Slavery

Nikki Haley, Paul Thurmond, Jenny Horne: Signs Of The New South Carolina And Profiles In Courage!

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South Carolina has finally done the right thing, vote to take down the Confederate flag placed on the state capital in Columbia in 1961, in defiance of the civil rights movement, and in favor of enforcing segregation.

Governor Nikki Haley, State Senator Paul Thurmond, and State House member Jenny Horne deserve special praise, showing courage and principle in moving to change South Carolina history in the wake of the Charleston Massacre in mid June.

The fact that all three are Republicans in a Republican run state government is testimony that after decades of GOP rule, where the old Southern Democratic prejudices were not changed just by party affiliation change, that finally South Carolina is coming out of the 19th century.

Nikki Haley is an Indian American, her parents born in India; Paul Thurmond is the son of segregationist Senator and Governor and States Rights Party (1948) Presidential candidate Strom Thurmond; and Jenny Horne is a direct descendant of Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis.

These are a new generation, working to overcome the nightmare images of John C. Calhoun, Ben “Pitchfork” Tillman, and Strom Thurmond, who promoted slavery, racism and lynching, and racial segregation.

But part of this “new” South Carolina will be to bring social and economic conditions in the state into modern times, including the establishment of a minimum wage law statewide, and advancement of a modern educational system that teaches the truth of American history, and teaches evolution and climate change. Additionally, a health care system that helps white and black poor is essential!

Until South Carolina brings about these changes, it is still a long way from being a modern state on the level of states in the Northeast, Midwest, and Pacific Coast!

Texas Textbook Standards Destroying The Truth Of American History, As Well As Science!

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The state of Texas, with the largest number of students, and therefore, having a massive effect on publication of textbooks and establishment of curriculum across the nation, has now destroyed the truth of American history, complaining a “liberal bias”, which is just, unfortunately, telling the truth about the American past.

So now the new standards do not mention slavery as the major cause of the Civil War, but rather states rights and different economic systems.

They also downgrade the importance and details of the civil rights movement on American history.

They avoid mentioning about “Jim Crow” segregation laws and the Ku Klux Klan.

They bring Jesus Christ into the curriculum, as if he was an American!

These and other faults come on top of the changes in the Science curriculum, promoting creationism, rather than evolution.

Texas is promoting ignorance and propaganda in place of History and Science, and this will dumb down the nation’s children if it is not stopped dead in its tracks.

So the historical and scientific community, and the professional associations MUST fight tooth and nail, and stop this assault on teaching the truth about the American past, as well as promoting basic scientific knowledge!

The Confederate Flag Controversy: Should It Go Further To Monuments, Statues, And Other Memories Of The “Lost Cause” of the Civil War? NO!

Ronald 3 Comments

The battle over the Confederate flag being on public property in South Carolina has caused many people to say that ALL Confederate memorials everywhere in the South should be removed!

This would include statues and monuments to Confederate leaders, such as Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, and other Confederate political and military leaders. Some say all schools, streets, highways, and other public places should have their names changed. And some would argue that such Confederate history should be removed from museums in the South and elsewhere!

This is totally CRAZY, and this author wishes to make clear his total opposition to such suggestions! This comes from a blogger who DOES believe the Confederate Flag should be removed from public property, as stated recently on this blog!

We cannot wipe out history, and the story of the Confederacy and the troops who died for the Confederacy, should not be wiped out, as that is setting up a false record of the American past.

We can honor Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders as men who did what they felt was right, but which we might disagree with today.

If we try to distort the reality of history, we are doing precisely what Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and other totalitarian nations and governments have worked to do—to distort the historical record and not teach the parts that are disturbing and embarrassing!

Americans NEED to know the true history that led to the Civil War; the horrors of slavery; the sufferings of troops on both sides of the war!

We need to learn about the motivations, and the trials and tribulations of those who led the rebellion!

We need to know the whole story, not a sanitized version of only the winning side of the Civil War!

We cannot take away the sense of honor and the loyalty felt by millions of Southerners and others who look at the Confederate States of America as a “glorious cause”!

Just remember, the “moral side” won the Civil War, but let those on the losing side keep their dignity and their history and their monuments and statues and other memorials!

Just be sure that the truth of history is taught to the younger generation, while commemorating the full story of the most significant event in American history!

Women On Currency: Replace Andrew Jackson Or Alexander Hamilton? Jackson, Definitely!

Ronald 3 Comments

Six weeks ago, this blogger wrote of the move to have a woman on American currency, with the move being to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. In an online competition, abolitionist and runaway slave Harriet Tubman won out over Eleanor Roosevelt and Rosa Parks.

All well and good, but now the Treasury Department is proposing to replace Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, rather than Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.

Such an action would be totally wrong, as Hamilton is the founder of our national banking system, the most important economic figure in American history, and also the founder of a viewpoint in government—a belief in a strong national government, and a broad interpretation of the Constitution—-which in his time was considered to be “conservatism”, but in the past century since Franklin D. Roosevelt, has been seen as the view of government of the modern Democratic Party, namely “liberalism.”

Liberalism, and the alternative word “progressivism” has been the backbone of all of the major political, social and economic reforms of the past century, and Hamilton’s philosophy is something that needs to continue to be honored.

On the other hand, Andrew Jackson, while regarded as one of the more significant Presidents, destroyed the Second National Bank of the United States, a major mistake; promoted slavery and condemned abolitionists; and promoted the death of thousands of native Americans in the despicable action, known as the “Trail of Tears”, the forced removal of five Indian tribes to Oklahoma, later taken away from native Americans, when oil was discovered in Tulsa in 1889.

Ben Bernanke, the former head of the Federal Reserve, has called for just what this blogger is proposing: leave Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, and replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill!

The Proposal To Have A Woman Replace Andrew Jackson On The $20 Bill

Ronald 1 Comment

A movement has developed to place a woman on the $20 bill, in place of Andrew Jackson, our 7th President, who is highly controversial for his support of slavery; condemnation of abolitionists; participation in gun duels that killed several rivals; and his mass forced migration of Native Americans from the Southeast to Oklahoma, infamously known as the “Trail of Tears” in the 1830s.

A contest was held on line, on the website womenon20s.org, and the result was that the following women were selected as possible candidates to replace Jackson:

Eleanor Roosevelt (First Lady and wife of FDR)
Harriet Tubman (Runaway slave and abolitionist)
Rosa Parks (Montgomery Bus Boycott)
Wilma Mankiller (Chief of Cherokee Nation)

The author would select Eleanor Roosevelt, although an alternative idea would be a portrait of both Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, as FDR was the second or third greatest President in American History, and is only memorialized on the dime.

A portrait of the two Roosevelts would be an excellent way to commemorate the greatest First Couple in the history of the nation!

PS–Since this entry yesterday, the organization has counted the votes, and Harriet Tubman is the winner, instead of Eleanor Roosevelt, so congratulations on that, and Tubman would represent the idea of a woman on the $20 bill very well, but it is up to the Treasury Department if such a change in our currency takes place!

American Presidents And The Institution Of Slavery

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Yesterday, the author was watching the reenactment of the funeral of Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois, on C Span 3–American History TV, and the question has arisen, while watching the event, of the truth about America’s Presidents and the institution of slavery.

It turns out, through further research, that more Presidents than once thought, owned slaves in their lifetime, and that others showed lack of concern about the institution, and compromised on it in their Presidencies.

So it turns out that 12 of the first 18 Presidents owned slaves, including

George Washington
Thomas Jefferson–some expressed discomfort in his writings, but sill benefited from the institution
James Madison—some expressed discomfort in his writings, but still benefited from the institution
James Monroe
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
William Henry Harrison
John Tyler
James K. Polk
Zachary Taylor
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant.

Additionally, three Presidents, all Northerners, referred to as “doughfaces”, who went along with the institution through their actions, also supported continuation of slavery, including

Millard Fillmore–the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
Franklin Pierce–the Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854
James Buchanan–support of the Dred Scott Supreme Court Case, and the Kansas LeCompton Constitution of 1857

It should be pointed out that Martin Van Buren had a few slaves at one point through family members but not while being President, but defended the institution while in office, and theh later had a change of heart, and ran as the Free Soil Party candidate for President in 1848, at that point opposing slavery,

Also, James Buchanan, technically, owned one slave for a brief period of time through his family, but not while President.

The same holds for Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant, ownership of slaves through family at some point, but neither while President. Grant, in particular, felt uncomfortable about the slavery heritage of his wife’s family.

The point is that only THREE Presidents always condemned slavery and worked against it

John Adams
John Quincy Adams
Abraham Lincoln

JQ Adams was extremely active against slavery, participating in the Amistad Supreme Court Case of 1839-1841 as one of the lawyers defending the slaves on that slave ship, in their bid for freedom, and sponsoring the move to condemn slavery in the House of Representatives, in his years after the Presidency. While a member of the House from Boston, he was censured for fighting the “gag rule”, which forbade discussion of the institution in House debate from 1836-1844. He also opposed the Mexican War as a war for slavery expansion.

The Misinterpreted Thomas Jefferson, By The Right Wing, On the 272nd Anniversary Of His Birth

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Thomas Jefferson, our most brilliant President intellectually, one of the great Founding Fathers, has been so misinterpreted by the right wing conservatives and Republicans, who have no clue as to his beliefs and thoughts.

The right wing has worked to distort Jefferson, making him out to be many things he was not.

They tell us Jefferson believed in a national religion, when Jefferson was a skeptic about organized Christianity, and became Deist in his beliefs, and opposed the concept of theocracy.

They tell us that Jefferson believed church and state should be unified, when he was the promoter of the Virginia Statute For Religious Freedom.

They tell us that Jefferson believed in a strict interpretation of the Constitution and the goodness of state and local governments over national government, which was true to an extent during the 1790s debate of Jefferson Vs. Alexander Hamilton, which helped to create political parties in America. But once he was President, Jefferson was a believer in a broad interpretation of the Constitution and the power of the national government.

They tell us that Jefferson would have been a supporter of the Republican Party of 2015, when his belief in civil liberties would have made him appalled at that party’s abuse of civil liberties in the name of national security.

They tell us that Jefferson would have been supportive of foreign intervention against Muslim civilization, due to Jefferson’s intervention in the Mediterranean against the Barbary Pirates of North Africa during his Presidency, but Jefferson did not promote Islamophobia, as most Republicans and conservatives advocate in their rhetoric.

Of course, Thomas Jefferson was a complex man, with many contradictions and often hypocritical views, as on race and slavery, but Jefferson was a man who believed in the power of learning and the intellectual life, and he would have been totally shocked at the goal of the Republican Party to keep the population ignorant, and to promote fear, instead of an enlightened view of mankind and events.

150 Years Since Final Confederate Surrender Of Robert E. Lee To Ulysses S. Grant At Appomattox Court House In Virginia, Ending Civil War!

Ronald 1 Comment

Today, April 9, marks the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War between the Union and the Confederacy, with General Robert E. Lee, the leading Confederate general, surrendering to Union General and future President Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

This tragic war ended a four year conflict, just three days before its fourth anniversary, having killed an estimated 620,000 men, with the Union military losing about 360,000 and the Confederate military losing about 260,000 men.

The Civil War ended slavery forever, and upheld nationalism over states rights, and was an inspiration to many people in England and France, which saw it as a movement toward the evolution of democracy.

But sadly, the end of the war did not change the minds of many white Southerners, and over the generations, the Democrats of the South continued to promote Jim Crow segregation; brutal lynchings of African Americans and others, including Jews and Catholics; and fought toot and nail against civil liberties and civil rights, while parading the Confederate flag, which even today flies in South Carolina and some other Southern states.

And when civil rights laws were forced on the South fifty years ago under Lyndon B. Johnson, the Democrats lost their tight control of the South, and the Republicans, the party that had freed the slaves under Abraham Lincoln and promoted civil rights under Dwight D. Eisenhower, abandoned their principles and decency and became the new party of Southern resistance to justice and civil rights. Today, all of the Southern governors, with the exception of Virginia, and the Senate, with the exception of the two members from Virginia and one from Florida, are Republicans, working to undermine voting rights and promote racism and nativism at full speed, a total disgrace.

So while we celebrate the end of the Southern rebellion a century and a half ago, in many ways, the rebellion still lives on, poisoning the political atmosphere in many states, and in the national government, and particularly so with the very clear disrespect of Southern office holders for the African American President of the United States, who has been vilified in a manner unlike anyone since Abraham Lincoln!

The Month Of April: The Month That Four American Wars Began

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April is an historical month in so many ways, including the fact that four of the wars in American history began in April.

The American Revolution began with the shots fired at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts on April 19, 1775, even though war was never officially declared between Great Britain and the American colonies.

The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, with the South Carolina government ordering an attack on the federal fort, Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, rather than allow the US government under Abraham Lincoln to re-provision the fort.

The Spanish American War began on April 19, 1898, after the attack on the American ship, THE MAINE, and the publication of the DeLome Letter, which inflamed American public opinion, and led William McKinley to ask for a declaration of war on Spain, leading to the acquisition of Spanish colonies in Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam, and a sphere of influence over Cuba, giving American an “Empire”.

The First World War for America began after Woodrow Wilson asked for a declaration of war against Imperial Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Turkish Empire on April 2, 1917. After just four days of debate over giving up our isolationist heritage and joining in an alliance with other nations, as a result of the Zimmerman Note and unrestricted submarine warfare, the declaration of war was adopted easily on April 6, 1917.

These four wars transformed America into a nation; into a country that ended slavery and preserved the nation as one against a rebellion; that made American a nation with overseas ambitions for colonies; and as one which abandoned the idea of staying out of military alliances and foreign wars.

All four wars prepared us for the military involvement overseas, which has been constant since the Second World War, but unwisely took us into wars we have not really won in the cases of the Korean War (1950-1953); the Vietnam War (1961-1973); the Iraq War (2003-2011); and the Afghanistan War (2001-2015 and counting).

And now there are war hawks in Congress who wish to take us into a major war against a nation, Iran, which would present a massive challenge to gain victory that would be lasting, with the likelihood of a drawn out war, with massive casualties, and the likelihood of tremendous debt growth which would cripple our future!

The CINOs: Christians In Name Only! Claim To Follow Jesus, But Do Just The Opposite!

Ronald 6 Comments

Christianity was created out of belief in the connection of Jesus Christ to God, and the dogma that he was crucified on a cross by the Romans in the Holy Land, and rose from the dead three days after a torturous death, and took upon himself the sins of mankind. If one followed the teachings of Jesus, he or she would have the opportunity for salvation in Heaven after death.

The Catholic Church developed, with the concept of a Pope as the spokesman for Jesus Christ on Earth. But soon there were schisms in the Church, leading to the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire in the fifth century AD, and then the revolt in the West, led by Martin Luther in Germany; John Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland; and King Henry VIII in England in the 16th century to begin with, and then many other Christian sects developed around the world and in America, including a home grown branch of Christianity in the Mormon Church in the early 19th century.

Persecution, warfare, and destruction developed as each sect of Christianity demonstrated a belief that their version was the correct Christianity. Antisemitism, against the religion that Jesus had been in life, also raged throughout the past two millenniums. Promoting the faith became a mission to convert at the barrel of a gun, as people used the faith to conquer Latin America, Asia, and Africa for the Caucasians of Europe, and also included the promotion of the mass extermination of Native Americans in the Americas and aborigines in Australia and elsewhere. Slavery evolved, and when it ended in America in the 19th century, racial segregation and lynching was justified due to the belief in white supremacy.

In America, not only antisemitism developed, but also anti Catholic prejudice, and the establishment of the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups, who claimed to be following Christianity’s tenets. Also, evangelical Christianity formed, claiming that it was women’s role to serve men; that race and nationality were factors in judging who was superior to others; and promotion of homophobia, nativism, racism, misogyny and belief in guns being connected to the faith’s practice. They claimed moral superiority, while condemning organized labor and advocating destruction of the environment in the name of unbridled capitalism.

These distortions of Christianity also included denouncing the poor; a hatred of national government which evolved to deal with the inequities in society that allowed a small percentage of men to control and dominate within the economy and society; and wanting to impose their social views on everyone, by claiming that they were being persecuted, a “Victims” complex.

Today in America, it is this element of Christianity which defies the generous, compassionate, and kind mission of Jesus Christ, and instead promotes a very negative and hateful vision of what Jesus intended.

This group of people, very close minded and intolerant, could rightfully be called CINOs–Christians In Name Only—and must be resisted at every turn as the only way to promote progress and democratic values which Jesus believed in during his lifetime. They claim moral superiority, which could not be further from the truth. He would be shocked at the distortion of his message by those who claim to follow him, but most certainly do NOT!