[Peace-discuss] the stinkin' lincoln legacy

[C. G. Estabrook]

The "tendency to blend blend different situations together" is called history, 
as distinguished from chronicles. I actually meant to speak up for the "weather 
man," who "blends" by comparison and contrast.

Perhaps you could make distinctions among the items on my list and tell us which 
are worth discussing -- and for which ones the discussion is "pointless"?  (And 
perhaps, how you made the distinctions...)

The Civil War -- or one highly inaccurate interpretation of it -- is a powerful 
justificatory myth for US foreign policy.  Both Bush and Obama have compared 
themselves to Lincoln, and they're hardly alone among US presidents. We have to 
be able to say how and why they're talking nonsense.

The important passage Wayne quoted says accurately, "It is time that Americans 
learn the truth about the real reasons behind our wars" -- and that there are 
connections, even among "different situations."  Refusing to talk about it means 
the terrorists win. --CGE


Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> You seem unable to make distinctions. I was alluding to the situation that
> Lincoln faced. Each example of yours entertains a different discussion.
> Hiroshima- Nagasaki was a question of how to end the war, how many lives to
> be saved. There are substantive arguments on that question. Terrorism
> (Reagan) or not is another question quite different from Lincoln's problems.
> The number of feasible, rational, actions open in each case differs. The
> tendency to blend different situations together makes for an intellectual
> mush, and the poetry is of no help.
> 
> --mkb
> 
> 
> On May 21, 2009, at 3:53 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> Yeah, it's as pointless as discussing what FDR should have done in 1933,
>> Truman in 1945, Kennedy in 1962, Reagan in Iran-Contra, Bush in 2003, or 
>> Obama last month.  Don't you see it's time to move on?
>> 
>> Or, as the poet puts it,
>> 
>> 	Better stay away from those 
 >> 	That carry around a fire hose
 >> 	Keep a clean nose
>> 	Watch the plain clothes 
>> 	You don't need a weather man 
 >> 	To know which way the wind blows...
>> 
>> 	Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>>> I find all this discussion about what might have been rather silly. No
>>> one knows what the future might have been, in the short or thelong run, 
>>> if other actions/policies had been taken before or after Fort Sumter.
>>> It's what's called idle speculation, that leads to nowhere. --mkb
>>> 	On May 21, 2009, at 3:07 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>> Options other than war were available to Lincoln, and he was aware of
>>>> them. Advice came from the most distinguished American military figure
>>>> of the day, Gen. Winfield Scott (1786-1866). He served on active duty
>>>> as a general longer than any other man in American history and may have
>>>> been the ablest American commander of his time; he devised the Anaconda
>>>> Plan that would be used to defeat the Confederacy. In a letter
>>>> addressed to  Governor Seward (leading Republican and Lincoln's 
>>>> Secretary of State) -- and obviously meant for Lincoln's eyes -- on the
>>>> day preceding Lincoln's inauguration (March 3, 1861), Scott suggested 
>>>> that the president had four possible courses of action: [1] adopt the
>>>> Crittenden Compromise (which restored the Missouri Compromise line:
>>>> slavery would be prohibited north of the 36° 30′ parallel and 
>>>> guaranteed south of it); [2] collect duties outside the ports of
>>>> seceding States or blockade them; [3] conquer those States at the end
>>>> of a long, expensive, and desolating war, and to no good purpose; or, 
>>>> [4] say to the seceded States, "Wayward sisters, depart in peace!" 
>>>> Scott clearly preferred the forth.  In retrospect, it probably would 
>>>> have been best. (For more on why that would have been the case, see the
>>>> recent book by William Marvel I mentioned the other day.) --CGE
>>>> 	John W. wrote:
>>>>> ... I'm curious what you would have done  as President in 1861, Wayne.
>>>>> Simply let the South secede? 
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------