The Copperhead Chronicle

The Tenth Point (of the Communist Manifesto) Part 6

2011-11-06T13:04:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Here is more material, much of it taken from my own notes about the West Virginia book protest, made back in 1975.

To recap a bit, I refer back to Zach Montgomery, Assistant Attorney General of the United States back in the 1880s and his book, "The School Question." On page 133 of his book Montgomery stated (and his words should make every American parent shudder) "There is no kind or degree of communism so utterly revolting as that which, for educational purposes, virtually asserts a community of title, not only to the property, but also to the children of the private citizen. Yet this, unfortunately, is the communism of America; a communism having for its main trunk an educational system the most ruinously expensive and the most demoralizing that the world ever saw." Montgomery, a man believing in private education, could, as far back as 1886, see the direction the public schools were going in. His apt description of these "institutions of learning" could well be considered prophetic.

A personal friend and mentor, Pastor Ennio Cugini (now deceased) of the Clayville Church in Foster, Rhode Island, felt that Karl Marx, in the "Communist Manifesto" envisioned a public school system that would be the depository and the recorder of the gains made by the Communist world movement. Then, the worldview of the Communist movement, by the use of socialist-oriented textbooks, would be passed along to the students under the guise of "education." Pastor Cugini was right. Think about his comments for a moment. This is what was happening in Kanawha County when the parents revolted against the terrible textbooks. The parents, for the most part, did not realize all the implications of their revolt against the rotten texts, but those that promoted the use of those textbooks did--all the way back to Washington, D.C.

In 1974 I did not fully understand all the implications of this, and I asked myself, as I looked at the situation in West Virginia, why? Why here? I had found out that year that filthy and anti-American, pro-socialist textbooks were being used in public school systems in around thirty states across the country. To be sure, in many of those states, there were a handful of dedicated parents fighting against the evil being perpetrated by the public school system. But in most states they were only a handful. Not to belittle those folks--I asked God's blessing on their heroic efforts, and still do, because even if you do not realize it, this struggle still goes on, and if anything, it is even more intense now than it was in the 1970s, just in different ways. If you doubt that, try to get hold of the movie "IndoctriNation" which I mentioned in a previous article. It not only shows the continuous history of this sort of thing in public "education" but it shows how intensely this anti-Christ agenda is still being carried out today. Yet, what happened in West Virginia was different from what happened in other places, and I wondered why.

Early in the summer of 1975 my family and I had just returned from West Virginia. While there I got to take a good look at the area and to talk to people. We stayed with the Paul family in St. Albans, a fine Christian family that opened up their home to us when they knew we were coming to West Virginia. At that time, my experience in West Virginia had convinced me that there was a vestige of what really made this country so strong and independent still abiding in those hills in West Virginia. Within three months of this trip my family and I had moved to West Virginia.

Since that time, I have found out that there are still pockets of what made this country strong in the South, and in a few places in the West, but it is in the process of disappearing, thanks to the orientation provided by socialist textbooks in public schools that breaks down morals and then propagandizes students with socialist hogwash. This is what was happening in West Virginia in 1974. The textbooks that were to break down student morals were being put in place. The next step was socialist indoctrination.

In 1974 there were still many West Virginians that grasped the meaning of their God-given heritage. They cherished their God-given liberties and they were independent--all traits that have to be watered down or removed from students in public schools if the New World Order is to be successful.

In the November 17, 1974 issue of the "Charleston Gazette-Mail" there appeared an article about the textbook protesters entitled "A cling to yesterday's values." The main thrust of this article from what I could gather from reading it was, that the West Virginians who were protesting the rotten books were fighting a losing battle. They were trying to hold onto a set of values that simply didn't exist any longer. The article seemed to imply that the protesters were not living in the real world. This was simply because they took a stand for God and their children, even if they did not fully understand the insidious agenda of their adversaries. The values these folks stood for were the values this country was founded on. If those values were, and are, "yesterday's values" then this country is in deep trouble and may just not make it. And maybe part of the reason these values no longer seem to exist is due to what has been taught in public school classrooms for the past several decades.

IndoctriNation the Movie

2011-10-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Just a day or so ago I read an article on the Internet about how a public school principal in Oklahoma, of all places, is harassing a Christian group at the school he presides over. The write of the article noted: "This demonstrates how afraid schools are of anything to do with Christianity" and the writer wondered how Muslim or Hindu groups would have been treated under similar circumstances. They would have been treated a lot better than the Christians were. No doubt of that whatever. One thing I disagree with him about--the public schools are not "afraid" of anything to do with Christianity--they are openly anti-Christian, and their blatantly anti-Christian bias becomes more apparent to those who have eyes to see and have not buried their heads in the sand.

One night recently I watched the movie "IndoctriNation." I was impressed and think every family who has kids in a government (public) school should sit and watch this documentary. This points to what many of us have been saying for decades now--the public school system is anti-Christ, always has been, and makes no bones about it anymore. Christians need to sit and watch this movie, as too many of them have their kids in public schools and then the wonder why the kids leave the church when they graduate from high school. Most of them never figure it out, never even have a clue. This movie would be a real shocker for them. It might even awaken some of them from their bemused complacency.

Over all the years that my wife and I had our kids in Christian schools or home schooled them our chief opposition came from Christians who thought our kids would be much better off in some "good" public school somewhere--one that had a good sports program and a good band program. In one church in Indiana we attended the pastor even came and tried to talk us into putting our kids in the local public school. After I had given him all the reasons we could never do that he went home disappointed. I would dearly love for him to see "IndoctriNation." After I watched this movie, which is about 90 minutes in length, I thanked God we had been able to keep our kids out of the public brain laundries (schools) in the various areas we lived in. Our kids got a Christian education. It wasn't perfect because my wife and I are only sinners redeemed by the blood of Christ, and we made mistakes along the way. But when I look at what the public schools are and have been doing to kids, I am, again, thankful to the Lord that we didn't sell our kids' souls for the sake of a good band program!

The movie started off cataloging the problems people see in public schools today to some extent and it traveled in this vein for about twenty minutes. I thought, watching this part of it, that this is stuff most folks are somewhat aware of, and I hoped it would go a little deeper than this. It did not disappoint me.

Colin Gunn, the man who did the interviewing in the movie took his home schooled family all across the country in one of those infamous "little yellow prisons" (a school bus)as he talked with and interviewed people nationwide, school teachers, former school teachers, authors, parents, etc. There were several people in the film I know personally--Karl Priest, the head of Exodus Mandate in West Virginia, and Randy Murray, a former public school teacher in North Carolina. Both Karl and Randy have been teachers in the public system and after their experiences both have written books exposing the public school system for what it really is.

One necessary thing this film did was to expose the beginnings of the public school system as we now have it--Unitarian/socialist beginnings. Sam Blumenfeld, who has also written a couple books exposing the anti-Christ nature of public schools at their beginning was in the film and he did a masterful job pointing this out. Most Christian folks don't want to think that the public schools they so quickly entrust their kids to were founded by Christ-denying socialists like Robert Owen or men like Horace Mann, a Unitarian who rejected the Trinity and who wanted public schools so the state could control them and thereby denigrate the influence Christian schools had on society. Sam went into all this. This kind of information is where the rubber meets the road, and most Christians are just not willing to take the ride. Easier to leave the kids in public school and just pray for revival there--only when it doesn't come, who do you blame?

Billy Graham's son, Franklin, stood up for the public schools. Why am I not surprised? He said he wanted to see "trained Christian witnesses" among the kids there so we "could take our schools back." Rev. Graham should know better. Those schools were never, never "ours" to begin with. From day one they were the creation of Unitarians and socialists and had Rev. Graham done even superficial homework he should have known that. Bruce Shortt of the Southern Baptist Convention countered Rev. Graham's naive approach by urging parents to get their kids out of public schools, as did Presbyterian pastor R. C. Sproul.

There was one telling point in the movie that took place in a school board meeting in West Virginia, where, thanks be to God, there are still simmering remnants of the textbook protest of the mid-1970s. It showed an angry parent at a school board meeting protesting the obscene nature of a book his 11th grade daughter was required to read. As he went to read passages from the book he was informed by one of the school board members that he "couldn't read that here" because it was a rather vulgar passage. Interesting that what is required reading for an 11th grader in West Virginia is too obscene to be read out loud at a school board meeting. Does that begin to give you some vague clue as to what these schools are doing to your kids???

One attractive young Christian public school teacher was asked to resign because she had mentioned Jesus to her fifth grade class--and she was asked to resign that very day, and was escorted by the principal out the back way so the kids wouldn't see her leave--but leave she did--she had mentioned that unmentionable name, Jesus. That name is taboo in public schools unless used as part of a cuss word.

And then there was the classic shot of an official for a teachers' union giving a speech in which he very plainly stated that the agenda of his union had nothing to do with educating children--it was all about money and power. He was right.

There was so much solid ground covered in "IndoctriNation" that I cannot cover all of it in this article. You need to see the movie. It belongs in every church library in the country.

When I was first asked to consider writing a review for the movie I wanted to know where folks could get it. I was told that it is available at
http://www.indoctrinationmovie.com/about-indoctrination and also at
http://www.americanvision.com/indoctrination/ Hopefully this will give you some place to start. I found information about it just from doing a Google search on the Internet. Please, get this movie, watch it, and pass it along to folks in your church, especially if their kids are in public schools. They need to see this, even if they'd rather not

The Tenth Point (of the Communist Manifesto) Part 5

2011-10-19T20:24:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Some of what happened in West Virginia in 1974 (taken from my own notes made in early 1975)

In May, 1974, Mrs. Alice Moore, a member of the School Board, brought to the attention of the Kanawha County Board of Education and to the attention of Kanawha County parents, the content of the anti-Christian and anti-American textbooks that were about to be adopted for use in Kanawha County government (public) schools. As bad as some of the content of these books was they were adopted for use in Kanawha County schools on June 27, 1974 by the school board on a 3-2 vote. This was done in spite of the presence of over 1200 protesters who crowded the Board of Education offices and also stood out in the pouring rain asking that these books not be adopted. The adoption was done in spite of 12,000 signatures on a petition asking that these books not be adopted for use in schools by the Board. In the face of all this protest, on the recommendation of several English teachers, the books were accepted.

So much for the myth of parental input in government schools--and it is a myth.

During the month of June, 1974, a group called Christian American Parents was formed to try to combat the textbooks and their influence. In July, a department store, Hecks Inc. was picketed by parents. The man who was president of the store was on the school board and had voted to adopt the rotten textbooks. This was one method the parents had to legitimately protest his actions.

In August of 1974 a group led by Rev. Darrell Beech went to see the Superintendent of Schools, Mr. Kenneth Underwood, to ask him if he would remove the books. Mr. Underwood claimed his hands were tied--the books were legally adopted. Mr. Underwood claimed he could do nothing about the situation (did he even really want to?). The frustrated parents claimed they could do something. They could boycott the schools!

You have to realize that, at this point, the protesters had tried to do everything legally and properly and none of those in authority in any capacity were willing to help them.

It is interesting to note that Mr. Underwood, during an interview granted to the "Charleston Daily Mail" said, in regard to the books: "As a total literature program, I think it's great. There are some expressions I don't like, but I don't know if it's because they are filthy." While Underwood claimed he didn't really know if it was right to shove the books down the kids' throats against the parents' wishes, he balanced that thought off with one that contradicted it. He said "But, again, there is no way I can see these books have to be thrown out." That interview was published in the "Charleston Daily Mail" for October 12, 1974. In August Underwood's hands had been tied. He couldn't get the books out; they were legally adopted. However, by October, Underwood thinks the books as a "total literature program" are "just great." Either Mr. Underwood's thinking underwent a remarkable evolution from August to October, or, from his comments it appears he would not have tried to get rid of the books if he could have.

In August, 1974, another group, the Concerned Citizens of Kanawha County was formed. Also that August an anti-textbook group demonstrated at the governor's mansion. The governor was conveniently "out of town." Had the protesters been some sort of radical left-wing group he would almost certainly been on hand to welcome them with open political arms. Politicians are always on hand to toss out the welcome mat to the left-wingers, but for Christians and patriots they are almost always "out of town." The following week more protesters visited the governor's mansion. The honorable Governor still seemed to be "out of town." I suspect, had protesters visited the governor's mansion every day for the next year they would have been informed that he was on a year's sabbatical to Pago Pago.

The Tuesday before school started in 1974 there was an anti-textbook rally in St. Albans, West Virginia with about 400 present. These folks met and voted to boycott government schools until the rotten textbooks were out. It was now getting to the point where the local media had to say something and the local papers came out with the story (no doubt hoping to keep it local). However, a mass protest was planned at the Civil Center in Charleston, and on Thursday several thousand parents turned out, carrying signs and passing out printed excerpts from the questionable textbooks. That gave folks a real chance to see some of what was in the books. They didn't like it.

That Saturday about 7,000 protesters met at Point Lick Community Park. State police had to turn people away for lack of room and traffic was backed up for two miles! All this the very last week before school started! A few dedicated Christian patriots had worked away all summer to get the word out about what was really in Mr. Underwood's "great" literature program and their efforts bore fruit. From a handful they went to thousands in a few weeks and they did something in Kanawha County, West Virginia that ought to be done in every county and parish in the United States! Despite the rotten media coverage they got (and still get today in retrospect) the parents of Kanawha County succeeded in focusing national attention on a public school system such as no one else has been able to do, before or since.

What they did not realize at the time was that their own government, at all levels, would turn out to be their chief antagonist. The public school system was part and parcel of a grand design to undermine and destroy their faith and culture by brainwashing their children. That program continues to this day.

The Tenth Point (of the Communist Manifesto) Part 4

2011-10-14T20:44:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Today we see a giant, monster public education bureaucracy, financed by Washington (with our money). There is, after all, nothing quite like financing your own destruction. Horace Mann and the Order notwithstanding, we have as much crime, poverty, and sin as we ever had--more in fact. We should be able to look back at how wrong Horace Mann was, intentionally or otherwise, and see how closely akin to Marxism his thought processes were. Mann was a beautiful example of what I call the Yankee/Marxist.

Undoubtedly due to his connections with the Order and under the influence of it, Mann worked diligently to free schools of their basically Christian and independent status and to put them under the thumb of government. His hostility toward Calvinism and the Reformed Faith in New England and against schools free of government meddling knew almost no bounds. In his view schools were only "free" once they experienced the "liberty" of state regulation. Before that they were captives to their own independence and the independence of the churches that ran them. This had to cease and Mann helped to make sure it did.

Some have said that Mann was naive about socialism, though with his connections to the Order I might question that. He was completely committed to a socialized order, of which the government-controlled school was the first basic part. The conversion of American education into a government-run instrument was the most dangerous step into socialism this country could have taken--and the sad tragedy of it was that Christians had been gulled into going along with and promoting it. They still do.

In the "Communist Manifesto" which hack writer Karl Marx wrote at the behest of the League of the Just (Illuminati) in 1848 (if you look at the first edition of the Manifesto it didn't even have Marx's name on it) you will see that Marx listed ten measures which Communists could use in varying degrees to accomplish the undermining and, hence, the eventual takeover of a nation by communism. The tenth point on that list is "free education for all children in public schools..." Can it not be said, then, that the government-run public school system is one of the measures of a communist society? That tenth point is the most insidious of all. So what Marx advocated in "The Communist Manifesto" Horace Mann had already set out to accomplish in the United States. Whether these two individuals were acquainted with each other or not, the damage has been done. Today we live with the results. Don't ever think that ideas from the past don't have consequences for you today.

Mann's contention that public education would cure all the social ills of the nation has been shown to be utter folly. Mann contended that by changing a person's environment you would change the person. He neglected to deal with the problem of human sin, which for him, did not exist. Hence his system of education will never do what he thought it would. The only answer for the problem of human sin is Jesus Christ and Mann had rejected Him as little more than a good moral example. He did not grasp that education without Christ does little more than to create clever devils. Whether Mann grasped this or not, those that influenced him did.

Going in the other direction, let us look at a man named Zach Montgomery. He was Assistant Attorney General of the United States, and in 1886, he published his thoughts on education in a book entitled "The School Question." Montgomery was an outspoken opponent of government-run education and he had done his homework. Montgomery showed with statistics that a relationship existed between state-run education and the rise in criminality, suicide, and delinquency--exactly the opposite of what Horace Mann had predicted! States which had most recently gone over to public schools showed a lower rate in each of these instances than states which had accepted public school education earlier.

Montgomery questioned the right of the state to even enter the field of education. He felt this was and should be a parental concern (the Bible makes this clear). The children did not and do not belong to the state, or to the Board of Education, yet the implication of a government-run education system were and are that they do.

This created a problem in West Virginia. Parents still thought their children belonged to them and not to the state. They had to be taught a lesson.

To be continued.

The Tenth Point (of the Communist Manifesto) Part 3

2011-10-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

I expect, at this point, I need to shed a little light on the origins of the public, or government, school system. It is worth noting, contrary to the most vocal liberal opinion, that the "public school movement" in this country did not even exist until the 1830s.

Horace Mann (1796-1859) has been called the "father of the common schools." I have seen no history book to date that bothered to tell anyone that Horace Mann was a Unitarian, a member of a "Christian" denomination that denies the deity of Jesus Christ. Unitarians, especially in the New England states, were in the front lines of the struggle to implement compulsory public schools.

The Unitarians felt that Christian schools were backward. They felt that education must be concerned with "liberty" and that "liberty" came from the state, not from God. In their eyes, education, to fulfill its calling, had to be government-run. Mr. Mann felt that government-run schools would rid the nation of crime, poverty, sin, etc., within a century. Well, the century has passed, and guess what? To say that Mann's claim was erroneous would be a gross understatement.

Back in the mid-1970s historian Antony C. Sutton wrote a number of informative books, among which were "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution" and "Wall Street and FDR." More material you won't find in the "history" books. In 1986 he wrote one, one of his last, called "America's Secret Establishment--An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones." We've all heard about several prominent politicians who belonged to it--George Bush, John Kerry I think, and many more--but they refuse to talk about it. It really is America's secret establishment. And as such, it is into the public school education program. You might say the Order has a vested interest.

In his book Sutton noted that "A tragic failure of American education in this century has been a failure to teach children how to read and write and how to express themselves in a literary form. For the educational system this may not be too distressing. As we shall see later, their prime purpose is not to teach subject matter but to condition children to live as socially integrated citizen units in an organic society--a real life enactment of the Hegelian absolute State. In this State the individual finds freedom only in obedience to the State, consequently the function of education is to prepare the individual citizen for smooth entry into the organic whole." No place for God or His Law in this setup--the man-made State is top dog.

Sutton observed that possibly the Order wants "citizen components" to be "little more than automated order takers;..." After all, citizens that can barely read or write are not too likely to challenge the Establishment. They are, to all intents and purposes, functionally illiterate.

It's also interesting to note that the "Look-Say" reading method that most of us were taught to read with in primary public school was developed around 1810 for deaf mutes. So why was it picked up and used for generations of children that did not have these problems?

According to Sutton, on page 83 of his book: "Horace Mann, whom we met in Memorandum Two as the promoter of 'look-say' reading was the first president of Antioch College (1853-1860). The most prominent trustee of Antioch College was none other than the co-founder of the Order, Alphonso Taft..Furthermore, Cincinnati, Ohio at that time was the center for a Young Hegelian Movement including famous left Hegelian August Willich, and these were well known to Judge Alphonso Taft." For anyone that has read the book Donnie Kennedy and I wrote "Lincoln's Marxists" (Pelican Publishing, Gretna, Louisiana) the name August Willich will ring a bell. He was one of Abraham Lincoln's Marxist generals during the War of Northern Aggression.

It seems that Mr. Mann, the "father of the common schools" had some interesting connections.

Could it be that the real purpose of the public schools was not to much to educate as to indoctrinate? That's the conclusion that Antony Sutton has arrived at and my research over the years has brought me to the point where I have to agree with his assessment.

To be continued.

The Tenth Point (of the Communist Manifesto) Part 2

2011-09-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Here are some brief observations about the textbook controversy in Kanawha County, West Virginia made in the Summer of 1975 (shortly before we moved to West Virginia). When I originally wrote this, the textbook protest had been going on for something like ten months.

At that point, I supposed in years to come, many books and articles would be written on this topic. I felt some would try the objective approach, which must not be as easy as it seems, because most of what I have read about the protest was anything but objective.

I felt some would write from the viewpoint of the so-called "educational elite" and would seek to tear the book protesters to shreds in print. This has proved to be the case in most instances. Much of the so-called "news" media did exactly that right from the beginning and even decades later continues to do the same thing whenever the subject comes up.

It was, and is, interesting to note that the best efforts of the "news" media still could not keep many of us from finding out what really went on in West Virginia.

I guess it comes as no surprise for me to say that, from the start, I was for the textbook protesters. I made no bones about agreeing with their positon and what they did. I still don't.

I had been in contact, via phone and mail, with them since the Fall of 1974 and was finally able to go to West Virginia the following Summer and spend some time with them. At that point, I thought that the day would come when people all over the country would suddenly wake up and find out what the public, or government, school system they finance with their taxes is doing to their children.

I prayed, (and still pray) that when that day comes that more Americans will have the courage to do what the folks in Kanawha County, West Virginia did. As stated earlier, I originally made these observations in the Summer of 1975, half my life ago. I have seen growth in Christian schools and a surge in home schooling in all those years. I believe that somewhere in the neighborhood of 1-2 million students are now being home schooled in this country and it is now legal to do so in all states. That was not always the case. So progress has been made. However, we still see the majority of Christians sending their kids to what amount to government propaganda factories that we choose to call public schools and wondering why the kids leave the church by the time they leave high school.

In spite of all that has happened, most of the Christians still don't get it. In 1975 I wrote: "Somewhere along the line Americans have got to stand up for their faith, their children, their nation and its heritage or they will lose it all. West Virginia is standing up. How about the rest of America?"

Later, I found out that in 1975 there were something like seventeen separate book protests going on in the country. But, since some of them were not as widespread as the one in West Virginia, the "news" media were pretty much able to keep them under wraps except at the local level. They'd have done the same thing in West Virginia could they have managed it.

Over the decades I have observed the "news" media in action and believe me, for the most part, what they give you is not news, it is spin.

As I am able to in this series, I will comment on the foundations of the public school system in the United Stated and about the "father of the common schools" Horace Mann. But that will have to wait for the next installment.

To be continued.

The Tenth Point

2011-09-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Thirty seven years ago this year my family and I became involved in a historic event that was to help to change our lives and that has, in subtle ways, changed the direction this country has gone in.

It was the textbook protest in Kanawha County, West Virginia. Many don't even remember this event. Many others would just as soon bury this event under a pile of liberal verbiage that never has and never will give the protesters' side of the issue. This, unfortunately, is typical of the liberal/Marxist mindset. Their supposed tolerance extends only to those who espouse their views, while everyone else must be suppressed.

That is why the truth about what really happened in West Virginia at that time must be buried or shoved down the "memory hole." But the fly in the liberal ointment is that the truth refuses to be suppressed and it keeps resurfacing. And, if all truth ultimately comes from God, then even the liberals can't stop it.

The book protest in Kanawha County, West Virginia, which started in the Summer of 1974, was about one government school system among many, that sought to, under the false guise of "education" change the values of public school children so they would be more attuned to accepting the anti-Christian culture of the New World Order crowd. Christian culture in West Virginia was under attack, and the New World Order's adherents felt that if they could successfully push their agenda in West Virginia then they could probably get by with it anywhere.

In early October of 1974 my family and I had just returned from a trip to Oklahoma. As I sat reading the Sunday paper while waiting for supper to cook, I came across an article (this was in one of the Chicago papers) for which the headline was "Battle over the books in a Fundamentalist Lion's Den." That caught my attention. As I read the article and ascertained the instant media bias against the book protesters, whom I knew nothing about at that point, I commented to my wife that because of the obvious bias against them in the article "these protesters must be doing something right." Little did I know! However, in the weeks to come I found out. We got in touch with folks in West Virginia and we got involved as much as we could from a distance. The following year we moved to West Virginia.

When we first became involved in this historic event, I thought to write a book about it. I gathered all the information I could. Some folks handed me boxes of news clippings. The more I looked through all the material people had handed me, the more I realized I was just not equal to the task. In our various moves around the country much of this material disappeared. Years went by and I'd had no use for it.

But I recently came across one file of old notes that I had made while I was laboring trying to put a book together. Somehow they had survived all our moves and travels. These notes are now thirty seven years old and I have never had them in print. They are handwritten observations of what I saw (no portable computers back then). They are observations of what I saw, heard, and was told by the people who had experienced some of what happened. My family and I were involved in the protest for three years, one year while still living in Illinois and the other two years living in West Virginia, so my personal knowledge of all the events is limited. Yet I feel, having been there, that my thoughts and observations might, in some small way, help to contribute to the whole picture.

At this point, the most comprehensive work yet written pertaining to this critical period has been done by a man who was a public school teacher in Kanawha County, West Virginia all the while the protest continued. He has spent his life in West Virginia and so is acquainted with the area and its people much more than I.

His name is Karl Priest and he has written a book called "Protester Voices--the 1974 Textbook Tea Party." His book covers the protest, the reasons for it, and the personalities involved quite thoroughly from a Christian perspective. Having read his book, I highly recommend it. Whatever else you read about this protest (and there is now material on the Internet about it) balance it off by reading Karl's book.

It can be obtained from him by contacting him at 141 Karmel Lane, Poca, West Virginia 25159. The book, plus shipping cost is $19. If you care enough to find out the truth, it is worth the money and then some.

To be continued, Lord willing.

"Conservative" news outlets ignore Ron Paul

2011-09-08T09:48:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

As we head into the presidential debate season I have been watching what the so-called "Conservative" news outlets, at least many of them, seem to be doing.

They are trying to set up a situation where the "conservative" candidates running for president are limited to Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, both of which would be acceptable to the Internationalist crowd. Most of your headlines spotlight these two paid-for 'conservative" turkeys while studiously ignoring Ron Paul and what he has to say about the economy.

You can tell that the Republican Party establishment is not about to let Ron Paul anywhere near the Republican presidential nomination--anyone but him! That being the case, you have to realize that Republican pretensions to conservatism are a sham.

The Republican Party started out in the late 1850s as a radical party, leaning to the left, while the Democrats of that day were the conservatives. Lincoln was no conservative. He was a friend and supporter of the leftists, who infested his armies and the Republican Party.

If you want proof get a copy of the book Donnie Kennedy and I wrote "Lincoln's Marxists" just recently published by Pelican Publishing. Check it out on Amazon and learn the real truth about the so-called "party of small government."

More Obama BF (bovine fertilizer)

2011-09-06T21:57:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.Obama's popularity ratings are sliding, the economy is in a shambles due to his "efforts" to supposedly improve it--and this Thursday evening he is going to take care of it all--he will give yet one more speech. You have to wonder how often he will use the words "I" or "me" in his upcoming presentation. One of his favorite expressions when he gives a speech is"It's not about me" (when in his mind it really is). No matter what he says you have to realize that it is not his own agenda he is promoting. It is the agenda ofGeorge Soros and the Council on Foreign Relations crowd. Obama is a Marxist and his job while president is to so alter our economy that we can be successfully merged with the third world countries of the world. In other words, the agenda of his masters is to destroy the US economy while appearing to try save it. You must admit that, so far, he is succeeding admirably.So, Thursday evening, September 8th, he will get up and spout whatever words have been put in his mouth. I don't believe that, outside of patting himselfon the back verbally, he even really cares what he says. It's not his script anyway. As long as he continues to follow the One Worlders' script they will allow himto remain in office. Should he ever deviate from that and think he can do his own thing, his real birth certificate (or lack thereof) will hit the headlines in the prostitute press and he will be gone in a flash. Anyone remember Nixon and Watergate? For awhile Nixon forgot that he was Rockefeller's man and began to think was really the president. Watergate was the result of that foolishness and eventually Nixon was gone. Obama is no Nixon. He won't last even that long if he refuses to tow the party line. He's not his own man and never has been. He is a New World Order mouthpiece, a political shill, and nothing more.Now this fact is even becoming apparent to those on the far Left. The more he rants about being "different" and wanting "change" the more he sounds like a lefitstversion of George W. Bush and the more the agenda he has been given ti implement sounds like Bush's. We were supposed to be out of Afghanistan when???If you expect anything other than the usual line of bovine fertilizer on Thursday you will be sorely disappointed.Comments welcome as long as they are polite. If you disagree express your thoughts in a courteous manner.

Is Rick Perry Another Establishment Con Man?

2011-08-20T20:20:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Those who have been able to do some political homework have come to the conclusion that both major political parties in this country are controlled by the Council on Foreign Relations/Trilateral Commission establishment. This has been the case for decades now. And those people have a view toward promoting one-world government that simply will not quit. Several years ago one of their paid lackeys told some who interviewed him that: "You will have world government whether you want it or not."

They have never deviated from that agenda. Having control of both major political parties in this country is part of their plan. It fools the American people into thinking they actually have a choice when they vote at the national level and most do not realize that, at that level, all they are ever getting are two possible variations of the same old one-world agenda--one served up with conservative rhetoric and the other dished out with liberal rhetoric, but no matter the rhetoric, the agenda does not change.

Ron Paul from Texas is running for president again. Outside of possibly Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain, he is the only honest candidate in the race. The rest seem to be party hacks who may well be running some kind of interference so that Obama can get re-elected. At this point, I believe the game plan is to put up the worst possible Republican candidate against Obama so he can pull off another "upset victory" giving us four more years of unvarnished Marxism. It wouldn't be the first time they've done that in either party. Should that scenario, for some reason, not prove doable they need a Republican hack that will beat Obama while still making sure the CFR/TC agenda gets implemented.

At all odds, they must make sure Ron Paul is almost totally ignored. They will get help there from the prostitute press, the same as in the last election. But then they will need what is perceived as some bigger-than-life figure, which they can slide into the main spot to take any possible spotlight off Ron Paul. They figure Rick Perry might be able to fill that bill for them. I have seen articles out there already that are touting him as the next Ronald Reagan. What most people fail to realize is that Reagan was no real conservative either. He was an actor. Most presidential candidates anymore are actors and they should get Oscars for their performances. Most of them are masterfully deceitful.

So, in peoples minds, Perry will be the new Ronald Reagan and they have been subtly programmed by the media to make this connection. Ive seen glowing articles of late about Perry's conservative views, and, of course, he is a Texan--but so is Ron Paul, but all the media ever says about him and comments about his "extremist views." Interestingly enough, you get the same reaction to Michele Bachmann. I looker her up on the Internet the other night and, without exception, every article on the couple pages I checked out took great pains to mention her "extremist views." After looking all these articles over I was tempted to wonder if one person hadn't written them all. The one salient point of all the stuff written about her was her "extremist views." I wonder if that is the new code term for conservatives and patriotic people. Interesting that all those folks the one-world establishment doesn't like are all extremists.

Last year, Janet Napolitano, one of Obama's left-wing extremists,tried to label all manner of ordinary folks in this country as extremists. You were an extremist and a possible terrorist if you home-schooled your kids, supported the US Constitution, went to church, were a veteran, believed in the Second Amendment, and so on and so forth. Undoubtedly the Marxist Obama regime considers anyone that would dare to oppose their collectivist agenda as a "right-wing extremist." In order to escape that title you have to be to the left of Ho Chi Minh or Fidel Castro politically--and even then you might not be far enough left for Obama. As for the Republican Party, they are little more than kinder, gentler, Marxists.

Donnie Kennedy and I in our book "Lincoln's Marxists" recently published by Pelican Publishing here in Louisiana show you the foundations of the Republican Party and, folks, they are far from small government or conservative.

So with the complicity of the lap-dog media, Ron Paul will be painted as a dangerous extremist while the establishment's paid hacks will all be tagged as "moderates". Of course, Mr. Perry will be labeled a "conservative" because he sounds conservative at this point. He attends Christian functions and sounds "evangelical" but so did Richard Nixon at one point, until we heard him cuss on the Watergate tapes, at which point the evangelicals were beside themselves with shock. Had they done any homework instead of just buying the rhetoric, they should have known, but they never do that. They're famous for siding with candidates who talk the talk but fail to walk the walk. This next election will be no different. The politicians have been fooling them for over four decades now that I am aware of, and getting away with it, so why should it change?

However, in looking into candidates' "conservative" credentials, one should look at Rick Perry's plan for the NAFTA superhighway. This was a project to consist of "a two-mile wide $184 billion transit system of toll roads, rail lines, and utilities from the Texas-Mexico border all the way up to the Minnesota-Canadian border. To make it easier to ship foreign goods from China and other countries into North America. It became so unpopular in Texas that the Texas portion of it, called the Trans-Texas Corridor, was renamed and mostly disbanded a couple years ago. Perry was the only gubernatorial candidate in 2006 of four major candidates who supported it. Even the Democratic candidate opposed it." This information from Rachel Alexander, editor of the "Intellectual Conservative." I had also read where Oklahoma had said they would not build this road through that state either.

This is probably a major part of Perry's career he would prefer to have forgotten, and if he ends up being the Republican candidate of choice, you can be sure all this info will be stuffed down the memory hole, along with any other liberal actions he ever partook of. All this to say that Mr. Perry is not what we have been led to believe he is. But he still may be foisted on a gullible, public-school-educated populace as "Mr. Conservative" in the 2012 election just as Ronald Reagan was in 1980. You should always remember in Reagan's administration who the vice-president was--George "New World Order" Bush.

If you really want to look for viable candidates in this next election, check out all those that the prostitute press labels as "extremists." They will probably be the only honest candidates in the bunch, while the rest will be nothing more than bench-warmers for the New World Order.

Trashing the Economy--on purpose!

2011-07-21T08:50:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

I have not always agreed with all the positions promoted by David Horowitz, head of the David Horowitz Freedom Center in Sherman Oaks, California, but in this instance, regarding his take on Obama and the economy, I think he has hit the nail on the head. I have not seen anyone else come this close.

I've watched all the conservative pundits gasp in shock at what Obama seems to be doing to the economy, and to the cultural condition of the country in general. Many of them look at particular parts of his agenda and exclaim "Doesn't he realize what this will do to the country?" Of course he realizes it. That's why he's doing it. Somehow that glaring fact never seems to fully register with much of his opposition. Many of his conservative opponents almost seem to have a deer-in-the-headlights approach to his agenda. They view it in living socialist color, but act as though they can't quite believe it. Makes you wonder. Are some of them that dumb, or do they think their audience is?

Recently, Mr. Horowitz sent out a short Internet missive in which he asked the question "Is the President trying to strain the American economy to the breaking point?" Good question. Mr. Horowitz already knows the answer and he is trying to get his audience to grasp it.

Like Mr. Horowitz, I concluded some time ago that Obama's agenda, (not really his but that of the shadow government behind his throne) was to destroy the country economically, spiritually, and in every other vital or important way. You can reach no other conclusion when you look at his solutions for "reviving the economy" which are nothing more than the same old tired socialist solutions that were used to get us into this mess. He almost seems to be saying "If this failed, then let's do more of it to fix the problem."

Obama's agenda, (and again, that of those behind his throne) seems to be to lower the living standards in this country to those of the third world countries and then to raise the standards of those countries so that the United States can be successfully merged into the third world. This is really no different than the programs of various tax-free foundations in this country back in the 1950s and 60s. Their aim was to lower the standard of living in this country so we could be successfully merged with the Soviet Union. Is there much difference between that and what Obama is doing, via directives from his puppeteers (George Soros and the CFR)?

Mr. Horowitz, like me, doesn't see much difference, and he notes in his comments: "If you think the last question is improbable it is only because you haven't read the plan of two Marxist professors from the 1960s who hatched the plan to 'stress the system' so that a leftwing government can take more control over our lives and make America a place we will no longer recognize as home. These two professors, Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward (whose work Obama learned about as a young 'community organizer' in Chicago) envisioned an activism that would flood the housing market with bad loans, overwhelm the electoral system with the names of dead and fictitious voters, and give a toxic shock to the health care industry by adding millions of people to the rolls with their bills to be paid for by the taxpayer. They wanted all this to happen so that America would be forced to embrace socialist solutions." Can anyone honestly say this isn't happening today?

It does sound somewhat familiar doesn't it? You've probably never heard of these two left-wing professors, but that doesn't mean their work has not affected the way you and your family are being forced to live right now. Most people have never heard of the Council on Foreign Relations either, but that does not mean that this organization hasn't been a major force in this country, during all administrations for decades, to move this country to the left and to grease the skids here for a one-world government. Mostly it means that folks do not find out about these organizations and people because they are deliberately mis-educated or undereducated. Does than mean that the government schools are part of this too? You better believe it baby--in spades!

Mr. Horowitz's organization is distributing a pamphlet called "Breaking the System." To find out more about this check out their web page at www.FrontPageMag.com

It was refreshing to see that someone out there recognizes the fact that Obama and his handlers are purposely trashing the system and that all their seemingly stupid moves are really part of a grand design to trash the country. Even many of their so-called "conservative" opponents seem to fail to grasp his.

The Debt Ceiling Dog And Pony Show

2011-07-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

For weeks now we have been treated to nightly doses, via our lapdog media, of scary articles about the national debt ceiling. The current Marxist administration, parading as Democrats, are telling us our national house of cards will come tumbling down on August 2nd if they are not given, by Congress, the ability to further increase the already horrendous debt our great grandchildren and their grandchildren will be paying off because of licentious federal spending. The Republicans have boasted they will not vote to increase the debt limit no matter what. They claim to be holding firm to their commitment to cut federal spending, and so on and so forth, blah, blah, blah.

I hate to be the purveyor of negative information, but they are both lying through their teeth to the American public, who, thanks to their public school "educations" can't tell the difference.

Recently Obama did an interview with Scott Pelley, one of the talking heads at CBS (two talking heads chattering at one another). According to http://conservativebyte.com Pelley said: "Can you guarantee, Mr. President, that if there's a shutdown, can you personally guarantee that Social Security checks will go out for seniors?" To which the Great One replied: "I can't, Scott, I'm glad you asked me that. I can't guarantee, and not just the old people, Scott, it's veterans too. I can't guarantee it. Those checks probably won't go out." I'll bet Obama was glad that Pelley asked him that question. It was probably part of the script. It gave him a little bit of economic terrorism to spread among us older folks, a little something to scare the living daylights out of us--as it was intended to do.

Can you picture the thousands upon thousands of older folks, living on only Social Security, calling or writing their congresspersons and telling them to vote to raise the debt ceiling so they won't starve next month--and thereafter? It's a diabolical political ploy used by the current Marxist administration to get what they want, claiming it's what the public really wants because of the public outcry. It gives Congress, both Republicrats and Republicrats (because there really ain't a dime's worth of difference between them) the excuse to do what most of them really wanted to do all along.

So, if the government really shuts down and Social Security checks and veteran's checks fail to go out, does that mean that congressional paychecks will also not go out? After all, if no one else gets their checks, why should they? But that will only happen in your dreams, Charlie. Those parasites will continue to feed at the public trough even if the public starves!

If Obama doesn't just try to raise the ceiling through some "executive order" (his favorite way of doing everything he can't get done legitimately) and Congress does get to vote on it, will the debt ceiling be raised? Will Congress vote for it? Of course they will--this time, next time, and for many more times to come. Both sides already know this. The only folks who haven't figured it out yet are the public-school "educated" American citizens. It's their gut feeling it shouldn't happen. They realize, at some level, that this will cost them the family farm (literally). What they don't realize is that the Feds are playing them like a fiddle and laughing all the way to the bank.

It's all about power and redistribution of the wealth (our wealth redistributed to the Marxists and their friends in power. That's what Marxism is always all about, regardless of their lofty pretensions about "power to the people." No one ever thinks to ask them "which people?"

So not to worry, if Obama doesn't do the executive order bit, Congress will do a deal in such a way that the Marxists get what they want, while making it look like the Republicans opposed it, and it will be business as usual in Sodom on the Potomac. The public will get stiffed. But is that anything new? That has been going on at least since Abraham Lincoln and as long as the public remains dumbed-down it will continue.

Only when the public gains enough knowledge to start demanding candidates with strong moral standards, Christian standards, in those they elect will things begin to change. That means that maybe the churches ought to set some moral standards for those their parishoners vote for. We aren't there yet.

Gun Control In Obamaworld (It's good for the economy)

2011-06-30T09:35:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

In the convoluted environs of Obamaworld, where sodomy and abortion are hailed as daring and courageous, while Christian virtue and purity are denigrated, gun control is a sign of a healthy economy.

This may sound a bit off-the-wall to normal folks, but, then, you have to understand the mindset of the denizens of Obamaworld and those they front for. Like Marxists, they just don't think like ordinary people. In Ohamaworld there are two classes of people; the criminal class, consisting of both politicians and common criminals, and normal, honest citizens, who, according to the criminal class, live only as sheep to be sheared. Or, as the Mexican bandit said in the movie "The Magnificent Seven" about fifty years ago now--"If God did not want them sheared He would not have made them sheep." Not that I agree with that statement, but it does seem to express the mentality and worldview of criminals, political and otherwise.

I guess we should try to understand this situation from the criminal's perspective. If common crooks break into someone's house and that someone happens to be armed, they might get hurt, even dead in some cases, as recently happened in a nearby city here in Louisiana, where a burglar broke into a house that happened to be inhabited by a deputy sheriff. According to the odd logic of the inhabitants of Obamaworld, the deputy should have thrown down his gun, begged for mercy, and immediately retreated to hide in the nethermost part of his abode. Instead, heartless beast that he was, the deputy shot the burglar. I am sure the ACLU will attempt to find some way to nail the deputy's hide to the judicial wall while trying simultaneously to find a way to reward the burglar posthumously for his courageous act against the "establishment" and in behalf of "the people." You see, in Obamaworld, it's just not nice to resist evil, only good. You know how it is--evil is good, slavery is freedom, and all that.

When Obama ran for president he told the cheering masses he didn't want to take their guns away from them. Since his administration is on record for trying all manner of ways to discourage people from exercising their Second Amendment rights, you have to wonder just who he was talking to when he said he didn't want to take away "our" guns. Who were the "our" he was addressing? Certainly not everyday, honest citizens. He'd confiscate their guns in a heartbeat if he could finagle a way to do it. Not to worry, though, his secretary of state is working of that little problem. The plan is to curtail the Second Amendment via the United Nations, which I'm sure they've been instructed to do by their handlers. As for Obama, he is little more than an empty suit waiting to be filled with the rhetoric of those who really give the orders.

You also have to grasp the fact that the criminal class usually doesn't want to work for a living. That's why they go into politics, robbery or larceny. It's much easier to rip other people off than to sweat all day doing honest work, and to do that, the crooks need firearms for their line of "work." And their work is much easier if they don't have to face any armed resistance (healthier too). So gun control laws work just great for the criminals, and the political crooks who are their kissin' cousins, try to make sure there is as much gun control as possible in as many places as possible. After all, if common crooks can't burgle or rob, how will they make ends meet? But if they can steal and plunder with no armed resistance, why then, they can usually make a go of it financially, and, as they peddle their stolen goods to those who will fence those goods for them and resell them, they have made their fair contribution to the Obamanite economy. See how well this all works--if we can just get more gun control.

Those politicians who loudly howl and protest about crime in the streets, and the need to take honest people's guns away to "prevent crime" are well aware of how this dog and pony show works. Most of them are far less concerned with "crime in the streets" than they are about their criminal friends meeting armed resistance as they labor to redistribute our wealth. In Obamaworld, redistribution of the wealth is really where it's at. You say that sounds Marxist? The "news" media will tell you that is pure coincidence!

Our honestly-earned wealth needs to be redistributed to the criminal class, both political and common, while the "news" media continues to inform us that we should all be thankful to be able to pay our "fair share" to keep the current (or past) corrupt and tyrannical regime going. After all, if you can't trust your government.....?

Since a good friend once told me I was ancient, you can bet I have heard all this before--over and over. I've even heard some folks in churches tell me about how our "contributions" to the IRS are our "fair share" which we should gladly pay for the privilege of being stiffed by the politicians. I wish I could at least say the politicians stiffed us with a bit of class, but I can't even say that. They can't even get a forged birth certificate done right!

And don't think for one minute that the political criminals in Washington really heard your protests or felt your pain before the 2010 elections. Such belief qualifies you for a $100 gift certificate from the Easter Bunny for a hunk of green cheese off the moon--after the purple cow jumps over it! All you have to do is to look at the results we've had since the election to realize that the political criminals are laughing all the way to the bank--your bank--as they siphon off anything you might have left. Congress is already getting set to raise the debt limit, again, the next of many such ongoing raises, and they're looking for ways that enable the Republicans to go right along with this without appearing to do so. Undoubtedly they will find such if they haven't already. Political criminals are not only Democrats. Look at Lincoln!

Needless to say, it's past time that people in this country, most especially in the churches, woke up and realized how they (and their grandchildren) are being and will be fleeced. But, given past performances in my lifetime, I ain't holding my breath until that happens.

That Mississippi State Flag Really Gives The Liberals Fits

2011-05-28T14:24:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Ten years ago now, after being subjected to a massive liberal disinformation campaign, aided and abetted by spineless Mississippi politicians, the good people of Mississippi voted to keep their current state flag, Confederate symbol and all, by a whopping two-thirds to one third vote. They sent a resounding message to all the politically correct busybodies across the country--don't mess with our state flag, we like it fine just like it is.

Needless to say, with a vote like that, the liberals and leftists nationwide engaged in much "weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth." How dare their wonderful multi-cultural agenda for unenlightened Mississippi be resisted by the people who lived there! Who did they think they were, resisting what the liberals and other cultural Marxists clearly knew was best for them? The ungrateful wretches!

However, liberals, cultural Marxists and their ilk being what they are (meddlers) they just have not been able to let this issue alone. A couple or three years ago, if I remember correctly, they tried again, with some sort of "discussion groups" to get people interested in another flag. That didn't seem to go anywhere, so now they are back for yet one more go-round.

Just recently there was a fuss over the state flag in Natchez, at the police department. Someone asked the police chief if it was alright to fly the state flag and the police department. The police chief complied. Why not? It is, after all the state flag, even if the liberals are offended by it (poor babies). Then, lo and behold, someone came along and complained to the mayor, who ten ordered the police department to take the flag down until "the city could discuss the matter more carefully." That's political talk for tucking tail and running.

The man that wrote the editorial from the "Natchez Democrat" that I read, although he claims the flag doesn't bother him, is nonetheless subtly trying to push for a new flag design. So here we go again! In his article he wrote: "Rationally, it makes sense to find a flag that all Mississippi citizens can support and rally around." Sounds nice, but it will never happen. No matter what flag design you come up with, somebody won't like it. Someone will be dissatisfied and complain.

In his article the writer continues: "If, as the 2001 vote indicates, more than one-third of the state voters don't support the existing flag, we should seek to find a more universally supported symbol." Translation: The liberals don't like the current flag with its Confederate symbol so it has to go. They tried once and couldn't get rid of it so it's now time to try to bamboozle the public again to see if they can do away with it. After all, it's been ten years, so who'll remember all the disinformation we spread around back then? Time to spread it on thick again!

It seems to pain the editorialist greatly that the one-third of the people that didn't vote for the flag should be subjected to having to see it fly in their state. What about the two-thirds that voted to keep it? Should they be subjected to a new flag they clearly don't want just to keep the one-third from griping and moaning? It would seem so.

When it comes to Confederate symbols the liberal and leftist minority is always more important than the conservative majority, because the liberal minority are the politically correct ones, while the conservative majority, who mostly just want to be left alone to live their lives, and supposedly too dumb to know what's good for them.

So to the good folks in Mississippi--get ready, because they are probably going to have another go at taking the state flag you want to keep away--and you can bet the farm that your gutless politicians won't help you unless you really hold their feet to the fire.

Folks, Here’s Obama’s “Genuine” Birth Certificate--after two years of hiding it

2011-05-01T13:09:00.000-07:00

Folks, Here’s Obama’s “Genuine” Birth Certificate--after two years of hiding it

By Al Benson Jr. and Daniel Benson

We’ve been reading for almost two years now about the fact that Obama was pointedly ignoring requests for a real birth certificate to be released. In fact he spent around $2 million making sure none of his records were released, right on down to Kindergarten.

WorldNet Daily made a big splash about the fact that you couldn’t find any information on this individual that currently resides in the Red (White) House and they even paid to put billboards up around the country asking pointedly “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” Others picked up on this and ran with it also. No response from our Marxist-in-Chief except an occasional sneer, which he’s pretty good at.

Then along came Donald Trump, supposedly running for president, probably as a RINO. He started complaining about Obama’s lack of a valid birth certificate, and lo and behold, Obama shoves one out this past week. Trump claims credit for getting one posted when no one else could.

However, looking at the Great One’s new “authentic” birth certificate, it seems that there are some problems with it. For instance, line 9 on the certificate lists Obama’s father’s race as “African.” Slightly ambiguous. What about white folks born in Africa? Aren’t they Africans too. If they and their families have lived in Africa then they should qualify as African also. Besides, in 1961, when this new, “genuine” birth certificate was supposed to have been issued they would have used the term Negro or black instead of African.

On line 7, his birthplace is listed as Honolulu, Hawaii. Back in 1961 they listed the particular island you were born on, which was Oahu. Other birth certificates issued around the same time list Oahu as the birthplace, not Hawaii.

The Dept. of Health number on his birth certificate is a higher number than that on the birth certificate of children born the day after he was. These numbers are issued sequentially, so his number should have been lower, not higher.

We’ve read several comments from folks who work with photography and several claim his birth certificate has been “photo shopped” a process whereby date is erased from a document and other material added on via a transparency and the whole thing is then photographed over again with the new information showing up instead of the old. Different sources gave us about fifteen different things wrong with this new “genuine” Obama birth certificate.

The conclusion, overall, is that Obama has done nothing to quell the fuss over his birth certificate. Rather he’s added fuel to the fire. That, plus the fact that it wasn’t very well done. Federal forgers should have been able to do a much better job than whoever churned out this piece of work.

But now the liberal media can assure us that we have what we wanted and that it was all much ado about nothing. Either the media and the president think the American people are totally stupid, or there was some other reason for this “genuine” birth certificate to appear when it did. Is its timely appearance really timely, or is it a sort of subtle attention-getter?

Is it possible that all the fuss over the birth certificate, pro and con, right now is a device to cover up something else the administration might be wanting to slip in, under the radar, so to speak?

Last week we read an article posted on http://conservativebyte.com that mentioned the possibility of Donald Trump being connected to Obama’s puppeteer, George Soros. In part, the article stated: “In December 2001 the New York Post mentioned a private party hosted by Roubini and Oliver Stone, George Soros and Donald Trump.” Recently when Glenn Beck asked Trump about George Soros, Trump replied “Forget Soros. Leave him alone. He’s got enough problems…let’s talk about somebody else, sweetheart.”

Yet now, along comes Trump and Obama practically jumps out of his skin to get a “genuine” birth certificate out there for the gullible public. Baby, something smells rotten--and it ain’t in Denmark. Trump, Soros, Obama--we’ve got a hunch something is going on that the American people need to be aware of and are not looking for, thanks to all the hoopla about the birth certificate.

Jesse Jackson Jr. and the War Between the States Sesquitennial

2011-03-08T20:35:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

A recent headline in our local paper noted that "Democrats Push for Civil War Bill." It would seem, to the casual reader that the Democrats in our august Congress have suddenly become aware of their "duty" to commemorate the War Between the States as an event that changed our form of government in this country from that of a Republic to that of a consolidated democracy. True? Not hardly! But the Democrats are pushing hard for a federal commission to "commemorate" the 150th anniversary of the War.

So, why, you might ask, are they so interested? Perhaps a comment by Andrew Wilson, a spokesman for Rep. Je$$e Jackson Jr. of Illinois has let the cat out of the bag when he said: "It's important for the country to have an open, honest discussion about the war, including the reason it occurred." Please note that Mr. Wilson didn't refer to the "reasons" that it occurred. In his comment the word "reason" was singular. That should be a clue to the historically astute as to where this whole thing is going.

What these Democratic Congressmen really want is a federally sponsored committee that will broadcast far and wide that the only "reason" for the War Between the States was slavery. Their version of an "open, honest, discussion" will probably end up being a four-year-long harangue about slavery, and nothing else, being the sole reason for the War and how we all need to repudiate our "racist" attitudes (while they get to keep theirs).

All the things mentioned in the "news" article, the 13th Amendment, Lincoln's war propaganda measure, charitably called the "Emancipation Proclamation" (which never freed a single slave)--are geared to dealing only with the slavery issue to the exclusion of all the other issues.

If we are really to have an open and honest discussion about the reasons for the War that would be great. But, folks, let's be honest. After 150 years of Yankee/Marxist propaganda at all levels, you have to know that ain't gonna happen--no way!

To engage in that sort of dialogue would force people to deal with all the reasons for the War--the tariff issue, the cultural and theological differences between North and South, differing views of the Constitution between North and South, and the issue of states rights, and not just the right to own slaves. Only the truly ignorant confine states rights to that issue.

Trying to uncover the reasons for the War only through the tunnel vision of the slavery issue is an exercise in futility. Trying to reduce the varied and complex reasons for the War into the least common denominator of slavery does a historical disservice and injustice to all Americans.

Unfortunately, in the name of suppressing the truth, that's the real name of the game.

Ali Baba and the Forty Public School Students

2011-02-21T20:45:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

The government school systems in post-America continue their mad plunge into anti-Christianity, while most people that have subjected their children to these mind-numbing institutions do not have a clue as to what really goes on in them.

With all that has occurred in past decades in these "institutions of learning" you would think that folks nationwide would have some sort of grasp of their true nature. Sadly, this does not seem to be the case.

Recently, in Texas of all places, a branch of the government school system, the Mansfield School District, had planned to institute a mandatory Arabic language and culture class. Arabic and Mandarin were to be added to the curriculum and designated as "languages of the future." When the public schools start telling you that Arabic is the "language of the future" stop and ask yourself what the language of the past might be. Bet you two to one that English heads the top of whatever list the school change agents have compiled. Does that fact give you a slight hint as to where some of our public (government) schools are headed during the era of the Great One?

Apparently there has been enough of a fuss over this in the Mansfield School District that the school system there has put off making a final determination as to whether they will try to force the Arabic class on students or not. What that means is that they will wait until the furor has died down and then try to slip it in quietly, a little more quietly, than they did this time. Public school systems have been using that tactic ever since the massive textbook protest in Kanawha County, West Virginia back in the middle 1970s. Unfortunately, it usually works.

According to an Internet news article by Sheryl Young: "In 2002 some California middle schools structured workshops on Islam in an attempt to ease fears about the faith after the terrorist attack of 9/11/01. According to the Hudson Institute, students were instructed to memorize Islamic phrases, verses from the Koran, and Islam's Five Pillars of Faith. While the website truthorfiction.com states that what went on in these classes was exaggerated in some areas, school authorities confirmed that teachers could include having students dress in Islamic garb and learn prayers to Allah." How informative! Had someone suggested that these students learn Bible passages there would have been a hue and cry from the ACLU and every teacher's group and union in the country about the violation of the "separation of church and state" (which they claim is in the Constitution, but which I have never been able to find in there, nor have many others). However, if the prayers the students were going to learn were to Allah, why that was okay. You see it's only a violation of the "church/state separation" if Christianity is involved. In the case of every other religion, a free pass is given. I could have hoped that, over the years, this fact would have begun to sink in and thus give people a slight glimpse of the real nature of the public school system, but this doesn't seem to be the case for the most part.

Folks who really think they are going to reform the public school system might as well whistle Yankee Doodle all the way to the poor house. It ain't gonna happen, so quit fooling yourselves and attempt to grasp the fact that you, if you want a real education for your kids, have got to remove them from the government schools and find alternative education for them. Christian schools and home schooling are viable options for many if only they will take the time and trouble to check into these.

As for government schools being "reformable" many of the folks who have assured me they are not have been public school teachers or former public school teachers who have learned the hard way that real reform of the system will never happen.

I remember, when I worked for a home schooling program in Illinois years ago, I talked to a lady on the phone one day from New York, who was a public school teacher. I never forgot her comment. She wanted her daughter to be home schooled and she told me "I work in this system every day. No way is my daughter going to become part of this." When a public school teacher says that about the school system she is part of, that's about as graphic a testimony as you can get. I never forgot her comments. You shouldn't either, if you want your kids educated instead of brainwashed.

The Missing (non-existent?) Birth Certificate

2011-01-26T20:04:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Having followed the whole "birther" scenario on the Internet regarding Comrade Obama's real birth certificate (or lack thereof) has been an exercise in futility. Obama's former press secretary and paid propagandist, Robert Gibbs, openly laughed at those who wanted to see a legitimate birth certificate for Obama rather than that paper charade that has been posted on the Internet. Gibbs is gone now, for whatever reason. Small loss.

Those that brought lawsuits into many courts in the land demanding to see proof of Obama's place of birth were routinely dismissed by judges who probably know what the game is in Washington and who are not about to jeopardize their legal careers by doing what is right. They found technicalities in each case that allowed them to dismiss them all without dealing with the real issue--was Comrade Obama born in this country or not??? Obama has spent big bucks keeping any real records about anything regarding himself hidden from public view. Ain't "transparency" wonderful?

WorldNet Daily http://www.wnd.com has spent much time and effort following this situation. In fact, they have paid to have billboards put up around the country that just ask "Where's the birth certificate?" The "news" media, in its true "investigative" spirit has ignored all this where it could and made fun of it where it couldn't.

But, on January 24, 2011 there was an article on WorldNet Daily by Jerome Corsi that was quite revealing. Mr. Corsi stated, quite plainly that: "Former Hawaii elections clerk Tim Adams has now signed an affidavit swearing he was told by his supervisors in Hawaii that no long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate existed for Barack Obama Jr. in Hawaii and that neither Queens Medical Center nor Kapi'olani Medical Center in Honolulu had any record of Obama having been born in their medical facilities." We've been told in the past that he was born in one, or both of them. So which is it? With no records, most likely it's neither. Does that surprise anyone anymore?

And, according to the article, Adams stated: "and there was no record that any such document had ever been on file in the Hawaii Department of Health or any other branch or department of the Hawaii government." Interestingly enough, when this furor all started, Adams was one of a dwindling number that believed that Obama was born in Hawaii and that he is a legitimate citizen of the United States. Wonder how he feels now that he has signed this affidavit and had it notarized.

I would urge folks to go to WorldNet Daily's web site and check out some of the stories concerning Obama's birth certificate and related subjects. There is a list on that site, as long as your arm, of articles that deal with this.

If the man currently in the White House (and maybe with his leftist politics we should rename it the Red House) is not legally a United States citizen, and he is allowed to continue in office, then we will have set a precedent for future presidents. Who needs to be a citizen of the US in order to be president? No one, as long as he covers his tracks well enough! Our socialist Congress was notably derelict in its duty on this one--and I suspect that was the intention.

Comrade Obama--where IS the birth certificate--here, or someplace in Kenya or Indonesia? A suspicious public would like to know, but I'll bet you and the media ain't telling.

John Boehner Has No Problem With Federal Programs

2011-01-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Recently, new Speaker of the House, John Boehner, was asked what federal programs needed to be cut now that Republicans had taken control of the House. Boehner's reply should be a cause for concern for all those that label themselves conservative, libertarian, or Tea Party.

Boehner said that, off the top of his head, he couldn't think of a single federal program he would cut. Now maybe I misunderstood, but I thought that, in this recent election, the voting public tossed out a whole bunch of Democratic Marxists (yes folks, they are Marxist in their mindset) because they wanted government to cut spending and to be more accountable to the public. Now we realize that, no matter what he said, Obama and his Marxist and socialist friends in Congress didn't get the message. Anyone with a Marxist mindset is incapable of understanding the concept of limited government and Comrade Obama is no exception. However, some of us had fond hopes that some of the Republicans just might have gotten it. Such hopes seem about to be dashed, as Boehner doesn't seem to be one of those that got it.

Seeing that Mr. Boehner can't think of any federal programs he's like to cut or eliminate, I will pass along to him a short list of some we could drastically reduce or flat out do without. Maybe this will give him some food for thought (though I doubt that). I am afraid Mr. Boehner will end up being one of the "business as usual" boys that we thought we had voted out but really didn't, no matter which party is in power. In actuality, the two major parties are little more than different ticks on the same One World hound.

But, if Mr. Boehner ever got to the point where he could begin to meditate on some government programs that could be cut, here are a few places he could start that would save billions.

Cut back the Food Stamp program. Most of us don't object to giving a helping hand to those that, for one reason or another, are unable to make it on their own, but there are lots of people in this program that could make it with some effort, but would prefer to let us keep paying their way. These people should be culled out and sent packing!

How about opening some parts of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration? Contrary to much of the eco-insanity that passes for science today, this would not destroy the caribou or other wildlife, if done carefully, and, Heaven knows, we could use the oil with $4.00 a gallon gas in view. Will this happen? Not as long as we have vested interests in Washington and New York that want us to be dependent on Middle East oil.

We should scale back all foreign aid. Most of it is a sham anyway, and we continue to prop up countries that hate our guts so we can show them how compassionate we are. We should cut them loose and let them go. This country is under no obligation to feed those who would cut our throats if they got the chance. Of course if they did that, who'd feed them?

And this one is a real jewel. How about eliminating the Department of Education? This useless appendage does nothing but provide lots of fat, cushy jobs for bureaucrats who spend most of their time writing rules and regulations for government schools that make about as much sense as Mother Goose stories. Somehow, education in this country managed to survive before this department came along and I am confident it would survive without it and the billions it costs us could be trimmed from the budget. Besides, everybody knows it was nothing but Jimmy Carter's payoff to the Teachers' unions for their support of his candidacy when he ran for president--so who needs it?

And then there is Obamacare, that great socialized medicine boondoggle which will cost how many billion, or is it trillion now? This program is so riddled with federal regulations that health care in this country will, in effect, be nothing more than a federal program, with the feds deciding what medicine you get and how long they will allow you to live.

How about privatizing Amtrak? What does that cost every year and did it ever show a profit? If it did, that's long in the past. One more program Karl Marx would have loved--federally run transportation!

Then to top off a really great day, how about taking whatever stimulus money remains unspent yet and just returning it to the federal budget. I'm told there is about $60 billion of it they haven't used yet. This country is not about to spend it's way back to prosperity like the Federal Reserve people tell us it will--as long as they can keep churning out those dollar bills. "Spending yourself rich" somehow doesn't quite work.

If Mr. Boehner ever got serious about cutting federal spending, here are just a few areas he could begin with. However, don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen. I'm not.

Also:
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TSA--A Groper in Every Garage?

2010-11-25T11:40:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

There has been much public outcry over the dubious actions of the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) and the way their employees are treating people that are forced to wait in lines when flying so they can all be groped and fondled. Suffice it to say that the groping and fondling policies of the TSA have long since gone beyond the bounds of decency. What any normal sex pervert would be thrown in jail for doing the TSA people get to do, and they get paid for it. I suppose some would say that was nice work if you can get it.

There were calls for a protest to encourage people to refuse to fly for the Thanksgiving holidays and I heard that air travel was down about 12%. While that is not enough, it is a small step in the right direction--and the protest needs to continue to grow. I will probably be branded as a "domestic extremist" for saying that.

And what is the government's response? With the typical federal arrogance we have gotten so used to, Homeland "Security" Secretary Janet Napoleon--excuse me, I meant Napolitano, like her so-called boss, Obama, refuses to listen to public protest. She is now reportedly going ahead with plan to expand the Playboy culture among her employees. She is now talking about the possibility (probability) of naked body scanners for trains, boats, and buses. Should Napolitano get her way you won't have to fly to be sexually assaulted by a government employee, you may be able to enjoy the same experience if you take a train, bus or boat. Just imagine--federally-funded gropers on public transportation--all for the "holy cause" of fighting "terrorism." I mean, who could object to that, right? Shouldn't we be willing to undergo any public humiliation whatever to support opposing "terrorism?"

But, I wonder if "fighting terrorism" is really where it's at.

Frankly, I think one of the main objectives behind this shameful project is to bring the American people to the point where they become conditioned to be publicly humiliated by the government's paid goons. Eventually, they may get to the point where they no longer resist--nice little sheeple who love Big Brother, no matter what he does to them.

According to http://conservativeactionalerts.com/ Napolitano said: "I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to be also thinking now about going on to mass transit, or to trains or maritime."

Get the picture? Just like Obama, Reid, Pelosi and the rest of the patronizing socialists in Washington, in the face of protest, Napolitano will now up the ante and increase what people plainly do not want, because, as a typical socialist mentality, she knows what's best for all of us and we are too stupid to see that!

Her attitude is elitism run rampant. Who knows how far she's like to go with the scenrio--a TSA groper stationed on every city block to check all the passengers and drivers in automobiles--or maybe one stationed outside of every garage that has a car in it How about stationing hordes of them at train stations, bus depots, or even at individual bus stops? What a creative way to boost the already robust economy--more government workers--the kind Hugh Hefner would love!

Unfortunately, unless the American public stands up and protests long and loud, and learns to start picketing the airlines in big numbers, we will get more of this socialist insanity. The fact that George Soros, Obama's puppeteer, owns a ton of stock in the company that makes these naked body scanners wouldn't be any reason for their increased usage would it?

One report I read stated that these scanners will eventually be installed in sports stadiums, at schools, and in malls. But first, "the public must be conditioned to accept their use at airports,..." At sports stadiums? Do they expect the terrorists to hide their bombs in the football??? Not really. It's all an exercise in public docility.

The feds want you to learn to line up as sheep to be sheared so they can enrich their friends while keeping you under their jackboot.

Where is that old spirit of independence that was so strong in the founders of this country? Why, thanks to 150 years of government "education" (brainwashing) in public schools, that has all been educated out of us. All that's left now is the overweening desire for safety instead of liberty.

As a man said years ago "Maybe we deserve what we permit."

Demonic Deals in the Land of Transparency--Health Care and all that

2010-03-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

I've been watching political activity in Sodom on the Potomac for quite a few years now. In all that time, never have I seen such a prolonged and frantic effort to get legislation passed as has been displayed over this current "health care" charade.

The thrust and drive to get this thing passed almost seems demonic. It truly seems as if Obama and the congressional leadership (all socialists) are suffering under some sort of possession in their obsession to get this thing done. They will say anything, promise anything, and do anything, no matter how sleazy or backhanded, to get this bill passed.

If Obamacare is the wonderful piece of legislation the White House has told us it is, we must ask why they have to vote on it late on Sunday evening and why they have to pursue wavering congressmen with arm-twisting tactics or promise them the moon to get them to vote for this. If it's such an outstanding bill, why not vote for it in the daylight--and if it's that great, why aren't congressmen standing in line waiting to cast their votes for it instead of looking for ways to support it without their constituents back home knowing about it? Many of those who secretly support it will tell you they don't. They are afraid of the backlash next November because they know the vast majority of the public doesn't want this thing.

According to one source "...to no one's surprise, they are going to use the unconstitutional legislative maneuver nicknamed 'the Slaughter House Rule' to pass the Senate bill by simply 'deeming' it so. Nancy Pelosi said 'We will do whatever is necessary to pass a health care bill'." And you had better believe that. The fact that the public at large doesn't want this thing matters to her not at all. As far as she is concerned--the public be damned--she knows better than we do what is "good" for us.

It has to be painfully obvious here that the will of the voters doesn't matter one whit. The current Marxist regime is going to do what it wants to do (or what someone behind the scenes has told it to do) regardless of the concerns of most Americans. Our opinions do not matter to these people. Their own agenda is all important. Anyone still thinking that we have representative government in this country is whistling Yankee Doodle!

My friend, MacDonald King Aston, recently posted an article on his website http://www.fireeater.org entitled "Yankee Demons?" It was thought-provoking. Mac asked a couple questions that I've not seen asked before. He said: "What makes the so-called 'far left' different? I meant physically. What is it about, for example, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Bill Maher, Sean Penn, Tom Hanks, and Obongo himself, that makes one uneasy?...And then it struck me. The face. The face? Well, what do all the above have in common? Twitching, ever-moving faces, eyes which never rest, hands abuzz (Pelosi). All the signs of what we weakly call possession."

Mac continued: "And all of them have what Malachi Martin, the expert on demonology, calls a 'craven fear of and hatred for Jesus.' Interesting. But, then too, all whom I listed are Yankees. (Not that all Northern folk are Yankees. And, yes, Nevada's a Yankee state.)"

Mac mentions the most "identifying traits" of demons--servility. "They are bound to whom they serve, and nothing else, nothing, matters, certainly not 'the good of the people' or the abstract 'Constitution'."

Although I have never thought of it (and those people) in quite those terms, you have to admit that the Obama/Pelosi/Reid devotion to this so-called health care bill, no matter what, at least appears to be more than obsessive on their part. I had just put it all down to their slavish desire to the principles of Marxism, and it is no doubt that, but is it even more? A question to ponder.

All I can recommend in this instance is to contact your congresspersons and let them know, straight up, that if they vote for this monstrosity that you will do everything legally in your power to defeat them in the next election. If enough people take the trouble to do this, it may scare a few of the "mugwumps" among them into voting NO. You will probably have to call their offices or at the least send emails or faxes, because they really don't want to hear from you. Do it anyway. And, for any among you that don't know what a Mugwump is--it's a politician who sits on the fence with his mug on one side and his wump on the other.

Bond Issues--Where Does the Money Go ???

2010-02-21T20:20:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

The recent article in the "El Paso Times" in El Paso, Texas read: "Hard on the heels of a tax-increase request by the El Paso Independent School District, officials at the Ysleta Independent School District are talking about floating a $160 million bone issue this spring. The district's plans have some significant differences but the common denominator is asking for a tax hike during volatile economic times in which people are struggling financially in a number of ways." At the risk of sounding slightly cynical, how many of these government school districts really even think about the average man's financial problems when they decide they need more untold millions of our tax dollars? The tax-paying public is the golden goose--to be plucked at will until there's nothing left.

The article continues: "YISD Superintendent Michael Zolkoski said, 'I want the people to decide whether we want this money or not. In the old days when I did bonds, we used to say Just give us a couple hundred million and trust us. But today, people want to know where the money is going'." Can you really blame them? How much have government taxing agencies stolen off the public in the past 100 years and before? And government offices, from the White House on down, are so filled today with political liars, who believes anything they tell us anymore?

It's no secret that, in many parts of the country, about 3/4 of the property tax goes to support government schools. I can remember when we lived in Illinois the first time, years ago now, I saw someone's property tax bill. Back then it was for about $675 if I recall. That would be a pittance now, and the part of that which went to finance the government schools there was well over $450--just about 2/3 of the total amount.

Government school systems are forever wanting to float more and more bond issues so they can do all manner of things in schools that are supposed to provide that ever-elusive "quality education" that they never quite have enough money to provide--if only they could just get one more bond issue passed, and then one more if that doesn't do it, and on and on. Yet the more money they get, the dumber the kids seem to get. It's a game, folks, and we are the suckers being fleeced!

And talk about scare tactics! Many public school districts are not at all above using these to extort more money from hard-pressed parents. I remember when we lived in Indiana several years back now, one of the local government school districts wanted to float a bond issue. They got lots of good press from a compliant media trying to brainwash the locals about how great this bond issue would be for everyone. It would cure all the ills of man and beast in the area for the next century. When it came time to vote, the public turned it down resoundingly. After a smashing defeat, one of the school officials there stated: "Well, I guess we'll just have to give the public another opportunity to vote for this." So much for the will of the people! That only counts when the results are what the politicians and teachers' unions want. Within a few short months, they did give the public another golden "opportunity" to vote for this monstrosity, and guess what--the public turned it down a second time.

About that time, many kids started bringing stories home from school to the effect that most of their favorite teachers were going to be fired if their parents didn't vote for another bond issue. This propaganda barrage went on for weeks, again, dutifully aided and abetted by the local media, which unhesitatingly printed all manner of scare stories about how, without this bond issue, the local school system would be absolutely decimated. Somehow, the school system had managed to carry on rather well up to this point, but suddenly, without the extra millions, why the school house doors would be closed tomorrow, or the day after. After enough softening up by the media blitz and the scare stories brought home by the kids, the issue was voted on for a third time and this time it passed--barely, but it did pass. And educational blight was prevented--and pigs fly too, so they tell me!

This scare tactic is used all over the country. Here in Louisiana a few years ago, the public school officials in one parish simply could not keep their books straight. Their accounting system was about an inch short of an abomination. When the finally achieved some semblance of having the books straightened out, they found they were unable to account for about a million dollars. How to fix this slight "discrepancy?" One of the school officials said, rather blithely, "I guess we'll have to have a property tax increase." The school system couldn't keep track of their finances, lost over a million dollars somewhere they couldn't account for, and their solution to the problem was to go back and soak the public with higher property taxes to atone for their gross mismanagement. They had already requested one tax increase that year, which was voted down resoundlingly. But they decided to go back and try again. So they did, and it was voted down the second time, rather conclusively. People were just plain tired of seeing their money squandered by a profligate school system and the school district had to learn that year to get along with what it had. Of course the usual charges of "racism" were thrown out there at the public, even though the black population of the school district was only about 10%. Guess what? The school system did get along with what it had to work with that year. They ended the school year not in great shape, but they managed to live within their budget that year, which showed that they really could get along without more of our tax money when they had to.

Unfortunately, most folks across the country have not yet learned what the government school system is really all about (brainwashing 101) and so they vote again and again to authorize these new bond issues that take more and more money out of their pockets. So, some folks are beginning, in these lean economic time, to want to know just what their money is being spent on, and some are even learning to say "NO" to these bond issues. They are going to have to learn to keep saying NO, over and over again, because once you defeat a school bond issue, you can rest assured its proponents will return to try again, and again, and again...

Learn to vote NO on all government school bond issues--and to keep voting NO each time they rear their ugly heads. We are paying for the destruction of our children and our culture with them and we must learn to refuse to do that any longer.

Obama--The Original "Barackachurian Candidate"

2010-02-09T20:55:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

When Barack Obama/Sotero (or whatever his real name is) campaigned for the presidency he promised the gullible American public a new era of "transparency, open government, and full disclosure" as he sought to distance his approach from that of his predecessor. However, once he had ascended the presidential throne, Obama, with his secrecy, made George Bush look like a downright gossip.

According to an article by Steve Baldwin on http://www.westernjournalism.com the president "...will not reveal his medical records, his school records, his birth records or his passport records. He will not disclose his Harvard records, his Columbia College records, or his Occidental College records--he will not even release his Columbia College thesis. All his legislative records from the Illinois State Senate are missing and he claims his scheduling records during those Senate years are lost as well. In addition, no one can find his school records for the elite K-12 college prep school, Punahou School, he attended in Hawaii."

In other words, you simply cannot find out anything about this guy except what he has released through his "press secretary" which material is about as useful as reading the funny papers. The "Team Obama" lawyers have now spent a cool $1.4 million blocking access to any possible document that could give the public any information about this person.

Mr. Baldwin continues: "Indeed, everywhere one looks into Obama's background, we find sealed records, scrubbed websites, altered documents, deception and unanswered questions." Mr. Baldwin also goes into Obama's social security number, or numbers. It would seem he has several--from all around the country.

And the website scrubbers missed one news article from "The Sunday Standard" which I believe is in England, for Sunday, June 27th, 2004. The headline for that article reads "Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate." Wonder how they missed that one!

So, what we essentially have is a man in the Oval Office that we really know nothing about. We don't even know for sure if he is a US citizen, which, according to the "Sunday Standard" article he may not be. World Net Daily has, for months now, had a series of billboards up in various places around the country in regard to Obama, asking "Where's the Birth Certificate?" There have been several lawsuits brought into various courts seeking to get Obama to prove his US citizenslhip, but it seems that the judicial folks are in on the game along with the media and they keep dismissing the lawsuits requiring him to prove US citizenship. Of course the prostitute press seldom reports any of this. Better for Obama and his agenda if you don't know about it.

I realize George Bush was a disaster. His open grasping for dictatorial powers was a national disgrace, as was his total disregard for the Constitution. But, have the American people done any better with Obama??? We have gone from a fascist to a Marxist! Sorry folks, but that ain't a real big improvement! Fascism and Marxism are nothing more than two ticks on the same collectivist hound dog.

The main difference between Bush and Obama is rhetoric. Both were and are taking us in the same direction--total government! Bush did it with the Patriot Act, which gutted the Bill of Rights, and Obama is doing it with his regulatory czars who will make sure the Bill stays gutted. But at least we knew about Bush's background, his association with the Skull and Bones, his father's accociation with it, and all the rest. You can't find out hardly anything about Obama. It's like he's so "transparent" you can't even find him. What happened in his life from his birth to his ascension to his current throne in the White House? Well, few people really seem to know. We do know that he has been surrounded by Marxists since his youth. Just for the fun of it, check out The Obama File on the Internet. It should still be there if they haven't managed to scrub it too.

Obama seems to be a blank screen. The trouble is, the color of that screen is RED!

American voters have got to start seriously considering third party candidates in the upcoming election (if there is one).

Sarah Palin--You Have To Wonder ?

2010-02-07T15:25:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

You have to wonder about Sarah Palin. Is she really a patriotic conservative or just one more in a long line of "business as usual" Republcans?

She just spoke at the big Tea Party rally in Nashville, Tennessee. Supposedly she got a fee of $100,000 for her appearance there. That's a bit more expansive than giving a speech somewhere and having the sponsors pick up your dinner tab.

While in Nashville, she mentioned that she would consider running for president in 2012, and that she was going to Texas to campaign for Gov. Rick Perry after she departed Nashville. Interesting. The governor's race in Texas is also interesting. There is a viable candidate in that race, Debra Medina, that the Tea Parties in Texas have been supporting. I don't know how she is doing in that race, but it seems that Gov. Perry wants to sidestep any debates in Texas that Medina appears at. It seems that he does not wish to debate Debra Medina. Why???

In the last presidential election the establishment Republicans managed to shut Ron Paul out of most of the presidential debates so the quick-tempered John McCain would be there alone to fumble the ball so Obama could pick it up and run with it. Without the presence of Ron Paul the presidential debates were the typical establishment dog and pony show. I'm sure the debates between the gubernatorial candidates in Texas without input from Debra Medina will amount to the same thing.

So,if the Tea Parties in Texas have endorsed Debra Medina, why is Sarah Palin, who just spoke at a Tea Party event in Nashville, going to Texas to help out Gov. Perry when she should be going to help Debra Medina?

Is this yet another case of trying to fool people so they end up voting for the phony "conservative" instead of the real one? That little trick has worked well in the past, so why not now? How often have patriotic Americans been gulled into voting for some phony instead of the real thing?

Sarah Palin is an attractive lady. So how many people will be fooled into voting for whoever she endorses and supports by letting their hearts rule where their heads should?

If she is what she claims to be, why will she be campaigning for someone other than the person the Tea Party folks have supported?

And, is it also possible that the "business as usual" Republicans, who are really no different than the "business as usual" Democrats, are trying to co-opt the Tea Party Movement and turn it into something they can use for their own purposes? I guess inquiring minds would like to know.

Secession!

2009-08-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

by Daniel Benson

Once upon a time
In a not-so-distant land
Our fathers set out to make a difference.

Secession was their plan
To stay away from what we see today
And to make this our own good land.

Federal government said "Heck, no,
We're not about to let you go.
We'll invade to keep you here!"

When it was done
And they had won,
They changed their ideal.

So, slaves to them, we all should bow
And government seeks to oppress us now
And keep us while they can.

But stop and listen to their words,
Look at the banner they choose to unfurl
To make government slaves of each boy and girl.

No longer will you have a home,
Government says IT now will own
And fathers and mothers all will groan.

So, to be said, when they are done,
Away from this we'll want to run!
Wake up America, it won't be fun.

Socialist Obama is here you know,
To possess us all as we grow
From newborn babes to grown adults.

Smell the fear within our hearts.
Watch the falsehood of his charts.
Listen not to what he says, but watch his deeds instead!

Reprinted from The Copperhead Chronicle
Second Quarter AD 2009

Dead Money (Stimulus checks sent to the deceased)

2009-05-20T20:01:00.000-07:00

by Daniel Benson

Dead men tell no lies,
Yet to them the money flies.
They tell us government didn't know,
Yet somehow to them the money did flow.

Social Security lost a lot,
Around two million, what a cash crop!
Ten thousand checks to the dead, so they say,
And dead men will cash them anyway!

Money missing that you pay,
And this government just dies to give it away.
Missing money and checks mailed--
For such negligence they should be jailed!

Around two million unaccounted for,
Yet they choose to underscore.
When will we as a nation awake?
Too late, and too bad we didn't see the break.

Those Political Parties

2009-05-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

by Daniel Benson

Two political parties, though really the same,
Many voters they can claim.
Yet no difference in my view,
Though the parties, they say, are two.
Socialists they claim abound,
Yet they forget to look around.

Many people they call friend
Still are socialists to the end.
Senator Arlen Spector wanted to switch,
Yet when they're the same, which is which?
So to the masses I proclaim
Is this thought of "two" not just insane?

When two parties "differences" they desire,
Yet to do the same things they conspire.
So I ask, just what they find true,
Since they can't make out red or blue.
These parties that say they are two
Really are one when brought into view.

To the politicians this I say,
"Please, why don't you go away?"
Liars, cheaters, that's what most are.
This I can see from afar.
Government small should be,
Nationally or locally.

So wake up America!
Your government's taking your freedoms to task,
And how long will this country last?
Part of a one-world government I will not be.
Politicians take our kids away
And public schools mold them into slaves of clay.

Health reform is just a joke,
Your new doctor may be English country folk.
Your car will make its way, the ocean to cross,
While China,Yugoslavia, and Africa await your loss.
So little time and money you see,
But voters next year we may not be.

So to end my political rant,
When honest politicians are oh, so scant,
America again may never be,
Except as part of the Communist tree.

The So-Called Stimulus Package

2009-02-16T19:39:00.000-08:00

by Daniel Benson

To every aspiring government hack I ask one simple question. Why can't you seem to get it through your heads that I and many of the American people did not vote any of you into office--yet you say the American people did such. How many dogs, cats, and gravesites did it take in some cases to fill your ballot boxes--or voting machines?

You squabble, fight, and argue and yet manage to do nothing beneficial when you are in office except to hurt the chances for our children to grow up correctly instead of being wimps, losers, and nobodys. You accomplish nothing but the public arguing before passing out the pork to your friends) and for some dumb reason I can't understand you seem to fascinate the "news" people of this once great nation that is now on the third world doorstep of most other nations.

This stimulus package that House and Senate haven't been able to agree on with the president lies in shambles, which might be a good thing (though some sort of backroom deal will eventually be cut).

Here is my plan for government hacks. I think you should all work for minimum wage while you hold on to your supposedly elected offices and then let's see how fast you run for office again. Or better yet, while you are in office--work for free and let's see how quickly you get things accomplished that will benefit the American people, who are now just a mish-mash of other nationalities and can't even salute the American flag when it goes by.

I wonder how many of you take up politics for the fat paycheck we pay you when we are having difficulty putting food on the table. We don't need protection from other countries--we need protection from our own elected officials.

So I suggest that rather than putting more of our money in your friends' pockets you should all consider a vote for cutting our taxes and putting more money back in our pockets, not yours or your friends. And while you are at it, why not consider restoring to us those God-given rights we were guaranteed in the original Constitution? And even if you cut a deal and pass this thing (with all that pork for your friends) before I reach a ripe old age, I can guarantee I won't be voting for any of you the next time either and will hope fervently that you lose your cushy congressional jobs to someone else. Who knows, that someone else might even be someone like me.

THAT BIG CONFEDERATE FLAG IN TAMPA

2008-07-11T19:59:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

It would seem that the local group of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Tampa, Florida has done something that has really driven the liberal/Communist establishment up the wall. For years, various Leftist fringe/hate groups have marched, moaned and in general paraded around complainly loudly about Southern flags and symbols. The mere sight of a Confederate flag anywhere seems to set their noses to twitching and their ears to smoking. They caper, drool, and moan about how their delicate sensibilities have been "offended" at the mere sight of a small Confederate flag on a grave marker somewhere. Of course they have no concern whatever about the sensibilities of other folks that they may offend. The rest of us are just supposed to take that in stride while they moan about how we've offended them!

Well, guess what? Their delicate Leftist sensibilities can now really be offended. The SCV folks in Tampa, Florida have, on private property, near Routes I 4 and I 75 outside of Tampa, erected a huge flagpole with a 30' X 50' Confederate Naval Jack on it. The flagpole is 139 ft. high and is located at the construction site of a monument to Confederate veterans.

And what will be even worse for those Left-wingers, once the Confederate monument is completed, that big flag will be illuminated at night. At that point the Lefties will get to be "offended" twenty four hours a day. Doesn't your heart just bleed for them? (Don't all answer at once!)

The usual suspects have crawled out from beneath their collectivist rocks to make the usual complaints. The Hillsborough County president of the NAACP has said "I'm surprised they would let something like this go on in Hillsborough County." Buddy, I hate to disallusion you, but if the flag and monument are on private property and have met all zoning requirements, which they seem to have, then no one can tell them what they can and can't have on their own property. It seems that the NAACP would abrogate people's right to use their own property if they could get by with it.

And it was common knowledge the Fox News sent out a reporter to cover this incident. That man, Orlando Salinas, has to be one of the few remaining decent reporters in the entire country. He interviewed all the folks concerned and actually turned in an objective report, giving the Southern Heritage folks their just due. Fox News was then reported to be considering cancelling Mr. Salinas' piece because it didn't paint the Confederate flag as racist. When this became known, I think Fox News got lots of emails and calls and Mr. Salinas' report ended up being run after all, much to the chagrin of those on the Left.

The SCV folks in Tampa are adament--the big flag stays. They say they are tired of their history and heritage being constantly trashed and this big flag is one way they are fighting back. May the Lord bless their efforts.

If you are trying to figure out who is right in all of this, just look at the credentials of those who oppose not only this flag but any and all Southern flags and symbols. The majority of them are dedicated Leftists, socialists, "Red Republicans", Communists, and ultra-liberals.

And, at root, their main problem is still that these Southern symbols are mainly Christian symbols. That's what "those people" really hate--Jesus Christ and the Christian faith.

If you would like to read about some of the origins of political and religious Leftism in this country then get hold of the book "Red Republicans and Lincoln's Marxists" by Donnie Kennedy and myself. It deals with the radical Leftists in both Lincoln's armies and in the early Republican Party, which, contrary to some, has NO real conservative roots. Check out the website for Ole South Books to find out how to get a copy of the book.

THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN !!!

2008-05-10T11:46:00.001-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Folks, the system is broken! It doesn't work for ordinary folks (and hasn't since 1861).

A few years back I read an article about a Harvard University political scientist who was mourning the fact that more Americans don't take part in the political process nowadays. He noted polls indicating that the number of Americans who worked for political parties fell 42% between 1973 and 1994. He also observed that the number who attended political meetings fell 35% and the number who bothered to write a letter to their congress critters fell by 23%. He mourned that we have become "a nation of bystanders" and he felt that when ordinary folks quit taking part in the civil life of a "democratic" society then that society tends to become unbalanced. I might enquire, in my cynicism what "democratic" society is is talking about. One can hardly label the corporate fascist society we exist under todaly as "democratic" unless he uses that term in the classic Marxist sense.

The political scientist claimed that our present problem did not exist earlier, where civic participation was to be expected to some degree at most levels of society. The article stated that: "Everyday Americans had a voice, and the nation's leaders listened because they depended on them--whether as citizen-soldiers, taxpayers, or volunteers." Sounds nice, but in all honesty, we are forced to recognize that the situation being described has not existed in this country for many, many years. It sounds so warm and fuzzy that we must reflect that it is simply not realistic. This country's leadership couldn't care less what ordinary people think or feel. They have their agenda and that agenda, a One-World government one, will be pushed and promoted regardless of how the public at large might feel about it. Look at the illegal immigration problem, for example. Polls have shown that somewhere around 80% of the public wants strong action from the government to curb illegal immigration. Are they giving it to us? If you think they are you must be dreaming. What has been the national "leadership's" response in both branches of the Republicrat Party? They've done a lot of promising and rhetorical side-stepping and that's it. They voted for a border fence and then told us the funding isn't available for it. So their solution is to ignore the problem and hope we don't notice that all the rhetoric doesn't amount to doodly-squat. The One-World clique in control of both major political parties wants the illegal immigrants in here. They will help to totally adulterate what is left of American culture as a definable entity and that's what they want. So we'll get that from them whether we want it or not. They want the illegals here; they mean to have them here--and the public be damned!

We also need to take note of our government "education" system, the one that most of us were forced to endure for twelve miserable years. It is a system that does not encourage political participation unless it be in a variety of Left-wing causes. For instance, we celebrate "Earth Day" in April. I remember the first Earth Day they celebrated and made such a fuss over way back in 1970. They just "happened" to pick the day to begin observing that on the day that was the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth. The purest of coincidences of course!

It seems that many folks, one way or the other, have finally figured out that the political system we now have (the same one we've had since the Lincoln administration) doesn't work, and will never work for them and their families. That being the case, they have just sort of "tuned out" and refuse to bother taking part anymore. The dog and pony show we euphemistically refer to as the "national elections" don't interest them any longer, and who can really blame them? Most of these folks couldn't tell you rationally what's wrong with the country if you asked them. Yet, in spite of their government school "educations" in their heart of hearts they instinctively know something is wrong, something isn't working right, and they know they are powerless to change it. For ordinary people THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN and never to be fixed. Ordinary folks must continue to pay the confiscatory taxes and take with a grain of salt the constitutionally illegal usurpations of their freedoms the system dishes out, and so they, having little idea of how the game is really played at the top, attempt to live with the current situation with as little personal hassle as possible. Some of them over the years, me included, went to political meetings and wrote letters to our Congress critters about the many problems we saw. About all most of us ever got back for our efforts were those nice, meaningless form letters from them, telling us how important our opinions were and how they would take them into consideration when they voted. A pile to cow chips--bovine fertilizer, if you will! Most of them never saw our letters. Some ribbon clerk in a back office somewhere in Washington rubber-stamped the congressman's "signature" on form letters back to their constituents and they couldn't have cared less about our opinions on anything! They were going to vote on this or that whether we wanted it or not, because the One-World government clique wanted it and that was that.

In the current dog and pony show, has anyone listened to Hitlery or Obama or McCain in the soundbytes we get on the tube? Are any of them really saying anything different than the others? Are any of them really saying anything? Seems to me all we are getting is pious socialist platitudes from all of them. Years ago George Wallace said there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two major parties. Whatever else you might think of Wallace one way or the other, he was right on this point. It doesn't make any difference which party sits in the White House after next November--you are going to get the same agenda either way. Only the rhetoric will be different. The politics of plunder, confiscation, and collectivism, with an aim to completely restricting our liberties will remain the same. You think something like this new "North American Union" isn't part of this? Think again.

So lots of folks just don't bother to participate in the workings of the system any longer because they know, at the gut level, that the politicians that rant and rave at them, pandering for their votes, don't mean a thing they say, will break every promise they made after the elections are over, and business as usual will continue on in Washington and most of our state capitals--compliments of the Council on Foreign Relations and the rest of the One World government crowd.

Unfortunately, many Christians who should know better, mostly don't. They've been gulled into thinking that "voting Republican" will, somehow save the country. Many of them and their fathers have been doing that, voting Republican, since Abraham Lincoln--and look where that has got us. And I'm not saying that because I'm a Democrat--I most assuredly am not.

If Christians are not going to wake up enough to work to change this moribund culture, then they at least should do enough homework to realize that they need to start thinking about third party candidates. If ever we are to see any meaningful change in this country we have got to begin to look somewhere else rather than to the two branches of America's Socialist Internationale that today call themselves Republicans and Democrats.

If you want to check out a little of the sorry history of this country since the conclusion of the War of Northern Aggression in 1865, please check out my website at http://www.albensonjr.com and if you want to check out the book Donnie Kennedy and I have written "Red Republicans and Lincoln's Marxists" then please check out the website of Ole South Books.

COMMUNIST DOUBLESPEAK--It's all in a word and how you use it

2008-03-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Ever run into a situation where one word means two different things to two different people? Those who have taken the trouble to understand the Communist mindset (sorry folks, but communism isn't dead) will understand what I'm talking about. Over the years Communists have often used common, everyday terms that we all use, but to them these mean something else entirely. This is called aesopian language and it is one way Communists were able to fool liberal "useful idiots" in the West into thinking that they were great humanitarians instead of the international thugs they really were (and are).

Back in the early 1970s Professor Roy Colby wrote an informative little book called "A Communese-English Dictionary" in which he dealt with many, if not most, of the terms that Communists regularly employed in their dealings with the West that meant the complete opposite of what we've been conditioned to think they mean.

Hence, when some Red diplomat came to this country and gave a speech, he would prattle on long and loud about how the Communists in his particular country really wanted only "peace" with the United States. Many in the fawning liberal news media actually believed this twaddle and took such statements seriously. They wrote glowing accounts of the Soviet or Red Chinese Communist's quest for "peace" and they castigated the West for being a batch of warmongers. Of course some in the media knew the diffence, but they willingly lied to us anyway. Thus, you ended up with headlines in many liberal rags that passed for newspapers such as "Kruschev wants peace." No one ever bothered to ask Mr. Kruschev what he meant by the word "peace."

Professor Colby, in his book, told us. When the Communist told you he wanted "peace" what he really meant was that he sought "Absense of resistance to Commmunist expansionism, Western policy or practice favorable to Soviet or Communist objectives, An international climate in which Communism may flourish..." Suffice it to say that's not quite what you and I were brought up to think the term meant. But Communist use of the word for Western consumption always employed this meaning. So a "peacebreaker" was one who resisted Communist aggression. Do you begin to see how the game is played?

The term "racial discriminatio" was used by the Reds in much the same way. To the Communist it meant "Opposition of any kind to black demands or to the Party Line on the black revolution." So, if you resisted radical black demands for reparations or whatever, no matter how utterly riduculous they were, you were automatically a racist. It mattered not at all how far out these black demands might have been--anyone speaking out against them was automatically suspect. Still works the same way today, doesn't it?

When I said earlier that communism wasn't dead, I meant it. This is exactly the way the term "racist" is used by the Cultural Marxists in our day. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, anyone resisting the demands of radical blacks or radical illegal immmigrants, or just speaking up in defense of Southern heritage, is a flaming racist. Their use of the term "racist" is thoroughly Marxist in origin--the same way the Marxist term "reconstruction" was used after the end of the War of Northern Aggression to justify the rape of the Southern states.

Some naive soul might be tempted at this point to ask in the SPLC is really a Cultural Marxist group. To which I would answer "will the sun rise in the East tomorrow?"

There are many individuals and groups out there that qualify to be considered as Cultural Marxists. They continue to use language today exactly the way the Communists used it for decades. Today they rail about "diversity" when what they really mean is "no whites need apply." They carry on endlessly about "multi-culturalism" in which there is supposedly a place at the table for everyone--except us white folks of course. We are the reason for all the world's problems--so we should just stay away--except when those people want our money--and then we should dutifully line up with wallets in hand to fork over our long green, all the time displaying the proper amount of self-guilt and loathing. Right?

Wrong!!! The Cultural Marxists have no regard whatever for truth or common decency. They work to manipulate their intended victims, who should know better, but thanks to government education, mostly don't. If makes you wonder where the churches have been for the past several decades. They sure haven't, for the most part, been on the front lines educating the Lord's people, who, when it comes to Cultural Marxism, are usually as dumb as dirt!

Ephesians 5:11 tells Christians to "...have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove (expose) them." Had more of our churches taken the trouble to try to do this we might have had less people deceived by the Communists years ago and less deceived by their spiritual grandchildren, the Cultural Marxists, today.

HUCKSTERBEE AND THE CHRISTIANS (not as wise as serpents

2007-12-30T20:43:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Since 1968 I have been watching the presidential elections in this country and have kept tabs on how the evangelical Christian community votes as a whole. I must say I have not been encouraged by their track record. They seem to fall for whatever candidate can spout about his "Christianity" the longest and loudest and it never seems to occur to them to ever check as to whether his actions match his words (and usually they don't).

Richard Nixon claimed to be "born again", sat close to Billy Graham at one of Graham's crusades in 1968, the Christians were fooled and we ended up with Watergate, a lot of Nixon's foul language on the Watergate tapes and One World architect Henry Kissinger, who some even said was a Soviet spy, as part of Nixon's cabinet. Jimmy Carter, the would-be peanut farmer from Georgia pulled the same stunt. Talked about his Christian faith and then packed his cabinet with leftists of the Rockefeller tint. We were told Reagan was a Christian, although he seldom ever attended church and his lifestyle didn't really back up the claims, but he was a good enough actor at the game that he is still fooling some conservatives even though he has passed away. But, then, some folks claim that Abraham Lincoln didn't become a Christian until after he was dead for six months.

We had the same deal with Bush the Second. I remember many evangelicals I knew of just falling all over themselves about how wonderful a Christian man Bush the Second was and how he held Bible studies in the White House. Of course the fact that he was part of the Skull and Bones society was never mentioned in Christian circles. But as we went along, Bush the Second eviscerated the Constitution and the Bill of Rights even more than Slick Willie could have dreamed about doing--but that was okay with the Christians because he was, supposedly, one of them. Yeah, right! Some folks believe that purple cows fly too. And the evangelicals never seem to learn. After getting gutted in almost every election in the past forty years, here they are, right back, ready to be sheared in the 2008 election by another "devout Christian" the former governor of Arkansas, one Mike Huckabee. Does the title "former governor of Arkansas" ring a bell? Is this deja vu or what?

The stories are floating by thick and fast about Huckabees "Christianity" but again, no one is bothering to check out Mr. Huckabees actions to see if he walks the walk he talks about. You're just supposed to take his word and the word of his handlers, and of the "news media" about everything--God help us! After having done a little checking on Mr. Huckabee and his positions in several areas, I as a Christian, could not in good conscience, support him, nor will I.

Phyllis Schlafly, President of Eagle Forum, has noted that Huckabee has "destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas and left the Republican Party a shambles. Yet some of the same evangelicals who sold us on George W. Bush as a 'compassionate conservative' are now trying to sell us on Mike Huckabee." You have to wonder at who is doing this sales pitch and if there isn't a pattern here of selling evangelicals on New World Order candidates over and over? Yes, Virginia, there is a pattern.

Huckabee has continued to peddle his religious Huckadrivel. He has compared the illegal aliens in this country, for whom he obviously has a soft spot, to the slaves that were brought here from Africa, who were sold to slave traders by other black Africans. Obviously, if that comparison could be sold to the Christians, they should then feel compassion for the illegals. Sorry, Mike, but it won't wash. Slaves were brought here, both North and South, through no choice of their own. The illegal aliens are here by the millions, coming in illegally, breaking the law to get here and to stay here. Yet Huckabee opposed legislation in Arkansas to prevent illegals from voting or getting state benefits. He claims those supporting such legislation are really nothing but racists. Really? Huckabee begins to sound like the el presidente of Mexico. He says the same thing--if we won't let his illegals enter our country and steal American jobs then we're all racists. Viva Senor Huckabee!

To prove his love for illegal aliens, while governor of Arkansas, he arranged for a Mexican consulate to be located in Little Rock, supposedly to help illegals with their problems with the American law, and naturally, the state of Arkansas would pay most of the expenses for all this misplaced "compassion." What that really means is that you folks living in Arkansas will foot the bill through taxes. And that brings us to another point. Mr. Huckabee never saw a tax he didn't love. Maybe he should change his name from Huckabee to Taxabee!

Ernie Dumas of the Arkansas Leader wrote: "Mike Huckabee has raised more taxes in 10 years than Bill Clinton did in his 12 years." And State Representative Randy Minton said: "(Huckabee) says he's pro-family. If your're raising taxes on the families of Arkansas, causing wives to go out and get jobs to make ends meet, that's not pro-family." Can't argue with that logic. Many writers have agreed that Huckabee is no conservative--yet he is being peddled to the evangelicals as one. So who's doing the sales pitch?

According to the website http://www.taxhikemike.com "...the average Arkansas tax burden increased 47% over Huckabee's tenure. Huckabee supported (in chronological order) a sales tax hike, gas and diesel fuel tax hikes; another sales tax hike; a cigarette tax hike; a nursing home bed tax; another sales tax hike income surcharge tax; a tobacco tax hike; taxes on Internet access; higher beer taxes. Huckabee oversaw a 50% increase in spending...opposes private school choice." Some "pro-family" candidate!

He also spoke recently to the National Education Association and he has called the "No child left behind" program "the greatest education reform effort by the federal government in my lifetime." More bovine fertilizer! The best way the federal government could "reform" education would be to get out of it altogether. But, then, remember that Karl Marx was in favor of public, or government schools also.

Mr. Huckabee is also naming Richard Haas, the president of the CFR as his advisor on foreign policy. Conservative Christians should know, (although most don't have a clue) about the CFR, the Council on Foreign Relations. This organization has been labeled as "the shadow government in the United States." Most important positions, regardless of who is in power, are filled from this group. They really are our unelected government.

All this, plus the fact that Huckabee has the support of the liberal wing of his church, should begin to tell you something. You should be able to begin to deduce that Mr. Huckabee in no way represents the interests of the Christian community, or of anyone else except for the One World "tax and spend" crowd that is busily grooming him for possible office.

But I suspect that, as usual, the evangelical community will end up being bamboozled by yet another spiritual charlatan, and they won't realize what has happend, should he get elected, until about halfway through his second term. As usual, they will be disappointed, but with their incredibly short memories they will again be manipulated into voting for the "next Christian" One Worlder to be paraded out after our next president is history.

REPARATIONS--By and for the Black Marxists

2007-12-14T11:52:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Earlier this year a legislative committee in Missouri studied the feasibility of issuing an apology from the state of Missouri for slavery. One more state victim of the "apology for slavery" craze that seems to be infecting the country this year, with erstwhile legislators weeping huge crocodile tears for something that happened before their great grandfathers were even born. And, too, the crocodile tears might help with the black vote! At any rate, for whatever reason, Missouri did not act on this apology and thus has not yet had its golden opportunity to sit on the black racists' "stool of everlasting repentance" as other states have done.

But not to worry, the black racists are now back, with their white quislings, again ready to parade their guilt trip for whitey so he will yet have one more chance to grovel in the presence of their rabid ethnocentrism.

A recent article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch noted that: "A formal apology by Missouri for slavery is a necessary step in overcoming social and economic inequities suffered by many of its black citizens, speakers told a special legislative committee Tuesday." They failed to stipulate how an apology for the slavery of 150 years ago would economically benefit blacks in Missouri today, but then, I guess we are not supposed to ask that question are we?

The article continued: "White supremacy has had far-reaching implications on race relations up to this day," said Jamala Rogers, a "veteran civil rights activist" with the Organization for Black Struggle.

Just out of mild curiosity, I did a little digging to see what I could find out about Jamala Rogers. Seems she is the National Organizer for a friendly little group called the Black Radical Congress. This group has what it calls a "freedom agenda" which is quite revelatory. Among their projects are "...laws mandating public ownership of utilities" (in Marxist terms that means the state owns them). And they also seek "...a fair equitable, highly progressive tax system..." And they claim that they will "...struggle to ensure that all people in society receive free public education" and not for their younger years only, but throughout their lifetimes. You see, the indoctrination must continue beyond the high school years to be effective. Anyone who has ever read Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto should go back and look at it again and you will find all these things listed in it as part of Marx's program for communizing a country. This "freedom agenda" is Marxist to the core. Other things they wish to do are to abolish the death penalty and establish "civilian review boards" to monitor the police forces--both projects promoted by the Communists in recent decades. They will also, so they claim, "...fight against homophobia and (they) support anti-homophobic instruction in public schools." That means, in plain English, that they get the right to teach your kids that homosexuality is perfectly okay. Oh, and by the way, they also claim they will fight for black reparations. All of these things have, at one point or another, been part and parcel of the Marxist program for this country and apparently still will be if these people have their way. And since no one seems to be opposing them at this point, it does make you wonder.

The Post Dispatch article also mentioned one Zaki Baruti, "another veteran activist" who voiced his unstinting support for reparations. Not be be outdone my Ms. Rogers, Mr. Baruti is the President/General of the Universal African Peoples Organization. Part of their program is to: "Support African-centered curriculum in the public schools. Control local public school boards with Afrocentric thinking people." Sounds as if, with their mindset, there will be no room nor purpose in schools for anyone except blacks. It would seem that Mr. Baruti is a subscriber to the "all whites are racist" fiction and his solution is to replace white racism with black racism--which is, of course, okay, since black racism is allowed and white racism isn't.

Looking over this Post Dispatch article, you may well be tempted to think that St. Louis is chock full of black Marxist groups. And it does seem as if they are mostly the ones screaming and howling about apologies for slavery and reparations. Too bad the "news" media didn't see fit to give us a little info about these people and the groups they belong to. If I could find out this bit of info on these worthy Left-wing individuals you can bet the news people could have too. Simply calling them "veteran activists" really tells the reading public nothing, and I'm sure that's the intention. You can bet your boots that if someone over on the political Right were proposing some project the media would be out en mass, digging up all the dirt they could find on him and his family all the way back to Henry the Eighth! But with the black Marxists you don't have to worry about that. Their ideologies will never be mentioned by the media people--the public really doesn't need to know--that way they will never realize they should be in opposition to what these people are trying to do and life will go on and on, the Marxists will eventually get what they want and the brainwashed public will never wonder.

Liberal Preachers and their Left-wing Connections

2007-11-28T19:59:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

As is probably known to most in the Southern Heritage Movement by now, the Rev. Louis Coleman of the Justice Resource Center in Louisville, Kentucky was one of those who made a big fuss over Confederate symbols at Allen High School in Floyd County, Kentucky, way over in Appalachia, just a bit of a way from his native stomping ground in Louisville. You might wonder why.

Rev. Coleman was supposed to speak to a school board meetig in Floyd County during January of this year (2007). Coleman's talk was an attempt to get the school board to force Allen Central to do away with their school's Confederate symbols. It would have been nice if someone over in Floyd County had just told Rev. Coleman to go back to Louisville and mind his own business, as what they do in Floyd County is their business, not his.

Given Rev. Coleman's background and associations, though, it is not at all surprising that he would be in the forefront of the attempt to obliterate Confederate symbols when and wherever he ran across them. His associations with those on the far political Left bear this out. Just a small example, if you will allow.

Enter Anne Braden, who just passed away this past year. She and Rev. Louis Coleman have had some association with each other. There is, on the Internet, a photo of her and Rev. Coleman, with others, standing side by side at a "Myles Horton 100th Birthday Party in Louisville, Kentucky in July of 2005." Well, so what, you say--but please bear with me--it gets better. Myles Horton was one of the founders of the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee. He said of his school "Here in the mountains, should the economic situation become pressing enough, the people could be made to understand that the socialization of property would give them more personal freedom...Here was an opportunity to direct the American revolutionary tradition towards a cooperative society operated by and for the workers...Many strike songs are as class-conscious as the writings of Karl Marx..." In other words, Horton was using this "folk school" as a vehicle for the promotion of Communist propaganda.

In fact, the Joint Legislative Committee of Un-American Activities for the state of Louisiana has listed Highlander Folk School as a "Communist training school." So Rev. Coleman and Anne Braden were photographed together at this party for one of the founders of a Communist training school--which is not really surprising, for you see, Anne Braden and her husband, the late Carl Braden, were both identified in sworn testimony as Communists. For years the operated the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF) which was a Communist front group. Doesn't Rev. Coleman keep interesting company? The picture of he and Anne Braden is part of an article on the Internet for the Highlander Research and Education Center, in an article dealing with Anne Braden. Check out http://www.highlandercenter.org/n-braden.asp and see for yourself.

Some among the gullible might say that this one association could be coincidental, and well it might be, except that this isn't the only one.

There is another outfit out there, operating among us "great unwashed", the Coalition for the People's Agenda. Interesting name! Folks from this group meet regularly at the Braden Center, 3208 W. Broadway in Louisville, Kentucky. Now who do you suppose the Braden Center has been named for? At any rate, this group has an entire litany of leftist programs going on. Anyone who has read Communist propaganda during the 1950s and 60s has already seen this type of stuff--it's not really new. It has just been repackaged a little so it will sell to the contemporary crowd (they hope). This organization has something going called "The People's Agenda" and guess who two of the authors and planners were for this project--Anne Braden and the Rev. Louis Coleman. Surprise surprise! Birds of a feather and all that!

It would seem that Rev. Coleman's political affiliations place him way, way over at the Left end of the political spetrum--not exactly in the mainstream of American thought. So why, pray tell, should patriotic Americans in Floyd County, Kentucky seek to rid themselves of their Confederate symbols for the sake of him and his Leftist pals?

The theological and political Left has always been in the forefront of the opposition against the Confederacy and her symbols and flags. It was so in the 1860s and it is no different today. Their Leftist propaganda needs to be exposed for what it is--divisive class hatred and an abiding hatred for anything Southern, Confederate, or Christian.

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE THE PANTHER INVASION

2007-10-16T13:16:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

I paraphrase the old poem slightly when I say "What to my wondering eyes should appear but cadres of (Black) Panthers all coming here (to Jena, Louisiana). That was my initial thought after picking up the Monroe, Louisiana newspaper one day recently and reading an article on the first page that stated that the "New Black Panthers" were coming to Jena, Louisiana to "patrol" the streets to keep the infamous Jena 6 and their families safe and secure from alleged Ku Klux Klan threats. My second thought was that the good folks in Jena, both black and white are just going to love this!

I wondered if the local police might possibly try to keep them out as a possible disruptive influence. Then I thought, no, that probably won't happen. It wouldn't be politically correct. Now if they happened to be an outfit called The White Panthers, then you can be sure they would have been denied access to Jena, but the Black Panthers probably won't--"racism" and all that you know.

I can recall when I first got into political activism back in the late 1960s. The original Black Panther Party was alive and well, spreading their black Marxist theology among the masses, and college students ate it up like bread and honey. For all their supposed intelligence they had about as much discernment as a potato chip that has just been stepped on in the parking lot. Of course the "objective" media would never admit the Black Panthers were communists--they finally had to do that themselves--and then the "news" media looked rather pathetic for not having brought that fact out earlier. But then you know how it is with the news media (and I do use that term in the loosest possible sense)--much better to have a communist under every bed than to be forced to admit that he's there. The original Black Panther Party seems to have gone the way of all flesh mostly. Survivors of that original group are now about as old as I am. However, this newest mutation of them has sprouted from the same noxious Marxist weed, and its roots and vines are gradually creeping into the "new civil rights movement."

The New Black Panthers are an interesting group. They claim capitalism is the primary evil in the world ( I always thought that sin was) and naturally they see revolution as the only solution. To say that these people are anti-Christian would be an understatement. However, they claim that they don't draw their inspiration from Karl Marx. Instead, with a clever play on words, they state that Marx drew his ideology from indigenous African cultures, and they, therefore, just eliminate the middle man, so to speak, and hark directly back to those African cultures for what they believe. What they are saying, in effect, is that these African cultures were Marxist before Marx was. Interesting concept.

The present head of the New Black Panthers is one Malik "Zulu" Shabazz. He was born Paris Lewis, but I reckon that didn't sound militantly Muslim enough for him, hence the new moniker. He went to Howard University and got a law degree, was strongly influenced by Louis Farrakhan, and claimed that meeting Farrakhan "changed my life." Oh, I'll just bet it did!

Shabazz has some rather novel views. He thinks all black prisoners in this country should be freed as they could not possibly have gotten fair trials in such a "racist" country. Back in 2002, Shabazz noted his "solidarity" with the former H. Rap Brown (also sporting a new Muslim name). Mr. Brown was eventually convicted of killing a black sheriff's deputy in Georgia. Wonder if they considered that a "hate crime" or just plain murder? Shabazz also falls all over himself to support Mumia Abu Jamal, another convicted cop-killer. He seems to have an odd affinity for people that shoot policemen. Of course we all know that these cop-killers Shabazz so ardently supports are all innocent, pure as the driven snow, because, after all, they were tried in "racist" courts. And this is what's going to be patrolling the steeets in Jena, Louisiana? Folks better hide their daughters and put their pets in the garage!

It would seem that Jena, Louisiana is now to be made the new "civil rights" guinea pig. As such it will be subjected to whatever the Leftist civil rights crowd and our "Justic Department" in Washington can get away with. This will continue until the town's residents are not so subtly "persuaded" to confess their "racism". Then, they can be made to sit on "stools of everlasting repentance" for the rest of their natural lives, while, via sensitivity training and other devices, their hometown is slowly turned into something none of them will even recognize in five years.

As we go along, I as well as many others, begin to wonder about this whole "racist" concept. It rather seems that the people who push it the strongest are among the most ethnocentric people on the face of the planet. Maybe they need to begin to recognize that, whatever supposedly constitutes "racism" they are every bit as guilty as the rest of the human race. However, for them to do that, they would need to admit they are just as sinful and needful of the salvation of Jesus Christ as the rest of us. Wonder what it'll take to make that happen--nothing short of Divine intervention.

Interestingly enough, black author Thomas Sowell labeled the whole Jena scene as "mindless tribalism." Tribalism it was, but at its leadership levels, it was far from mindless. It was Marxism in action!!!

THE RACE CARD IS GETTING SICKENING

2007-10-15T07:26:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Literally for decades now, I've been hearing about how bad "white racism" is. To listen to some people you would think it is responsible for everything from constipation to the latest crop failures in India. In fact, to listen to some of these people you would think that white racism is the one unforgivable sin and that no other sins really mattered. You can be an adulterer--several of those that complain the loudest about white racism have been--but that's excusable just as long as you continue to denounce "white racism." The racist (for that's what they really are) shouters remind me of the 19th century abolitionists in this country. To them, slavery was the only sin worth mentioning. You could be a murderer or a terrorist (as was abolitionist John Brown), but that was all right as long as you were murdering people to protest the "sin" of slavery. All was acceptable. Black racists (yes, Virginia, they exist too), Muslim racists, Latin American racists, and all other manner of racists get to rant about the cardinal sin of "white racism" as they struggle to steal the moral high ground, thus climbing out of the racial morass they have been wallowing around in.

Years ago at O. J. Simpson's "trial" for the murder of his wife, his lawyer cleverly play the race card and O. J. got to walk. It seems that, every time some black man gets arrested for some horrible crime that white racism is the cause of it. One black may have murdered or robbed another black, but "white racism" is really the culprit. Let a new property tax levee somewhere for government schools get turned down and its the fault of "white racism." Illiegal aliens from Mexico, one in awhile, do get caught and shipped back to Mexico (not to worry, they'll be back for another try) and that's the fault of white racism.

That's basically the tack that former Mexican president Vicente Fox recently took. Fox recently said that the United States is letting racism dictate its policies in regard to immigration. He said "The xenophobics, the racists, those who feel they are a superior race...they are deciding the future of this nation." Dare I say it, but the future of this nation is none of Fox's business. But, not to be stopped, he continued: "To be so repressive isn't democratic or free...to be putting up fences, chasing Mexicans, that isn't right." Pardon me, Mr. Fox, but if those Mexicans are here illegally, there is not one whit of wrong involved in chasing them back into Mexico, or putting up a border fence to help keep them in Mexico, though I seriously doubt the politicians in this country will ever allow much of the fence to be built.

If the Mexican government would try to work out policies to give Mexicans decent work in their own country, maybe some of them would stay there. That fact that they won't be bothered doing that shows they really have no regard for their own people and they want the U.S. to take care of them. And we realize that, with the innate corruption in Mexico as a way of life, waiting for them to take responsibility for their own people just isn't going to happen. Much easier to accuse us of "white racism" than it is to assume personal responsibility themselves.

And, a question for Mr. Fox and friends,--what about those extreme Left-wingers from Mexico and other points south that comprize such organizations as La Raza (the race)? Any racism in these groups Mr. Fox? Oh no, of course not, none of them are racist because they aren't white and we all know that no other race has any racist problems except whites. Why, if you're white you are automatically a racist, but if you belong to any other race, why everyone just knows that you never had a racist thought in your entire life--all has been sweetness and light! This is the way the game is played by these shameless hypocrites. It's a pile of bovine fertilizer and they all know it. What they hope is that you don't know it. Supposedly, by making white folks feel ashamed of being white they can feel proud of whatever race they belong to. The problem is that if you have to tear someone else down to life yourself up, then maybe you don't have as much to offer as you think you do. They would do well to consider that aspect.

I've had black friends over the years, as well as friends of other races. Often we have sat and talked of the War of Northern Aggression, slavery, and other "touchy" issues. However, it was done in a Christian manner, with Christian charity on both sides, and no one got mad or called names if someone else didn't totally agree with him. If you want someone to respect you, then treat them with respect too--but then, mutual respect is not part of the agenda for these racist hypocrites--seeking to create more racial animosity is part of the agenda.

And, as far as ex-president Fox in Mexico is concerned, allegations have arisen about "illicit wealth." It seems a magazine down there published photos of his newly renovated ranch. Fox claimed that this was nothing but "yellow journalism." So maybe it helps Fox in this instance to attempt to sound "moral" by accusing us Americans of "white racism." It may take a little of the heat off him at home. As I said earlier--shameless hypocrites--and racist hypocrites at that. A classic example of the pot calling the kettle black. Condemn others, elevate yourself--it's a classic Marxist tactic.

DO WE REALLY NEED GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS? NOT HARDLY!

2007-10-07T19:29:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

We have been told for decades now that the public or government school system is a dire necessity so that the country's children can be properly educated, so they may learn to read, write, and all the rest. Although if you look at the failing public school test scores you might conclude that the program is a gigantic bust. But then the teachers' unions will pop us, like a pop-up add on your computer and tell you that "all we need is more money so we can provide a quality education." (And more, and more, and more). Most of us have heard that old saw for years now. Yet, having observed the public education scene for over three decades now, I am forced to admit that the more money we toss down the government school rathole the dumber our kids seem to get. Ask kids in some school districts who George Washington was and they will tell you they think he was a linebacker for the New Orleans Saints. Many of them can't find Texas on a map of the United States, and anything that happened before the advent of the Beatles is a complete mystery to them.

Back in the early 1980s Samuel Blumenfeld wrote an illuminating book called Is Public Education Necessary? Mr. Blumenfeld contended it wasn't, and I agree with him. He checked out the literacy rates back in the country's early days and found out that, without public schools, they were higher than they are now with public schools. In his book , on page 20, he noted: "Prof. Lawrence Cremin, in his study on colonial education, estimated that, based on the evidence of signatures on deeds, wills, militia rolls, and voting rosters, adult male literacy in the American colonies ran from 70 to 100 percent. It was this high literacy rate that, indeed, made the American Revolution possible."

Other sources, even without deliberate intention, undergird this contention. Author Benson Bobrick, in his interesting book on the American War for Independence, Angel in the Whirlwind
noted on pages 46 and 47 that: "The literacy rate in America was extrodinarily high. Although there was no public education system as such, almost every community had a church or parish school..." And on page 49 he observed: "The broad literacy and political involvement of the people in their democratic institutions helped turn the average American into a kind of citizen-lawyer." And I recall hearing a speech years ago by a man that told us the Federalist Papers were written so the farmers in upper New York state would understand what was taking place regarding the debates on ratification of the Constitution. To most folks today, trying to read the Federalist Papers is like trying to read Chinese, yet in those days the farmers in New York could understand what they said quite well. What does that tell us about our "educational" level today? All this points to the fact that this country did very well in regard to education without a government school system. Note Bobrick's comments about each community having a church or parish school. That meant that the Christian church has, at that point, upheld its responsibility to educate and enlighten the population, and this fact of local Christian education was what initially brought the government schools into existence--they were a reaction against Christian education.

The people that initially started government schools in this country were Unitarians like Horace Mann who disbelieved in the divinity of Jesus Christ, and they were encouraged and supported by socialists like Robert Owen. Both the Unitarians and the socialists realized that if they could just get true Christianity out of the educational curriculum without people realizing it, then they could substitute their own theology for it. That's right, I said theology. For, at heart, all education is theological and either promotes a Christian worldview or some other worldview far less desirable.

Dr. Wilson L. Thompson, in his lecture entitled Revolution Through Routinization noted that: "The socialists saw the public school as their tool to reform American character and to establish a socialist society. But religious conservatives were conned into believing public education was a viable means of maintaining Protestant supremacy over a huge influx of Catholic immigrants. But, Catholics established their own parochial schools, leaving Protestants mired in secular schools." But, then, that's exactly where the Unitarians and socialists wanted them. Dr. Thompson also noted: "Harvard's Unitarian elite soon moved to adopt the Prussian model of state-controlled education, and they ultimately included its compulsory school attendance laws." They wanted a captive audience.

Samuel Blumenfeld noted that the Unitarians viewed state-controlled education as the only way to solve the problem of evil. They really thought that compulsory government schools would eventually do away with evil, poverty, and crime and create the perfect man--the new "Soviet man" if you will. So the Unitarians viewed compulsory public education as the world's messiah. After all, who needs Jesus Christ for salvation when you have such a magnificent government school system, capable of curing all the ills of the world? Why just "educate" the kiddies properly and you can dump all those outmoded ideas about man's original sin and his need of salvation only through Jesus Christ and you can create the new perfect man by tinkering with his environment. Sounds just wonderful. The only problem is, it doesn't work--never has, never will. If it was working the way they told us it would and should then why did we have situations like the one in Columbine a few years ago? Oh, the public school system is an excellent vehicle for the promotion of socialist propaganda. It has been that since day one! The government school system is not a system of education it is a system of indoctrination. True education doesn't even begin to enter the picture. Since when have Unitarians, socialists, and today's secular humanists ever been interested in truth? The agenda is the name of the game, not education.

Those people that say "If we could just get the public schools back to where they were when we went to them we'd be okay" don't begin to get the big picture, nor do they begin to understand the real function of public education (if such it can be called). The government school system has been a vehicle for socialist propaganda and anti-Christian theology since its inception. Pray tell, in that case, what do you "reform" it back to? If the tree bears bad fruit it needs to be cut down, not just have a few branches trimmed off.

So if the literacy rate was better before we were "blessed" with a public school system, then why do we need one? Let education be returned to the private sphere. It functioned better there anyway, because, for the most part, it was education and not propaganda.

It is worth remembering that the tenth plank of Marx's Communist Manifesto was "free education for all children in public schools." The alternative to this is to do away with compulsory attendance laws. Then let Christian education flourish--classical Christian schools, homeschooling, regular Christian schools, however you want to do it. But get government at all levels out, completely out of the education business.

MEXICO THINKS IT'S THE WORLD

2007-09-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

If the United States were ruled by sane and moral people instead of the One World crew in Washington, recent comments by the Mexican president Felipe Calderon would have been thoroughly repudiated. But, since sanity, reason, and morality do not exist in Sodom on the Potomac, our so-called "leaders" will say nothing in reply to Calderon's blatant hypocrisy and outright meddling in our national affairs. Our "leadership" has become as "dumb dogs" when it comes to defending our people and our country from illegal immigration. Oh, a few photo op "raids" are made to give the illusion that the federals are really doing something about the problem, but its mostly a dog and pony show. After all, our leaders wouldn't want to really do anything that might offend the illegals--they might vote to give them the vote someday, whether they are legal or not. And if our own citizens who seek justice are offended, well, hey, who really cares anyway? All they're good for is to foot the tax bill so our beneficient government can have money for illegal alien social security payments and other goodies. The only place in the country that seems to have taken any meaningful steps in regard to illegal aliens is Oklahoma.

Felipe Calderon recently gave his state of the union address in Mexico in which he said: "I have said that Mexico does not stop at its border, that wherever there is a Mexican there is Mexico." I suppose the implication there is that, wherever in the world Mexicans happen to find themselves, that place belongs to them and not to the country of their residence. If that is indeed their mindset, would they then only consider themselves bound by the laws of Mexico and not by the laws of wherever they happen to be? There just might be a few countries that would have a problem with that mindset. Obviously the federal government in this country has no problem with it, or if they do they don't dare speak up lest they offend the Mexicans! I wonder now Calderon would feel if an American politician told him that wherever a U. S. citizen is anywhere, that that place becomes the United States. He'd probably howl and scream until the hot place froze over.

Calderon has griped about the U. S. government's "increased raids on illegal employers of illegal alien employees and work site enforcement." In other words he sits down in Mexico City and has the crust to tell us what we should be doing in our own country. Imagine his reaction if we did the same thing regarding illegal U.S. citizens in Mexico!

Lou Dobbs has written: "Calderon, like his predecessors, Carlos Salinas and Vicente Fox, has failed miserably to establish policies that would create jobs for the Mexican people and to eliminate shameful unchecked corruption and incompetence in the Mexican government." After all, establishing responsible policies that might aid your own people is darn hard work. It's a lot easier to just have them enter the United States illegally for work and then scream and rant with righteous indignation if the U.S. tries to defend itself from the illegal onslaught. Just let 'em come sneaking across the border--then they become our problem and Mexico doesn't have to try to deal with them.

I remember, years ago, reading a book by Blair Coan entitled "The Red Web." It was originally written back in the 1920, and in it the author said: "Mexico is today, was yesterday, and will be tomorrow the most fertile incubator of bolshevik revolution on the American continent." From what I have seen, I can't disagree with that assessment. Coan mentioned the "...general condition of petty graft and open robbery in a place where the apostles and disciples of bolshevism and communism hold sway..." Certainly that describes Mexico to a T! The country is famous for "la mordida" (the bite) that many officials at all levels take as part of their due.

I remember the first time I went to Mexico. We crossed the border from Laredo, Texas to Nuevo Laredo. On the American side of the border, the border officials were neat and courteous. Once we hit the Mexican side it was a whole other world. The individual that sauntered out to check us in wore a uniform that looked as if it hadn't been washed since Noah's flood. He had an ivory-handled automatic pistol stuck in his belt (all the better to intimidate you with) and he was not particularly courteous for friendly. He pawed through our possesions, left the mess for us to straighten out, and then tried to charge us for the privilege of having turned all our things upside down. The fellow I was with refused to pay, sensibly, and told the Mexican "My good man, we are not about to pay you for doing something you are already getting paid to do." The Mexican border official shrugged, turned and walked away. At least he had tried to extort a little something from us. If he couldn't get it from us he'd probably try to charge the next Americans he dealt with double. That seems to be a way of life with Mexican officians--extort what you can when you can. Typical for Marxist Mexico!

It seems unlikely if, anytime, soon, we will end up with moral people in Washington. Although the majority of our citizens are fed up with this whole illegal immigration game and how our government is handling it, the politicians, unless threatened with being ousted from office, will pay no attention to us that is meaningful. Many of them really want the illegals to have the vote (illegally) so they can play to that new voting bloc and remain in office. As I said earlier, the rest of us don't matter to them. Were just here to pay for all this insanity and, dare I use the word--treason?

Did Lincoln Hate Southern Christianity?

2006-10-29T20:33:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr. Over the years many have been "treated" to various books dealing with the stalwart Christian faith of Abraham Lincoln. We even have some preachers on television telling us what a wonderful Christian man he was. Some of these folks have done really good work in other areas, for which I applaud them, but they seem to have a real blind spot when it comes to Lincoln and his supposed Christianity. Even the home school movement has books out there parading Lincoln's supposed Christian faith for all to see. These folks should know better! In the face of all this evangelical Lincolnian hoopla we have the words of one of Mr. Lincoln's closest associates, Ward Lamon. Mr. Lamon wrote a book about the life of Lincoln back in 1872 and in that book he made a few rather blunt statements about Lincoln's supposed faith. Lamon wrote: "Mr. Lincoln was never a member of any church, nor did he believe in the divinity of Christ, or the inspiration of the Scriptures in the sense understood by evangelical Christians." This is right from the horse's mouth, as it were. Lamon continued: "When a boy he showed no sign of that piety which his biographers ascribe to his manhood. When he went to church at all, he want to mock, and came away to mimic." And one more little gem, which we can consider, with Lamon, as coming from a primary source: "When he (Lincoln) came to New Salem, he consorted with Freethinkers, joined with them in deriding the gospel story of Jesus, read Volney and Paine, and then wrote a deliberate and labored essay, wherein he reached conclusions similar to theirs. The essay was burned, but he never regretted or denied its composition." So we must conclude, from the words of one of those closest to Mr. Lincoln, that he was hardly the stalwart Christian he has been turned into via literary legerdemain. Since the South had been, to one degree or another, undergoing somewhat of a religious revival since the 1830s, one might be led to wonder if Mr. Lincoln bore some latent hatred for that part of the country based upon his own personal non-Christian convictions. Did he look at a part of the country that was in the process of undergoing Christian revival and then decide that this was anathema according to his own unbelieving world view--something he needed to help do away with? Although he never explicitly said such, you do have to wonder. His view of government was hardly in keeping with scriptural views--he was in favor of large, centralized government, as opposed to the decentralized and localized government he saw in the South with the Southern concept of the rights of the individual states. I just can't help but wonder if Lincoln's theological views contributed to his desire to get and keep the South under his thumb. Just a little food for future thought.

The Marxist/Lincolnist Revolution of 1861

2005-11-11T19:56:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Over the years I have mentioned, in many articles, the connections between what went on in Europe in 1848 and what went on in America from 1861-65. A few of these are probably still out there on various Internet sites.

Many have looked askance, or down their noses, at my research and contentions. It has never occurred to them that 1848 in Europe could ever have anything to do with 1861 in the United States. That thinking is way outside the box for them and most would just as soon stay inside the box. They are comfortable in there discussing battles, generals, strategies, personalities, etc. They don't wish to go where I have been. Or, as one homeschooling mom once said to me when I brought up the subject of the sainted Mr. Lincoln: "I'm a great fan of Abraham Lincoln. I don't want to go there with you." She didn't. Thankfully, others have been willing to make the trip, not because of anything I said or did, but on their own, because they sought the truth.

John J. Dwyer, in his excellent new history book "The War Between the States--America's Uncivil War" has made the connections. He has duly noted: "What became the single overarching revolution of 1848 failed in all eighteen places where it broke out. But the ideas spawned would survive to define the century that followed...America's conflict of 1861-65 in rarely considered in this context, at least by Americans. An awareness of it is critical in grasping the key philosophical principles at stake in the struggle between what became the Northern and Southern governments. Just as European theology, fashions and culture influenced 19th century America, particularly the North, so did European political theory. The tens of thousands of Europeans who participated in the 1848 revolutions and them immigrated to America (again, especially the North) accelerated this influence...The revolutionaries of 1848 faced an America with three different cultures, economies, and religious bases. They determined to remove those differences by a series of political manuevers." And, in many instances, their instrument for removing those differences was "The Communist Manifesto."

We might, indeed should, ask how close Lincoln and then the Radical Reconstructionist crowd after him came to implementing Marxist goals in the United States. So let's take a brief look at what Marx advocated for the overthrow of a country and see how close Lincoln & Associates approximated it.

Marx advocated the elimination of private property. The radicals advocated mandatory property taxes, to be determined by and payable to the government, or else the "owner's" property is duly "confiscated" (stolen). Does that one sound vaguely familiar to anyone today?

Marx sought a progressive, "graducated income tax." Mr. Lincoln gave us the Internal Revenue Service in 1862 and we are still "doubly blessed" with that institution today.

Marx wanted state control of banking. During the war years we got the Federal Banking Act. And Marx also sought state-controlled currency. Lincoln's administration gave us the National Banking Act in 1863. Mr. Marx wanted state-controlled labor, and today we have federal wage controls.

The Marxists advocated state-controlled agriculture. The Southern Redistrubution Act redistrubuted much property in the South into collectives. Much more was taken for the construction of "public" educational facilities (indoctrination centers). Naturally, all of this property was under the control of Yankee carpetbaggers.

And then, the crowning achievement--state controlled education. Marx sought "free education for all children in public schools." The Morrill Land Grant Act, passed during Mr. Lincoln's tenure in office authorized federal aid to established, government-controlled colleges. Naturally, with such aid came the attached strings--federal government regulations. And today, we in the South, as well as in the rest of the country, suffer with the illegitimate child of "Reconstruction" the government school system, which works overtime teaching the South's children to be ashamed of their history and heritage and what their ancestors fought for.

In light of all this, just ask yourself how identical were the goals of Marx and Lincoln and his radical followers. Go back and read the list again. I may be a bit dense, but I can't seem to find any major differences between Marxism and Lincolnism, but then, that's just me.

Ask yourself how many of these little Marxist/Lincolnist treats we all live with today, even under our supposedly "conservative" administration. Maybe we have already become the Marxist/Lincolnist States of Amerika and don't even realize it. But, then, as they say "the brainwashed never wonder" especially if they were "educated" in a government school!

SECESSION !!! Part 2

2005-10-30T08:16:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

When the Southern states seceded they did so in a very orderly fashion. According to Clarence Carson's "A Basic History of the United States--Volume 3": "The procedure for secession was to have an election for delegates to a state convention, to meet in convention, and to adopt ordinances of secession. This was done in accord with the Southern understanding of what would be in keeping with the United States Constitution. It had, after all, been ratified by states acting through conventions. Could they not 'un-ratify' it--secede from the Union--in the same fashion?" Although Carson did not address the question, we know from sources previously mentioned that some Northern states had taken an identical position earlier in the 19th century.

In 1803, St. George Tucker, professor of law at the University of William and Mary had recorded some of the ratification statements for the state of Virginia in "Blackstone's Commentaries With Notes of Reference To The Constitution And Laws Of The Federal Government Of The United States and Of The Commonwealth of Virginia." Some of the ratification language for the state of Virginia is as follows: "We the delegates of the people of Virginia declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whenever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression..." I submit if that is not a clear statement of the right of secession, then no one has ever heard one. And their ratification ordinances were accepted with that language included in them.

Based upon what we have seen to this point, the right of secession was never clearly in doubt in this country until the South seceded in 1860-61. At that point, what some Northern states had threatened to do three times prior suddenly became illegal and immoral in the eyes of many Northern politicians, particularly those that had a major interest in promoting and raising the tariffs.

According to columnist Joe Sobran: "...even many Northerners agreed that a sovereign state had the right to withdraw from the Union. A large body of people in the North were willing to accept a peaceful separation from the South. Lincoln had thousands arrested without trial for expressing such views, including several Maryland legislators who, while remaining in the Union, opposed using force to keep other states from seceding." So, many ordinary Northern folks did not have a major problem with the South leaving the Union, but certain creatures of a political nature did. The fact that earlier would-be secessionists had been Yankees was carefully swept under the historical rug. It's about time we lifted the rug up!

How about getting the double standard of one set of rules for the North and another set of rules for the South out in the open?

Whether you agree with the timing of the Southern states' secession or not is another matter. Even Alexander Stephens, vice-president of the Confederate States of America, didn't totally agree with the timing. He though the South should have waited until she had exhausted all possible legal remedies, yet in the final analysis, he remained loyal to his native state when she seceded. Timing wasn't, and isn't, the real point.

Serious consideration needs to be given, again, and again, to the fact that the states, any states, did have the right to secede, and that some states in both regions of the country had moved in that direction at one time or another.

In light of our history, the Southern position on secession is much more sound than current "historians" or should we call them "hysterians" would have us believe--and therein lies much food for thought.

And, as an afterthought, there is currently a group in Vermont that has met, and issued papers dealing with Vermont's possible secession from the Union, so the North is at it again. Let's stay tuned and find out what happens up there.

SECESSION !!!

2005-10-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

Is the Right to Secede Historically Defensible? by Al Benson Jr. MANY have argued over whether the Southern states had the right to secede from the Union before the War of Northern Aggression. Some have myopically taken the position of "once in the Union always in the Union." Others, with a better grasp of historical context have said that if the states that ratified the Constitution had not had the right to secede they never would have entered the Union to begin with. Most "historians" (and I use that term loosely) today take the standard Unionist position that the states never had secession rights and they studiously bury any opposing viewpoints as deep beneath everyone's notice as possible. The rights of individual states to secede from the Union is something they would rather you did not dwell on too much--might get people to thinking, you know, and they can't have that! So what about the right of a state or states to secede from the Union as was the case in 1860-61? For starters, let us go back to the Declaration of Independence. Look at the opening sentence. It states: "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them to another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal status to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitles them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." What is being addressed here but secession? This is not my opinion alone. Others much more astute than I have voiced such thoughts also. In the book "Liberty, Order and Justice" by James McClellan (Center for Judicial Studies, Washington, D.C.) the author, on page 65, in referring to the colonists states: "...they turned in the final stages of resistance to thoughts about the nature of free government. In the end, they came reluctantly to the conclusion that secession was their only recourse." Remember, McClellan was writing about 1776, not 1861. He clearly labels what the colonists did in regard to Great Britain as secession. Far be it from me to disagree with him on that point! In effect, the thirteen colonies seceded from Great Britain. If secession was wrong, we should still be a British colony, at least according to some people. Some sources have stated that, after the Constitutional Convention, several of the states balked at the idea of a strong central government. According to a booklet published by the Women for Constitutional Government in August of 1991, seven states included the right of secession in their acts of ratification. Four of these states were New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Hardly the heart of Dixie! Some researchers have discovered that, apparently, from our earlies days, Northern folks thought that secession was clearly legan and constitutional. The question has been raised--and I think it is a valid one--would these states have knowingly gotten themselves into a "union" they could not withdraw from under any circumstances? Given the predisposition of the American mindset toward liberty at that point in history, I think such a proposition is patently absurd. Secession was often on the minds of those in our early days who did not hail from the South. In his book "Reconstruction During the Civil War In The United States of America" (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1895), Eben Greenough Scott observed: "How little weight must be given to the professions of loyalty to the Union by either section may be estimated from the fact that, down to the Civil War of 1861, there had rarely been a time when the danger of dissolution, at the hands of one side or the other, was not threatening the Union." That secession was a Northern sentiment every bit as much or more than a Southern one was dealt with by Scott when he said: "Nor, as the public utterances and private correspondence of New England leaders disclose, was their reason or propriety in the threats of dissolution of the general Union, and the formation of a particular one, embracing the New England states only, merely because of the rampant Federalism of the locality had met with a rebuff. The conduct of New England during the Embargo and the War of 1812 has ever since then received such unsparing condemnation, that merely to mention it is to reoopen a mortifying chapter of our history..." In other words, via the Hartford Convention and other related instances, some Northern states were contemplating secession. It would seem that in 1813 & 14 they felt secession was right and proper. How, then, did it become so wrong in 1861? To be continued in Part Two

The South

2005-09-17T15:09:00.000-07:00

by Daniel Benson

A history student went to the South
Learned about the red and the gray
Had to learn it by word of mouth
'Cause no school would tell it that way

Understood some of what he was told
Listened carefully to each soul
Realized the truth never gets old
Decided learning wasn't a toll

Wished the truth would come out
And pledged to teach it by word of mouth
Realized this fight would be a big bout
For each one who will listen and will not pout

As they really learn what went on in the South
Told lies in each school they attended
Yet, taught only by word of mouth
A lie was mended.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE AND SPIRITUALISM

2005-09-03T20:44:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

The Holy Scriptures warn in many places against the Lord's people having anything to do with fortune tellers, astrologers, and those who seek to communicate with the dead. Leviticus 19:31, 20:16, and Deuteronomy 18:11 record some of these warnings. People that profess a belief in the Bible and the Christian faith are warned to avoid these activities as they would the plague. Deuteronomy 18:12 states: "For all that do these things are an abomination to the Lord:..." The truth presented in Scripture is that all who seek to deal in these forbidden areas, all who seek to converse with the dead, are, in reality, influenced by what they do come into contact with. And what they come into contact with is not really deceased friends or dear old Uncle Louie, but something infinitely more demonic.

We hear much today about satanic activity and increased occult incidents, as if those were something that had, somehow, just sprung up in the last decade or so. In truth, activities in these realms have gone on for thousands of years, else the Lord would not have issued the prohibitions He did in the Old Testament Scriptures.

Even in this country such activities are not new. Many well known personalities in our history have been caught up in these forbidden practices. Aside from the Lincolns, one of the most well-known during the 19th century was Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of that infamous abolitionist propaganda piece "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Harriet, along with her prominent brother, Henry Ward Beecher, were two of the children of Rev. Lyman Beecher, a mostly orthodox Calvinist preacher that did, in some instances, struggle with the biblical doctrine of election. Although orthodox in most areas, Lyman Beecher's departure in this critical area into the "New School" concept of free will was a costly error for his family.

In time, just about all of his children departed from his mostly Calvinist faith, some to slide into outright apostasy. Henry Ward Beecher, for all his vaunted reputation as an orator and preacher of national importance, tossed aside sound biblical doctrines throughout his life as if he were discarding old, used overcoats. Finally, near the end of his days, he was, for all practical purposes, a Unitarian in spirit if not in name.

And then there was Harriet Beecher Stowe's departures into spiritualism. This initually started, according to Milton Rugoff, in his book "The Beechers" in 1843, when Harriet visited her brother, Henry and his wife. Henry started "mesmerizing" (hypnotising) Harriet, an experience that is described on page 267 of Rugoff's book. According to Rugoff, Harriet was convinced that she "had been brought to the verge of the spirit land." This particular session so frightened Henry's wife that she would not even stay in the same room where it occurred. It must have been a real beaut! Harriet later consorted with at least two other hypnotists and became intrigued with the concept as a way of communication with the spirit world--something she should have had nothing to do with according to biblical prohibitions. She, like brother Henry, had departed from her father's faith, and the further she got away the more bizarre her activities became.

By 1851 she was writing installments of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." That propaganda piece was so well touted that, within a few years, Abraham Lincoln, when meeting Harriet personally, referred to her as "the little lady that started the big war."

At this point I feel I should pose a question. If Harriet persisted in her experiments in the spirit world (and we know she was heavily into this in later years) then, to just what extent did this kind of activity influence what she wrote in "Uncle Tom's Cabin"? I believe it is worth raising the question as to just what influences may have been present when Harriet wrote. Where did some of the ideas she expressed come from? Were they really hers? Or was there some other source? Has she opened herself up to become some sort of "transmission belt" for something in the spirit world? Harriet did write other books, but this one was easily her most influential.

Harriet's son, Henry, (probably named for her brother) drowned in the Connecticut River on July 9, 1857. This threw Harriet into a depression that lasted for months. Note the paralell of a lost son with Mrs. Lincoln. Harriet was concerned about her son's eternal destination, as she was unsure of his relationship with God when he died. To ease her feelings, Harriet resorted to spiritualism in an attempt to contact her dead son. According to Rugoff, other family members were also into this sort of thing. Even Harriet's husband, Calvin Stowe, also had "visions" and said he often saw his dead first wife.

Had Harriet and her family not abandoned sound biblical teaching they probably would not have gotten involved in all this to begin with. In an article written for a newspaper after her son's death, Harriet sought to connect spirtualism with biblical miracles--another grave error on her part.

For all his problems with election vs. free will, old Lyman Beecher would never have coutenanced his childrens' slide into apostasy, yet, unwittingly, he had helped sow the seeds himself when he embraced "free will" over biblical truth.

You may be tempted to look at all this and say "So what"? If so, try viewing our history from a Christian perspective (something they didn't teach you in school). Ask yourself "What has apostasy had to do with the decline of America in the past 150 years? The biblical answer is "much in every way."

People such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher had a tremendous influence on the direction this country, particularly in the North, took during the middle-to-late 1800s. Ideas do have consequences. If these people and others we could name, were indeed, traveling the road to apostasy, even if they did not realize it, what sort of influence did this trend have on the country, and particularly on the Northern attitudes before and during the War of Northern Aggression?

Years ago, a friend, Pastor Ennio Cugini, of the Clayville Church in Rhode Island, told me that all of America's problems, in one form or another, could be traced back to the root cause of apostasy. At that time, I don't think I fully grasped all that his statement implied. By God's grace, I have learned a little since then. At this point in our history, viewing what has gone on and is now transpiring, I have to agree with Pastor Cugini. He had it all figured out long before most people even thought about it.

If this country was begun, both from Plymouth and Jamestown, with Christian foundations, heritage and history, and people have willingly departed from that, can we honestly expect anything but problems and tribulation? God said "This is the way, walk ye in it." We have not done so. Like those shallow thinkers who should "God bless America" do we expect a sovereign God to bless disobedience? If so, then we are even dumber than the Communists give us credit for being.

If this country were to return to its biblical, Reformation roots in repentance, seeking God's forgiveness, we might have a chance. Nothing less will suffice. The Bible reveals the truth about the human condition apart from Jesus Christ. Let us begin to give heed to that truth, that whatever actions we take might be undertaken with the undergirding power and authority of God's Word. Deo Vindice!

SPIRITUALISM AND THE LINCOLNS

2005-08-30T21:04:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Back during those ancient times when Ronald Reagan was president the news media worked itself up into a frenzy over the revelation that Nancy Reagan had consulted an astrologer. The "news" media picked up the story and ran with it because there were still some "useful idiots" in the media that really believed Reagan was a conservative instead of an actor and they saw this story as their chance to get their licks in at a "conservative." Christians and conservatives were, in the main, not really happy about the revelation. It was, after all, their lack of discernment that helped put Reagan in the White House, and they proceeded to compound their error with George (read my lips, no new taxes) Bush in the next election. They have since triply compounded their error with George 2 (twice now)!!!

We also had rumors of St. Hilary's "conversations" with Eleanor Roosevelt (two left-wing harridans conversing "in the spirit" as it were. At least in some spirit). But the media didn't jump on that nearly as much as they did on Mrs. Reagan's revelation. However, for those who take the trouble to read history, such goings-on are really nothing new in our political history.

Mary Todd Lincoln had problems in the same area, which most contemporary "historians" either feign ignorance about or will not mention. As more evidence comes to light, we are also becoming more aware that old "Honest Abe" himself was somewhat "challenged" in this area.

According to several sources, Mrs. Lincoln was emotionally unstable at times. When her son, Willie, died, she struggled with that loss for several years and got to the point where she started visiting spiritualists in a futile effort to "contact" her dead son.

In his book "Abraham Lincoln," Benjamin P. Thomas records a friend of the Lincolns writing the following: "Mrs. Lincoln told me that she had been, the night before... out to Georgetown to see a Mrs. Laury, a spirtualist and she had made wonderful revelations to her about her little son Willie...Among other things she revealed that the cabinet were all enemies of the president, working for themselves, and that they would have to be dismissed and other called to his aid before he had success." Subsequent historical events would tend to make you wonder where Mrs. Laury got some of her information! Another writer made brief reference when he wrote: "The loss of the idolized Willie deeply disturbed her and she refused to enter the rooms in which he had died and been embalmed. She even held at least one seance in the White House to try to make contact with his departed soul." There were alot more than one!

The "Civil War Times Illustrated" magazine published an article in August of 1976 by Peggy Robbins entitled "The Lincolns and Spiritualism." Robbins confirmed the fact that spiritualism began to gain a foothold in the United States in 1848--the same year that the socialist revolts swept Europe--revolts that Mr. Lincoln was strongly in favor of! That was also the year that the "Women's Rights" movement held its convention in Seneca Falls, New York. All coincidence?

Robbins reported that during 1862, Mrs. Lincoln was involved with a number of mediums, some of whom were just out and out fakes. Historians have disagreed as to whether Lincoln, himself, believed in spiritualism, because, pragmatic politician that he was, he never gave anyone that inquired into his beliefs on this matter any kind of a straight answer. However, some indications have begun to surface that indicate Lincoln may have believed in spiritualism more than he cared to admit.

Charles M. Robinson III in his book "Shark of the Confederacy" which is a narrative of the history of the CSS Alabama, noted the following: "According to Carl Sandburg, the president went so far as to host a seance, partly in jest, in which he asked the spirit world how to catch the Confederate raider. Welles, (Secretary of the Navy) was present, along with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and a reported for the 'Boston Gazette'..." According to Mr. Robinson, Lincoln really believed in spirtualism more than he cared to divulge openly. One can hardly picture political luminaries such as Gideon Welles and Edwin Stanton attending seances "in jest." Stanton, who was a master intriguer, doesn't seem to have had much time for fun and games unless they were at the expense of his political enemies.

In 1861 Mr. Lincoln did listen to a "lengthy dissertation on spiritualism" given by none other than Robert Dale Owen the socialist. This is the very same Robert Dale Owen that later gave the ultra-radical Thaddeus Stevens so much input into the drafting of the infamous 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Peggy Robbins listed Owen as a "distinguished author." In all that I've read about Mr. Owen, all that I can find to distinguish him is his committment to the promotion of socialism and other radical causes, many of which today are espoused by the political Left. Owen does seem to have had contact with the movers and shakers in Washington, and he had a strong committment to statist government control of the education process. One might be more than mildly curious as to how much influence Owen's socialism had on the administration in Washington.

Robbins noted that there is ample proof that Lincoln attended a number of seances but she says that: "...it may be he did so not as a beliver but as a detached observer, there to look after his emotionally distraught wife." Robbins noted that Lincoln did have a strong curiousity regarding the supernatural because he tended toward superstition and "...had long been subject to dreams, visions, and premonitions."

One spiritualist the Lincolns received at the White House was a Lord Colchester. It seems he was allowed to hold several seances on the premises. It was reported, though, that Colchester's reputation was somewhat suspect, and a friend of the Lincolns, Noah Brooks, suggested to his rather bluntly, that he pack up his dog and pony show and move on to less controversial pastures.

During the latter part of 1862, Mrs. Lincoln attended several seances held by a Nettie Colburn. In order to keep Miss Colburn close to Washington, Mrs. Lincoln managed to get her a position in the Interior Department. Ahh, the blessings of patronage! Colburn held a seance in the White House in December of 1862.

Robbins noted in her article that: "Famous psychic investigator A. Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, termed this, the first of a number of meetings between Nettie Colburn and President Lincoln, 'one of the most important events in the history of spiritualism'."

Robbins, along with Charles Robinson, also observed that one seance held in the White House in April of 1863, was attended by Secretary of War Stanton and Secretary of the Navy Welles. It seems that some of these sessions were reported in the newspapers, but, oddly enough, Lincoln was never criticized for them.

We need to reflect a bit at this point. If Abraham Lincoln were a Christian, as some, even in the home school movement, have alleged over the years, why would he have allowed either his wife or himself to be drawn into such activity? One can most certainly sympathize with Mrs. Lincoln over the loss of a son, as one can sympathize with any mother over such a horrendous loss. We must wonder, though, if Mr. Lincoln were the Bible-believing Christian some have tried to convice us he was, would he not have sought some sort of biblical counsel and comfort for his wife, rather than allowing her to indulge in Scripturally forbidden spiritualism, and then going along for the ride, or worse, himself?

This is being written to attempt to reinforce the truth that our problems in this country began a lot earlier than most people want to admit. It proves that this country, having abandoned its Reformation foundations, had widely turned to apostasy by the time of the War of Northern Aggression, which ended up being the real American Revolution--our French Revolution--if you will. Religious apostasy was rampant, mostly in the North, from the highest eschelons to the lowest stations in society. Many have questioned, and I think properly, whether we really ever turned from this apostasy, in spite of all the so-called "revivals" since the end of that war. In my humble opinion, we have not. In many instances we have taken that apostasy one step further and secularized it in the form of a plethora of federal programs in areas the feds have no business whatever being in. Federal centralization and collectivism is a result of that apostasy. Until we do turn from it and return to the Triune God of the Scriptures this country will continue its downward spiral.

Bibliography

Abraham Lincoln--A Biography
by Benjamin P. Thomas
Alfred A. Knopf, New York, copyright 1952

The Lincolns and Spiritualism
by Peggy Robbins
Civil War Times Illustrated
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, August 1976

Shark of the Confederacy
by Charles M. Robinson III
Leo Cooper, London, copyright 1995

Lincoln and The Emperors
by A. R. Tyrner-Tyraner
Harcort, Brace & World Inc. New York, copyright 1962

Lincoln's Herndon--A Biography
by David Herbert Donald
Alfred A. Knopf, copyright 1948

Mary Todd Lincoln--Her Life and Letters
by Justin Turner & Linda Levitt Turner
Fromm International Publishing Corp. New York, copyright 1972

THE REVOLUTIONARY AS REPORTER

2005-07-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Due to the encroaching religious apostasy in the United States, the years of the 1830s and 40s were notable, in that many experiments in socialist and communal living were instituted. Many who have read some history have heard of Robert Owen's failed socialist experiment in New Harmony, Indiana--the one Abe Lincoln thought so highly of. Or they may have heard about the religious socialism of groups like the Shakers, and how that eventually died out. Of all the socialist experiments in communal living tried in the U.S. virtually none have made a success of it. As all socialism eventually does, these efforts failed unless someone from the outside financed them and kept them afloat--much like this country today finances other socialist nations with "foreign aid" to keep them afloat. Barring such financial transfusions from the outside, such socialist entities usually fall on their collectivist faces in rather short order.

Brook Farm was no exception. According to the "Encyclopedia Britannica--eleventh edition (1910, Brook Farm was "the name applied to a tract of land in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, on which, in 1841-47 a communistic experiment was unsuccessfully tried. The experiment was one of the practical manifestations of the spirit of transcendentalism in New England..." I'd be willing to bet current editions of encyclopedias wouldn't be honest enough to label Brook Farm as a "communistic experiment"! To some degree, the Transcendentalists were somewhat the 19th century forerunners of what today passes for the "New Age" movement.

While Brook Farm was experimenting with its socialist fantisies, one of the projects there was the publication of a weekly journal called "The Harbinger." This left-of-center journal was quite the publication. Among those luminaries that wrote for it were George Ripley and Charles A. Dana, although it took occasional contributions from James Russel Lowell, John Greenleaf Whittier, Unitarian clergyman Thomas Wentworth Higginson (of Secret Six fame) and utopian socialist Horace Greeley. Socialism, it seems, had captured the minds of the elite among the elite. Such behaviour is usually the result of religious apostasy.

At this point it is interesting to note that both Horace Greeley and Charles Dana had connections with this left-leaning journalistic undertaking. Again, our "history" books, if such they can be called, have failed to mention to socialism of Greeley, or the pivotal role of Dana in events having to do with the War of Northern Aggression.

After Brook Farm folded, Dana joined the staff of the "New York Tribune" Greeley's paper. In 1848 Dana traveled to Europe to cover a news event there. Three guesses as to what that event was! In that year he wrote letters to the "Tribune" and other papers covering the socialist revolts in Europe in which Karl Marx played a prominent part. One might wonder, had he a suspicious mind, who Mr. Dana made contact with while he was sojourning in Europe and covering the revolution there. Perhaps the title of the old movie "Don't Start the Revolution Without Me" could have applied to Mr. Dana. At any rate, Dana returned to the United States in 1849 and was made managing editor of the "Tribune" just under Greeley.

It was Dana that, in 1851, two short years later, formally engaged the services of one Karl Marx as a regular contributor to the pages of the "Tribune." Coincidence? Of course, it had to be, seeing that we all know there are no such thing as leftwing conspiracies, only rightwing ones, that is, if you believe the likes of St. Hilary, who is quite busy positioning herself for a run at the presidency in 2008.

In his capacity as managing editor, Dana used the newspaper to promote the radical abolitionist cause. So what else is new?

However, in 1862, Dana and Greeley came to a parting of the ways. Like most socialists, they couldn't really get along with each other over the long haul. Dana, being younger, wanted rapid changes, while Greeley, being older, was content to take a more Fabian approach in order to secure revolution.

No sooner were Dana's connections with the "Tribune" severed that Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, always quick to spot the potential of a revolutionary, snapped him up and made him a "Special Investigating Agent" for the War Department. It would appear that Dana was quite useful to Stanton. Even Father Abraham called him "the eyes of the administration." Dana spent much time at the front and he reported to Stanton on the methods and capabilities of different generals. Dana urged that Grant be placed in supreme command of all Union armies in the field. Dana was also Assistant Secretary of War in 1864-65. He was involved in other journalistic activities later in life and was a writer of some renown. However, his strong socialist leanings before the War of Northern Aggression are mostly what concern us. His hiring of Karl Marx to write for Greeley's newspaper in 1851 does make you wonder just what contacts he had while in Europe in 1848. Was the home-grown socialist revolutionary masquerading as a reporter while in Europe to give the "party faithful" the latest input on the situation in Europe so they would know how to react in the United States???

Dana's strong desire to see Grant placed in supreme command reminds me that Friedrich Engels, Marx's cohort, also felt much more secure about the North being able to prevail in the struggle once Grant was placed in command. With my suspicious mind, it makes me wonder what these men knew about Ulysses S. Grant that the "history" books have not seen fit to reveal to us common folks. Dana also had a very high opinion of the military ability of the Grand Arsonist of Georgia, William Tecumseh Sherman. And we are all well aware of what wonders Sherman's "scorched earth" policy accomplished in Georgia. Little known is the fact that some of the 1848 revolutionaries from Europe that had fled to America and become generals in Mr. Lincoln's armies were on Sherman's staff. Another little tidbit the "history" books conveniently forgot to mention!

Dana's background from Brook Farm on, leaves no doubt that he was a radical revolutionary, just the sort to support the Union cause in the War. I have noted in other articles that many of these European radicals and revolutionaries seemed to end up in high positions, either in the Union army, in the admistration of Lincoln, or in some kind of comfortable office after the War. It seems that, in many cases, socialist revolution pays its adherents well. All this should begin to make us aware of how early our country was subverted and taken over by the enemies of Christ and the reformed Christian faith. In the final analysis, that's what it is all about. Apostasy from the Christian faith has its secular rewards, and in our day we are reaping those "rewards." A noted Communist once said that much of the "patriotism" of the 20th century would really be communism. Due to the insidious nature of apostasy, he was correct.

THAT BAKER BOY

2005-07-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

The War of Northern Aggression and the transformation of the United States from a confederation of sovereign states into a socialist democracy brought to the fore many "interesting" characters.

One of the most "interesting" specimens ever to slither out from under the collectivist Yankee rock was Lafayette C. Baker. Steward Sifakis in "Who Was Who in the Civil War" described Baker as "A thoroughly unsavory character..." And Sifakis continued in that vein, noting, of Baker that he "remained that way for the duration and after." Not exactly a glowing tribute to Mr. Baker's integrity! But, then, Baker seems to have been another of those typical Yankees for whom anything goes if it gets him what he wants. For Baker, mental Marxist that he was, the end truly justified the means. He seems to have had some connections with both Secretary of War Seward and Secretary of War Stanton, which might just lead one to wonder about their integrity also. Baker ended up becoming a special agent of the Provost's branch of the War Department, charged with rooting out corruption anywhere he found it in the Union war effort. Sifakis noted that, of the corruption he was charged with rooting out "he was not of strong enough character to refrain from engaging in it himself."

In order for him to have enough authority to root out all that corruption (while engaging in it himself) he was given a military rank, first as a colonel, and later as a brigadier general, though he rarely commanded any troops. During the war years he was chief of the military Secret Service.

Nathaniel Weyl in "The Battle Against Disloyalty" had described the U. S. War Department thusly: "In the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, the United States War Department bore some traces of resemblance to the Soviet Secret Police. Its leaders were zealots who believed that if the ends didn't justify the means, nothing else could. Wherever possible, the operated in secrecy, through military rather than civilian courts. Guilt by association became a fundamental axiom; perjury was richly rewarded;..." Thus was the situation under the command of Edwin McMasters Stanton, who many have believed over the years, had a hand in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Baker had a rather checkered past. As head of the military Secret Service, he had, in the past, been a vigilante in California in the 1850s. Weyl has noted that in early days he was an itinerent mechanic. Sifakis has added to that: " Born in New York, he appears to have lived in Michigan, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco during his prewar years. Some of his occupations included claim jumping and vigilantism." Interesting that, as a vigilante, he would have gone after some of the people that made their living as he had made his, claim jumping. But then that may be a pretty good way to get rid of the competition.

During his tenure in Washington during and after the war, he used the same methods he had used successfully in California. Weyl noted of him that: "In Washingon he used the same methods that had proved so successful in his vigilante days, disregarding due process of law, habeas corpus, or any of the other constitutional frills that normally prevent the imprisonment of Americans at the whim of the military. For the next three years, Baker led a life of frenzied activity, pouncing on spies, bounty jumpers, conspirators, counterfeiters, and speculators, making arrests personally where possible and in the process accumulating a small fortune." Weyl's comments support those of Sifakis, who noted that Mr. Baker just couldn't seem to keep his hands out of the cookie jar while he sliced off the hands of others doing the same thing. Weyl has described him, again, agreeing with Sifakis, as: "An enormously vain and unscrupulous person, Baker was also a congenital liar, intriguer, and twister." Just the right sort of person for Mr. Stanton's War Department, as Stanton, himself, had somewhat of a reputation along those lines.

Weyl also noted that: "Baker was part of the powerful personal machine that War Secretary Edwin M. Stanton had created. As soon as Booth's bullet struck down Lincoln, Stanton became the controlling power of government." And that's what the assassination was really all about--who was to wield the power in Washington--Lincoln, the king of political patronage, or Stanton and the radical abolitionist Republicans. Baker was the perfect foil for Stanton--and if both Baker and Stanton were not openly Marxists, then they were philosophical "kissin' cousins."

In his penchant for self-promotion, Baker, at one point, wrote a book "History of the United States Secret Service." Sifakis has noted that the work is interesting for the portrait it paints of Baker's personality, but otherwise, is just isn't all that reliable. Baker passed from this life in 1868. There are those that say he was murdered to keep him quiet.

There are also those that say that Baker's men did not kill the real John Wilkes Booth after Lincoln's assassination, but that the man they really killed was a Booth look-alike, Captain James William Boyd, a former Confederate agent who worked for the War Department and, although he was older, bore quite a resemblance to Booth. But, then, I guess that is another story.

SOCIALIST INFLUENCE IN THE ELECTION OF 1860

2005-06-23T07:43:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

I have previously noted the socialist (and communist) support Mr. Lincoln received from many Forty-Eighter socialists from Europe during the War of Northern Aggression. Many of these European socialists joined Lincoln's army and became generals, as well as officers of other ranks. I have also commented about the socialist support in Europe that Lincoln received and how much he was admired by Karl Marx.

In keeping with my contention that socialism was alive and well in this country long before most people are willing to admit that it was, I felt that a brief look at Lincoln's election in 1860 would be helpful. Lincoln received the support of socialists even before the war started. The socialists saw something in Lincoln's "cause" they could identify with.

Although many Germans in 1860 had favored Seward, they gladly switched over to Lincoln once he had endorsed a homestead law and an anti-nativist "Dutch Plank" for the Republican Party platform. The "Dutch Plank" for the Republican Party platform was written by none other than Forty-Eighter socialist Carl Schurz, who was a member of the Republican Platform Committee. It is worth noting here that the almost baby-new Republican Party already had, in 1860, socialists helping to write the party's platform.

Schurz, in his autobiography, alluded to this, although somewhat modestly, as if he did not want people to grasp his full involvement. Schurz wrote: "I was appointed a member of the Committee on Resolutions that had to draw up the Republican platfor, and in that committee was permitted to write a paragraph concerning the naturalization laws so that the Republican Party be washed clean of the taint of Knownothingism...I also took part in formulating the anti-slavery declarations of the platform..."

There were many Germans in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri, and Lincoln, although professing to be a "reluctant" candidate, was very conscious of the German vote. Pragmatic politician that he was, Lincoln purchased the German language newspaper "Illinois Staatsanzeiger." He bought the whole thing, lock, stock, and barrel, press included. I find it quite amusing that Lincoln is so often portrayed in the "history" (hystery) books as the poor, humble, hayseed politician, just trying to make his way in the world as a country lawyer. Obviously if he could afford to purchase a newspaper he was not quite as poor as we have been led to believe.

As the campaign of 1860 continued the Republicans even got hold of German orators to stress the importance of "German issues" in the campaign. As we observe these tactics and see what goes on in our elections today, we must be tempted to see the truth of the statement in the Book of Proverbs which says that the thing that has been is that which shall be and there is nothing new under the sun.

Forty-Eighters other than Schurz supported and worked for Lincoln. Edward Solomon did, and he ended up becoming governor of Wisconsin in 1862. Sigmund Kaufman, yet another Forty-Eighter, was also a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1860. We might well speculate on how many other delegates were socialists that we don't know about yet.

Other Forty-Eighters and socialists that supported Lincoln were writer Casper Butts, journalists Friedrich Kapp and Gustave Struve. Although some of these men did not get into combat as did the socialist generals in the Union armies, they supported Lincoln and the war effort on the journalistic front. The efforts of these men and their support for Lincoln and his centralizing policies have borne bitter fruit for the country even down to our own day. Unfortunately, in our day, we are forced to live with the results of their actions.

HENRY CLAY'S "AMERICAN (Socialist) SYSTEM"

2005-06-22T19:29:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Awhile back, I reprinted an article from "The Free Market" in the hardcopy version of The Copperhead Chronicle dealing with the socialism of Henry Clay and how Clay's socialism had beena shining example for pragmatic politicians of the stripe of "Honest Abe."

Recently, establishment historian Robert V. Remini wrote a book entitled "Henry Clay Statesman for the Union." Remini went into some detail in describing what Henry Clay euphemistically called his "American System." Remini's remarks were quite revelatory and he seemed genuinely enthused regarding Clay's agenda and mindset. So what else is new with establishment historians?

Of Clay, Remini said: "The idea of the (American) system had been in his mind for years. In numerous speeches he had discussed several of its parts. Now he grasped the unity of his program as a unique expression of what needed to be done by the government to benefit Americans in all sections and among all classes and economic endeavors. It was a vision of progress, a bold reformulation of the relationship between government and society." Let us be a little more blunt than Remini was and state it a little more plainly. Henry Clay planned to take civil government into areas it had no business being in. He had a socialistic view of what government should be "doing" for people. It was the 19th century version of "I'm from Washington and I'm here to help you."

No doubt it sounded noble to the naive--a beneficient federal government reaching down, in spite of the sovereignty of state governments, to "help" the common man. Such unmitigated hogwash even gives the liberals and do-gooders of today goose bumps! We've now had the Feds doing this for more years than any of us have been alive, and look where it has gotten us. Anytime Washington "helps" someone it is the kiss of death. Whether consciously, or otherwise, their "help" always seems to mean further redistribution of someone else's wealth (Marxism).

But Remini has taken us even further. He has informed us that..."Clay's American System was intended to strengthen the bonds that tied the nation together into a single whole. It was intened to ensure the perpetuity of a united country." With a statement like that from his biographer, my guess is that no one would ever label Mr. Clay a rank secessionist! He was 110% pro-nationalist, pro-Union, and pro-socialist--all the way (like several American presidents we are all too familiar with).

Remini mentioned that a big part of Clay's program was internal improvements, in other words, the federal government does in and for the states (certain states) what they should be doing for themselves. Naturally some states, mostly in the Northern half of the country, would get a few more "internal improvements" than did most of the Southern states. But, hey, the Southern states got to participate in Clay's program too--they got to help pay for it!

Clay stated: "All the powers of this government should be interpreted in reference to its first, its best, its greatest object, the Union of these states." In other words, Clay felt the main object of the federal government was not to follow its constitutional limitations and guidelines, but rather to perpetuate the Union at any cost. In 1861, one of Mr. Clay's greatest and most ardent admirers called for 75,000 troops to invade the South, under the guise of "preserving the Union." How much of a leap was it from that to Bill Clinton having our planes bomb the daylights out of Kosovo because we had a "moral imperative" to do so, or to George Bush invading Iraq "to spread democracy" in the Middle East. I submit the distance between them is not all that great.

I have noted, for years, that socialism was alive and well in this country since before the middle of the 19th century. We had Robert Owen and his socialist experiment in New Harmony, Indiana in 1829 and we had Henry Clay with his vision of a unified socialist "nation" even before that. And yet unthinking conservatives still try to tell us that all our problems started with FDR 110 years later! Boys, wake up and smell the coffee! This country has been in the throes of some kind of socialism since the 1820s--NOT the 1920s--the 1820s, and its high time we woke up long enough to smell the decay!

A resurgent Confederate Movement, if it is Christian, might hold some hope for the future, but probably not the immediate future--and if Confederate and Southern Heritage folks don't begin to get their kids out of the government schools that might not happen either. Barring this hope, and a genuine spiritual revival, the near future for this country looks rather bleak. Either way, God will build His kingdom. The question is--will this country be a part of the building, or will it, like so many others, end up on the ash heap of history?

LINCOLN'S SOCIALIST LEGIONS

2005-06-13T07:13:00.000-07:00

(Yankees and Socialists--Birds of a Feather

by Al Benson Jr.

During the War of Northern Aggression it has been reported that over 180,000 Germans fought in the Union armies. This number was buttressed by thousands of Austrians, Hungarians, Poles, Czechs and Irish. The majority of these were probably honest, hardworking people, yet the question must be asked--with a population of around 22 million in the North as opposed to 9 million in the South--why did the North have so many foreign troops in her armies?

Francis Springer, in his book "War for What?" puts the number even higher. He has noted: "It seems strange that the North, with such vast human resources, should find it necessary to resort to recruiting men abroad. The 1860 census shows 4,100,000 foreign born in this country, mostly located in the North, but there were 500,000 men in the Northern army of foreign birth, or 90,000 more than 10% of the foreign population, indicating that 90,000 Northern soldiers, and probably more, were recruited abroad."

Author William Burton, in his book "Melting Pot Soldiers" deals with the foreign soldiers in the Yankee armies. He quotes a correspondent for the "London Daily Telegraph" as stating that the foreign soldiers in the Union armies has scant use for the abolitionists and their "holy crusade". German immigrant Valentin Bechler, according to Burton, told his wife "I wish all abolitionists were in Hell."

One of the most carefully concealed facts over the decades about Mr. Lincoln's armies is that he had an amazing number of European socialists under uniform during the War. Only recently has information regarding this started to surface. Up until a few years ago it was one of the most studiously ignored facts and aspects of the War. Establishment "historians" (or maybe we should label them "hysterians" in their messianic quest to give us the "correct" spin on the War and the reasons for it just knew in their hearts that we didn't need this kind of information, so they labored mightily to make sure we were not exposed to it.

It has been reported that as many as 5,000 European socialists and communists from the failed 1848 socialist revolts in Europe served in the Union armies in one place or another. Some sources have placed that number closer to 10,000. After these socialists failed in their revolutionary aims in Europe in 1848-49, many came to America. A good portion of them felt that what they had failed to do in Europe in 48 and 49 might just be accomplished here in America during the War of Northern Aggression. In "Forty-Eighters In The Union Armies" it has been stated: "The failure of their revolutionary hopes in Europe did not prevent them from taking up arms again in 1861 to defend the very principles they had fought for in 1848 and 1849; union, freedom, and democracy." Please go back and reread that last quote. Let it sink in.

These European socialists viewed the War of Northern Aggression as an extension of their socialist hopes for Europe. If you consider that fact, the entire scope and reason for that War, from the Yankee perspective, takes on a whole new meaning. No longer was it a struggle to "preserve the Union" as given to us by the Founding Fathers, rather it was a struggle to preserve and extend the influence of European socialism in America. Author William Burton has revealed that August (von) Willich, the "Communist with a heart" "...was not reluctant to lecture his soldiers on the virtues of socialism." If we have a record of this one instance of that being done, one wonders how many other places it occurred that have gone unreported.

One amazing thing about these European socialists and communists is how many of them managed to end up with high-ranking positions in the Union armies. I will list a few here so you get the idea.

Franz Sigel--Major General

Carl Schurz--Major General

August (von)Willich--Major General

Sandor (Alexander) Asboth--Brigadier General on Fremont's staff

August Becker--called "Red" Becker (on account of his political leanings?)--Chaplain for the 8th New York

Ludwig (Louis) Blenker--Brigadier General of volunteers

Isidor Busch--Captain of Fremont's staff

Johann Fiala--Lt. Colonel and topographical engineer on Fremont's staff

Scores of other socialists and communists could be listed if space permitted, but I think you begin to get the idea. The ethnic and ideological makeup of Mr. Lincoln's army has yet to be fully exposed.

If we are to begin to try to understand the War from a Yankee perspective, we must, at all costs, take the strong socialist influence exerted on Mr. Lincoln's army into consideration.

The fact that so many European socialists and communists looked upon Mr. Lincoln's War of Aggression as an extension of their own aggressive aspirations and political desires should begin to speak volumes about the true nature of the Union cause--no matter what the "Hystery" books tell us. Mr. Lincoln was known to be friendly to the cause of socialism. Establishment historian James McPherson has admitted that Mr. Lincoln championed the cause of the leaders of the 48 revolts in Europe. In 1848 he was all in favor of secession (for the socialists in Europe) but in 1860 he was adamantly opposed to it for Christian Southerners. That fact, alone, should give you some indication as to where Mr. Lincoln was really coming from and it should help to explain why, in 1861, the socialists flocked to own his "holy cause."

A BRIEF LOOK AT CARL SCHURZ

2005-05-31T19:16:00.000-07:00

Socialist Revolutionary, Yankee General, Secretary of the Interior (Socialism Pays in Yankeeland)

by Al Benson Jr.

Many who study the history of the 19th century have heard of Carl Schurz. To most others the name will be meaningless. However, Schurz was quite active and influential in the country's history in the 19th century. You might almost say he was one of the "historians'" best kept secrets.

Carl Schurz was one of Abe Lincoln's socialist generals during the War of Northern Aggression. Honest historians (a rare breed of animal) will admit that there were many socialists in Mr. Lincoln's armies. As we have pointed out in the past, socialists seemed rather attracted to Mr. Lincoln's cause of "preserving the Union." That the price for such a "preservation" was the ever-increasing power of a strong central government at the expense of the rights of the states bothered them not at all. Lincoln, had, after all, championed their cause in Europe in 1848, so they could do no less for him in the 1860s.

Schurz has been called "a refugee from the European uprisings in 1848." The author of that quote did not bother to tell his readers that the "political uprisings" in Europe at that time were mostly socialist revolts. Yet another author labeled Schurz as "the charismatic refugee from Prussian militarism." Note how these authors totally ignore the socialistic aspects of what happened in Europe in 1848. You aren't supposed to know that socialists and communists were involved.

Schurz was attending the University of Bonn when he became immersed in the 1848 socialist upheavals. When those revolts ultimately failed Schurz fled the country (Germany) after having been a lieutenant in the anti-government "militia." He went first to Switzerland, later to England, and then to France, which country expelled him as a "dangerous foreigner." He then returned to England, later to come to America in 1852.

Schurz ended up in the midwest, where his first notable political activity was to support the radical abolitionist John C. Fremont in his presidential asperations in 1856. By 1858 he was campaigning for Lincoln. As a reward for his services to Mr. Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election he was appointed as Minister to Spain in 1861. He returned from Europe in 1862, at which time he was appointed a brigadier general in Lincoln's army.

Schurz, like many other forty-eighter socialist refugees, did not always agree with his more conservative German brethren. In typical socialist fashion, the forty-eighters were noted for the ultra-liberal, leftist political views and for their hostility toward organized religion. Many were anti-Christian "freethinkers." Like many other socialists, Schurz survived the War. Later he served a term in the Senate and then became Secretary of the Interior in the Hayes Administration.

Carl Schurz is just one example of how European socialists seemed to arrive in this country, almost broke, and then ended up in all sorts of important military and political situations. One would think that, in the supposed "land of the free" any form of socialism or collectivism would be a natural impediment. Rather, it seems that socialism turns out to be an advantage--at least since the advent of the Lincoln Administration.

I wonder how many of our government schooled students have ever been told that a former Secretary of the Interior was a European socialist. Not many I'll wager. Most people, even the patriotic ones, have no concept of how active a part European socialists took in our military and government in the mid-to-late 19th century. Socialist influence has been exerted on this country for a lot longer than most people would like to think about. Americans need to go back and reread their history with much more of a critical eye than they have heretofore. Socialism pays in America--thanks to the efforts of Honest Abe and most of those that followed him.

Children and Competition

2005-02-04T19:18:00.000-08:00

by Daniel Benson

This year a government school district in Lincoln, Rhode Island had decided to eliminate the district's annual spelling bee, which involved students in grades 4 through 8. The school administrator said she did this because she felt the spelling bee ran afoul of the federal mandates of the "No Child Left Behind" act. She felt it was about one student winning, while the others got left behind, and she was concerned with student "self-esteem."

Here we see something that bothers me. This year we will no longer be able to know which students excel above and beyond the others, for they (the school system) now believes in making mindless drones that can no longer think for themselves, but act, dress, and talk in a certain way. We will no longer have anyone from that school district who can possibly become anyone who will be great in our society, as they are snuffing out any chance that these kids feel they can excel over others.

No more student athletes, no more honor roll, no more contest plays, or anything else that might make one student feel they were not good enough. So where does this take our future in this country, if every government school ends up doing just this to our kids? How many of us will sit back and let this happen as our kids are taught to be no better or different than the next person?

I was taught to be the best I could be, to excel in whatever studies I could, and was happy to do so--but now the government schools will teach someone like me to be just like Johnny sitting in the corner--dunce cap and all. They felt the spelling bee didn't help students to reach a higher goal, but I simply ask--how do they know what the goal is if there is nothing for them to try to reach?

They say they want all kids to have a high level of self-esteem so that they can go anywhere they wish, but then give them nothing to say "that is where I want to be"--no way to challenge them so they build confidence, strength, and the ability to think in every situation. That is now in the process of being taken away from them.

Parents in that school district now seem surprised and unsure about the decision that was reached, but the school district said they had no problem deciding. This makes me wonder where our next generation is headed. I would simply ask that we take our kids' lives seriously and try to do the best for them seriously, and that we reconsider the option of sending them to the state so they can make slaves of their minds. Consider, instead, the possibility of educating your kids at home, so they grow up not only strong, but also with minds of their own, so they can think on their own, and, Lord willing, act of their own when the need arises. God never intended for us to be "left behind" nor did He intend for us to be slaves to a school system that will not help our kids to become something great when the potential is there.

AMERICA'S PROBLEM WITH APOSTASY--Part 4

2004-12-25T10:49:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

In 1860 your average Southerner did not have, by far, the same world view as his Northern counterpart. He was, thanks to sound preaching in Southern pulpits, extremely doubtful of the "goodness" of human nature. He believed in the sovereignty of God and the sinfulness and depravity of man. He knew enough of man's fallen nature to realize that secular political solutions would not solve the problems of that day, or of any other day. Southern Christians sat up and took notice when Northern Unitarian clergyman Theodore Parker echoed the sentiments of many of his Northern brethren that each man was his own Christ and that true faith was independent of Biblical revelation. As if that wasn't bad enough, Southern Christians reeled in shock when Unitarian minister Ralph Waldo Emerson stated that when abolitionist/terrorist John Brown was hanged he would "Make the gallows as the Cross." The rank apostasy in these statements and sentiments from the North made most astute Southerners aware that what they were up against was more than a political adversary. They were, ultimately, up against a force that sought to gut their Christian faith as it had gutted the Christian faith in the North decades earlier.

Francis Butler Simkins in "A History Of The South" noted many of the problems between churches that surfaced after the War of Northern Aggression was over and that shameful pogram called "Reconstruction" had begun. The various Southern denominations ended up having many of the same problems that were evident in the political realm.

Simkins wrote that: "To Southerners the attitude of Northern churchmen toward the problems of Reconstruction seemed to promote the bitterest feelings. Northern churchmen reasoned that since slavery and Southern nationalism had brought about the organization of separate churches, the destruction of these causes by the war would effect immediate ecclesiastical reunion. Most Northern churchmen insisted that the expected reconciliation must take place under terms stipulated by the 'loyal' or Northern churches; that the Negro must come under 'loyal' church direction; that ex-Confederate 'sinners' must confess the enomity of their crimes before they could again be received in Christian fellowship. In other words, they demanded that the same destruction, reordering, and rebuilding that Lee's surrender had necessitated in the field of government must take place in the sphere of religion."

Such attitudes among Northern churchmen display the effect that apostasy had had in the Northern churches for decades. There was this Yankee determination to dominate, to force everyone to yield to their position as the only right position--a sort of "be reasonable--do it MY way" attitude. We might note the paralell of this mindset among the New England Unitarians, who were going to make sure all the children in their states were mandated to be educated their way.

The attitude of Northern churchmen that they were coming South to eradicate the barbarism and theological darkness of that region did not sit too well with Southern folks. Simkins noted that: "An Alabamian expressed the opinion of most white Southerners when he said 'Perhaps the greatest liars and most malignant slanderers that the North has spewed out upon the South since the close of the war, are the reverend blackguards that have been sent among us as ministers of religion."

Simkins observed that a tendency toward reunion among the Presbyterians was countered by "Northern insolence." Thereafter, the Southern Presbyterians got together to form a stronger Southern church. And Southern Methodists also rejected Northern overtures at unity because they felt that the Northern Methodists had gotten to be 'incurably radical' and were involving themselves too much in politics. Let's face it--the Southerners were right. Due to the influences of apostasy in the North, many churchmen had become increasingly radical. Even those who did not openly partake of the heady "new" doctrines of the Unitarians were somewhat influenced by them in their attitudes.

And now the Unitarian-influenced Northern clergymen came south as Simkins noted: "Teacher-missionaries came South imbued with the idea that education would dispel the 'ignorance and barbarism' that allegedly enveloped the region, elevate the Negro to the white man's level, and perhaps apply the historic mission of the American common schools of ironing out class distinctions...President Thomas Hill of Harvard spoke of the 'new work of spreading knowledge and intellectual culture over the regions that sat in darkness'." Simkins, along with many others, tells us that the government school system--a real fruit of Northern apostasy--was brought south as part of the Yankee's "Reconstruction" program, and that it stayed on.

We can also see, in the attitudes of some of the Yankee schoolteachers in the South, the seeds of the social gospel. Simkins has noted that one teacher said "We are convinced that plenty to eat would harmonize and Christianize them faster than hymns and sermons; and that needle and thread and soap and decent clothing were the best educators and would civilize them sooner than book learning."

Certainly no sane person should have any problem with ministering to the physical needs of others, but doing this alone, with no adequate Christian instruction somewhere along the line will never "Christianize" most people, black or white.

The whole attitude of Northern preachers that they were going to minister in a land "that sat in darkness" was indicative of a mentality that had been tainted with apostasy. While the fathers of many of these same men were being influenced by the strange doctrines of Unitarianism and Transcendentalism, the South had undergone a religious revival that had cemented that region of the country firmly in place as the center of orthodox and Reformed Christianity in North Americal.

"Reconstruction" finally ended in 1877, but within a few short years of that time the South ended up encountering major problems with new doctrines that it has yet, to this day, to fully begin to deal with.

But that is another story.

AMERICA'S PROBLEMS WITH APOSTASY--Part 3

2004-12-10T10:06:00.000-08:00

by Al Benson Jr.

The late Professor C. Gregg Singer, professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary has noted in his book "A Theological Interpretation of American History" that "...to reduce secession and the war to economic factors and to overlook the intellectual and theological forces at work, is to seriously misread the records of the era from 1850 to 1860. The admission that economic factors were at work does not involve the denial that, other, and equally important forces were having a tremendous influence in the sequence of events which would ultimately lead to secession and to war. After 1830 there was a growing philosophical and theological cleavage between the North and the South. While the North was becoming increasingly subject to radical influences, the South was growing increasingly conservative in its outlook."

Frank Conner, in his excellent book "The South Under Seige--1830-2000" has drawn much the same conclusion. He has told us that "The key to understanding the current predicament in the South lies in grasping the very nature of the 19th century abolition movement--as it was shaped by the American Transcendentalists. They manipulated that movement for the purposes of waging an ideological war against the Christian South. The war of liberal North against conservative South began in the 1830s; and it continues unabated to this day." Mr. Conner's statement is most definitely worth further reflection. The cultural (and thereby religious) war against the South is not I REPEAT, NOT OVER.

Mr. Conner, in dealing with many of the Northern clergymen observed that: "The ex-Congregationalist ministers and their followers who constituted Transcendentalism were contentions descendants of the contentious Puritans. They had ranged far and wide in search of a doctrine that would satisfy them, and ultimately they adopted radical social reform--enforced by an all-powerful government--as the best of all possible goals." Frank Conner is here describing Northern (mostly New England) apostasy. These men, having consciously deserted the Scriptural truths held by their fathers, had constituted themselves as apostates and in the place of truth they had substituted another doctrine, "another gospel" if you will--unchecked government power to force all men to do what was "right and good" for them. And naturally, the apostates were going to be the ones who got to decide what was right and good for all the rest.

The late M. E. Bradford, Professor of English at the University of Dallas, wrote an informative article for the 1991 fourth quarter issue of "Southern Partisan" magazine dealing with the theological issues in regard to secession by the Southern states. He quoted Virginia theologian William Hall, who had said, in regard to his associates in the Confederate army: "We are permitted to vindicate the supremacy of Jehovah's word and the purity of His government." Bradford told us that Hall deplored "...the dispositon of Northern clergy to divinize human nature and to glorify human reason."

AMERICA'S PROBLEM WITH APOSTASY--Part 2

2004-10-08T10:05:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

You can not say what the Unitarians were doing was totally unknown to people. By 1805 the Unitarians had taken over Harvard College in what has been called "the most important intellectual event in American history--at least from the standpoint of education." Samuel Blumenfeld in his book "Is Public Education Necessary?" has observed that: "Harvard became the Unitarian Vatican, so to speak, dispensing a religious and secular liberalism that was to have profound and enduring effects on the evolution of American cultural, moral, and social values. It was, in effect, the beginning of the long journey to the secular humanist world view that now dominates American culture...It made Harvard not only the seat of liberalism but also, by nesessity, the seat of anti-Calvinism."

In my own booklet "The Original Gurus Of The Public School Movement" published in 1999, I noted that: "Many writers in both this century and the last have sought to protray early New England Calvinism as something about two steps removed from an ond Frankenstein movie. They seem to go out of their way to picture Calvinism, or Reformed Christianity, and its adherents as mean-spirited, vicious, lacking in compassion, and the list goes on. Undoubtedly there may have been Calvinists like this, just as there have been such people in all doctrinal persuastions under Heaven. Was there never a vicious or mean-spirited Unitarian or Arminian? Are all liberal theologians fuzzy and warm-hearted? Hardly! Every religious group has members that are less than happy or easy to get along with. There seems to have been, for the past 150 years or so, an over-riding effort to dwell on the 'sins' of Calvinism, while conveniently overlooking those same shortcomings in other groups." Such an attitude is one of the fruits of apostasy.

Turner, in "Without God, Without Creed" noted that some of the problems were within the churches themselves. He stated that: "The church played a major role in softening up belief. Theologians had been too unwilling to allow God to be incomprehensible, too insistent on bringing Him within the compass of mundane human knowledge, too anxious to link belief with science, too insensitive to noncognitive ways of approaching reality--too forgetful, in short, of much of their own traditions as they tried to make God up-to-date...One might say that most theologians had lost faith long before any Victorian agnostics."

In other words, much of the theological leadership, most especially in the North, had come to embrace the heady doctrines of what is called "the wisdom of the world." They were going to "explain" God, first to themselves, and then to the rest of the population, completely in terms of human understanding. And what could not be totally understood and rationalized by them became, to them, superstition, mysticism, the stuff of legends, not to be trusted, because if their "great minds" could not comprehend it and accept it, then it must not have been real.

The Apostle Paul, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (1:20) asked "Where is the wise? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world." Paul went on to state that the world, by wisdom, did not know God and that therefore it pleased God by "the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe," But, the Northern theological elite, whose grandparents had once believed in the "foolishness of preaching" for salvation no longer believed. They had Holy Scripture for their guide and then apostatized and sought a more "relevant" faith. Pastor Steve Wilkins of Monroe, Louisiana has said that "The apostate is the chief of fools because he ceases to fear the Lord. God said this is what happened to Israel (Jeremiah 2:19).

To be continued.

AMERICA'S PROBLEM WITH APOSTASY Part One

2004-10-04T17:57:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Apostasy is a falling away, a willful departure from the truth, a revolt against the truth. It is not a new problem in God's Israel, the church. It has been around since the beginning. The Old Testament is full of accounts of Israel turning away from the one true God and chasing after the "gods" of the nations around them, no doubt in a desire to be like those nations. Being "different" is such a drag don't you know.

In Acts 20 Paul talks to the elders in the church at Ephesus and tells them (vs. 29, 30): "For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." It would seem from the context that Paul is talking about people who had believed the truth, embraced it, and then consciously walked away from it, embracing some "new gospel" and not only that, the sought to drag other believers along with them that they also might attach themselves to the "new" teaching.

Although this revolt from God's truth has been prevalent through the ages, we have had major problems with it in this country and it has been the cause of many of our country's problems over the years, including the War of Northern Aggression.

Home-grown apostasy probably started in this country in the 1700s in New England. Some preachers there preached against Unitarianism in the late 1700s. Jedidiah Morse, in Charlestown, Massachusetts preached against "the infidel Deist and the rationalizing Unitarian." Others, including Timothy Dwight of Yale did the same thing. But even some of those that resisted apostasy in New England had, to some degree, swallowed some of it themselves without realizing it. James Turner in his book "Without God, Without Creed" has noted that "Even while damning Deists, church leaders swallowed the Deist conception of a natural-law God. Even while lauding the converted heart, they abosorbed the maxim that belief in God rests on intellectual assent to a demonstrable proposition. Even while preaching the blood of the Lamb, they devoured the Enlightenment's moralism and its God bound by human morality...The Enlightenment's animating principle in religion was to tie belief in God securely to the kind of clear, rational, tangible realities evident in the world as observed. What could not be so rooted (grace, spiritual communion, mysterious doctrines) either faded away or drifted into supernatural disassociation from ordinary reality." In other words, men had reached a point in their supposed intellectual growth where they were not willing to let God be God if they could not understand exactly how He did everything, as if, in some way, He owed them an explanation.

By the 1830s apostasy had grown rampant in New England. Turner noted that "Lyman Beecher's admonition that the republic's survival depended on 'well instructed' citizens echoed in Horace Mann, Henry Barnard, and scores of other school reformers, especially after the great influx of Irish immigrants began in the 1840s...Public schools consequently received wide support from Protestant ministers--and bitter resistance from Catholic clergy, resentful of Protestant flavoring of school curricula. Both sides knew what the schools were about."

Although Turner's book contains much excellent and useful information overall, I do disagree with him on this point. He feels the public, or government schools favored the Protestants. I will admit they gave that appearance. In a mostly Protestant society at that time they had to, otherwise the vast majority of Protestants would not have been taken in by them. Upon reflection, though, we are forced to conclude that neither Catholics nor Protestants really knew what the government schools were all about.

Horace Mann, the Unitarian, realized what they were all about though. Clergymen like Lyman Beecher should have understood where Mann and many of the other public school "reformers" were coming from. The late Rev. R. J. Rushdoony has written in "The Nature of the American System" that "The 'public school' movement, or statist education, did not exist until the 1830s. Statist education began as a subversive movement and its bitter, savage struggle has not yet been written. The essentials of the drive which produced statist education are clearly seen in Horace Mann...'the Father of the Common Schools.' First and foremost, Mann was a Unitarian. New England Unitarianism was in the forefront of the battle for statist education. For Mann, Unitarianism was true Christianity, and with humorless zeal he fought for his holy faith." Unless Horace Mann kept his Unitarian "light" hidden under a bushel, Calvinist ministers like Lyman Beecher should have known what he was and should never have supported any educational system founded or promoted by him and his Unitarian cohorts. Yet they did, which shows that, to some degree, whether they realized it or not, they had been bitten by the apostasy bug.

To be continued.

CULTURAL MARXISTS--The Real Hate Peddlers

2004-09-08T06:41:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

The Holy Scriptures state in Psalm 5:4-5: "For thou are not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness; neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight; thou hatest all workers of iniquity." You could, in many instances, apply this truth to those in our day that seem to take perverse pleasure in trashing the South and Southern culture in general, and Christians in particular. I will cite one example.

About eight years ago now, Pastors Steve Wilkins and Doug Wilson co-authored a booklet of around thirty pages entitled "Southern Slavery As It Was." The booklet was not at attempt to "defend" slavery, but rather s short exposition of what is really quite a complicated issue, much the same as is Donnie Kennedy's more recent book "Myths of American Slavery." The slavery issue is not nearly as black and white as many of our current "uptown Marxist" historians would have people to believe. It was never a case of all the whites in the South owning all the blacks in the South as slaves, which is basically the lie they are spreading nowadays. Unfortunately, with some people, the mud of lies such as this sticks to the wall. They remind me of the lady I talked to several years ago that just "knew" all the horrible stories about Southern slavery had to be true--after all, she had seen it on television in "Roots." A prime example of what Pastor Wilkins has often said: "Many people have learned everything they think they know from television."

At any rate, the booklet "Southern Slavery As It Was" didn't create too much of s stir until just recently. Pastor Wilkins was in Idaho for a historical conference (which didn't have anything to do with slavery) when all of a sudden the cultural Marxists there suddenly "discovered" the booklet on slavery--eight years after it had been published! By using selective quotes taken out of context from the booklet they sought to make it appear that Pastors Wilkins and Wilson were trying, somehow, to uphold the institution of slavery. They made a big fuss in Idaho at that time (several months ago now) and have managed to whip up enough of a frenzy to keep the fussing going in that area.

Now, it seems that someone is trying to promote the same thing in Monroe, Louisiana. Liars do like to spread their lies as far and wide as they can. Awhile back a flyer began making its appearance in the Monroe area, accusing Pastor Wilkins and Pastor Wilson of defending slavery. The flyer gives no detail about how these two men continue to "defend" slavery, but it has their pictures (poorly reproduced) on it, and also, reproduced above their pictures, in part, is an add for a slave auction held back on January 18, 1859, the implication being that these two pastors are trying to perpetuate, somehow, what went on back then.

Whoever distributed these flyers in Monroe seemed to know just where to go with them. They were distributed in the black neighborhood on the south side of town and at some apartment complexes where a good number of black folks live, and, of course, at the local university. So it was hardly a matter of a city-wide distribution. The distributors of the flyer were targeting areas they thought they could possible create some local unrest in.

This sounds like the sort of activities that disciples of the Southern Poverty Law Center might engage in.

I've read the booklet authored by Pastors Wilkins and Wilson. I used to sell it at Southern Heritge conferences and "Civil War" shows that I went to. As I stated previously, it explained rather than defended slavery. Pastor Wilkins is an able historian and he approaches history from a Christian perspective, which I suspect is what really bothers the cultural Marxists. They don't want that view of history and that world view presented to too many people. So they have to resort to lies, half-truths, and innuendo to attempt to turn as many people as possible away from listening to anyone that promotes a Christian perspective on history, and especially on American history.

Cultural Marxists, of whatever stripe, don't want people to know the truth. Too much truth interferes with their agenda, and it also might put somewhat of a crimp in their fund-raising efforts as they seek to scare people around the country with "straw men" they have created so they can plead for more money to "combat" these horrible monsters. It's an old ploy. Find someone you disagree with, tell people how much of a "threat" he is to society and their well-being, and then ask them for large donations so you can fight against the perceived threat. How much of the money collected actually goes to "fight" against that perceived threat and how much goes into your own pockets would be an interesting question to have answered. It should be evident to anyone that thinks rationally, that many of these "organizations" that are supposedly formed to fight "hate groups" are, themselves, nothing more than hate groups with their own Left-wing political (and financial) agendas.

HOME SCHOOLING GROWS--Federal Bureaucrats Worry

2004-08-15T18:27:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

It was interesting to read a recent AP news release that dealt with home schooling. I suppose, though, that it is getting to that time of year when all the prospective brainwashees are expected t re-enroll at their local government brain laundries for more courses in Mind-bending 101. And maybe if they are fortunate enough not to get stuck with that one, they can take a course in sand shuffling or pebble-pushing.

It is worth noting that one agency that is part of the Department of Education at the federal level has admitted that home schooling has grown 29 percent since 1999 and that there are now almost up to 1.1 million students being taught at home.

In different surveys, parents listed two main reasons for voting with their feet in regard to seceding from the government school system. According to the AP release: "...31 percent cited concerns about the environment of regular schools, and 30 percent wanted the flexibility to teach religious or moral lessons. Third, at 16 percent, was dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools." What a surprise! Most parents that go to government education bureaucrats to complain about what their kids are being taught are blithely informed that they "are the only parents in the district to complain" about whatever the problem may be. These kinds of figures give the lie to that old saw.

Ian Slatter, a spokesman for the National Center for Home Education, a group that promotes home schooling, has said that: "Home schooling is just getting started. We've gotten through the barriers of questioning the academic ability of home schools, now that we have a sizable number of graduates who are not socially isolated or awkward--they are good, high-quality citizens."

Supposedly, the 1.1 million students in home schools accounts for only 2.2 percent of the school-age population. That is as may be, but knowing how the Feds love to play the numbers game, especially with groups they are not overly enamoured of, who can doubt that the actual number of home schooled students might well be about double what the Feds have told us, or even know about. Due to the unpleasant climate in many states for home schoolers over the years, many who have opted for this good system of education have just done it and said nothing to anyone. In many instances, if you were never a part of the Fed's "education" program, they have no record of you educationally. And that's not all bad!

Our children attended a Christian school in one of our Midwestern states for several years. When we arrived at the point where we could no longer financially continue in that direction we decided to teach them at home. The government school system was NOT an option. Since our kids had never been part of the government's "education" system, I could see no reason for groveling at the feet of some local educrat and seeking his permission to teach our kids at home. So I didn't. We just did it. We joined the Home School Legal Defense Association just to be safe and we went from there. We never made a secret of what we were doing; everyone who knew our kids knew they were being taught at home. In fact, many of the families in our church in that state tried mightily to persuade us to enroll our kids in the local "conservative" government school there, which supposedly had a lot of Christian teachers, and besides, they had a great band program, so our kids wouldn't be culturally deprived. I guess some of them thought my wife and I were from the Stone Age and possessed no ability to pass along to our children the finer things culturally. So our daughter grew up listening to classical music while many of theirs were listening to Rock and Roll. Even our son appreciated classical music to an extent, and even though it wasn't my favorite, I recognized that it was, indeed, good music and encouraged our kids to listen to it. At any rate, to the chagrin of most of the families in our church, we refused to heed their advice. When our pastor there tried to get us to put the kids in government schools (where his were) and we listed all the reasons, beginning with conscience, for our not being able to do this, he said that "With all the reasons you've given me for what you are doing, I guess what I'm saying to you sounds pretty close to blasphemy doesn't it?" I assured him it did. The subject never came up again.

Yet, even though home schooled students are now into their second generation of home schooling, and the home schoolers regularly take national prizes at spelling bees and other student contests, some of the federal bureaucrats still continue to bring up the old, hackneyed arguments of a generation ago to convince parents to keep their kids in the government brain laundries, and besides, it keeps those federal dollars flowing and supports the bloated bureaucracy.

Ted Feinberg, assistant director of the National Association of School Psychologists voiced concerns that parents have no formal training as teachers. That doesn't seem to have stopped them from turning out some of the brightest kids in the country in the last several years. Feinberg worries that students won't get the same materials at home that they would have in government schools. All I can say to that is "Thank God!" That's one of the main reasons for teaching them at home. And then he pulls out the old "socialization" argument that educrats have been peddling like snake oil for the past generation. He is deeply concerned that home schooled students will not have the needed exposure to other students or to "various cultures." In other words, no peer pressure to cave in and follow the crowd, and no multiculturalism! If the kids miss out on these "important" parts of the government school agenda they might not be quite as easy to manipulate in the future. They might ask politically incorrect questions and harbor politically incorrect thoughts--and you just can't have lots of people doing things like that.

Actually, most home schooled students have learned to get along with people of all ages as well as their peers and so they are less influenced by peer pressure because they have been exposed to a much broader viewpoint and, therefore, in many cases, have more discernment.

Now all we need to be able to do is to get more decent history material out there for the home school movement, especially American history. Should that happen we may well begin to rock the establishment's "New World Order" boat.

History is critically important, for if we have a faulty view of the past our vision for the future will be faulty also.

THE POT CALLS THE KETTLE BLACK (Condemn others, elevate yourself)

2004-07-16T19:39:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

The NAACP, often called by some "The National Association of Always Complaining People" held its 2004 annual convention in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. The national chairman, Julian Bond was on hand to, in the name of racial diversity, fuel the fires of racial agitation.

Bond took the obligatory swipe at the Bush administration. Every Left-wing political group is expected to take a shot at the Republicans. Whether they really mean it or not is another thing, but they are expected to do it just about as much as fleas are expected to infest a hound dog. It's part of the political game, and it fools a lot of people into voting Republican who should know better. They automatically reason that "anybody the NAACP is against I'm for" and so they take the bait. Please don't think that I am endorsing the Republicans. I have no use whatever for either of the two main political parties, which are, after all, just two different branches on the same tree of internationalism.

However, Bond said of the Republicans "They preach racial neutrality and practice racial division." Now that is really a case of the pot calling the kettle black. I've never noted that Mr. Bond has been any great defender of racial unity. The various groups he has belonged to have caused as much agitation between the races as anyone could hope to--and therein lies the real name of the game. None of these demagogues, Bond, Sharpton, Jackson, or any of the rest could make a living if there were no contention between the races. Racial animosity is their middle name and their meal ticket.

Bond also ranted that "They write an new constitution for Iraq, and they ignore the Constitution here at home." That statement is true, but on the other hand, I have never noticed Mr. Bond being any great champion and defender of the United States Constitution in the past.

In fact, Bond's political career has been a rather checkered, Left-leaning affair over the decades. The book "The Biographical Dictionary of the Left--Volume 2", by Francis X. Gannon (Western Islands Publishing, 1969) carries a whole section on Mr. Bond and his political affiliations. Mr. Gannon notes that Bond started his career in 1960 as a "racial agitator." Gannon continued: "Out of that experience he co-founded the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights, which soon merged with the racist and revolutionary Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNICK), a creation of Martin Luther King Jr."

In 1966, according to Mr. Gannon "Bond participated in the Communists 'National Guardian' forum on politics and policy. He became co-chairman of the National Conference for New Politics, a classical united front third party movement largely controlled by the Communist Party."

And Gannon further noted that: "In March 1967, The Southern Conference Educational Fund held a dinner in honor of Bond. (The SCEF was the successor to the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, which had been a very active Communist front. Bond became a member of the board of SCEF)." The "Joint Legislative Committee on Un-American Activities" for the state of Louisiana, in 1964, published what has become known in conservative circles as "The Louisiana Report." This report detailed the activities of several Communist front organizations, one of which was the Southern Conference Educational Fund. So it would seem that Mr. Bond, in openly criticizing others for ignoring the United States Constitution, has had no trouble over the years in being associated with groups that would not object in the least to overthrowing the Constitution and all the governing principles this country was found upon. That being the case, it would seem that Bond's "concern" over others ignoring the Constitution is more than a little hypocritical.

Bond also has been a big fan of the reparations for slavery foolishness that has swept parts of black America. He said: "The churches seemed like the best place to begin." He feels that American blacks "want it (money)and need it--the churches have it. I don't think the churches are the only ones." Mr. Gannon also noted that Bond felt that American industy and businesses should pony up with reparations cash too. It would seem that Jesse Jackson and others have, in the past few years, taken their cue from Bond's original demands.

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a black pastor, has written a book called "SCAM--How the black leadership exploits black America." Rev. Peterson has told us of Mr. Bond that: "During the late 60s, Bond traveled to various college campuses and spoke out against the Vietnam War, declaring it 'racist.' He also spoke in black churches to begin the drumbeat for 'reparations' from whites for slavery. In his speeches he declared that capitalism wasn't the answer for blacks. The answer, he claimed, was a form of community socialism, where each member in a black neighborhood would have a say in who gets how much money and from whom." I submit that Mr. Bond is no dummy. He ought to know that socialism has never worked for any period of time anywhere. But, if you can talk enough people into it, and they never seem to get quite enough out of it, then you can make a fat living blaming other people for the problems you have created yourself.

Julian Bond is a prime example of what Rev. Peterson is talking about when he refers to black leadership exploiting its own people. And the NAACP is so busy fussing over Confederate symbols that just don't have any extra time to deal with such unimportant issues as black illiteracy or poverty. Those kind of issues wouldn't make new headlines and they aren't where the cash is. You might almost say that, with people like Julian Bond as "friends" of the black community, who needs enemies???

The War (for Southern independence) Was About Theology, Too

2004-07-13T07:12:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

Although it is an issue seldom discussed, the prevailing theologies of both North and South contributed mightily as one of the main reasons for the War of Northern Aggression. I have stated in the past that the tariff was an issue that was alive and well before the start of the war--and so was the theological issue.

This is an area almost no one is willing to touch. Yet another one of those carefully and studiously ignored issues, which, if even mentioned in some circles, might just take away from "the war was all about slavery" propaganda. And so the theological issue must be swept under the rug, and today's Leftist "historians" most fervently hope that no one will ever bother to pick up the corner of the rug and look underneath.

In his book "The South Under Siege 1830-2000" author Frank Conner has told us: "The Northerners who actually mounted te ideological war against the South were led primarily by ex-Congregationalist ministers. Although the issue they pushed was the abolition of slavery, in fact they were fighting a religious war--of secular humanism (ideological liberalism) against Christianity in America, using the South as their battleground."

"Their ideological war is one of the two key factors which largely explains the history of the relations between the North and the South from 1830 until now (the other is economics)." Mr. Conner has correctly noted that:"...ideological liberalism is a religion that generates radical-left politics." I have no problem agreeing with him there. We can also say that such a religion is the result of apostasy from the Christian faith.

C. Gregg Singer in his "A Theological Interpretation of American History" noted that: "After 1830 there was a growing philosophical cleavage between North and South. While the North was becoming increasingly subject to radical influences, the South was becoming increasingly conservative in its outlook." The noted Presbyterian theologian James Henley Thornwell put it thusly: "The parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders--they are Atheists, Socialists, Communists, Red Republicans, Jacobins on the one side and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battleground--Christianity and atheism the combatants, and the progress of humanity is at stake." One might well wonder, given the bloody excesses of the 20th century, how the "progress" of humanity has fared.

Professor Singer has informed us that those who founded the Southern Presbyterian Church saw something in abolitionism far more penetrating and subversive than a mere protest against the evils of slavery. He says "They saw it as a continuation of the French Revolution, motivated by the same philosophy and pursuing the same ends. They saw it primarily as a humanistic revolt against Christianity and the world and life view of the Scriptures. They saw in it an expression of democratic philosophy which left no place for a sovereign God and accorded all prestige to a sovereign humanity instead."

This radical outlook and the plague of Unitarianism were what pervaded much of the North in the few decades before the War of Northern Aggression. Although the Unitarians were never exceedingly numerous, the fact that they had a number of the New England elite among their ranks contributed very much to their influence over much of the North. Although there were, no doubt, some sincere Christians in the Abolitionist Movement, there were also many Unitarians, who, having rejected the divinity of Jesus Christ and the infallibility of Holy Scripture, had an abiding hatred for the South, which had experienced somewhat of a spiritual revival in the 1830s and was more Calvinistic in its faith after that. The Unitarians had mauled Calvinism in the North, especially in New England, and now they most fervently desired to do the same thing in the South. Their radical, Christ-denying mindset helped much to set the tone of thinking in the North in the decades before the war.

The Unitarians and socialists had many views in common, and it did not bother the Unitarians one whit that there were so many socialists in the Union armies. Both groups hated God and wanted to ban Him to total irrelevancy and thereby make autonomous man the measure of all things--the "captain of his own soul." In their view the highest expression of man was the state--and therefore--it was up to the state (government) to instuct the rest of us how to live and what to think, and to then make sure we all did that via appropriate legislation, all for our own "good" of course. Would-be dictators of all stripes always seem to know what is "good" for the rest of us (themselves exempted naturally). And what seems to be "good" for us is usually better financially for them.

Although there were Christians in the North before the war, the Unitarian apostasy had so infected and infiltrated many Northern churches that it affected the Northern mindset and predisposed it toward an unreasonable hatred toward an increasingly Calvinistic South.

As much as many seek to deny or ignore them, the theological issues involved in the War of Northern Aggression were very real and they need to be further explored and discussed, as do the biblical reasons for secession--yet another issue of professional Leftist "historians" have neglected to inform us about.

(This article originally appreared on the Sierra Times website.)

Silent Witnesses (TO THE NON-SURRENDER OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT)

2004-07-07T20:01:00.000-07:00

by AL BENSON JR.

A few years ago I read an interesting book written by Cliffor Dowdey entitled "The History Of The Confederacy 1832-1865." While I did not agree with all that Mr. Dowdey said, I felt that, in the main, he sought be fair to the South. His book brought out a point I had never even considered until I read it. He stated on pages 411 and 414 of his book that the Confederacy never had a formal, or official end. He noted that all the Confederate generals surrendered their armies, as none of them had the authority to surrender anything more, except possibly Robert E. Lee, as supreme commander of all Confederate forces in the field. Yet even he only surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia. Even President Jefferson Davis, when captured, was only captured. There was NEVER any formal surrender of the Confederate States as a nation or country. After World War 2 Germany and Japan surrendered and surrender documents were signed. No such event occurred for the Confederate States.

Although I mention Mr. Dowdey's book as my source for this information, I have checked out other sources and have not, to this point, found any information to contradict Mr. Dowdey's assertion. Other histories of the Confederate States have been checked into and they seem to be in silent agreement that the Confederacy never had an "official" end. Two of the best known are "A History of the Southern Confederacy" by Clement Eaton and "The Story of the Confederacy" by Robert Selph Henry. These books, both reliable histories, can be duly noted for their lack of any mention of a formal end for the Confederate States. They record the surrender of the various armies and all the horrible history that followed, but no mention is ever made at all of the Confederate States ever being formally terminated.

Alexander Stephens, in his monumental two-volume work "A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States" said much the same thing, except he expressed it in different terms. Stephens noted, in Volume One, the main reason for the War: "The conflict in principle arose from differing and opposing ideas as to the nature of what is known as the General Government...It was a strife between the principles of Federation on the one side, and Centralism, or Consolidation, on the other." Stephens was clearly stating that the struggle was over liberty on the one (Confederate) side vs. collectivism on the other (Northern) side. We might well ask, is our struggle today any different? Are we not still engaged in this battle? Stephens went on to disclaim slavery as the real cause of the war. He noted that "Some of the strongest anti-slavery men who ever lived were on the side of those who opposed the centralizing principles which led to the war." Stephens reiterated that fact on page 631 of Volume Two.

Moreover, Mr. Stephens contended that the true cause of the War for Southern Independence was not lost in the surrender of the various Confederate armies. He stated, in Volume Two of his work, starting on page 651: "So you see, my opinion is that the Cause which was lost at Appomattox Court House, was not the Federative Principles upon which American Free Institutions was based, as some have erroneously supposed. This is far from being one of the results of the War. The cause which was lost by the surrender of the Confederates, was only the maintenance of this principle by arms. It was not the principle they abandoned! They only abandoned their attempt to maintain it by physical force...This principle, therefore, though abandoned in its maintenance on battle-fields, still continues to live in all its vigor, in the forums of Reason, Justice, and Truth, and will, I trust, there continue to live forever."

Stop and analyze what Stephens has told us. The causes for which the Confederate States came into being, Christian self-government and the rights of the individual states within the framework of a federation (Confederacy) still exist. They have not been, nor can they ever be, truly done away with. They can not be done away with because the concepts of self-government and limited national power are scriptural. (Galatians 5:22-23 and Romans 13:1-7)

The true reasons for which the Confederate States were organized (even though some of the original founders may not have fully realized them) are not gone. They remain to this day. The struggle we blithly refer to as the "Civil War" did not resolve anything except which side had the most money, guns, and men. All it proved is that one country can prevail over another militarily if it has superior numbers and resources. The Northern bayonet drove truth to the ground, but it will not be able to keep it there forever.

It just may be, in God's Providence, that the Confederate States had no formal end because the truths she stood for (albeit imperfectly), rooted in Holy Scripture, also have no end.

Alexander Stephens bore eloquent testimony that the Cause still lives, even as its adherents still live today. The spirit of secession, which is akin to biblical separation, thrives in our day. What remains is for those that understand these truths in this hour in our history to proclaim them and to teach them to their children, and their neighbors, and their fellow church members, as opportunity is provided.

This article originally appeared on the web site of the Southern Independence Party of Louisiana.
http://www.sipoflouisiana.org

Check out this website, as well as the web site for the Federation of States.

THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF SECESSION

2004-07-07T07:20:00.000-07:00

BY AL BENSON JR.

Because it is almost never discussed, most people do not even begin to realize that Southern secession also had a spiritual side as well as a political one, and often the spiritual affected the political. The idea that the South only seceded so she could keep her slaves is a ludicrous fabrication of the government "education" system. The South could have preserved the institution of slavery had her states remained part of the Union. After all, Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri, for one reason or another all remained in the Union and they all got to keep their slaves.

The apostle Paul, in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, in what we call chapter 6, tells us the following: ""Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness; and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?...Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you: (2 Cor 6:14, 15, & 17)" Paul was telling the Corinthian Christians, God's Israel in Corinth, to separate themselves from the taint of the world system, from its anti-Christ worldview and lifestyle. Sound advice in any age.

Starting in the early 1830s, there was a revival of Reformed Christianity in the South, and due to the galloping apostasy in much of the North, many serious Southerners began to look at secession as the political equivalent of biblical separation. In this they were not wrong. With a strengthening political worldview, a growing number of Southern Christians viewed the rampant unitarianism and transcendentalism in many Northern churches and decided they did not want such a spiritual abberation working its way into their assemblies.

The late Dr. C. Gregg Singer, Professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Seminary when he was alive, has written: "The South was even more articulate in its opposition to democratic liberalism of all kinds. Here again, we must distinguish between that opposition that was directed against abolitionism and the anti-slavery movement simply because they threatened a Southern institution, and the opposition which arose because of a very deep insight into the meaning of abolitionism as an expression of basic radicalism which had far greater implications than a mere crusade against slavery as such." In other words, Singer pointed out that many insightful Southern folks opposed the abolitionists not merely because of the slavery issue, but because of what they represented philosophically and theologically.

Singer continued: "As a result there was in the South a far greater consciousness of the theological radicalism lurking behind the anti-slavery crusade, and also a much keener insight into the growing radicalism in Northern thought in its many and varied implications for constitutional government in this country, and its effect on the American way of life." Singer has noted that: "after 1830 there was a growing philosophical and theological cleavage between the North and the South. While the North was becoming increasingly subject to radical influences, the South was becoming increasingly conservative in its outlook."

Theologian James Henley Thornwell stated the situation even more clearly than that. Of course he was right there on hand at the time and so could observe firsthand what whas happening. He said: "The parties in this conflict are not merely Abolitionists and slaveholders--they are Atheists, Socialists, Communists, Red Republicans, Jacobins on the one side and friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battleground--Christianity and atheism the combatants, and the progress of humanity is at stake." Folks, I submit that's pretty straightforward. Thornwell was no theological novice. He saw the issue clearly. Note his mention of socialists and communists. He was ahead of his time.

Sheldon Vanauken once observed that, during the Nineteenth century "the North was for empire; the South for independence."It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which was the Biblical position. It should be clear that, for many Southerners, the issue of secession was not only political, but also theological.

*For those interested in reading more about secession I have published a booklet entitled "A Theological and Political View of the Doctrine of Secession." It sells for $4.00 plus .50 for shipping. Send requests to The Copperhead Chronicle P O Box 55 Sterlington, Louisiana 71280.

"Public Schools...a sacred institution"

2004-06-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

by Al Benson Jr.

The Southern Baptist Convention in its annual meeting in Indianapolis in June, 2004 had the golden opportunity to do some real groundbreaking work for the Christian community at large and they very quickly and willingly let that opportunity slip by. It was another one of those issues that church leaders don't want to "get involved" in, quite possibly because so many of them, lacking any historical perspective, view it as a "secular" issue. And showing concern for a secular issue might just divert peoples' attention away from a concern about the immanent return of Christ and the "rapture" and if that happened then all of those "end times" books out there would not sell as well.

According to an article on WorldNetDaily a resolution was presented to the convention by "Baptist activists" Bruce N. Shortt and T. C. Pinckney which "calls upon the millions of members of the denomination to take their kids out of public schools and either homeschool them or send them to Christian schools." Mr. Shortt stated that: "They didn't want to touch this (government schools) issue; its radioactive." Shortt noted that "there was a parade of SBC leaders and members of the Resolutions Committee speaking vehemently against it." Short, being a realist, was not surprised at the outcome. He observed that Baptists have traditionally supported the government schools, and he said "(Public schools) are almost viewed as a sacred tradition." More's the pity!

Shortt noted that there were six resolutions of one sort or another offered on education. The Resolutions Committee, rather than dealing with any of them only sent out a resolution that warned against "the cultural drift of our nation toward secularism." This anemic resolution totally avoided dealing with any real issues and solved no problems for anyone except those on the committee who apparantly wished to wash their hands as quickly as possible of the whole affair.

Of course anyone with a brain can easily discern that much of our cultural drift toward secularism is caused by and takes place within the confines of the government school system, but hey folks, let's dont bother calling a space a spade. One can only conclude from all this that, at the leadership levels, the Southern Baptists (and unfortunately the leaders in many other denominations as well) are committed to and sold out to the government school system. So they "preach the Gospel" on Sunday morning and then on Monday morning they sent out their youthful charges back into an "educational" system that totally denies that what they preached on Sunday has any meaning or relevance in the lives of our youth, and apparently they love to have it so. It would appear that much of the church leadership in this country takes the same position in regard to government schooling that the Yankee mentality assumes toward Abraham Linoln.

There will never be any meaningful change in the direction this country is going in until the Christians finally wake up and realize that, in their love for government education, they are allowing the souls of their children and grandchildren to be subverted. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to find out the mindset of those that originated the government school system in this country. A few years ago I published a little booklet called "The Unitarian/Socialist Foundations of Public Education. I only have a handful of copies left but would be willing to sell them for $3.00 apiece to anyone interested. In this booklet I described the mindset of those that founded pubic (government) schools in this country. Surely if I could come up with that information then some of these church leaders could also.

Part of the problem is that assuming the responsibility for your children's education requires just that--responsibility--and sadly, most Christians today do not really want that. It's much easier just to send the kids off to the public brain laundry and then sit back and gripe when all does not go well, as it usually doesn't. Until Christians wake up and realize the crying need to take their children and secede from the government schools then the current "drift toward secularism" will continue, and many Christians will be found to be supporting it. Sorry folks, but that's the way it is.

2004-06-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

"TO PRESERVE THE UNION"
(and make a little money for my friends)

by Al Benson Jr.

We have been fed so much baloney over the years about the reasons for the War of Northern Aggression that you almost get sick of listening to some of them. We have been told that the war was fought so the South could keep her slaves. The fact that she could have done this by remaining in the Union is never mentioned--and the establishment "historians" hope you never think enough about it to bring it up. The more inane and transparent the slavery question becomes the more its proponents push it--almost to the level of irrationality. It's like, for them, the only issue in the world that has ever existed or ever will exist is one over a slavery that died over 140 years ago. Slavery in Africa today, forget that, it's not relevant to the slavery question. You can't beat white Southerners
over the head with present-day African slavery so it's just not important.

Then there are those that seek to take a somewhat more realistic approach to the question and they state that Lincoln inaugurated and fought the war to preserve the Union. The question then naturally arises, who was he preserving it for, certainly not "we the people."

In his book "North Against South" Professor Emeritus of History at the College of William and Mary, Ludwell H. Johnson, has observed, in regard to the war that: "The Republicans could recruit their ranks by using the war as a bountiful source of patronage, as well as by accomodating the various interests that had rallied to their banner. Many people at every social and political level regarded the Union cause primarily as an opportunity to make money or to advance their public careers, or both." Not to be outdone, the federal government, on March 3, 1863, passed the Captured and Abandoned Property Act. Professor Johnson has noted that "The latter's main concern was cotton, and its execution confirmed Southerners in their belief that the real object of the war was to rob them. Property of a non-warlike nature taken by Federal forces was regarded as 'captured'; property whose owners were absent, presumably within Confederate lines, was considered 'abandoned.' The Treasury Department was responsible for its collection or administration. This led to a great proliferation of the department's bureaucracy,..." And Johnson continued: "The full extent of fraud perpetrated by these swarms of agents will never be known. In corrup collusion with army officers, they got up expeditions whose sole purpose was to capture cotton." So, between Yankee bureaucrats and corrupt Yankee officers, they were all going to make a bundle off Southern misery. It could well be said of them that, in their support for the Union, "their hypocrisy knew no bounds."

The ill-fated Red River Campaign of Yankee General Commissary Banks was a prime example. In his interesting book "War Along the Bayous" author William Riley Brooksher has told us that: "Despite Banks' strenuous efforts to control activities involving cotton, Washington and (Rear Admiral) Porter together were too much for him. So pervasive was the scramble for cotton and so broad was the influence of some speculators that even Banks' own headquarters boat had brought a 'whole regiment' of speculators, most 'bearing licenses from Washington.' Everybody seemed to be in on the act as civilians and a portion of the military scrambled for cotton taking it with little regard for ownership or the needs of the expedition. So determined and desperate were they for transportation for their bonanza that cotton was piled on gunboats and coal barges emptied to make room for it. The use of threats and bribes was not overlooked either." Brooksher relates the story of one naval lieutenant, patrolling the mouth of the Red River, who was offered another stripe if he would let cotton through and he was threatened with dismissal if he wouldn't. Rear Admiral Porter had his hand in the pot too. He detailed several vessels to go out collecting cotton. In fact the Navy was so much into grabbing Southern cotton that according to Army Captain John S. Cooney it "was about the principle thing the navy did." One observer rather cynically noted that while the army did all the dirty work fighting the Confederates, the Navy then rolled in, once the fighting was over, picked up all the Southern cotten they could get their hands on, and they got one third of the money it brought in as a prize, while all the soldiers that slogged through the bayous and fought the Confederates got nothing, except casualties. As I said earlier, it really makes you wonder who Mr. Lincoln was "preserving the Union" for.

Such situations demonstrate an ongoing trend in the Lincoln administration--the blending of big government and big business, something we still struggle under today--a kind of coroprate fascism.
Frank Conner has noted in "The South Under Siege 1830-2000" that Northern capitalists "turned increasingly to the federal government to pay the high peripheral costs of industrializing the US." And Professor Thomas DiLorenzo in "The Real Lincoln" observed that, at the war's end "Government became more militaristic and began a quest for empire; myriad socialistic income and wealth-transfer schemes were adopted(and are still being adopted); and the Jeffersonian notion that 'that government governs best which governs least' was abandoned in favor of today's philsophy that nothing--not even the rules of golf--should be beyond the control of the federal government."

So Lincoln "preserved the Union" and the incomes of his fat cat establishment friends, but only the Almighty fully comprehends the cost of that to the rest of us. And today we live in a culture and with a government "education" system, both of which must be seceded from if we are ever to have any chance at making things better for our grandchildren or their children.

2004-06-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT MR. LINCOLN

by Al Benson Jr.

Professor Thomas DiLorenzo, author of the excellent book "The Real Lincoln" which is reported now to have around 75,000 copies sold, has passed along to us much valuable information on Mr. Lincoln that you can just bet will never make the "history" books for the brainwashed in the government's re-education camps people mistakenly refer to as public schools.

In a recent article on LewRockwell.com, Professor DiLorenzo gave much documentation on Lincoln's economic policies that people never find out about.

Professor DiLorenzo informed us that: "Lincoln was an advocate of a central bank that could print paper or fiat money that was not necessarily redeemable in gold or silver. Central banking was the third plank of the Lincolnian/Mercantilist agenda which, along with the protectionist Morrill tariff and corporate welfare for railroad corporations, was put into place during the Lincoln administration with the National Currency Acts...Lincoln's banking legislation was the precursor to the Fed, and all the monetary instability Americans have suffered because of it."

This is interesting information, something you simply will not get most places. Lincoln was an advocate of a central banking system. So was Karl Marx. Lincoln advocated a banking system that could print basically fiat money that you would not necessarily be able to redeem for gold or silver. That's exactly the same way our federal reserve notes operate today.

DiLorenzo, taking information from the book by Jeffery Hummel, "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men" has told us that "the pre-Lincoln American banking system that existed roughly from 1845-1862, known as the 'free banking era' was arguably the most stable banking system in American history despite all of its flaws and imperfections (which exist in all banking systems). Central banking introduced the instability of inflation that only fiat currency that is not backed by gold or silver can create."

Over the years many conservatives have lauded Lincoln for his monetary policies and gotten quite angry at those who would dare to attack their patron saint. One conservative publication, back in the 1990s actually had to request of one of its columnists that he stop writing articles exposing the truth about Lincoln because that expose' was costing the owner of the publication the partiotic subscribers he needed to make a living from the publication. It is a pretty sad state of affairs when the conservatives and the patriots get mad at those who tell them the truth. It reminds one of the old question from the Scriptures "Am I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?" In some patriotic circles the answer to that question today is a resounding "yes!!!"

Professor DiLorenzo and others in our day have turned up a wealth of information exposing the "great emancipator" for what he really was, just another socialist-minded, grasping, pragmatic politician, who was quite adept at quoting Scripture to fool the uninitiated who listened to his speeches. And it must have worked, because the trend has continued and is continuing in our day, and the government school-educated sheeple never question any of it. It gives new meaning to that car bumpersticker that says "The brainwashed never wonder."