[Peace-discuss] July 4 parade

[C. G. Estabrook]

An instance of the rule that we on "News from Neptune" have called for some time 
"The Incompleteness Principle": viz., "No one can be wrong all the time"...

Growing up in Virginia, we had Robert Edward Lee's birthday as a school holiday. 
  There were also at least occasionally some discussions of the principles 
involved in what we were taught to call "The War Between the States." --CGE


E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
> "The consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be
> aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of the
> ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it."
> 
> - Robert E. Lee, 1866
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 5/20/2009 8:41 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>> An excellent recent study, by an established historian, that supports some
>> of these charges is "Mr. Lincoln Goes to War" (2006) by William Marvel.
>> Marvel finds Lincoln's course of action in 1861 "destructive and
>> unimaginative."  (His new book, which I haven't seen, is "Lincoln's Darkest
>> Year: The War in 1862.")
>> 
>> I commented on "The Lincoln Cult" on the News from Neptune website: "The
>> Lincoln birthday celebrations seem to have included little attempt to learn
>>  from the past. Lincoln is celebrated — by few more than the current 
>> president, who insists upon a resemblance — but there’s little critique of
>> the devastation over which Lincoln presided. The end of chattel slavery is
>> taken to be a retrospective justification of his launching of the war. (The
>> actual economic and social position of American slaves and their families
>> in the years after the Civil War is less attended to.)..."
>> <http://newsfromneptune.com/>.
>> 
>> I'm not sure that the best way to speak against the current war in the 
>> local July 4th parade -- with its theme of "The Lasting Legacy of Lincoln"
>> -- is to attack that legacy as a source of the imperial presidency and
>> later unjustified wars.  But it might be.  --CGE
>> 
>> E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
>>> For those who don't know me, I had better clarify that I do not subscribe
>>> to Lincoln's racist notions. I send this as clarification that "Honest
>>> Abe", as they called him, was motivated by political expediencies not
>>> egalitarian principles.
>>> 
>>> It has been suggested that Lincoln should have been Prosecuted as a War
>>> Criminal rather that Idolized as some sort of Hero.
>>> 
>>> Some have gone so far as to enumerate the accounts against Lincoln---
>>> 
>>> * Violation of the Constitution and his oath of office by invading and
>>> waging war against states that had legally and democratically withdrawn
>>> their consent from his government, inaugurating one of the cruelest wars
>>> in recent history. * Subverting the duly constituted governments of
>>> states that had not left the Union, thereby subverting their
>>> constitutional right to "republican form of government." * Raising troops
>>> without the approval of Congress and expending funds without
>>> appropriation. * Suspending the writ of habeas corpus and interfering
>>> with the press without due process, imprisoning thousands of citizens 
>>> without charge or trial, and closing courts by military force where no
>>> hostilities were occurring. * Corrupting the currency by manipulations
>>> and paper swindles unheard of in previous US history. * Fraud and
>>> corruption by appointees and contractors with his knowledge and
>>> connivance. * Continuing the war by raising ever-larger bodies of troops
>>> by conscription and hiring of foreign mercenaries and refusing to 
>>> negotiate in good faith for an end to hostilities. * Confiscation of
>>> millions of dollars of property by his agents in the South, especially
>>> cotton, without legal proceedings. * Waging war against women and
>>> children and civilian property as the matter of policy
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 5/20/2009 6:46 AM, E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
>>>> Another Lincoln quote:
>>>> 
>>>> /“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of 
>>>> bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white
>>>> and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making
>>>> voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor
>>>> to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this
>>>> that there is a physical difference between the white and black races
>>>> which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on
>>>> terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so
>>>> live, while they do remain together there must be the position of
>>>> superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of
>>>> having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon
>>>> this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have
>>>> the superior position the Negro should be denied everything."
>>>> 
>>>> /-  Charleston IL September 18, 1858
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On 5/19/2009 12:17 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>>> The problem is that he probably didn't say it...
>>>>> 
>>>>> Karen Medina wrote:
>>>>>> "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the 
>>>>>> people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all
>>>>>> of the time." Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)
>>