Why I Couldn’t Agree With Bruce Catton

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

Over the years I have read a bit of “Civil War” history from a lot of authors with divergent opinions on many things. Somehow, though, Bruce Catton’s view of the War was just not one I could get comfortable with. It was sort of like James M. McPherson’s view of the War, and you all know who he was. If you ever read anything I wrote about the War you will recall I couldn’t get comfortable with McPherson’s worldview regarding the War and the reasons for it either. And while McPherson’s books have often been cited on the World Socialist Website in the past, I couldn’t find anything in that regard about Bruce Catton.

However, McPherson’s and Catton’s views appear quite similar when it comes to the notorious Forty-Eighters that Donnie Kennedy and I wrote about in Lincoln’s Marxists.

A friend in New Jersey recently sent me a paragraph out of Catton’s The Army of the Potomac: Glory Road, from page 172 of the book. This is one I had not read, and it probably explains why I am glad I did not make the effort. Even when you research history,  there are times when you can only stand so much propaganda and, though he probably did not intend to do it, that’s exactly what Mr. Catton gave us in this instance. I will comment here on some of what he said in this paragraph.

He started out with: The nation inherited something rich and strange when the German revolutionary movement broke up in blood and proscription lists,  with the best men of a dozen German states hastening to America.   The 1848 revolts in Germany and several other European countries were socialist revolts. That being the case, it would seem that Catton is trying to tell us that the “best men” from a dozen German states were all socialists or communists, because that’s what took part in this revolution. Catton may not be aware of this–in which case you might do well to ask just what else he is unaware of. Either that or his worldview has no problem with socialists. I can’t say definitively either way.

He continues: These Germans were deadly serious about words which Americans took blithely for granted, words like liberty and like freedom and democracy.  It seems as if Catton is totally unaware of the fact that these words do not mean the same things to socialists and communists that they mean to us. When they use such terms they are not saying  what we say when we use them. Lots of ignorant people who eulogize the Forty-Eighters make this grave error. They do not understand how the Leftists use language to confuse their adversaries–and if we are not Leftists, then we are all their adversaries.

Catton says: They (the Forty-Eighters) made up a substantial part of the ground which the free-soil men had cultivated in the 1850s and when the war came they had seen the Union cause as their own cause, with freedom for the black man as one of its sure ultimate goals. This is yet another confirmation that the socialists/communists  saw the Union cause as their own. As for “freeing the slaves” their motives were hardly humanitarian no matter what they said. They were every bit as “racist” as those Southern folks they accused of “racism.” They felt that “freeing” the slaves would uproot the South and cause major problems for the Confederacy and so they endorsed it. The South was the part of the country that was the most Christian and conservative and the most opposed to the socialist designs of both the Establishment in Washington, New York and London.

As Catton wound down in this paragraph he stated:  Their leaders were men who had lost their fortunes and risked their necks, taking up arms for liberty in a land of kings who resisted change, and these leaders called the Germans to the colors as soon as Fort Sumter was bombarded.  Almost sounds as if Sumter was their signal to be up and moving!

What Catton seemed unable to grasp here is that the socialists/communists in Germany, as well as in the rest of Europe, did not fight for liberty for the common man, as we know it. They fought to centralize all the German states into one collectivist entity–with their friends in control of it! The same held true for what they sought to do all over Europe. They fought for collectivization–not liberty. And that’s what they fought for here also. They knew, at least at the leadership levels, where Lincoln was coming from and they knew they had a shot at doing here what they had failed to do in Europe, because they had a leader in Washington that agreed with them!

Until we learn to get this history straight we will continue to make the same stupid errors that we have seen, purposely or otherwise, for the last 150 years. Unfortunately, authors like Mr. Catton who end up glorifying socialists and communists don’t help us much!

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It Wasn’t All About Slavery!

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

Back in February of 2013 (five years ago now, doesn’t seem all that long ago) I did an article for this blog called The Lincoln/Corwin “Keep your Slaves” Amendment. It discussed the Corwin Amendment, which many of you all probably never heard of. After all, it’s not one of those things the “historians” or the media make a big deal out of because it doesn’t fit their agenda of a “saintly” Lincoln who loved all blacks, or a treasonous South. Scroll back and read that article. It’s still there. That will save me having to restate much of it here. It was a amendment to the Constitution, introduced by Thomas Corwin of Ohio that would have kept slaves in bondage in perpetuity. The sainted Mr. Lincoln was in favor of it, had no problems with it. If you find that hard to believe then go back to February 2, 2013 on this blog and read it.

Lincoln stated, in his first inaugural address, on March 4, 1861 that, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

Lincoln pretty much told us what the war (for him) was all about, and it wasn’t slavery. Even the vaunted Emancipation Proclamation” (actually a war and propaganda measure) did not free any slaves in the slave states remaining in the Union, nor did it free any slaves in the Confederate States where it had no legal authority. In fact, you could really say it was the “nothingburger” of the 19th century. So, given all these considerations, it’s hard to believe that “historians” and “journalists” in our day seem unable to come to grips with the naked truth that Lincoln declared war on the South so he could drag them back into the Union and hang on to all that tariff money the South had heretofore pumped into the national economy. The South had paid for 87% of the national economy, and if the South remained out of the Union, then the Union would tank in very short order and Lincoln had to get the South back into the Union so they could continue to “remit the extortion money” to Washington so Washington  would have that money to finance all those internal improvements they wanted to make up north! And those lucky Southern folks would get to pay for all that! Weren’t they just blessed???

Years ago (in 2007 to be exact) someone sent me an article by James W. King and Lt. Col. Thomas M. Nelson entitled The Ten Causes of the War Between the States. It was a good article and I hung onto it. It stated, in part,  “There were 10 political causes of the war–one of which was slavery–which was a scapegoat for all the differences that existed between the North and South. The Northern industrialists had wanted a war since about 1830 to get the South’s resources (land-cotton-coal-timber-minerals) for pennies on the dollar. All wars are economic and are always between centralists and decentralists. The North would have found an excuse to invade the South even if slavery had never existed..”

Frank Conner said pretty much the same thing in his book  The South Under Siege 1830-2000.

King and Nelson, in their article, listed the ten reasons for the war. After going over all their reasons, I had to conclude that they were right on target. They started off by listing the tariff; centralization vs. states rights and Christianity vs. Secular Humanism. This last one is one that few historians, or anyone else for that matter, take into account, yet it is one of the most important and critical. Of course that may be why it is so ignored today.

They listed cultural differences–another one most folks don’t ever give a thought to. We haven’t been taught to think along those lines and so most of these really critical issues just go over our heads. All we’ve been taught (or conditioned) to do is to react to lurid tales of Southern cruelty to slaves–as though the South was the sole proprietor of the slavery issue. It’s not! The North has a big slice of the proprietorship there, too, though most will never admit it, and neither will today’s spin media (excuse me, I meant “news’ media).

I already mentioned the North’s desire for control over Southern resources. Then there was slander of the South by Northern newspapers; New England’s attempts to instigate massive slave revolts in the South. Does Harper’s Ferry, Virginia come to mind here? Just about all those who financed the actions of terrorist John Brown in that gory undertaking were either New England or New York Unitarians and/or socialists. That fact was not lost on Southern folks.

Way down the list, at number 9, was slavery, and while it was an indirect cause, it was not the cause of the war–contrary to the propaganda being promulgated  in today’s classrooms and newsrooms.

I expect some will not appreciate it that I keep hammering at this issue, but when you have had 150 years of propaganda passing as history and news, you have to keep hammering to create cracks in that wall of false propaganda. Until our people begin to get it right about the War of Northern Aggression we will never get it right about any of the events that followed that war. That war was our French Revolution and we have never recovered from the results of it, nor the propaganda spun about it that conditions our thinking today.

Slavery was not the cause of that war. Secession was not treason. “Racism” was every bit as prominent in the North as in the South, maybe even moreso. It just didn’t get the media attention up there. And don’t tell me it didn’t exist up there. I grew up in the North.

With the divisions we have in this country today, culturally and otherwise, it would seem that we might be better off as two separate countries. I doubt that the North will ever totally be able to purge itself of its Unitarian/socialist world view. Left to its own devices, the South might have a chance. And, if push came to shove–much of the West would be better off siding with the South, because we have the same common enemies and the same desire to just be left alone, free from bureaucracy, to live our lives as we feel God intended.

Update:

For a little more on this subject please check out my book review of Gene Kizer Jr.s book Slavery Was Not the Cause of the War Between the States published on the Abbeville Institute’s website on February 27, 2018.

Has Anyone Noticed?

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

I have watched all this fuss over Roy Moore in Alabama recently. For all the allegations (and no proof yet) everyone is just supposed to walk away from Roy Moore and vote for the liberal (socialist) Democrat. If Roy Moore manages to pull off this election in Alabama and become Alabama’s senator then he will be subject to the exact same treatment that Donald Trump has been getting for almost a year now as president. The pattern in both cases is clear. Why if I had a suspicious mind I’d almost be tempted to think that the same people had planned both campaigns against both men.

If Roy Moore manages to win and they can’t find a way to steal it from him, all he has to do is look at Donald Trump and he has to know what he is in store for–every day he is in office.

He will be yet one more vote for Donald Trump’s agenda, which Trump’s adversaries don’t want and he will also be yet another vote against any possible impeachment proceeding that may be brought against Trump for his infamous “Russian collusion nothingburger.”

The Deep State is giving Roy Moore the same treatment with all these women he is supposed to have chased as they gave Trump with his “Russian dossier.” A whole lot of hype by the prostitute press with nothing to back it up, and they realize they have nothing, so they keep picking up the same mud they threw against the wall already and slinging it against the wall again, hoping at least some of it might stick this time. They hope against hope that if they toss this hogwash enough times then enough people will believe it to make a difference.

But the media is having a problem. They have been so thoroughly discredited in the last year with out and out falsehoods and spin that almost no one except the Leftist “useful idiots” believes them anymore. Many of us haven’t believed them for decades now, seeing how they work, but they have become so transparent recently they just aren’t fooling hardly anyone anymore and people are flocking to the alternative media to get some real news.

One instance comes to mind that I have always remembered. In 1999 my wife and I attended a Confederate Alliance conference in Charleston, South Carolina. This was an attempt to get a batch of Confederate and Southern Heritage groups together so they could start to work together in certain areas where they all had a common interest and concern. I gave one of the speeches at this conference, only one among several, and I agreed with the concept being put forward.

The man who worked hard to put all this together was Craig Maus, who, like me, was a Northerner who threw his lot in with the Cause of the South.

At the end of the first day’s speeches a couple “news” people strayed in looking for someone to interview about the conference and they grabbed Craig Maus for an interview. They immediately started asking questions about race and the conference’s relationship to racial issues. Craig told them right up front that this conference had nothing to do with race, that the KKK, the Skinheads, and other such groups were not there and were not welcome there. He made it very plain.

But that wasn’t enough for them. They moved on to a couple other questions and then circled back to the race issue. Craig explained to them again that, for this group, there was no “race” issue.  That did not enter into what we were there for. And so the media people veered off again for another couple questions and then came back to the race issue from a little different angle. By this time Craig knew what these people were after and just quit playing the game. They were not going to get what they came for, or what their editors had sent them for, and so they left. But their article in the next day’s paper was loaded with innuendo–because that’s all they had; no proof or evidence of what they had come to get, just innuendo. But for our “news” media that’s often enough. It doesn’t have to be true. All the media has to do is make people think it’s true, but if you learn to read between the lines you can see that most times the “news” media really has nothing that they try to make sound like something.

They’ve done that for over a year now with Trump and they are in the process of playing the same game with Roy Moore. I hope if Roy Moore wins he senate race he realizes this because the media and their bosses will make his life a hell on earth if they can–every day he is there. Remember one thing–the media and those that pay them to do what they do don’t want “America First” they want America last. And they want YOU last!

Bigotry Against White Southerners Is ALWAYS In Season

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

As most honest people realize by now, liberals, socialists, and communists are all cultural Marxists, which means, for them, that it is perfectly permissible to do unto others what they condemn others (usually unrighteously) for doing unto them. In fact, for them, it’s mandatory.  For them, their day is not complete unless they are actively assailing someone on the political or religious Right, while blaming those folks for even daring to defend themselves. “Condemn others and elevate yourself” is their watchword.

I read an interesting article on The Hill by Jacqueline Thomsen for November 12th, 2017, the headline for which was Poll: Nearly half of white Southerners feel like they’re under attack.  All I can say to that is–it’s about time! White Southerners are under attack–and have been now for decades. Their culture, their history, their faith, even their Southern accents, are and have been under assault for longer than I care to think about. Most of them have been totally oblivious to it. It would really be nice if some of  them, lots more of them, were starting to wake up and smell the coffee. It would be really nice to think they are finally starting to get the picture and beginning to push back!

Thomsen observed that “Nearly half of white Americans living in the South feel like they’re under attack, a new Winthrop University poll found. Forty six percent of white Southerners said they agree or strongly agree that white people are under attack in the U.S….And 30 percent of all respondents in the poll agreed when asked if America needs to protect and preserve its white European heritage. More than half the respondents disagreed with this statement. Forty percent of respondents said they believed that Confederate statues should remain as is.” However, 25 percent said some sort of plaque should be added to “contextualize” (adulterate) the meaning of the statue. I wonder if that 25 percent would feel the same way about a statue of Martin Luther King Jr or socialist Carl Schurz.

Problem is, you don’t dare try to “contextualize” anyone else’s history but that of the white folks. To do that to anyone else’s statues or cultural monuments would be politically incorrect (racist), but it’s perfectly okay to do it to those of the white folks. In fact, it’s part of the game. It’s called cultural genocide if you do it to anyone but white folks, but for the white folks it’s perfectly okay to do it. You see, it’s open season on them 24/7, all year. It’s good that some of them are finally beginning to wake up and realize what’s being done to them.

I have read so much Marxist drivel from college professors and other PH.Ds (piled higher and deeper) about how all whites should be ashamed of being white and should work to repudiate their “whiteness” while taking pains to embrace every other pagan culture out there to express their “solidarity” with the world, that it just about makes me sick. The Lord made all people who and what they are, and to openly repudiate what the Lord created, the way He created it, is a repudiation of God and His perfect plan. Not that this would bother some of those people. The same principle is true for those people that want sex changes. They refuse to be satisfied with what God made the way He made it, so they plan to improve on it. They seem to think they have more wisdom than God, which is untrue, not that you could convince them of it.

The same situation holds true for Southern accents. An article I read in The Washington Times for November 7th, by David Keene, noted, of a person he wrote about “…he could never vote for Mr. Carter (back in 1976) because of his ‘Southern accent’.” As a Southerner, he “talked funny.” Now I had my problems with Jimmy Carter and I didn’t vote for him, but it sure wasn’t  because of him, as a Southerner, “talking funny.” His politics were much too cozy with those of David Rockefeller and the Trilateral Commission to suit me.

Could it be said that not voting for a person because you don’t like the way he talks makes you a bigot? Well, in the world of the cultural Marxist it doesn’t seem to–unless, of course, you are a Southerner! And if that happens to be the case, then, to those people, you are automatically a bigot–from the first breath you draw!

Over the years I’ve been called a racist, an anti-Semite, an Islamaphobe, and a “deplorable” as well as several other things I do not care to list here. Most of these epithets are designed to stifle reasonable debate or discussion. Folks who get called these names need to realize that fact and keep talking anyway. When folks throw some of these names at me, I don’t let it stop me from saying what I have to say, and that bothers some of them, because nasty names are supposed to shut you up and they don’t always. I just tell them–I don’t care what you call me. Just don’t call me late for supper.

This Site Contains…..whatever we don’t like, so it’s blocked

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

One thing you can learn from a visit to your local public library is that all internet sites are equal, but some are not quite as equal as others. And the ones that are not quite as equal as the others get blocked. Who gets to define what constitutes “equal” is yet another question. Back in the days when we spoke in more plain English because the fear of “offending” someone wasn’t quite as potent as it seems to be today, this sort of thing was just labeled for what it really was–censorship! 

This afternoon, I went with a friend to our local public library while he used one of their computers to check out his email and a few other things. While there, I did the same, and checked out several websites that I usually check out each day.

Toward the end of my checking I thought, since I had not checked it in two or three days, I would check out the website for The Confederate Society of America of which I am a member.

So I typed the name into the search line on the search engine and instead of being connected to CSA’s website I was connected with something called Barracuda which dutifully informed me that the site I was trying to connect with contained “hateful or racist material” or  words to that effect and therefore it was blocked and inaccessible to me. My first thought was “what’s this crap?” So I tried again and got the same politically correct response.

At that point I went to get one of the library employees and she came over to see what the problem was. She went to check and came back to tell me there was nothing they could do about it. All the parish libraries are set up like this. I asked her how I could file a complaint about this. She told me I would have to go see the head librarian at the main branch. I asked her why something like this is on their computers. She didn’t know but she said that this program is set up so that certain key words you type in trigger this response and that’s as far as you get. I asked her “I suppose the word Confederate is one of those key words?” She figured it probably would be. What a surprise!

I told her that “I happen to belong to this particular group and there is nothing racist or hateful on their site. It deals with culture and history and that’s all it deals with.” While she might have been sympathetic, there was nothing she could do. The whole thing was set up from the main library. Given the demographics of the city where the main library is located, I am really dubious as to whether talking to those people would do any good or be an exercise in futility (probably the latter), and I don’t need anymore futility than I already have. This particular city has a set of six flagpoles out in front of the city hall. Years ago, one of those flagpoles used to contain a First National Confederate States flag. Then black leadership assumed control. Need I say more?

Some of you all around the country might check out the computers in your own public libraries just to see if this censorship situation prevails in your areas and let us know. Maybe some areas are not yet burdened with this cultural Marxism, because that’s really all it is.  The cultural Marxists feel they need to be the final arbiters of what we see and hear and whether we like that or not makes no difference to them. They know what’s best (for them) and what’s best for them is that we don’t see and hear what gives them political indigestion. Kind of like the situation in Washington right now. Those generals on Mr. Trump’s staff seem to be deciding what he gets to see and hear and who he talks to and who is shut out. Same principle.

I just wonder who is responsible for deciding what material is “hateful” or “racist.” Who makes that decision? It is local folks? Is it this Barracuda outfit, or who? Or do some of these people involved have possible connections to the Southern Poverty Law Center for whom everything to the right of Joe Stalin is hateful?

These folks who may be denizens of the Great Swamp keep telling us all this is for our own good and that we are much better off if we don’t see the truth but rather let them interpret what is “racist” or “hateful” because they are the “experts” at all this.

Again, who gets to determine what is “racist” or “hateful” and what do they get out of it? That’s the real question.

Shouldn’t That Carl Schurz Monument Come Down?

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

As some folks know, I recently did a CD lecture (a little over 37 minutes long) about the Marxist and socialist supporters and enablers of Abraham Lincoln. These were the sterling individuals (often along with their wives) that Donnie Kennedy and I wrote about in our book Lincoln’s Marxists. 

Some friends have been helping me get the word out about the new CD, which I appreciate, because people still need to be made aware of this leftist phenomena so prevalent in Mr. Lincoln’s armies. It’s still a subject that Establishment historians turn their noses up at because we are not supposed to know that much about it, much less discuss or debate it in polite company.

At any rate, polite or not, a friend up in Kansas City, Missouri had a buddy there who must have heard something about the CD because he penned a kind of humorous article about it and about the Forty Eighters in general. It was posted on https://camdenpoint.wordpress.com  and he had kind of a funny book-cover type picture with the article that portrayed socialist Carl Schurz next to the Communist hammer and sickle.

He went into some detail about Carl Schurz, his revolutionary socialist background, and also noted his wife’s socialist activity, part of which was the founding of the first kindergarten in this country. In one place he mentions about the 1848 socialist revolts in Europe and notes how Schurz and many others ended up here after their revolts fizzled in Europe. He says: “And so like many of his German compatriots who had played an important role in the failed revolution, many would soon migrate to the United States in order to continue waving the banner for their leftist cause of taking things from others by force and coercion (which sums up the modern socialism of Bernie Sanders and other politicians as well).” In spite of all the “positive’ swill written to praise the Forty Eighters as some kind of “freedom fighters,” the man who wrote this article has seen through that farce and realizes what they were really all about.

But something that really caught my attention as I read this article was a picture of a monument to Carl Schurz in New York City. And, I have to admit my guilt and confess that one of the first thoughts that came into my mind was–As long as we now seem to be on this national tear to pull down all “Civil War” monuments, wouldn’t it be only fitting and proper to pull down this monument to Carl Schurz along with all the rest? 

After all, if we have reached the point where monuments to Washington, Jefferson, and even Columbus are being threatened, why should Carl Schurz be exempt? After all, he was white. Isn’t that enough reason right there to remove a monument to him? By today’s rationale, it should be. The fact that he was a revolutionary socialist should have nothing to do with it–the main criteria for removing monuments today is whiteness!  And Schurz certainly qualifies on that count.

I’m sure that there will be many that await media confirmation that the monument to Carl Schurz in New York City has been visited by Black Lives Matter. However, should this group of worthies ever get around to visiting the Schurz monument, it will probably be to lay a wreath at the feet of Comrade Carl and to praise his devotion to “the people.”

You have to understand that, when it comes to monuments to old, dead, white guys, you will find that “some monuments are more equal than others.”

For those who would like a little more info on Carl and some of his Forty Eighter buddies, the CD Lincoln’s Marxists is still available for a cost of $8.00 (and believe me I am not making big bucks at that price). You can purchase them by writing to The Copperhead Chronicle,  P O Box 55,  Sterlington, Louisiana 71280 and sending a check or money order for $8.00 for each CD you want.

You will find out some information about some of the personalities who fought in the War of Northern Aggression on the side of the “glorious” Union that your history books, at best, only hint at, because you are not supposed to need to know any of this stuff.

And keep your eyes open to see if Black Lives Matter or Antifa ever get around to the Schurz monument.

National Education–It Has Always Been About “Reconstructing” Southern Culture

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

In his book Segregation–Federal Policy or Racism? (Shotwell Publishing, Columbia, South Carolina) author John Chodes noted, on page 53 that: “In 1867, a small agency was created by Congress. It was called the Bureau of Education. It consisted of only five employees: a supervisor and four clerks, ‘to collect such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and progress of education in the several states and territories…as shall aid the people of the United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school systems, and otherwise promote the cause of education throughout the country.’ From this miniscule beginning, over time, the Bureau of Education became a gigantic department, nationalizing, controlling, and separating black and white primary and secondary schools by administering the Morrill colleges and absorbing the Freedmen’s Bureau schools into its own bureaucracy.” And we have all been led to believe that the federal Department of Education  didn’t happen until Jimmy Carter brought it in during his one-term presidency as payback to the National Education Association for their support of him. Actually,  it seems that all Carter did was to support the most recent manifestation of something that had really been around, in one form or another, for a very long time.

It seems that the educational messiahs in Washington at that time (ever read about them in your history books?) felt that one of the leading causes of Southern secession was that Southern folks had existed for all those years without the dubious “benefit” of a nationalized school system, and therefore, they were easy prey for “Southern demagogues” to con into helping their states secede from our “indivisible” Union.

Republican demagogue James P. Wickersham of Pennsylvania observed that: “It was this ignorance that enabled the rebel leaders to create a prejudice in the minds of this class of persons against the North and to induce them to enlist in their armies…As long as they are ignorant they will remain tools of political demagogues and therefore be incapable of self-government. They must be educated;…No state that has passed an act of secession should be allowed to take its former place in the Union without having first incorporated into its constitution a provision for the establishment of a free school system.” Do you begin to see where this has all been going?

What the honorable Mr. Wickersham is really saying here, in his own unique way, is that most Southern folks have just been paying attention to the wrong set of demagogues. They’ve been listening to Southern ones when they really should have been embracing Northern ones. It seems the Northern demagogues have the (politically) correct slant on all the current issues of the day and, therefore, any state that embraced secession should have to have some sort of Yankee/Marxist public school system firmly in place to brainwash the kiddies before it even dreams of unification with the glorious Union. In other words–“teach your kids to think the same way we’ve taught ours to think–or else!”

This Yankee/Marxist mindset portrays secession as some sort of evil, traitorous act that has to be “educated” out of Southern kids so they will never again be tempted to think along those lines. It would seem, if you look at some of today’s headlines, that the government educational system has been somewhat less than spectacularly successful  in obliterating  the idea of secession. There are some small blessings we can be thankful for!

Contrary to what the promoters of public education have told us for over 150 years now,  secession is not (was not) treason. The Declaration of Independence was a secession document, and three of the states that ratified the Constitution did so with the proviso that, if this new government ended up being detrimental to their states, they reserved the right to remove themselves. Virginia, Rhode Island, and New York all said that, in one form or another, in their ratification ordinances. So if secession had been treasonous then the ratification ordinances of those states should not have been accepted–but they were, and that fact alone, which most of your “history” books leave out, speaks volumes.

National (and it’s never really been local) education has always been about the restructuring of American society and culture and making it into something the Founders would not have recognized, something that the Washington and New York culture-benders wanted it to be. All this blather about “quality education for the kids” to put it bluntly, smells like a fresh West Texas cow chip on a hot day in August. It’s pure bovine fertilizer–and not even the high grade stuff at that!

As far as all the Confederate monuments coming down, what do you think most public schools in the South have been teaching your kids about their ancestors who seceded and fought for the Confederacy? You probably don’t really want to know. But you better start finding out, because the drivel they are pushing down your kids’ throats will affect their future, your grandchildren’s futures and the future of your Southern culture.

Just remember this–if you take nothing else away from what you’ve read here–“Reconstruction” is ongoing. It has never stopped. It may have shifted gears here and there, but it has never ceased. It is as relevant to your lives today as it was to those who surrendered at Appomattox.

Key Words For Confederate Monuments–“On Private Land”

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

Usually, I seldom quote the New York Times as it is not one of my favorite publications, and I have accused it, over the years, of not printing “all the news that’s fit to print” but rather of printing all the news that fits (the agenda).

On August 30th I read a Times article by a Sabrina Tavernise, and although I did not agree with all her conclusions in this article, she did bring up some points worthy of comment.

To start her article she noted: “One of the proudest moments of Robert Eldreth’s life was erecting a Confederate monument on a patch of grass behind the Georgetown (Delaware) Historical Society in 2007. It was the first monument to Delawareans who had served the Confederacy, and the fact that it came 142 years after the end of the war hardly mattered. ‘It’s a lesson in history,’ said Mr. Eldreth, who led the group that put it up. ‘It’s about our roots and sacrifices that those citizens here in Delaware made. To me that’s so honorable’.”

Ms. Tavernise made an interesting comment, citing the damage the Charlottesville episode was intended to cause the cause of Southern history and heritage, when she said: “While old monuments erected in bygone eras are coming down, new ones continue to go up.” Most in the mainstream media would never admit this.

She mentioned other instances along this line. She observed: “In Crenshaw County, Alabama,  a new monument to ‘unknown Confederate soldiers’ was unveiled Sunday in a private park. In the small East Texas town of Orange, a giant concrete ring of 13 columns, representing the states the Confederacy claimed as its own, is going up on private land at the intersection of Interstate 10 and Martin Luther King Drive.”

A historian at the University of North Carolina has also stated “There has been a Civil War memorial boom going on over the last 20 years.” He noted that at least 36 monuments had gone up in North Carolina since 2000 and that was as many as were put up in all the years between 1940 and 1990.

At this point, Tavernise made a statement I somewhat had to disagree with. She did note that, while in former years, monuments and memorials were put up in “busy public squares” the monuments going up today are appearing in quieter areas, more away “from the bustle of daily life on plots of private land, or on battlefield sites,…” And while many Americans don’t want to see monuments taken down, she feels that new monuments are not finding the acceptance in “broader society” that they once did. I guess that depends on where the “broader society” is coming from. If you are talking about Northern Virginia, which has become infested with dwelling places for Washington bureaucrats, she might have a point. However, I don’t think that holds true for many other places in the South.

A Sons of Confederate Veterans commander in Alabama noted that more monuments will go up, but it will be on private property. That seems to be the trend now, and in light of all the cultural destruction and ethnic cleansing that has gone on in the South in recent years, that seems to me to be the way to go. We need to keep putting up our monuments, flags, and memorials, but do it on private property, where culturally Marxist city and town council members can’t get their grubby collectivist paws on them. Oh, they will wail and moan about the “injustice and racism” of it all because they don’t get their way. Tough, baby. Let them know this is how the cookie crumbles.

Not as many may get to see some of the monuments in more out of the way places, but those that really care and want their children to appreciate their culture and heritage will make the effort to visit these places. And their culture and history will be preserved–even if it is a little ways outside of town. In the long run, that doesn’t matter.

The key to putting up our monuments, flags, and memorials is to start doing it on private land! The folks mentioned in this article have shown that this can be done, and for the sake of our children and their children’s futures it needs to be done. Whatever the cultural Marxists manage to tear down, let us be replacing as much as we can on private land. Private land!!! Even the thought of that makes the cultural Marxists cringe!

Ahhh “Racism”–what a racket!

by Al Benson Jr.

I thought I had heard all the idiocy about “racism” that was out there in the past few years, but I should have known better–for the “racist” racket, scam, hoax, or whatever you care to call it, marches on and on and on.

We found out, on this morning’s “news” that now the eclipse of the sun that will happen today is also “racist.” Why is that? Because most of the main part of the country that will be affected by it is the area that mostly voted for Trump in the last election, that’s why! I kid you not. That was in an internet news item that I read this morning. The person that said, awhile back, that “you can’t make this stuff up” knew whereof they spoke.

Over the last decade or so we have watched all manner of things that have suddenly been declared “racist.” If you use white paper to write on you are “racist.” If you eat vanilla ice cream you are a “racist.” What about chocolate ice cream? Are the folks that like chocolate ice cream reverse racists? And what about someone that eats chocolate ice cream and then uses white paper to write something on? Now there’s a dilemma if ever there was one! Are they classified as a “bi-racist?” And those folks who dare to eat white potatoes are simply beyond the pale. How dare they! And what about bananas? They are almost white, although they do start to turn kind of black when they are going bad–so bananas must be racist too, along with chocolate chip ice cream, where only the chocolate chips are dark colored at the rest is white. So the chocolate chips are okay–but why are they sitting in this “racist” white ice cream? I can see future scientists pondering over some of these deep questions in the years to come and trying to come up with reasons why this or that is racist or not. All they have to do is make sure their solutions satisfy the liberal (socialist) intelligentsia and all will be well. As for the rest of us, especially those of us that live in flyover country, our opinions don’t really matter. After all, most of us voted for Trump so that automatically disqualifies us from having any real say or opinion.

I’m just wondering why Hillary, Chuck Schumer, Antifa and all these tenured white turncoats that pretend to work at colleges aren’t considered racist. After all, they are white. But then I guess maybe being willing to sell out your race and sell your soul to the highest bidder does count for something–for now!

As my readers know, I have been watching all this crappola about how racist Confederate monuments are and that’s why they have to come down. So they will take them down, even to the point of trying to disinter Nathan Bedford Forrest from his grave in Memphis–which, if you ask me, you really have to be a sicko to be involved with.

And after that, they will go for the statues of Washington, Jefferson, and a whole batch of others that really have nothing to do with racism–and all because they think they can.

And, when all the statues and monuments and flags are down and you no longer have a recognizable history, what will they do then? Then, dear reader, they will find that you, if you are white, are also “racist” and they will come for you. Another news article I read yesterday asked the question “where will all this end” And the answer in the article was “It won’t.” That was an accurate reply. Whoever wrote that article, and the name escapes me at the moment, seems to “get it.” Most of us don’t!

The people that push this racist drivel don’t seem to realize they are sealing their own doom. In saying that the eclipse is “racist” they are saying that God, who causes such events, is racist too–and that is something they will be called to account for at some point. However, until that point is reached, those who do realize what a scam this whole anti-white, anti-Confederate, anti-American game is need to be engaged in pushing back, because all the real racists understand is resistance.

The “I’m Offended” Movement is Cultural Marxism in Action

by Al Benson Jr.

I have been watching this game of minorities and others being “offended” at just about anything and everything anyone else says or does. It has gotten beyond being ludicrous so we need to stop and take a good look at it and where it is headed.

The “I’m Offended” game, or maybe agenda would be a more correct term, seems to do one thing–it limits freedom of expression and action. For fear of “offending” someone you dare not say this or do that, and so if you follow this to its logical conclusion you end up saying nothing, doing nothing and thinking nothing. Such inaction on the part of most people makes totalitarians, whether they be Democrats, Republicans or Communists deliriously happy.

Lots of folks have started to notice this trend (agenda) of late.  I read a quote just last week that said: “My freedom ends where your feelings begin.” That’s a very accurate statement. The man who said it understands what’s going on. I read another one this week where the man said: “I’m offended by all those folks being offended over nothing.” That one is also on target.

There are so many out there now that are “offended” by so much that if everyone gives in to their list of pet grievances society will come to a screeching halt. Could that possibly be the name of the game?

They had a major flap at Yale recently over, guess what, Halloween costumes! An article on http://www.leanrightamerica.org  for November 10th said: “Halloween is more than a week in the past,  but students at Yale University are having a tough time moving on. Angry that school administrators did not take their concerns about offensive costuming seriously enough, a group of minority students met with Yale president Peter  Salovey last week to have their say. Salovery, it seems, was moved by what he heard.” What politically correct, blubbering sycophant who runs any kind of school in today’s offended world wouldn’t  be “moved” when students came to him with this kind of frippery? It gives him a chance to buddy with the plebes as if he really cared about their concerns.

It seems that some of these students are finding life on the campus of Yale “profoundly difficult.” It actually got to the point where the Intellectual Affairs Committee sent out an email requesting that students not wear “culturally unaware and insensitive costumes.” The article stated: “Apparently we’ve reached that point in history where one can take a joke.” Oh, you better believe you’ve reached it. We have arrived at the point where no one can say or even think anything that some minority group will not find offensive and jump all over your case about. There is absolutely NO humor in these people whatever. They are deadly serious.

You have to understand that this “I’m offended” agenda is another phase of Cultural Marxism. That’s all it is.  It restricts people’s liberty to laugh, or kid, and if the truth were known, much of it is not all that offensive, no matter what they say.  And I have noticed that these people who are waiting in line to “be offended” at the drop of a hat seem to have no problem at all offending white Christians, or any real Christians for that matter. They are literally standing in line to have their shot at putting Christians and their beliefs down. Haven’t noticed that? Maybe you just haven’t been paying attention. White Christians especially are the one group that it’s perfectly okay to offend, particularly if they are from the South. In fact, its’ open season on them.  Anything goes–and unfortunately, most of them don’t have sense enough to realize it yet. They’ve been kept too busy not trying to “offend” every other group around–even to the point where a lesbian “bishop” in some church in Sweden has had the cross removed from her church lest it “offend” the Muslims! You would not believe how much of this crap goes on and how much the Christians play into it unknowingly. Not much spiritual discernment left in this day and apostate age. We are so busy trying not to “offend” rank unbelievers that we can’t be bothered to stand up and defend what we are supposed to believe. After all, that might “offend” someone!

Now I am not advocating that we go out of our way to try to offend anyone, but let’s face it, Christians, just by being Christians are going to “offend” lots of folks. The truth always offends those who don’t want to believe it. If the truth offends you, I’m sorry, that’s tough. Jesus said in Matthew 11:6 “…blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.” Maybe Christians need to be more concerned in making sure they are not offended by Jesus and His teaching than they need to be concerned that they might offend some pagan who doesn’t want the truth anyway.

We have, this past summer, had a concentrated campaign of ethnic and cultural cleansing here in the South that has been the most dramatic I can recall in my lifetime. And you can tell that those people who want to trash our culture, want to get rid of our flags, statues, monuments, even park and street names (it all has to go, immediately if not sooner) are playing for keeps. I don’t think most Southern folks realize the intensity of the hatred those people have for us and our history, faith and culture. Everything we believe and do is “offensive” to minorities and therefore, we must stop it all, right now.

I wonder, has anyone bothered to put forth the possibility that what they are trying to do to our history, faith, and culture just might be offensive to us? Oh, that’s not even a concern. Our right to exist ends where their injured feelings begin and we need to be on “stools of everlasting repentance” forever.

After all, the Cultural Marxists are only trying to obliterate  our faith, history, and culture–why should we be offended at that? I’ll tell you something–you’d better learn to be offended by it, otherwise they just may pull it off! Where will you be then?

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again–you had better learn how to resist these people because that’s the only thing they understand–and if you don’t do it they will just run over you as if you were so much “collateral” damage. And, as for these folks that are “offended” by everything from soup to nuts, start telling them to be thankful they still have the right to be “offended.” It’s one of the few rights they still have. And if this “gentleman”  they helped put into the White House has his way they won’t have that long!