making Lincoln weep
http://cosmicamerica.com/?p=1074
This painfully simplistic analysis of Civil War memory rotating solely along a racial axis does Time‘s readers a disservice. Why are we still fighting the Civil War? Because the nation has never moved beyond the sectionalism of the 19th century. Sure – some have glossed a few things over here and there. But there remains a deep-seated sectional animosity that runs through most nationalistic currents evolved since 1865.
http://lsrebellion.blogspot.com/2011/04/two-civil-wars.html
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Two "Civil Wars"Here in the South, cannon fire rumbles across Charleston Bay to commemorate the firing on Fort Sumter, while "secession balls" with live music attract colorful crowds, with men dressed in Confederate officers' crisp, grey uniforms and the ladies decked out in hoop skirts. Compare the South's exuberance about recalling the WBTS to the North's comparative shrug:
Massachusetts, a state that sent more than 150,000 men to battle and was home to some of the nation's most radical abolitionists, created a Civil War commemoration commission just earlier this month. Aging monuments stand unattended, sometimes even vandalized. Sites of major historical events related to the war remain largely unknown and often compete with the more regionally popular American Revolution attractions.
Meanwhile, states like Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina and Missouri not only established commissions months, if not years ago, but also have ambitious plans for remembrance around well-known tourist sites and events. In South Carolina, for example, 300 Civil War re-enactors participated last week in well-organized staged battles to mark the beginning of the war.
Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group open to male descendants of veterans who served in the Confederate armed forces, boast 30,000 members across the Old South.
The Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War has 6,000 members.
Why the difference? You'd think the military victors would be whooping it up. Why aren't they?
Simple: More people now realize the South was right -- including many up North.
The word is out. That said, it's still true that far too many Americans, North and South, get their opinions spoon-fed to them from their handlers. They accept the regime's infantile fantasy that one day in 1861, the moral folks in the North realized their degenerate Southern neighbors weren't living up to the nation's founding principle of absolute equality, which required them to go liberate black slaves. So for the first and only time in human history, a bloody war was fought for purely altruistic motives, rather than for money and power.
Southerners, on the other hand, not only agree with the majority that the WBTS remains relevant in today's political climate, but also stubbornly point out that Mr. Lincoln's War was just another centralizing, aggressive war, one waged not to free the slaves, but for the enrichment of the North's economic elite. Even many liberals now agree. Let me list just a couple of recent examples. First, here's Matt Yglesias at the very liberal Think Progress site:
The basic story here would be something like northern manufacturing interests wanted to keep the southern client base behind the US tariff wall in order to maintain privileged access to the market rather than compete on a level playing field with British goods.
And here's Kirkpatrick Sale, a gifted writer with impeccable liberal credentials, essentially shouting "Amen!" to Don and Ron Kennedy's view of the war:
The great myth that the Union was fighting for a high moral cause, the elimination of chattel slavery and freedom for four million oppressed people torn from Africa, was ultimately a very convenient falsehood that served Northern ends later on in the war, particularly in distorting world opinion so that neither England nor France, though they might have had some allegiance to the cause of independence, were able to take the side of the Confederacy. ...
What the South wanted was to continue an economic system that it had inherited for 200 years, that had been fostered and maintained by Northern interests (particularly New England shippers and textile barons) that entire time, that had been the foundation of the United States economy both North and South from the beginning of the nation, and that was a way of life now so entrenched no one knew how to alter or ameliorate it even if, like quite a few, they wished to do so.
Lincoln and his war provide the fables the Empire uses to justify its present-day policies of foreign and domestic interventionism. Those policies are just dandy for the bloated and uncaring ruling elite, from the race hustlers, to the Wall Street thieves, to the armaments manufacturers. However, we taxpayers now face a wrecked economy, growing insecurity, and fading liberty as a direct result of those policies.
Step one in turning things around is to reject our handlers' propaganda.
all a reverberation of what started here
A piece forward to me below...........
Lest We Forget - April 19, 1775
It's easy in the hustle and bustle of everyday life to forget things that are important - and one day in American history - you can argue it is THE most important day - should never be forgotten.
It's the day our fellow Americans took up arms to win liberty for all of us.
April 19, 1775. A Wednesday, back then.
It's hard for us moderns to understand how tough it was, or to understand the magnitude of what they did.
Contrary to the common, somewhat vague image of illiterate farmers caught up in the emotions of the moment and heading out to take potshots at the redcoats, the reality of it was far different.
In 1774 by order of the English Parliament the port of Boston was closed until damages for the Boston Tea Party were paid. [ remember it was Lincoln's blockade of Southern ports - even of those that then had not yet left the union that caused the upper South to secede in From April 1861 to November of that year]
Closed, can you imagine it? The busiest port in the colonies, everyone out of work, people nearly starving. The city kept alive by donations of food from the other colonies.
And yet, Americans were determined not to pay those damages. So English troops arrived, as the British took over local government to ensure compliance.
By April 1775, tensions were high, with the King and Parliament pressuring British General Gage to take action.
On the night of April 18, 1775 - a Tuesday - Gage dispatched ten companies of Light Infantry and Grenadiers on a rapid expedition to Concord to ferret out military stockpiles he suspected were there.
The 'embattled farmers' found out beforehand, and took action. Paul Revere rode, and he did not ride randomly. Every house at which he stopped saw another rider taking off in a different direction to sound the alarm.
By dawn, as the British redcoat column was approaching Lexington (five miles short of Concord), historians have estimated 14,000 Americans were converging on them from miles around.
Not a cell phone among them. Not one on the internet. Not even a single telephone.
Yet in a few hours, 14,000 trained men were marching through the night.
Think you, with your cell phone and email, could do it today?
Even now, it'd a remarkable accomplishment - doubtless impossible to repeat today. To get that many people turned out, on short notice, in the middle of the night.
Maybe they cared about freedom, do you think?
It almost makes you wonder: do you think we care as much about freedom, today? Enough to get out of the bed in the middle of the night, and fast-march 15, 18, or 20 miles to face British lead and steel? With a single-shot, muzzle-loading musket?
Maybe you begin to understand the magnitude of the debt we owe the Founders.
It sure looks, from the perspective of the 21st century, like a mighty accomplishment, something we couldn't do again, today.
But they did it. They did not draw back. They did not shirk. They did not shrink from the call.
And for that, we - each of us - owe them thanks.
By now, we all know the story of Capt. John Parker and his 77 militiamen who stood waiting on Lexington Green. If he indeed said "If they mean to have a war, let them have it here!" he said inspiring words.
But the historical facts are that the British fired a sudden volley, killing 8 Americans and wounding another 8 (a twenty-percent casualty rate), whereas the few shots our boys got off in return nicked the leg of a redcoat private and grazed a horse. Considering the American marksmanship displayed later throughout the day, it suggests the British actually surprised them - and indeed some thought the Brits were firing blanks to scare them, until the first musket balls whistled by.
Oddly enough, the encounter at Lexington did not start the War.
Nor did the later encounter at the North Bridge.
The North Bridge at Concord is an example of the 'fog of war' - the colonists, uncertain of what happened at Lexington, retreated before the Brits as they approached Concord, eventually winding up north of the river at their militia training ground on Punkatasset Hill. This allowed the Brits to occupy and search the town, recovering items that looked 'military', which they piled up and set on fire. It was the sight of the column of smoke above the trees that alarmed our guys - as one said - "are we going to stand by idly, while they burn our houses?" - setting the stage for the march to the North Bridge, where they were fired upon by three British companies posted there. To the cry of "Fire, fellow soldiers, for God's sake, fire! - fire as fast as you can!" their training and practice in marksmanship broke the British, who fled to Concord. And the militia crossed the North Bridge.
It was a remarkable moment in American history. That April morning was the first time Americans were ordered to fire on British troops. And the first time they killed the King's soldiers.
Even now, the War did not break out. The American militia, having defended itself successfully after being fired upon, and maybe realizing what they had done by firing on the King's troops - it must be a terrific blow to rise out of bed a citizen and have the sun set on you as a traitor - took up positions behind a nearby wall.
Time was rapidly approaching noon, and the British began a hasty retreat back toward Boston - and Lexington. Just outside Concord, as the end of the column was crossing a bridge at a place called Merriam's Corner (where the road made a sharp turn), the British rear guard turned and fired a volley at Americans following them. At that, militia units concealed on the north side of the road opened fire on the red-clad column to protect and support their brethren. At that point, it became a shooting war, and the 18-mile road back to Boston taken by the redcoats has ever since been known as Battle Road.
Did the boys from Lexington get a second chance? You bet.
Did the British nearly get caught in a trap? You bet.
Was it a 'close-run' thing for General Gage's men? You bet.
If to forget is to show disrespect, let's not forget what they did that day.
It has truly been said that April 19, 1775 was "the Day Marksmanship met History, and Liberty was born".
Don't let the memory of their deeds be forgotten. Read this to your kids - or let them read it for themselves.
The founders knew the price they paid for liberty. They hoped their posterity would remember that price, and never let liberty go.
In fact, John Adams, our second president, left us a message. I paraphrase: "Posterity, you will never know the price my generation paid for your freedom...
"If you ever forget - if you ever forget - we'll be sorry we ever made the effort."
Have Americans forgot?
I hope not.
Go to the library. There you'll find books devoted to that first day of the American Revolution. The first day in history where a people stood up to tyranny and won their freedom on the battlefield. You'll read how close we came to capturing the entire British column. You'll read how propaganda was effectively used by American liberty-lovers to advance the cause of Liberty.
You'll read about a day of contrasts - the elation of victory, the mourning for dead and wounded comrades, the exhaustion of battle, the misery of burning homes and lost relatives, of temporary graves by the roadside, of whole towns in flight.
It all happened. It was real. It was the beginning of the liberty you inherited, which you hardly think about, the liberty you so take for granted.
Those guys who didn't take it for granted, who fought for liberty, who turned out to the sound of midnight alarm bells - they deserve better than that.
Take a minute, and think about them this April 19.
April 19th, the day the Founders took on the world's mightiest army - with muzzle-loading firearms.
They did it for you.
To remember them, is the least we can do. To remember them, is to honor them. It is little enough to ask...
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