"The radical view of American history is a web of lies, all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition."
President Donald J. Trump,
Speech at Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota
July 3, 2020
We Mean to WIN this Heritage War
by Gene Kizer, Jr.
Going on Offense in South Carolina
with the American Heritage Association
Battles Raging Across Georgia
Multiple Georgia SCV Suits
and a Georgia Minutemen Suit,
ALL at A Critical Stage
Abbeville Institute Will Respond
to Washington and Lee University
I had planned to publish Part II of The War Through Women's Eyes by Douglas Southall Freeman, this week, and will soon, but so many important heritage fights and initiatives are going on, I wanted to help them all as much as possible right this minute!
There are bills before the legislature in South Carolina, and law suits raging across Georgia. The suits are all at a critical stage and those who are fighting hard for Southern honor and American history can win but desperately need us to reinforce them by calling legislators and especially giving money!
By this summer, we can have HUGE victories under our belts that protect forever the hundreds of sacred memorials in at least South Carolina and Georgia, which will set an example of highly effective legal and legislative tactics for other places fighting the same fights.
Also, Washington and Lee University will likely soon drop Gen. Lee from the school's name. The Abbeville Institute plans to respond with a high powered video featuring historian Phil Leigh.
Think where we were last summer when President Trump issued an Executive Order that included this:1
Over the last 5 weeks, there has been a sustained assault on the life and property of civilians, law enforcement officers, government property, and revered American monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial. Many of the rioters, arsonists, and left-wing extremists who have carried out and supported these acts have explicitly identified themselves with ideologies - such as Marxism - that call for the destruction of the United States system of government.
Anarchists and left-wing extremists have sought to advance a fringe ideology that paints the United States of America as fundamentally unjust and have sought to impose that ideology on Americans through violence and mob intimidation. They have led riots in the streets, burned police vehicles, killed and assaulted government officers as well as business owners defending their property, and even seized an area within one city where law and order gave way to anarchy. During the unrest, innocent citizens also have been harmed and killed.
These criminal acts are frequently planned and supported by agitators who have traveled across State lines to promote their own violent agenda. These radicals shamelessly attack the legitimacy of our institutions and the very rule of law itself.
Key targets in the violent extremists' campaign against our country are public monuments, memorials, and statues. Their selection of targets reveals a deep ignorance of our history, and is indicative of a desire to indiscriminately destroy anything that honors our past and to erase from the public mind any suggestion that our past may be worth honoring, cherishing, remembering, or understanding.
He reinforced that sentiment a few days later in a speech July 3, 2020 at Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota:
Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities. Many of these people have no idea why they’re doing this, but some know what they are doing. They think the American people are weak and soft and submissive, but no, the American people are strong and proud and they will not allow our country and all of its values, history, and culture to be taken from them.
It goes beyond that. The anti-Americanism in academia, in order to benefit the political left, not only is cheating young Americans out of the greatest heritage of freedom and opportunity in world history, it often preaches Critical Race Theory, a philosophy that rejects the approach of Martin Luther King who wanted equal opportunity in a colorblind society. Critical Race Theory demonizes white people and seeks to make up for perceived racial slights by striving for racial advantage today, especially through the law. This will guarantee unnecessary racial division forever.
Nobody is held down in America, today, and nobody has been for over a half century.
A lot of the pandering on race is to get reparations as Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the New York Times's fraudulent 1619 Project, asserts. She has said it many times.
The constant obsession with race is anathema to American opportunity. Americans rise up. They overcome. They don't whine about anything. They figure it out. Anybody who does not think there is opportunity galore in America is a dope. That's why tens of thousands of Central Americans are on the way here right this minute.
We've had a two-term black president, despite him being one of the worst in American history. That could never, ever have happened in a racist country.
The left ignores that, which is a popular Marxist technique. Push your own position and ignore anything that goes against it, no matter how appropriate.
Trump got more black and Hispanic votes than any Republican president in a long time and that trend will continue. We are looking for American excellence. We want all Americans to achieve great things, make money, be happy, live in a great country. We are not obsessed with race like the left. Without the false charge of racism, the left stands for nothing.
Ending censorship, cancel culture, depravation of free speech and election corruption are the worst problems we face today.
Gina Carano was kicked out of her successful part as Cara Dune in The Mandalorian for posting the intelligent and prescient observation that, before you start killing people, you have to hate them, and you have to preach your hatred and humiliation against them. She pointed out that in Nazi Germany:
Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors . . . even by children.
"Because history is edited, most people today don't realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?"2
It's not.
It's not one iota different.
William Gilmore Simms went on a lecture tour in the North in 1856. He was a well-known American writer and thought he would be well received or at least listened to. He wanted to refute some Northern writings that said South Carolina had been "imbecile" in the Revolutionary War, and cowardly. Simms was an expert on the Revolutionary War and knew better.
He started OK but soon Northern hate took over and he ended up having to cancel the tour. He lost a good bit of money. He came back to Charleston and told Southerners to prepare for war because the North hates your guts.
They lusted after political power, just like the left today. In the late 1850s, Northerners knew if they could just rally their votes they could take over the Federal Government and rule the entire country for their own benefit. They could vote themselves all the tariffs, bounties, subsidies and monopolies they wanted. The entire power of the country and its wealth would be in their greedy hands.
Hatred of the South was their method of rallying votes, just like today's Democrat Party hatred of conservatives, as Gina Carano observed.
The anti-slavery movement in the North was political, to rally Northern votes. It was not pro-black, it was anti-black. It was racist. They hated slavery because they hated blacks and didn't want blacks anywhere near them. Historians acknowledge this.
Simms talked about his failed lecture tour in a series of lectures in 1857 in Charleston at what is today, Hibernian Hall. He said:
Do you not see that, when Hate grows into open insolence, that the enemy is prepared to gratify all his passions? --- that, having so far presumed upon our imbecility as to spit his scorn and venom into our very faces, he feels sure of his power to destroy!3
John Remington Graham writes in his Principles of Confederacy:
. . . in six short years, from 1854 through 1860, the United States had been transformed into a sea of passionate hatred.4
As divided as our country is, it is quite obvious that the political hate of the left in 2016 against President Trump and Republicans, was exactly like the political hate of the North in 1860 against the South, which led directly to the War Between the States.
Every war has a turning point such as our Revolutionary War whose turning point in the South was the Battle of Kings Mountain right here in South Carolina.
Let NOW be the turning point of the heritage war we are in. Pledge to call legislators in support of heritage bills, and please give money. Give anything you can. Give a lot if you can! This is IT! We need victories NOW. Give something.
Make a sacrifice just as our Confederate ancestors sacrificed their lives for independence thus leaving us a legacy of honor and valor unsurpassed in world history.
Going on Offense in South Carolina
with the American Heritage Association
Get on the newsletter list of the outstanding American Heritage Association. Visit their website at www.AmericanHeritageAssociation.org.
They state:
The American Heritage Association was formed out of necessity. Across the country we have seen vandalism, removal of America's historical monuments and direct attacks on the founding principles. It is these recent events that served as a catalyst for the formation of the American Heritage Association. We are citizens who simply recognize the value of our history and its importance in maintaining a free society and the American culture itself.
The American Heritage Association has four main functions:
1. To advocate for policies which both protect historical monuments and properly present American history.
2. To advocate for the teaching of American History in public schools.
3. To educate the public through living history events.
4. To preserve current and erect new historical monuments and markers.
I joined their email list and got this nice Welcome:
Good Morning,
Thank you for subscribing to the American Heritage Association (AHA) website. We are dedicated to the preservation of America's national memory. Based in Charleston, SC, the AHA is active throughout the Palmetto State and part of an informal coalition of groups which covers a larger part of the country. Our mission is simple: Preserve America's historical monuments, defend American history from politically motivated revisionism and restore patriotic history education in schools.
For 2021, we have chosen to support three bills in South Carolina that are inline with our mission and known collectively as
THE STORY OF AMERICA legislative package:
HB 3249 sponsored by Rep. Bill Taylor (Aiken), provides severe penalties for local governments that violate state monument protection laws;
HB 3326 sponsored by Rep. Steven Long (Greenville), prevents historical plaques and markers from becoming editorials for activist viewpoints; and
COMING SOON: Restore America's Foundation Act sponsored by Rep. Lin Bennett (Charleston), will put patriotic history education back into schools.
Statewide polling shows overwhelming support for these policies but most people do not even know the bills exist. AHA is trying to solve the problem by playing radio ads statewide to raise awareness. This week we have started running ads on 94.3 WSC in Charleston during the Kelly Golden show and the Sean Hannity show. We will be expanding across the state next week.
These ads cost a significant amount of money to keep on the air. Please consider visiting the website to make a donation :
www.AmericanHeritageAssociation.org
Lastly, please do your part and call your state representative today and ask them to co-sponsor all three bills in the STORY OF AMERICA legislative package.
Thank you for your interest and support!
Regards,
American Heritage Association
There is much more excellent information on their website including a recent poll showing strong support for our history and monuments. You can donate with credit card or PayPal on their Home page.
Battles Raging Across Georgia
Multiple Georgia SCV Suits
and a Georgia Minutemen Suit,
ALL at a Critical Stage
February 19, 2021
***CALL FOR HELP***
SCV LEGAL BATTLES
Litigation up-date from Georgia Division Spokesman
Martin K. O'Toole
This is both a report and a plea to the members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and our supporters.
In 2019 we were able to amend the Official Code of Georgia Annotated Section 50-3-1 or the Monument Protection Act. This was providential and that we have been faced with an unprecedented assault on traditional America in 2020.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans responded to this assault with a series of lawsuits. We now have three cases headed for the Court of Appeals and five others in litigation at the trial level. It has been a learning experience, so we have drafted amendments to O.C.G.A. § 50-3-1 to defeat some of the defenses raised by the politically correct government censors. We will provide you with more on that in the very near future so that you can begin to express your opinion to your state legislators.
The SCV was also able to participate in removing sovereign immunity as a defense by government agencies effective 1 January through a constitutional amendment. A constitutional amendment passed unanimously through both houses of the Georgia General assembly and was approved by the voters 3-1. To date, every defending government county, city or consolidated government has raised sovereign immunity as a defense. We believe we can defeat them on appeal but, if we do not, they will no longer be able to use it in the future anyway. That is a battle which we have won.
At the moment the Sons of Confederate Veterans have pending appeals monument cases and Newton County, Rockdale County, and Henry County. We also have an appeal concerning censorship of a parade by the city of Alpharetta. The cases that are presently at the trial level include: Brunswick, Cuthbert, Athens/Clarke County, Columbus/Muskogee County and we have filed a motion to intervene in the Gwinnett County action brought by the Gwinnett County solicitor. We are planning to file lawsuits in Rome, DeKalb and are cooperating with a local group in a northwest Georgia community which will remain nameless for the moment. Additionally, we have provided financial support in the Silvia Cotriss case.
You may recall that Sgt. Cotriss was fired for flying a Confederate flag from her home while employed by the Roswell Police Department. If she loses this case, it can be cited as a precedent that no one may display any Southern heritage item at their home while a public employee.
The plan has gotten out to cities and counties that if they violate Georgia law by removing our Georgia Confederate veterans’ monuments, we will sue them. But they know they are playing with other people’s money – at least thus far – so they would prefer to pander to the mob rather than to obey the law. One government official even went so far as to state that in the media that he knew he was breaking the law, but they were going to do it anyway. I wonder what laws you can break in his jurisdiction and suffer no consequences.
We are doing our best to see that these lawbreakers do suffer consequences. But the fight has been long and hard thus far and we still have plenty of distance to travel.
Here is the battle plan: if we can win the appellate level cases in Newton, Rockdale, and Henry Counties, I do not believe any jurisdiction would dare defy the law further. With the passage of the sovereign immunity repeal, our cases are now stronger than they were before January 1.
At least two jurisdictions have recognized this, and we have entered into agreements “staying” any further litigation until the appellate courts give a final ruling. The Court of Appeals will be as follows: we will start in the Georgia Court of Appeals. If the verdict is unsatisfactory to either side, it can be appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court. If either side is dissatisfied with their ruling an appeal can be taken to the United States Supreme Court. In reality, the chances of the United States Supreme Court hearing our cases is pretty slim. Consequently, the most likely conclusion of our cases will be the decision of the Georgia Supreme Court.
Now I must turn to the toughest part of this letter. That is a plea for yet more money. Thus far we have spent approximately $100,000 in litigation in these cases and supporting the affiliated case of Silva Cotriss. We have been asked to support at least two other cases. At this moment we have to decline to support those other affiliated cases down because the well is running dry. Despite the generosity of our members and supporters fighting City Hall in the County Courthouses around the State of Georgia is not cheap.
The good news is that we are not that far from the finish line. If we can sustain our cases and keep the monuments cases either tied up at the trial level or in the appellate court once we win a final verdict all the other jurisdictions will have no choice but to obey the law. If they do not do so, O.C.G.A. § 50-3-1 provides stiff penalties which I am sure would be applied.
If we lose on the appellate level, we will have an answer as to whether or not O.C.G.A. § 50-3-1 has teeth or not. If our laws mean nothing, then the monuments will fall all over Georgia.
This is the fight for which the Sons of Confederate Veterans was formed. Our ancestors left as markers to commemorate the heroism and courage of our Confederate soldiers, sailors, Marines, and civilians decorating the entire state. If we cannot win this fight, we will lose it all.
If you know anyone with deep pockets now is the time to ask them to contribute to the Heritage Defense Fund. If you have any money you can spare, now is the time to send it. I would suggest that if you cannot send a substantial contribution now is the time to send regular modest contributions to keep our lawyers in the courtrooms fighting the good fight.
This is it. If we lose now this state will never be the same again. Already monuments have been squirreled away in storage bins even cast in pieces into fields. When you sit by and permit this? If you have not given any money to the Heritage Defense Fund, why not? If you have given to the heritage Defense fund already, I sincerely thank you. But we must call on you to be generous once again.
The passage of the Confederate Army could be marked sometimes by bloodstains in the snow of shoeless soldiers. No one needs to make the sacrifices our ancestors did. But in order to honor them, we all must make some contribution to the fight.
Credit Card Donations can be made on-line (click the link below).
Mail-in Donations:
Georgia Division, SCV
P.O. Box 1081,
Macon, Ga. 31202
Please visit the Georgia Division, SCV, website
THE GEORGIA MINUTEMEN
From an email notification Monday, Febraury 22, 2021
Please post this on Facebook, share it, and forward it to
your email lists of like-minded Georgians.
OUR CONFEDERATE MONUMENT CASE HEADED
TO GEORGIA COURT OF APPEALS
FIRST CONFEDERATE MONUMENT CASE TO BE HEARD
BEFORE THE GEORGIA COURT OF APPEALS
In response to a motion by the defendants in December, Henry County Superior Court Judge Brian Amero signed an order to dismiss the case on the grounds that the Georgia Minutemen do not have “standing” in the case to sue. The Georgia Minutemen steadfastly contend that if they do not have standing to use Georgia’s “Monument Protection Law,” then there is no person nor entity on the planet that does have standing to use the law. The Georgia Supreme Court has ruled on more than one occasion that the General Assembly has the authority to confer standing by statute… which is exactly what they have done in this law. It is plain enough for any literate person to see clearly.
The ink was barely dry on Judge Amero’s order to dismiss the case before attorneys for the Georgia Minutemen had an appeal filed with the Georgia Court of Appeals. The case will now be heard by that court on appeal before being sent back down to Judge Amero if the appeal is won on the matter of standing.
This is the first case in the nation in which officials responsible for the removal of a statue have been sued in their individual capacity. In so doing, the case has already set a precedent as the first in the nation to overcome the legal hurdle of the “sovereign immunity” defense.
This is going to be a precedent-setting case in not only Georgia but in all of American jurisprudence for years to come. If we fail to win this case, there is NO statue in the country which will be safe from the cultural Marxists and their practice of cultural genocide. We MUST win this case. If we lose this case, literally scores of other cases across Georgia and across the country will fall because the courts are watching our case closely.
I am asking every American reading this to please make some donation to our efforts. The enemy thinks that he is going to simply outlast us because we won’t have the funds to continue. We MUST have the funds to continue this and our other efforts to stop the cultural Marxism going on in America.
Would you please stop what you’re doing and click on the link below to make some contribution to our efforts? How much is it worth to YOU to have us stay in this fight? Your children and your grandchildren cannot afford for you to sit by on the sidelines and just watch for the outcome. What will you say when they ask you years from now what you did to stop what is happening in America when you had the chance?
I am not asking anyone to do anything that I have not already done and continue to do personally. To date, I have personally spent more than $5,000 in this effort. I was also arrested for being the only one who refused to vacate the sidewalk when the officers said, “The crane company can’t remove the statue until we clear the sidewalk.” So I refused to move until they arrested me. They have since trumped up the charge against me from a local city violation to a state criminal offense… all because I have refused to plead guilty and accept their “gracious” offer of reducing the charge back down to a local ordinance violation with a $100 fine if I will just plead guilty. I am not pleading guilty to anything but love for God, for Georgia, for my ancestors, for their Cause which was right, for my children, and for America.
Please join me and make a generous contribution to our efforts today by clicking the link below. Time is of the essence!
Then click the next link to join the Georgia Minutemen for as little as $10 per year.
Then forward this email or post to every patriotic American that you know. We can NOT afford to lose this battle!
For Georgia First,
Ray McBerry, Founder
Georgia Minutemen
MAKE A DONATION TO THE CAUSE TODAY
WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP US WIN?
1. Click HERE to join the Georgia Minutemen if you haven't already.
2. Click HERE to make a contribution so that we can continue our efforts in this case and other fronts.
P.S. Please note that the Facebook page called "Georgia Minutemen" is NOT our group. Our original page was disabled and removed by Facebook when we eclipsed 1,000 followers in just a little over a week's time. The enemy is not happy at our popular support or our audacity to oppose their plans.
For more information, please contact the Georgia Minutemen through our website at www.GeorgiaMinutemen.com.
Georgia Minutemen Founder, Ray McBerry, is a Christian, father, businessman, Baptist pastor, television host, and former Republican candidate for governor of Georgia. In 2013, he became the first "public figure" in more than 100 years of Georgia history to win a libel suit when he sued those responsible for lies about him created by our enemies during the 2010 governor's race. He has previously served in the Southern Heritage movement as both SCV Georgia Division Commander and Georgia Chairman of the League of the South. In 2010, he organized and hosted the first-ever national Tenth Amendment Summit and has been a guest on FOX News, CNN, HLN, MSNBC, and hundreds of other media outlets as one of America’s foremost spokesmen on issues related to States’ Rights, Southern Heritage, and the Constitution. He is also the founder of the Georgia Minutemen, organized on April 19, 2020 as a voice for patriotic Georgians who have had enough of the cultural war being waged against them and their heritage. Ray McBerry is no stranger to fighting for our heritage and freedoms.
Join the Georgia Minutemen or visit us online at www.GeorgiaMinutemen.com.
Membership in the Georgia Minutemen is growing rapidly across Georgia! Join today for as little as $10 annually.
--------------------------------------------------
Abbeville Institute Will Respond
to Washington and Lee University
Last summer 80% of the Washington and Lee University faculty voted to remove Lee from the institution’s name. The school has not yet made a decision but presumably will not wait long.
W&L's Administration has been providing Internet presentations, which we believe are too critical of Lee. Most significant among them during the past five months are lectures by Allen Guelzo and Ty Seidule. The one by Seidule is obnoxious as you can see from this YouTube video he did for the Association of the United States Army earlier this month.
Their accusations should be answered. Therefore, the Abbeville Institute is seeking donations of $7000 to finance production of a six minute video by Phil Leigh like the one he did here on Confederate statues.
After watching Seidule’s video linked above we trust you will agree that this is a battle we must fight.
Abbeville Institute
Please visit their outstanding website by clicking below
Abbeville Institute | What is true and valuable in the Southern tradition
PO Box 10 | McClellanville, South Carolina 29458
8433230690 | [email protected]
NOTES:
1 President Donald J. Trump, Executive Order on Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence, June 26, 2020.
2 Lee Brown, "See Gina Carano's tweets and posts that got her fired from 'The Mandalorian'", February 11, 2021, The New York Post, https://nypost.com/2021/02/11/see-gina-caranos-tweets-and-posts-that-got-her-fired/, accessed 2-25-21.
3 William Gilmore Simms, "South Carolina in the Revolution. The Social Moral. Lecture 1", unpublished 1857 lecture housed in the Charles Carroll Simms Collection of the South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 4-5.
4 John Remington Graham, Principles of Confederacy, The Vision and the Dream & The Fall of the South (Salt Lake City, Utah: Northwest Publishing, Inc., 1990), 660.
As usual, a genuinely brilliant article!
garry
Appreciate that, Brother Garry!