[Peace-discuss] Eighteenth of April

[C. G. Estabrook]

Sure.  I'm not a pacifist - only an extreme optimist would assume that there
aren't going to be occasions when evil has to be resisted by force and even
organized violence.  Augustine pointed out that the Christian commitment to
non-retaliation - turning the other cheek - couldn't justify allowing the weak
to be attacked when you could prevent it, even if that meant using force.

The just war tradition is a sound bit of philosophy and politics, even though
it's perverted by liars and murders. (Abusus not tollit usum - I know you like
the classical tags.)  See Obama's Nobel prize speech.  --CGE

On 4/19/10 12:27 PM, John W. wrote:
> I wonder, Carl, if there are ANY circumstances under which you would support
> armed insurrection against tyranny.  And by "support" I don't mean, of
> course, actual fighting, but merely acceding to it intellectually.
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 12:07 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu
> <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>> wrote:
>
> Yes, Longfellow's poem was a conscious act of pro-war propaganda in 1860
> <http://www.danagioia.net/essays/elongfellow.htm>.  It supports not one but
> two wars - armed resistance to the British in 1775 and the armed attack on
> the secessionist states in 1860 - that I would not have supported. But it's
> still a good poem and considering it may actually challenge currently
> politically potent historical myths.
>
> There's a good book about Revere's ride by David Hackett Fischer from about
> 15 years ago (and he mentions Prince Estabrook, the first colonial militiaman
> wounded in Revolutionary War).  --CGE
>
> On 4/18/10 4:31 PM, Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>
> So through the night rode Paul Revere;= And so through the night went his cry
> of alarm To every Middlesex village and farm,--- A cry of defiance, and not
> of fear, A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, And a word that shall
> echo for evermore! For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, Through all our
> history, to the last, In the hour of darkness and peril and need, The people
> will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, And the
> midnight message of Paul Revere.
>
> Longfellow wrote this on April 19, 1860, with forebodings of a Civil War?
> Revere's ride is said to be on April 18, 1775.
>
>
> On Apr 18, 2010, at 1:19 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>
> A hurry of hoofs in a village street, A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the
> dark, And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark Struck out by a
> steed flying fearless and fleet; That was all! And yet, through the gloom and
> the light, The fate of a nation was riding that night; And the spark struck
> out by that steed, in his flight, Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
> He has left the village and mounted the steep, And beneath him, tranquil and
> broad and deep, Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; And under the alders
> that skirt its edge, Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, Is heard
> the tramp of his steed as he rides...
>

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