Is it un-patriotic for Southerners to question American military intervention? This is a perplexing question for those raised during the Cold War. For us, it was a battle to defeat atheistic communism—an evil power attempting to force its will upon the world. We were raised and educated by the World War II generation for whom patriotism was intricately linked to America’s military power. “America! Love it or leave it,” was our motto. But is Cold War “patriotism” appropriate today?
Two American presidents, both former generals, warned Americans about the dangers inherent in a large and influential military. President Washington noted the dangers to individual liberty posed by a large standing army.[1] President Eisenhower warned us about the dangers posed by an ever-enlarging military/industrial complex.[2] Today, globalists and neo-cons are anxious to use our military to protect American “interests.” But somehow, those “interests” always benefit the globalists, while America’s sons and daughters invariably pay the human cost of such adventures, and America’s middle-class taxpayers bear the financial cost. Southerners should be the first Americans to question the logic of Federal military intervention to protect American “interests,” such as collecting tariffs in Southern ports.
In the Kennedy Twins’ books, we noted the warning given by American patriots from the beginning of the nation—a warning about how special interests can create an excuse to enlarge its powers while diminishing individual liberty. We quote President Thomas Jefferson’s warning about a centralized federal government “founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce, navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry.” President Eisenhower described them as “a military/industrial complex.”
Lincoln used the North’s military/industrial complex to wage a war of extermination against the democratically elected, sovereign nation—the Confederate States of America. Historically speaking, the Confederate States of America was the Yankee Empire’s first captive nation—the beginning of a worldwide empire.[3]
The victorious North (now an empire) used bloody bayonets to force the subjugated Southern people to accept a new Federal Constitution and new state Constitutions. Any constitution established without the free and unfettered consent of the governed is not a legitimate constitution. Therefore, the governments founded on such constitutions are illegitimate. The mere passage of time does not bestow legitimacy upon illegitimate constitutions nor the governments based upon illegitimate constitutions. But international illegitimate constitutions were soon to follow as the Yankee Empire began to exercise its military power outside North America.
In the late 1880s, the Kingdom of Hawaii, which was recognized by the United States, was forcefully reduced to an American protectorate.[4] The Hawaiian King was forced by military pressure from the United States to sign a new Constitution that destroyed the authority of native Hawaiians and turned political power over to American emigrants. The Hawaiian people referred to the new constitution as the “Bayonet Constitution.” Queen Liliuokalani described the American intervention thusly: “Although settled among us, and drawing their wealth from our resources, they were alien to us in their customs and ideas respecting government, and desired above all things the extension of their power, and to carry out their own special plans of advancement, and to secure their own personal benefit…This constitution was never in any way ratified, either by the people, or by their representatives, even after violence had procured the king’s signature.”
The Yankee Empire had particular interest in establishing a naval base at Pearl Harbor and Ford Island. What harm could possibly follow from such a “bully” adventure? Their excuse was that it was necessary to protect American “interest.” The American (i.e., Yankee) attitude is that if it is good for American commerce, then it is good for America. But during that time (known as the “Gilded Age”), what was the economic condition of the South? How did our Yankee conquerors treat “we the people” of Dixie—the Yankee Empire’s first captive nation? They punished us with poverty! The Empire’s crony capitalists exploited our few remaining Southern resources. We were struggling under our own set of “Bayonet Constitutions!”[5]
The Yankee Empire would use its military to create “Bayonet Constitutions” worldwide.[6] For example: in the Philippines (1899-1902), after killing over 200,000 freedom fighters who opposed “Yankee” reconstruction of their nation, the Philippines became an American protectorate; in Cuba (1901) the Platt Amendment made Cuba a virtual U.S. protectorate; and in 1903, the Yankee Empire engineered the secession of Panama from Columbia. Secession is permitted only if it enriches the Yankee Empire and its crony capitalist allies.
Southerners, as citizens of an invaded and captive nation, should be the first to question the veracity of politicians who wish to commit our sons and daughters to military action in foreign nations. Politicians and their globalist allies will always “cloak” their demands for military actions in high-sounding rhetoric about American interests and the need for humanitarian actions. The truth is that “our” politicians use our patriotism to gain support for their own special interests.
The same type of U.S. military intervention that exterminated and then impoverished so many black and white Southerners is used to enlarge the Yankee Empire’s commercial “interests” worldwide. While enriching Wall Street elites, it left a legacy of oppression, death, and poverty in its wake.
[1] Kennedy & Kennedy, Yankee Empire: Aggressive Abroad and Despotic at Home (Shotwell Publishing Co., Columbia, SC: 2018), 138.
[2] Kennedy & Kennedy, Yankee Empire: Aggressive Abroad and Despotic at Home (Shotwell Publishing Co., Columbia, SC: 2018), 139.
[3] Kennedy & Kennedy, Yankee Empire: Aggressive Abroad and Despotic at Home (Shotwell Publishing Co., Columbia, SC: 2018), 174-6.
[4] Kennedy & Kennedy, Yankee Empire: Aggressive Abroad and Despotic at Home (Shotwell Publishing Co., Columbia, SC: 2018), 51-73.
[5] Kennedy & Kennedy, Punished With Poverty-the Suffering South 2nd edition (Shotwell Publishing Co., Columbia, SC: 2020), 103-12.
[6] Examples of worldwide Yankee Empire in action see, Kennedy & Kennedy, Yankee Empire: Aggressive Abroad and Despotic at Home (Shotwell Publishing Co., Columbia, SC: 2018), 15-50; for examples of the Yankee Empire using aggressive techniques against foreign nations similar to what it used against the South, see Yankee Empire, 75-131.
Federalism, as ensconced in the Constitution, was and is, a top-down invention of elitist landowners that was sold to people who were already free but didn’t realize how free they were under the Articles of Confederation. Never forget that almost all the elites were members of the Masonic Lodge. Novus Ordo Seculorum, loosely translated is, New World Order. Federalism is a magnet for greedy, power-hungry narcissists! Large Cental governments are attracting tyrants bent on establishing a Totalitarian State. And the Globalists want to spread this disease to all parts of the planet. There will be nowhere to go to escape their madness.
Federalism no longer exists in the system today, federalism was the State governments body within the union, and that system was removed by the 17th amendment leaving only a wholly National system in place and an end to the union of States, leaving a single Super State in place.
The problem with the Kennedy brothers is their lack of conveying the proper message and their fundamental misunderstanding of the meaning of certain phrases or wording. They use the word “Nation” in their description of our Confederate States of America: We were never a “NATION”, a Confederacy cannot be a Nation, each State is unto itself a “NATION, A Nation is a State, and a State is a Nation. One only need look at the United Nations, which if one desires to find which nations are members they will find a list of “Member States”, not member Nations, because a State is a Nation and a Nation is a State. Do we refer to the European union as a “Nation”? No, because that union is NOT a Nation, it is a union of Nation/States.
Then we have the Kennedy Brothers reference to the “Federal Government” as if such exists today. There is no Federal government in existence today, as the federal system ended with the RATification of the 17th amendment, and absent a federal system there can be NO Federal government. All one need do is read and understand the 1787 system as explained by James Madison in #39 of the 1787 Constitutional debates. What exists today is a WHOLLY NATIONAL Government and a Single SUPER State of America. the people only live under an illusion that the union of States/United States still exists.
These understandings are NOT unimportant, they are at the very heart of our problem today, and continued mis-statements only lead to a continuation of our problems.
The people continue to see only what seems rather than what is as a result……..
“…[A]llow them [the conquered] to live under their own laws, taking tribute of them, and creating within the country a government composed of a few who will keep it friendly to you…. A city used to liberty can be more easily held by means of its citizens than in any other way….
“…[T]hey must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different from the old ones. For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often even more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are…. [The conqueror should] not wish that the people… should have occasion to regret the loss of any of their old customs….” Niccolo Machiavelli, “The Prince and the Discourses” (New York: Random House, 1950), pages 18, 182-183
Thank you for this article Ron Kennedy! I hope soon Southerners will realize that feeding the federal Yankee system, even for business hurts us in the long run. We need to learn to build Southern community locally and lean on one another.