H.R. 4994 Will Defile and Dishonor Sacred Battlefields
Called the "No Federal Funding for Confederate Symbols Act," It Removes Monuments to Southern War Dead in All National Parks and on All Federal Public Land
This Is Nothing But the Shameful Use of Hatred for Political Gain
It's Based on the Sponsor's Extreme Ignorance of History
But Despite How Vile This Legislation Is, Cowardly Stupid Republicans Have Destroyed More Southern Memorials than Antifa, BLM and the SPLC Combined, Times 100
by Gene Kizer, Jr.
U.S. Representative Adriano Espaillat of New York's 13th District, who brags everywhere online that he is the first formerly illegal immigrant elected to the United Stated Congress,1 has once again introduced an unconscionable and unhistorical piece of trash into the United States House of Representatives as H.R. 4994.2
This is an immoral piece of legislation that desecrates sacred battlefields on which hundreds of thousands of Americans died in a war that killed 750,000 and maimed over a million.
Most likely, Espaillat has given no thought to the long-term hatred and division this kind of legislation promotes. He is feeding the Democrat Party hate monster.
Or maybe he has thought long and hard about it, and this is exactly what he wants. He has introduced this legislation before.
George Orwell warned in 1984 about erasing history so that a society is unmoored, untethered, removed from its foundation and thus easy to control the way Big Brother controlled Oceania. Knowledge of the past, like the roots of a tree, give a society its strength and confidence. That's why destroying history is a prime Marxist Communist tactic.
Of course, human nature never changes and Orwell and the people alive in the 1930s and '40s lived through this exact same thing. That's why Orwell wrote: "Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the PRESENT controls the past." (emphasis added).
For Espaillat and his party, it is about putting forth a fraudulent historical dialog in the present so they can interpret the past in ways that benefit them politically (like the constant emphasis on slavery, which is part of our history but does not define our country in any way), thus they control the future with the past.
That's why "President" Biden and so many other Democrats support the 1619 Project though its primary thesis -- that the American Revolution was fought because the Colonists thought the Brits were about to abolish slavery -- is a total, complete and utter fraud without one iota of evidence. It was fabricated by a racist, Nikole Hannah-Jones,3 then of the New York Times, whose goal she has admitted repeatedly is reparations.
She still got a Pulitzer Prize for the 1619 Project, mainly because the Pulitzer board is controlled by the New York Times and Washington Post.
Both of those newspapers also got Pulitzers for reporting as serious news the hoax that Trump colluded with Russia, which proves that Pulitzer Prizes are corrupt and meaningless today.
I don't agree with Espaillat on anything though he seems like a nice enough guy. He replaced Charlie Rangel of New York who I also did not agree with on anything but he too was a personable fellow.
Espaillat was born in Santiago, Dominican Republic in 1954. He came to America with his mother and sister in 1964 at nine or 10 (accounts vary). They overstayed their visas and were illegal for a while but eventually got green cards. Espaillat became a naturalized American citizen in the early 1980s (his late 20s).
He has a large online presence and there are many references to his former illegal immigrant status and his being the first formerly illegal immigrant in the U. S. Congress, but I could find no reference to his naturalization ceremony and his becoming an American citizen until I found a Real Clear Politics article from 2016 that mentioned with no detail that he had become a citizen. It states he "stayed without documentation for more than a year after his visa expired. He ultimately became a U.S. citizen in his late 20s."4
It is as if he is proud to have once been an illegal immigrant but not proud to be a naturalized U.S. citizen which is surprising because so many who become naturalized citizens are seen at the most touching, wonderful ceremonies, crying, so happy to now be American citizens.
Of course, so many in the Marxist socialist Democrat Party today hate America so celebrating being illegal verses being a happy new American citizen is typical from their standpoint.
Espaillat "worked as a community activist before becoming the first Dominican-American elected to the New York legislature in 1996. He stayed in the General Assembly for more than a decade before moving up to the state Senate in 2010." After Rangel retired, Espaillat won Rangel's House seat and took office in 2017.
Espaillat is a liberal and most of his pet issues are social justice and immigration issues.
It appears he is influenced by the Southern Poverty Law Center from the way his bill is written. Why would a New Yorker make it his annual crusade to erase Confederate monuments that he admits are mostly in the South?
Sec. 2. FINDINGS., items (3) and (4) both regurgitate the SPLC's wildly inaccurate hate campaign against all things Confederate with the SPLC's listing of Confederate memorials so that they can be targets for local vandals and activist efforts.
SPLC's campaign is like something the Nazis would have done in Germany to get rid of all Jewish memorials. Erase the history and degrade the historical memory of your political enemies and you weaken them. To the SPLC it is never live and let live, and support each other as Americans. They always act like they want to kill you, vandalize your property, steal from you, erase you.
However, Sec. 2, items (1) and (2) are a provable fraud. Here is the entire bill, calling out Espaillat's extreme ignorance of history:
| 117th CONGRESS 1st Session |
H. R. 4994
To prohibit the use of Federal funds for Confederate symbols, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
August 10, 2021
Mr. Espaillat (for himself, Mr. Evans, Mrs. Beatty, Ms. Meng, Mr. García of Illinois, Ms. Bass, Ms. Schakowsky, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Mr. Raskin, Mr. Cleaver, Mr. Brown, Ms. Lee of California, Ms. Velázquez, Mr. Pocan, Mr. Rush, Mr. Huffman, Ms. Jacobs of California, Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, Mr. Costa, Mr. McNerney, Mr. Kilmer, Ms. Tlaib, Ms. Escobar, Ms. Brownley, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Carson, Ms. Norton, Ms. Kelly of Illinois, Mr. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, and Mr. Pappas) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committees on Armed Services, and Transportation and Infrastructure, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
A BILL
To prohibit the use of Federal funds for Confederate symbols, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
This Act may be cited as the “No Federal Funding for Confederate Symbols Act”.
The Congress finds the following:
(1) The Confederate battle flag is one of the most controversial symbols from U.S. history, signifying a representation of racism, slavery, and the oppression of African Americans.
[Publisher's Note: Item (1) above, as stated, is a complete fraud. The Confederate battle flag is a more pure symbol of American patriotism and valor than the American flag. I love our American flag, and it flies in front of my house, but it is a national flag that flew over all the New England slave ships carrying on the slave trade and making millions for New York, Boston and the North.
Rep. Espaillat's New York, in 1862, during the War Between the States, 54 years after the slave trade had been outlawed by the United States Constitution, was STILL, along with Boston, Massachusetts the largest slave-trading ports on the planet. New York, Boston and other New England cities were still making millions in the slave trade here and in other places around the world and they did so until 1888 when Brazil finally abolished slavery.
Here's what W. E. B Du Bois wrote in his book, The Suppression of the African Slave-trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870 (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1896), reprint; 179. He is quoting his footnote #2, page 179, from "The Slave-Trade in New York" in the Continental Monthly, January, 1862, p. 87:
The number of persons engaged in the slave-trade, and the amount of capital embanked in it, exceed our powers of calculation. The city of New York has been until of late [1862] the principal port of the world for this infamous commerce; although the cities of Portland and Boston are only second to her in that distinction. Slave dealers added largely to the wealth of our commercial metropolis; they contributed liberally to the treasures of political organizations, and their bank accounts were largely depleted to carry elections in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.
The Confederate battle flag had nothing whatsoever to do with race, slavery or the oppression of African Americans. That is an SPLC and Democrat Party lie.
The Confederate battle flag was a command and control device on some of the bloodiest battle fields in world history. The color bearer was shot down always almost immediately but it was such an honor to carry the flag somebody always picked up the blood soaked flag and advanced it.
Battle flags were often made from the clothing of a loved one or something from back home. They were sacred in the minds of the men who loved them and willingly died for them on hallowed battle fields across the country that Rep. Espaillat and the Marxist Democrats want to desecrate.
The Confederate battle flag never flew over a slave ship as the American flag did for 80 years after the Constitution outlawed the slave trade.
The Confederate battle flag is the most pure symbol of valor and the fight for independence in American history, and it is on the same level in terms of honor as the American flag.
You can argue that the Confederate battle flag is on a higher level than the American flag because the battle flag was always just a soldier's flag on bloody battlefields. It was never a national flag.
We can not help it that the battle flag was such a powerful symbol of honor and valor that many groups wanted to be associated with it and carried it, and some, like the Ku Klux Klan today, have no claim to it whatsoever.
The Confederate battle flag until recent years was ubiquitous in the South and even in the North, among blacks and whites. All regions thought of it in terms of nothing but honor and valor.
As late as the 1990s, national polls showed an overwhelming majority of people considered the battle flag simply a symbol of the pride of Southerners in their gallant ancestry, and even black people polled showed a majority had no problem with the Confederate battle flag.
The NAACP's constant campaign against the flag in the 1980s and today the SPLC's constant hate toward everything Confederate has changed some minds as those activist organizations knew would happen because they have the fake news media that nobody trusts in their pockets; but that does not change the true meaning of the Confederate battle flag.
It was a soldier's flag on some of the bloodiest battlefields in all of history and its honor is above reproach.]
(2) The Confederate flag and the erection of Confederate monuments were used as symbols to resist efforts to dismantle Jim Crow segregation, and have become pillars of Ku Klux Klan rallies.
[Publisher's Note: Item (2) above is another Espaillat fraud and lie and it displays Espaillat's ignorance of history.
Jim Crow laws started in the North and were there for years before moving South. The South was a bi-racial society always. The North was, as people like Espaillat would say today, "white supremacist," as well as slave traders.
See "The Real Jim Crow, Now Northern Jim Crow Laws Moved South" by Mike Scruggs (link in footnote below).5
Here are several pictures from the height of the Jim Crow era in the early 20th century showing the Ku Klux Klan with only the American flag. No Confederate battle flags in sight.
Also see esteemed historian C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, A Commemorative Edition with a new afterword by William S. McFeely, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 17. Woodward writes:
"One of the strangest things about the career of Jim Crow was that the system was born in the North and reached an advanced age before moving South in force."]
(3) There are at least 1,503 symbols of the Confederacy in public spaces, including 109 public schools named after prominent Confederates, many with large African-American student populations.
(4) There are more than 700 Confederate monuments and statues on public property throughout the country, the vast majority in the South. These include 96 monuments in Virginia, 90 in Georgia, and 90 in North Carolina.
SEC. 3. FEDERAL FUNDS RESTRICTION.
(a) In General.—Except as provided in subsection (c), no Federal funds may be used for the creation, maintenance, or display, as applicable, of any Confederate symbol on Federal public land, including any highway, park, subway, Federal building, military installation, street, or other Federal property.
(b) Confederate Symbol Defined.—The term “Confederate symbol” includes the following:
(1) A Confederate battle flag.
(2) Any symbol or other signage that honors the Confederacy.
(3) Any monument or statue that honors a Confederate leader or soldier or the Confederate States of America.
(c) Exceptions.—Subsection (a) does not apply—
(1) if the use of such funds is necessary to allow for removal of the Confederate symbol to address public safety; or
(2) in the case of a Confederate symbol created, maintained, or displayed in a museum or educational exhibit.
Rep. Espaillat's bill is political hate and he is ignorant of American history.
Somebody ought to do some digging and see how much money he is getting from the Southern Poverty Law Center and other groups to promote this hateful political fraud.
Republicans are worse than this.
The most dishonorable man in the United States Senate, Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, then head of the Republican-controlled Senate Armed Services Committee in 2020, promised President Trump he would not change the names of United States Army bases in the South such as Fort Bragg and Fort Benning.
President Trump did not want the base names changed because we won two world wars from those bases and others. Most of those Confederate base names were a century old.
But INCREDIBLY STUPID AND DISHONEST JIM INHOFE, showing that he has NO HONOR or character, marshaled through Elizabeth Warren's request to change all the base names in the South from their current Confederate names.
The Confederate base names in the South were a gesture of reconciliation from the Union Army and Federal Government to the South after the War Between the States to bring our great nation back together. As such, they, themselves, are history lessons, but Inhofe is a dishonorable fool and traitor to his then president and party.
When his NDAA was announced which required the base names be changed, it happened just before the two senate runoffs in Georgia in January of this year and with two bases in Georgia -- legendary Fort Benning, and Fort Gordon -- many many Georgians were DISGUSTED with Republicans and did not vote in the runoffs.
Who can blame them. You support the Republican Party with money and voting and campaigning with all your might then Republicans like Inhofe FU*K you over in order to give Elizabeth Warren a victory over Republican voters.
HOW STUPID CAN YOU BE?
If you are Jim Inhofe, the answer is stupid to infinity and as stupid as he is characterless and dishonorable.
And as a result, all of us have to pay for Inhofe's lying and lack of character, and Democrats win.
Thanks IDIOT INHOFE, the most dishonorable man in the United States Senate and the STUPIDEST REPUBLICAN IN HISTORY.
It was not just the base names, it was all things Confederate on the military posts so all street names, memorial names, building names, everything. Jim Inhofe and the Republicans have destroyed more Southern memorials than Antifa, Black Lives Matter and the SPLC combined, times 100.
The monument destroyers are mostly Republican whose voters are way better than they are getting from the lying, despicable national party.
The national Republican Party is a cowardly disgrace but it is possible to influence them. They MUST be made to respect Confederate war memorials and they can be. Their voters are in the red state South.
We have GOT to get through to them. There is no hope with racist, woke Marxist Communist Democrats but there is still hope with Republicans who are only stupid and cowardly. We have to MAKE them wake up, open their eyes and start serving their voters once and for all.
The time is way past for being nice. It is time to RAISE HOLY HELL.
Notes:
1 "Alumnus Adriano Espaillat, First Dominican American And Formerly Undocumented Immigrant To Serve In Congress, Named Queens College 2020 Commencement Speaker", January 29, 2020, Alumnus Adriano Espaillat, First Dominican American and Formerly Undocumented Immigrant to Serve in Congress, Named Queens College 2020 Commencement Speake – CUNY Newswire, accessed 8-26-21.
2 H.R.4994 - No Federal Funding for Confederate Symbols Act, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4994/text, accessed 8-26-21.
3 Jordan Davidson, June 25, 2020, "In Racist Screed, NYT’s 1619 Project Founder Calls ‘White Race’ ‘Barbaric Devils,’ ‘Bloodsuckers,’ Columbus ‘No Different Than Hitler’",
https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/25/in-racist-screed-nyts-1619-project-founder-calls-white-race-barbaric-devils-bloodsuckers-no-different-than-hitler/, accessed 8-26-21.
4 James Arkin, RCP Staff, November 17, 2016, "New Lawmaker Was Once an Undocumented Immigrant", https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/11/17/new_lawmaker_was_once_undocumented_immigrant.html, accessed 8/26/21.
5 Mike Scruggs, June 23, 2021, "The Real Jim Crow, How Northern Jim Crow Laws Moved South", https://www.charlestonathenaeumpress.com/the-real-jim-crow-how-northern-jim-crow-laws-moved-south-guest-post-by-leonard-m-mike-scruggs/, accessed 8-26-21.
Please add me to your email lists.
Got you added, Roy!
Gene
What a wonderful article! It is too bad that the people who should read it will never see it. I noted in my book that the KKK also used the American flag and Christian cross as their symbols and “no one is clamoring to remove them.” I was wrong. The American Marxists indeed hate both and are doing everything in their power to have those icons removed from public view also. Keep up the good fight, Gene.
garry
Appreciate that, Brother Garry!
Rep. Adriano Espaillat, Democrat from New York, obviously is ignorant of American history. Probably because he was born in the Dominican Republic and has never bothered to learn much American history.
Even from the party whose desire it is to destroy America as we saw with a year of violence and monument destruction last summer, and their embrace of the 1619 Project which is a total fraud, Espaillat has hit a new low.
Removing monuments from hallowed ground on which hundreds of thousands of Americans bled and died is unconscionable though so typical for racist Marxist Socialist Democrats today.
Democrat tactics are no different from Nazis in the 1930s and ’40s against the Jews which started with erasing Jewish history and discriminating against Jews before the mass murder.
I’d like to think Espaillat will be called out and discredited but Republicans are so cowardly and stupid, I am not holding my breath.
Gene
Excellent. Glad you wrote about this bill that we need to defeat. Also, let’s kill HR 3005 which is on its way to the Senate. In reference to someone who was not born here wanting to attack our history, my Mother in heaven would say…..”that takes nerve.” It also takes nerve for New Orleans to remove three Confederate Monuments in 2017 which cost millions to remove. Then, in 2022 plan to open a mammoth Slave Ship Museum.
MJ,
You are right that the slave ship museum proves they are not worried about being reminded of slavery.
We have got to do better making the Republican Party know to defend Confederate monuments. They should know it already but they are as stupid as they are cowardly.
Still, if they would stand up, we could win a lot of fights.
Keep up the good work you fiery Rebel girl!
Gene