The Ruling Class-Sponsored Race War and the Balkanization of America Part Four

Rushdoony’s Bastards and the Hijacking of the Ron Paul Revolution

by Paul & Phillip D. Collins, September 29th, 2008

Previous installments of this series have examined the disturbing conjunction between the Minute Men, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, Malthusian population control advocates, and Dominionist organizations like the Council for National Policy (CNP). The overall contention presented in this series is that there is a racist Fifth Column co-opting otherwise legitimate grassroots movements. This Fifth Column is connected to the intelligence community, tax exempt foundations, globalist organizations, and other conduits for elitist interests. The power elite hope to use this Fifth Column to radicalize activists within disparate enclaves, which will eventually be mobilized in a politically and socially expedient race war. If such a race war can be successfully fomented, then the United States can be balkanized. With the Republic atomized and constitutional governance broken, America can be assimilated into a socialist totalitarian world order.

This installment shall attempt to elucidate the neo-Confederate Trojan Horse within the so-called “Ron Paul Revolution.” Masquerading as libertarians, these neo-Confederates are trying to use Paul’s movement as a vehicle for divisive racial politics and secessionist objectives. Some of these neo-Confederate elements constitute a faction of the CNP, as is evidenced by the personages of Rousas John Rushdoony and Gary North. Given this continuity of CNP involvement in the promulgation of racial dialectics, it is clear that the same forces behind the radicalization of the Minute Men are also responsible for the corruption of the Ron Paul Revolution.

The Ron Paul Devolution

When Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul began his Presidential campaign, many people across the political spectrum rejoiced and pledged their undying support to Paul’s cause, dubbing it “the Ron Paul Revolution.” It’s not hard to understand the enthusiasm when one examines the Revolution’s exterior appearance. The Texas Republican has called for the abolition of the Federal Reserve, the Federal income tax, and other machinations of oppressive big government. If Paul were to have a sit-down chat with a grassroots activist, there would likely be more harmony than discord during the discussion. That’s what makes the results of a closer examination so disheartening. Paul has political baggage that may render him unfit to hold the highest office in the land.

In a January 4, 2008 article on the Official Confederate States of America (CSA) Government website, it was claimed that Ron Paul was “the only candidate who might be friendly to the restoration of the Confederacy” (“Ron Paul, the only candidate who might be friendly to the restoration of the Confederacy,” no pagination). The article also stated that the CSA has “known for years Ron Paul to be essentially a Confederate in his stand on the issues” (no pagination). What is giving Paul his appeal with proponents of a Confederate revival? It is likely that Paul’s association with neo-Confederates posing as libertarians is the reason for the attraction.

Paul’s congressional Chief of Staff from 1978 to 1982 was Lew Rockwell, the founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama (Kirchick, no pagination). While the Institute claims to be a libertarian think tank, there are members of its senior faculty that can only be described as neo-Confederates. Senior faculty member Thomas E. Wood Jr. is a founding member of the League of the South (no pagination). The League is a secessionist group that seeks to reestablish “the cultural dominance of the Anglo-Celtic people and their institutions” (Beirich, no pagination). Paul has praised Woods’ pro-Confederate book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, claiming that the tract “heroically rescues real history from the politically correct memory hole” (Kirchick, no pagination).

Another senior faculty member of the von Mises Institute is Thomas DiLorenzo (no pagination). Like Woods, DiLorenzo is an unapologetic neo-Confederate. In his book, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, DiLorenzo refers to the rebellion of 1861-65 as the “War for Southern Independence” (no pagination). Paul actually endorsed the book on MSNBC during a December 2007 debate over the necessity of the Civil War (no pagination). Many of the von Mises Institute’s neo-Confederate ideas have contributed to Paul’s thinking. Paul even spoke at a secession conference hosted by the Institute in 1995 (no pagination).

Another connection between Rockwell and Paul is Gary North. North is a contributor to Rockwell’s website and has worked on Paul’s congressional staff (no pagination). North was also a participant in the Council for National Policy (CNP) in 1984, 1988, 1996, and 1998 and was on the Council’s Board of Governors in 1982 (“The Council for National Policy: Selected Member Biographies,” no pagination). The CNP is a hotbed for Dominionist thinkers such as Marvin Olasky, the deceased Dr. D. James Kennedy, and Howard Ahmanson, Jr. (no pagination).

North adheres to Christian Reconstructionism, a heretical belief system that fathered Dominionism. It is through Christian Reconstructionism that one finds the bridge between neo-Confederate ideology and Dominionism. The father of Christian Reconstructionism was North’s father-in-law and CNP participant Rousas John Rushdoony (no pagination). Rushdoony was heavily influenced by the writings of Robert L. Dabney, the Chaplain to Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson (Potok, no pagination). Dabney’s writings portrayed the South as a highly moral and Godly society that was unjustly oppressed by a Godless and decadent North (no pagination). Dabney’s influence on Rushdoony can be seen in Rushdoony’s book, Institute of Biblical Law (no pagination). In that book, Rushdoony advocated segregation and adamantly opposed interracial marriage (no pagination). As Rushdoony’s influence spread into evangelical churches, the poison of Confederate nationalism was injected into America’s Christian community (no pagination).

This is truly ironic, given the fact that there is a body of evidence that suggests that neo-Confederate ideology is merely a revival of anti-Christian Celtic paganism. Neo-Confederates believe that the establishment of a Confederate republic is not possible without a revival of Anglo-Celtic culture (Pansler, no pagination). Neo-Confederates also venerate Confederate Generals, a practice similar to the Celtic worship of warrior-gods (no pagination). A good illustration of the modern day worship of Southern generals by Neo-Confederates is the pro-Confederate movie Gods and Generals (no pagination). While there are thematic threads throughout the film that are comparable to the teachings of Dabney and Rushdoony, the title really says it all: Southern Generals are to be equated with deities.

The neo-Confederate thinkers of the von Mises Institute, the League of the South, and the CNP may be the source of many of the racist statements that New Republic writer James Kirchick found in many of Paul’s newsletters (no pagination). In a June 1992 issue of the Ron Paul Political Report, it was claimed that the L.A. Riots were short-lived because blacks had to pick up their welfare checks three days after the unrest began (no pagination). The newsletter also claimed widespread theft and looting during the riots were a result of:

“‘civil rights’ quotas, mandated hiring preferences, set-asides for government contracts, gerrymandered voting districts, black bureaucracies, black mayors, black curricula in schools, black T.V. shows, black T.V. anchors, hate crime laws, and public humiliation for anyone who dares question the black agenda.” (Qutd. in Kirchick, no pagination)

An October 1992 newsletter that covered the topic of urban violence stated that: “Jury verdicts, basketball games, and even music are enough to set off black rage, it seems” (no pagination). The newsletter’s author encouraged the people to purchase guns and get armed because “the animals are coming” (no pagination). The “animals,” presumably, were African-Americans.

Whether or not Ron Paul authored the racist newsletters is hotly debated. Paul’s response to questions concerning newsletter statements seems to suggest that he is asleep at the wheel and that the Ron Paul Revolution, much like the LaRouche movement, has taken on a life of its own that goes far beyond the man. The Texan has consistently claimed that either the newsletters were written by somebody else or were taken out of context (no pagination).

Paul further hurt his credibility on September 23, 2008 when he endorsed Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin at his Campaign for Liberty Blog (no pagination). Baldwin has written the following:

I believe the South was right in the War Between the States, and I am not a racist. (And I invite anyone to ask any of the numerous members of minority races that attend my church to verify that!) Neither do I believe that the leaders of the old Confederacy were racists. In fact, I hold men such as General Robert E. Lee and General T.J. “Stonewall” Jackson in highest regard. (no pagination)

No matter what Baldwin says, it is impossible to be pro-Confederate and anti-racist without being a complete historical illiterate. As we shall see, the Confederacy was dedicated to the preservation of the institution of slavery.

Perhaps Paul can be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his support of Baldwin. After all, relations between Paul and Libertarian candidate Bob Barr have frozen over and McCain’s Establishment pedigree instantly precludes him for consideration. But by throwing his lot in with Baldwin, Paul is becoming further entrenched with forces that are mixing legitimate political platforms with a radical agenda. The forces in question are the neo-Confederates, insurrectionists in patriot’s clothing.

The Confederacy: An Early Project in the Balkanization of America

Paul seems to be trying to divorce Confederate political ideology from the racialist elements that birthed it. However, the two are inextricably linked. Typically, those that assert otherwise are attempting to imbue the Confederacy with an air of historical legitimacy. Nothing could be further from the truth. There was nothing legitimate or legal about the Confederacy. John Motley, the U.S. Minister to Austria, correctly identified the Confederacy as a conspiracy to splinter the United States in an 1861 letter to the London Times (Cuddy, no pagination). The letter further stated that the Confederate balkanization project would lead to the establishment of:

“a great Gulf Empire, including Mexico, Central America, Cuba, and other islands, with unlimited cotton fields and unlimited negroes… this is the golden vision in pursuit of which the great Republic has been sacrificed, the beneficent Constitution subverted” (quoted in Cuddy, no pagination).

Motley’s view of the war as a conspiracy hatched by the slaveholding aristocracy of the South was widely accepted in the years following the 1861-65 conflict. From 1865 to 1872, according to semiotician William Pencak, only three scholarly works used the term “civil war”: Alfred H. Guernsey’s and Henry M. Alden’s Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (1867), Benson J. Lossing’s Pictorial History of the Civil War in the United States (1866-1868), and John W. Draper’s History of the Civil War in America (1887-1870) (10). Eighteen other books during the same time period referred to the conflict as “the rebellion,” “The War of the Rebellion,” “The Great War of the Rebellion,” “Great Southern Rebellion,” and “American Rebellion (10). These historical texts reiterated the overall theme of Abraham Lincoln’s July 4, 1861 speech (10). In that speech, Lincoln classified the secession as a “rebellion,” thus rejecting any notion of legitimacy or legality on the part of the Confederacy (10). Confederate revisionists preferred the term “Civil War” because it implies that both parties were equal in legality and legitimacy (10). According to Pencak, Southerners also preferred the term “War Between the States” because it implies that:

instead of being a struggle for mastery between two units within the same sovereign state, two sovereign states (or collections thereof) were fighting a war, and that one of the parties was trying to violate the legitimate rights of the other by denying its independence. (12)

The Confederacy was neither sovereign nor independent. The Southern states were part of a larger nation that was being pulled apart by a slave power conspiracy that wanted to control the whole nation.

Furthermore, the terms “Civil War” and “War Between the States” also imply that the war was not about slavery, but about states’ rights instead (11). What is often ignored, however, is the fact that the Confederacy was only interested in the issue of states’ rights and sovereignty as it related to slavery (11). Southern apologists have claimed that slavery was “a benevolent and civilizing institution which only became an issue as Northerners began to threaten it” (11). This begs an important question: if slavery was an inherently good institution, why not fight for it rather than states’ rights (12)? States’ rights and sovereignty were merely pretexts for secession and the establishment of slaveholding fiefdoms, euphemistically referred to as “Confederate republics.”

The violence and corruption of the Reconstruction Era led to a weakening of the moral authority and role of the Republican Party by the mid-1870s (10). Scandals during the Grant presidency resulted in a union between liberal Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats that wished to see Horace Greeley win his 1872 bid for the White House (10-11). In 1877, Republican president Rutherford B. Hayes was able to get the Democrats to accept his questionable election victory by pulling the remaining federal troops out of the South, allowing white Southerners to engage in domestic terrorism against the disenfranchised blacks with little or no opposition (11). It was in this political and social climate that a softer, gentler, and kinder portrait of the Confederacy began to emerge. As a climate of terminological diversity arose, the terms “Civil War” and “War Between the States” began gaining ground (11). Resistance began to rise against the use of the term “rebellion” because it implied that the Confederacy was an illegal, illegitimate, and even treasonous insurgency. One of those who refused to recognize the Confederacy’s traitorous nature was ex-Confederate President Jefferson Davis (11). In his 1881 history entitled The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Davis wrote that he “heartily repudiated and condemned” calling the war “The Rebellion” and Confederates “Rebels” (11). Davis wrote: “A sovereign cannot rebel and sovereign states could not be in rebellion” (11).

In the 1890s, two ex-Confederates used the term “Civil War” for the first time (13). One book was authored by an “obscure Missourian” and the second book, entitled From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War Era, was written by ex-Confederate General James A. Longstreet (13). According to Pencak, the term “Civil War” took “a decisive lead in the nomenclature sweepstakes” during the decade from 1901 to 1911 (13). State Commander John M. Woods recognized the revisionism for what it really was. In a 1915 speech to the Grand Army of the Republic of Massachusetts, Woods state that:

“the men and papers that shape public opinion in the South, and the women as well, are leaving no stone unturned to blot out the words ‘civil’ and ‘rebellion’ in all official papers, school books, and histories relating to the War of 1861-65 and call it officially the War Between the States.” (14)

According to Woods, the Southern social engineers were lying about the issue of states’ rights and were intentionally ignoring the fact that “human slavery was the cause” of the conflict (14). Woods further stated: “No fair historian can find the slightest justification for secession and treason. The just penalty of the latter is death” (14). Thus, Southern apologists are guilty of semiotic deception. By deliberately altering crucial pieces of terminology, Southern apologists were able to rehabilitate the otherwise unsavory image of the Confederacy. With its oligarchic character semiotically veiled by intentionally misleading terminology and euphemistic rhetoric, the slaveholding South was virtually canonized. Pencak elaborates:

In the long run, the South had not only won the right to control its own racial affairs, it also triumphed in the popular imagination as fighting a legitimate and heroic cause… Much of this ideological triumph persists despite the limited victories of the Civil Rights movement. Robert E. Lee is a national hero; streets and babies are named after him (as they are not, for instance, after Benedict Arnold) and rebel flags still fly high. (23)

Indeed, rebel flags still fly high, semiotically communicating the secessionist aspirations that underpinned a balkanization project that began over a century ago. A closer examination of the constituent signs that comprise the Confederate flag might provide a clue regarding the identity of the insurgency’s hidden architects. The flag was adorned with 13 stars, presumably representing all of the states that seceded from the Union (Epperson 154). However, only 11 states actually seceded from the Union. Interestingly enough, the number 13 holds esoteric significance for occult secret societies, particularly Freemasonry (154). Tenuous though this numerological connection may seem, more tangible ties could be inferred when one examines the dubious associations of George W.L. Bickley.

Bickley presided over the Confederacy’s secret service after the South officially initiated the Rebellion (G. Edward Griffin 392). Bickley also assembled the secretive Order of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a revolutionary organization devoted to toppling the American Republic (G. Edward Griffin 392). Bickley founded the Order’s first “castle” in Cincinnati in 1854 and recruited his Knights from Masonic lodges (G. Edward Griffin 392). Given its role in provoking the bloody French Revolution, Bickley’s appropriation of Freemasonry as a recruiting ground for insurgents seemed quite fitting. Masonic political activism appears to have peaked during the Enlightenment. After the tumult in France, the prominence of the revolutionary faith within Masonry began to weaken and most lodges became relatively benign organizations. However, Dostoevsky’s “fire in the minds of men” still pervaded some strains of Freemasonry, as is evidenced by more subversive enclaves like the P2 Lodge in Italy. The Knights of the Golden Circle could be another case in point. This contention is reinforced by the group’s intimate connections to a secret society dubbed The Seasons, which G. Edward Griffin contends was a “branch of the Illuminati” (G. Edward Griffin 392). Of course, the Illuminati represented the violent, revolutionary wing of the Enlightenment and has been cited as one of the chief architects behind the French Revolution. Thus, it is with Bickley that one finds a possible organizational nexus where the Confederacy and Masonry intersect.

The violent, revolutionary pedigree of the Knights of the Golden Circle is made evident by the treasonous post-war activities of two of its more noteworthy members: Jesse James and John Wilkes Booth (G. Edward Griffin 392). Jesse James robbed banks and mining companies of an estimated $7 billion in gold to finance the reconstitution of the Confederacy (Epperson 163). As for Booth, few are not familiar with his role in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Yet, in a book entitled This One Mad Act, Booth’s granddaughter, Izola Forrester, asserts that the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy (G. Edward Griffin 393-94). According to Forrester, she was privy to secret documents concerning the Knights of the Golden Circle that had been hidden away in a government vault decades earlier (G. Edward Griffin 393-94). Designated as classified by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, these documents characterized Booth as an instrument of other shadowy interests. Forrester elaborates:

“Here at last was a link with my grandfather. I knew that he had been a member of the secret order founded by Bickley, the Knights of the Golden Circle. I have an old photograph of him taken in a group of the brotherhood, in full uniform, one that Harry’s daughter had discovered for me in our grandmother’s Bible. I knew that the newspapers, directly following the assassination, had denounced the order as having instigated the killing of Lincoln, and had proclaimed Booth to have been its member and tool. And I was reminded again of those words I had heard from my grandmother’s lips, that her husband had been ‘the tool of other men.'” (Qutd. in G. Edward Griffin 394)

While Stanton was certainly no friend of the South, Lincoln’s death would have yielded mutual dividends for both the Secretary of War and subversives seeking to reinstate their beloved Confederacy. Such a convergence of ostensibly dichotomously related interests is not uncommon in the world of deep politics. Researcher Ralph Epperson elucidates the possible motives for Stanton’s betrayal of Lincoln:

On April 14, 1865, the conspiracy that Lincoln both feared and had knowledge of assassinated him. Eight people were tried for the crime, and four were later hung. In addition to the conspiracy’s successful attempt on Lincoln’s life, the plan was to also assassinate Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s Vice President, and Secretary of State Seward. Both of these other attempts failed, but if they had been successful, there is little doubt who would have been the one to reap all of the benefits: Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

In fact, after the successful assassination of Lincoln, Stanton “became in that moment the functioning government of the United States, when he assumed control of the city of Washington D.C. in an attempt to capture Lincoln’s killer.” (!59-60)

Examining the alleged conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln is not the purpose of this article. However, what these connections demonstrate is the violent, revolutionary pedigree of the Knights of the Golden Circle. The activities of James and Booth could quite possibly qualify as two infrequent instances of post-Enlightenment Masonic political activism. What makes Booth’s assassination of Lincoln especially interesting is the fact that it also served other non-Masonic interests, specifically those of Stanton. That the objectives of a post-war insurrectionist possibly synchronized with the dubious agenda of a government official in the Union is interesting when examined in conjunction with modern instances of surrogate warfare and state-sponsored terrorism, such as the OKC bombing and September 11th. Again, while such case studies suggest a trans-historical modus operandi intrinsic to deep political practices, they are not the primary focus of this article.

Masonic involvement in the instigation of the Civil War is also made evident by the personage of Giuseppe Mazzini. In addition to being a Freemason, Mazzini was also an anarchist that established revolutionary organizations dubbed “Young France,” “Young England,” “Young Italy,” and “Young Europe” (Chaitkin, Treason in America, 199). These organizations acted as models for the Young America movement, which first gained public attention with the reprinting of a speech delivered by Edwin DeLeon to an audience of South Carolina College students (Chaitkin, Treason in America, 197-98). DeLeon would later disseminate Confederate propaganda in Europe and act as an advisor to Confederate President Jefferson Davis (Chaitkin, Treason in America, 197).

Mazzini maintained a correspondence with a fellow Mason named Albert Pike. Anton Chaitkin provides a rather unappealing description of this prominent figure in Freemasonry:

Albert Pike is one of the most physically and morally repulsive individuals in American history. Horribly obese-easily 300lbs. or more – Pike was known in his adopted state of Arkansas as a practitioner of Satanism. His reported sexual proclivities included sitting astride a phallic throne in the woods, accompanied by a gang of prostitutes. He would bring to his revels one or more wagon-loads of food and liquor, most of which he would consume over a period of perhaps 48 hours, until he passed into a stupor. (Chaitkin, Treason in America, 234-35)

In addition to occult practices and deviant sexual appetites, Pike also openly expressed his derision for other ethnicities and embraced racist affiliations:

Pike was thrilled at the chance he got to kill Spanish-Americans in the Mexican War; he pushed himself forward in Arkansas politics with noisy anti-Negro and pro-slavery rhetoric; and in the 1850s he became the leading Southern organizer and boss of the American Party or “Know-Nothings” – the third-party grouping based on hatred and fear of immigrants.

In 1858 Albert Pike and 11 of his collaborators issued a circular calling for the expulsion of free Negroes and mulattoes from Arkansas, citing “the laziness and bestiality of a degraded race,” their “immorality, filth and laziness,” and calling the Negro “so worthless and depraved an animal.” (Chaitkin, Treason in America, 235)

According to researcher Des Griffin, Pike served in the Confederate Army as a brigadier-general (62-66). Given his Masonic pedigree and racist affiliations, it would not be unreasonable to surmise that Pike’s military service was premised on some devotion to the Confederacy’s institution of slavery. Masonry’s role in the formation of the Confederacy could provide clues concerning the rebellion’s racist character. The Masonic religion itself exhibits distinctly racialist elements, presenting the Anglo-Saxon as the divinely ordained instrument for the creation of a novus ordo seclorum. In a September 1950 issue of New Age Magazine, which was the official publication of the Supreme Council, 33rd Degree Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, C. William Smith declares:

Looking back into history, we can easily see that the Guiding Hand of Providence has chosen the Nordic people to bring in and unfold the new order of the world. Records clearly show that 95 percent of the colonials were Nordics… Anglo-Saxons. Providence has chosen the Nordic race to unfold the “New Age” of the world… a “Novus Ordo Seclorum.” (551)

For many years, a policy of Masonic apartheid governed the membership policies of the Lodge. While the Prince Hall Grand Lodge admits black members, this enclave is a separate organizational entity from the Scottish Rite and York networks. According to John J. Robinson, black Masons constitute “just a fraction of a fraction of one percent of total membership” (324).

Moreover, from the vantage point of the mainstream Lodge, the practices of black Masons are “spurious, illegitimate imitation” (Shaw and McKenney 29). Even with the significant advances made by the civil rights movement, the Lodge’s systemic racism continued unabated. William J. Whalen explains: “By 1987, decades after most American institutions had accepted racial integration, only four of the forty-nine Grand Lodges could count even one black member in their jurisdictions” (23-25). While lodges in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts eventually did initiate “a handful of blacks,” Whalen contends that “regular Freemasonry remains ninety-nine and forty-four hundredths percent white” (23-25).

Pike himself decried the inclusion of black members in the Lodge: “I took my obligations from white men, not from negroes. When I have to accept negroes as brothers or leave Masonry, I shall leave it” (qutd. in Darrah 319).

Ironically, Pike’s virulent racism did not prevent the 33rd Degree Freemason from collaborating with the more aggressive Indian tribes against the North. Pencak states that the South employed a “pattern of guerilla violence” before and after the rebellion (19). Pike’s military tactics typified this ruthless pattern, as is evidenced by the brutal army he assembled during his tenure as the Confederacy’s Indian Commissioner. Des Griffin recounts the creation of Pike’s army:

The Confederate authorities appointed him Indian Commissioner charged with the most savage tribes to raise an army of warriors. To aid him in the creation of the new army, he was made governor over Indian Territory. When the army, composed of Chickasawa, Comanches, Cherokees, Miami, Osages, Kansas and Choctawa came into being, it was placed under Pike’s command. Among all the tribes he was known as “the faithful pale-face friend and protector.”

Pike and his army of savages participated in an orgy of atrocities under the cloak of legitimate warfare. This barbarism was so terrible that the foreign powers intervened. Representations made by England, threatening intervention in the name of humanity, finally compelled Jefferson Davis to disband his auxiliary Indian troops. (66)

Pike had given the South its own Civil War-era Mai Lai Massacre. The moral outrage of the Confederacy’s foreign allies notwithstanding, Pike’s own unique brand of guerilla violence may have continued after the war through the KKK. Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia details Pike’s role in the formation of the KKK:

In May 1866, a group of returned veterans and other young men of Pulaski County, Tennessee, undertook to organize a social or recreational society, the name kuklos (Greek for band or circle) being suggested, which was promptly converted into Ku Klux, and Klan naturally followed.

About that time, a body of bad Negroes and worse Whites had begun a career of outrage against Southern Whites, and the unusual social conditions prevailing caused Ku Klux Klans to be organized in adjoining states, and the development went into its second stage in which it revenged some wrongs and committed others of its own.

Albert Pike was the Chief Judicial Officer of the KKK (620)

While Freemasonry’s involvement with the KKK is a hotly debated topic among Masonic scholars and conspiracy theorists, the organization’s modus operandi exhibits the same brutal character of Pike’s wartime escapades and targets the very same minority that he so venomously derided. According to researcher Martin Short, groups like the KKK have allowed Freemasonry to achieve political objectives through ostensibly non-Masonic channels:

Three Freemasons created the highly political, racist Ku Klux Klan. They devised its structure and rituals. Its revival in 1915 was led by a new generation of Masons. It seems that wherever Masons have common political aims, but cannot pursue them through Freemasonry, they set up parallel public movements. These bring additional advantages. They attract a mass working-class following for the cause in question without diluting Freemasonry or its middle-class ethos. They also give the Craft a wider but secure recruiting base for its own “non-political” activities. (239)

If Short is correct, then the KKK could qualify as another case of post-Enlightenment Masonic political activism. Moreover, it could represent a continuation of the Confederate agenda, which may have been inspired by Freemasonry.

A consistently reiterated Southern aphorism declares, “Lee surrendered, the South never did.”

With neo-Confederates co-opting the Ron Paul Revolution, the old Southern agenda of balkanization could have found a conduit.

The Robber Barons: Confederates Inside the Gates

Ironically, semiotic intimations of the Confederacy’s survival began to appear throughout the North. Essentially, the very insurgency that the Union had fought to destroy was now infecting it. The continuity of the Southern aristocratic tradition and its transplantation in the North is made painfully evident by the ascendancy of the Robber Barons. Pencak explains:

Two symbols encapsulate the Southernization of Northern society: the White House was the largest single-family home in the country until the Civil War. Beginning on April 3, 1865, the day Richmond fell to Grant, Jay Cooke, who had sold most of the Union’s war bonds in the United States, built his unprecedented fifty-two room, million-dollar mansion “Ogontz” near Philadelphia, parts of which survive within the Penn State Abington Campus. The man who sold most of the war bonds in Europe was J. P. Morgan. By 1900, when the budget of the federal government was under half a billion dollars, Morgan and his partners sat on boards of directors of corporations with $22 billion, or a quarter the wealth of the United States. The South did more than substitute peonage and chain gangs for the individual holdings of the old plantations; the North “won” the “war” by accumulating profits and influence for wealthy entrepreneurs to create a new class of “Robber Barons,” something close to the very aristocracy it found so objectionable in the Old South. (23)

The Robber Barons were a new class of powerbrokers that used their war profits to transform the North:

into an oligarchy where Northern immigrant laborers endured working conditions similar to Southern blacks and were also stereotyped as racially inferior by the best scientific minds of the day–in a nation that in general enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world. (22-23)

Rebels, it seems, have more in common with the “carpetbaggers” than they care to admit. There even seems to be a few Confederates in King George’s court. In 2000, Bush found himself trailing behind John McCain in his attempt to gain the Republican nomination. The future president had lost the New Hampshire primary to McCain and now needed a victory in the South Carolina primary to stay in the race (Blumenthal, no pagination). That’s when lobbyist Richard T. Hines came to the rescue. Hines was able to secure a victory for Bush in the South Carolina primary by sending out 250,000 fliers claiming that McCain was “changing his tune” on the issue of the Confederate flag (no pagination). Bush, according to Hines, was “the [only] major candidate who refused to call the Confederate flag a racist symbol” (no pagination). The strategy worked like a charm. Bush defeated McCain with ease (no pagination).

Hines is not just a brilliant lobbyist; he is also a stalwart neo-Confederate. The lobbyist had been the leader of the Jefferson Davis Camp 305, a “Northern Virginia-based faction of the Southern heritage group the Sons of Confederate Veterans” (no pagination). He was also managing editor of Southern Partisan, a magazine which The Nation’s Max Blumenthal describes as “America’s major neo-secessionist publication” (no pagination). Hines also has connections to the CNP. His friend and business partner Carter Wrenn “helped manage the 1972 U.S. Senate campaign of Jesse Helms” (no pagination). Helms was on the CNP Board of Governors in 1982 and was a member in 1984-85, 1988, 1996, 1998, and 1999 (“The Council for National Policy: Selected Member Biographies,” no pagination).

Hines is also a key fundraiser and donor for the Southern Legal Resource Center (SLRC) in Black Mountain, North Carolina (Blumenthal, no pagination). When high school student Jacqueline Duty was banned from her senior prom in 2003 for wearing a Confederate flag sequin dress, the SLRC took her on as a client and Hines underwrote her case with a donation of $1,000 (no pagination). In August of 2005, Hines donated an additional $1,000 to the SLRC’s general fund (no pagination).

Hines’ ties to SLRC also connect him to white supremacist terrorists. In turn, these terrorists seem to have sponsors within the government. The SLRC was founded by Kirk Lyons, the white supremacist lawyer who successfully represented Louis Beam “against a sedition charge of plotting the overthrow the government by force in order to set up an all-white nation in the Pacific Northwest” (no pagination). According to investigative journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Lyons was responsible for introducing Andreas Strassmeir, a former German infantry officer whose father was a respected member of the Christian Democratic Party, to Elohim City (81). Elohim City is the paramilitary headquarters of the neo-Nazi movement in eastern Oklahoma (35).

In late 1994, Carol Howe, an ATF informant in Elohim City, learned that Strassmeir and Aryan Nation member Dennis Mahon had planned a series of bombings that included the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (60). By February 1995, the ATF was ready to raid Elohim City based on Howe’s information (62-3). This raid may have prevented the horrific events of April 19, 1995. A more tragic story began to take shape, however, on February 22 when Agent Angela Finley, Howe’s handler in the ATF, was informed by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol that the raid could not be conducted because the “FBI also had an ongoing investigation at Elohim City” (63). Several unimpeachable witnesses, including Timothy McVeigh’s friend Katina Lawson, have stated that they saw the convicted OKC bomber with Strassmeir a number of times before the 1995 bombing (85-8). Still, Strassmeir was being protected by the FBI. Yet, Strassmeir was not the only white supremacist tied to Elohim City that had a connection to the government. It would later be revealed in a Tulsa courtroom that Robert Millar, the now deceased founder of Elohim City, was an informant to the FBI as well (43).

Should Lyons be added to the list of Murrah Bombing suspects? On April 18, the day before the bombing, Lyons received a call from McVeigh (85). The white supremacist lawyers claimed that McVeigh never identified himself once during the 15 minute call and merely ranted about the Waco massacre (85). It is interesting to note, however, that Lyons gave Strassmeir sanctuary at his Black Mountain, North Carolina home after the Oklahoma City bombing (85). In the very least, Lyons knows much about terror in America’s heartland than he’s saying.

When Hines isn’t schmoozing with Lyons, he’s helping terrorist groups raise funds. In 1986, for instance, the neo-Confederate lobbyist held a fundraising event at Washington’s Confederate Memorial Hall (Blumenthal, no pagination). Present at the event were “Nicaraguan contras, Afghan-based mujahedeen and members of the Angolan guerrilla group UNITA” (no pagination). Hines seems to be little more than a terrorist sponsor who likes his bomb-throwing country-fried and served up Dixie style.

Hoover’s FBI: Continuing the Southern Tradition

One of the many individuals responsible for the Confederate tradition surviving into the modern era was 33rd Degree Freemason and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. A replica of Hoover’s FBI office sits just a few feet away from Albert Pike’s final resting place in the Scottish Rite’s House of the Temple in Washington D.C. (Chaitkin, “How the KKK got into the U.S. Justice Department,” no pagination). The message expressed by the proximity of these two symbols is quite clear: Pike and Hoover shared the same pedigree. Like Pike, Hoover did everything he could to frustrate minorities in their efforts to gain equality in the United States.

Hoover continued with the Confederate tradition when he started collaborating with Major General Ralph H. Van Deman, the man who is considered “the father of American Intelligence” (Gentry 110). In 1922, Hoover began receiving covert support from Van Deman and his cohort in the Army’s Military Intelligence Division (MID), Brigadier General Marlborough Churchill (110). Basically, Van Deman arranged for Hoover to collect a reserve officer’s commission from MID (110). When Van Deman retired in 1929, he established a private nationwide network of spies, spooks, and informants. The group engaged in all manner of illegal activities, including infiltration and surveillance of labor unions, church groups, and numerous civil rights organizations (110). The lack of oversight appealed to the shady elements within the National Security apparatus and Van Deman was soon receiving files from Army and Navy Intelligence and the FBI (110). One of those trading information with Van Deman was Hoover. Hoover had established this reciprocal relationship with Van Deman without the knowledge of his superiors (110).

One of the most sinister aspects of Van Deman’s private network was its virulent anti-Semitism. The network became instrumental in spreading racist myths that still exist today in the so-called “Patriot” community and among populist pseudo-intellectuals. This includes the myth that communism possesses an indisputable Jewish pedigree. One of the articles in Van Deman’s files was entitled “The Jews as the Apostles of Communism” (Bendersky 220). His military contacts would describe subversives with terms such as “active Jewish communist” and “ex-German Jew-Communist agitator” (221). Informants claimed that “the revolutionary movement is gaining momentum through the energy and force of the Jews” (221). The network also helped spread another sinister piece of disinformation that is still prevalent in the “Patriot” community: that the Jews are responsible for Freemasonry’s revolutionary activity. Van Deman collaborated closely with the Margaret Kerr, secretary of the racist Better America Foundation (222). Van Deman read and subscribed to Kerr writings, which offered “proof of the sinister ties between Jewry, Bolshevism, and Freemasonry” (222). Such ideas are routinely espoused by authors featured at the popular website of alternative radio show host Jeff Rense. Is there any wonder why there is so much confusion and xenophobia among grassroots activists today? Their information seems to emanate from the very criminal infrastructure they claim to be fighting.

Hoover was not disturbed by Van Deman’s anti-Semitism. In 1940, Hoover made Van Deman’s collaboration with the Bureau official (220). In a letter to Van Deman, Hoover wrote:

“I want you to know that the officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation officially and personally have the utmost admiration, respect and friendship for you. We value your cooperation, assistance and counsel most highly.” (220)

While some so-called “patriots” speculate about a hidden Jewish hand behind communism, the evidence seems to suggest that domestic communism was manipulated, to a large degree, by the FBI through a top secret program codenamed SOLO (Kessler 154). In 1954, the Bureau recruited Morris Childs, “the principal deputy to Gus Hall, the head of the American Communist Party” (154). For 27 years, Childs, who was known as Agent 58 to his FBI handlers, reported on the activities of the American Communist Party (154). He was in a perfect position to influence Hall on behalf of his handlers at the Bureau.

Hoover’s FBI did engage in a COINTELPRO operation to disrupt the KKK after Robert Kennedy expressed his desire for Bureau resources to be used to deal with disorder in the south (Gentry 563). Still, Hoover had no problem allowing KKK activities when they helped frustrate the civil rights movement’s efforts. On May 12, 1960, Hoover received a telex from Thomas Jenkins, the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) in Birmingham, Alabama (483). According to the SAC, Birmingham’s public safety director Eugene “Bull” Connor had joined forces with the local KKK in a plan to brutalize “freedom riders” who were taking part in the Congress of Racial Equality’s (CORE) series of sit-ins in the South (483). Connor promised to look the other way while the local KKK beat “freedom riders” that were scheduled to arrive by Greyhound bus on May 14 (483). Furthermore, Connor also arranged for police to arrive on the scene “15 to 20 minutes” after the bus had arrived (483). Hoover did nothing with the SAC’s information (483).

Hoover had also received information of the coming attacks from his plant on the CORE project, informant Simeon Booker. On May 4, Booker told the Bureau that he needed protection because violence was planned for the “freedom riders” (484). Both Jenkins and Booker were ignored.

One of the KKK thugs involved in the May 14 attack was Hoover’s paid informant, Gary Thomas Rowe (484). Rowe was neither charged for his role in the beatings nor was he reprimanded by his Bureau handlers (484). Rowe could have used his veto power in the Eastview 13 Klavern to stop the violence, but he didn’t (484). There was compelling evidence that Rowe had been involved in several acts of racial violence, including the bombing of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Baptist Church and the slaying of civil rights worker Viola Gregg Liuzzo (484). In both of those cases Rowe had failed lie detector tests and the Bureau still took no action against him (484). Hoover even attempted to discredit the witness who incriminated Rowe in the Liuzzo shooting (585). Rowe had also bragged that he had been involved in the 1963 murder of an unidentified black man (484). Director Hoover knew all about Rowe’s criminal background and yet he never took any action against the KKK informant (484). Rowe received at least $22,000 from the Bureau from 1960 to 1965 (484). The Bureau also helped Rowe assume a new identity in California and Georgia (484).

Hoover’s legacy reached into the CNP through Roy Cohn, who author Curt Gentry refers to as a Hoover’s “lackey” (589). According to Gentry, the infamous McCarthy counsel “used every possible occasion” to boast of his “close personal friendship with the FBI director” (435). It is also alleged that Cohn protected Hoover by attempting to work out a deal with Cornelius E. Gallagher, a New Jersey Democrat who had threatened to expose the FBI director’s homosexual relationship with his deputy, Clyde Tolson (589). After the mysterious death of Larry McDonald in 1983, Cohn took temporary control of the Western Goals Foundation (“Western Goals Foundation,” no pagination). According to researcher Barbara Aho, the CNP was assembled from the remnants of Western Goals, which was the domestic intelligence gathering arm of the John Birch Society (no pagination). As was previously stated, CNP participant Gary North had worked on Paul’s congressional staff (Kirchick, no pagination). North and the other bastard children of CNP participant Rousas John Rushdoony represent the neo-Confederate wing of the CNP and they appear to be having an unhealthy influence on Paul’s thinking.

The Secession Agenda

The neo-Confederates are deadly serious about secession. In 2003, the Second Vermont Republic (SVR) appeared on the Northeastern state’s political scene advocating secession from the United States (Beirich, no pagination). The SVR’s political activism seems to be having an effect. In 2006, a University of Vermont poll shown 8 percent of the Vermont population looked favorably on the idea (no pagination). What most Vermont residents may not realize is that SVR has taken on a neo-Confederate partner: the League of the South (no pagination). The SVR’s founder, Thomas H. Naylor, fleshed out his secessionist ideas “under the guidance of former League of the South member and Emory University philosopher Donald Livingston” (no pagination). Naylor has even referred to Livingston as the “philosophical guru of the Second Vermont Republic” (no pagination). Recall that the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a think tank founded by Paul’s former congressional Chief of Staff Lew Rockwell, is connected to the League of the South through the Institute’s senior faculty member Thomas E. Woods Jr. (Kirchick, no pagination).

The League of the South’s neo-Confederate ideas have certainly influenced Naylor. In his 1997 book Downsizing the U.S.A., Naylor referred to the 1861 to 1865 conflict as the “War Between the States” and declared that Lincoln was “arguably the worst” president America ever had the misfortune of having in the White House (no pagination). Naylor also contended that Lincoln “may have also been the father of American internal imperialism” (no pagination). What about the rest of the North? Naylor has told The Independent in the U.K. that the Yankees were fighting “to preserve the union and build an empire” (no pagination). In true Southern tradition, Naylor also attacked desegregation in his 2007 essay entitled “Minority States NOT Minority Rights” (no pagination). Throughout the essay, Naylor criticized the federal government for “ordering me to associate with minorities whether I like it or not” (no pagination).

Will this collection of neo-Confederates and secessionists use the “Ron Paul Revolution” to push their agenda of splintering the United States? If Paul does not jettison his neo-Confederate political baggage, it is certainly possible.

Sources Cited

• Aho, Barbara. “The Council for National Policy.” Watch Unto Prayer
• Baldwin, Chuck. “Me in a Nutshell.” NewsWithViews 2 May 2006
• Beirich, Heidi. “North Meets South: Vermont Secessionists Meet with Racist League of the South.” Southern Poverty Law Center June 2008
• Bendersky, Joseph. The “Jewish Threat”: Anti-Semitic Politics of the U.S. Army. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
• Blumenthal, Max. “Lobbyist for the Lost Cause.” The Nation 16 August 2005
• Chaitkin, Anton. Treason in America. New York: New Benjamin Franklin House, 1985.
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• Coil, Henry Wilson, Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia. New York: Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply Co., 1961.
• “Council for National Policy: Selected Member Biographies.” Seek God
• Cuddy, Dennis. “Planned Slavery.” NewsWithViews 5 February 2007
• Darrah, Delmar Duane. History and Evolution of Freemasonry. Chicago: Charles T. Powers, 1979.
• Epperson, E. Ralph. The Unseen Hand: An Introduction to the Conspiratorial View of History. Arizona: Publius Press, 1985.
• Evans-Pritchard, Ambrose. The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1997.
• Gentry, Curt. J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2001.
• Griffin, Des. Fourth Reich of the Rich. Oregon: Emissary Press, 1995.
• Griffin, G. Edward. The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve. California: American Media, 2000.
• Kessler, Ronald. The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI. New York: McMillan, 2003.
• Kirchick, James. “Angry White Man.” The New Republic 8 January 2008
• Pansler, Karen. “Religious Rebels.” Liberty Advocate
• Paul, Ron. “A New Alliance.” Campaign for Liberty Blog 23 September 2008
• Pencak, William. “The Civil War Did Not Take Place.” The American Journal of Semiotics 17 (2001): 7-29.
• Potok, Mark. “Taliban on the Palouse?” Southern Poverty Law Center Spring 2008
• Robinson, John J. Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry. New York: M. Evans, 1989.
• “Ron Paul, the only candidate who might be friendly to the restoration of the Confederacy.” Official Confederate States of America Government Website 4 January 2008
• Shaw, Jim and Tom C. McKenney. The Deadly Deception. Lafayette: Huntington House, 1988.
• Short, Martin. Inside the Brotherhood. New York: Dorset Press, 1989.
• Smith, William C. “God’s Plan in America,” New Age Magazine, September 1950.
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About the Authors

Phillip D. Collins acted as the editor for The Hidden Face of Terrorism and co-authored the book The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship with his brother Paul Collins. Both books are available at www.amazon.com. Phillip has also written articles for News With Views, Conspiracy Archive, and the Vexilla Regis Journal.

In 1999, Phillip earned an Associate degree of Arts and Science from Clark State Community College. In 2006, he earned a bachelor’s degree with majors in communication studies and liberal studies along with a minor in philosophy from Wright State University.

Phillip worked as a staff writer for a weekly news publication, the Vandalia Drummer, between late 2007 and 2011. During his tenure with the paper, he earned several accolades.

In 2011, he was inducted into the Media Honor Roll by the Ohio School Board Association for his extensive coverage of the Vandalia-Butler School District. That very same year, the Ohio Newspaper Association bestowed an Osman C. Hooper Newspaper Award upon Phillip for Best Photo. In addition, the City of Vandalia officially proclaimed that November 7, 2011 would be known as “Phillip Collins Day.” This honor was bestowed upon Phillip for his tireless coverage of the City and community.

Shortly after bringing his journalism career to a close, Phillip received another Osman C. Hooper Newspaper Award in the category of In-depth Reporting. This award was given to Phillip for his investigative work over the death of U.S. Marine Maria Lauterbach and the resultant Department of Defense reforms concerning sexual assault and rape. The case drew national attention and received TV coverage by major media organs.

Phillip currently works for the Wyoming Department of Corrections, where he earned the distinction of Employee of the Quarter for the third quarter of 2013. Phillip still works as a freelance journalist and is currently collaborating with his brother on a follow-up to The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship.

Paul David Collins is the author of The Hidden Face of Terrorism and the co-author of The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship. In 1999, he earned his Associate of Arts and Science degree from Clark State Community College. In 2006, he received his bachelor’s degree with a major in Liberal Studies and a minor in Political Science from Wright State University. He worked as a professional journalist for roughly four years.

From 2008 to 2012, Paul covered local news for several Times Community News publications, including the Enon Messenger, the New Carlisle Sun, the Tipp City Herald, the Kettering/Oakwood Times, the Beavercreek News Current, the Vandalia Drummer, the Springboro Sun, the Englewood Independent, the Fairborn Daily Herald, and the Xenia Daily Gazette.

Paul also wrote for other local papers, including the Enon Eagle, the New Carlisle News, and the Lusk Herald. In addition to his work in the realm of mainstream, Paul has published several articles concerning the topics of deep politics and elite deviancy. Those articles have appeared in Terry Melanson’s online Conspiracy Archive, Paranoia magazine, Vexilla Regis Journal, and Nexus magazine. He currently works as a correctional officer with the Wyoming Department of Corrections.