Sunday, February 15, 2015

The Political Football of Secession, Lincoln and Obama

 
by Eric D. Graham



Some people think that there is another Civil War brewing in America, especially with Alabama losing to Texas A&M and being knocked out of the No.1 spot in college football.

Plus, with the disturbing scene of 400 students at Ole Miss, a university known for flying the confederate flag with a confederate soldier named Col.Rebel as their former mascot, shouting racial epithets and rioting in the streets during the 50th anniversary of James Meredith, who was the first Black student to enroll in the school history in 1962, because of the re-election of President Obama, we have to believe that it's true.

And despite how insufficient these small events may seem, after reading Pat Buchanan's latest book Suicide of a Super Power: Will America Survive in 2035? and adding to the fact that all 50 states have petition to seceded from the Union, we have to pay close attention to the current mental state of white America. (Read my article King-Kong Ain't Got Nuthin' On Me: more monkey business in sports and politics)

Governor Rick Perry and the state of Texas, which  ironically is known as the Lone Star State, in fact, led the movement in the secession race. But up until now, out of the 50 states petitioning for secession, only Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas have received 25,000 signatures. Keep these states in mind, when we discuss the realignment of conferences in college football later in this article.

With those seemingly small numbers, the League of Southern States, however, gave at least ten reasons for Southern secession:

1. The U. S. government is an organized criminal enterprise; secession is the only way to return to legitimate government

2. The U. S. economy is failing, secession makes economic sense

3. The South’s unique history and culture is worth protecting

4. The criminal nature of the bank bailouts and the Fed

5. A dysfunctional national electoral system, secession may be the only way to restore integrity to elections

6. Third World immigration into the South, secession removes the federal government's interference and lack of performance

7. Organic community vs. the globalism of the elites

8. The implementation of an American police/surveillance state

9. The Christian South v. secular America, secession provides the opportunity to return to Our Founding Principles

10. Because we think we can rule ourselves better than we are being ruled by DC, secession is a path to American Liberty.

American as Apple Pie

Despite these ten points of light, secession is American as Apple Pie, especially when you consider that America's "so-called great beginnings" started with it seceding from the British Empire due to a document known as the Declaration of Independence.

According to Jefferson Davis during his farewell address to the U.S.Senate on January 21, 1861, "Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. There was a time when none denied it. I hope the time may come again, when a better comprehension of the theory of our Government, and inalienable rights of the people of the States, will prevent anyone from denying that each State is a sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which it has made to any agent whomsoever."

Michael Hill, the President of The League of the South agrees with Davis and believes secession and independence is warranted in 2012. Plus, he doesn't think it's a treasonous act, ludacris, or impractical but a political principle that has to be implied, especially when the majority of the people feel that the present system is corrupt and heading in the wrong direction.

Despite all of that, oddly, the idea of secession is nothing new. People, in fact, have been discussing it for years. And even though, most people think this new secession proposal is laughable, and probably won't happen, the idea is still worth considering.

A Nation within a Nation

Besides, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam have stated for years that they wanted Black people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendants from slaves, to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own--either on this continent or elsewhere.

"We want equal justice under the law, and we want justice applied equally to all, regardless of race or class or color. We want equal membership in society with the best in civilized society....... But if we cannot get along in peace after giving America 400 years of our service and sweat and labor, then, of course, separation would be the solution to our race problem." stated Minister Louis Farrakhan

Today secessionists, however claim that their motivation is not racial. Plus, they swear their desire for secession has nothing to do with the browning of America or, the recent re-election of President Barack Hussein Obama.

"I am completely aware that Election Day was a catalyzing moment, but I do not believe that the underpinnings of this are solely about Barack Obama," Texas Nationalist Movement President Daniel Miller told POLITICO.


"This cake has been baking for a long time — it’s the Obama administration that put the candles on the cake and lit it for us."

With the candles, now lit, and claims of wanting freedom from oppression, the concept of a nation within a nation sounds like a great idea.

Matter of fact, it would be a great idea if it included the large Chicano population and the original Indigenous population of North America, who have had their ancestral lands stolen from them through war, broken treaties and broken promises.

But, we aren't that stupid.

Because, despite their claims, we know this secession movement is based in white supremacy.

White Supremacy and Secession

Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley, a philosopher of history, in fact, confirmed this while debunking Ron Paul’s disciples, in what he calls a Tea Party led agenda.

“Paul’s right wing anarchist notion of secessionism, if it gets any public traction, is a recipe for a bloody and tragic upheaval. It is practically a call for a united front of right wing extremists, to which white supremacists, racists, Mormons, criminal elements, British agents, lovers of violence, and the lunatic fringe will inevitably be drawn.

With that said, Kali Akuno of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement offered another brilliant analysis on this complex issue from an African-American perspective:

The secessionist movement reflects in part the interests of the forces of white supremacy who are materially dependent on the old-systems of production that require the unity of this historic nexus for their material well-being or are socially and ideologically committed to its perpetuation. For much of the 20th century the far right forces of white supremacy were generally satisfied with the post-Reconstruction reinterpretation of the “states’ rights” doctrine, which was the result of a set of compromises established at the founding of the United Sates empire between the states that wanted to expand chattel slavery and those that were transitioning to a fully articulated system of wage labor." Akuno writes.

This reinterpretation rested on the notion that the Southern ruling class interests could continue subjugating the colonized (New) African and Indigenous nations contained in the region for the purposes of having a super-cheap labor force to exploit so long as they accepted the hegemony of the Federal government, which was rooted primarily in the controlling hands of monopoly industrial and finance capitalists based along the Northeastern seaboard. This reinterpretation contained secessionist aspirations for nearly a century, but it never completely vanquished them.

While Akuno's analysis brings political clarity to this divisive issue, let's take a look at this issue from an athletic perspective, especially when many sports writers like William C. Rhoden, who wrote Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete, have compared collegiate athletes to modern-day slaves. (Read my previous article Master-Slave Relationship on BASN to learn more)

Succession, Sports, and Conference Realignment

For example, in 2010-2011, according to www.ncaa.org, the NCAA earned $845.9 million, on the backs of mostly Black athletes, who didn't benefit financially from all of that revenue they helped generate, this also includes championships and ticket sales (more than $75-million), membership fees (about $12-million), and rights and royalties (just below $8-million).

With those lucrative numbers, athletically, one has to wonder how this secession proposal and the desire for southern independence would affect the SEC or college football recruitment throughout the South, especially during the time when conference realignments are changing the landscape of college football in the NCAA's efforts to create five Super conferences.

Seriously, how would it affect schools' athletic departments, alumni chapters, fundraisers and conferences economically, especially when most of the athletes are Black?


That's simply a sidebar to a bigger issue, but it is still something to ponder.

Jeffersonian versus Hamiltonian

As a result, we have two opposing ideas butting heads once again.

One side believes in the concept of Thomas Jefferson. And the other side believes in the philosophy of Alexander Hamilton, according to Ron Paul.

Why? Because, Jefferson stated, " If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation to a continuance in the Union I have no hesitation in saying, "Let us separate." (1816).

While Lincoln, who was a Hamiltonian, stated, "the Union, in any event, will NOT be dissolved and if you attempt it we won't let you. With the purse and the sword....in our hands and at our command, you could not do it. (1856).

Lincoln and Obama
With two conflicting ideas being highlighted by this movement along with a Black man being the president of the United States, it is not coincidence that Hollywood has chosen to release the new Abraham Lincoln movie directed Steven Spielberg last week.

Matter of fact, it's no coincidence that the political strategist promoted President Obama as the modern-day Abe Lincoln, the Great Liberator, or the Great Emancipator, who was going to save the United States with his brilliance as Honest Abe supposedly did in 1865.

This was, in my humble opinion, the idea behind awarding him the Noble Peace Prize, from his historic presidential announcement in 2008 in Springfield, Illinois to his memorable train ride along the mid-Atlantic seaboard that tracked Abraham Lincoln's historic route from Philadelphia to Washington.

Obama even during his inauguration speech borrowed a line from Lincoln's first inaugural address when he appealed "not to our easy instincts but to our better angels." and by using Lincoln’s Bible during the inauguration.

As a result, when the Democrats tried to political package Obama as the next Lincoln four years ago when he was running against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, it forced former President Bill Clinton to say "Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."

But the real question remains?

What would have the 16th president of the United States thought about the election of the Barrack Obama?

Forced Glory

According to the executive editor of Ebony Magazine and author of Forced Glory: Lincoln's White Dream, Lerone Bennett Jr, he would have been highly upset by the near thought of a Black man being president of the USA.


Why? Because, Bennett believed Lincoln was a white supremacist, regardless of the myth that surrounded him. He, in fact, was no different from Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, George W.Bush, or Ronald Wilson Reagan.

"Most people don't know that Abraham Lincoln didn't free the slaves. Never intended to free the slaves." Bennett told an audience at Travis Smiley's State of Black Union in 2008.

"Most people don't know Lincoln oppose Black people voting, holding office, and intermarrying with white people in the state of Illinois.” he proclaimed.

"Finally, the great irony, if Lincoln would have had his way, Obama wouldn't have been in America. The only liberation plan Lincoln ever had was a constitutional amendment to deport Black people out of the country."

Shockingly, Lincoln didn't oppose slavery but believed in the extension of it.

Plus, he also supported the Black Codes and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which mandated that states to which escaped slaves fled were obligated to return them to their masters upon their discovery and subjected persons who helped runaway slaves to criminal sanctions. (Read my previous article Shackles on my Feet on BASN)

Matter of fact, Lincoln like Obama, was a lawyer, who was involved in over 5,600 court cases. His most disturbing case, however, occurred in Charleston, Illinois in October 1847 when he sent an African woman and her four children back into slavery after they had escaped the horrible institution, according to Bennett.

"If a German lawyer entered a German court, to ask a German judge to send a Jewish mother and her four children back to the concentration camps, everybody in America, would be up in arms!!!" Bennett told an audience during a speech at Sage Chapel on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

White Dreams

So while President Obama had Dreams of His Father, and dreams of passing the Dream Act(The Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act), Lincoln had White Dreams of an all-white America by trying to negotiate with Great Britain and other foreign governments to deport all Blacks.

No wonder, he is considered the greatest Republican president in American history.

"In support of the White Dream," Bennett writes. “Lincoln mobilized the State Department, the Interior Department, the Treasury Department, and the Smithsonian Institution . . . . Lincoln's ethnic cleansing plan was the official policy of the American government"

Bennett goes onto write that the reason why most people fail to know these things about Lincoln is because; there is a Lincoln cult that resides in America.

The Lincoln Cult

If you don't think there is Lincoln Cult, let's not forget the other Lincoln movie put out by Hollywood called "Lincoln: The Vampire Hunter" this year.

In his book Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream on page 114, Bennett writes this:

Lincoln is theology, not historiology. He is a faith, he is a church, he is a religion, and he has his own priests and acolytes, most of whom have a vested interest in [him] and who are passionately opposed to anybody telling the truth about him."

With these so-called academic cults obsessed with the Lincoln's Legacy, American scholars as well as some governmental officials have oddly made Lincoln the moral compass of the country, a Christ-like figure, which happened to die on Good Friday for the sin of slavery.

He, in some academic circles, is even called "Father Abraham."

Therefore, overtime his myth, his martyrdom and his legend has grown into epic poportions.

Unfortunately, many Blacks, due to miseducation, have also been brainwashed in this occult knowledge surrounding "Honest Abe," or better yet "Lying Lincoln," who supposedly freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation.

Bennett theorized that Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, however freed no one, since it only applied to "rebel territory,” and specifically exempted all the slave-owning/Union-controlled border states and other areas that were occupied by the U.S. army at the time.

To prove this point, Henry Clay Whitney said the Proclamation was a mirage. And Secretary of William Henry Seward said it was an illusion in which "we show our sympathy with the slaves by emancipating the slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."

After learning this, it is now safe to say Lincoln practiced the same double-talk, which most politicians engage in today.

In other words, as the Native Americans said, "the white man speaks with a fork tongue."

Therefore, instead of the Great Emancipator, he was the Great Manipulator.

Deification of a political figure

According to Thomas DiLorenzo, the author of The Real Lincoln, Lincoln was 10,000 times slicker than Bill Clinton and during his first inaugural address, pledged to enshrine slavery into the Constitution with the "Corwin Amendment" that had already passed by the U.S. House and Senate.

"If I could save the Union without freeing the slaves I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it. What I do about, and the colored races, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union." Lincoln said.

Unfortunately, for President Obama, he has been fashioned as the new Abe Lincoln. And just like Lincoln, the United States has tried to make him a Christ-like figure and the Messiah to a nation in need of leadership.

And just like Lincoln, those who love Obama, hate to see him criticized in fear that it will destroy the myth surrounding his historical presidency as well as his legacy.

Plus, Obama loyalists like Reverend Al.Sharpton, Melissa Harris-Perry, Tom Joyner and Eric Michael Dyson have made new careers out of protecting him, especially from Glen Ford, Tavis Smiley, and Dr.Cornel West.


The deification of politicians, however is a dangerous thing.
Because, we know that there are no perfect people and definitely no perfect politicians.

Obsession with the wrong Lincoln

Princeton professor Dr.Cornel West, in effect, warned President Obama not to follow the wrong version of Lincoln during an interview with Democracy Now on July 29, 2009.

And I should say this, too, I think, in terms of style, that the Obama administration is obsessed with the wrong Lincoln. They are obsessed with the Lincoln who they think moved to the right and was trying to create bipartisan consensus with conservatives, whereas we know there’s no Lincoln without Frederick Douglass.

There’s no Lincoln without Harriet Beecher Stowe. There’s no Lincoln without Wendell Phillips or Charles Sumner. That was a social movement……..If it were not for the abolitionist movement, the courageous black and white freedom fighters, from John Brown to Douglass, who put pressure on Lincoln, we would have been dealing with a white supremacist Lincoln.

Lincoln became great, because a social movement pushed him against slavery in that regard.

And Obama is looking to the wrong Lincoln. And if he doesn’t understand the greatness of Lincoln was responding to the social movements of working people and poor people, he’s going to end up with a failed presidency, with a lot of symbolic gestures…

Therefore, we pray for the protection of President Obama during his second term in the Oval Office as another potential Civil War brews on American soil due to this heated secession debate.

Why? Because, as Lerone Bennett said, “When people don’t know when they were emancipated, or if they were emancipated, they will never be emancipated.”

Eric D.Graham is a graduate of Winston-Salem State University, where he received a B.A in Mass Communications, with a concentration in Radio & Television, with a minor in History, with a concentration in African-American Studies. Currently, he is the Managing Editor of Black Athlete Sports Network, where he thought-provoking articles and cartoon Here Comes The Hater appears on a weekly basis. He can be reached at lbiass34@yahoo.com