Better late than never

Once again, little Abigail Williams is running round Salem Village and calling people “racist.” We are acting on emotion, not logic. Stalin and Hitler tore down monuments to those who represent something other than their philosophy.

Every country in the world has had slavery. The Civil War was fought because Congress was overtaxing Southern States (who had the most money. Lincoln was a centralist and wanted all decisions to come out of Washington, thus depriving the individual states of the right to govern themselves.

Landrieu and the City Council say they want to remove the Confederate statues because they are offensive to Black people. This is only an excuse. It is not the reason. The real reason is 1984 by George Orwell. Look at how much is being done away with on the excuse that is it “offensive.” When do you think it will stop?

It is not going to stop. It will keep growing and destroying our freedoms, taking away everything we like and everything we have until all that’s left is “1984” and “Fahrenheit 451,” and I don’t mean the books. They will also be forgotten because anyone who reads these books will realize the mess we’re getting ourselves into!

It wasn’t until 1863 that slavery came into the equation. The war was not going very well for the North. Lincoln needed to find a way to get more support from the people. He called a special session of his cabinet. They stayed up all night trying to think of something. Finally, one of the cabinet members suggested that the war was being fought to free the slaves. It was a good move and after 150, we are being taught that the Civil War was all about slavery. Tearing down the Southern States is not the solution.

There was a similar instance recently. I forget the name of the town, but nooses were hung in the tree in the schoolyard. Do you remember how they dealt with the problem? They cut the tree down! Brilliant!

All of this reminds me of the European folktale of a man who came into a village where there was such commotion and excitement. Everyone was running around in panic. The man asked what was wrong and a villager said that the moon had fallen out of the sky and fell into the pond. People were casting nets and racing to the pond to try to get the moon out. The Mayor and the village elders were in counsel to figure out a way to get the moon back up in the sky.

The man told the villagers that the moon was still up in the sky and the image on the pond was just a reflection. No one listened to him. They just kept diving into the pond to get the moon.

Everyone, not just Black people, needs to stop calling everything they don’t like “racist” and concentrate on the real problem of today. We all have common enemies, those enemies are “1984” and “Fahrenheit 451.” They are the ones that need to be stopped.

– Jeff Hockenheimer

This article originally published in the October 26, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.