Friday, June 8, 2018

Prattville Dragoons SCV Camp 1524 Commander's Column for June 2018


The Nation’s Chilling Changing Political Climate

Rep. Paul Beckman addressed the Dragoons at their May camp meeting to highlight his fight for the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act as a sponsor for the legislation in the 2016 House session.  Certainly highlighting his Southern heritage credentials as Kay Ivey did in her recent radio advertisement and as many politicians are doing throughout Alabama in this campaign season.  I was again listening to 1140AM in the morning on my drive to work on Tuesday May 29th and Kevin Elkins was interviewing Bobby Bright who is running for his old Alabama District 2 U.S. House of Representatives seat.  Bright was asked what three things he would want to accomplish in another term as a House Representative and hemmed and hawed saying that one really can’t expect to influence much as a Representative is but one of 536 politicians in Washington (counting the House, Senate and the President).  So apparently, he just wants the paycheck again.  He was then asked if he had just one wish to realize what would that be and Bright responded with the classic beauty pageant answer, “World peace.”  Switching topics, Kevin then asked Bright if he would agree that it was time for the US as a country to apologize for the wrongs committed against the black community/population in regards to slavery, Jim Crow laws and lynchings.  Surprisingly, Bright actually and emphatically said no, that we must look forward to what we can accomplish together, recognizing the past but working in the present for the future.  He explained that he had no knowledge of nor influence on his ancestors or the Southerners who may have owned slaves 200 years ago and that he certainly is not responsible for nor could he apologize for any of their actions.   Kevin then highlighted the Jim Crow laws thru which those in their 60s and older may have experienced “especially in the South”.  Kevin is a Yankee and went to college in Hawaii so he evidently is permitted to excuse the Northern Jim Crow laws.  For example, in Chicago Illinois “racially restrictive housing” laws were passed in 1927.  In Indiana, in 1869 separate schools for black children were codified and in 1905, laws prohibiting mixed race marriages was passed. Ohio “enacted a miscegenation statute in 1877 and a school segregation law in 1878.”  Rhode Island prohibited intermarriage in 1872.   Last month’s column discussed the fallacy of lynchings as a Southern phenomena.  Every SCV member should be cognizant of the facts around the African nations and United States role in the institution of slavery for 200 years prior to the short existence of the Confederacy. 
You should be aware of the Black Lives Matter movement which is a blatant affront and attack on police officers and our society’s law and order. Related, recently, George Soros has been pumping millions of dollars into campaigns “to back would-be prosecutors (district attorneys) who want to reduce incarceration, crack down on police misconduct and revamp a bail system they contend unfairly imprisons poor people before trial.  The effort is part of a years-long campaign by liberal groups to reshape the nation's criminal justice system. New York billionaire George Soros headlines a consortium of private funders, the American Civil Liberties Union and other social justice groups roiling conventional law-and-order politics.”  "It's really coming from this Black Lives Matter moment of police accountability," said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, criminal justice and drug policy director for the ACLU of California.  Stacey Abrams in Georgia just won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination and is campaigning on criminal justice reform saying the system is rigged against poor minorities.  So while campaigns previously ran on a platform supporting police and reducing crime, these new candidates want to hamstring police and make it more difficult to prosecute and incarcerate criminals. This isn’t a fringe movement but a well-funded effort with primary party candidates in California but even in the deep South in Georgia.   Meanwhile, “The former chairman of the New Black Panther Party and current president of Black Lawyers for Justice demanded that President Donald Trump provide reparations for slavery or designate Florida as solely for African Americans.  PJ Media reported Malik Shabazz made these demands speaking at the National Black Men’s Convention in Lafayette Square park across from the White House (on Saturday April 21st). “We must have reparations, full compensation for the theft of our land, the theft of our bodies, the theft of our people from Africa, the theft of our dignity; the desecration of our souls decade after decade,” he said. “We want land. We want our own,” the black leader proclaimed. “You don’t like us, Mr. Trump? Break us off some of this territory. You don’t like us, Mr. Trump? You don’t want to be around us? Then hand over the state of Florida.”  He went on to offer, if Trump (and presumably Florida’s residents) did not want to give up the Sunshine State, then Georgia, Alabama or South Carolina would do.  Shabazz argued proof of Trump’s racism to be his suggestion last fall that NFL owners throw any “son-of-a-b***h” player off the field, who did not want to stand for the National Anthem.  “Donald Trump, the black man is not a son-of-a-b***h,” Shabazz said. “He is the original man. He’s the maker. He’s the owner. He’s the cream of the planet Earth, father of civilization and he’s the God of the universe.  He is your father, cracker. Donald Trump, I’m your daddy,” the conference speaker said. “I’m your daddy and you’re a child that’s out of line.”  Harvard philosophy professor Dr. Cornel West was another featured speaker at the event, and said he was proud to be asked to address the gathering.  “People ask me all the time, ‘Why is it that you spend time with the New Black Panther Party…?’” West said at the rally. “I’m not afraid of any movement because I know what I’m about. I know what my calling is and that is to tell the truth. When you’re in love with black people, you have to tell the truth about white supremacy,” he added, pointing at the White House.  Chilling, the bigoted ignorant vitriol spewed by these left-wing activists but perhaps even more chilling the traction these anti-law enforcement anarchists are gaining in statewide elections.  Reparations, a separate nation… certainly that will never happen.  Right?  Imagine an entire state being governed, controlled like Selma and Detroit. The SCV has proudly taken a position in support of those serving in law enforcement.  We also embrace the Charge and emphasize the importance of honoring and preserving our heritage and recognizing the truth of our history as a platform of a respectful civil society.   It’s chilling what the alternative is.

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