[Peace-discuss] July 4 parade

Wed May 20 12:55:32 CDT 2009

Our job is to disabuse them of that notion.

LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:
> For sure; but some may not lend themselves to such editing without losing 
> their meaning and power.  Others might be able to stand on their own without 
> any such editing.
> 
> However, I think, as has been pointed out by John W, many of the emotive code
> words (such as "freedom," "justice," "liberty," etc.) are ambiguous with
> multiple meanings and/or significances and therefore open to interpretation
> by the reader who given the audience for this parade may not be the
> interpretation that AWARE wants to send out.  For example,
> 
> <"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.">
> 
> I would regretfully say that most of the hometown audience would agree and 
> then go on to say that it was the perpetrators of 9/11 who really started the
> war and we were merely defending ourselves.
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: C. G. Estabrook
> [mailto:galliher at illinois.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 8:52 AM To:
> LAURIE SOLOMON Cc: 'Peace-discuss' Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] July 4 parade
> 
> 
> Judicious editing would be required.
> 
> 
> LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:
>> Obviously some of these are far too long for a slogan on a float that
> would
>> be of readable size and be able to be read in a very short time period
> while
>> the float passes by - let alone be short enough so that people can read 
>> several different quotes on the float.
>> 
>> -----Original Message----- From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net 
>> [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G. 
>> Estabrook Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 12:53 AM To: Peace-discuss Subject: 
>> [Peace-discuss] July 4 parade
>> 
>> [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]
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 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.
>> 
>> * 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.
>> 
>> * Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and,
>> 
>> under a just God, can not long retain it.
>> 
>> * 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.
>> 
>> ************************
>> 
>> * 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.
>> 
>> * 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.
>> 
>> * 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!
>> 
>> * 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.
>> 
>> * 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?
>> 
>> ###
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list 
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net 
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss