Tag Archives: Civil War

national news

KKK = Confederate flag

I cannot let this photo stand without offering a brief comment about the juxtaposition of two key elements this picture contains.

Look at the fellow gesturing. He is a Ku Klux Klansman demonstrating in 2017 in Charlottesville, Va., the site of that terrible riot that killed a young woman protesting against the Klan, neo-Nazis and assorted white supremacists.

Now, look at the flags flying behind him. Do you see a familiar pattern? It’s the Confederate flag, the piece of cloth that some Americans want to keep displaying in public places because it “symbolizes heritage” and is a “piece of American history.”

It seems to be lost on those pro-Rebel flag folks that the KKK stands with that flag because of what it represents: the maintaining of slavery in states that seceded from the Union in 1861 and launched the Civil War, the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history. Then again, maybe it isn’t lost on them at all!

The Confederate flag represents the very thing that the moron seen in this picture snapped by the New York Post represents.

It represents oppression, which my reading of history tells me caused our founders to create this nation in the first place, to live in a place free of the kind of oppression symbolized by the Confederate flag.

Spare me, then, the clap-trap about “history” and “heritage.”

national news

Juneteenth rushes to the fore!

Americans are getting a major wake-up call on a matter of profound historical significance.

It was brought to us by the deaths of African-American men who died in police custody. It has evolved into demonstrations, peaceful protests and, yes, into terrible riots. Set aside the violence for a moment and let’s look at the event that has been thrust into our consciousness.

Juneteenth is celebrated every June 19 by the African-American community. It marks the day in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston to tell blacks they had been emancipated, freed from enslavement. They were free men, women and children.

Many millions of Americans knew of Juneteenth, they knew about the event that some of us celebrate every year. We now are being educated. Juneteenth represents a seminal moment in American history.

Accordingly, we now are hearing from members of Congress — yes, from both major political parties — who are calling for Juneteenth to become a federal holiday. I am not usually a fan of legislative remedies of this sort, matters brought to us through tragedy. They too often seem like an overreaction.

Not this time! Juneteenth is as significant an event as any that have occurred. It brought an end — finally! — to the curse of enslavement. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution wiped slavery off the books at the end of 1865.

I am heartened to see Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas present legislation seeking to establish Juneteenth as a federal holiday. He no doubt will have plenty of Democratic support among his Senate colleagues.

I realize fully that creating a new federal holiday will not assuage the concerns of Americans about the treatment of black citizens at the hands of some white-dominated law enforcement agencies. The work to right those wrongs must proceed. I also realize that not all police are evil, that the overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers are men and women of high honor and integrity. The events of recent weeks have brought vivid clarity to the concerns raised for too long by African-Americans about the treatment they receive from police agencies.

That clarity now also includes an understanding of the significance of Juneteenth, not just to African-Americans, but also to the entire nation. Yes, it is past time to set that day aside as a national holiday.

national news

Glad to resume Confederacy debate

If only we could have had this debate when I was a kid.

We didn’t. When I was a youngster studying the Civil War in my Portland, Ore., hometown, I recall only being taught that 13 states seceded from the Union, fought to form a new country south of the Mason-Dixon Line. The South lost the war, which was fought for reasons that, as I recall, went over my head. The nation rebuilt itself over a lengthy period of time.

End of story.

We were not taught by our teachers about matters relating to treason or whether those who ran the Southern states were traitors to the country from which they separated. Oh sure, we talked about slavery. I knew that black Americans were enslaved and that they were set free after the Civil War. I do not recall, though, linking slavery with the war that killed 700,000 Americans on battlefields throughout much of the eastern part of the country.

We’re now re-engaging that debate. It involves whether we should keep statues of Confederate soldiers in public places. We’re talking about removing the names of Confederate generals from the gates of military installations. Gosh, we never discussed the hideous irony of Army posts operating under the names of men who fought against our armed forces. We are now … and for that I am grateful.

I prefer that we take the names of these traitors off our military installations. I want the statues and other structures taken off our public places and put in museums where we can tour them, study them and teach our children and grandchildren about the treasonous act they committed by declaring war on the United States of America.

Let the debate continue.

State news

No need to ‘erase history’

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and the senior senator from this state, is now “open” to the possibility of changing the names of U.S. military posts that contain the names of Confederate traitors against the nation.

He formerly opposed it. Now he’s willing to study it along with members of both parties in the Senate.

“I realize these are contentious issues,” he continued. “What I don’t want us to do is to try to erase our history because, frankly, if you forget your history, you’re condemned to relive it.”

Look, there is no need to “erase our history” by removing the names. Just put those names in the proper museums, allowing our children to study them and to understand what they did to have their names eliminated from those military installations.

For the record, what they did was declare war against the United States, fight for the Confederate States of America, inflict hundreds of thousands of casualties on American warriors. And for what purpose? To allow states to keep human beings in bondage as slaves.

Lesson over. Take the names down.

I hope Sen. Cornyn’s views on the subject continue to evolve in the right direction.

military news

Glad to re-engage this Confederate debate

I am so very happy that Americans are re-engaging each other in this debate over the Confederacy, the Confederate States of America and whether we should be naming public institutions — namely military establishments — in honor of enemies of the state.

The debate has been joined yet again because many Americans are awakening to the realization that the CSA was formed in 1861 for one purpose: to destroy the United States of America. Why? To enable states to continue to enslave human beings, to allow them to be kept as property of other human beings.

So the Confederacy fired on a Union garrison in Charleston Harbor, S.C., and ignited the Civil War.

The men who fought for the CSA were traitors to the nation. There is no other way to consider them. So now we have resumed the debate over whether their names belong on places such as Army posts, which trains, houses and equips men and women to defend this country against its enemies. The irony is astounding.

You may spare me the tired notion that the Confederate statues and the names of these individuals on buildings and other public establishments is a recognition of the nation’s “heritage.” The heritage that some of us want to protect does not deserve the honor it has been given. That it took so long to understand that perhaps is the most astonishing aspect of this debate.

The argument that the CSA was steeped in protecting “states’ rights” also has been revealed as a tired euphemism for what it really intended to protect. Slavery is this nation’s original sin and we must deal with it forthrightly.

Now is as good a time as any, given that so much time has passed since those Americans were set free and granted the rights of citizenship they deserved to possess all along.

This debate, of course, is lacking one key voice … that of the commander in chief, who says he won’t accept the idea of changing the names of military posts. Donald Trump cannot offer a single reason to keeping these names, other than to placate those among his political base who demand that they remain.

Someone said today that the names of these enemies of the Union — and the flag under which they fought — deserve to be displayed in museums … alongside other enemies of the United States: the Nazis, fascists, ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Soviet Union, the North Vietnamese communists, the People’s Republic of China.

Should they remain attached to places of high honor and respect? Absolutely not!

military news

How’s this for irony?

Irony can be found all across the political landscape, such as when “family values” politicians are caught taking a tumble in the sack with someone other than their spouse.

Let’s try this one on for size, too: Naming a U.S. military installation in honor or memory of someone who once fought against the U.S. military during the bloodiest conflict in our nation’s history. 

A move is afoot to change the names of several such installations — primarily Army posts — because they carry the names of Confederate officers who went to war against the United States of America.

Donald Trump — the Dipsh** in Chief who doesn’t understand anything about U.S. history — won’t have it. He vows to veto any legislation that comes to his desk that seeks to change these names. He stands behind the Confederate traitors rather than understanding or appreciating the supreme irony in their names being attached to these military installations.

Of course, Trump is appealing to that “base” of voters who believe that the Confederate States of America wasn’t all that bad a chapter in our nation’s history. I mean, all those CSA officials wanted was to retain the right to own human beings, to enslave them and treat them as three-fifths human, personal property. So, they seceded from the Union and went to war with the United States. The Civil War, incidentally, killed more than 600,000 individuals on both sides of the divide.

And some of us still want to continue to honor the memories of these men who went to war against the United States? Please. No.

national news

Flag means more than ‘heritage’

I am so glad that NASCAR has decided to strike down the Confederate flag, banning it from being displayed at its events.

My Southern friends contend the flag symbolizes their “heritage.” Here’s my take on it.

The “heritage” includes:

  • States rights. Sure it does. The states rights issue precipitated the Civil War, the bloodiest conflict in our nation’s history. The Confederate States of America started that war so that they could preserve states rights to own slaves, to put Americans in bondage.
  • Racial hatred. That, too. It is no mystery why the Confederate flag is seen flying at Ku Klux Klan rallies. The hate group that used to lynch African-Americans flies the Stars and Bars at its rallies to this day as a statement of solidarity with what the flag represents to them. In the KKK’s eyes, the Stars and Bars symbolizes their desire to continue their hatred against citizens who happen to be of African descent.

NASCAR shouldn’t be condemned necessarily for waiting so long to do the right thing. Instead, I merely will salute the racing governing body for doing it … period.

The organization that was born in the South but which seeks to expand its fan base far beyond its Southern base has lined up on the right side of history.

military news

President spoke eloquently on this battlefield

We’re going to honor our nation’s fallen warriors on Monday. We set aside Memorial Day to remember and salute the supreme sacrifice they gave to those of us who remain.

I want to share a brief statement that a president of the United States delivered on a battlefield in the midst of a war that took more young Americans’ lives than any other conflict in which this nation became involved.

The president was a man of few words. But those words he spoke that day will ring for eternity.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

media news, national news

Kitchen is getting too hot for Trump

It’s a cliché, but it’s worth noting: If you can’t stand the heat, then get the hell out of the kitchen.

Donald John “Wartime President” Trump says he’s being treated worse by the media than any president in history. That includes Abraham Lincoln, a real wartime president who fought like the dickens to preserve the Union.

He succeeded. The fight cost him his life when a gunman killed him at Ford Theater in Washington, D.C.

Now, though, for Donald Trump to suggest the media treat him worse than what the press did to President Lincoln simply is beyond the pale.

Trump doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand the media’s role in protecting us against government that is capable at times of reaching too far and, yes, of making egregious mistakes.

Do you think Trump has made any such mistakes during his three years as president? I most assuredly believe that’s the case.

Trump spoke at a Fox News town hall. A woman asked him why he doesn’t answer reporters’ direct questions on the coronavirus pandemic. According to The Hill: “I am greeted with a hostile press, the likes of which no president has ever seen,” Trump said, sitting in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. “The closest would be that gentleman right up there. They said Lincoln, nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse.” 

Cry me a bleeping river, Mr. President.

The media are doing what the Constitution allows them to do. No amount of bullying, intimidation, coercion or threats from the president or his lackeys should throw them off their mission.

Every presidential predecessor — all of whom had to endure negative coverage — has understood that it all goes with the job to which they were elected.

Until this clown.

Donald Trump

Cult of personality has captured the GOP

Donald Trump’s delusion is boundless.

He has embraced a new public opinion that suggests that today’s Republicans rate him a greater president than — get ready for it — Abraham Lincoln.

Sigh …

No, Mr. President, you aren’t. No matter what GOP faithful voters say today, Donald Trump in no way, shape or fashion can be compared favorably to President Lincoln, the man held up as the gold standard for Republican Party policy.

They called it the Party of Lincoln for good reason. He fought to preserve the Union against forces that sought to tear the country apart over slavery. Yes, that battle cost him his life when John Wilkes Booth shot him to death at the end of the Civil War. His fight was the most noble cause imaginable, given the context of the time.

What will the Party of Trump stand for when all is said about it? Let’s try, oh, insult, innuendo, chaos, confusion, betrayal of international allies, cozying up to dictators and, oh yes, impeachment.

That’s all I’ve got on this bit of fantasy.

Except this: I would be willing to wager real American money that they won’t build a memorial on the Washington, D.C. Mall in Donald Trump’s honor.