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Category Archives: Civil Rights – Sociology – Politics
Subjects covering matters of health, the pursuit of happiness individually and as a common society, and sometimes life or death, usually involving politics.
Yes, it is most likely true, I’m not kidding and I am ecstatic about it. Ever since the late 1970’s the sources of unbiased, calm, in-depth, productive journalism in the U.S. has been whittled away by big-money and news privatization. The beginning? The Supreme Court Landmark decision of Buckley vs Valeo followed up by Citizens United vs FEC which threw open the money-bribe flood-gates.
Through the Reagan years and after, U.S. news consumers had only a few television news providers in which to select: CBS, NBC, and ABC, called The Big Three. There were major news publications in print such as the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the New York Times. There were a few major weekly news magazines: U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, and Time Magazine. There were also a few major business journals: Business Week, Forbes, and Fortune Magazine. Perhaps less popular were the news radio broadcasts such as NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered. My father regularly enjoyed PBS shows, both news radio and TV entertainment. Often while driving his Chrysler Plymouth Sedan with adolescent me he’d listen to the Paul Harvey News and Comment show on the radio. I can never forget Harvey’s sign-off, “Paul Harvey… Good day.” or “Paul Harvey… Good night.” Growing up I was exposed to a lot of excellent news journalism because of Dad. He taught me the methods of core critical-thinking skills using analysis, identifying biases, inference, evaluation and problem-solving, all while being open-minded and inquisitive.
Josh Rushing of Al-Jazeera’s Let’s Focus show
However, as I began reaching my 40’s and 50’s I noticed something in U.S. news broadcasting that had changed. Time and pejorative tones and manners. News commentary had become in-house discussion panels (cheaper costs) rather than out in the field and investigative. Propaganda had increasingly crept in more and more and I had to know why.
Ironically enough, last week as I watched and listened to my usual dose of varied news sources, I happen to catch an excellent segment on Al-Jazeera called Let’s Focus, hosted by Josh Rushing. His two guest were Emily Jashinsky, host of After Party and an anchor at Breaking Points, and Cenk Uygur, founder of The Young Turks show. Rushing was asking them, What future is there for podcasts and have podcasts become political powerhouses? It was an utterly informing, fascinating 47-minute discussion by the three of them I had to share it here! It was just too good to pass up. If any of you have problems watching the show, let me know. It’s viewable on the Al-Jazeera website as well as on YouTube, here.
The portion of the show I found very engrossing and profound was at the 28:45-minute mark or 29:15 mark when they discussed the inevitable death of private, corporate, traditional news goliaths to the rising popularity of the individual podcasting circuit. Catch it. Cenk Uygur begins with “lying to the audience” as goliath mass media such as FOX News and Newsmax as well as MSNow wants/wanted versus, “not lying to the podcast audience” because they will call you out and permanently burn you! The podcast audience do not want lies and propaganda.
Around the 29:50 mark (and following) is when the discussion got even better! Uygur went on to speak about the Podcast Era today “is a much better media ecosystem” because the host/provider is “audience responsive” as opposed to the cement guardrails the mega-corporate media giants surround the host/anchor(s) and reporters like a slip-knot noose. Then Emily Jashinsky and Cenk Uygur both agree the traditional news media giants cannot buy-out or control the discussion content with their millions or billions of dollars, their private, political interests or agendas, and more importantly with their self-imposed strict time-limits of 2-3 minute snippets or 8-10 minute short discussion panels before breaking off for more advertising dollars. They are themselves heavily restrained by Time=Money in advertising, commercials, and especially during election years their high-yield profits from super-pac campaign ads take the number one priority, forever, as long as they chain themselves to that business model.
The mainstream media behemoths are addicted to, enslaved to more money (greed), more monopolizing mass media buy-outs (popularity reach), and more high-paying super-pacs with special interests (power, authority) that appease the individual corporate owners’ or their Board of Executives’ swayed mission statement. Simply put, the traditional news media goliaths—CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, FOX News, etc.—don’t have the irreplaceable time (in ads and campaign funds/donations) that the podcast circuit is free from and not enslaved to. And Goldwater-conservative podcast co-host Emily Jashinsky stated unequivocally that “We [podcasters] don’t need access; FOX News, MS, CNN, they need access” because those small regular audiences want to see the hosts/anchors talking to the politicians. But “our audience,” Jashinsky says, “don’t give a damn if we talk to politicians. They do not care.” As Cenk Uygur stated correctly, we news consumers are no longer in the past era of a small pond of providers. “But now,” he says “we are in an ocean of content” due to the evolving, advancing tech-online ability to be everywhere at once, repeatedly.
But no more spoilers for the short attention spanners.😉 I strongly urge my followers and readers to watch this episode of Let’s Focus. You won’t regret it. In my opinion, taking away the propaganda-biased mega-profit machines of media and putting it back into the hands of We the People is the best thing ever for this very divided country. After all, the power belongs to the people in a true democracy our Core Founding Fathers intended in the first place.
For further reading of one, of many, specific cases of our dying U.S. mainstream media, here is a link to one of my followers, Robert Vella, who I enjoy very much and follow. Here is his great post:
Just the other day I found myself in a heated dispute with a married couple in Chattanooga, Tennessee—friends of my wife’s middle brother—about the cause and purpose of the American Civil War. I was astonished by what she (the wife) was yelling saying in the background to me while Sandy and I were speaking on the phone with her brother.
We were only explaining for the third or fourth time to my brother-in-law that we still could not help him with the back-taxes (of 4-years) on their deceased Aunt’s house in Hamilton County Tennessee where the brother now resides. The wife, Sandy, was living and financially helping with payments before we married. Basically, my repeated answer was that the current hyper-inflated Cost of Living in Texas and across the entire U.S. proper was being caused by one man and one party:the President of the United States and his radical sycophant MAGA Republicans. Just our cost of energy and groceries are so exorbitantly high that we run out of money by the 19th or 20th of every month… and have been since February of 2026 when our POTUS ignorantly picked and started a war with Iran and the Straight of Hormuz.
Overhearing what I was telling Sandy’s brother this woman chimed in unsolicited to try and antagonize me over what I was saying to my brother-in-law. She also overheard me saying that “I cannot for the life of me understand WHY several Deep South states still have the Confederate flag or symbols of the 1861 Confederacy within their state flags.” She yelled stated loudly, “We love our Confederate flag here and we love President Trump!” In response I asked, “Does she even realize that she is implying she supports racism and slavery!?” Her uneducated reply? It was:
“You saying that makes YOU the racist!”
Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1–3, 1863, the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War.
Yes, even in this 21st-century there are many, too many, Americans that have been misinformed or intentionally wrongly taught to believe that the American Civil War was NOT fought and lost over slavery, but fought over states rights and centralized power and authority. This bogus belief in false history could not be further from the verified facts and truth. Here is why she and any other Americans defending the Confederate States of America and their motive for starting the Civil War are purely and simply flagrantly wrong. Following are the own written words and declarations of secession of all thirteen Confederate States and two more that were essentially shadow/rump Confederate governments.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
— U.S. Declaration of Independence, adopted July 4, 1776
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The Causes of Seceding Confederate States 1860-1861
As the quote above states, drafted primarily by Thomas Jefferson—and later revised by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman, and Jefferson—there is no distinction whatsoever between any human race or any human ethnicity. It explicitly states, “all men [and women] are created equal” in God’s eyes and His work on Earth. This fact must be first established and accepted (embraced) by all American citizens then and now. Period. No grey areas.
Precisely, what do the eleven (11) seceding Confederate states say as to why they are seceding from the U.S. Declaration, the U.S. Constitution, and the United States of America that our Founding Fathers drew up only 84-years earlier? In just four words this:
Keeping Slavery — and that all men are NOT created equal in God’s eyes/work.
States’ Rights — to maintain slavery as an economic model and profit for white plantation owners.
Those reasons, those causes are explicitly stated to protect their institution of slavery. Following are the four major states—Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, and South Carolina—using words defending pro-slavery, followed by the clear centrality of slavery and the states’ rights to keep slavery.
Mississippi’s Declaration of Secession (verbatim): “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery— the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth… These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.” 1
Georgia’s Declaration of Secession (verbatim): “That reason was [the North’s] fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity.” 2
Texas’ Declaration of Secession (verbatim): “The servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations.” 3
South Carolina’s Declaration of Secession (verbatim): “Those [Union] States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States.” 4
These four leading pro-slavery states go on to express arguments and other concepts and methods from their interpretation of the U.S. Constitution to try and show eight reasons why the protection, expansion, and perpetuation of African-American slavery and white supremacy were the primary drivers of secession. The individual state documents explicitly cite Northern states passing personal liberty laws, nullifying the Fugitive Slave Act5:
Some states argue that slavery should be expanded as an economic benefit and fair representation in the federal government’s trade and commerce.
Abolitionism is a method of inciting violent uprisings both in the South and among the Northern Confederates.
Mississippi and Georgia point out in their Causes of Secession that slavery accounts for a huge portion of the Southern economy.
The Southern states argue that the Union is a compact, one that can be annulled if the states are not satisfied with what they receive in return from other states and/or from the federal government.
The states argue that the North’s reluctance to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (mandating that fugitive slaves be returned to the South) means that the compact is no longer satisfactory.
All of the Southern states negatively mention Abraham Lincoln’s election and his suspected abolitionist leanings.
Georgia accuses Northern manufacturing interests of exploiting the South and dominating the federal government.
Texas expresses dissatisfaction with federal military protection.
To further validate the primary cause of the American Civil War, here are the actual explicit written words, their declarations, and causes of secession by the thirteen (13) Confederate States in chronological order defending their right to keep slavery:
South Carolina – Dec. 20-24, 1860
“Confederate States of America – Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union:
The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act. […]
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they [the North] have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.”” […more]
Mississippi – January 9, 1861
“A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippifrom the Federal Union:
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. […]
It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.
It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst. […]
It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.
It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.” […more]
Florida – January 10, 1861
“Form of Government for the People of Florida – Ordinance of Secession from the Federal Union.
“We, the People of the State of Florida, in Convention assembled, do solemnly ordain, publish and declare, that the State of Florida hereby withdraws herself from the Confederacy of States existing under the name of the United States of America, and from the existing government of said States; and that all political connection between her and the government of said States ought to be and the same is hereby totally annulled and said Union of States dissolved, and the State of Florida is hereby declared a sovereign and independent Nation; and that all ordinances heretofore adopted, in so far as they create or recognize said Union, are rescinded, and all laws or parts of laws in force in this State, in so far as they recognize or assent to said Union, be and they are hereby repealed.
Done in open Convention, January 10, 1861.””
On January 10, 1861, with 62 delegates voting yea and 7 voting nay, the President of Florida’s Secession Convention, John C. McGehee, speaking for the vast majority of Floridians he declared five days earlier:
“At the South, and with our People of course, slavery is the element of all value, and a destruction of that destroys all that is property.”
And remaining in the rule of the federal Union would…
“…destroy every vestige of right growing out of property in slaves.”
Alabama – January 11, 1861
“An Ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of Alabama and the other States united under the compact styled “The Constitution of the United States of America.”
“Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of president and vice-president of the United States of America, by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama, preceded by many and dangerous infractions of the constitution of the United States by many of the States and people of the Northern section, is a political wrong of so insulting and menacing a character as to justify the people of the State of Alabama in the adoption of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and security, therefore:
Be it declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, That the State of Alabama now withdraws, and is hereby withdrawn from the Union known as “the United States of America,” and henceforth ceases to be one of said United States, and is, and of right ought to be a Sovereign and Independent State. […]
And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States, …”” […more]
Georgia – January 19, 1861
“We the people of the State of Georgia in Convention assembled do declare and ordain and it is hereby declared and ordained that the ordinance adopted by the State of Georgia in convention on the 2nd day of Jany. in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the constitution of the United States of America was assented to, ratified and adopted, and also all acts and parts of acts of the general assembly of this State, ratifying and adopting amendments to said constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded and abrogated.
We do further declare and ordain that the union now existing between the State of Georgia and other States under the name of the United States of America is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Georgia is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.
Passed January 19, 1861.”
A slave market in Atlanta, Georgia, 1864. Library of Congress
The following is the State of Georgia’s Declaration of Secession:
“The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party.”
“AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of Louisiana and other States united with her under the compact entitled “The Constitution of the United States of America.”
“We, the people of the State of Louisiana, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance passed by us in convention on the 22d day of November, in the year eighteen hundred and eleven, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America and the amendments of the said Constitution were adopted, and all laws and ordinances by which the State of Louisiana became a member of the Federal Union, be, and the same are hereby, repealed and abrogated; and that the union now subsisting between Louisiana and other States under the name of “The United States of America” is hereby dissolved. […]
Adopted in convention at Baton Rouge this 26th day of January, 1861.””
By this point in time, January–February 1861, an all new Confederate States of America Constitution was being drafted. The first seven slave-holding states would adopt and ratify the new Constitution on March 11, 1861. The six remaining slave-holding states, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas would soon follow suit.
Furthermore, to absolutely prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the American Civil War was fought for keeping and the protection of slavery in the South as well as its expansion into other western states, newly appointed President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson F. Davis, wrote this veto to the Congress in Washington D.C. and its Executive Department:
“VETO MESSAGE.
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, February 28, 1861.”
“Gentlemen of Congress: With sincere deference to the judgment of Congress, I have carefully considered the bill in relation to the slave trade, and to punish persons offending therein, but have not been able to approve it, and therefore do return it with a statement of my objections. The Constitution (section 7, article I.) provides that the importation of African negroes from any foreign country other than slave-holding States of the United States is hereby forbidden, and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same. The rule herein given is emphatic, and distinctly directs the legislation which shall effectually prevent the importation of African negroes. The bill before me denounces as high misdemeanor the importation of African negroes or other persons of color, either to be sold as slaves or to be held to service or labor, affixing heavy, degrading penalties on the act, if done with such intent. To that extent it accords with the requirements of the Constitution, but in the sixth section of the bill provision is made for the transfer of persons who may have been illegally imported into the Confederate States to the custody of foreign States or societies, upon condition of deportation and future freedom, and if the proposition thus to surrender them shall not be accepted, it is then made the duty of the President to cause said negroes to be sold at public outcry to the highest bidder in any one of the States where such sale shall not be inconsistent with the laws thereof. This provision seems to me to be in opposition to the policy declared in the Constitution – the prohibition of the importation of African negroes – and in derogation of its mandate to legislate for the effectuation of that object. Wherefore the bill is returned to you for your further consideration, and, together with the objections, most respectfully submitted.
[signed] JEFF’N DAVIS.”
Texas – February 1, 1861
“AN ORDINANCE To dissolve the Union between the State of Texas and the other States united under the Compact styled “the Constitution of the United States of America.””
“WHEREAS, The Federal Government has failed to accomplish the purposes of the compact of union between these States, in giving protection either to the persons of our people upon an exposed frontier, or to the property of our citizens, and
WHEREAS, the action of the Northern States of the Union is violative of the compact between the States and the guarantees of the Constitution; and,
WHEREAS, The recent developments in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States, instead of permitting it to be, as was intended, our shield against outrage and aggression; THEREFORE, […]
Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery– the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits– a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?
That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.” […more]
Between April 17 and June 8, 1861, the States of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, and Kentucky all seceded from the Union, adopted and then ratified their new Constitution of the Confederate States of America therefore keeping their slave property, protecting it, and sought to expand slavery into western territories as far as the Pacific Ocean if possible such as into the Arizona Territory and beyond.
Wealthy white Southern plantation owners along with their white foreman separated from the Union, from the U.S. Declaration of Independence, and the U.S. Constitution to establish a negro slave-commerce which fattened their opulent southern Antebellum lifestyles. Moreover, unlike slavery in the ancient world where servants/slaves were of diverse skin-colors and ethnicities, even Caucasian slaves, in the United States slavery was strictly based on race or skin-color. Leading up to the Civil War blacks were the enslaved people in the South and whites were not.
As of today, October 14, 2026, one hundred and sixty-one years (161) and counting, there are seven state flags in the U.S. that feature explicit symbols, historical references, or structural designs tied to the Confederate States of America and still numerous state monuments and statues celebrating, glorifying the Confederacy’s heroes and cause. Here are those seven states and some of the still standing Confederate sites:
Adopted in 1895, the flag features a crimson St. Andrew’s cross (saltire) on a white field, designed to preserve the cross element of the Confederate battle flag.
The state flag includes four blue stars inside a white diamond. The top blue star, added in 1923 (with the diamond’s border design echoing the Confederate saltire), explicitly represents the Confederacy.
Adopted around 1900, the flag incorporates a red St. Andrew’s cross intersecting the state seal, a design choice influenced by former Confederate governor Francis P. Fleming.
The current flag, adopted in 2003, is directly modeled after the first official national flag of the Confederacy, known as the “Stars and Bars” (three red and white stripes with a blue canton containing a circle of white stars around the state coat of arms).
Mississippi did retire its previous state flag containing the Confederate battle emblem in 2020, though its current state flag (featuring a magnolia blossom) continues to include the motto “In God We Trust”, which also appears on the flags of Georgia and Florida.
The flag design dates back to 1861 (updated in 1885) and directly mirrors the post-secession state flag adopted when North Carolina joined the Confederacy.
The flag features a vertical blue bar on the fly side and a circle of three stars, sharing historical design parallels with late-era Confederate national banners.
There are six Confederate figures in the National Statuary Hall Collection, in the United States Capitol.
Confederate Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery.
Confederate Soldier Statue, in Monroe County, West Virginia, 2016.
The Confederate Memorial in Fulton, Kentucky is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
A commemorative sign and a plaque commemorated the Battle of Picacho Pass, the westernmost Confederate engagement of the war. The sign is “dedicated to Capt. Sherod Hunter’s ‘Arizona Rangers, Arizona Volunteers’ C.S.A.”, while the plaque states three Union soldiers buried on battlefield and includes both US Union and CSA flags. The sign was removed in 2015 due to deterioration of the wood and the plaque was moved onto the Union stone monument.
Van Buren Confederate Monument at Crawford County Courthouse in Van Buren, Arkansas.
Bentonville, Arkansas Confederate Monument.
Battlefield monument, Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park (1912). Inscription: Here was fought on February 20, 1864, the Battle of Ocean Pond under the immediate command of General Alfred Holt Colquitt, “Hero of Olustee.” This decisive engagement prevented a Sherman-like invasion of Georgia from the south. Erected April 20, 1936, by the Alfred Holt Colquitt Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy Ga. Div.
Confederate Monument at Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois.
If you would like to review further the more than 685 to 700 Confederate monuments and well over 2,000 total Confederate symbols, including streets, highways, buildings, forts, airbases, and parks still remaining in public spaces nationwide… then start with Wikipedia’s site here. When the former Confederacy and its cause (slavery, racism) is still sanctified today, even as one’s family heritage, and in degrees sanitized so not to appear evil or wrong, what does that teach our youth and American generations that come after? Are they being (intentionally?) taught immoral values?
Most Americans today know full well that defeating Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and 20th-century fascism, had to be done, if for no other reason than atrocities and war crimes blatantly committed by these two evil powers. The Nazi Holocaust and war crimes by Japan against the Chinese people followed by the “enemies” of The Rising Sun clearly show they both had to be stopped and defeated for their forms of evil prejudice and racism. How is the prejudice, racism, and brutality of the Confederate South any different? It’s not. So why support the former Confederacy and the racist slavery it stood for? Isn’t that the same as exalting Nazism and Imperial Japan?
For these same reasons, why are Americans still believing and supporting racism and prejudice, or rather The Lost Cause? Here’s one reason and I strongly recommend you watch all 7-minutes:
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More than 150-years later in a Pew Research Center poll found in 2011 and still today in 2026 that Americans are somehow still seriously divided over what the American Civil War was fought for and how and why it started. In that 2011 poll about 48% stated the Civil War was mainly about states’ rights and 38% state it was primarily about slavery. Another 9% thought it was about both issues equally or neither/don’t know. And for some mysterious reason (or is it?) the poll revealed:
“Young people are more likely than older Americans to say that the war’s main cause was states’ rights – 60% of those younger than 30 express this view, the highest percentage of any age group. Those 65 and older are the only age group in which more say that slavery, rather than states’ rights, was the main cause of the Civil War (by 50% to 34%). While 48% of whites view states’ rights was the war’s main cause, so too do 39% of African Americans.”
How is that possible? We have in American archives across the nation, as I have shown above for anyone to see with their own eyes, all the 1850-1865 original state declarations, ordinances, government correspondence, messages, and personal letters by all the main-players from the Union North and the Confederate South—they all explicitly and implicitly show and read that the institution of slavery and its defense was the #1 cause for the Confederate States to secede and start the Civil War. Anyone who states otherwise is unequivocally wrong and does not know the authenticated, verified historical evidence. Period. This makes one ask, “Were these portions of the U.S. populous, 20th– and 21st-century generations, wrongly and intentionally misguided in school?” Has there been a subtle undercurrent of prejudice and racism being taught in our school systems, in Social Studies and/or History classes?
Since the Civil War, some Southern Americans with some level of ties to the Confederacy have attempted to reframe the main cause of the conflict by focusing on states’ rights or other issues, such as taxes and tariffs. This may be because it’s painful to accept the truth that millions fought to uphold a cruel and inhuman system. It may be because people want to believe the best about their ancestors, or their state or region. Or it may be due to prejudice. Whatever their rationalizing the historical evidence makes it clear that the American Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery, and that the Confederate cause was the continuation of white supremacy. Plain and simple. Controversy over. Yes, “Learn authentic, corroborated, verified factual history,” not propaganda and racism.
Tomorrow as we remember the tragic events of 9-11 twenty-five years ago which happened in Lower Manhattan, New York, American Airlines Flight 11 flew into the North Tower at 8:46am and United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower at 9:03am of the World Trade Center Twin Towers. A bit later American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, Washington D.C. at 9:37am, this was followed by another cockpit-hijacked jumbo jet, United Airlines Flight 93. Passengers had managed to get wind via phone calls with family of the crashes at the WTC towers and the Pentagon. As a result, those passengers rushed the cockpit to stop the hijackers. Sadly, the hijackers flew the jumbo jet straight down and it plowed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:02am. Its target was not certain, but it was most likely the White House or the US Capitol building.
After those first 76-minutes of September 11, 2001, 265 people were instantly killed (not including the 19 Jihadist hijackers) aboard those four planes, including eight small children younger than 12-years old. Approximately 125-130 people inside the Pentagon perished immediately when Flight 77 impacted the the outer three rings and a portion of the inner fourth ring. The exact number of people killed instantly by the jumbo jets crashing into the North and South Towers cannot be determined due to the eventual collapses of both towers. However, Wikipedia does offer a good idea of approximately how many were instantly killed by the plane crashes at the WTC.
The point of this blog-post is to remind all Americans that the horrifying attacks of September 11th could have and should have been stopped if it weren’t for too many personal sensitive government egos, arrogance, and them losing complete sight of who it is they really work for and serve: the safety and well-being of American citizens! The American people pay their salaries! Ultimately, the People of the United States are their financier, their payroll paychecks! Why was there so much internal power struggles inside our federal government? Why did those top government officials let their own hurt feelings and personal egos get in the way of saving American lives?
Yesterday I rewatched an excellent investigative PBS program by Frontline called The Man Who Knew. Here is a trailer of the documentary:
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Six of those “lost” hurt government officials inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), an ambassador in Yemen, East Africa, and the Office of the U.S. Attorney General during the time of at least 1992 to September 11, 2001, could have and should have protected and saved American lives, both domestically and abroad, instead of only concerning themselves with their hurt, damaged childish feelings and pride when told repeatedly about how highly organized globally and growing the terrorist group Al-Qaeda was becoming with Osama bin-Laden as the mastermind and money-funder. The first attack by Al-Qaeda at the Gold Mohur Hotel in Aden, Yemen, in December 1992, then the first attack on the WTC in February 1993, the attack in November 1995 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, followed by the attacks in August 1998 in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Finally, the attack on the USS Cole in January 2000 and once again in Yemen’s Aden harbor all should have been massive red flags to U.S. leading, top officials inside the FBI and the federal Attorney General’s office. But too much prideful lack of collaboration and open communication between federal departments failed miserably to protect and save American lives between 1992 and 2001. Period, no ifs ands or buts. Who are the five American officials that absolutely failed the American people and were appallingly derelict of their sworn duties as federal employees? They are…
James Woolsey – CIA Director 1993–1995. Though Woolsey was not a primary icon in the earliest Al-Qaeda attacks during his two years at the CIA, he could have amplified more persistently to his upper superiors what they were learning and had learned so far about Al-Qaeda’s plans. Sound the alarm bells louder and longer about the Bojinka Plot.
Robert “Bear” Bryant – FBI Deputy Director 1997–1999. Like Woolsey above Bryant could have done more, such as going to the news media to allow the alarm bells to be heard because Bryant believed in John O’Neill, the top go-to Guru of Al-Qaeda and Osama bin-Laden. Unfortunately, that would not have been FBI protocol and the repercussions from one’s FBI superiors and their superiors above them in the Department of Justice and the White House would or could ruin one’s entire career for going to the public behind their back. Ironically, it is in fact THE PUBLIC the federal government works for and serves and protects!
Louis J. Freeh – FBI Director 1993-2001. Freeh was good friends with Tom Pickard and both of them did not care for (hated?) John O’Neill’s personality, methods, or expertise on terrorism. After Ruby Ridge, Waco & the Branch Davidians, the Khobar Towers bombing Saudi Arabia, the TWA Flight 800 crash, and a long list of other American tragedies, by December 2001 Freeh was heavily criticized as one of the worst FBI Directors to hold the office, Freeh’s biggest criticism came from former Attorney General Janet Reno who also had unpleasant things to say about then acting Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Thomas J. Pickard – FBI Interim Assistant Director in 1996–1998, then Deputy Director in 1999, and FBI Director in June 2001–Sept 2001. Pickard was implicated as a direct opponent to John O’Neill and eventually had the top Guru of Osama bin-Laden/Al-Qaeda expended and terminated by a minor FBI offense. Pickard is most likely the leak to the New York Times about O’Neill’s insubstantial offense. Pickard never liked John O’Neill as a person or FBI agent/supervisor on Al-Qaeda and bin-Laden and his personal vendetta to O’Neill cost thousands and thousands of American lives.
John D. Ashcroft – U.S. Attorney General 2001–2005. Ashcroft was often criticized for doing far too little too late about terrorist threats on American soil and at foreign locations around the world, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. Perhaps his largest blunder was not having any clue about the sophisticated build-up of Al-Qaeda cells around the world and inside the United States due to internal strife and egos in the FBI and poor collaboration between his office and the FBI. Ashcroft is not exempt from his part of complacency and ignorance to and about 9/11. In fact, sworn testimony of two FBI agents later interviewed by the 9/11 Commission stated “he had ignored warnings of an imminent al-Qaida attack.”
Barbara K. Bodine – U.S. Ambassador to Yemen 1997–2001. There were many conflicts between Bodine and John O’Neill during the aftermath of the USS Cole bombing there. The most controversial and colossal blunder by Bodine to O’Neill was denying him visa re-entry into Yemen after a trip back to the New York for Thanksgiving. Because of her ego, pride, and lack of investigative protocol, she hindered further investigation into the Cole bombing which would have or could have led O’Neill and the FBI to bin-Laden and the already present Al-Qaeda cells in the United States and the 19 Jihadist terrorist-hijackers training to fly American jumbo jets. This could have likely foiled and stopped bin-Laden’s ultimate plan for September 11th.
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With the current horrid detrimental shape and direction of this United States of America are going through today under the President’s administration, co-led by his MAGA officials in Congress (Supreme Court included), and his public base, I really recommend (urge you?) watching the full hour and twenty-five minute PBS FRONTLINE® documentary, The Man Who Knew. Had so many FBI and Attorney General’s office personnel and deputy directors and directors under President George W. Bush’s watch not had their toes stepped on, feelings hurt, egos and pride dented, and minor protocol debates and rules of etiquette arguments—something that is happening here right now in Washington D.C. …this country would not have to suffer through and remember every year the terrible events of September 11, 2001, and perhaps again now until 2028. Think about it. This country badly needs, requires our federal and state government employees to serve and work for the American people, not for themselves or for more money and campaign donations. Elect those candidates who live that Constitutional principle (for us) this October and November.
Have any of you ever been caught in a natural catastrophe? Have you ever experienced firsthand what it is like to endure a Category 5 or 6 hurricane? What about a tornado? Ever experienced in your life firsthand an EF5 twister? Have you been through a volcanic eruption? What about an out-of-control wild fire or a disastrous flash flood? Here’s one that is becoming more common, What about a total power outage for 3-10 days?
From February 10 to February 20, 2021, Texas suffered its most catastrophic major power-grid failure during an arctic blast from Winter Storm Uri. I went through Uri while living in Dallas, TX, at the time and it was bad, real bad. I had no way of saving all my electronic device batteries unless I went out to my car, started it, and hooked up the power adaptors to the devices. Doing this for a long, silent, semi-alone 10-days was quite difficult. It was the first time for me to go through a long blackout alone. Cell phone networks were still operating, thank goodness, but that lasted only as long as my batteries lasted and I’d go out to my car, fire it up, and recharge my phone. I needed to stay in touch with my Mom and sister 5.25 hours away down in Kerrville near San Antonio, TX. But I was also thinking when my cell battery was exhausted and I didn’t have a power source/outlet, then what? What if you use up all of your gasoline in the car during a much, much longer power outage and it will no longer start? Load up as much as possible with gas in small gas tanks then store them somewhere safe?
Eventually my brain methodically kept going, thinking through the possible (probable?) causes and effects of my situation, other’s situation, and then I thought of a more dark, sinister situation I learned during Hurricane Rita in 2005, an already Category 5 hurricane predicted to hit somewhere between Houston and Lake Charles, Louisiana. In 2005 metro Houston’s population was around 5.3-million people. Houston is the largest metropolitan area in Texas. Everyone in Houston, particularly in the south of Houston all the way to Galveston, Texas City, Dickinson, Kemah, Alvin, Pearland, Pasadena, Sugarland, and La Porte, all southern suburbs and towns near the Gulf of Mexico coast were urged by authorities to evacuate north or northwest as soon as possible. What did I learn and witness on the news? It was a seriously disturbing wakeup call to me.
The woman I was dating for over three years lived down in Friendswood, TX, another suburb of south Houston. She lived there with her two other younger brothers and their wives and children. The older brother and my girlfriend evacuated Friendswood two days early than the youngest brother, his wife, and three children who was trying to evacuate the day before of Rita’s expected landfall as she neared Houston, TX. Over the phone my girlfriend listened to her youngest brother and wife describe what they were seeing and experiencing live trying to get out of north Houston on two-lane Interstate Hwy. I-45N near Spring, TX, up to Conroe, TX, 40-miles north of downtown Houston.
Travel time/distance from Friendswood to Conroe, TX, thru downtown Houston, TX, in normal conditions and traffic – Google Maps
What they began seeing, moving sometimes only 10mph at the most or completely stopped, around them on I-45N was horrifying, bordering on total anarchy by hundreds of thousands of motorists. Cars, trucks, 18-wheelers (lorries in the UK) and motorcycles whizzing by up through the center of the highway in between vehicles or on the embankment passing all the other stopped vehicles with no regard for safety. Those with kids in the vehicles were beginning to urinate or defecate either in the median or off the embankment of I-45N. Adults would too. The brother and his wife also mentioned to my girlfriend how many people were absolutely disrespectful, angry, afraid, crazy and ready to do whatever it took to care for themselves and their immediate loved ones regardless of the higher risks to others. And in Texas the vast majority of Texans own weapons they carry or keep in their vehicle. My girlfriend told me she had never heard her brother and sister-in-law so scared shitless.
As I was remembering all those dark memories and thoughts in 2005, I couldn’t help but realize what might happen during Winter Storm Uri in 2021 if the power-grid was not returned to service in a reasonable amount of time. The entire state of Texas had no power for around 9-14 days depending on utility work crews available. I realized how much of our lives, our society is now utterly dependent on two facts of life: 1)electronic devices/machines, computers, cell phones, internet/WiFi, electrical electronics in our vehicles, ATM’s, satellite navigation and GPS, and2) the power, the electricity to power all of it and/or the fuel, energy to run everything electronic. To say I wasn’t paranoid of others and their erratic mindsets was a lie.
I was very aware of human nature then and today when it is put into circumstances of life or death, or serious harm, and little to no control over it or the ability to stop it. Many people do not cope well. They do not start using their survival instinct or their brain, they panic, they freak the hell out and lose all rationale, safety, and typically all altruism and ingenuity. Lifeguards at pools or on beaches, or the U.S. Coast Guard seamen and women all know that those they try to sometimes rescue can try to pull them under, fight them in order to breathe and save their own life at your expense. That is human nature under extreme stress and panic.
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I watched a film today with the wife. It was on Netflix and it was about this exact same predicament I’ve described above happening to two families. The 2023 film is called Leave the World Behind and still streaming on Netflix. It stars Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, Myha’la, and Kevin Bacon. And if any of you have not seen it I highly recommend it. Why? Because number one Barack and Michelle Obama are executive producers through their Higher Ground Productions banner and notoriety. Number two, it disturbingly shows just how dependent our current U.S. culture and society are not just addicted to electronics in every way of our daily lives, but worse still how much 21st-century military defense, arms, and equipment like modern drones rely almost entirely on computer electronics. This doesn’t mention the fact that our private or government businesses and agencies and commerce rely heavily on satellite navigation systems, communications, and GPS in transportation and shipping sectors around the world via thousands upon thousands of Medium Earth Orbits to Low Earth Orbits. And by the way, if you haven’t heard, highly advanced computer AI corporations have already produced, released, and operate systems that monitor, build, or hack into other sophisticated AI systems.
Watch Leave the World Behind available on Netflix and get a harsh reality check about the high-tech world and nation we live in and under. Then if you can return here and share your thoughts about the film and just how closely it accurately reflects our present American lifestyles of hyper-dependence on energy, power, electricity, and computer system networks. Are we in control of our lives and our future? Is our current president and administration really intelligently capable of protecting Americans or themselves given the still ongoing 6-month War with Iran?
Nothing else needs saying, except this is just one colossal iceberg off the coast of Ilulissat, Greenland, among hundreds of others breaking off or calving at alarming rates over the last 10-20 years. This particular iceberg moved into Disko Bay, Greenland, after fracturing, melting and then became small enough to literally flip, doing a somersault and creating massive waves as it broke apart due to Climate Change.
Greenland, the world’s largest island, is also covered in one of the earth’s two ice sheets. The other cloaks Antarctica. Greenland’s encompasses around 80 percent of the nation’s land mass, spanning more than 650,000 square miles. But it’s also melting at an accelerating rate due to climate change, losing an annual average of 261 gigatonnes—one gigatonne is equivalent to 2.2 trillion pounds—contributing to rising sea levels that impact the rest of the world. And Greenland’s massive icebergs are a reminder of this exceptional scale. Once the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland erode past a specific amount of square miles, a point the Earth is reaching rapidly—unless the remaining superpower nations like the United States do more, A LOT MORE—the planet can no longer be saved. Most life as we know it, such as humans and most animals on land and in the seas, will perish. Us, we, and they will indeed go extinct. Guaranteed.
When 195 countries signed the Paris Agreement in 2016, the Copernicus Climate Change Service estimated that Earth would reach the 1.5 degrees threshold by 2042. But now, the European organization’s global temperature trend monitor predicts that Earth will hit 1.5 degrees Celsius in warming by 2029—just three years from now. No one country is doing enough, period. But for 2026 what 10 nations are doing the most to slow Climate Change?
Denmark — Overall score: 80.52
United Kingdom — Overall score: 70.8
Morocco — Overall score: 70.75
Chile — Overall score: 70.63
Luxembourg — Overall score: 70.45
Lithuania — Overall score: 70.3
Netherlands — Overall score: 67.27
Norway — Overall score: 66.83
Portugal — Overall score: 66.05
Sweden — Overall score: 64.91
Want to know where the United States ranks? Are you sitting down? The USA is #65 and dropping as of August 5, 2026, at 12:07pm CST (-5 hrs UTC).
Civilization must, I repeat MUST get off and stop burning fossil fuels and other gases and minerals causing Global Warming. It is so much worse than first predicted 40-60 years ago! What are you doing about it at home? What are you doing about Climate Change in your neighborhood, community, town, city, or state? What are you making your elected government officials address, and take action, not just hear their repeated lip-service?
Here’s the outlook, it’s bleak, very bleak if we continue with business-as-usual:
Not only will you, your spouse or partner suffer greatly from every imaginable disaster possible, severe food shortages, empty grocery stores, increased extreme temperatures, increased draughts more prolonged, increased flooding, more 1,000-year and 100-year Category 4 and 5 (and 6?) storms, hurricanes, typhoons, and tornadoes… but your own children, nieces, nephews, cousins, siblings, parents(?), and best friends, followed by your grandchildren and all of their relatives, will begin to die off from a wide variety of health issues, disease, malnutrition, and other problems yet unknown!
Doing nothing or very, very little, and too slowly has just ONE outcome for us all. It isn’t rocket science.
I have zero expectation that anything I ever say will end someone’s belief in their God. Not my goal or purpose. That alone belongs to the individual. ~ Zoe
