[Peace-discuss] [Peace] 4th of July: "150 Years of Local Heroes"

[Stuart Levy]

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 03:38:42PM -0500, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> I'm afraid Laurie's right about Lincoln; it took some substantial effort 
> (and selective quotation) to include him in an anti-war float last year.


Hey, nobody's right all the time.  That's certainly true of many people
mentioned in John Nichols' "Against the Beast", the collection of
American anti-imperialist writings that I mentioned on Sun.  Including
William Jennings Bryan, whom I hope we'll feature on a poster.
(I'll make one unless someone else volunteers.)

If we use an ideological sieve so fine that only people whom we ("we")
entirely agree with can squeeze through, we miss most of what's good in the world.


> It's not much problem to find local heroes of the civil rights movement; 
> it's more trouble perhaps to find local heroes of the anti-war movement.
>
> At the AWARE meeting last night, someone mentioned the pacifist Dorothy Day 
> (a student at UIUC). Others suggested we interpret "local" widely enough to
> include Jane Addams, William Jennings Bryan, Eugene Debs, etc.
>
> I think it would be wise not to include any living figures, not only to 
> help recover local anti-war history, but also to avoid current debates over what
> constitutes an anti-war position. --CGE

Yes.

>
> On 5/10/10 12:37 PM, Laurie Solomon wrote:
>> Some how Stuart seems to think that Lincoln was anti-war AND anti-racist;
>> this is a questionable assumption and assertion at best.

Laurie, I wouldn't want to go that far -- but Lincoln did say some things well,
and worth remembering, that support our cause.

>> Aside from people
>> like John Lee Johnson and others that I have mentioned in a previous post,
>> there is Vernon L. Barkstall.

I do very much like the idea of remembering local C-U civil-rights activists.
Wonder whether CUCPJ would like to do that too.    I don't think they've tried
to do a 4th of July thing in past years, but this might be a good time to
be present.

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