[Peace-discuss] 4th of July letter to Michael Steele (by "Judy Morris")

[C. G. Estabrook]

An excellent exhortation - and essentially correct, I'd say. We could quibble 
over the meaning of "progressive" - is it merely a propaganda term or does it 
have some content? - but it's certainly true that the presidents named were 
Democrats. (See Dennis Perrin's little book, "Savage Mules: The Democrats and 
Endless War.")

I'd add that it was John Kennedy (a Democrat) who got us into the Vietnam War.

Of course it was a Republican president who was responsible for the most 
American deaths in a war (to date).  Some 620,000 soldiers died in the Civil War 
- perhaps almost as many wounded, and an equal number of civilians (?).


On 7/4/10 12:08 PM, E.Wayne Johnson wrote:
> Interesting read aside from the jab at "progressives".  Perhaps she is a bit
> careless. Certainly the Democrat party was the historical war party.
>
> My July 4th Letter to Michael Steele
> Today at 12:35am
> Dear Mr. Steele:
>
> I applaud your extraordinary courage in thinking the unthinkable and speaking
> the unspeakable relative to the futility of the war in Afghanistan. Many
> have left the GOP because of its viral neocon commitment to endless and
> murderous foreign interventions. I no longer vote Republican but 3rd party.
>
> History teaches us that it was the progressives and the Democrats who were
> addicted to wars of empire. Democrat Woodrow Wilson got us into WW I,
> Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt got us into WW II, Democrat Harry Truman got
> us into the Korean War, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson got us into the Vietnam
> War and Democrat Bill Clinton got us into the Balkan Wars. According to
> www.abmc.gov, 35,473 Americans are dead/missing from WW I, 405,399 Americans
> are dead from WW II, 54,246 Americans are dead from the Korean War and 58,178
> Americans are dead from the Vietnam War. That’s a grand total of 553,296 dead
> Americans from Democratic wars.
>
> At a trillion bucks a year, our insane foreign policy has bankrupted the
> nation, destroyed our economy, assaulted our civil liberties, trashed the
> Constitution and has churned a once peaceful and prosperous Pax Americana
> into Pox Americana. It’s definitely time to focus the foreign policy debate
> on legitimate national defense needs vs. non-stop interventionism. The
> American people are sick to death of the wars and it’s time for the
> Republican Party to get back to its historical roots of peace by following
> the foreign policy advice of our founders and rejecting war unless
> constitutionally declared by Congress.
>
> I would hope that you grow even more courageous and condemn all of our
> interventions and wars as offensive to our Constitution, inconsistent with
> the principles of liberty and morally repugnant. America is desperate for
> political leadership that will restore Pax Americana, Liberty and Prosperity.
> It’s July 4th and our founders who declared “we mutually pledge to each other
> our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor” must be rolling over in their
> graves at the horrors inflicted upon a once free and prospering people by
> ignoble men and women with no honor and who mockingly spat upon all that was
> sacrificed to create the greatest free nation in all of human existence.