Singular Cause of the American Civil War

Posted on October 14, 2026 by Professor Taboo

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 19^th or 20^th 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 21^st-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 Act ⁵:

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.

Enslaved people and soldiers on a South Carolina plantation in 1862.
Henry P. Moore/LOC/Archive Photos via Getty Images

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 Mississippi from 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.”

[Approved, Tuesday, January 29, 1861]” […more]

Louisiana – January 26, 1861

“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 20^th-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, 20^th– and 21^st-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.

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Correct History

America’s 250th Birthday

Posted on May 24, 2026 by Professor Taboo

As this once great nation called the United States of America celebrates its upcoming 250^th birthday, over the last decade our country has been struggling and fighting within itself to hold fast to its core values as engineered by its famed 18^th-century Core Founding Fathers and its treasured Charters of Freedom were spelled out on parchment.

But this weekend with Monday, May 25th, 2026, bookends the Memorial Weekend, we remember all of our fallen soldiers since 1776 to the present-day who made the ultimate sacrifice for this land, its citizens, their families, and everything this country is supposed to stand for… we face an uncertain, tumultuous next two years and beyond. We Americans are not only memorializing our fallen heroes this weekend and Monday, but we are also literally fighting for this democracy’s survival against an unprecedented, tyrannical King and his regime of sycophants!

*The proposed Arch de Trump on Columbia Island off the Potomac River will stand 250-feet tall and 165-feet wide*

During Memorial Day weekend up until July 4^th, Independence Day, ironically celebrating the break-away 250-years ago from another King and empire abusing its power and authority without representation from its colonists in the “New World,” we should also be remembering today the sacrifices so many soldiers, men then women, their families and closest friends as well as their fellow soldiers gave when it counted most. But very soon this will all be diminished, tainted, and obscured by a gross and gaudy monstrosity blocking the view of Arlington Memorial Cemetery as seen from the Lincoln Memorial and all other war memorials surrounding the National Mall. This construction of a self-imposed triumphal arch known as Arch de Trump will be a classless eye-sore and slap in the face for all veterans living and deceased by nothing less than a sitting President.

*A rendering of the planned arch as seen from Arlington National Cemetery toward Lincoln Memorial, the National Mall, and Washington Monument*

Does this hideous, self-aggrandizing, Caesar-esque waste of taxpayer dollars demonstrate any level of reverence, patriotism, gratitude, and symbolism of a people’s democracy protected and won by our nation’s soldiers in blood? No, not even close. It is pure and simple one man’s deluded self-perception of unproven, empty greatness. Nothing more. It demonstrates the exact same arrogance all dictators, emperors, and kings throughout history built in their own image and a man’s disregard for his subjects, his people, and the enormous, selfless sacrifices made in their own lives and those to follow. Nothing about this repulsive arch speaks to any of those core values this nation has stood for and fought for in blood. This current mentally-ill president is and has been a shameful disgrace to us, to our foreign allies, and to true American history.

Therefore, let us remember what this Memorial Day weekend is really about: the true heroes who gave the highest price for our freedom, liberty, equality for one and all (E Pluribus Unum) and generations to follow, and who didn’t need or want Roman statues of gold, large glittering pools, flashy currency and coins, an Apian Way, museums and coliseums named after them, massive gold ballrooms, or worse, their face carved into Mount Rushmore. No, all these past, ordinary American men and women wanted was to be remembered for their sacrifice. That’s it.

Today, May 24th on CNN.com and again May 25th at 8pm EST/7pm CST, on normal CNN they are airing a special documentary called Why We Dream. It will be a vivid and intimate reflection by living WWII veterans exploring the power of memory and the quiet persistence of trauma and hope experienced in combat. It blends in rare wartime footage, 16mm home movies, cinematic portraiture, and classic film excerpts all directed by Meredith Danluck who created this emotionally driven examination of war’s lasting imprint. Here is a short trailer:

That is what celebrating 250-years means, or should mean. That is what a spectacular, sobering, unobstructed view of Arlington National Cemetery from the National Mall means to all this country’s veterans, living and passed, and their descendants. Let us not forget them and how humble, willing, and honored they fought and died to win, and then protect what it means to be one of many. I repeat, one of many. As the famous U.S. Army Major Richard “Dick” Winters of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Regiment, of the 101st Airborne Division Screaming Eagles told his grandson who had asked him if he was a hero in the war, Winters answered:

“No… but I served in a company of heroes.”

That answer is what most great ~~Commander-in-Chiefs~~ leaders give. They do not take all the credit and glory for themselves. They fully realize that in order to lead a platoon, a company, a regiment, a division… a nation, a true leader takes little to no credit for himself and humbly gives praise to those around him and the people he serves.

Remember Our “True” Heroes

Conclusion: A New U.S. Constitution

Posted on September 20, 2024 by Professor Taboo

It is finally here, finally published, the final part of my 7-part series A New U.S. Constitution. It has been a long time coming hasn’t it? My apologies for its delay. When I began this series in September and October 2022 I had no idea it would be delayed repeatedly due to my living situation these last four years. I had little idea just how busy I was to become.

But that is life, is it not? Frequently we have unexpected, unforeseen events and circumstances throughout our journey that can redirect one’s daily life or turn it upside down completely. That is precisely what happened to me: my Mom’s severe dementia became Early Alzheimer’s Disease. And my daily/nightly schedule is dominated by her needs and care between 10-14 hours per day and night, 365, no breaks except when she’s away on an infrequent 5-night respite for my sanity. As many of you know, the disease only gets worse. It is this prognosis and reality that has derailed my previous free-time and efforts to completing this series in a timely manner.

Even so, enough about lost time and her disease and on to the conclusion of A New U.S. Constitution.

When we left off with Part 6, I stated that in this part I would delve into the detailed problems of Gerrymandering, the conclusion, and consequently gerrymandering was further exacerbated by the 2019 Supreme Court ruling of Rucho v. Common Cause. That SCOTUS decision had tremendous detrimental affects on this republic democracy causing distortions upon election outcomes today. I also stated in Part 6 that this nation’s citizens, along with our public officials at state and federal levels, must construct a 21^st-century electing system that allows proportional representation. Proportional representation reflects the correct definition of a republic democracy, the one that most all of our Founding Fathers intended within the Charters of Freedom.

Gerrymandering Under the Microscope

Generally speaking, gerrymandering in the United States is the long standing practice of drawing, or redrawing, geographical boundaries of electoral districts in an intended manner that gives your political party a clear advantage over your (hated?) political rivals, i.e. partisan gerrymandering. In this way it can also (greatly?) dilute the voting power of undesirable ethnic and/or linguistic minority groups opposing your political party, i.e. racial gerrymandering. This legalized political and racial discrimination during elections was begun in 1812 with a law enacted by Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry. So… what is gerrymandering in a more specific, explicit form?

Today, this legalized discrimination and partitioning of registered U.S. voters, or to-be registered voters, looks like this in 2011 to the present day:

…in states where Republicans drew the [geographical] lines, they won 72% of the [legislative] seats with just 53% of the [total] votes [cast]; in states where Democrats drew the lines, they won 71% of the seats with just 56% of [total] votes [cast].

— Lawrence Lessig, “Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress“, p. 27.

State government trifectas is a popular term that describes one political party’s control and domination over 1) a state’s governorship and both chambers of the state’s legislature, i.e. 2) the senate chamber and 3) the house chamber, thus making the trifecta. “As of September 18, 2024, there are 23 Republican trifectas, 17 Democratic trifectas, and 10 divided governments where neither party holds trifecta control” according to BallotPedia.org. For at least six years from 2015 until 2021, then later fortified over the Trump years (2017–2021), the Mitch McConnell years (1985–2024)—now Senate Minority Leader—the Republican domination through gerrymandering, and today through Senator McConnell, has greatly strengthened partisan and racial gerrymandering in many states, 28-states out of 50 to be precise. And it is well-known what political-racial minority group in America has been losing ground the last 40-years: white voters. Yet, remarkably white American voters maintain disproportionate control and power in most state legislatures, particularly in states with sparse population densities, or a few people living on large swathes of land.

This glaring imbalance begs the question, at least for me… Today, do our state and federal governments represent actual American citizens/voters, the people, or do they represent land-sizes, great non-human areas, non-voters and wealthy business-corporations? The latter, which is to say 18^th-century early 19^th-century farmers, large plantation owners, etc., represented what the United States was in the distant past, barring of course mega-wealthy corporations. However, in 21^st-century America, democracy should represent the former, that is to say the live and breathing individual American humans, voters, citizens, and their economic GDP contributions just as equally, if not more, but not a business entity such as corporate America. But to the demise of our democracy today Americans are being less and less represented by their governments and politicians. Today, it is not an actual representation of the American populous, individual citizens. And that folks, is NOT a republic democracy in its purest raw form.

A study in 2019 revealed that over the past few election decades, gerrymandering had shifted election outcomes for as many as 59-60 of 435 legislative seats in the House of Representatives. That is a significant shift given the wide ethnic cultural diversity of the American population, i.e. nonwhites. Gerrymandering causes several major controversies about whether or not we truly are a republic democracy, as we publicly proclaim to the world, and perhaps the biggest controversy is whether our Founding Fathers intended us to be back in 1781–1800 (i.e. bound to and living in the 18^th-century accordingly) or rather progressing along with the times, with the living, not the dead.

**The Rucho v Common Cause SCOTUS Decision**

You can easily Google or search on your own what the Rucho v Common Cause Landmark Supreme Court decision was all about. However, in my own opinion and background in American history, Social Studies, and U.S. federal and state government as a former certified/licensed educator/teacher, I would personally declare that the Supreme Court’s decision was a disgraceful cop-out. As Wikipedia (and others) define the landmark decision, it was:

[As the Court determined] partisan gerrymandering may be “incompatible with democratic principles”, the federal courts cannot review such allegations, as they present nonjusticiable political questions outside the jurisdiction of these courts.

And yet, one of the U.S. Supreme Court’s basic duties is to do exactly what they claimed they couldn’t do, “review allegations” dealing with our Constitution’s “democratic principles.” And over the last 245-years of this country’s existence, that is precisely what the Supreme Court was created to do and to have legal oversight over the legislative and executive branches, i.e. Checks and Balances! They cowardly copped-out on their sworn responsibility to properly interpret the spirit of our Charters of Freedom and how they apply, and specifically our federal Constitution’s interpretation and application. Here is what happened in 2016 in the words of George W. Van Cleve:

In Rucho, plaintiffs in two companion cases—one from North Carolina and one from Maryland—challenged those states’ congressional district maps as unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering. The facts of Rucho provide good examples of gerrymandering. In North Carolina, Republicans who controlled its state legislature had redrawn its congressional district boundaries to maintain a 10-3 Republican congressional seat advantage, despite the fact that just a few years previously Democratic candidates had received a majority of the statewide congressional vote. In 2016, North Carolina Republicans won 10 out of 13 seats despite receiving only 53 percent of the statewide vote; in 2018, they won 9 out of 12 districts with 50 percent of the vote.

— Rucho, Kagan, Justice, dissent (joined by all minority Justices), 139 S. Ct. 2484, 2509-11.

Essentially, today’s gerrymandering is no different than adjusting the rules, or rigging the game to your favor in order to win as many times as possible. I ask you, is that a pure fair market, an equal playing field for everyone in a supposedly free-enterprise capitalistic model that so many radical patriots here today rave about and proclaim as their “democracy, freedom, and liberty?” No, it is not. It is nothing but cheating in order to gain an upper-hand over your opponents. That is not a republic democracy.

And yet, the Supreme Court cowardly washed their hands of responsibility toward Constitutional limits to get in bed with partisan and racial gerrymandering, no matter how enormously it distorts, maligns fair election outcomes. In 2019 the Supreme Court succumbed to ideological lines of pressure instead of to the U.S. Constitution, the rule of objective law, and they handed power over to partisan, discriminatory prejudices of geographic gerrymandering. And yet still, our Constitution does indeed contain very specific provisions that allow the court oversight, supervisory authority over fair or unfair elections. The SCOTUS blatantly ignored it.

Justice Kagan’s vigorous—indeed scathing—dissent in Rucho, written on behalf of four justices, insisted that the Constitution required an end to partisan gerrymandering because it violated several provisions of the Constitution and directly undermined democracy.

— George W. Van Cleve, “Making a New American Constitution.” Maroon Bells Press. Kindle Edition, 2020

Furthermore, Kagan’s dissent argues that our long history of partisan racial gerrymandering has always been based upon the majority, and that is completely irrelevant. Why? Because the practice of gerrymandering completely FAILS to meet the modern, proper democratic standards of what it means to be truly a republic democracy. One must remember that we are no longer living in the late 18^th-century!

However, the Rucho v Common Cause Supreme Court decision has even further ramifications for our future elections and the views, the positions and roles of the Supreme Court in our correct interpretations of our Constitutional system, not just in the 18^th-century, but more importantly the 21^st-century! Remember, Thomas Jefferson and the other five core Founding Fathers all agreed that:

The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet, it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government. The course of reflection in which we are immersed here on the elementary principles of society has presented this question to my mind; & that no such obligation can be so transmitted I think very capable of proof. I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, ‘that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living’: that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.

— Thomas Jefferson, in a personal letter to James Madison, Sept. 6, 1789.

The very basic legislative essentials of our Constitution and other sacred democratic documents were all designed to be adjusted, to be tweaked, to be updated as necessary, to present times and conditions—not bound by or to the dead. Therefore, let us fully understand the many curses of political and racial gerrymandering discrimination we have presently:

Gerrymandering is an important factor in preventing the emergence of such national proportional representation. It helps block changes in the partisan balance in government office holding even if developing a better balance between the major parties is what many, or perhaps even most, voters in our divided country would prefer. By preventing a partisan balance that reflects voters’ choices, it also hinders the development of more bipartisan, consensus policies by the national government, something many voters would quite likely also prefer. Notably, however, the Court’s [2019] decision—and even the minority’s sharp challenge to it—both also effectively sanction our existing majoritarian electoral system, i.e., a two-party system that political scientists agree effectively discourages require proportional representation of minority parties.

— George W. Van Cleve, “Making A New American Constitution,” Maroon Bells Press. Kindle Edition, 2020

Proportional Representation – What Is It?

Throughout human history—going back many 100,000 years—humans have always had self-imposed biases and prejudices. Hence, it is no surprise that the concept of proportional representation in one’s ruling government has vehement proponents and vehement detractors based upon their own (unfounded?) biases and lifetime experiences. Or the same could be said based upon legitimate data and objective human experiences too. What is well-known and proven is that proportional representation may or may not always represent the majority opinion. That is not a bad thing.

Whether the diverse political-social landscape is or is not representing many viewpoints, the fact that its condition offers choices, choices other than one single dominant ideology (that could very well be evil and horrendous for the common good), a wider range of concepts will more often than not give civilizations more choices for a greater good. What MUST be present in a pure election system and governing is free civil discourse. Without free civil discourse, civilizations are destined for total collapse. Ideologies only represent a theory, something that is not tested or reflective of actual human experience. In other words, a concept-theory or ideology may not represent actual data, evidence, or real-life experiences of very actual living. That life-void is possibly a delusion, a life experience that only exists in one person’s own head. It simply does not represent the majority of experiences by humans.

So to be clear, our need, NO… our perceived requirement to think outside of our own selfish needs for a greater good, a greater nation, a noble concept that our own individual biases, our own individually centered ideals have to exist with multiple choices, with answers and consequences that sometimes make us uncomfortable, make us feel awkward, but done so in order to benefit those outside of ourselves. Our electoral system should be no different; we MUST allow it to function outside of individual biases, ideologies, and our own tiny miniscule perceptions.

Inside that framework, the entire election system can be freely examined outside of the political influences and enormous vested interests of our existing major political parties and their millions-billions of dollars that influence minds like a cancer. And even more significant, we should objectively examine our unelected Supreme Court Justices, whose SCOTUS members are political biased theoreticians and who have never had to face an election, much less run a federal government.

In the end, our Constitution’s major political institutions are irreparably flawed as is the basis for a modern representative government. Our current institutions do not provide for adequate representation of the national popular will, for two reasons.

First, they do not meet modern standards for democratic representation. Our constitution now provides increased “generation-spanning” political power to Presidents and the Supreme Court. More significantly it also allows both the presidency and the Senate to be controlled by minority parties. Further, the Constitution, as now interpreted, allows unfettered gerrymandering to continue and permit the two major parties to exclude minority voices entirely from representation in Congress. That is the antithetical definition of democracy.
Second, under our current Constitution’s rules, presidential elections and the operations of Congress increasingly distort the popular will in ways that the Founding Fathers did not foresee, and could not have possibly foreseen the very probable consequences. They would not have approved this by any means. The Constitution’s major institutions have failed, as a basis for representative government, and non-participatory Americans have willing allowed this. So apparently, it would seem, nothing can be done to remedy any of these growing shortcomings by means of free-standing constitutional amendments, by which a pure republic democracy could in fact change. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. A new Constitutional Convention could and will instead be necessary to cure us of these dysfunctional conditions.

Why do so many average Americans not know this? I have that answer.

One, for the last 3-4 decades Americans and one specific American political party has relentlessly attacked our public school systems in history, social studies, and state-federal government. These four areas of general middle-school and high school curriculums have been so reduced that American teenagers, now adults, have little clue as to what the core Founding Fathers intended for their nation. Most American 1^st thru 12^th grade public educational institutions exclude these four VITAL areas of American history/government. In private, religiously associated school curriculums these subject areas are non-existent. The Judeo-Christian (Greek, not Mishnaic Hebrew that was Jesus/Yeshua) Bible and its theological doctrines, are forced-taught… oppressively and relentlessly to indoctrinate. The GOP dresses up their prejudicial attacks via “school vouchers” for families of religious extremists.

Secondly, far too many American voters do not participate in their own governing, the very basic national privilege and virtue (or gift?) that our democracy still (barely) provides to them. Sad, very sad.

Nevertheless, there is still a chance for us to save this sinking ship that is American democracy. But the only way this can happen is for average Americans to seize their given rights as citizens to self-determine how they will be governed by participating in elections AND just as important, engage with their state and federal officials regularly. And vote, of course. If this is not done by at least 70% of our population, then this country is doomed, guaranteed. Unfortunately, for several decades, voter turnout rates have been around 32%–46% give or takes 0.5-1.5 percent points. Yes, that figure is well beyond appallingly dismal. No wonder this country is in the state that it is.

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

SCOTUS Have Lost Their Minds

Posted on April 28, 2024 by Professor Taboo

Precursor — I am still working on the blog-drafts Conclusion: A New U.S. Constitution and Paul, Acts, Forgeries & Marcion – Part III (the Marcion part). However, this news here was just far too critical to ignore and not write about. Our country is on a very, very dangerous path and the consequences must be fully realized.

∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼

There are five (5), maybe six (6), U.S. Supreme Court Justices that have literally lost their minds and abandoned the core foundations of our sacred Charters of Freedom, the precedents, and what it means contextually to live and govern a nation by laws, not personal opinions or beliefs. Who are the “rogue” federal justices? They are from most radical (MAGA puppets) first, to least conservative at the end:

Samuel A. Alito – appointed under George W. Bush’s administration.
Clarence Thomas – appointed under George H.W. Bush’s administration.
Neil Gorsuch – appointed under Trump’s administration.
Amy Coney Barrett – appointed under Trump’s administration.
Brett Kavanaugh – appointed under Trump’s administration.
John Roberts – the least radical, appointed under George H.W. Bush’s administration.

*Chief Justice Roberts’ Supreme Court, October 2022*

The other three justices which are not ultra Conservative or extreme radical are Ketanji Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor, the most liberal according to Axios. What is the obvious indication that these five justices (six?) have completely lost their way and forsaken their Constitutional vows? Read this…

On Thursday, April 25^th, 2024, a Trump lawyer argued to the Supreme Court justices that “the president could assassinate a political rival and be immune from prosecution.” But the most shocking, appalling part of this brazen claim is that the five (six?) MAGA Supreme Court justices agreed with him! 😲

Assassinations of political rivals or enemies today happen in countries like Russia (Vladimir Putin & Alexei Navalny), Venezuela (Nicolás Maduro), Saudi Arabia (Mohammed bin Salman), Syria (Bashar al-Assad), or China, if one speaks out publicly against Xi Jinping and his communist government, you disappear in prison for life. But this isn’t supposed to happen in the United States. Our Founding Fathers clearly designed our nation to be ruled and governed by the law, not anarchy, authoritarianism, or societal trends or ideologies.

Furthermore, when the U.S. declared its independence to Great Britain in 1776 then drafted and ratified its Constitution in 1788, it was with the full intention of moving away from the kings, rulers, and despots of unstable colonial Europe.

In America, the rule of law is king.
— Thomas paine, a core founding father

*Left to right: Pol Pot, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Mao Zedong, and Kim Il-Sung*

When I was a 4^th thru 8^th grade History-Social Studies teacher in 2010–2014, I often did a role-playing activity for my 8^th graders called “Rule of Law or Rule of Man.” All my students would receive a Post-It note with words or phrases such as:

Public Safety	Dissent	Dictator
Executive Branch	Constitution	Liberty
Anarchy	Consensus	Freedom
Inalienable Rights	Fairness	Protest
Protection	Lawyer	Mob
Gang	Court	Prison
Responsibility	Legislative Branch	Violence
Hedonism	Democracy	Equality
Abuse	Separation of Powers	Selfishness
Inequality	Checks & Balances	Judicial Branch
Independent Judiciary	Best Interest of Country	Best Interest of One Person

After giving each student about 5-minutes to consider what their Post-It note says, then have them put their Post-It note in the correct column of the Big Chart which is divided in two: Rule of Law on the left; Rule of Man on the right.

Once all students have placed their note in one of the columns—it’s possible that some notes can be in either column, hence ‘on the line’—then ask the 8^th-graders to make a consensus classroom definition of the Rule of Law and the Rule of Man. Next would be a set of discussion questions. For example:

When and where did our system of law originate and how?
How do laws today affect each of us daily?
What functions do laws serve in our society?
- Be sure to discuss at least nine sub-topics of this question.
Are there flaws in our system of law? How are they resolved?
What role does our government’s Separation of Powers play in ensuring adherence to the Rule of Law?
Why is an Independent Judiciary fundamental to the Rule of Law?
It has been said for over 235 years that based on our Constitution, we are “a nation of laws, not people.” What does that mean?
Why is it so critically important to be well educated about our Founding documents and Founding Fathers like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?
Why is it critically important all Americans, especially our elected officials, follow the Rule of Law?

These are just a sampling of the important questions I would’ve asked my 8^th-grade students. I would also have my students role-play in groups of 3-to-6 students per group assigning one of them to be the group Director. Following are a sample of the role-playing scenarios students would play:

Scenario #1 — “Brown vs Board of Education,” Little Rock, Arkansas. This case involved the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Scenario #2 — “Mapp vs Ohio,” Cleveland, Ohio. This case involved seized evidence without a legal search warrant was deemed inadmissible in state courts according to the Fourth Amendment.
Scenario #3 — “Gideon vs Wainwright,” Panama City, Florida. This case involved the Circuit Court judge denying Clarence Gideon his right to a state attorney to represent him when he couldn’t afford one himself, according to the Sixth Amendment.

And here is the real gut-punch scenario for the 8^th-grade students:

Scenario #4 — This scenario is based on the Watergate scandal. The Constitution states that an Executive (like the U.S. President) who puts himself/herself above the law and deliberately abuses his or her powers of office may be impeached and even sent to prison. President Richard Nixon obstructed legal proceedings into the scandal by refusing to comply to the special prosecutor’s demands for Nixon’s wire-tapping tapes. Nixon resigned from office before he could be convicted. SCOTUS determined that Executive Privilege was not and is not limitless.

From this above 8^th-grade classroom activity you might have deduced that the Separation of Powers was specifically designed by the Core Founding Fathers to protect against one office, one person, one branch of government seizing total or near-total, authoritarian power. Even 8^th-graders, and 9^th-graders to 12^th-graders grasp and understand these basic Constitutional principles. They all know what a bully is like in the school yard and if not stopped what will eventually happen.

Yet, there is a sizable U.S. contingent within our state and federal governments as well as in the Supreme Court and within the general public who fail to comprehend, protect, and enforce this core Constitutional precept against bullies! Their deliberant naïvety is appalling as well as deeply disturbing. This November Americans might well be adding another man to the above image of history’s most infamous dictators: Donald J. Trump.

Some food for thought and debate…

Should this Trump lawyer’s and the supporting MAGA Supreme Court Justices’ logic somehow prevail and win out for a President’s total immunity to assassinate, should President Joe Biden consider assassinating Donald Trump? After all, you can’t have it both ways or apply the law when it suits you best and disregard it when it doesn’t. Why shouldn’t Biden entertain the idea of erasing Trump while he is the sitting President? Or why not imprison Trump in some remote ~~Siberian~~ location just as Vladimir Putin, Nicolás Maduro, Mohammed bin Salman, Bashar al-Assad, and Xi Jinping all do with regularity? If it is legal for Trump to do it, then it follows that Biden can do it.

What has Trump stated publicly and explicitly he will do if put back into the White House? Here are just three Project 2025 action plans, out of a litany of others, which he and MAGA Republicans promise to execute beginning in January 2025:

Incite violence against anyone, including political opponents, he deems a threat to his ambitions. Trump hasn’t just verbalized this intent, he has actually done it. Just last month Trump posted on his social media platform a video of President Biden hog-tied in the back of a pickup truck, bound and gagged with what appears to be a bullet-hole in his head. Regular threats such as these against the POTUS is in fact a crime.
Completely overhaul and dismantle civil service positions to favor his political allies that will loyally do his biddings. Within Project 2025 there is already a documented plan to replace thousands of agency employees with his own loyal sycophants, then undo hundreds of environmental protections and reduce even more civil rights for Americans.
Turn the FBI and other law enforcement agencies into his personal police state and imprison—just like Putin did with Alexei Navalny—all political or social opponents he deems a threat to himself. These are Trump’s words verbatim, “If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business.”

Anyone with a quality, fair and well-rounded education of American history and American government must admit that the above rhetoric and promises made by Trump 2024 and his MAGA cult members/minions, including 5-6 Supreme Court Justices, flies in the face of everything this nation was founded on by our six core Founding Fathers and the Charters of Freedom they drafted and the states ratified.

I cannot stress enough nor vehemently enough just how monumental this November will be. Not just for the future of the United States, but also the world. Mark my words right now, if the Orange Orangutan Baby gets back into the Oval Office, that is the beginning of the end of this democratic republic from which we may never recover.

Unsung Heroes

Posted on June 6, 2021 by Professor Taboo

Or perhaps “Rarely Sung Heroes” in these modern times of growing (or struggling?) decency in the United States. I say that with caution and some hesitation. Let me explain.

Back on June 6, 2019, the 75th Anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France honoring all the Allied soldiers who participated, fought, died, and survived in that historic amphibious invasion to liberate Nazi Europe, I published my blog-post Five Hundred Yards. It was my attempt for readers to bring an acute perspective and emotion what the landings on Omaha Beach was like that June morning for the thousands of 17-, 18-, 19- and 20-year old boys had gone through as they hit the water or beach. If you have the opportunity to read or reread Five Hundred Yards, please do. It will set the stage and context for this post.

Some/Many caucasian Euro-American descendants born and living in our 50-states today have a generic, basic knowledge of how indigenous North American peoples/Indians were either exterminated, moved from their homelands, or abusively treated and deceived by the U.S. government, military, and new settlers between 1778 and 1911, during the official existence of the United States. Between 1539 and 1774 thousands upon thousands of Indigenous peoples were massacred by European colonists and their armed forces. By far the biggest killer of North American Indians were all the lethal diseases European colonists/invaders brought within them and spread. Ironically, similar to what former President Trump accused the Chinese of doing with COVID-19. Nevertheless, it is estimated that from the Pre-Columbian Era (1325–1492) to the final massacre in 1911 in Washoe County, Nevada, between 95,000,000 to 114,000,000 Native American people, that’s millions not thousands, were wiped out by Europeans.

Despite this horrific background and constant inhumane atrocities committed upon them by Europeans and Euro-American descendants, during our first and second European World Wars more than 12,000 Native American Indians fought in Europe for the U.S. in World War I. More than 44,000 fought for the U.S. in World War II. Keep in mind, this is only one to three generations after the exterminations and removals from their own ancestral homelands over a 600-year timespan. Think about that. The numbers of your own people gradually and drastically dying, massacred, and disappearing all around you. With that in mind, these Native American men who, like their African-American WW1 and WW2 military counterparts, volunteered to go fight and risk their lives on a far away continent for a nation who at the time and well before did not love them or treat them as equals and far from justly. Nor did this nation welcome their survivors home as heroes the same as their own caucasian Euro-Americans and yet still went and did their patriotic (tribal) duty and did it bravely, honorably as the warriors they had always been.

I want to commemorate in a small way those Normandy, D-Day Native American warriors who did not come home, those who were wounded and maimed, and those who survived the entire war who did come back home, but nonetheless were still scarred and mentally wounded by those 2–3 years in Nazi Europe. Scarred perhaps too by six centuries of war upon their people by Europeans and Euro-Americans. Here is one of many partial accounts of that June morning on Omaha Beach, 1944 by Army Medic and 19-year old Private of Fox Company in the 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Division who were the first frontline units to hit Omaha Beach.

In my June 6, 2019 blog-post Five Hundred Yards, I wrote about how many casualties were sustained by the first wave hitting the beach or head-high water of Omaha in the first 15-minutes and hour of landing. What I didn’t mention in that blog-post was that decades later German Wehrmacht testimonies stated they were firing their MG-42’s, 5cm and 8cm mortars, and rocket-launching Nebelwerfers so much, non-stop that the barrels were all overheating, even when they rotated them with extra barrels they had, 3-4 extras in some units. The German gun-crews were astonished by how many Allied soldiers kept coming and falling, coming and falling, over and over, endlessly as they quickly exhausted their entire stores of ammunition. On the American side with the 1st Division known as “The Big Red One,” they sustained over 2,000 casualties in the first hour of landings.

Photograph of American troops approaching Omaha Beach, Normandy, on D-Day. Dated 20th Century. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

One particular Army Medic who was one of 14 total Medics in his regiment made it far enough up the 300-400 yards of flat beach and took cover. However, as he looked back from where he had come he realized he was all alone. No one in his company had made it safely as far as he had. He then noticed many of his fellow infantrymen lying on the beach wounded, screaming, and in the rising tide carrying their 60-75 lbs of gear, most were struggling or unable to pull themselves up the sand so as not to drown. Without hesitation he ran back some 300-400 yards again under heavy fire with his two satchels of medical supplies to those wounded and drowning, pulling many of them 10-11 yards up on the beach and began giving first aid. Another Corp man reported to his officers that this one Medic pulled about eighteen wounded out of the water that were twice or three-times his size and their uniforms and gear heavily soaked. Charles Norman Shay is a Penobscot Indian from the state of Maine and was that one remarkable Army Medic. He tells in his own words what happened:

“The seas were red with the blood. At the very beginning, it was difficult for me to witness so much carnage. I had to push what I was experiencing out of my mind, so I could function the way I was trained to function. Then I was able to operate effectively and even saved a few lives. I have always been proud to be a medic. It’s a special privilege.”

Shay remembers cradling those critically wounded to give them some comfort. When he found one he recognized, badly wounded with an open abdomen, he stayed with Private Edward Morozewicz, one of his closest friends, to ease him in his last few breaths. In 2017 Shay visited Morozewicz’s family, making sure they knew of Edward’s courage. Charles participated in a special ceremony honoring his fellow fallen medic. Shay still questions why he lived when Morozewicz and most of his unit were killed. “I knew [Edward] was slowly dying. I bandaged his wounds and gave him morphine. But I knew there was no help for him,” says a somber Shay.

Most of the American 1st and 29th Division’s first waves onto Omaha Beach perished, cut-down and slaughtered by the precise, heavily supplied and experienced 352nd German Infantry Division. The 352nd was assembled with many battle-tested soldiers pulled from worn-out or disbanded Wehrmacht divisions that had served on the Eastern front in Russia. By 12-noon on D-Day over half the men and most of the officers in Shay’s Company were either seriously wounded or dead. Up to 3,000 Allied troops died, and some 9,000 were injured or classified as missing that day, unidentifiable, or lost to the sea. Of Shay’s Regimental Medical Detachment of 42 medics, seven were killed and 24 severely wounded. After so many of his regiment and company fell or were killed, he later struggled many times with Survivors Remorse.

“My heart breaks for those mothers who prayed for their brave sons but never welcomed their sons home again,” says Shay wiping away a tear. “I can never forget the men who never had the chance to experience life as it was meant to be, a wife and a family, but instead were destined to depart this life in some far-off [European] land.”

Shay often says it was random, crazy luck that he survived D-Day, the rest of the war, and later the Korean War that he volunteered for service just five years later. After the war in Europe ended, the U.S. Army awarded Shay a Silver Star for his actions, and the French government appointed him a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur, the highest honor given to non-citizens of France. But despite those medals this humble Penobscot Indian veteran always refers back to fellow warriors who paid the ultimate price and sacrifice for their country, homeland, Native tribes and family. Shay says there were many just like him.

Recently there has been new memorials and ceremonies finally recognizing the heroic contributions and sacrifices of Native American WW2 veteran warriors. Charles Shay makes annual trips back to Normandy to pay his ceremonial respects and honor his fellow Indians lost there with Eagle feathers, sage, and tobacco. He does so to bring heightened awareness to the younger public, particularly back in the United States. He lets his fellow Indian warriors lost, buried there under row after row of white crosses that they are not forgotten.

In the Normandy American Cemetery at least 29 Native American soldiers are buried. In the Brittany American Cemetery at least nine Native American soldiers are buried. And at the Utah Beach American Cemetery 30 Comanche soldiers, Code Talkers, from the Oklahoma Reservation are memorialized there. According to Dr. Harald E. L. Prins, an anthropologist and researcher at Kansas State University, 175 Native American soldiers landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. Over 75-years later only around 55 have been identified.

For an extensive telling of Shay’s gallant service on D-Day go here. Many of the past stories of that day in June, a lot of the later accompanying military field narratives describing the Omaha ordeal are sanitized versions of the original field unit notes. And as S.L.A. Marshall writes for The Atlantic magazine in his provocative, transparently graphic article “First Wave at Omaha Beach,“ he says even “Cornelius Ryan’s epic film The Longest Day misses the essence of the unfiltered Omaha story.” I highly recommend his article.

It is my opinion, reflecting back this June 6th, 2021 anniversary of D-Day, given these Native American warriors pre-war histories they had every justifiable reason not to lift a finger for a white-man’s faraway war. They did not have to do any patriotic service for a 1940’s Euro-American country that treats them and had treated them as second- or third-class people without the same identical privileges and human rights afforded White America. Today, I think these Native American warriors are overdue, deserving the utmost respect, honor, and ceremony up to or beyond any other homage given to any Euro-American veterans of any U.S. wars! May they all receive many sacred Eagle feathers, burnt sage, and tobacco so all of their spirits rest in peace and receive (at minimum) equal remembrance and honor by all Americans; every single one of us without exception. Unmeasurable gratitude for all of you Native American warrior veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces, past and present.