#Southern Union v. United States

[beguines]

Nationally, coal miners continually played a vanguard role. In 1897, although perhaps as few as four thousand miners belonged to the national union, two hundred thousand miners answered the UMWA call and struck, stopping 70% of national soft coal production, resulting in a national agreement with a 33% wage increase and an eight-​hour day. This victory, by many accounts, spurred other workers in the United States and Canada to organize. The leadership of the union, conservative in temperament, with an extremely militant constituency generally sympathetic to radicalism, was often of two minds. This is revealed, among other ways, by how it went about mobilizing support for the 1897 strike. Foner emphasizes that President M. D. Ratchford requested aid from Socialist Party (SP) leader Eugene V. Debs, especially in Pennsylvania, where SP organizers played an important role in aiding the strike. Taft chooses to highlight the degree to which Gompers and the AFL contributed money and organizers, playing a particularly active role in the formerly non-​union fields in West Virginia, continuing to aid the union financially, even after the strike. Both emphases, of course, are one-​sided, although each is factually accurate as far as it goes. Miners continually chafed at the conservative, class-​collaborationist orientation of the national leadership, never, however, succeeding in overthrowing it. At the 1910 UMWA convention, for example, they opposed the alliance of the AFL and former president John Mitchell with the business-dominated National Civic Federation (NCF), forcing Mitchell to resign from the NCF or lose his union membership. Although an exception had been made regarding the industrial jurisdiction of the UMWA in the 1901 Scranton Declaration by the AFL, the miners' organization as a whole continually agitated against the craft orientation of the parent organization, sponsoring resolutions, at AFL conventions, sheltering the radical Western Federation of Miners from craft union assaults, and even running John L. Lewis for AFL president against Gompers in 1921. Hatred for Lewis, however, was so intense among many radicals that some even supported Gompers against Lewis for president. The schizophrenic nature of the UMWA, exceptional militancy of miners, classwide feelings of solidarity, and sympathy for radical ideology, combined with a conservative class-​collaborationist leadership who sometimes expressed the more radical strains of the mineworkers, form a continual thread in the history of the union, playing an especially important role in the labor upsurge of the 1930s and 1940s, a legacy in which John L. Lewis fits comfortably—​which many mistakenly attribute to his idiosyncratic personality.

Miners were among the first southern industrial workers to organize. The Knights of Labor was active in coal in Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Their struggles were as militant and dramatic as those we have come to expect of miners everywhere. The 1891 Coal Creek Rebellion in Tennessee epitomizes this. When the Knights of Labor contract expired at the Briceville mine near the town of Coal Creek, the company attempted to break the union, locking out the miners, evicting them from company housing, and bringing in convicts to work the mines. Merchants and property owners who depended on miners for their livelihood, along with miners, armed themselves. When the government called out the state militia, armed miners and other workers from around the state converged on Coal Creek, disarmed the militia, freed the convicts, and burned the stockade to the ground. Armed confrontations continued to occur, including one at Oliver Springs in 1892, where train crews refused to move troop trains to the mine areas. When Jake Witsen, a Black mine leader was killed, thousands of white miners and neighbors attended his funeral. Although these struggles were eventually defeated by the mobilization of the U.S. Army and the deputizing of large numbers of vigilantes, public opinion was so aroused against the use of convict labor that the legislature—​which had initially supported convict labor by a large majority—​ was forced to abolish it. The specter of armed miners converging from around the state, supported by farmers and townspeople, and the overwhelming majority of public opinion in the state constituted one of those rare situations in which the need for social stability trumped the extra profits to be gained from the use of prison labor in the mines. Both structural and associative power reinforced each other to gain this victory.

Michael Goldfield, The Southern Key: Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

instagram.com :: Jesse Duquette (@_jesseduquette)

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 8, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 09, 2024

On July 9, 1868, Americans changed the U.S. Constitution for the fourteenth time, adapting our foundational document to construct a new nation without systematic Black enslavement. 

In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution had prohibited slavery on the basis of race, but it did not prevent the establishment of a system in which Black Americans continued to be unequal. Backed by President Andrew Johnson, who had taken over the presidency after actor John Wilkes Booth had murdered President Abraham Lincoln, white southern Democrats had done their best to push their Black neighbors back into subservience. So long as southern states had abolished enslavement, repudiated Confederate debts, and nullified the ordinances of secession, Johnson was happy to readmit them to full standing in the Union, still led by the very men who had organized the Confederacy and made war on the United States. 

Northern Republican lawmakers refused. There was no way they were going to rebuild southern society on the same blueprint as existed before the Civil War, especially since the upcoming 1870 census would count Black Americans as whole persons for the first time in the nation’s history, giving southern states more power in Congress and the Electoral College after the war than they had had before it. Having just fought a war to destroy the South’s ideology, they were not going to let it regrow in peacetime.

Congress rejected Johnson’s plan for Reconstruction.

But then congressmen had to come up with their own. After months of hearings and debate, they proposed amending the Constitution to settle the outstanding questions of the war. Chief among these was how to protect the rights of Black Americans in states where they could neither vote nor testify in court or sit on a jury to protect their own interests. 

Congress’s solution was the Fourteenth Amendment.

It took on the infamous 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision declaring that Black men "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens.” 

The Fourteenth Amendment provides that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” 

The amendment also addressed the Dred Scott decision in another profound way. In 1857, southerners and Democrats who were adamantly opposed to federal power controlled the Supreme Court. They backed states’ rights. So the Dred Scott decision did more than read Black Americans out of our history; it dramatically circumscribed Congress’s power. 

The Dred Scott decision declared that democracy was created at the state level, by those people in a state who were allowed to vote. In 1857 this meant white men, almost exclusively. If those people voted to do something widely unpopular—like adopting human enslavement, for example—they had the right to do so. People like Abraham Lincoln pointed out that such domination by states would eventually mean that an unpopular minority could take over the national government, forcing their ideas on everyone else, but defenders of states’ rights stood firm. 

And so the Fourteenth Amendment gave the federal government the power to protect individuals even if their state legislatures had passed discriminatory laws. “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” it said. And then it went on to say that “Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” 

The principles behind the Fourteenth Amendment were behind the 1870 creation of the Department of Justice, whose first job was to bring down the Ku Klux Klan terrorists in the South. 

Those same principles took on profound national significance in the post–World War II era, when the Supreme Court began to use the equal protection clause and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment aggressively to apply the protections in the Bill of Rights to the states. The civil rights decisions of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, including the Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation in public schools, come from this doctrine. Under it, the federal government took up the mantle of protecting the rights of individual Americans in the states from the whims of state legislatures.

Opponents of these new civil rights protections quickly began to object that such decisions were “legislating from the bench,” rather than permitting state legislatures to make their own laws. They began to call for “originalism,” the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted only as the Framers had intended when they wrote it, an argument that focused on the creation of law at the state level. Famously, in 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork, an originalist who had called for the rollback of the Supreme Court’s civil rights decisions, for a seat on that court. 

Reacting to that nomination, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) recognized the importance of the Fourteenth Amendment to equality: “Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy….”

From the perspective of 2024, Kennedy’s comments seem prescient, but the country could go even further backward. The 2024 Republican Party platform, released today, calls for using the Fourteenth Amendment not to protect equal rights for Americans from discriminatory laws, as those who wrote, passed, and ratified the amendment intended. Instead it calls for using the Fourteenth Amendment to protect the rights of fetuses from the time of fertilization. It says that states should start passing laws protecting those rights: so-called fetal personhood laws that have their roots in the 1960s and were considered a fringe idea until about fifteen years ago. Those laws prohibit all abortion, in vitro fertilization (IVF), and several forms of contraception.  

Saying states should pass such laws echoes the language Trump has used to try to avoid the Republicans’ extreme and unpopular abortion stance by claiming, as the Supreme Court did in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, that states alone should write laws covering abortion. But in its reaction to the Republican platform today, the antiabortion Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America organization made it clear that the platform’s reference to the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to open the way for a national abortion ban. The Fourteenth Amendment, after all, gives Congress “power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

“It is important that the [Republican Party] reaffirmed its commitment to protect unborn life today through the 14th Amendment,” the organization said in a statement. “Under this amendment, it is Congress that enacts and enforces its provisions. The Republican Party remains strongly pro-life at the national level.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[sidewalkstamps]

L. Glenn Switzer Contractor 1930 (Photo taken April 29, 2024 on Glenalbyn Dr. & Glenmuir Ave.)

According to the Los Angeles Times, L. Glenn Switzer died at the age of 96 on July 11, 1990, so he was born in either 1894 or 1893. He started "the first ready-mix concrete company in Southern California" in Pasadena in 1930. The company, Transit Mixed Concrete Co., worked "at construction sites throughout Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Imperial counties," in addition to manufacturing concrete blocks and panels. He was a Quaker and was "president of the national Conference of Quaker Men" in 1954" ("L. Glenn Switzer; Formed Ready-Mix Concrete Firm." Los Angeles Times, July 22, 1990.

In 1941, L. Glenn Switzer was the manager of Transit Mixed Concrete Co. They had multiple locations including 1000 North La Brea in Los Angeles, 3492 E Foothill Blvd. in Pasadena, and 780 Union Pacific Place, which doesn't currently exist but I think may be in Commerce, CA (Los Angeles City Directory 1941, Los Angeles City Directory Co., 1941).

In an advertisement in 1945, Transit Mixed Concrete Co described themselves as "Pioneers of Transit-Mixed Concrete in Southern California" (Southwest Builder and Contractor, Volume 106, F. W. Dodge Company, 1945).

According to Switzer v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, United States Tax Court, June 30, 1953, 20 T.C. 759 (U.S.T.C. 1953), L. Glenn Switzer and Howard A. Switzer were partners in the company in 1944-45. Their respective wives were Ida H. and Florence M. Apparently they didn't commit fraud with intent to evade tax, but the husbands were deficient due to negligence.

We learn from Find a Grave that L. was Lewis. He was born in Iowa in on June 26, 1894 and died in L.A. County on July 11, 1990. He is buried in Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum in Altadena, CA. His wife, Ida, was born in Iowa and they married on December 29, 1915 in Marshall, Iowa. They had at least two sons (Elmo Glenn, Eugene Lewis) and one daughter (Mayme Elizabeth). She lived in Pasadena in the 1940 and 1950 censuses. She died on October 18, 1987 and was also buried in Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum in Altadena, CA.

Howard Allison Switzer was Lewis's brother (they also had four other siblings: Elias Claire, Gladys Lucile, Richard Kent, and Florence Eliza) and co-founder. He was born on July 30 or 31, 1908 in Ladora, Iowa and died on January 7, 1997 in Los Angeles, CA. He is also buried at Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum in Altadena, CA (Find a Grave). Their parents were Richard Martin Switzer and Carrie Estella Lewis. (The photo above is Howard in the 1920s, probably in Long Beach, CA, and was submitted to Find a Grave by 'jmb'.) According to his obituary in the Los Angeles Times, he had moved to Long Beach, CA in 1920 with his parents and sister. "He joined his father and older brother in their concrete contracting company after graduating from Long Beach High School." This company was a predecessor to Transit Mix Concrete Company, which, according to the same obituary, was "credited with using the first concrete mixer trucks, which prepare the concrete to be poured once it gets to the job site" (January 9, 1997). Howard moved to Pasadena in 1932 and married Florence.

She lived to 105 and had lived her whole life in Pasadena, CA! They had four sons: Forrest, Roy, Marshall, and Norman. She was "known as Flossie to most of her friends." ("Florence Switzer Obituary," Pasadena Star-News).

Other sources:

The Tax Fortnighter Annual, Fallon Publications, 1954

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 7.26 (before 1940)

657 – First Fitna: In the Battle of Siffin, troops led by Ali ibn Abu Talib clash with those led by Muawiyah I. 811 – Battle of Pliska: Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros I is killed and his heir Staurakios is seriously wounded. 920 – Rout of an alliance of Christian troops from Navarre and Léon against the Muslims at the Battle of Valdejunquera. 1309 – The Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII is recognized King of the Romans by Pope Clement V. 1509 – The Emperor Krishnadevaraya ascends to the throne, marking the beginning of the regeneration of the Vijayanagara Empire. 1529 – Francisco Pizarro González, Spanish conquistador, is appointed governor of Peru. 1579 – Francis Drake, the English explorer, discovers a "fair and good" bay on the coast of the Pacific Northwest (probably Oregon or Washington). 1581 – Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (Act of Abjuration): The northern Low Countries declare their independence from the Spanish king, Philip II. 1703 – During the Bavarian Rummel the rural population of Tyrol drove the Bavarian Prince-Elector Maximilian II Emanuel out of North Tyrol with a victory at the Pontlatzer Bridge and thus prevented the Bavarian Army, which was allied with France, from marching as planned on Vienna during the War of the Spanish Succession. 1745 – The first recorded women's cricket match takes place near Guildford, England. 1758 – French and Indian War: The Siege of Louisbourg ends with British forces defeating the French and taking control of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. 1775 – The office that would later become the United States Post Office Department is established by the Second Continental Congress. Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania takes office as Postmaster General. 1778 – The Emigration of Christians from the Crimea in 1778 begins. 1788 – New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th state of the United States. 1803 – The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public railway, opens in south London, United Kingdom. 1814 – The Swedish–Norwegian War begins. 1822 – José de San Martín arrives in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to meet with Simón Bolívar. 1822 – First day of the three-day Battle of Dervenakia, between the Ottoman Empire force led by Mahmud Dramali Pasha and the Greek Revolutionary force led by Theodoros Kolokotronis. 1847 – Liberia declares its independence from the United States. France and the United Kingdom are the first to recognize the new nation. 1861 – American Civil War: George B. McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following a disastrous Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run. 1863 – American Civil War: Morgan's Raid ends; At Salineville, Ohio, Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his volunteers are captured by Union forces. 1882 – Premiere of Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal at Bayreuth. 1882 – The Republic of Stellaland is founded in Southern Africa. 1887 – Publication of the Unua Libro, founding the Esperanto movement. 1890 – In Buenos Aires, Argentina the Revolución del Parque takes place, forcing President Miguel Ángel Juárez Celman's resignation. 1891 – France annexes Tahiti. 1892 – Dadabhai Naoroji is elected as the first Indian Member of Parliament in Britain. 1899 – Ulises Heureaux, the 27th President of the Dominican Republic, is assassinated. 1908 – United States Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation). 1918 – Emmy Noether's paper, which became known as Noether's theorem was presented at Göttingen, Germany, from which conservation laws are deduced for symmetries of angular momentum, linear momentum, and energy. 1936 – Spanish Civil War: Germany and Italy decide to intervene in the war in support for Francisco Franco and the Nationalist faction. 1937 – Spanish Civil War: End of the Battle of Brunete with the Nationalist victory.

[reedmaintenaceservices]

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[masterofd1saster]

CJ current events 14sep23

DoJ ignoring Berger -

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The felony convictions of four former Navy officers in one of the worst bribery cases in the maritime branch’s history were vacated Wednesday following allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, the latest setback to the government’s yearslong efforts in going after dozens of military officials tied to a defense contractor nicknamed Fat Leonard. U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino called the misconduct “outrageous” and agreed to allow the four men to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and pay a $100 fine each. Last year after the trial, Sammartino had ruled the lead federal prosecutor committed “flagrant misconduct” by withholding information from defense lawyers but said at the time that it was not enough to dismiss the case.*** Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Ko, who was brought on after the trial last year, admitted to “serious issues” and asked the judge to vacate the officers’ felony convictions. He said his office does not agree with all of the allegations but said errors were made. “There were pretty obviously serious issues that affect our ability to go forward” defending the convictions or seeking a new trial, Ko told the judge, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Andrew Haden, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern California District, reiterated that in a statement after the hearing. “As stated in court, we do not agree with all the allegations or characterizations in the motions or in court,” Haden said. “We recognize and regret, however, that errors were made, and we have an obligation to ensure fairness and justice. The resolutions of these defendants’ cases reflect that.”*** The officers — former Capts. David Newland, James Dolan and David Lausman and former Cmdr. Mario Herrera — were previously convicted by a federal jury on various counts of accepting bribes from foreign defense contractor Leonard Francis, and his company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, or GDMA.*** https://www.pilotonline.com/2023/09/06/felony-convictions-vacated-for-4-former-navy-officers-in-sprawling-fat-leonard-bribery-scandal/

Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1935) says

The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor—indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.

***

Video of police officer Mark Dial shooting Eddie Irizarry in Philly on 14aug23

DA released body cam video on 8sep. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/philadelphia-da-releases-police-body-camera-footage-of-fatal-shooting-of-eddie-irizarry/ar-AA1gr1mF. Officer Dial has been charged with murder, and he has surrendered to police.

A resident's surveillance captured the shooting, and the resident posted it a couple weeks ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0xjpvDWlmM

Rest in peace, Eddie.

***

Georgia v. Trump

Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro had their trials severed from the other defendants. That means they'll have a separate trial.

[Judge] McAfee did not appear convinced by prosecutors on District Attorney Fani Willis's team that they could hold a joint trial for all 19 defendants in October. “It just seems a bit unrealistic that we can handle all 19 [defendants] in 40-something days,” McAfee said, though Lieb emphasized that the judge has still not made a final decision over a joint trial.***

That 40 day estimate does not include time required for jury selection. Good luck w/ that.

***

Nothing to celebrate

For woke pols, violent crime’s only a problem when it affects them personally: Meet Shivanthi Sathanandan. A bigwig in Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, she vowed in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department. “Say it with me. DISMANTLE The Minneapolis Police Department,” she urged: It has “systematically failed the Black Community,” so it’s “time to build a new infrastructure that works for ALL communities.”  But now she’s gotten carjacked in front of her house and left with serious injuries, so she’s singing a new tune.  “These men knew what they were doing. I have NO DOUBT they have done this before. Yet they are still on OUR STREETS. Killing mothers. Giving babies psychological trauma that a lifetime of therapy cannot ease. With no hesitation and no remorse,” she thundered on Facebook.  And: “REMEMBER ME when you are thinking about supporting letting juveniles and young people out of custody to roam our streets instead of HOLDING THEM ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS.”***

***

democracy at work

Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio proposed a bill banning federal COVID-19 mask mandates. In order to move it forward, he needed the senators who were present on Thurs to not vote against it. Well, he lost.

The motion was blocked by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who claimed the legislation would “hamstring public health experts who guided our nation out of the pandemic.” Markey has a history of supporting mask mandates: In December 2020, he called states without mask mandates “dangerous” and promoted his Encouraging Masks For All Act, legislation asking states to implement mask mandates when social distancing is not possible. “All of us have gone through the experiment of mandatory masking,” Vance said Thursday, before Markey blocked the motion. “Today, I want to make sure we do not subject the people to the tyranny for the sake of nothing.”*** https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/09/07/democrats-oppose-jd-vance-bill-banning-mask-mandates/

The point is that at least someone voted somehow on an important issue. It wasn't just some unelected bureaucrat imposing his will on Americans.

+++

in other covid related news

A New York judge said Wednesday that 10 employees fired by the New York City Department of Education for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine must be reinstated with back pay. In a major victory for vaccine mandate opponents, State Supreme Court Judge Ralph J. Porzio held that the city's denials of religious accommodation to certain employees were unlawful, arbitrary and capricious. The case, DiCapua v. City of New York, concerned school principals, teachers and other educators who sued after city officials rejected their claims for a religious exemption to the vaccine mandate.  "This Court sees no rational basis for not allowing unvaccinated classroom teachers in amongst an admitted population of primarily unvaccinated students," Porzio wrote in a 22-page opinion. "As such, the decision to summarily deny the classroom teachers amongst the Panel Petitioners based on an undue hardship, without any further evidence of individualized analysis, is arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable. As such, each classroom teacher amongst the Panel Petitioners is entitled to a religious exemption from the Vaccine Mandate." *** https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nyc-teachers-win-jobs-back-backpay-refusing-covid-19-vaccine

***

good sentence

Danny Masterson was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison after being convicted of rape. His wife, actor and model Bijou Phillips, was in the courtroom as her husband's sentence was handed down. Court sketches show Masterson blew a kiss to Phillips before being led away. The actor was found guilty on two counts of forcible rape in May. A jury was hung on a third charge during the trial after the seven men and five women deliberated for eight days. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo sentenced Masterson to 15 years to life on each count, and ordered the sentences to be served consecutively. The sentence was the maximum allowed by law. It means Masterson will be eligible for parole after serving 25 1/2 years, but can be held in prison for life.*** Alison Anderson, partner at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, and attorney for Jane Does 2 and 3, said in a statement to Fox News Digital, "Niesha and Chrissie have displayed tremendous strength and bravery, by coming forward to law enforcement and participating directly in two grueling criminal trials. "Despite persistent harassment, obstruction and intimidation, these courageous women helped hold a ruthless sexual predator accountable today, and they are not stopping there. They are eager to soon tell the fuller story of how Scientology and its enablers tried desperately to keep them from coming forward."*** "You are pathetic, disturbed and completely violent," she said. "The world is better off with you in prison." The other woman Masterson was found guilty of raping said he "has not shown an ounce of remorse for the pain he caused." She told the judge, "I knew he belonged behind bars for the safety of all the women he came into contact with. I am so sorry, and I’m so upset. I wish I’d reported him sooner to the police."*** Prosecutors told jurors that Masterson drugged the women’s drinks so he could rape them. They said he used his prominence in the church — where all three women were also members at the time — to avoid consequences for decades. The accusers alleged they were hesitant to file charges due to the church's strict protocols against public involvement with member issues. *** https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/danny-masterson-sentenced-30-years-prison

***

Something more to it? Sounds unfair to deputy...

A Denver sheriff’s deputy will be suspended for at least 10 days for punching an inmate in the face during an altercation at the Downtown Detention Center in November 2022. Deputy Diego Villalpando-Hernandez is receiving a lesser penalty for using inappropriate force because he expressed remorse and learned from the experience, according to a decision letter issued by the Denver Department of Public Safety in August. Villalpando-Hernandez was attempting to lock down an inmate, referred to in the decision letter as JS, on Nov. 9, 2022, when the inmate began acting aggressively toward him and adopting a “fighting stance,” according to witness statements. Villalpando-Hernandez then also took a fighting stance and hit JS once in the face before they went to the ground and the inmate was detained by Villalpando-Hernandez and other deputies.*** https://www.denverpost.com/2023/09/08/denver-deputy-diego-villalpando-hernandez-punch-inmate/

***

Unintended consequences? What's that?

SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday issued an emergency order suspending the right to carry firearms in public across Albuquerque and the surrounding county for at least 30 days in response to a spate of gun violence. The Democratic governor said she expects legal challenges but was compelled to act because of recent shootings, including the death of an 11-year-old boy outside a minor league baseball stadium this week. Lujan Grisham said state police would be responsible for enforcing what amount to civil violations. Albuquerque police Chief Harold Medina said he won’t enforce it, and Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen said he’s uneasy about it because it raises too many questions about constitutional rights.*** https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2023/09/08/albuquerque-guns-governor-concealed-carry

***

keep Seattle spun?

SEATTLE - The University of Washington ran a study to see if drug smoke from fentanyl and methamphetamine is affecting transit operators and passengers. "We consistently put [detectors] by the operator on their seat and that's to be representative of their exposures," said Marissa Baker, a UW assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences who co-led the assessment.  Researchers additionally hid the battery-powered monitoring devices behind signs and panels. Same with trains. The study analyzed 28 evenings between March and June of this year. Researchers collected samples from 11 buses and 19 train cars.*** Out of the 78 air samples, researchers found fentanyl in a quarter of them. 100% of those air samples had methamphetamine. Out of the 102 surface samples, almost half had detectable fentanyl. 98% of those air samples had methamphetamine.*** This year alone, almost 500 people have died this year from methamphetamine overdose in King County. More than 700 people have died from a fentanyl overdose. That's more than this point last year.*** https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/uw-study-finds-meth-fentanyl-in-air-and-on-surfaces-of-public-transit

***

Just close it

Nike is reportedly permanently closing its store in northeast Portland , Oregon , citing safety and security issues for vacating the retail space.*** The Nike community store on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the city is the latest business to leave as crime and homelessness wash over the city. A report from last month showed that Portland lost $1 billion between 2020 and 2021 as residents left the city amid crime and rampant homelessness.*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/fairness-justice/nike-store-portland-shuts-doors-crime-safety-concerns

***

Oh, you want to hurt my mother?

PHOENIX (KPHO/Gray News) - Police in Arizona say a teenage boy shot a man who was allegedly trying to break into his house. Officers responded to a Phoenix neighborhood around 10 p.m. Friday, where they found 35-year-old Juan Saavedra, who had been shot. He was taken to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, KPHO reports. Detectives investigating the shooting learned Saavedra allegedly tried to break into a home in the area. He doesn’t live there or have any other connection to the home. A mother and her teenage son, who live in the home, confronted Saavedra as he was allegedly breaking a window and hitting the door. The teen reportedly shot the suspect.*** https://www.wsaz.com/2023/09/10/teen-shoots-man-allegedly-breaking-into-his-home-police-say/

***

Danelo Cavalcante escape & manhunt timeline

I've heard he now has a rifle.

***

Not all enemies of free speech are American

***efforts to censor and control speech about authoritarian governments in the United States continue unabated, online and off. The Chinese government has been especially prolific in this effort. In recent months, U.S. federal agencies have charged dozens of people with crimes related to their work spying on and harassing dissidents on behalf of the People’s Republic of China. The alleged acts included the creation of floods of fake social media accounts intended to threaten Chinese government critics and surveillance operations conducted out of a secret “police station” working in New York City.*** Some student activists’ messages in support of China’s protesters were defaced and even set on fire , and isolated acts of violence were committed against demonstrators. Weeks before the protests took off, Xiaolei Wu, a student at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, intimidated a fellow student for posting pro-democracy flyers on campus, threatening to “chop [her] bastard hands off” and report her to China’s state security agency. Wu has since been charged with stalking. Though they spiked last year, acts of censorship and threats of violence on U.S. campuses have long predated the most recent round of widespread protests in China. At Cornell University, a student from Hong Kong was assaulted last summer after posting flyers, which were frequently torn down, supporting victims of human rights abuses in China. Peers of a Purdue University student who spoke openly about the Tiananmen Square massacre threatened to report him to authorities back home in China. Ministry of State Security officials visited the student’s parents, who warned him to stay silent. At campuses including the University of Chicago , Johns Hopkins University , and Brandeis University , students have attempted to cancel or disrupt events featuring critics of the Chinese government. At times, administrators have even pitched in to aid the censors, such as when George Washington University’s president temporarily threatened to unmask student critics of the CCP ahead of the Beijing Olympics, and a Harvard Law vice dean interfered with an event about human rights in China to protect the university’s relationship with the country.*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/faith-freedom-self-reliance/how-china-is-suppressing-free-speech-on-us-college-campuses

***

after tues

Remember RetractionWatch.com?

Florida State University criminology professor Eric *** Stewart was a widely-cited scholar, with north of 8,500 citations by other researchers, according to Google Scholar — a measure of his clout as an academic. He was vice president and fellow at the American Society of Criminology, who honored him as one of four highly distinguished criminologists in 2017. He was also a W.E.B. DuBois fellow at the National Institute of Justice. The professor received north of $3.5 million in grant support from major organizations and taxpayer-funded entities, according to his resume. The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, the National Science Foundation, which is an arm of the federal government, and the National Institute of Justice, which is run by the Department of Justice, have all funneled money into research Stewart presided over. The National Institute of Mental Health, a branch of the NIH, poured $3.2 million into research on how African Americans transition into adulthood. Stewart presided over that initiative as co-principal investigator from 2007 to 2012. Meanwhile, he reportedly raked in a $190,000 annual salary at FSU, a public university.*** He even passed judgment on students accused of cheating and academic dishonesty themselves, as a member of FSU’s Academic Honor Policy Hearing Committee.***

Either faked his data or gathered/reported it so negligently that it was unreliable. Studies retracted.

***

DoJ wants a round in the chamber in case the state verdict disappoints

Five police officers already charged in the murder of Tyre Nichols, a young African American who died after being beaten, now face federal indictment, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. Videos showed the officers, who are all Black, repeatedly kicking and punching Nichols during a traffic stop close to his home in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 7, three days before he died in hospital. “The country watched in horror as Tyre Nichols was kicked, punched, tased and pepper sprayed,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a brief video statement posted online.*** https://www.breitbart.com/news/federal-charges-for-five-police-over-beating-death-of-african-american/

***

Land of Enchantment news

Democratic New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez announced he will not defend the state in pending lawsuits against the governor's public health emergency order suspending open and concealed carry of firearms in Albuquerque and surrounding counties. In a letter to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) regarding four impending lawsuit cases, Torrez shared the same sentiments from Democratic and Republican lawmakers and law enforcement, saying the ban violates the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. “Though I recognize my statutory obligation as New Mexico’s chief legal officer to defend state officials when they are sued in their official capacity, my duty to uphold and defend the constitutional rights of every citizen takes precedence,” Torrez wrote. “Simply put, I do not believe that the Emergency Order will have any meaningful impact on public safety but, more importantly, I do not believe it passes constitutional muster.” While recognizing his duties as chief legal officer to defend New Mexico officials who are sued, he cast doubt on whether the order would reduce gun violence in the community.*** https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/courts/new-mexico-ag-refuses-defend-grisham-gun-carry-lawsuits

***

Really cold case

After the commencement of a grand jury earlier this week, Keith Emmanuel Smith, 86, was arrested Thursday in a 55-year-old cold case involving a baby in Florence. The charge stems from the 1967 murder of Roxanne Archuletta, who was 14 months old at the time. According to the indictment, Smith was arrested on one amended count of second-degree murder, a Class 2 felony, and is being held on a $10,000 cash or surety bond. According to cemetery records, the remains of Roxanne Marie Archuletta were disinterred on March 2, 2022, at Union Highland Cemetery. Her cause of death was listed as “unknown.” She was born in 1966 and died Nov. 3, 1967, the cemetery records state. The indictment states that on or between Nov. 1 and 2, 1967, Smith broke the baby’s spine, thereby causing her death. Florence Police Department Detectives Jeff Worley and Alex Wold began re-investigating the case in 2021. District Attorney Linda Stanley said this is the first grand jury impaneled in the 11th Judicial District.*** https://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/2023/09/07/breaking-news-man-arrested-in-55-year-old-cold-case-involving-a-14-month-old-baby-in-florence/

***

12 bombs?

A Washington man was sentenced today in the U.S. District Court in Seattle to 40 months in prison for his role in a plot to burn the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) building in downtown Seattle in September 2020. According to court documents, Justin Christopher Moore, 35, of Renton, made and carried a box of 12 Molotov cocktails in a protest march to the Seattle Police Officers Guild building on Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2020. Ultimately, the marchers were moved away from the building in downtown Seattle.*** https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/washington-man-sentenced-bringing-box-molotov-cocktails-protest-march-summer-2020

***

Hook 'em up w/ LWOP

NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Two 20-year-old men were convicted in Norfolk following an armed robbery and rape during a home invasion. On Oct. 2, 2021, Dameron Wright and Deandre Ward robbed a male and his friend in Virginia Beach before forcing them into a vehicle at gunpoint, and demanded they drive to the mother’s house, of one of the victims, in Norfolk, according to a news release from the Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office. After arriving at the house in Norfolk, the defendants entered the house following the son of the woman and his friend before ordering the three victims to the ground and demanding thousands of dollars. Despite the woman handing them $800 in cash, Wright and Ward demanded more money, the release states. They proceeded to direct the three victims into a bedroom before tying their hands. While Wright searched the house for more money, Ward forced the mother to perform oral sex at gunpoint, and then raped her in front of her son saying, “Look what I’m doing to your mom.”

Actually got worse.

On Wednesday, Oct. 13, Wright pleaded guilty to rape, forcible sodomy, abduction with intent to defile, armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery and three counts of the use of a firearm in the commission of those felonies. Ward pleaded guilty to the same charges with an additional count each of rape and forcible sodomy. There is no agreement on either defendant’s sentence, according to the release. Judge Tasha D. Scott accepted both pleas, and both defendants are docketed for sentencing on Dec. 15. https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/norfolk/two-men-convicted-after-rape-armed-robbery-during-home-invasion/

***

You're a wonderful human being, Mike.

Mike Farley has been a pr0nhub employee for about a decade. 12 min hidden camera video shows him admitting that the pr0nhub business model includes female victims of rape and sex trafficking with their faces blurred to evade laws requiring proof of identity and age verification.

[theovasiliadis]

The “United” States Is on the Verge of Extinction

The “United” States Is on the Verge of Extinction

America is being torn apart. The nation is disintegrating into self-serving regionalism. Presently in America, there is a globalist inspired effort to destroy the United States from within.

Nixon’s 10 FEMA Regions

In the modern era, the breakup of the United States first appeared in Richard Nixon’s division of America into 10 FEMA Regions. This is becoming a rough draft model for the planned break-up of the United States   Forty eight hours ago, I made the following video which demonstrated how over 20% of the country is close to breaking away from the Federal government.

Upon further research, I have determined that over half the country is involved in a movement of type or another that wishes to withdraw from the Union. I have also determined that many George Soros’ organizations are involved in many, if not all of these movements.

The Last Obstacle to Global Totalitarianism America has a Constitution

guaranteeing individual liberties over the power of the government. America has millions of freedom-minded citizens. And very importantly, America has a citizenry armed with over 300 million hand guns which complements the fact that America has 7 million veterans of fighting age. For America to fall and for globalism to succeed, America must be broken apart.

For the New World Order to succeed, America must be eliminated as a ge0-political entity. The secessionist movements across the country are a George Soros movement along these lines designed to lead to the breakup of the United States.

The strategy of each movement is very similar in which the hatred and extreme disenchantment that the public has for the Federal government becomes the impetus for withdrawal. These movements are pro-New World Order and will lead to the elimination of much of the resistance that the American people will mount against the Deep State and their international banking allies of the Rothschild banking cartel.

Secession Has Always Been a Part of American History

A secession sentiment has been building in various states for decades in some cases. In the spring 2016, 22 local Republican conventions in Texas expressed their support for a statewide referendum on whether or not Texas should leave the union. Texas movers and shakers in the party struck the resolution from the convention agenda, but it was still an impressive showing, but it served as a sign of things to come. Interestingly, Texas seceded from Mexico in 1835 and formed an independent republic as the precedent was set and secession sentiment in Texas seems to be alive and well nearly 175 years later. s being rekindled as it is happening all across the country. George Soros has his fingerprints all over these movements.

The most notable secession movement occurred prior to the Civil War, which was started by the North after 11 pro-slavery Southern states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America. The North may have won the war, but its consequences continue to play out in our national politics, with the South being the most conservative region on the country, it is a present hotbed of secessionist sentiment.

None of these movements are legal as in 1869, in Texas v. White, the Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession unconstitutional. But that hasn’t stopped dozens of states from pursuing their own movements.

The State of Jefferson

The State of Jefferson movement is the only boundary changing action that does not result in the destruction of the United States. The plan is to add a 51st state through a Constitutional process. Currently, Soros is trying to undermine the movement by having a splinter group engage in a lawsuit which will not result in statehood, but will instead, waste resources needed to complete the administrative withdrawal from California and Oregon and create a new state.

The State of Jefferson movement is potentially dangerous to the country and favors the advancement of the Globalists because the movement has bifurcated into two groups. The newest faction, in the opinion of The Common Sense Show, is a fraud and its true motives deviates away from statehood as a goal. The splinter movement has ties to Moveon.org, a Soros organization. Its strategies include pursuing a frivolous lawsuit in which will NOT result in statehood, but rather will drain the region of needed resources needed to create a 51st state. There is another Jefferson group which is pursuing statehood through Constitutional and legal means. A lawsuit will not accomplish this goal. Also, the splinter group is creating confusion among the citizens on which movement to support.

Jefferson must fail for the following Calexit to succeed. I contend that the splinter group associated with Moveon.org is designed for the purpose of destroying the Jefferson movement in order that Calexit may succeed.

Calexit

The Calexit movement has gone so far as to even open an embassy in Moscow!

Paul Preston

and his insider sources have produced sufficient proof of the following:

California will become a sanctuary state in opposition to any federal enforcement of our immigration laws. Some California lawmakers have gone so far as to say that they will not respect nor abide any actions by federal officials.

Preston has clearly documented that California intends on exiting the United States. Preston’s inside sources, who have been in attendance at some of the CalExit meetings have boldly stated that the state will become its own country under the control of the United Nations. There is no legal precedent for California to do what they claim they will be doing. This is wholly illegal.

Gov. Brown has repeatedly refused comment regarding CalExit. If this was not his intention, then why not simply issue a denial statement? Many times in politics, it is not what you say, but what you won’t say.

Brown is in league with foreign officials from Mexico, China, Japan and the United Nations with regard to moving forward with the CalExit agenda. In addition, Preston’s sources claim that La Raza and various members of the drug cartels have been in attendance. This could constitute criminal facilitation on the part of Brown as well as abject treason. He is also violating the 10th Amendment and should be impeached on these grounds.

If California is successful in carrying out Calexit, it will become a protectorate of the United Nations. You don’t get more “globalist” than that!

Cascadia

Proposed expansion of Canada called Cascadia.

This would destroy the Jefferson movement and proposes to create a new Canadian province that Oregon and Washington would join. This is Soros backed. The secession obsession in America encompasses both the and the left. This movement has many thousands of supporters on both sides of the Canadian border. This movement is in its infancy and is gaining momentum.

From the Seattle Times:

Reconquista Atzlan: White Europeans Must Leave

Aztlan Reconquista

Reconquista haranguer declares America is part of Mexico.

México La Reconquista - Aztlán - 

"We demand the constitutional recognition of all Mexican lands unjustly occupied by the United States in Mexico, and we will vigorously defend, in accordance with the principle of self-determination of peoples, the right of Mexicans to inhabit their entire country within its historic borders, as these were recognized at the time of our independence".

La Raza’s plan to divide America by removing the American Southwest and creating AZTLAN, which is also Soros backed.

The concept of Aztlan has been sanctioned by the

UN.

 This is the same UN that is transporting military grade vehicles within the United States. This,, too, is a violation of our immigration laws, not to mention national security.

These groups have historically taught that Colorado, California, Arizona, Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Oregon and parts of Washington State make up an area known as “Aztlan”, a fictional ancestral homeland of the Aztecs before Europeans arrived in North America.

MEChA’s  founding principles are contained in these words in “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan” (The Spiritual Plan for Aztlan):

“In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage but also of the brutal gringo invasion of our territories, we, the Chicano inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlan from whence came our forefathers, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, declare that the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny.

… Aztlan belongs to those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops and not to the foreign Europeans. … We are a bronze people with a bronze culture. Before the world, before all of North America, before all our brothers in the bronze continent, we are a nation, we are a union of free pueblos, we are Aztlan.

For La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada.

Chicano is our identity; it defines who we are as people. It rejects the notion that we…should assimilate into the Anglo-American melting pot…

Aztlan was the legendary homeland of the Aztecas …

It became synonymous with the vast territories of the Southwest, brutally stolen from a Mexican people marginalized and betrayed by the hostile custodians of the Manifest Destiny.” (Statement on University of Oregon MEChA Website, Jan. 3, 2006).

Miguel Perez

of the Cal State-Northridge’s MEChA chapter stated: “The ultimate ideology is the liberation of Aztlan. Communism would be closest [to it]. Once Aztlan is established, ethnic cleansing would commence: Non-Chicanos would have to be expelled — opposition groups would be quashed because you have to keep power.”

The National Council of La Raza and its allies in public office make no repudiation of the radical MEChA and its positions.

As recently as 2003, La Raza was actively funding MEChA,

according to federal tax records. However, since La Raza began to receive federal funds, La Raza has adopted a less militant stand, at least publicly, where they say that they no longer support Reconquista de Aztlan.  However, when one examines where proposed federal money was designed to go, under S. 744, and to go in the pockets of La Raza and MEChA, it is impossible to believe that at its core, La Raza does not truly support the concept of Aztlan.

This is where Atzlan started. And now it is exploding.

Even more disturbing was the account of Preston’s insider source who attended some of the CalExit meetings. While in attendance, the source heard a pointed discussion about the cartel’s intent to kill white people. The ideas was allegedly put forward by the cartels and was proclaimed in front of 3 members of the Obama administration.

Proposals for the 52nd and 53rd States

The people in far northeastern Colorado (Sterling, Peetz, Flemming) and in Western Maryland want to withdraw from their respective states. Both of these movements have Soros money behind them. Arizona, Michigan, Upstate New York, Ohio, Indiana, Maryland and Virginia Join the Secessionist Party

 EXPLANATION: George Soros' money is DESTROYING American cities Fortunately, many are beginning to realize the DANGEROUS influence that billionaire George Soros and his money have on US elections and politics.  In fact, Soros-backed prosecutors and attorneys general have RUINED several of America's largest cities, inundating them with crime and chaos.  Soros, possibly feeling the heat, recently took to the Wall Street Journal to defend his practices.  But his words won't fool Glenn.  In this clip, Glenn reads the op-ed and explains why Soros money should be BANNED from America for GOOD.

George Soros-backed reforms make US cities 'much more dangerous' So-called reform advocates backed by Hungarian-American businessman George Soros are making American cities "much more dangerous" than they need to be, author Douglas Murray argues. Mr. Soros has pledged to continue funding "reform prosecutors" and rejected the idea that their policies are responsible for the rise in crime in the United States. "These are people who believe in, for example, bail reform, who believe it will empty American prisons and bring great justice to America," Murray told Sky News anchor Rita Panahi. “In reality, bail reform ... doesn't reduce crime – as many people might have told him – it accelerates crime. “The New York Post showed this week that there are people in New York who have been arrested up to 100 times and have been released. "So these kinds of reforms supported by Soros don't reduce crime ... they make cities far more dangerous than they need to be."

George Soros and the Destruction of Law and Order Many have their eyes set on Washington, DC when it comes to politics and policy.  But some very rich and powerful people are looking outside of DC – not just at the state level, but in cities and counties. In recent years, people like George Soros have been investing millions of dollars in local lawyers.  They seek to replace traditional "law and order" DAs with progressive "reform" DAs  This week, we speak with Jason Johnson from the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund about their new report showing the devastating impact DA reform appears to be having on the communities they serve.  If this continues, what will our justice system look like?  We're also talking about whether this is part of a larger, coordinated effort that's going on alongside the police and Bail Project paybacks.

Who is George Soros? For years I was biased against George Soros.  After exhaustive research for this video, I am now just indifferent to him.  Here's everything you need to know about one of the most hated men in the world, George Soros.

https://youtu.be/NpRUzj4_8Z4

the nation of aztlan 

RECONQUISTA (Reconquest) Chicano nationalists LA RAZA (the tribe) plans to restore the mythical Aztlán, lands lost by Mexico in the Mexican-American War, which they buy the way the US paid the president of Mexico who exempted the $.

https://youtu.be/jHnzn2KT7JE

Cascadia Explained  

Have you ever heard of Cascadia? Ever wondered what it would look like on the world stage as its own country;

https://youtu.be/ySEkOcmiSBs

What if Cascadia Became Independent;

The Pacific Northwest of the United States as well as the West Coast of Canada, is a unique geographic and cultural region that is home to an independence movement seeking to form Cascadia - a new country made up of parts of both the US and Canada. This video examines the history of the independence movement, its chances of success, and what an independent Cascadia would look like.

https://youtu.be/dTBbqqo63sc

California calls for a 'Calexit' after Trump's win  

Despite the loss, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. And in the state of California he did especially well, winning votes over Donald Trump by a margin of three to one.  That helped fuel more enthusiasm for a movement among some Californians to move away. CCTV America's Mark Niu reports.

https://youtu.be/qEFqeVIHnZo

Calexit  

One group is calling for California to secede from the United States.

https://youtu.be/v5H67QXhPsg

Thomas Jefferson: Revolutionary, US President, Founding Father | Biography  

Discover Thomas Jefferson's contribution to the movement for American independence and the impact of his pioneering political career. Learn about his relationships with his wife Martha and slave Sally Hemings.

https://youtu.be/82KmrV-Szhs

Could this West Coast region become the 51st State? 

A section of rural Northern California and Southern Oregon tried in the last century to become the State of Jefferson.  In this video, I explore the history of this push for statehood and the possibility of becoming the newest member of the union.

https://youtu.be/zs0WBt9mCfg

State of Jefferson (Full Documentary) 2014 | Oregon Experience  

Anyone who lives in Southern Oregon or Northern California is probably also a resident of the State of Jefferson.  The mythical Jefferson is a product of local tradition, regional identity and pride in its residents.  It remains a symbol of an enduring rural-urban divide.  Now, some are working to make it the 51st official state. This full-length documentary comes from Oregon Experience, Oregon Public Broadcasting's award-winning history series.

https://youtu.be/nBTKF8_tTh4

The State of Jefferson 

Nestled in the mountains of Northern California and Southern Oregon is the rugged and fabled State of Jefferson, a region as famous for its beautiful scenery as it is for its desire to secede.

https://youtu.be/T8mwwjAeUGM

California's Northern Third (State of Jefferson;)  

Overview of the often overlooked northernmost parts of California.  I discuss cities, the economy, corporations, the State of Jefferson divestment movement, volcanoes, and more

https://youtu.be/xSd9TBJnaN0

Is the USA falling apart? | Why some Conservatives want to form new states  

The political divide in the United States is at a high level.  And some red counties in blue states want to secede to become their own states.  The divide between conservative and liberal values, on issues such as abortion, immigration and gun control, is fueling so-called bipartisan proposals.  But is this possible; And will the new country of Cascadia be formed; Or are we headed for another American Civil War;

https://youtu.be/oANB31uZLz0

https://samosnews8.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-united-states-is-on-verge-of.html

[exploreneoh]

Northeast Ohio's Confederate Cemetery

Writing about and discussing monuments commemorating the Confederacy is a difficult task, which is why I have been avoiding composing this blog post for some time now. The Atlanta History Center divides such monuments into three categories. The first refers to mainly funerary monuments, “erected from the 1860s through the 1880s.” The second era of Confederate monuments were installed during the height of Jim Crow, from 1890 through the 1930s, and consist mainly of “an equestrian statute of a Confederate general in front of a courthouse or capitol.” These were not to mourn the loss of dead soldiers, but to celebrate the deeply racist ideals central to the identity of the former Confederate States of America. They were designed to intimidate African Americans passing through public spaces and remind them of their place in Southern society. Such monuments were, “a naked forewarning to the lowest caste of its subjugation and powerlessness… a psychic trolling of the first magnitude” (Wilkerson, 336). These were shrines and threats, aimed at affirming the myth of the Lost Cause and intimidating anyone who dared defy the strict social order. Such insolence would likely mean death. The final era occurred throughout the mid 20th century in response to Brown v. Board of Education and as an ode to segregation.

The monuments on Johnson’s Island in Ohio’s Sandusky Bay perhaps bridge the first two categories. The first Confederate monument erected on the island, a bronze and granite monolith depicting a standing Confederate soldier, was dedicated by the Cincinnati chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1910. Smaller monuments were later installed, the most recent “a set of granite markers dedicated to Confederate prisoners of war,” dedicated by the UDC in 2003. But why are these monuments here, and how should we view them, today?

I drove onto the island after visiting my beloved Marblehead Lighthouse on its namesake peninsula, the rugged, quarry-ridden cape jutting eastward from Toledo into the teal waters of Lake Erie. It was a tumultuous July evening, the trees still dripping from the severe thunderstorm that just passed through, its inky clouds still visible along the eastern horizon. The amber sun, sinking farther in the western sky, merging the remaining puddles and the thick atmosphere. The humidity was extreme.

Johnson’s Island is an unusual place. To cross the causeway from Marblehead, visitors must pay a $2 toll. The island itself is roughly 300 acres and home to extravagant lakeside homes, some built within the old quarry pit hundreds of feet below neighboring residences looming above. Its most unusual feature, however, is the Confederate Stockade Cemetery, located on the island’s northeast corner, overlooking Bay Point and Cedar Point beyond. According to the National Park Service, from 1862 to 1865, the United States War Department imprisoned more than 11,500 Confederates at its facility on Johnson’s Island, which it leased from owner Leonard Johnson for $500 per year. The site, surrounded by the waters of Lake Erie, was chosen for its relative isolation. “It was easily defensible and close to rail lines in Sandusky,” (NPS) deemed so secure, in fact, that only Confederate officers were imprisoned here.

Although originally intended only to house a maximum of 1,000 men at a time, at its peak, Johnson Island’s population exceeded 3,255 in 1865. Population numbers were generally lower, however, due to the Union and Confederate armies frequently swapping prisoners of war. The prison, although more luxurious than those for ordinary soldiers, lacked appropriate sanitation, infrastructure, and food, and was frequently overcrowded. Diseases spread quickly throughout the prison and Lake Erie winters were undoubtedly harsh.

In 1864, Confederate soldiers based in Ontario attempted to raid the island. “They successfully seized two passenger steamers in Lake Erie and planned to capture the USS Michigan and use the warship to free the officers on Johnson’s Island,” (NPS) but aborted the mission. As a result, the Union strengthened its prison’s defenses, fearing possible future attacks.

After Robert E. Lee’s surrender and the Confederacy swore its oath of allegiance to the United States in 1865, the prison’s population decreased. By the end of the year, the War Department had returned control of the island to Johnson. During its time as a prison, only 239 men died on the island, their bodies buried a half mile from the original prison facility. Over 20 bodies were removed by friends and family after the Civil War and taken elsewhere. To commemorate those who remain, 206 marble headstones were erected after a group of Georgia journalists described the lack of permanent markers memorialize these men.

The Robert Patton Chapter of the UDC purchased the cemetery in 1905. Chapter leader, Mary Patton Hudson, worked feverishly to oversee improvements to the sight, including the construction of a fence around the cemetery. Her most notable contribution was the large statue of a Confederate soldier, dubbed The Lookout, created by Moses Ezekiel and dedicated in June 1910. “The [UDC] installed two monuments at the cemetery in 1925. The Mack-Hauck Memorial honors two members of the organization instrumental in preserving the Johnson’s Island cemetery” (NPS). Hudson herself was later dedicated a memorial for her effort to purchase the cemetery which was later donated to the federal government in 1931. Since then, additional granite markers have been placed in memory of Confederate prisoners of war.

Nostalgia has been described as “the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return,” (Kundera, 5) and, walking along the rows of headstones and among the ornate monuments in the cemetery on that hot July evening, I was struck by perhaps its opposite. Those who erected such memorials, however, clearly felt this way towards the Confederacy, yearning for its return. The Confederate Cross of Honor in northern soil, with initials CSA encompassing a Confederate battle flag, earnestly and shamelessly celebrates a brief instance of Confederate sovereignty, a reclamation of a place once designed to contain and irradicate it. The pedestal of Ezekiel’s statute reads and is dedicated “to those who died in federal prison on this island during the war between the states,” commemorating those Confederate officers, “dead, but sceptered sovereigns who still rule us from the grave.” The line is from Lord Byron’s Manfred, taken from a scene in which the titular character recounts the former glories of the Roman capital. He describes the “chief relics of almighty Rome,” the “ruinous perfection,” of “Caesar’s chambers, … the Augustan halls,” a place where all that remains is beautiful. “The place Became religion, and the heart ran o’er With silent worship of the great of old” (Byron). The “great of old” here is the legacy of slavery and a society built upon it. For the Confederacy, the owning of twelve generations of human chattels whose patriarchs and matriarchs were stolen from a distant continent was the state-sanctioned religion. The statue is chilling, the words inscribed within it are haunting.

Horrifying as it is, however, I think this is a monument which should be permitted to stand. It is relatively isolated and within a cemetery for America’s war dead. The statuary, although blatantly racist and clearly regaling the country’s most evil legacy, does not act to intimidate citizens in a public square like others. Furthermore, it is a physical relic of a not-too-distant past, personifying the horrors of before, which continue to echo through the modern day. This place made me think of those who commissioned and built its monuments, not with empathy or reverence, but with chilling terror. The tentacles of those who advocated something which, to me, seems almost unimaginable, poke out of the ground in this humble cemetery in Northeast Ohio. The relics earnestly bearing “CSA” really mean it, celebrating a government which actually existed in Montgomery, AL and Richmond, VA, and to which millions (and many who still) pledged their allegiance. These artifacts somehow make it real, the Confederacy: tangible, palpable, solid, and heavy, like a piece of iron in one’s hand. A prolonged southern invasion of my beloved northern home. Let this not be a place of veneration, but one bearing the scars of the past, a quiet warning of the persistence of hatred, imprisoning once more the evils of yore in a fixed position, viewable to all who venture near, but not germinating and sowing the malice, loathing, and rancor of those it commemorates, but nudging us forward to a more equitable and just future.

All photos are my own, taken on Johnson's Island, Ohio, 7/13/2021.

Top left: view of the headstones in the cemetery.

Top right: close-up view of the pedestal of The Lookout.

Bottom left: Iron Cross of the Confederacy, bearing its initials CSA with a Confederate battle flag in the center.

Bottom center: Entrance to the cemetery.

Bottom right: The Lookout.

References:

Byron, L. G. G. (2010). Manfred. Wilder Publications.

Historical introduction: Confederate monuments. Atlanta History Center. (2021, May 11). Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/learning-and-research/projects-initiatives/confederate-monument-interpretation-guide/historical-introduction-confederate-monuments/

Kundera, M., & Asher, L. (2002). Ignorance. Harper-Collins.

Manfred dramatic poem - analysis & summary. English History. (2015, April 19). Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://englishhistory.net/byron/poems/manfred-dramatic-poem/

U.S. Department of the Interior. (n.d.). Johnson's Island Confederate stockade cemetery. National Park Service. Retrieved January 21, 2022, from https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/national_cemeteries/ohio/confederate_stockade_cemetery.html

Wilkerson, I. (2020). Caste: the Origins of Our Discontents. Random House.

Wilkerson, I., & Gross, T. (2020, August 4). It's more than racism: Isabel Wilkerson explains America's 'caste' system. NPR. Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/transcripts/898574852

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Deering

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 23, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 24, 2024

It turns out that Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito is not the only one flying an “Appeal to Heaven” flag. Leonard Leo, the man behind the extremist takeover of the American judiciary, also flew that flag at his home on Mount Desert Island in Maine. 

So now we have the Appeal to Heaven flag, which represents the idea that the 2020 election was stolen, that the people should engage in armed revolution against tyranny, and that the United States should be a nation based in Christian theology, in front of the office of House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and over the houses of Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito and the architect of the right-wing theocratic takeover of the federal courts, Leonard Leo.

Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech of June 16, 1858, is often described as defining the difference between the North, based on the idea of free labor, and the South, based on enslaved labor, and the idea that one or the other must prevail.

But the speech is much more than a simple depiction of the conflict between freedom and slavery. It details a long-standing plan to destroy American democracy. 

Lincoln outlined the steps that the United States had taken away from freedom toward tyranny, and noted: 

“[W]hen we see a lot of framed timbers…which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen—Stephen, Franklin, Roger and James, for instance—and we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house… we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first lick was struck.”

Lincoln did not choose the names of his workmen at random. Stephen was Illinois senator Stephen Douglas, who had popularized the idea that local voters should be able to decide whether their territory would permit slavery, no matter what the majority of Americans wanted; Franklin was Franklin Pierce, who had presided over the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act permitting enslavement to move into the western territories; Roger was Roger Taney, chief justice of the Supreme Court that decided Dred Scott v. Sandford, saying that Congress could not keep slavery out of the territories; and James was President James Buchanan, who urged Americans to accept the judgment of the Supreme Court. By spreading enslavement westward, that judgment would create new slave states that would work with the southern slave states to make slavery national.  

Together, Lincoln said, these four workmen had constructed an edifice to support human enslavement, an edifice working against the nation’s dedication to freedom established by the Declaration of Independence. "A house divided against itself cannot stand,” Lincoln said. “I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved,” he said. “I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”

Today the Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case of Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP. After the 2020 census, when it was clear that a South Carolina district was becoming competitive, the Republican-dominated legislature moved the district lines to cut Black voters out and move white voters in, thereby guaranteeing Democrats would lose. Voting rights advocates sued, saying that moving around voters on the basis of race violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. A federal district court agreed.

Today, by a vote of 6–3, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s decision and signed off on the new South Carolina congressional map that dilutes Black votes. It approved the map because, it said, the gerrymander was politically, rather than racially, motivated. And, it said, “as far as the Federal Constitution is concerned, a legislature may pursue partisan ends when it engages in redistricting.” 

From now on, as Mark Joseph Stern noted in Slate, it will be virtually impossible for Black voters to prove that lawmakers targeted their race rather than their politics when redistricting, and partisan gerrymandering has just gotten the Supreme Court’s approval (previously, as Stern noted, the court had said federal courts could not intervene even if partisan gerrymandering violates the Constitution; today they said it does not violate the Constitution). Representative James Clyburn (D-SC) said: “Today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision…is further affirmation that this Court has chosen to disenfranchise Black voters and rob us of our fundamental access to the ballot box. Equitable representation is the hallmark of a healthy democracy and in this case, the Supreme Court is attempting to steer the country back to a dark place in our history.”

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that the Supreme Court has no power to redraw district maps at all. As Stern noted, Thomas places the blame for what he sees as judicial overreach on the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision declaring segregation in public schools unconstitutional. After that decision, Thomas says, the court invented powers to remedy the problem. If Brown invited overreach, all the landmark voting decisions of the 1960s did, too.

And so, almost exactly 70 years after the Supreme Court unanimously decided Brown v. Board, it appears that the framed timbers designed to reverse the expansion of minority rights are falling into place. 

But in 2024, those of us eager to protect the idea of human equality outlined in the Declaration of Independence have an advantage that Lincoln’s generation did not. “James”—James Buchanan, who cheerfully backed the Dred Scott decision—is not in the White House. 

Instead of sympathizing with the extremists, as Buchanan did, President Joe Biden has worked to undermine the sense of grievance that has permitted them to amass power. In the 1850s the  federal government had few ways to weaken the ties of ordinary people to the state leaders who were determined to spread the institution of slavery that had made them enormously wealthy, but the modern administrative state has given Biden more options. 

The administration has used the power of the federal government to begin to unwind the trickle-down economy that between 1981 and 2021 transferred $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of the U.S. to the top 1%, hollowing out the middle class. The result has been solid economic growth of  5.7% in 2021, 1.9% in 2022, and 2.5% in 2023. 

The unemployment rate has been at record lows of under 4% for more than two years, the strongest run since the 1960s. Inflation is not rising; it is falling and is now at 3.4%, higher than the Federal Reserve’s preferred mark of 2% but down significantly from its high of 9.1% in June 2022, just after the worst of the pandemic eased. At 4.5% growth over 2023, wage growth outpaced inflation, meaning that although prices have risen, workers have come out ahead. The S&P stock market index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year. 

In the 1930s, under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, federal investment in the impoverished South quieted much of the region’s opposition to the federal government. Limiting crops in exchange for subsidies both brought higher prices and helped to repair damaged soil, new labor regulations got children out of factories and raised workers’ pay, and the government brought electricity and health care to places private industry wouldn’t go.   

Biden appears to be aiming for the same result, but he might be stymied by a news system that has many Americans not just unaware of the good economic news, but believing the opposite. Lauren Aratani of The Guardian reported earlier this week on an exclusive Harris poll showing that 56% of Americans believe incorrectly that the U.S. is in a recession. Those following the stock market are slightly more informed: 49% of them think the S&P stock market index is down for the year. Almost half of those polled—49%—think unemployment is at a 50-year high. Seventy-two percent think inflation is increasing. Fifty-eight percent of those polled blame Biden for mismanaging an economy that is in fact the strongest in the world. 

Tempting as it is to blame the media for its relentless focus on bad news rather than good, a study from NBC News at the end of April showed that those who follow national newspapers and media swing heavily to Biden, while those who either don’t follow politics or get their news from YouTube and social media favor Trump or Robert Kennedy Jr. 

Those sources seem unlikely to explain that Leonard, Sam, Clarence, Mike, and Donald have been swinging hammers. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 10.26 (before 1950)

1185 – The Uprising of Asen and Peter begins on the feast day of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki and ends with the creation of the Second Bulgarian Empire. 1341 – The Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 formally begins with the proclamation of John VI Kantakouzenos as Byzantine Emperor. 1377 – Tvrtko I is crowned the first king of Bosnia. 1520 – Charles V is crowned as Holy Roman Emperor. 1597 – Imjin War: Korean Admiral Yi Sun-sin routs the Japanese Navy of 300 ships with only 13 ships at the Battle of Myeongnyang. 1640 – The Treaty of Ripon is signed, restoring peace between Covenanter Scotland and King Charles I of England. 1689 – General Enea Silvio Piccolomini of Austria burns down Skopje to prevent the spread of cholera; he dies of the disease soon afterwards. 1774 – American Revolution: The First Continental Congress adjourns in Philadelphia. 1813 – War of 1812: A combined force of British regulars, Canadian militia and Mohawks defeat the United States Army in the Battle of the Chateauguay. 1825 – The Erie Canal opens, allowing direct passage from the Hudson River to Lake Erie. 1859 – The Royal Charter Storm kills at least eight hundred people in the British Isles. 1860 – Unification of Italy: The Expedition of the Thousand ends when Giuseppe Garibaldi presents his conquests to King Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia. 1863 – The Football Association is founded. 1871 – Liberian President Edward James Roye is deposed in a coup d'état. 1881 – Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday participate in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. 1890 – Malleco Viaduct in Chile, at the time "the highest railroad bridge in the world", is inaugurated by President José Manuel Balmaceda. 1892 – Ida B. Wells publishes Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. 1905 – King Oscar II recognizes the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden. 1909 – Japanese occupation of Korea: An Jung-geun assassinates Japan's Resident-General of Korea. 1912 – First Balkan War: The Ottomans lose the cities of Thessaloniki and Skopje. 1917 – World War I: Brazil declares war on the Central Powers. 1918 – World War I: Erich Ludendorff, quartermaster-general of the Imperial German Army, is dismissed by Kaiser Wilhelm II for refusing to cooperate in peace negotiations. 1936 – The first electric generator at Hoover Dam goes into full operation. 1937 – Nazi Germany begins expulsions of 18,000 Polish Jews. 1942 – World War II: In the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands during the Guadalcanal Campaign, one U.S. aircraft carrier is sunk and another carrier is heavily damaged, while two Japanese carriers and one cruiser are heavily damaged. 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Leyte Gulf ends with an overwhelming American victory. 1947 – Partition of India: The Maharaja of Kashmir and Jammu signs the Instrument of Accession with India, beginning the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948 and the Kashmir conflict.

[anastasiamaru]

Here are the latest developments.

Russia’s Defense Ministry has signaled that the war might be entering a new phase, as a senior general announced that troops were turning their attention to securing control of separatist regions in Ukraine’s east and that taking the capital, Kyiv, and other major cities was not a primary military objective.

The statement Friday seemed to suggest that Russia was giving up, at least for now, on its unstated goal of taking all of Ukraine. It said the “first stage of the operation” had been “mainly accomplished” and claimed that enemy combat power had been “significantly reduced.”

Analysts cautioned that the statement could be intended as misdirection while Russia regroups for a new offensive. But it is clear that fierce Ukrainian resistance has exacted a heavy toll on Russian troops and held back their attempts to capture major cities.

Ukrainian officials said on Friday that the Russian military had been “partially successful” in creating a land corridor between Russia and the Crimean peninsula, a key strategic aim. But its ground forces were digging into defensive positions around Kyiv and no longer trying to take it over, according to a U.S. defense official. Instead, the official said, Russia is shifting its focus to the eastern Donbas region, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting since 2014.

President Biden is scheduled to speak on Saturday from Poland, a key NATO ally, and meet with its president on the last day of his three-day visit to Europe. He is also expected to meet with some of the millions of Ukrainian refugees who have flooded across the Polish border.

In other major developments:

In the southern port of Mariupol, Ukrainian officials said that an estimated 300 people had been killed in a March 16 strike on a theater that was being used as a bomb shelter.

Russian mercenaries with combat experience in Syria and Libya are gearing up for an active combat role in eastern Ukraine, a U.S. official said. The number of mercenaries with the Wagner Group, a private military force with ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, is expected to more than triple in the region, from about 300 just before the invasion to at least 1,000 fighters, the official said.

In a televised address, Mr. Putin delivered a diatribe about “cancel culture,” embracing a term that has become a favorite of the American right and accusing the West of trying to erase Russian culture and history.

The United States announced a deal with European leaders to increase shipments of natural gas to help wean Europe off Russian energy, as European Union countries announced an agreement to jointly buy and store gas, hydrogen and liquefied natural gas. Germany said that it would halve its imports of Russian oil by midsummer and be free of Russian natural gas by mid-2024.

New York Times

[greatworldwar2]

• Hugo Sperrle

Hugo Sperrle was a German military aviator in World War I and a Generalfeldmarschall in the Luftwaffe during World War II.

Sperrle was born in the town of Ludwigsburg, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire on February 7th, 1885 the son of a brewery proprietor, Johannes Sperrle and his wife Luise Karoline, née Nägele. He joined the Imperial German Army on July 5th, 1903 as a Fahnenjunker (officer cadet). Sperrle was assigned to the 8th Württemberg Infantry Regiment, a regiment in the Army of Württemberg, and after a year received his commission and promotion to Leutnant on October 28th, 1912. At the outbreak of World War I, Sperrle was training as an artillery spotter in the Luftstreitkräfte (German Army Air Service). On November 28th, 1914 Sperrle was promoted to Hauptmann. Sperrle did not distinguish himself in battle as his fellow staff officers in World War II had done, but he forged a solid record in the aerial reconnaissance field. Sperrle served first as an observer, then trained as a pilot with the 4th Field Flying Detachment (Feldfliegerabteilung) at the Kriegsakademie (War Academy). Sperrle went on to command the 42nd and 60th Field Flying Detachments, then led the 13th Field Flying Group. After suffering severe injuries in a crash, Sperrle moved to the air observer school at Cologne thereafter and when the war ended he was in command of flying units attached to the 7th Army.

After the war Sperrle joined the Freikorps and commanded an aviation detachment. He then joined the Reichswehr. Sperrle commanded units in Silesia including the Freiwilligen Fliegerabteilungen 412 under the leadership of Erhard Milch. Sperrle fought on the East Prussia border during the 1919 conflict with Poland. On December 1st, 1919, commander-in-chief of the German army, Hans von Seeckt issued a directive for the creation of 57 committees, encompassing all the military branches, to compile detailed studies of German war experiences. Helmuth Wilberg led the air service sector and Sperrle was one of 83 commanders ordered to assist. The air staff studies were conducted through 1920. Sperrle served on the air staff for Wehrkreis V in Stuttgart from 1919 to 1923, then the Defence Ministry until 1924. Sperrle then served on the staff of the 4th Infantry Division near Dresden. Sperrle travelled to Lipetsk in the Soviet Union at this time, where the Germans maintained a secret air base and founded the Lipetsk fighter-pilot school. Sperrle purportedly visited the United Kingdom to observe Royal Air Force exercises. In 1927 Sperrle, at the rank of Major, replaced Wilberg as head of the air staff at the Waffenamt an Truppenamt (Weapons and Troop Office). Sperrle was selected for his expertise in technical matters; he was seen as highly qualified staff officer with combat experience in commanding the flying units of the 7th army during the war. Sperrle was promoted to Oberstleutnant (lieutenant colonel) in 1931 while commanding the 3rd battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment from 1929 to 1933. Sperrle ended his army career in command of the 8th Infantry Regiment, from October 1st, 1933 to April 1st, 1934. At the rank of Oberst (colonel), Sperrle was given command of the headquarters of the First Air Division (Fliegerdivision 1). Sperrle was given responsibility for coordinating army support aviation.

After Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party seized power, Hermann Göring created and Reich Air Ministry. Göring handed most of the squadrons in existence to Sperrle because of his command experiences. Sperrle was involved in the difficulties in German aircraft procurement. Four months after assuming command, Sperrle was rigorously critical of the Dornier Do 11 and Dornier Do 13 in a conference on July 18th, 1934. Five months later, with development failing, Sperrle met with Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, head of aircraft development and Luftkreis IV commander Alfred Keller, a wartime bomber pilot. It was decided Junkers Ju 52 production would be a stopgap, while the Dornier Do 23 reached units in the late summer, 1935. The awaited Junkers Ju 86 was scheduled for testing in November 1934 and the promising Heinkel He 111 in February 1935. On March 1st, 1935, Hermann Göring announced the existence of the Luftwaffe. Sperrle was transferred to the Reich Air Ministry. Sperrle was initially given command of Luftkreis II (Air District II), and then Luftkreis V in Münich upon his promotion to Generalmajor (Brigadier General) in October 1935. Sperrle remained in Germany until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. He commanded all German forces in Spain from November 1936 to November 1937. Sperrle was the first commander of the Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War. Sperrle left Germany by air on October 31st, 1936 and arrived in Seville, via Rome on November 5th. Sperrle was sent a Kampfgruppe (bomber group—K/88), Jagdgruppe 88 (fighter group 88—J/88) and Aufklärungsstaffel (reconnaissance squadron—AS/88). They were supported by a Flak Abteilung (F/88) with three heavy and two light batteries with communications, transport and maintenance units. The Germans could not afford to fully equip the Legion, and so the air group made use of Spanish equipment. Of the 1,500 vehicles used, there were 100 types creating a maintenance nightmare.

After his experience leading the Condor Legion Sperrle was given command of Luftwaffe Group 3 on the February 1st, 1938 which eventually became Luftflotte 3 (Air Fleet 3) in February 1939. Sperrle commanded the air fleet for the remainder of his military career. Sperrle was used by Hitler in his foreign policy to intimidate small neighbours with the Luftwaffe, which had earned a reputation in Spain. On February 12th, 1938, Hitler invited Sperrle to a meeting at Berchtesgaden with Kurt Schuschnigg, chancellor of the Federal State of Austria. The meetings eventually helped pave the way for Anschluss, the Nazi seizure of Austria. In March 1939 Hitler decided to annex Czechoslovakia completely and risk war. He turned once again to the Luftwaffe to assist him achieving diplomatic results. The threat of aerial bombardment proved a crucial in forcing smaller nations to submit to German occupation. The successes confirmed Hitler's view that air power could be used politically, as a "terror weapon". Sperrle was asked by Hitler to talk about the Luftwaffe, to intimidate the Czech president. Hácha purportedly fainted, and when he regained consciousness, Göring screamed at him, "think of Prague!" The elderly President reluctantly ordered the Czechoslovakian Army not to resist. The aerial part of the German occupation of Czechoslovakia was carried out by 500–650 aircraft belonging to Sperrle's newly renamed air fleet, Luftflotte 3.

On September 1st, 1939, the Wehrmacht invaded Poland prompting the British Empire and France to declare war in her defence. Sperrle's Luftflotte 3 remained guarding German air space in western Germany and did not contribute to the German invasion, made possible by the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. The air fleet's Order of battle had been stripped of almost all of the combat units it held in March 1939. Only two reconnaissance staffel (squadrons) and a single bomber unit attached to Wekusta 51 remained. Sperrle received the competent Major General Maximilian Ritter von Pohl as his chief of staff. The two men made for a "good partnership". Sperrle was also assigned Major General Walter Surén, appointed as the air fleet's chief signals officer. Surén planned and organised the German field communications for the offensive in 1940. While guarding the Western Front during the Phoney War, Sperrle's small fleet of 306 aircraft which included 33 obsolete Arado Ar 68s fought off probing attacks of French and British aircraft. Sperrle developed a reputation as gourmet, whose private transport aircraft featured a refrigerator to keep his wines cool, and although as corpulent as Göring, he was reliable and as ruthless as his superior. Sperrle wanted his air fleet to take a more aggressive stance and won over Göring. On September 13th, 1939 he was authorised to undertake long-range high altitude reconnaissance missions at extreme altitudes. Photographic operations over France authorised by the OKL began on September 21st, which the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht did not sanction until four days later.

Luftflotte 3 was heavily reinforced in the spring, 1940. Sperrle's headquarters was based at Bad Orb. The air fleet was assigned I. Flakkorps under Generaloberst Hubert Weise, I. Fliegerkorps under Generaloberst Ulrich Grauert at Cologne, the II. Fliegerkorps under Generaloberst Bruno Loerzer at Frankfurt, and V. Fliegerkorps under command of General Robert Ritter von Greim at Gersthofen. For the coming battle, Sperrle had 1,788 aircraft (1,272 operational) at his disposal. Opposing Sperrle, was the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force) eastern (ZOAE) and southern (ZOAS) zones under Général de Corps d'armée Aérien René Bouscat and Robert Odic. Bouscat had 509 aircraft (363 operational) and Odic 165 (109 combat ready). Fall Gelb began on May 10th,1940. Sperrle's air fleet engaged in operations supporting Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt and Army Group A in the Battle of Belgium and Battle of France, as well as Army Group C. Sperrle's counter-air campaign started badly, reflecting poor photographic interpretation of targets, though he later claimed Luftflotte 3's operations were decisive in achieving air superiority. Sperrle's men claimed 240 to 490 aircraft destroyed, mostly "in hangars"—Allied losses were actually 40 first-line aircraft. Failing to neutralise Allied fighter units cost Sperrle 39 aircraft. Sperrle's air corps commanders targeted air interdiction operations and ordered, attacks on rail communications to prevent the westward deployment of the French Army from the Maginot Line and to pin down Allied reserves by disrupting communications across the Meuse. 26 French rail stations were bombed as were 86 localities from May 10th to 12th. During the breakthrough to the English Channel, rail networks were attacked to prevent Allied forces rallying. Sperrle and Kesselring objected to the halt order during the Battle of Dunkirk. Neither man believed the pocket could be reduced by air power alone. Gelb was complete, and the OKL prepared for Case Red. The Luftflotten were reorganised; Sperrle retained II. and V. Fliegerkorps along with I. Flakkorps. The flak corps was reorganised into two brigades, with four regiments each with the firepower of 72 batteries. Sperrle was required to strike far deeper into France, and was given the majority of Zerstörer (destroyer aircraft) equipped with Messerschmitt Bf 110.

In a prelude to the offensive, Sperrle planned to carry out strategic bombing operations against Paris. Sperrle had long-planned for air attacks on Paris using II., V. and VIII. Fliegerkorps in May. He was forced to abandon the plan on May 22nd because of weather, but the following day, the OKL prepared a plan for Operation Paula. The plan was to attack the estimated 1,000 French aircraft detected on Parisian airfields, but also to attack factories and destroy the morale of the French people. The operation was undone by poor staff work and excessive confidence in the Enigma machine. On June 5th Sperrle's forces flew eight bombing operations against railways and localities, 21 to 31 against road targets, 12 against troop columns and 34 to 42 against French Army defences or strongpoints. Sperrle was ordered to support Rundstedt advancing southward, with orders to encircle the Maginot Line, from the west. The campaign played out for a further five days, which came as Luftwaffe logistics were breaking down, fuel and ammunition shortages were acute and relied on air transportation. Sperrle attempted to prevent the British Operation Ariel a second evacuation but the only success was the sinking of Lancastria, with 5,800 lives lost. On June 20th arrangements were made for the Armistice of June 22nd, 1940. Upon learning of it, Sperrle ordered the abandonment of a planned bombing operation against Bordeaux. In July 1940 Winston Churchill's government rejected peace overtures from Hitler. Hitler resolved to knock Britain out of the war. The OKL began tentative planning for Operation Eagle Attack to destroy RAF Fighter Command to gain air superiority, before supporting an amphibious landing in Britain, codenamed, Operation Sea Lion.

Sperrle thought the RAF could be defeated en passant. His personal strategy to attack ports and merchant shipping was overruled by Göring, ostensibly because the ports would be required for the invasion. Kesselring's contemporary notes indicate he thought air superiority could only be attained for a short time, since most airfields and factories in Britain were out of range. Sperrle and Kesselring miscalculated, or were misled by intelligence, into underestimating the number of fighter aircraft available to Fighter Command. They put the RAF total at 450 aircraft when the real figure was 750. Chronic intelligence failures on British production, defence systems and aircraft performance inhibited the German air operation throughout the battle. The Luftwaffe regrouped after the Battle of France into three Luftflotten (Air Fleets) . Sperrle's first task against the British Isles was during the Kanalkampf (Channel Battle) phase of what became known as the Battle of Britain. The aim was to draw out Fighter Command into dogfights by attacking Channel Shipping. Targeting British convoy systems, in July 1940 Sperrle's air fleet claimed 90 vessels sunk for approximately 300,000 tons, a third of this was claimed over August and September. Two days before Operation Eagle scheduled for August 13th he had lost two Gruppenkommandeur and a Staffelkapitän. Sperrle knew he could not afford to lose experienced officers at such a rate. The emphasis of German air attacks switched to bombing Fighter Command bases and its infrastructure. On August 13th, 1940, Sperrle's air fleet played a role in the failed Unternehmen Adlerangriff ("Operation Eagle Attack"). On the August 14th, Sperrle began a smaller, prolonged, but widely scattered series of attacks on aerodromes and other targets in the western half of England. The attacks were not very effective and earned the Luftflotte a rebuke from Göring. At the beginning of September 1940, Sperrle could muster 350 serviceable bombers and dive-bombers and about 100 fighters, either for his own purposes or to support the 9th Army and, if necessary, the 6th Army in a landing. Sperrle lost Richthofen to Kesselring who took possession of some units in Normandy, and concentrated the available dive-bomber force near the Straits of Dover.

The bombing operations continued against Fighter Command into October 1940, but with gradually more emphasis placed on attacking industrial cities, primarily because it offered the only way to continue hostilities against Britain directly in the absence of invasion. The preference for night over day operations was evident in the number of bombing operations flown by the German air fleets. Sperrle had spent the last week of August and first week of September gearing up for large–scale night operations. Sperrle's air fleet assisted in the beginning of The Blitz which began in earnest on September 7th, 1940. This night approximately 250 aircraft dropped 300 tons of high explosive and 13,000 incendiaries on the centre of London. Sperrle's airmen flew 4,525 bombing operations in November 1940. In December 1940 Sperrle's air groups flew 2,750 bombing operations against British cities. In February 1941 bad weather limited Sperrle to 975 bombing operations. During the month of May Sperrle's men carried out the burden of night operations, flying 2,500 sorties. Approximately 40,000 British civilians had been killed, another 46,000 injured, and more than a million houses damaged during the Blitz. The German air fleets lost 600 German aircraft on night operations. In five months of bombing docks and ports in 1941, only some 70,000 tons of food stocks were destroyed, and only one half a percent of oil stocks. Damage to communications was quickly repaired. Everywhere except in the aircraft industry the loss was too small a fraction of total output to matter seriously. In early June 1941, the majority of German bomber units moved eastward to the soon-to-be Eastern Front, in preparation for Operation Barbarossa.

Sperrle had been involved in the war at sea since the first phase of the Battle of Britain. He received an OKL directive on October 20th, 1940 ordering him to attack shipping once again in the Thames Estuary. He ordered his dive-bombers into this service, but they were rapidly neutralised in November by a "dynamic defence". The most effective support for the U-boat campaign came from attacking ports in 1941. Direct support to the Kriegsmarine in the Battle of the Atlantic was haphazard; successes were won by accident rather than by design. The Atlantic command came under Sperrle's control upon formation but was subordinated to Sperrle officially on April 7th, 1942. The name of the command was misleading, for it was tasked with maritime interdiction operations all around the British coast besides operating deep into the Atlantic. In the 46 months following July 1940, German aircraft sank 1,228, 104 tons of merchant shipping and damaged 1,953, 862 tons. Another 60, 866 tons were sunk or damaged by mines in 1942 and 1943. The failure to properly cooperate with the navy against shipping was a grave strategic error which prevented the achievement of greater results. For a brief period in March 1943 before the German defeat in Black May Sperrle intended to increase his command to 22 groups for Atlantic operations. From the Allied perspective, the Atlantic campaign became nothing more than a "skirmish" by the autumn, 1943.

In 1942 another threat emerged when the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) began bombing raids against targets in Belgium and France. Sperrle's fighter pilots carried the burden of the defence in 1942. Later that year, JG 1 was assigned to Luftwaffenbefehlshaber Mitte, later known as Luftflotte Reich (Air Fleet Reich) but saw little action since USAAF rarely crossed into the Netherlands. Thereafter, the air war only escalated. Sperrle resisted attempts by Luftwaffenbefehlshaber Mitte to gain control of anti-aircraft forces or to allow the physical degradation of his air fleet, and the offensive mindedness of the OKL favoured front-line units. In March 1943, an immediate rise in losses had already been noted. A report from Luftflotte 3 recognised the size and defensive power of American bombers required a timely interception by massed formations for any chance of success. In July alone, western fighter forces lost 335 single-engine aircraft to all causes. On the German side, there was a call to unify German fighter forces and hold them back from coastal and keep them out of Allied fighter escort range. Regardless of the logic, Sperrle opposed the idea to preserve his command. Sperrle was sensitive to a centralise command for fighter forces and resisted. On September 15th, 1943 an effort to improve Sperrle's organisation was made by creating II. Jagdkorps with the 5th and 4. Jagd Division. The improvement in command and control made little difference in the battle with the USAAF for neither division received the reinforcements it needed. At the end of 1943, the German air defences won temporary successes against the USAAF Eighth Air Force. In February 1944, Big Week targeted German and French–based targets. The German fighter force was bled white over the following two months. In the lead up to June 1944, Luftflotte 3 remained weak, and contained few ground-attack aircraft; nearly all were based on the Eastern Front. Sperrle's fighter pilots were required to attack the landing forces.

A major effect of the combined offensive on Sperrle's air fleet was the diversion and reinforcement of Luftflotte Reich at the expense of Luftflotte 3. By June 1944, the number of fighter aircraft available in the west numbered just 170. Sperrle's air fleet had, at most, 300 fighter aircraft on June 6th, 1944 to contest the D-day landings. The Western Allies amassed 12,837, including 5,400 fighters. Sperrle's air fleet was particularly weak in night fighter units. Given the low priority for their production, Sperrle went for periods with no night–fighting capabilities despite the crucial geographical position of his air fleet and the exposure of important French industries to night attack. Sperrle's air fleet was reinforced on Göring's orders for the purpose of bombing London. The offensive was named Operation Steinbock and began in January 1944. British defences had improved dramatically since 1941 and were fully prepared to repel the attacks. The offensive wasted the last German bomber reserves. The losses were a blow to Sperrle. Sperrle's air fleet Enigma signals had been cracked and ULTRA codebreakers from Bletchley Park deciphered signals sent by Luftflotte 3 headquarters to the OKW. Reading the reports, Allied intelligence deduced that the bombing operations against bridges, west of the Seine, and fighter activity between Mantes and Le Mans, had convinced the air fleet staff the invasion would take place in the Pas de Calais. Allied attacks in May 1944 against bases had a devastating impact on Luftflotte 3 capabilities. ULTRA gave the Allies intelligence on the location and strength of German fighter units as well as the effectiveness of attacks. Further damage was done to Sperrle's air defence network. Some 300,000 personnel worked in Luftflotte 3, 56,000 in signals. The fortification of radar sites after Dieppe had only highlighted them, and 76 of the 92 were knocked out by D-Day. The Allies enjoyed complete air superiority on June 6th, 1944 and flew 14,000 missions in support of the invasion. On the first day, the British and Commonwealth landed 75,215 men and the Americans 57,500. A large force of 23,000 paratroops parachuted in during the night. Luftflotte 3 barely reacted.

Sperrle was dismissed from his post on August 23rd, 1944, hours before American and French forces liberated Paris and overran his headquarters. As the German front collapsed in the aftermath of the Falaise pocket, the air fleet ground organisation uprooted and fled east across the Seine. Hitler charged the personnel of the 3rd air fleet with desertion and held Sperrle responsible. On September 22nd,1944 his former command was downgraded from air fleet to air command status. By the time of his dismissal, Sperrle had purportedly long since lost faith in the German war effort and in Hitler and Göring's military leadership. He had become lazy and had a tendency to indulge in the trappings and luxury lifestyle occupied France offered. During the war Hitler had occasionally gifted Sperrle artwork that may have been looted from occupied territories. Analysts of Sperrle's performance have been critical of his perceived inaction in Normandy and point to critical contemporary army reports on the failures of his command. Others have questioned Sperrle's influence on the conduct of operations and suggested he was a convenient scapegoat for Göring. Sperrle remained embittered after the defeat in France. He was deemed unfit for a senior command and spent the rest of the war in the Führerreserve. On May 1st, 1945, Sperrle was arrested by the British Army and became a prisoner of war. Sperrle was captured by the Allies and charged with war crimes in the High Command Trial at the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials but was acquitted. The court concluded that Sperrle had never been a member of the Nazi Party nor one of its affiliate organizations. After the war, he lived quietly and died in Munich on April 2nd, 1953 at the age of 68.

[madamlaydebug]

Freedom and bondage are two concurrent themes that run throughout the period of history. In the reform movement that arose in the 19th century, those two themes coexist side by side. How can this be? And what was the language of freedom used to subvert and undermine the hard cold facts of slavery and bondage in the United States? Look at the cases of African-Americans in comparison to white people in the United States.

Harvard professor and history scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., writes (in a PBS article) that while many assume after the 13th Amendment (freeing slaves), free Blacks headed north "just as soon as they could, right?" (Gates, 2007). It is remarkable, Gates explains, to learn that in 1860, there were 226,152 free Blacks living in the North, and 261,918 free Blacks living in the South. His point is once free, why wouldn't Blacks move North where a larger share of the population (than the South) would welcome them?

Given the times (months before the creation of the Confederacy), why would those free Blacks (there were 35,766 more free Black folks living in the slave-owning South than in the North) stay in the South? There were both freedom and bondage there, so why did they stay? Gates explains that at no time before the Civil War did free Blacks "in the North ever outnumber those in the South!“

Those free Blacks in the South (many fled the West Indies; and when Napoleon sold Louisiana territory to the U.S., the U.S." acquired thousands of 'free people of color' — many from sexual unions between French and Spanish colonist and Black slaves (Gates, page 3). And why did many free Blacks stay in the South? Some 72.7% of urban free Blacks lived in Southern cities of 10,000 or more. Because they could get jobs, and earn a living wage in the South.

The U.S. Constitution is a document that fully embraces freedom. The word "slave" does not appear in the U.S. Constitution, nor does "slavery." The Framers of the Constitution "acknowledged that [Blacks] were persons" (Jensen, 2008). However, there have been misunderstanding with reference to Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 — the "Three-fifth Clause." That clause was used by people who approved of slavery to suggest African / slaves were not “full persons" — but rather they were thought to be only 3/5ths of the value of white Americans. Slave owners who held slaves as property wanted the 3/5ths designation for Blacks, but the delegates at the Constitutional Convention wanted slaves... "counted as full persons" because they were at that point determining representation in Congress (Jenson, 2008). Hence, the language of freedom (our Constitution) was perverted to support slavery in the South.

That said, the Fugitive Slave Clause in the Constitution provided that slaves that got away could be legally returned to owners (Article 1, section 9, Clause 1; and Article V). That language was very controversial, but the Framers wrote it to make sure the Constitution "did not give moral sanction to slavery." even though it gave power to slave owners (Spalding, 2008). The Thirteenth Amendment gave the individuals the right to "not be held as property of another individual," however, Southern States had the authority "to regulate the Civil rights of persons within their jurisdiction"; hence private individuals could discriminate (Belz,1980).

In short, this goes to show that slavery was never abolished. It was only extended in sophistication masking under the illusion of freedom. WAKE UP!

[lizziesquire]

wrote this over the span of 4 hours for the student org i lead, crying and trying to find the words. the paragraph regarding the ERA was not written by me, but by a board member at-large, so credit to him for that.

On the Loss of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

No combination of words could ever convey the loss of the titan who was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

One of nine women in her class at Harvard Law School. Tied for first in her graduating class at Columbia Law School. The first female tenured professor at Columbia Law School. The second female Justice—and the first female Jewish Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. However, Justice Ginsburg’s legacy went beyond her accolades and the bounds of the legal profession, with mainstream media and pop culture rightly recognizing how the Justice’s progressive lawyering contributed immeasurably to life as we know it, today.

Just as important are the intimate qualities that made her unique. Justice Ginsburg dearly loved the opera. Known for her prolonged silences—the sound of her brilliant mind at work—she once chased the love of her life, Marty, around her chambers with a pair of scissors, laughing all the while. She was known to call the children of her clerks, “grandclerks,” and to gleefully gift t-shirts and mugs that displayed her likeness on them. She slipped handwritten notes to Justices Kagan and Sotomayor for their first opinions on the Court, remembering how a similar gesture from Justice O’Connor had made her feel.

Before she was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she was Joan Ruth Bader. Nicknamed “Kiki,” she grew up in Brooklyn, devouring books in the public library above the Chinese restaurant—and for the rest of her life, she would associate the aroma of Chinese food with the pleasures of reading. She wrote for her high school newspaper, was a twirler, and served as a camp rabbi at her Jewish summer program. She lost her beloved mother the day before her high school graduation.

Justice Ginsburg’s litany of achievements obscures the fact that adversity walked alongside her at every step. Yet, with her steady demeanor and dry humor, she thwarted it at every turn. Invited to a law student dinner by then-Dean Erwin Griswold, only to be asked to justify her theft of a seat from a male applicant, she responded by finishing at the top of her class—all while raising her daughter, Jane, and caring for Marty through his cancer treatments.

Even so, Justice Ginsburg received no job offer from any New York law firm upon graduation.

As we all know, none of these closed doors deterred R.B.G.—a trailblazer, through and through. She clerked for Judge Edmund L. Palmieri of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She became a professor of civil procedure at Rutgers Law School, engaging in collective action with her female colleagues for equal pay to that of their male counterparts. And, refusing to let her accomplishments serve as the balm on the scar of the pervasive discrimination in her journey, Justice Ginsburg embarked on the work that would forever change the conception of gender roles in our nation and jurisprudence.

Spearheading the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, Justice Ginsburg gifted our nation with the cases that would bring women into the protective constitutional force of the equal protection guarantee. Strategically building precedents that secured women many of the rights that we take for granted today, R.B.G. was not only a Justice but one of the very reasons why the women of today are free to follow their ambitions.

Her brief in Reed v. Reed would spark the evolution of heightened scrutiny, introducing the notion of bite to rational-basis review. Justice Ginsburg would then go on, in Frontiero v. Richardson, to harness existing ideals of gender norms in her litigation strategy, resulting in a plurality of the Court adopting strict scrutiny. Stating that the Constitution recognizes values higher than those of speed and efficiency, the Frontiero Court recognized that paternalism has put women in cages rather than on pedestals. Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, a case she argued before the Court, would be the first of a series of cases decided under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, in the seventies, marking a drastic shift in the understanding of the Equal Protection Clause by the highest court of our nation. Then, carrying the legacy sparked by Reed, Craig v. Boren—for which Justice Ginsburg filed an amicus brief—would invoke intermediate scrutiny to strike down a sex-based regulatory scheme, with the Court stating that the scheme in question rested on archaic notions of women being confined to the private sphere rather than being free to partake within the marketplace of ideas.

It would be a disservice to speak of Justice Ginsburg without mentioning one of her unrealized goals: the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Although she moved courts’ understanding of how the Equal Protection Clause ought to apply to sex discrimination cases, she remained convinced that the ERA was needed. At her Senate confirmation hearing upon her nomination for the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg reaffirmed her belief stating, “I have a daughter and a granddaughter, and I would like the legislature of this country and of all the states to stand up and say we know what that history was in the 19th century and we want to make a clarion call that women and men are equal before the law just as every modern human rights document in the world does.”  We want to state our shared conviction with Justice Ginsburg on the necessity of an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.  

We mourn the loss of Justice Ginsburg while celebrating her strength, tenacity, and vision for our nation. Even if Ruth Bader Ginsburg had never been appointed to the federal judiciary, this country would have been made better for her tenacity, commitment, and the battles she won to further women’s equality and civil rights. But today, and every day, we remain committed to her legacy of calling out injustices for what they are. For refusing to let our individual accomplishments cloud our passions for a better tomorrow.

September 18th is the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. According to Jewish tradition, those taken from us during the High Holidays are marked as especially righteous. We can think of no one more deserving of the distinction than the Honorable Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

To the road paved before us, and to the road ahead.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

In 1985 the Washington Times sponsored a fund for the Contras who committed atrocities, and trafficked drugs to the US

▲ Two women carry the coffin of a child killed by a Contra landmine in Managua, July 4, 1986. Thirty-one unarmed civilians, including women and children, were killed when the truck they were riding in struck a Contra landmine. The truck was carrying a 50-gallon barrel of gasoline.

__________________________

Reverend Sun Myung Moon, a South Korean theocrat who fancied himself the new Messiah, had founded his newspaper, The Washington Times, in 1982 partly to protect Ronald Reagan’s political flanks and partly to ensure that he had powerful friends in high places.

In the so-called “Koreagate” scandal of the late 1970s, Moon’s religious cult had been exposed as a money-laundering front [see KCFF scam and ROFA scam] for South Korean intelligence and other corrupt right-wing political forces in Asia (including some elements of organized crime).

As a result, Moon had been convicted of tax evasion and spent time in federal prison. He was determined to prevent a recurrence of those investigations and thus began pouring what came to total several billion dollars of his mysterious money into the Washington Times, creating a propaganda bulwark for the Republican Party and guaranteeing himself a phalanx of powerful defenders.

_____________________________________

From ‘United States and state-sponsored terrorism’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state-sponsored_terrorism

In the 1980s the Sandinista government of Nicaragua did not attempt to create a communist economic system; instead, their policy advocated a social democracy and a mixed economy. The government sought the aid of Western Europe, who were opposed to the U.S. embargo against Nicaragua, to escape dependency on the Soviet Union. However, the U.S. administration viewed the leftist Sandinista government as undemocratic and totalitarian under the ties of the Soviet-Cuban model and tried to paint the Contras as freedom fighters.

The Sandinista government headed by Daniel Ortega won decisively in the 1984 Nicaraguan elections. The U.S. government explicitly planned to back the ‘Contras’ (who were a collection of various rebel groups that had been formed in opposition to the rise of the new Sandinista government) as a means to damage the Nicaraguan economy and force the Sandinista government to divert its scarce resources toward the army and away from social and economic programs.

________________________________________________

Edited from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua

When the hereditary dictatorship of the Somoza family was deposed by the Sandinistas in 1979, the Somoza family’s worth was estimated to be between $500 million and $1.5 billion – gained through massive corruption.

In 1980, the Carter administration provided $60 million in aid to Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, but the aid was suspended when the administration obtained evidence of Nicaraguan shipment of arms to El Salvadoran rebels. In response to the coming to power of the Sandinistas, the ‘contras’ formed.

[The US government viewed the leftist Sandinistas as a threat to economic interests of American corporations in Nicaragua and to national security. US President Ronald Reagan stated in 1983 that “The defense of [the USA’s] southern frontier” was at stake. “In spite of the Sandinista victory being declared fair, the United States continued to oppose the left-wing Nicaraguan government.”]

The Reagan administration authorized the CIA to help the contra rebels with funding, armaments, and training. The contras operated out of camps in the neighboring countries of Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south.

▲ Contras in Nicaragua on the southern front.

The contras engaged in a systematic campaign of terror amongst the rural Nicaraguan population to disrupt the social reform projects of the Sandinistas. Several historians have criticized the contra campaign and the Reagan administration’s support for it, citing the brutality and numerous human rights violations of the contras. LaRamee and Polakoff, for example, describe the destruction of health centers, schools, and cooperatives at the hands of the rebels, and others have contended that murder, rape, and torture occurred on a large scale in contra-dominated areas. The United States also carried out a campaign of economic sabotage, and disrupted shipping by planting underwater mines in Nicaragua’s port of Corinto, an action condemned by the International Court of Justice as illegal. The U.S. also sought to place economic pressure on the Sandinistas, and the Reagan administration imposed a full trade embargo. The Sandinistas were also accused of human rights abuses.

In the Nicaraguan general elections of 1984, which were judged to have been free and fair, the Sandinistas won the parliamentary election and their leader Daniel Ortega won the presidential election. …

▲ A demonstration against Reagan’s illegal support of the Contras.

After the U.S. Congress prohibited federal funding of the contras in 1983, the Reagan administration nonetheless illegally continued to back them by covertly selling arms to Iran and channeling the proceeds to the contras (the Iran–Contra affair), for which several members of the Reagan administration were convicted of felonies. The International Court of Justice, in regard to the case of Nicaragua v. United States in 1984, found, “the United States of America was under an obligation to make reparation to the Republic of Nicaragua for all injury caused to Nicaragua by certain breaches of obligations under customary international law and treaty-law committed by the United States of America”. During the war between the contras and the Sandinistas, 30,000 people were killed.

____________________________________

Contra atrocities

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras#Human_rights_violations

The United States began to support Contra activities against the Sandinista government by December 1981, with the CIA at the forefront of operations. The CIA supplied the funds and the equipment, coordinated training programs, and provided intelligence and target lists. While the Contras had little military successes, they did prove adept at carrying out CIA guerrilla warfare strategies from training manuals which advised them to incite mob violence, “neutralize” civilian leaders and government officials and attack “soft targets” — including schools, health clinics and cooperatives. The agency added to the Contras’ sabotage efforts by blowing up refineries and pipelines, and mining ports. Finally, according to former Contra leader Edgar Chamorro, CIA trainers also gave Contra soldiers large knives. “A commando knife [was given], and our people, everybody wanted to have a knife like that, to kill people, to cut their throats”. In 1985 Newsweek published a series of photos taken by Frank Wohl, a conservative student admirer traveling with the Contras, entitled “Execution in the Jungle”:

The victim dug his own grave, scooping the dirt out with his hands… He crossed himself. Then a contra executioner knelt and rammed a k-bar knife into his throat. A second enforcer stabbed at his jugular, then his abdomen. When the corpse was finally still, the contras threw dirt over the shallow grave — and walked away.

The CIA officer in charge of the covert war, Duane “Dewey” Clarridge, admitted to the House Intelligence Committee staff in a secret briefing in 1984 that the Contras were routinely murdering “civilians and Sandinista officials in the provinces, as well as heads of cooperatives, nurses, doctors and judges”. But he claimed that this did not violate President Reagan’s executive order prohibiting assassinations because the agency defined it as just ‘killing’. “After all, this is war—a paramilitary operation,” Clarridge said in conclusion.

▲ The CIA “assassination manual,” authorized by CIA supervisor Duane Clarridge, provided illustrated instructions in Spanish on how to make a bomb and blow up a local police station. Other pages explained how to assassinate victims with a rope, wire, belt, pistol, rifle, shotgun, machine gun, or explosives.

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From a special report by Robert Parry  December 9, 2010

White House aide Oliver North’s chief Contra emissary, Robert Owen, made this point in a March 17, 1986, message about the Contras leadership. “Few of the so-called leaders of the movement … really care about the boys in the field,” Owen wrote. “THIS WAR HAS BECOME A BUSINESS TO MANY OF THEM.” [Emphasis in original.]

That business was cocaine trafficking to the US.

… Another break in the long-running Contra-cocaine cover-up was a report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General Michael Bromwich.

According to evidence cited by Bromwich, the Reagan administration knew almost from the outset of the Contra war that cocaine traffickers permeated the paramilitary operation. The administration also did next to nothing to expose or stop the crimes.

Bromwich’s report revealed example after example of leads not followed, corroborated witnesses disparaged, official law-enforcement investigations sabotaged, and even the CIA facilitating the work of drug traffickers.

Bromwich cited U.S. government informants who supplied detailed information about Meneses’s drug operation and his financial assistance to the Contras. For instance, Renato Pena, a money-and-drug courier for Meneses, said that in the early 1980s the CIA allowed the Contras to fly drugs into the United States, sell them, and keep the proceeds.

CIA Inspector General Hitz made clear that the Contra war took precedence over law enforcement and that the CIA withheld evidence of Contra crimes from the Justice Department, Congress, and even the CIA’s own analytical division.

According to Hitz, the CIA had “one overriding priority: to oust the Sandinista government… . [CIA officers] were determined that the various difficulties they encountered not be allowed to prevent effective implementation of the Contra program.” One CIA field officer explained, “The focus was to get the job done, get the support and win the war.”

Hitz also recounted complaints from CIA analysts that CIA operations officers handling the Contras hid evidence of Contra-drug trafficking even from the CIA’s analysts.

from Big Media’s Guilt in Gary Webb’s Death By Robert Parry (A Special Report) December 9, 2010

https://consortiumnews.com/2010/120910.html

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Former CIA agent David MacMichael: “Once you set up a covert operation to supply arms and money, it’s very difficult to separate it from the kind of people who are involved in other forms of trade, and especially drugs. There is a limited number of planes, pilots and landing strips. By developing a system for supply of the Contras, the US built a road for drug supply into the US.”

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The Washington Post reported on the drive to support the Contras by the Washington Times.

By Michael Isikoff     May 7, 1985

The Washington Times said yesterday that it is sponsoring a worldwide fund-raising campaign to collect $14 million for the “contra” rebels in Nicaragua and has received a $100,000 commitment for the cause from the paper’s owners, the Unification Church.

The Times campaign, coming just two weeks after the House rejected President Reagan’s request for the same amount of aid to the contras, is among the most ambitious publicly announced initiatives so far to raise private money specifically for the anti-Sandinista guerrillas.

Arnaud de Borchgrave, the Times’ editor, who has championed the contra cause on the paper’s editorial page, announced in a front-page editorial yesterday that the newspaper is setting up a non-profit, public corporation that will oversee fund raising for the contras and that will operate independently of the paper’s news operations. …

De Borchgrave said he thought up the idea for the campaign on Sunday and won quick approval from Col. Bo Hi Pak, the top deputy to Unification Church leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon and president of News World Communications Inc., the parent company of the Times.

Pak “thought it was a great idea” and immediately pledged $100,000 to the drive, he said. …

The Times initiative comes while a number of closely related conservative groups such as the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) and the United States Council for World Freedom have been conducting independent fund-raising drives to funnel military and other aid to the contras. …

But the full scale of private-sector aid to the contras has been difficult to determine, in part because many of the groups involved in raising money have described their efforts as being humanitarian aid to refugees in Honduras, where many of the families of Nicaraguan contras are living.

One such group that has acknowledged providing refugee assistance is Causa, the Unification Church’s anti-Communist political arm that is also headed by Pak.

▲ Advertisement in The New York Times, March 16, 1986, signed by over 200 religious leaders.

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From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras

In his 1997 study on U.S. low intensity warfare, Kermit D. Johnson, a former Chief of the U.S. Army Chaplains, contends that U.S. hostility toward the revolutionary government was motivated not by any concern for “national security”, but rather by what the world relief organization Oxfam termed “the threat of a good example”:

It was alarming that in just a few months after the Sandinista revolution, Nicaragua received international acclaim for its rapid progress in the fields of literacy and health. It was alarming that a socialist-mixed-economy state could do in a few short months what the Somoza dynasty, a U.S. client state, could not do in 45 years! It was truly alarming that the Sandinistas were intent on providing the very services that establish a government’s political and moral legitimacy.

The government’s program included increased wages, subsidized food prices, and expanded health, welfare, and education services. And though it nationalized Somoza’s former properties, it preserved a private sector that accounted for between 50 and 60 percent of GDP.

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Bolivia’s government-protected cocaine shipments helped transform Colombia’s Medellín cartel from a struggling local operation into a giant corporate-style business for delivering cocaine to the U.S. market.

It fell to Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s right-wing Washington Times to begin the vendetta against those who reported on the cocaine-Contra connection.

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In Bolivia, Moon disciple Tom Ward and the former Hitler SS Officer, Klaus Barbie were often seen together

How Sun Myung Moon’s organization helped to establish Bolivia as South America’s first narco-state.

FFWPU President of IAPP Prosecuted for Money Laundering and Drug Smuggling in US Court; may be connected to UC / FFWPU Leadership

The Unification Church and the KCIA – ‘Privatizing’ covert action: the case of the UC

CAUSA and the Catholic Church in the 1980s

CAUSA and Three South American Terror Generals

[cincinnatusvirtue]

Eighty Years War (1568-1648):  Dutch Revolt and the establishment of a new republic...

The Low Countries in Europe have gone through a number of iterations over the years but one of the most seismic changes in its history took place over the course of the 16th & 17th centuries.  One that would result in the establishment of modern nation that despite it small size would go onto have a far reaching impact on world events...

Background:

-The Low Countries, modern day Netherlands, Belgium & Luxembourg were since the Middle Ages known by many names but much of the region was called Flanders, or divided into multiple provinces such as Brabant and Holland among others, there was a mix of people who practiced Catholicism, particularly in the south as well as Protestants in the wake of Martin Luther & John John Calvin, both of whom would have a lasting effect on the peoples of the Low Countries but mostly in the north  The most numerous group in the Low Countries was a Germanic people that became known as the Dutch.

-Its hard to pinpoint an exact consolidation of a modern Dutch identity as the Seventeen Provinces as they became known consisted of the Dutch and French speakers known as Walloons as well.  Nevertheless, by the 15th century, the provinces had definitely developed a distinct culture.  One that favored commerce, practiced a degree of relative tolerance and valued some level of independence or local autonomy.  This was recognized by Mary Valois-Burgundy, Duchess of Burgundy in 1477 with the so called Great Privilege decree.

-The decree in effect restored previous held levels of communal rights at the local level in the various Low Country provinces.  The Burgundians (Eastern France) had attempted to centralize like France had and this had lead to resentment.  Mary signed the charter for the Great Privilege against her own initials wishes and more as a matter of practicality, it also recognized the right of the States-General, an assembly-legislative body which made decisions for the Low Countries many provinces, to meet once more.  This embodied the Dutch desire for autonomy.

-Mary had married, Maximillian I Holy Roman Emperor & Archduke of Austria and member of the Hapsburg dynasty.  By rights of this marriage, the Low Countries became Hapsburg administered territories.  This was subsequently passed down to their heir Philip I of Castile, the Spanish Kingdom that united Spain with the Hapsburg lands.  Philip had married Joanna of Castile and together cemented the rule of their mutual territories.  Finally their son, Charles V, became Holy Roman Emperor & King of Spain by 1519 and with him he came to rule global Spanish Empire including vast European holdings, including the realm of his and his father’s birth, the Low Countries. 

-Charles considered the Low Countries and important component of his empire, they were for sentimental reasons a familial possession and the place of his birth and childhood.  More broadly, they served as an important center of trade and industry, commerce being very centrifugal to the identity of the Low Countries, an ethos that persists to the modern day.  His own interactions as ruler were to keep an element of toleration towards their autonomy while also putting down rebellions namely in Frisia.

-Charles’s son and heir in Spain was Philip II. The Holy Roman Empire’s imperial position was an electoral throne, more of a ceremonial first among equals position but not an emperor that held direct rule over the various fiefdoms and principalities of Central Europe.  Nevertheless, Spain had its own vast land holdings throughout the world and Philip ruled it at its true zenith. One of main aims in foreign policy were to promote Catholicism in the empire and project Catholic and by extension Spanish power throughout the world and in Europe especially with the development of a rivalry with Protestant England.

-Philip also inherited the Low Countries and his devout Catholicism and lack of growing up in the Low Countries started to put him at odds with a number of his subjects there.  It wasn’t an even split as there were many Catholics and and Protestants in the region who despite Philip’s increased heavy handedness in rule that remained loyal to him.

-Philip reverted to a more centralized form of rule, he increased taxation as he needed to fund his wars with England and other powers in Europe, he also began to persecute his Protestant subjects, mainly Dutch.  His appointees also based in Spain ruled with increasingly draconian measures such as executions of Dutch & Flemish (Dutch speakers in Flanders) alienated the local nobility.  Protestant clergy began preaching anti-Catholic & anti-Spanish rhetoric as the mostly Dutch speaking Protestants felt Philip was surrounded by evil advisors, ones who sought to remove their privileges, which they increasingly viewed as their rights, local  based autonomy, with rights to assembly, law making and tolerance of their religion.

War:

- 1568 saw open rebellion and Philip ordered his enforcer, the 3rd Duke of Alba, Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, also known as the Iron Duke to serve as governor of the Netherlands.  His enforcement was very pro-Catholic/Spanish and epitomized Spanish Hapsburg’s determination to maintain order, he had overseen trials and executions of those deemed seditious and imposed heavier new taxes.  This resulted in one of the Dutch nobles, William the Silent, Prince of Orange becoming the de-facto leader of the rebellion.

-William served not only as Prince of Orange but Stadtholder of the Provinces of Holland, Zeeland & Utrecht.  Previously, he worked side by side with the Hapsburgs including Philip’s sister, Margaret of Parma when tolerance and decentralization was more the norm.  As Philip changed tack towards more central authority a rift with William developed.

-Stadtholder originally meant a sort of local governor or steward, a caretaker position but in time would come to mean, more of a head of state, that would traditionally be associated with the House of Orange but always was a loosely defined role. More than anything it served symbolically as the state’s caretaker in terms of security. Real legal power rested with the States General which held legislative power over the republic in which they hoped to found, one made up of several united provinces.  

-William and his brother, Louis of Nassau with support from French Huguenots (Protestants) invaded portions of the northern Netherlands where they hoped support would be strongest.  The rebellion scored some success but it was severely tested at the Battle of Jemmingen in July 1568, where the Duke of Alba defeated the Dutch rebels handedly but Louis escaped.  There was a statue made by the Catholic supporters of Spanish rule made in Alba’s likeness out of bronze from the captured Dutch cannons (torn down in 1577).

-What followed was a series of alternating gains, negotiations, and renewing hostilities that would come to define the conflict.  From 1572 onward, William attempted usually through hit and run attacks to undermine Spanish rule.  He also needed to balance the competing interests of localities and their religious representation some Dutch Catholics also supported the rebellion along with Protestants and others didn’t, William needed supporters of the revolt to unite for it to work.  He tried effect religious unity and freedom manifest in his 1576 Pacification of Ghent declaration which rallied behind removal of Spanish troops but still failed to get support of religious tolerance.  The conflict was at some level devolving into a sectarian conflict as much as a nationalist one.  Nonetheless, a further defined Dutch identity was forged as a result and William would be declared in historical memory as “Father of the Fatherland.”

-John of Austria became the new governor of the Netherlands and in 1577 signed the Perpetual Edict which seemed to show compromise on the Spanish government’s part.  It would allow for Spanish troops to be removed from the Low Countries and renewed assemblage of the States General in exchange for a mutual recognition of the sovereignty of the king & promotion of Catholicism.  John however soon went back on this promise and attacked another area of Dutch resistance in Namur.  This in turn inflamed the spread of the rebellion.

-1579 saw the Union of Utrecht signed between Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, Brabant. Flanders & other areas and formed the sort of constitutional basis for the Dutch Republic whose goals beforehand weren’t so concretely defined.  This union served as a outright declaration of independence, forcing a united front no longer determined to wage war for compromise on rights with the king and within the context of remaining part of Spain’s empire, true independence was the goal now.  The Act of Abjuration further solidified this goal in 1581 accusing Philip of neglecting his sovereign responsibilities to his Dutch subjects and was therefore no longer fit to be their king.

-Philip declared William an outlaw and the Act of Abjuration renewed Spanish efforts to put down the rebellion, newer and larger efforts were being undertaken to suppress the rebellion.

-The Dutch got foreign help in finances from England and materials support from France both of which wanted to upset the balance of power in Europe which disproportionately sat with Spain.  By 1585, the northern provinces found themselves in a de-facto state of independence with became mostly centered around Dutch speaking Protestants with Catholic Dutch virtually all converting in the coming decades while the southern provinces still had a large Spanish garrison & remained a Catholic stronghold.

-In time, the Netherlands converted into a side theater for the French Wars of Religion.  This in turn allowed the Dutch to continue their war efforts and in the north practice their flourishing de-facto independence.

-The nascent Dutch Republic like the republics of Italy (Venice & Genoa) was very much a maritime power.  The northern provinces were able to blockade the estuary going to Spanish held Antwerp which in turn built up Amsterdam’s economy as mercantile community thrived and eventually a stock exchange was also forged.  While their independence wasn’t formal, it was increasingly becoming a reality for the northern provinces and the practice of a successful and capitalist economy built on trade was evidence of this.

-The Dutch built up their navy to protect their trade and a thriving privateer industry developed where Dutch government sponsored pirates could raid Spanish ships to aid in the sting of ongoing rebellion.  These privateers operated in the North Sea, English Channel and even in the Mediterranean, often basing themselves in North Africa and developed cultural and economic trade with the Barbary States who held religious and political grievances against Spain.  The Dutch navy would prove quite effective in draining Spanish resources

- In 1602, the government sponsored Dutch East India Company was founded and established colonial possessions in Africa, India and Indonesia (Dutch East Indies) which controlled the textile, spices and slave trade from these regions.  The Dutch West India Company followed in 1621 with settlement in the Americas namely in North America (modern day United States, especially New York City).

 -Dutch trade flourished and the military proved powerful, thanks to Spain’s ongoing commitment to fighting wars on multiple fronts against multiple powers and continuously meant that the Low Countries were increasingly made into a side show-backseat for Spanish foreign policy overall.  The Dutch did everything they could do drain Spain of her ability to fight, becoming a proverbial headache but not one the obstinance of Spain would be willing to recognize.

-Domestically, tranquil life in the de-facto independent Netherlands was captured in their art too.  As life in the canal lined cities of Amsterdam, Haarlem, Rotterdam and elsewhere was increasingly captured during the Eighty Years War period by a series of masterful painters and sculptors like Rembrandt, Vermeer & De Keyser among others.  Dutch architecture began to take on unique shape as well reflected in the Dutch cities with their preference for less ostentatious but stately brick building homes.

-This era of flourishing art, culture, economics and military power along with colonial projection became known as the Dutch Golden Age (circa 1581-1672) and the establishment of the Dutch Empire.

-1609 saw the Anglo-Franco brokered ceasefire and Twelve Years Truce which contributed largely to the Dutch Golden Age’s growing.

-By the 1620′s conflict had picked up in part of the greater European conflict of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) which started with Catholic and Protestant internal conflict within the Holy Roman Empire but soon dragged in all other European powers including the officially unresolved conflict between Spain & the Netherlands.

-Attempts at peace had been made but the religious obstacle of religious freedom for Catholics in the Protestant northern Netherlands and likewise religious freedom for Protestants in the Spanish controlled south were creating an impasse.  Additionally, issues over international trade routes and the seizures of Spanish-Portuguese colonies added to the tensions.

-With the resumption of war, Spain invaded the north once more but was reversed.  Furthermore, the Dutch took Brabant’s major city, Den Bosch.

-The Dutch countered into the south but failed to take its major cities of Brussels & Antwerp.  Furthermore, the heavily Catholic south was brought up with a relative loyalty to Spain and distrust of Dutch Protestants in the ensuing years of peace thanks to Spanish & Catholic education & propaganda.  The Dutch found themselves increasingly reconciled to the notion that the southern Netherlands were likely to remain separate but they too remained obstinate in the goal of independence for all.

-The Dutch continued to vie for control of Spanish colonies in the Americas, Asia & Africa through its union state Portugal’s possessions mostly rather than direct Spanish possessions.

-1639 saw the Battle of the Downs in the English Channel which stopped a 20,000 strong army being escorted by a new Spanish Armada and saved the north from direct invasion.  It also definitively ended Spain’s naval mastery of the global seas, something almost unrivaled since 1492.  Now Spain’s fleet was bypassed by Dutch, English and French navies.

 -1648 saw the official end of the Eighty Years War, largely thanks to French intervention which would split the southern portion of the Low Countries between them and the Dutch.  However, the end result was de-jure independence from the Spanish, in the Treaty of Munster, part of the Peace of Westphalia which negotiated the new peace between the many nations of Europe involved in the Thirty Years War, establishing a new geopolitical balance.

Aftermath:

-Spain’s position was greatly weakened by the Eighty Years/Thirty Years War, repeatedly bankrupted in the maintenance of its empire and constant wars. The Dutch Revolt turned into an almost intractable conflict that drained its resources and at times it seemed obstinate pride prolonged Spain’s ultimately unrealistic goals of total control.  Dutch independence was achieved through recurring foreign support, popular support among parts of the Dutch populace and a hit and run strategy that caused attrition against Spain while only facing a limited Spanish focus of attention at times.

-The Dutch were to enjoy the fruits of their independence only briefly however, as war with their former de-facto allies in England and alternatively France would result in the coming years, with the English over mercantile & trading rights in colonies and with the rise of Louis XIV in France who sought control of the balance of power in Europe, like the Spanish using a Catholic religious-political outlook to fuel more wars.  The Dutch resented French control of the Southern Netherlands and in their desire to unite all the Low Countries, would come to partake in the many wars of the coming decades.

-The Dutch Republic or Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Guelders, Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Overijssel, Frisia & Groningen) consolidated a modern Dutch identity, it reflected a people’s ethos which survives culturally to varying degrees today with ideals of tolerance, commerce and relaxed regulations tempered by strong senses of independence & stern Calvinism.  The Dutch Republic and the Dutch Revolt which gave birth to it would also give influence to Enlightenment era values in the 18th century.  Most manifest in the ideals of capitalism, tolerance & challenging the divine rights of kings by the right of assembly and local representation.  All these ideals would be further distilled on perhaps a grander scale in the formation of the United States of America a century and half after the Peace of Westphalia, further showcasing the Dutch’s outsized influence on the world...