[Peace-discuss] July 4 parade

[John W.]

On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 12:53 AM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>wrote:

[At last Sunday's meeting we mentioned this year's "Champaign County Freedom
> Celebration" <http://www.july4th.net/>.  AWARE has a tradition of
> excellent entries in the July 4 parade -- none better than last year's
> splendid effort. People in AWARE have worked hard over the years to combat
> the jingoistic assumptions of the parades' themes.  This year's theme is
> (predictably) "The Lasting Legacy of Lincoln."  So I suggest we take the
> bull (and the alliteration) by the horns and produce something like last
> year's rolling billboards. Here's a first draft; all the quotes are
> Lincoln's.  --CGE]


It's a pity that A. Lincoln didn't speak short, pithy, clever aphorisms or
slogans that would fit on a sign.  Like "No justice, no peace," or "Live
free or die," or "The only good capitalist is a dead capitalist."

I've attempted to paraphrase a few of the quotes below to make them more
parade-worthy, but I don't know if I've done a very good job.




>        THE ANTI-WAR ANTI-RACISM EFFORT REMEMBERS
>        LESSONS FROM LINCOLN ON WAR AND WORK
>
>        ************************
>
>    * Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall
> deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever
> he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow
> him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his
> power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose.


"Pre-emptive" war ain't cool.



>    * Such will be a great lesson of peace: teaching men that what they
> cannot take by election, neither can they take it by war; teaching all the
> folly of being the beginners of a war.


Starting a war is folly.
War!  What is it good for?  Absolutely nothing!



>    * Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and,
> under a just God, can not long retain it.


Abolish prisons!



>    * The severest justice may not always be the best policy.
>
>    * No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's
> consent.
>
>    * It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability,
> preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could
> not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might
> take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power.
>
>    * With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the
> right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work
> we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have
> borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may
> achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all
> nations.


Let's finish this war in a firm and loving way, then heal the nation's
wounds.



>        ************************
>
>    * These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece
> the people, and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we
> are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel.
>
>    * Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the
> fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.
> Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher
> consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as
> any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will
> be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits.


All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.



>    * The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the
> American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for
> liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With
> some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with
> himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many
> mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of
> other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible
> things, called by the same name — liberty. And it follows that each of the
> things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and
> incompatible names — liberty and tyranny.


Everyone bandies about the word "liberty", but all they ever really mean is
"freedom for me to do whatever I want".



>    * We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.
>
>    * We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We
> have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have
> grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But
> we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved
> us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have
> vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these
> blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
> Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to
> feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to
> the God that made us!


God has been good to us because He is good, but in our foolishness we think
it is because WE are good.



>    * This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit
> it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can
> exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary
> right to dismember or overthrow it.


If you don't like the government you can always try revolution, but just
remember what happens to you if you lose.  No matter where you roam, might
still makes right.  Always has, always will.



>    * Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice
> of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?


Forget what I said above.  The people are the ultimate repository of
justice, not God.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20090519/3dd1bac8/attachment.html