A Letter from Alabama: The Legacy of Colin Powell by the Alabaman

Neoconservatives,  whose thoughts dominate today’s political right, celebrate Colin Powell as the first black Secretary of State and praise him for what they regard as his patriotic service and involvement in Operation Desert Storm, and they reject any hint that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were unnecessary or immoral.

Neoconservative politicians also ignore the likes of John Lewis, a civil rights advocate who supported the terrorist BLM organization, and Colin Powell’s support for such a thing will likely be ignored upon his death as Republican Governors may raise the flag to half-staff in his “honor.” In Alabama John Lewis was given honors and praised even by Republican Governor Kay Ivey.  According to the official Governor’s Alabama government website “Only 11 people have ever lain in state in the Alabama State Capitol and Congressman John Robert Lewis was the first African American to have this honor.”

It is amazing how the same neoconservatives who denounce the lies of BLM propaganda and and the illegal violence of their activities can  honor someone who openly hated their civilization and supported a terrorist organization the likes of BLM, but it is equally amazing how so many people can chant FJB inside a football stadium and then continue to more effectively support a college football coach (Southern hating football players too) culturally and monetarily who not only made a pro-BLM video, but then a few months later lead a pro-BLM march on campus and gave a speech in front of the same door George Wallace once stood.  I suppose the FJB chant is not about real grievance but just youngsters doing something daring that seems fun at a public event.  So given all of this if I have to guess Colin Powell will be given the usually black heroes treatment and since he is a veteran neoconservatives may even give him more praise.  

A CBS News transcript and video of Colin Powell on “Face the Nation” from July 19th, 2020 wonderfully places the agenda and legacy of Colin Powell within the Civil Rights, and powerful successful black “King” tradition, as he is literally asked about the legacy of John Lewis.  The direction and message of the questioning by Margaret Brennan and the answers given by Colin Powell is clear and are just as neoconservative in it’s viewpoint of the Civil Rights movement as it is Democrat in its inclusion and praise of John Lewis’s involvement with BLM. 

BLM is but a product of the Civil Rights Movement but neoconservatives will not admit it, as the Republican party’s position during the Civil Rights Movement is used against Democrats as leverage racially for votes as they are now openly pushing for Juneteenth and I do not hear much about the hypocrisy of Trump’s Platinum Plan out of them, no more than they admit to the unconstitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or the use of “Republican” black votes in conjunction with denial of Confederate ones during Reconstruction, nor the real use of the Reconstruction Union Leagues.  At one point in the Face the Nation interview Brennan ask Powell, “There’s a new consciousness about symbols, as well as systemic racism…the Joint Chiefs of Staff mark Milley, said…the U.S. Army is now 20 percent black…he said…soldiers who serve on bases named after Confederate general, quote, ‘can be reminded that general fought for the institution of slavery that may have enslaved one of their ancestors.  In this do we need to rename the bases?”  What a question!  Well isn’t this just the perfect question to tie yesterday’s Southerners into the BLM agenda and roll John Lewis’s and Colin Powell’s black hero legacy all into one?  While at this point as the Marine Commandant banned Confederate symbols and Southerners are not dying in defense of their homeland, I really did not think the bases deserved being named after Confederate generals at this point, but I do not agree with the disgusting reasoning for changing the base names either.  Colin Powell’s answer to Brennan’s question was “True, it’s true. I would rename the bases.  We really hadn’t thought about it a few years ago.  But now with Black Lives Matter and all the issues that are before us, I think it is a good idea to rename the 10 bases…named after Confederates…So I fully support what General Milley is doing…this is something we should do…as quickly as we can.”  Wow what a patriot!  Not only he does not speak for my people or the Southern tradition, but he understands what it takes to build his own black legacy and how the multicultural empire has to make its men uniform and obedient, that is what the imperial mercenary military does!  After further questioning about that week’s Pentagon listing of approved flags, that did not explicitly ban the Confederate flag and whether the ban needed to be more explicit Colin Powell replied, “The Confederate flag is now an explicit demonstration of another time, …another country that had nothing to do with the United States of America.  They were not part of us…it is time to move on.  Let’s get going.  We have one flag and only one flag only…”.  If you are going to function in an empire it is good to subdue any symbols in objection to government tyranny and the principles of the multicultural empire, so his response is right on track with the right and the left.  Of course, neoconservatives will deny this but has not the teaching of Abraham Lincoln’s glorious and needful destruction of the South been taught to Southern children for over a century and America’s fight in the middle east for democracy right in line with radical Republicans need to invade the South to fix them morally?  You know to save the cohesion of American soldiers lets fly one imperial flag as Colin Powell suggests and let’s move ahead as one American people who remember the civil rights supporting John Lewis, and ultimately himself.  At Colin Powell’s urging let’s forget the Southerners who died in defense of their own homeland because that does not support the new American, Republican, Democrat narrative that we need and want to push people like John Lewis into post-Mortem statues in place of Confederates, and help the ego of U.S., black King military veteran Colin Powell, nor would it help to keep the multicultural empire together at the expense of the blood of Southerners!  I choose the legacy of my own ancestors over Colin Powell as he is no hero of mine!

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Thomas Fleming

Thomas Fleming is president of the Fleming Foundation. He is the author of six books, including The Morality of Everyday Life and The Politics of Human Nature, as well as many articles and columns for newspapers, magazines,and learned journals. He holds a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a B.A. in Greek from the College of Charleston. He served as editor of Chronicles: a Magazine of American Culture from 1984 to 2015 and president of The Rockford Institute from 1997-2014. In a previous life he taught classics at several colleges and served as a school headmaster in South Carolina

3 Responses

  1. Sam Dickson says:

    “The Confederate flag is now an explicit demonstration of another time, …another country that had nothing to do with the United States of America. They were not part of us…

    HOW RIGHT COLIN POWELL WAS ON THIS POINT! NO QUARREL WITH THIS STATEMENT. HE HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD. AND THAT’S WHY WE NEED TO LIBERATE OURSELVES AND THINK POST-AMERICA.

    AND AS DR. FLEMING IMPLIES, IT DISHONORS CONFEDERATE HEROES TO ASSOCIATE THEIR NAMES WITH THIS POWER MAD EMPIRE.

    On a different but related point:

    Powell’s famous UN speech that (according to the System Media and the System politicians) supposedly clinched Bush II”s case for the wars on Iraq and Afghanistant is one of the most remarkable and intriguing examples of how gullible the patriotic fools are.

    I watched the speech and was surprised that people didn’t fall on the floor laughing. I am still so simple and naive that I expected the speech to be the butt of ridicule.

    He explained that metal tubes are necessary to build atomic weapons…and I’m sure that’s probably true just like a lot of other things are necessary like buildings with roofs on them in which scientists and engineers can work safely and comfortably, electric power, etc. Almost nothing significant can be built without metal tubes.

    Having explained the fact that metal tubes are used in the manufacture of atomic weapons, Powell then showed his audience in the United Tribes and on television pictures taken by American satellites. The pictures indisputably showed flat bed trucks on highways in Iraq with (!!!) METAL TUBING on them!

    Case closed! At least according to the System Media.

    Any reasonably intelligent 8th grader would know that we see such trucks loaded with metal tubing fairly frequently as we drive our cars on American highways. American satellites must have scores of pictures showing flat bed trucks carrying metal tubing every single day in my home state of Georgia or any other state.

    But the American people were stampeded by Powell’s speech.

    This illustrates powerfully how wrong the old saying “Seeing is believing” is.

    No. With the 70% to 80% of the people who believe in what the “authorities” tell them:

    BELIEVING IS SEEING.

  2. Harry Colin says:

    Even by the time Powell gave that speech, the agitprop media and their gleeful Kool-Aid drinkers in the audience had forgotten that Saddam’s arsenal was heavily supported by the US, in both direct aid and through the Saudis and the other oil-states, not to mention Germany.

    I’m sadly surprised at how many veterans are giving him a pass on the speech that cost so many lives and was based on lies. His eagerness to curry favor with the neo-cons and the leftist lever controllers cost him his integrity, in my mind. I know fellow vets who served with him and are still singing praises; I understand loyalty but his remarks about the bases named after Confederates also demeaned the forebears of many of these same soldiers. Those of us who are not men of the South but view some of those men as models for emulation – especially Lee – find his behavior sickening. Anyone who would rather have our current group of woke generals rather than Stonewall Jackson is neither a true patriot nor one who understands the first thing about soldiering with honor.

  3. Vince Cornell says:

    “We have one flag and only one flag only…”

    Yeah, well, I bet the late Colin Powell was perfectly okay with their being a separate “Black National Anthem.”

    The GOPers are so desperate to appease their token black diversity pawns, it doesn’t matter how many times those pawns directly betray them, like endorsing Obama or Hillary Clinton, the Repubs will still fall all over themselves to praise and give worship to the great worthiness of their diversity pawns.

    Meanwhile, John Lewis is apparently sacrosanct because one time he got beat up during the hallowed era of the Civil Rights Movement. I’ve had conversations with such self-styled conservatives who, when I called John Lewis a race hustler, bristled and grew angry and made it clear to me that no matter what he may be doing now or may endorse or say, he once got beat up and shed his blood for the Civil Rights Movement which put him above all criticism. At most, one could suggest that this great and honorable man may be mislead by some of the race hustlers, but one could never believe he himself was actually in their ranks.

    With friends like these . . .