culture, and only then would real political revolution be possible. And Lukacs felt that for this new culture to emerge, the old culture had to be destroyed. He said: “I saw the revolutionary destruction of society as the one and only solution to the cultural contradictions of the epoch…Such a worldwide overturning of values cannot take place without the annihilation of the old values and the creation of new ones by the revolutionaries.” Do you realize that the “old culture” they are working and planning to annihilate is ours? Maybe we should stop and reflect on that for a moment. Many Christians in America will shake their heads and say “well, that will never happen here.” I’m sure there were people in Germany and Russia before Hitler and Stalin who thought the same thing. In this country we now have Obama. You think he’s not tirelessly working to change the culture–to tear down what we have had in the past and to replace it with “Gay marriage, more illegal immigrants, the replacement of the rule of law with the concept of rule by Executive Decree? Mr. Obama is the living personification of Marxist “Critical Theory” in action.

The Discover the Networks article stated, quite plainly, that: “Critical Theory was essentially destructive criticism of the main elements of Western culture, including Christianity, capitalism, the family…morality, tradition, sexual restraint, loyalty, patriotism, nationalism, heredity, ethnocentrism,…Critical Theorists recognized that traditional beliefs and existing social structure would have to be destroyed and then replaced with a ‘new thinking’ that would become as much a part of the elementary consciousness as the old one had been.” Ever wonder why “your” public schools do what they do regarding your culture? Look no further than “Critical Theory.”

To be continued.

“Father Abraham” Thought Secession Was Great For the Forty-Eighters

by Al Benson Jr.

In 1860, according to Abraham Lincoln, the Southern states did not possess the right to secede from the Union. Lincoln’s view of the Union was that it had actually predated the Constitution, and that, once in the Union, a state basically had no right not granted to it by Big Brother in Washington. Although he would not have couched it in exactly those terms, that was where he was really coming from. Donnie Kennedy and I have dealt with this in our book Lincoln’s Marxists.

However, in light of his own remarks, Mr. Lincoln’s anti-secession sentiments were very selectively applied, just like the edicts of the present Regime are today. Lincoln was opposed to Southern states seceding from the Union to preserve their Christian heritage and the rights of the individual states according to the Constitution and he was also opposed to their secession because they paid the major portion of the country’s tariffs and to have them gone would cost the Northern states big tariff bucks that the South had heretofore paid. In Lincoln’s mind, these were not good enough reasons for secession, but he did view secession as a viable option if the reasons for it were chaos and revolution.

On January 12, 1848, Lincoln, while in Congress, made a speech in which he stated the following: Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right–a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. Supposedly, Lincoln was applying this to Texas in 1848, after their late unpleasantness with Mexico. Even were such the case, Lincoln should have been honor-bound to recognize, for other states, what he seems to have recognized for Texas.

However, with my suspicious mind, my personal contention is that, while Lincoln may have referred these remarks to Texas in a secondary way, his prime target for these sentiments was the socialist revolutionary movement that was soon to erupt in several countries in Europe in early 1848. That was the year the socialist and communist revolutionaries plunged Europe into chaos with bloody revolts in several countries. This activity began shortly after Lincoln gave his secession speech in Congress.

The carefully crafted persona of “Honest Abe the railsplitter,” the hayseed from the Illinois prairies, is one that has been carefully nurtured by our politically correct, Cultural Marxist, historic spin doctors. They definitely can’t afford to let us know what “Father Abraham” really was, a sharp, politically astute lawyer and lobbyist for the big railroads, as well as a thoroughly pragmatic politician with his own leftward-leaning agenda.

Lincoln was hardly the country bumpkin that biographers and “historians” have made him out to be. He was conscious of world events and had his own ideas and opinions regarding them. He was acquainted with what went on in Europe. By the same token, many in Europe kept tabs on what was happening over here. Lincoln’s 1848 speech in favor of secession (although the historians won’t admit that’s what it was) was well-timed to give European socialists the kind of American support for their endeavors that many of them could only have dreamed about. It let them know that there were American politicians that supported their socialist agenda.

In his book Lincoln And The Emperors A. R. Tyrner-Trynauer stated on page 32: The sympathy of the United States in general and Lincoln’s Republicans in particular for the revolutionaries of Europe was a long-established fact. That was written in 1962. More recently, in 1991, historian James McPherson, revealing a bit more about Lincoln, told us that: Lincoln championed the leaders of the European revolutiion of 1848; in turn, a man who knew something about those revolutions–Karl Marx–praised Lincoln in 1865 as ‘a single-minded son of the working class’ who had led his ‘country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world’. Look at and analyze what McPherson is telling you there. The “reconstruction of a social world” is supposed to be the death knell for the old Christian South, for private property, and of real Christian culture. That’s what it was really all about. Why else do you suppose that, when the Northern radicals (socialists) in Congress sought to destroy the culture of the South they called that program “Reconstruction?” That was Marx’s terminology.

Worth noting again, as Donnie Kennedy and I stress in our book, is the fact that socialist revolutionaries from the 1848 European debacle flocked to join the Union armies as the War of Northern Aggression got under way. Lincoln had the verbal support of Marx and Engels, as well as that of the Russian revolutionary Bakunin. Socialist and communist personalities ended up with high-ranking positions in Lincoln’s armies and also ended up in positions of influence in journalism, education, politics, and the list goes on. The fact that European socialists so lopsidedly supported the Union cause should give people pause to consider the true nature of the Union cause. Was Karl Marx really concerned about Lincoln freeing an “enchained race” of blacks? Hardly! Marx’s own personal comments show that he was prejudiced against blacks, and so was Lincoln for that matter. If you don’t think so, scrounge through the Lincoln Douglas Debates and see what you find. For both Marx and Lincoln the blacks were nothing more than cannon fodder for the socialist world revolution–and nothing has changed since then.

In the final analysis you have to ask, were Lincoln and Marx really that far apart? Such a question today will, no doubt, shock some tender souls who have been taught that Lincoln was, in effect, a secular messiah–the apotheosis of a mere man into a “god.” But, then, today, some feel that way about Obama. A noted television journalist, awhile back, said of her and her colleagues regarding Obama, “We thought he was the messiah.” I can only assume, at this point, that she has had her rude awakening. That same rude awakening needs to take place in regard to “Father Abraham” and his socialist and communist friends in the early Republican Party (and in the same party today along with the Democrats).

Secession Wasn’t Treason. It Still Isn’t

by Al Benson Jr.

Secession and the knee-jerk reactions to it have been of interest to me ever since I started doing historical research. Yankee/Marxist politicians, in 1861, sought to portray secession by the Southern states as the most monstrous of crimes ever perpetrated on the human race. The fact that some Northern states had threatened secession and actually sent delegates to Hartford, Connecticut in 1814 to consider the issue was a historical fact that was lost on them, and they hoped on everyone else too. Somehow, when the Northern states considered it, it was not treason. That was only the case when Southern states did it.

Between 1814 and 1860, secession went from being a favored possibility to a horrendous crime, most notably if the South did it. Even, and especially, in our day, many of our crop of “historians” absolutely howl about how secession was treason and how the Confederate States were seeking to overthrow the United States government–all of which is complete bovine fertilizer–and don’t think they don’t know it. All the Southern states wanted were to be able to go in peace. They had no interest whatever in overthrowing the federal government in Washington; they just wanted to depart and set up their own government. However, Mr. Lincoln and his erstwhile collectivist friends couldn’t allow that, as the Southern states paid the lion’s share of the tariff for the whole country and if they were allowed to depart, why the Northern states might have to start ponying up their share of the tariff because the South would no longer be there to pay over 80% of it.

When the shooting part of the War of Northern Aggression was over and the Confederate States, which never officially surrendered, by the way, were in ruins, the benevolent Yankee/Marxist government took Jeff Davis, who, with his cabinet, had fled rather than surrender, and they tossed him into prison at Fortress Monroe in Virginia for two years, planning at the outset to bring him to trial for treason and secession, which they claimed were one in the same. After two years of prisoner abuse and political horseplay, the Union government finally decided, rather reluctantly, that it could not afford to bring Davis to trial because, should that event transpire, it might well be proven in court that Davis and the South had been right–secession was not at all illegal, nor was it unconstitutional. After all, what did they think the Declaration of Independence was other than a secession document?

Several years back now, 1995 I think it was, I wrote a short 26 page booklet on secession. It has since become one of the booklets I offer in my home school mini-history course. In that booklet I quoted an author, James Street, who had written a book entitled simply “The Civil War.” Mr. Street had a few comments about what happened to Jeff Davis at the end of the War. He said: “The North didn’t dare give him a trial, knowing that a trial would establish that secession was not unconstitutional, that there had been no ‘rebellion’ and that the South had got a raw deal.” You can’t say it much plainer than that.

Later, I picked up another book, written by Burke Davis (no relative to Jeff that I know of), entitled “The Long Surrender.” It dealt with much of what happened with the people involved during the final days of the Confederacy, when Richmond fell, and Jeff Davis and the Confederate government fled the city and tried to set up somewhere else in order that they might carry on the struggle.

After Jeff Davis was captured, the vindictive and radical Yankee/Marxist Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, (who many feel may have known more about the Lincoln assassination than is admitted) wanted to implicate Davis both as a co-conspirator in Lincoln’s assassination and as a traitor for being the head of the secessionist government in Richmond, even though secession had not been original with Davis. Try as they might, the radical leftist Republicans in Washington couldn’t quite bring it off. Burke Davis noted, on page 204 of his book, a quote by Chief Justice Salmon P Chase, telling Stanton “If you bring these leaders to trial, it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution, secession is not rebellion…His (Jeff Davis’) capture was a mistake. His trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason. Secession is settled. Let it stay settled.” Only it wasn’t–and isn’t. Burke Davis continued on page 214 of his book, noting that a congressional committee proposed a special court for Davis’ trial, headed by Franz Lieber. Again, Davis noted: “After studying more than 270,000 Confederate documents seeking evidence against Davis, this court discouraged the War Department: ‘Davis will be found not guilty,’ Lieber reported, ‘and we shall stand there completely beaten’.”

What the radical, Yankee/Marxist politicians were admitting among themselves (they’d never say it anywhere else) was that they had just fought a “civil war” that had taken or maimed the lives of over 600,000 Americans, both North and South, and that they had no constitutional justification whatever for having done so, nor had they any constitutional right to have impeded the Southern states when they chose to withdraw from the constitutional compact. They had fought solely for the right to keep an empire together. Call is “Manifest Destiny” or whatever noble-sounding euphemism you want to tack onto it, either way, they had been wrong. Now they could ill afford to let Jeff Davis go to trial, else their grievous crime would become public knowledge and beget them even more problems in the future, and that would have given them problems as they sought to redistribute among their friends whatever wealth remained in the South.

Needless to say, you probably have not read about any of this in what passes for “history” books in the last 150 years. As the narrator at the beginning of the movie “Braveheart” so correctly stated: “History is written by those who’ve hanged heroes.”

Real human rights in both North and South had been trampled on, and have continued to be up until and including today. What the Lincoln administration and early Marxist Republicans started and kept up during “reconstruction” has finally come to full fruition in our day, with such legislation as the “Patriot Act” and Obamacare, which effectively cancel out much of the Bill of Rights–as was intended and still is.

The War of Northern Aggression started the trend in this country in which leftist politicians have ever sought to usurp the rights of individual Americans, and to rule over us rather than to represent us as they were originally delegated to do. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. And now, with secessionist sentiment running rampant all over the world, the politicians are getting a bit nervous.

If you want some of the real history of that period in this country I would recommend James and Walter Kennedy’s book “The South Was Right,” Frank Conner’s book “The South Under Siege–1830-2000,” and Walter Kennedy’s and my book “Lincoln’s Marxists.”

Abolitionism, Spiritualism, and Women’s Lib

by Al Benson Jr.

The radical Abolitionist Movement in the North (separate from the conservative abolitionist movement in the South) in the years from the 1830s through “reconstruction” at the end of the War of Northern Aggression, was the cause of many problems that we are still faced with today, two of which are the modern “Women’s Liberation Movement.” and the “Civil Rights Movement.”

Many in our day, without a correct understanding of the real intent of the Abolitionist Movement, have sought to draw a parallel between it and today’s Pro-Life Movement. This is something that should never be done. The contemporary Pro-Life Movement is able to stand on its own without resorting to the apostate underpinnings of 19th century radical abolitionism.  Radical abolitionism in the 1800s produced men of the stripe of abolitionist/terrorist John Brown. His solution to the slavery problem was to execute slave owners, or even potential slave owners during late night visits to their homes while their wives and children were forced to stand by and watch the executions. Should the present Pro-Life Movement ally itself with such a history? If it does so then it will be to its own hurt one day.

Although there were undoubtedly some Christian people in the Abolitionist Movement, by and large, it was an experiment in rank apostasy. Many of its adherents had become enamored of the strange doctrines of Spiritualism  that so permeated mid-19th century America.  Yet others had become devotees of Unitarianism–yet another form of apostasy from Christian truth.

In her book Radical Spirits author Ann Braude  observed that: “Every notably progressive family of the nineteenth century had its advocate of Spiritualism, some of them more than one…The ubiquitous  Beecher family contributed Charles Beecher  and Isabella Beecher to the ranks, while Harriet Beecher Stowe became a serious investigator…As already noted, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was an early convert and remained loyal to the movement until his death. The famous Grimke sisters,  Sarah and Angelina talked to spirits.” All of these people were abolitionists and all, according to Braude, were involved in Spiritualism. Every wonder why your history books forgot to mention any of this?

Braude’s book, on page 60, noted that: “Radical abolitionists, in turn, found in Spiritualism a religion of harmony with their individualist principles. Abolitionists’ interests in both  women’s rights and Spiritualism derived from their fierce loyalty to the principles of individualism. Radical abolitionists agreed with Romantics and Transcendentalists that the church, the clergy, and the Bible were so many enslavers of the human spirit. They also believed that individualist principles required constant agitation in order to effect the transformation of society.” Braude here has come out and admitted what many of us have been saying for years, that radical abolitionism was about much more than freeing slaves–it was about the transformation of our society. In other words, those people were the practitioners of the Marxist “Critical Theory” agenda in their day, even though that term had yet to be coined. They wanted no interference from the Christian Church as they sought to denigrate the Christian culture around them and replace it with their own. Their agenda was to remake American society in their own image–a not-so-subtle form of idolatry.  Is this really any different from what is going on today?

One of the leaders in the 19th century Women’s Lib Movement was Susan B. Anthony. They put a postage stamp out with her picture on it several years ago. Another author, Kathleen Berry, in her book Susan B. Anthony took a little different tack on Anthony’s worldview. She noted that: “In her autobiography, Elizabeth Cady Stanton described Susan’s spirituality as that of an agnostic. Susan never denied the existence of God, but her beliefs were secularized and lodged in the world around her. Her father, who had grown increasingly frustrated with the limited world view of the Quakers…turned to the Unitarian Church. Susan was also sympathetic to Unitarian beliefs.” So, however you take it, Spiritualist or Unitarian, Anthony’s beliefs were a radical departure from orthodox Christianity–and this was the foundation for Women’s Lib!

Braude, in Radical Spirits has identified Spiritualism as being present at the Women’s Rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. She has stated, quite plainly, that: “From this time on, Spiritualism and Women’s Rights intertwined repeatedly  as both became mass movements that challenged the existing norms of American life.  The two movements shared many leaders and activists.”

It is worth noting, coincidentally, that the Spiritualist Movement in this country began to make its inroads right around 1848, the same year that the socialist and communist revolts began in Europe. In fact, one of the female “Forty-Eighters,” Mathilda Franziska Anneke, wife of socialist agitator Fritz Anneke, once she came to America, became one of the leading lights in the Women’s Rights Movement.  Walter Kennedy and I, in our book Lincoln’s Marxists document quite a bit of this. Anneke worked closely with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton  and even lobbied in Washington in behalf of Women’s Rights.

This gives you a brief overview of the connections between the radical abolitionists, the Spiritualists, the Unitarians, and some of the Forty-Eighters, and the Women’s libbers. Just for a moment, stop and reflect on what these people have done to our once-Christian culture while the church-at-large has continued to slumber.

Writer Henry Makow Ph.D. noted, in an article published back in 2010 that: “The Women’s Liberation Movement was patterned on the Civil Rights Movement.  They are off-the-shelf Communist psycho-social operations. To be effective, they must appear to reflect a popular groundswell rather than an elite agenda from above.” Makow felt these movements might have rectified some genuine injustices, but then said “…their hidden purpose is to destabliize American society.” He’s right. Undoubtedly he is referring here to the contemporary version of the Women’s Rights Movement rathen than the 19th century one, but no matter how you look at it, it’s all of one fabric and it all has, as the main agenda, the destruction of Christian culture in this country. We need to begin to wake up and understand this.

More Home Schoolers Because of “Commie Core”

by Al Benson Jr.

Just this morning someone sent me an article from the Charlotte Observer in Charlotte, North Carolina, http://media.charlotteobserver.com  about the recent rise in home schooling in the state of North Carolina.

The article noted: “North Carolina’s home schools are growing at a record rate and are now estimated to have more students  than the state’s private schools. New figures from the state show there were 60,950 home schools in the 2013-14 school year, a 14.3 percent increase from the prior year and a 27 percent increase from two years ago. The state estimates there are 98,172 home-schoolers, marking the first time that North Carolina’s home school enrollment surpassed the number in private schools.”

Kevin McClain, president of North Carolinians For Home Education, which is a state-wide support group for home schoolers stated: “You can send your child to a private school–which is really expensive–or you can home-school. The economy means that, for many people, you home-school.” My wife and I can identify with that. When we could no longer afford to send our kids (now grown) to a Christian school, then we started to home school them. That was the only other option open to us. Sending them to the local government school was never an option because we knew the real history of the public school system, and no way were our kids going to be part of that. Thanks be to God, our six grandchildren are now being home schooled.

When home schooling first became legal in North Carolina way back in 1985 there were about 2,300 home schooled students in that state, so you can see how the movement has grown in the last twenty five-plus years. 

And the Charlotte Observer article observed that: “The recent growth spurt has coincided with the use of the Common Core standards in math and language arts in North Carolina’s public schools. While hailed by supporters in more than 40 states as providing a more rigorous education, critics have charged that Common Core is not appropriate for some students. ‘Common Core is a big factor that I hear people talk about’ said Beth Herbert, founder of Lighthouse Christian Homeschool Association, which has around 350 families, largely in the northern Wake County area. ‘They’re not happy with the work their kids are coming home with. They’ve decided to take their children home’.” In July the North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation to create a commission that would recommend standards that would replace Common Core, or “Commie Core” as those who had studied this program now refer to it. All I can say is good for North Carolina!

Those who have studied the educational process now going on in this country, if such it can still be called, have come to realize that this whole Common Core program is nothing more than the educational arm of the Marxist Critical Theory agenda. On the 8th of August I did an article dealing with this for this blog spot. Go back and check it out.

It seems that the Critical Theory problems with Common Core have finally gotten some people to sit up and take notice of what is going on in public schools. This Marxist project won’t wake everybody up–there are some folks that will never wake up to what goes on in public schools–but more and more are beginning to see that these indoctrination centers we call schools have some real problems and that the result of those problems will be dumped on their kids if they leave them in those institutions.

Over the years I have advocated, for Southern folks, that they best thing they can do for their kids is to secede from the public school system. That would be one small step, but a major one, that people could start to take in the process of Cultural Secession. Lots of people today claim they have no confidence in the government anymore. If that is true, then why do they still have confidence in the government’s schools? The “educational” arm of the government is just as corrupt as the rest of it, and we are naive if we think any differently.

Why Marxists Can’t Govern

by Al Benson Jr.

In his book Law and Liberty the late R. J. Rushdoony had a chapter entitled The flight from life. It was about people who, unable to deal with the world as it really is, escape into flight of unrealistic fantasy, and this is what they build their lives on.

He mentioned perpetual students at universities that are ever studying but never quite able to get it all together enough to graduate and get out into the real world to work for a living.

He also mentioned Marxists, which might surprise some folks, but it really shouldn’t. Rushdoony made a cogent statement about Marx, himself, when he said: “Marx had a religious belief in the power of revolution to create a paradise on earth. The result of the destruction of the old order would be the birth of a new order.” A “New World Order?” Actually, yes, which is what today’s well-dressed Marxists have opted to call what they are trying to do (to us).

But, in spite of all the chaos and misery they have created (and still plan to create) the Marxists have failed. This is the one thing they are good at (failing) besides making life miserable for those they rule. In their vain attempt to escape reality, the Marxists may even think they are “helping” people because, after all, who could fail to be helped by their gentle ministrations–and for those that dare to refuse their help there is always the machine gun mowing down the “counter-revolutionaries”  lined up against the wall.

Rev. Rushdoony made a telling point when he said: “The root cause of the failure of the Marxist dream is that it represents a flight from reality. Marxism denies the biblical doctrine of original sin. Instead of dealing realistically with man as sinner,it holds to the neutral or even good nature of man everywhere. He lives under the illusion that his Marxist dream represents inevitable historical truth instead of error. As a result his mental perspective is no different than that of the insane;…as a consequence his government can produce only chaos and destruction;…” He is much like some of the politicians in this country who continue to pursue foolish economic policies like “stimulus packages” believing  that the results will be different this time than they were the last two times. They never are–so what’s the solution–another stimulus package. The fact that these all handsomely reward their friends has absolutely nothing to do with it–so they tell us. So the Marxists deny the biblical truth of original sin. This truth was also anathema to those children of the Enlightenment that gave us the French Revolution. And look what wonders they wrought in their improvement of the world–18th century terrorism and the guillotine! How can we fail to appreciate such great contributions to humanity?

And partly because of their flat denial of biblical truth the Marxists lack the ability to govern. Oh, they can rule alright, by fear and intimidation, they do a splendid job at that, but they are unable to govern. Look at all those countries in Africa that had previously been colonies of the European countries. Turned loose to do their own thing they, almost without exception, became one-party Marxist states as well as economic basket cases. Rhodesia is a perfect example. It used to be a country with a good living standard that actually exported food to other places. Now that the Marxists have taken over they can’t even feed themselves. Of course their policy of confiscating the land of productive white farmers and turning it over to lazy black Marxists who will not farm doesn’t help them too much. It’s yet another example of the Marxist’s flight from reality. And how much foreign aid over the decades did the West have to pour into the Soviet Union to continue to prop it up? Marxism doesn’t work, folks, it never has and never will.

How can you expect an “economic” system (really a  religious system) to work when one of its founders (Karl Marx) was so lazy he couldn’t even take the trouble to feed his family? He was so busy making the world safe for violent revolution that he didn’t have time or energy to help to put bread on his family’s table. Had it not been for his friend Engels, a spoiled, rich capitalist, no doubt Marx and his family would have starved. What a shining example for the world!

Actually, Marxism is more religious than economic because what the Marxist really wants to do is to replace God with himself. Rushdoony has observed that: “In effect, what the advocates of this socialist world demand is the right to become gods and rule over all other men.”

Unfortunately, there are many in our churches that, not having a true understanding of real history, nor a clue as to what Marxism is really all about, are all too willing to let them do that. They have no idea as to the true agenda of the Marxists and so they embrace both them and their Marxist tenets in the name of “love.”

Those in the church that understand where Marxism really comes from need to stand up and oppose and expose it for what it really is to their sleeping brethren. The Lord is in control, but He usually exercises that control through His people, and right now, they’re not much interested in the exercise. Another “Egyptian captivity” might be in view unless they start to wake up.