STOP Heroin USE
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

 

By Tammy Duffy

 

 

 

 The State of NJ is looking for a creative way to address the drug epidemic in NJ. DUFFY has created these two. 

 

Please send us your thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

Your Brain on Drugs
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

 

Mercer County Community College Announces New Season
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

 

 

Kelsey Theatre continues to be a high quality, inexpensive and convenient way to experience live theater and enjoy some of our region’s terrifically talented actors live on stage.  The Kelsey Kids Series gives families an opportunity to share the joys of theater with their children; most of the productions are presented by professional traveling troupes and are a real treat!

 

 

The 2015-2016 season at Mercer County Community College’s (MCCC’s) Kelsey Theatre promises to be one of adventures that span history and continents!  Nineteen full-length dramas and musical productions come to the Kelsey stage, along with eight shows offered through the Kelsey Kids Series.   “Little Women – The Musical” (Pierrot Productions) kicks off the season Sept. 11 to 20.

Kelsey Theatre is conveniently located on the college's West Windsor campus, 1200 Old Trenton Road.  Orders are now being taken for discounted series packages; subscribers receive over 45 percent off regular ticket prices.  Subscriptions are also available for the Kelsey Kids Series.  Current subscribers must renew by Aug. 10 to receive priority seating.  New subscriber orders will be filled after Aug. 15.  Tickets for all single shows go on sale Aug. 20. 

 

 

In addition to “Little Women - The Musical,” the fall schedule includes: “The Fantasticks” (PinnWorth Productions) Sept. 25-Oct. 4; “Around The World In 80 Days” (Maurer Productions) Oct. 9-18; Neil Simon’s “Rumors” (The Yardley Players) Oct. 23-Nov. 1; and “Violet – A Musical” (The Pennington Players) Nov. 6-15.

Kelsey Theatre will be a wonderful place to make holiday memories.  M&M Stage presents “It’s A Wonderful Life” Nov. 20-29, followed by a Forté Dramatic Productions’ premiere of “A Very Kelsey Christmas” Dec. 11-13.  Children and their grown-ups will enjoy “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” from Dec. 4-6 (The Kelsey Players) and a special abridged, fully-narrated version of “The Nutcracker” (The New Jersey Youth Ballet) Dec. 18-20.

Family themes take center stage in the new year with “August: Osage County” (PinnWorth Productions) Jan. 8-17, followed by a decidedly lighter look at family dysfunction in “Arsenic And Old Lace” (M&M Productions) Jan. 22-31.  Three comedies continue to keep the mood light: “Zombie Prom – The Musical” (The Kelsey Players and Tomato Patch Workshops) Feb. 5-7; “Room Service” Feb. 12-21; and “The Addams Family” (Playful Theatre Productions) Feb. 26-March 6.

 

 

Other spring shows include: “The Diary Of Anne Frank” (The Pennington Players) March 11-20; “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (MCCC Theatre, Dance and Entertainment Technology programs) April 1-10; “Disney’s Mary Poppins” (The Yardley Players) April 22-May 1; “City Of Angels” (Maurer Productions OnStage) May 6-15; “Dancer Diaries” (Mercer Dance Ensemble) May 21-22; “Hamlet” (Shakespeare ’70) June 3-12; and “Bonnie & Clyde – The Musical” June 17-26. 

Kelsey Theatre also offers productions for children and their grown-ups.  Presented by professional traveling troupes, the 2015-16 Kelsey Kids Series includes: “Alice In Wonderland” (Kaleidoscope Theatre) Sept. 19; “Curious George & The Golden Meatball” (TheatreWorks/USA) Oct. 3; “Hiawatha” (Theatre IV) Nov. 14; “T- Bone’s Camp Muckalucka” (Tom Stankus) March 5; “Little Red Riding Hood” (Kaleidoscope Theatre) May 14; and “Junie B’s Essential Survival Guide To School” (TheatreWorks/USA) June 4.

Ticket prices for full-length musicals are $20 for adults, $18 for seniors, and $16 for students/children; non-musicals are $18 for adults, $16 for seniors, and $14 for students/children. Ticket prices for the Kelsey Kids Series are $10 for children and seniors, and $12 for adults.  (“Mary Poppins” is $20 for all.)

 

 

Discounted subscriber packages include premium seating, exchanges for performances of the same show, special "add-a-show" rates, advance sales of single tickets, and as much as 45 percent off regular ticket prices. Group discounts are also available; daytime performances are available for select shows.

Patrons may purchase a subscriber series or tickets to individual shows by calling the Kelsey Theatre Box Office at 609-570-3333.  Tickets for all shows go on sale Aug. 20 and may be purchased online at www.kelseytheatre.net.  

 

Tickets may also be purchased by mail with checks payable to MCCC/Kelsey Theatre, P.O. Box 17202, Trenton NJ 08690, or by ordering in person at the box office.  Box office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to noon; and one hour before show time. Gift certificates are available in any amount. To request a print copy of the 2015-16 season brochure, email kelsey@mccc.edu or call the box office.

Kelsey Theatre has open auditions for many of its productions and welcomes assistance from community volunteers to usher and work behind the scenes. The theater gratefully accepts donations. Call 609-570-3581 or visit the website for more information. 

 

 

The theater has free, lighted parking and is wheelchair accessible. Funding for performances is made possible in part by the Mercer County Cultural and Heritage Commission through funding from the Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment of the Arts.

 

 

 

Last Wednesday night, we got to experience Nightscape— a light and sound experience that made its debut along with the new Beer Garden at Longwood Gardens.

With the exception of Christmastime, when the trees throughout the Gardens are decorated with thousands of tiny twinkle lights, the Gardens have always been quiet after dark. With Nightscape, guests can enjoy wandering the Gardens after dark because the trees and flowers are transformed by light and sound. It’s quite enchanting.

 

 

They use projectors to cast lights on the trees and flowers, and the music is coordinated with the movement of the lights… or visa versa. We tried to capture a bit of it on Periscope, but my camera phone was having a hard time picking it all up. To really get the idea, watch this 35-second trailer they created.

 

https://youtu.be/PtY-nRxWzhA

 

We enjoyed a media reception with dessert and wine before the Nightscape display started at 9:30, where the director of Longwood Gardens and the creator the Nightscape experience, Ricardo Rivera, shared a little bit about the process and inspiration behind the project. In true Longwood form, the drinks and desserts were artfully displayed among flowers and other natural decor. It was stunning.

 

 

 

 

After the reception, we wandered the Gardens and took in Nightscape. There are 9 different displays in all, and I think we saw 3 or 4 of them. My favorite was the Garden Walk. I think it will be even more enjoyable when it’s not so crowded and you can really get lost in the experience. Nightscape will run through October 31st, at which time I’m assuming the holiday displays start up again.

I enjoyed Nightscape, but the biggest draw for guests was actually the new Beer Garden. Designed after the beer gardens in Europe, I predict this new attraction will go a long way to making Longwood Gardens relevant to the younger crowd. What makes the Beer Garden super cool is this little hut they built from an old tree they had to cut down in the Gardens. Typical of Longwood, the attention to detail is impeccable.  There were long lines at the new Beer Garden, it is already a smashing success.

Because Longwood is committed to sourcing their food and drink locally, they partnered with Victory Brewing Company to provide three beers on tap, including a signature brew called Longwood Seasons: Summer Zest, a Saison beer brewed using lemons grown in the Gardens. Then to compliment that, their chefs created a special Beer Garden menu featuring tasty pub fare. Seriously, it doesn’t get much better than that!

 

 

Each Thursday, regional artists perform live in the Beer Garden from 7-10 pm. Check longwoodgardens.org for the performance schedule. You can bring your own chairs and lounge on the lawn, take in the gorgeous scenery, and enjoy the live music. When we were there, a bluegrass band was performing. We wanted to spread out a quilt and sit there all night, but we had to get on over to the dessert reception. We will definitely come back sometime.

 

Throughout Nightscape, Longwood will offer a variety of special programs and activities for guests to enjoy including live music, Family Nights, and a new Artist & Friends speaker series.  A Nightscape ticket is required for admission to the programs and Beer Garden. Due to the overwhelming popularity of these two new attractions, I’d advise waiting a few weeks to try them out, but whenever you go, you’re definitely in for a good time.

Six Flags Great Adventure Announces August Events
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

 

Monsoon Music Festival – August 1

Six Flags Great Adventure welcomes the Monsoon Music Festival to the Movietown Arena August 1. The summer’s hottest South Asian Festival features Jassi Sidhu with PBN, Raj Bains from the UK and Deejay K-Square from Canada. Concert starts at 5 p.m. and a separate event ticket is required. Theme park admission, Season Pass or Membership is also required. For more information and ticket prices visit www.sixflags.com/greatadventure.

 

Fright Fest Zombie Auditions – August 1, 2, 14, 15, 28 & 29

Scare-actors and support staff are needed to fill a variety of positions from the undead who roam the midways to terror trail performers and technicians. No prior acting or scare experience is necessary. Six Flags seeks individuals with a passion for Halloween and scaring. Auditions include several fun acting exercises in a group setting. Zombie auditions take place in the Employment Center. If interested, please complete the pre-employment application prior to attending an audition date, or scheduling an interview for technician positions, atwww.sixflagsjobs.com

 

Food Service Job Fair – August 2

Six Flags is looking for friendly, outgoing people to help serve our guests a meal to remember. The park will host a special job fair from 10 am to 3 pm in the Employment Center. Candidates must be age 16 and older, and available to work for Food Services through the remainder of the summer and through Fright Fest and Holiday in the Park. Being an employee at Six Flags Great Adventure has tons of benefits including free tickets for friends, employee discounts and more. Please complete the pre-employment application before attending the job fair atwww.sixflagsjobs.com, and come ready to put your best foot forward.

 

Illusionist Brad Ross – August 3 to August 30

International Star Illusionist and New Jersey native Brad Ross comes to the Showcase Theater at Six Flags Great Adventure. His show combines a theatrical collection of high-energy, spellbinding magic, cutting-edge illusions and astonishing wonders live on stage. Ross has been dazzling audiences of all ages for over two decades and has entertained millions of people worldwide. Ross’ show “Unbelievable” will run daily except Tuesdays at 2:30, 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. from August 3 to 30, 2015.

 

FreeStyle Music Festival – August 8

TriniFly Promotions and Overdrive Productions team up to bring the first-ever FreeStyle Music Festival to the Plymouth Rock Assurance® Arena. Concert features live performances by legendary freestyle artists TKA, Judy Torres, Coro, Noel, Freedom Williams of C&C Music Factory and more. TKA is an American Latin Freestyle trio who have been dubbed the Kings of Freestyle with hits like “One Way Love” and “Come Get My Love.” Singer and actress Judy Torres has had her share of club hits and can currently be heard on-air on 103.5 KTU in NYC. Separate ticket is required for this concert in conjunction with theme park admission, Season Pass or Membership.

 

Caribbean Concert featuring Shaggy – August 9

2015 marks the 10th Anniversary of the Six Flags Caribbean Concert Series. The show features Shaggy, Lady Saw, Lyrikal, Olatunji, Dexta Daps, Kreesha Turner, Angela Hunte and Kyron DuPont live in concert. A separate ticket is required in conjunction with theme park admission, Season Pass or Membership. For more information, visit www.sixflags.com/greatadventure.

 

Austin Mahone Concert featuring Pia Mia and Jacquie Lee – August 15

Six Flags Great Adventure and 92.3 AMP present Austin Mahone in concert. Mahone, who got his start by posting his videos on YouTube, will be joined by Pia Mia who rose to fame the same way. The two internet sensations will be joined by New Jersey’s own Jacquie Lee, who participated in 2014’s season of The Voice. Concert takes place in the Plymouth Rock Assurance® Arena at 7 p.m. and is included with theme park admission, Season Pass or Membership.

 

National Coaster Day – August 16

Six Flags Great Adventure celebrates National Coaster Day presented by Outback Steakhouse on August 16. Guests can enjoy special activities inside the park including coaster trivia and prizes, a fiesta in Plaza del Carnaval featuring live DJ music and Latin dance lessons near El Diablo and El Toro, and special offers at the new Macho Nacho sports bar and grill. A special admission offer and exclusive ride time benefits are available to Outback Steakhouse restaurant customers and Six Flags Season Pass holders. Fans can vote for Kingda Ka as “Boldest Coaster” and enter to win a VIP trip at www.sixflags.com/BoldestSweeps

 

Salute the Troops Concert – August 26

Six Flags Great Adventure presents the Salute the Troops Concert with Dan + Shay as part of the MIKE AND IKE®ZOURS® Summer Concert Series. Dan + Shay are an American country music duo from Pennsylvania and Arkansas. They have opened for Hunter Hayes and Blake Shelton on their respective tours. Concert starts at 7 p.m. and is free with theme park admission, Season Pass or Membership. All active military will receive free theme park admission August 26 with I.D.

Don't Be Under The Influence
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

 

Illegal Immigrants Are Anchoring
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

 

 

By Tammy Duffy

 

 

  

It's summer and we are all enjoying the abundance of fruits and vegetables that are ripening across U.S. farmland.  If you do not have your own private garden at home, the work of harvesting these fruits and vegetables greatly depends on illegal immigrants. 

 

There is a farm in Cream Ridge NJ that hires illegal immigrants to toil their fields. These illegal immigrants come to the farm with their own set of demands. They are setting the rules and the farmers are desperate for good employees, so they oblige.  They hire the immigrants who are twenty years of age. They find the illegal immigrant teenagers just do not have the worth ethic they need for success.  The illegal immigrants in Cream Ridge are paid $1,000 a week to work from sunrise to sunset. They toil the crops to bring Americans their summer vegetables. They do not pay any taxes to the U. S. government. These illegal immigrants working on the farm have also forced their employer to sign paperwork stating they make below minimum wage. This paperwork is then submitted to the State which entitles them to free health care.  These illegal immigrants know who to "work" the U.S. systems to get what they want, all for free. 

 

Government data  reveals that more than 7.4 million work permits (formally known as Employment Authorization Documents) were issued to aliens from 2009 to 2014. Because neither lawful permanent residents (green card holders) nor temporary work visa holders need a work permit, this amounts to a huge parallel immigrant work authorization system outside the numerical limits and categories set by Congress. The huge number of work permits being issued above and beyond these limits inevitably reduces opportunities for U.S. workers, damages the integrity of the immigration system, and encourages illegal immigration.

 

Approximately 2.1 million work permits were issued to aliens with temporary visas or who entered under the Visa Waiver Program. Of these, about 1.4 million (66 percent) had a visa status for which employment is generally prohibited under the law, except in what are supposed to be rare cases.

 

Of the total, 1.1 million work permits were issued to aliens who have a legal status that leads directly to a green card. These were primarily refugees (420,000), fiancés of U.S. citizens (150,000), and approved asylum applicants (243,000).

 

More than 2.2 million work permits were issued over this time period to illegal aliens or aliens unqualified for admission. Nearly all of these (2.1 million) were illegal aliens who crossed the border illegally (Entered Without Inspection). Inexplicably, 2,860 work permits were issued to aliens who were denied asylum, were suspected of using fraudulent documents, were stowaways, or were refused at a port of entry.

 

About 129,000 were issued to aliens who were granted parole to enter the United States. Grants of parole are supposed to be used very sparingly to allow the admission of an ineligible or unqualified alien for exceptionally compelling humanitarian reasons, such as emergency medical care or for a purpose that is important to the national interest.

 

A huge number of work permits, 1.9 million, were issued to aliens whose status was unknown, not recorded by the adjudicator, or not disclosed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that processes the applications. This should be a concern; work permits are a gateway document to driver's licenses and other benefits, and if the government agency issuing them does not know or will not disclose how the bearer arrived in the country, how can others rely on the authenticity of this individual's identity? If the government does know, and chooses not to disclose it, that is equally concerning.

 

These statistics were obtained from USCIS in a Freedom of Information Act request. Status classifications are based on information from the work permit application that is entered into USCIS databases.

 

Americans who are struggling to survive due to high unemployment and low wages may be asking why illegal aliens receive benefits from state and federal governments. Federal law does prevent illegal aliens from receiving benefits meant for American citizens. The only benefit that illegal aliens are allowed is emergency medical care.

The annual costs for U.S. taxpayers, and the impact on hospitals. Medicaid alone paid more than $2.2 billion last year to partially reimburse hospitals for unpaid illegal alien delivery bills, double the news report’s estimate.

 

And the amount not reimbursed to hospitals is in the tens of billions. A staggering 84 hospitals in California alone, have been forced to close their doors because of unpaid bills by illegal aliens. Hospitals which manage to remain open, pass the unpaid costs onto the rest of us, which translates into more out-of-pocket expenses and higher insurance premiums for Americans.

 

In fact at one hospital in Dallas…Parkland Memorial Hospital (yes, the same hospital where JFK died after his assassination in 1963), a staggering 70% of all babies are born to illegal aliens. 

 

Just because illegal aliens are not legally entitled to these benefits does not mean they do not apply for them. Yes. It is true that illegal aliens have received grants, professional accreditations, loans, WIC, disability, public housing, college educations, food stamps, unemployment benefits, and tax credits from state and federal agencies.

 

According to the U.S. Bureau, at least one-third of foreign-born citizens in the United States are illegal aliens. Since children born in the United States are considered U.S. Citizens, it becomes complicated when illegal aliens then bear children who are U.S. Citizens.

 

If the U.S. government sent the parents of these children away, we would be separating families. Now that these families have given birth to U.S. citizens, the families are eligible for benefits such as WIC and food stamps. Benefits such as these are for low income families. Illegal aliens often work in low paying jobs so they now qualify for benefits.

 

Illegal immigrants enter the country by overstaying their visa. Officers of the law do not make it a habit to stop people and ask to see their papers. What this means is that if a person overstays their visa, they can find ways to work and receive benefits.

 

Another way illegal aliens enter the U.S. is by using forged documents. If people at port authorities, international airports, and border crossings are not catching forged documents, foreign citizens have just entered the U.S. without question.

 

Once illegal immigrants arrive, they buy forged documents saying they are U.S. citizens. The only way to stop this is to crack down on those who make and sell forged documents. If employers, state, and federal agencies cannot tell a forged document from a real document, then of course illegal aliens will receive benefits.

 

Our own failures to improve security, verify immigrant status, and recognize forged documents are what cause illegal aliens to receive benefits.

 

Americans are sharply divided over what to do about illegal immigration in the United States. Conservatives have been harshly critical of the Obama administration for blocking a controversial Arizona law intended to identify and deport more illegal immigrants, who critics say are taking American jobs. 

But farmers across the country have a different view. As Americans have moved away from agriculture, farm employers say they have come to rely on illegal immigrants to harvest the fresh fruits and vegetables on the nation's dinner tables.


The harvests are underway on the eastern coast. A crew of illegal immigrant workers are picking, washing, and packing the bright yellow vegetables destined for supermarkets across the East Coast. Like generations of immigrants before them, they came to America seeking economic opportunities. 

Many come illegally. Farm workers are up before dawn every morning and work all day in the hot sun. They spend the day stooping over picking vegetables and carrying heavy loads.

Of the roughly one million farm workers in the United States, most are immigrants, and an estimated one-quarter to one-half of them are illegal.

With U.S. unemployment just below 10 percent, many believe illegal immigrants are taking jobs from Americans. But when the United Farm Workers union launched a campaign offering to connect unemployed people to farm jobs, only three people accepted -- out of thousands of inquiries. 

The United States has a guest worker program that would allow farm employers to hire immigrants legally. But farmers like this one — who asked to remain anonymous — describe it as a bureaucratic nightmare.

Every farmer I know would gladly use the program and be legal. Every illegal immigrant would love to be legal. But the program is so onerous, it's so hard to use, and so expensive....And you don't necessarily get your people. If the crop is ready, and the people are not here, the crop is lost. The farmers will not take that chance." 

 

He says he's tried to hire Americans, but he simply can't find enough able and willing do the work. "The truth is, nobody is raising their kids to be farm workers," he says.  "The American kids do not want to work hard in the fields. They do not want to shovel snow, mow the lawn or pull a weed. They are a generation of self entitled brats."

Parents have higher aspirations for their kids than agricultural labor. There is a stigma to manual labor.  Nevertheless, there are a lot of unemployed people who, if they could make a living wage working in agriculture, I think, would do so.

As for the guest worker program, he says, "It is true that it is more expensive than hiring the illegal immigrant that shows up with fake documents because of the fact that there are protections for the American workers — they have to hire American workers if they are available first — and there are protections for the foreign workers." 

A bill that would reform the immigration system is stuck in Congress. Meanwhile, farmers are increasingly concerned about losing their workforce to immigration crackdowns. They say without workers to pick the crops, fresh fruits and vegetables will rot in the fields of American farms. 

And eventually, they say, those farms would wither away, too. “Birthright citizenship” for illegal aliens which was authored to ensure that children born to African slaves would be considered citizens, not enable unlawful invaders to abuse our system to ensure a lifetime of welfare and free social services.

 

It is bankrupting our social services, schools and hospitals. It is insanity. It must come to an end.

 

 

 

 

Confederate Flag Drama
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

photo by DUFFY taken on Klockner Rd, Hamilton TWP

 

 

In the wake of the Charleston Massacre, Amazon and Walmart have announced that they will no longer sell Confederate flag merchandise. Ebay also chimed in with, "We will not long offer Confederate items for electronic auction."

 

The Republican governor of Mississippi calls his state flag, which includes the Stars and Bars in the top left corner, “a point of offense that needs to be removed.” Even Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, bellowed that a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in his state's capitol building belongs in a museum.

 

Yet the Department of Defense says it isn’t even considering the possibility of a ban on the flag, deciding instead to leave any such move to the various service branches, while military bases named after Confederate officers will remain.  One factor in this decision: the South provides more than 40% of all military recruits, many of them white; only 15% are from the Northeast. One may ask why that is, we will cover this in a future column.

 

Filling the ranks isn't, however, the only reason for the military’s refusal to act.

Over the last few weeks, there has been near unanimous agreement among liberal and mainstream commentators that the Confederate flag represents “hate, not heritage.” The flag’s current presence in American culture is ubiquitos. It adorns license plates, bumper stickers, mugs, bodies (via tattoos) and even baby diapers. The flag’s popularity is normally traced back to the post-World War II reaction of the Dixiecrat South to the Civil Rights Movement. South Carolina, for instance, raised the Stars and Bars over its state house in 1961 as part, columnist Eugene Robinson said on ”Meet the Press,” of its “massive resistance to racial desegregation.

 

All true. But like many discussions of American conservativism, this account misses the role endless war played in sustaining domestic racism. Starting around 1898, well before it became an icon of redneck backlash, the Confederate Battle Flag served for half a century as an important pennant in the expanding American empire and a symbol of national unification, not polarization.

It was a reconciled Army that moved out into the world after the Civil War, an unstoppable combination of Northern law (bureaucratic command and control, industrial might, and technology) and Southern spirit (an “exaltation of military ideals and virtues,” including valor, duty, and honor). Both law and spirit had their dark sides leading to horrors committed due either to the very nature of the American empire—the genocide of Native Americans, for example, or the war in Southeast Asia—or to the particular passions of some of its soldiers. And both law and spirit had their own flags.

 

Northerners and Southerners agreed on little in the years after the Civil War, except that the Army should pacify Western tribes.  Reconstruction—Washington’s effort to set the terms for the South’s readmission to the Union and establish postwar political equality—was being bitterly opposed by defeated white separatists.  Many Americans found rare common ground on the subject of Manifest Destiny.

 

After the surrender at Appomattox, it was too soon to fly the Stars and Bars against Native Americans. And it was Union officers—men like generals George Armstrong Custer and Philip Sheridan—who committed most of the atrocities against indigenous peoples. But Confederate veterans and their sons used the pacification of the West as a readmission program into the U.S. Army. The career of Luther Hare, a Texas son of a Confederate captain, is illustrative. He barely survived Custer’s campaign against the Sioux. Cornered in a skirmish that preceded Little Big Horn, Hare “opened fire and let out a rebel yell” before escaping. He then went on to fight Native Americans in Montana, Texas, the Pacific Northwest, and Arizona, where he put down the “last of the renegade Apaches,” before being sent to the Philippines as a colonel. There, he led a detachment of Texans against the Spanish.

 

With Reconstruction over and Jim Crow segregation installed in every southern State, the Spanish-American War of 1898, in which the U.S. took Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean and the Philippines and Guam in the Pacific, was a key moment in the rehabilitation of the Confederacy. Earlier, when slavery was still a going concern, southerners had yearned to separate Cuba from Spain and turn it into a slave state. Now, conquering the island served a different purpose: a chance to prove their patriotism and reconcile with the North.

In June 1898, just weeks after U.S. troops landed in Cuba, two train-car loads of Confederate flags arrived in Atlanta for a coming reunion of southern veterans of the war. The Stars and Bars would soon festoon the city Union General William T. Sherman had burned to the ground. At the very center of the celebration’s main venue stood a 30-foot Confederate flag, flanked by a Cuban and a U.S. flag. Speech after speech extolled “sublime” war—not just the Civil War but all the wars that made up the nineteenth century—with Mexico, against Native Americans, and now versus Spain. “The gallantry and heroism of your sons as they teach the haughty Spaniard amid the carnage of Santiago to honor and respect the flag of our country, which shall float forever over an ‘indissoluble union of indestructible states,’” was how one southern veteran put it.

 

War with Spain allowed “our boys” to once more be “wrapped in the folds of the American flag,” said General John Gordon, commander of the United Confederate Veterans, in remarks opening the proceedings. Their heroism, he added, has led “to the complete and permanent obliteration of all sectional distrusts and to the establishment of the too long delayed brotherhood and unity of the American people.” In this sense, the War of 1898 was alchemic, transforming the “lost cause” of the Confederacy (that is, the preservation of slavery) into a crusade for world freedom. The South, Gordon said, was helping to bring “the light of American civilization and the boon of Republican liberty to the oppressed islands of both oceans.”

With Spain defeated, President William McKinley took a victory tour of the South, hailing the “the valor and the heroism [that] the men from the south and the men of the north have within the past three years … shown in Cuba, in Puerto Rico, in the Philippines, and in China.”

“When we are all on one side,” the president said, “we are unconquerable.” It was around this time that, after much delay, Congress finally authorized the return of Confederate flags captured by Union forces during the Civil War to the United Confederate Veterans.

World War I brought more goodwill. In June 1916, as Woodrow Wilson began to push through Congress a remarkable set of laws militarizing the country, including the expansion of the Army and National Guard (and an authorization to place the former under federal authority), the construction of nitrate plants for munitions production, and the funding of military research and development, Confederate veterans descended on Washington, D.C., to show their support for the coming war in Europe.  Recently, a political figure in Hamilton, NJ, stated that Woodrow's name should be removed from all public buildings in the USA. Do you agree?  See link below to his comments.

 

https://www.facebook.com/edward.gore.92?fref=ts

 

About 10,000 men wearing the gray, escorted by several thousand who wore the blue, marched along Pennsylvania Avenue and were reviewed by the President.  It was reported that in the line were many young soldiers now serving in the regular army, grandsons of those who fought for the Confederacy and of those who fought for the Union. The Stars and Bars of the Confederacy were proudly borne at the head of the procession … As the long line passed the reviewing stand the old men in gray offered their services in the present war. ‘We will go to France or anywhere you want to send us!’ they shouted to the president.

Wilson won reelection in 1916, his campaign running on the slogan, “He kept us out of war.” But he could then betray his anti-war supporters knowing that a rising political coalition—made up, in part, of men looking to redeem a lost war by finding new wars to fight—had his back.

Decades before President Richard Nixon bet his reelection on winning the Dixiecrat vote, Wilson worked out his own Southern Strategy. Even as he was moving the nation to war, Wilson re-segregated Washington and purged African Americans from federal jobs. And it was Wilson who started the presidential tradition of laying a Memorial Day wreath at Arlington Cemetery’s Confederate War Memorial. 

 

In 1916, Wilson turned that event into a war rally.   He believed that this would create a  spirit that would be conquering in the Providence of God. That is would be a new light that lifted up in America. He believed that it would throw the rays of liberty and justice far abroad upon every sea, and even upon the lands which now wallow in darkness and refuse to see the light.

 

American history was fast turning into an endless parade of war, and the sectional reconciliation that went with it meant that throughout the first half of the twentieth century the "conquered banner” could fly pretty much anywhere with little other than positive comment.

 

In World War II, for instance, after a two-month battle for the island of Okinawa, the first flag Marines raised upon taking the headquarters of the Japanese Imperial Army was the Confederate one. It had been carried into battle in the helmet of a captain from South Carolina.

 

With the Korean War, there were staggering jump in sales of Confederate flags from 40,000 in 1949 to 1,600,000 in 1950. Much of the demand, it reported, was coming from soldiers overseas in Germany and Korea.  The banner’s growing popularity had nothing to do with rising “reactionary Dixiecratism.”

 

As the Civil Rights Movement evolved and the Black Power movement emerged, as Korea gave way to Vietnam, the Confederate flag returned to its original meaning: the bunting of resentful white supremacy. Dixie found itself in Danang.

 

 

The heroes that fought in the war, many had the sentiment, “We are fighting and dying in a war that is not very popular in the first place.  There is a letter that was written by a soldier to his other where he states, "we still have some people who are still fighting the Civil War.”

 

 As early as Christmas Day 1965, a number of white soldiers paraded in front of the audience of conservative comedian Bob Hope’s USO show at Bien Hoa Air Base. “After they were seated,” wrote an African-American soldier protesting the display, “several officers and NCOs [non-commissioned officers] were seen posing and taking pictures under the flag. I felt like an outsider.” An African-American newspaper, the Chicago Defender, reported that southern Whites were “infecting” Vietnamese with their racism. “The Confederate flags seem more popular in Vietnam than the flags of several countries,” the paper wrote, judging by the “display of flags for sale on a Saigon street corner.”

 

Black soldiers who pushed back against such Dixie-ism were subject to insult and abuse. Some were thrown in the stockade. When Private First Class Danny Frazier complained of the “damn flag” flown by Alabama soldiers in his barracks to his superior officers, he was ordered to do demeaning work and then demoted.

 

Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in early April 1968 and American military bases throughout South Vietnam lowered their flags to half-mast. In some places, such as the Cam Ranh Naval Base, however, white soldiers celebrated by raising the Confederate flag and burning crosses. Following King’s murder, the Department of Defense tried to ban the Confederate flag. “Race is our most serious international problem,” a Pentagon representative said. But Dixiecrat politicians, who controlled the votes President Lyndon Johnson needed to fund the war, objected and the Pentagon backpedaled. Instead of enforcing the ban, it turned to sensitivity training.

A backlash against the antiwar movement helped nationalize the Confederate flag. The banner was increasingly seen not just at gatherings of the fringe KKK and the John Birch Society, but at “patriotic” rallies in areas of the country outside the old South: in Detroit, Chicago, California, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. For instance, on June 14, 1970—Flag Day—pro-war demonstrators marched up Pittsburg’s Liberty Avenue with a large Confederate flag demanding that “Washington … get in there and win.”

For many, the Confederate flag remains an emblem of racist reaction to federal efforts to advance equal rights and integration. Yet as issues of race, militarism, and class resentment merged into a broader “cultural war,” some in the rising New Right rallied around the Stars and Bars to avenge not the South, but South Vietnam.

In 1973, shortly after the U.S. officially ended combat operations in South Vietnam, for instance, Bart Bonner, a conservative activist and Vietnam veteran from Waterbury, New York, met with South Vietnam’s military attaché in Washington and offered to raise “a private, volunteer force of 75,000 American veterans to fight in South Vietnam under the Confederate flag.” For Bonner, and many like him, that flag now stood not for the “lost cause” but all lost causes conservatives cared about, an icon of resistance to the liberal Establishment.

Bonner told Soldier of Fortune magazine that he had the financial support of Texas millionaire Ross Perot and 100 men, including former Green Berets, Air Force commandos, and Navy Seals, ready to “show the people of South Vietnam … that not all Americans are cowards.” He added: “The Stars and Bars—the Confederate flag—is a beautiful flag.”

 

Nothing came of Bonner’s plan. But the scheme did anticipate many of the strategies the New Right would use to circumvent all those cumbersome restrictions the post-Vietnam Congress placed on the ability of the executive branch to wage war and conduct covert operations, including the rise of mercenary groups that continue to play a significant role in fighting America’s wars and attempts to raise money from private, often southern rightwing sources. Ross Perot, for instance, would fund some of Oliver North’s effort to run a foreign policy independent of congressional oversight, a scandal that would become known as Iran-Contra.

 

Before Watergate brought him down, President Richard Nixon fused overseas militarism and domestic racism into one noxious whole as part of his strategy to win the South in 1972 and secure his reelection. In southern Africa, where Black-led national liberation movements were contesting white rule, this meant putting in place National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger’s “Tar-Baby Tilt,” strengthening ties with the white supremacist nations of South Africa and Rhodesia. Support for Pretoria and Salisbury was popular in Biloxi.

 

But the foreign-policy centerpiece of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” was Vietnam. Senator George McGovern summed the situation up this way after being told by Kissinger that the U.S. couldn’t exit Vietnam because “the boss’s whole constituency would just fall apart”: “They were willing to continue killing Asians and sacrificing the lives of young Americans because of their interpretation of what would play in the United States.”

The Confederate flag still flies overseas. It was carried into Iraq in 2003. In Afghanistan, at the infamous Bagram Theater Internment Facility, a platoon implicated in the torture of detainees, known as the “the Testosterone Gang,” hung a Confederate flag in their tent.

It is good to see the Confederate flag coming down in some places, but I suspect that reports of its final furling are premature. Endless wars will always have their atrocities. And atrocities will always find a flag. 

The Confederate flag is no different. While it has been and still is a symbol that is admired by racists, I would wager that there are more non-racist Southerners who carry it. For them, it’s simply an undeniable part of their heritage; a symbol that marks a bloody milestone in their history, which has set them apart from the rest of America.  

It's just a symbol. and like all symbols, it means many different things to many different people. Those meanings will continue to change in ways we cannot imagine.

 

What will happen to the American Flag? Will we ban that as well in the future? How will it change if and when Puerto Rico becomes part of the USA? Only time will tell. 

 

 

RiverFest

Brad Ross to Perform at Six Flags
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

His high-energy show “Unbelievable” presents a theatrical collection of spellbinding magic, all-new, cutting-edge illusions and an array of astonishing wonders live on stage. Ross appears and disappears daily at 2:30, 4:30 and 6:30, except Tuesdays.

Ross has been dazzling audiences of all ages for over two decades and has entertained millions of people worldwide.

 

“Growing up, I started realizing the gift that magic had given me was the same gift I wanted to give audiences when I performed. Every day on stage, I hope I bring the audience into this magical world of possibility,” Ross said.

Ross returns to Six Flags Great Adventure where he headlined in World of Magic in 2005.  Since that time, he has performed on five continents and in 25 countries, connecting with fans in 16 languages from all backgrounds and corners of the globe.

“When you can invite moms, dads, and kids to come on stage and witness the magic up close, it engages them in the show and gives them an experience that they’ll never forget,” Ross added.

 

Ross was named “Best International Family Entertainer” and was the recipient of The Merlin Award, the Oscar equivalent for the magic industry. This award is the highest honor presented by the magic community and is based on talent, showmanship, originality, skills and the ability to entertain under any conditions.

 

 

For more information on Brad Ross, visit www.bradross.com For more information on this event, visit www.sixflags.com/greatadventure