From Appomattox to BLM & Thoughts on the Putin-Trump Relationship

Where There's Smoke, There May be Nothing ... or Maybe Something

Okay, it has never been proven but where there is smoke, there could be fire … or maybe it isn’t really smoke?   The dossier compiled a few years ago by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele has never been proven.  Originally commissioned by anti-Trump Republicans, it ultimately became a tool unsuccessfully used by Hillary Clinton in her 2016 presidential campaign.

Capable of Blackmail?

Repeatedly, Donald Trump has ignored provocations by Vladimir Putin which raised the hackles of our intelligence services, which may be the best in the world and for which we allocate enormous sums of money.  All is sweetness and light between Trump and Putin.  Up to now, some have speculated that the Russian leader has “something on” Trump which he holds over him and threatens to reveal (or Trump believes that to be the case) if Trump speaks out against him.   Others in our government may speak up but the President’s silence, time after time, is very noticeable.   Quietly, many in and out of government, the press and the population in general believe that where there is smoke, there just may be fire, which would explain Trump’s behavior.

Intelligence expert, author and 20 year navy veteran Malcolm Nance recently commented that when you owe your bookie a lot of money, you go out of the way to be nice to him.  So it might be with Trump and Putin, but no one can prove it, just as folks don’t brag about their gambling debts, or even let their family know of them.

It is rumored that in 2013, when Donald Trump was in Moscow in connection with the Miss Universe Pageant which his company owned, the Russians had hidden cameras in places where Trump thought he was safe from being observed.  For all we know, they might have shot videos of him cavorting with Russian versions of Stormy Daniels.  But no one can prove this.   Steele’s dossier approaches this point but stops short of confirming it.   So we have smoke, or maybe it isn’t really smoke, but no fire yet.

Our Troops at Work in Afghanistan

All of this is old news.  The fact that Russia was paying the Taliban a bounty for every American they could kill (and providing them with arms as well, to undermine the Afghan government we were trying to bolster) was known to the National Security Council and many in our intelligence community’s leadership with one exception, the President of the United States.  He claims he was never told about it.  That is unbelievable.  I’ll repeat that.  “Unbelievable.”  It gives thinking Americans greater justification in believing that Vladimir Putin indeed “has something” on the  President.  Someday, when Donald Trump is just a bad memory in American history, a book will be written about this phase of his behavior.

JL

                                                     * * * * *

                                                                       

Where do you think these two scoundrels
stand in regard to the history discussed below?

A Bit of History

The Federal government won the “Civil War” when Lee surrendered at Appomattox.  That war was fought to prevent individual states from seceding, to preserve the Union.  Behind the desire of the States which had unsuccessfully tried to secede, the Confederacy, was their fear that an anti-slavery Federal government would prevent slavery’s expansion westward when new States entered the Union and eventually abolish it entirely.  Slavery was the basis of the economies of the seceding States.  Without it, they were like a fish out of water.

Before the war was over, through the Emancipation Proclamation, President Lincoln had freed the slaves in those States which were in rebellion against the Union.  In 1865, the 13^th Amendment freed all those remaining in slavery. But Abraham Lincoln was no rabid abolitionist.  He abhorred slavery but had initially wanted to solve the problem with resettlement of the freed slaves in Africa.  But he knew “reconstruction” in the South was the ultimate answer.

There were many people, unfortunately, who disagreed with him and his fighting to preserve the Union over this issue.  This resulted in his assassination.  His successor, Vice President Andrew Johnson, was more interested in gaining the support of the former “slave” States as they re-entered the Union, and was not sympathetic to Lincoln’s plans for a rigorous “reconstruction” of the seceding states, punishing rebel leaders, which was in the hands of Secretary of War Stanton.   Johnson fired Stanton, replacing him with someone who would take it easy on the defeated States.  For this, Johnson was impeached, but by one vote he survived being thrown out of office by the Senate. 

A “reconstruction” sympathetic to the South and its economy, still based on the cheap labor of the former slaves, ensued, which included Jim Crow laws, the KKK and impediments to former slaves voting.  White Southern pride in their glorious "lost cause" developed over the years and monuments to the leaders of the Confederacy were even erected, starting about fifty years later.  They got away with this because of the “reconstruction” policies which favored the former slaveowners who were still keeping the former slaves in a subservient status. These monuments and continued display of the Confederate flag really celebrated the failure of the Civil War to bring about true equality between the races and economic advancement for the former slaves and their descendants.

In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed civil rights legislation which was supposed to remedy some of these continuing evils, particularly in voting procedures.   Ingrained habits are hard to change and there are those around today who still believe that the Confederacy did not ultimately lose the Civil War and behave accordingly.

Yes, Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox (was pardoned by Lincoln, became a college president and died five years later).  But he didn’t sign a paper saying that “Black Lives Matter.”  Really, neither did Lincoln, Stanton, Lyndon Johnson nor politicians and law enforcement people throughout the nation.  That is up to us.  We are getting there.

(Oddly enough, the political party most friendly to the freed slaves from 1865 until a century later was the Republican Party.  Those who still honored the Rebel Flag and former slaveowners were Democrats.  From Lyndon Johnson on, this was reversed with the Republicans becoming more sympathetic to the reactionary forces of racism and the Democrats becoming “the good guys.”)