I'm Back

I'm of mixed mind on travel. I enjoy going to new places (or old places again) and seeing old friends. This was the case of this trip that took me to Chicago for the past few days. A grad school bud and his lovely wife put me up (and put up with me) the entire time I was there. But have you ever gone someplace and been really unprepared? That was the case here. It was frigging cold in Chicago, and of course I didn't bring any cold weather clothes with me from sunny Oklahoma. Temp was in the low 40s with wind of varying speeds for most of the time I was there. This is lower than the average. Wiped out ball games for me in both Wrigley and Cellular Park. The day we were supposed to go to Wrigley, it was also raining, raining hard enough that the ball game was canceled after the seventh inning.

And you all have heard me grouse about airlines and airports. It pains me to report that the experience of both has not improved. And, I'm gonna have to take two more plane trips within the next few weeks. A family thing in Denver and a Civil War history thing in Louisiana. Anyway, I actually missed the blog while I was on the road. So I'm back, but alas, I doubt if I'm any wiser than when I left.

Mardy Bum

These are the Arctic Monkeys. Geez, I just keep finding these wonderful groups. I'm so glad I never outgrew this music! Enjoy.

This just the song. If you go to YouTube you can find a bunch of live performances of this song, but all that I checked out had the audience singing . . . I thought you'd rather the album version.

Beating My Drum

 

The same drum I've been beating for a long, long time. You can play this for laughs--Maher is definitely funny--or you can weep, but any percentage of people in this country who think the sun revolves around the Earth (actually 18%) or don't know what country we fought the American Revolution against . . . well, that is just beyond the pale. Prepare (once again) to be astonished at what a lot of Americans don't know or have the foggiest idea about.

Whoops! I Forgot

A friend of mine sent me this quote from a piece called "Wild West Justice" in the most excellent CounterPunch blog. It's part of a larger lament about the sickening reaction of many Americans to bin Laden's death. I remember all of the things this writer, Ramzi Kysia, writes about. This national amnesia about the awful things the USA has done in the name of freedom and democracy is yet another reflection of how little people really know about their country's history. Read the whole piece. Worth it.  I think a large part of our sickness comes from how we view our own history. We remember the Alamo, but forget Polk's War. We remember Pearl Harbor, but forget Hiroshima. We remember September 11th, 2001, but forget September 11th, 1973 [CIA-instigated overthrow of Allende government in Chile.]

I remember September 1st, 1983, when in the dead of night the Soviets shot down KAL 007, an off-course, Korean jetliner with American citizens on board that had strayed into Soviet airspace. Americans were practically frothing at the mouth in their anger at the Soviets and their desire for blood-vengeance. But I also remember July 3rd, 1988, when in broad daylight Captain William Rogers, of the U.S.S. Vincennes, shot down Iran Air 655, killing 290 innocent Iranians. Captain Rogers got promoted. Americans were actually angry with Iran, for getting upset, and genuinely seemed unable to understand why Iranians were upset.

Out of Pocket

Hey, faithful readers. I'm going out of town to give those talks I've been talking about. I leave Wednesday and will be back next Tuesday. I've front-loaded a couple of entries for later in the week and I might even blog some from up north. Who knows? Anyway, keep the faith. I'll see y'all soon.

An Ocean of Real Blood

Confederate dead at Sharpsburg MD, September 1862

Talking about Little Aleck yesterday and all this preparation I've been doing has gotten me thinking about "the Wah," as they put it down South. Although the days are gone down there when "the Wah" referred only to the Civil War, with the sesquicentennial upon us, whether we really like it or not, we're going to be exposed to a lot of Civil War material over the next four years. One of the best things currently going is the "Disunion" series running daily in the New York Times. First rate articles by first rate people who know what they're talking about. Many, but not all of the writers, historians of the period.

Speaking of which, I've also just read a rather longish piece in Salon by Glenn W. Lafantasie, a working Civil War scholar. You might find it interesting. I don't know. It covers a lot of ground. He doesn't have much use for the so-called "reenactors," those (crazed, at least in my opinion) people who dress up as Union or Confederate troops and shoot blanks at each other and fire blank cannons at each other reenacting battles that happened 150 years ago. Basically, he objects to the prettification of what by any understanding was a horribly ugly, bloody, and tragic time in our history. As he puts it, a "war that should, by all rights, repel us and horrify us and send shivers of fright down our spines."

Exactly. Over 620,000 Americans died in the Civil War, a horrific number. This country bled a vast ocean of real blood during those four terrible years, but you would never know it from the way the war is thought about--if it's thought about at all--and portrayed and acted out by grown up boys, who like to dress up and play soldier. The guys in the picture above didn't get up and dust themselves off when the battle was over. The casualties at Sharpsburg were four times the total suffered by American soldiers at the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944. More than twice as many Americans lost their lives in one day at Sharpsburg as died in combat in the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Spanish-American War combined. The casualties at the battle of Gettysburg surpassed in three days what it took over six weeks to amass at Iwo Jima during the second world war. Casualties in the Civil War are more than the total of casualties of all of America's other wars combined, and, yes, that includes the world wars and the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The essay includes a few paragraphs about Civil War books that he likes and recommends. It's a tricky business, this. I can't say I agree with all his choices, but I will say it's nice to see Bruce Catton's marvelous trilogy on the Union Army of the Potomac getting a shout-out. This (and being born in Vicksburg MS with its glorious national military park) was what turned me on to the Wah when I was a teenager, those many long years ago.

Related articles

• Some causes should remain lost (dailykos.com)
• The 150th Anniversary of The American Civil War - Reflections By Bruce Catton (disquietreservations.blogspot.com)
• The Best Civil War Books (thedailybeast.com)

"Little Aleck"

"Little Aleck" Stephens around 1860

See that guy over there on the right? That's Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia. He was the vice president of the Confederate States; he was born in 1812 and died in 1883. And in 1988 I published a book about his life. Once you write a book about somebody, especially if the work took about ten years to do, the person never really leaves your life. A pretty attractive caricature of him from Puck, the 19th century British satirical magazine, hangs right outside my study door.  I see Aleck Stephens every day.

"Little Aleck"**--that was what the press and admirers and enemies called him--was a highly interesting character. A lifelong bachelor--I used to be convinced he was not gay; now I'm not so sure, but I still don't have hard evidence--he grew up poor in Middle Georgia, son of a farmer. Several benefactors enabled him to get an education, including college. After an ill-fated year teaching, he became a lawyer, then a state legislator, a U.S. congressman, and vice president, as I've said. He went back to Congress after the war and died as governor of Georgia.

If he looks sickly, it's because he was. The man never weighed more than 90 pounds in his life. More than one observer said he looked like some refugee from the graveyard. But he was a good and diligent lawyer and largely through his practice, and later through the products of his land, he amassed a good deal of money. He was definitely part of the upper crust. He ended up owning 32 slaves, all of whom stayed right there on his property after the end of the war.

But I'm letting myself get caught up in his story when all I meant to do was explain that this guy is the reason I have not been diligent about posting to the blog this week. I've been working on a presentation about him and Jefferson Davis to Civil War Round Tables in Milwaukee and Chicago at the end of next week. So he will also be the reason I'm going to be offline again at that time. My hope is to try and get something up on the blog--I think I've told you the guilt trip I put on myself for not posting every day--even on the days I'm gone. There will be a few more of those near the end of May when I'm off to Denver to see my mom and then to Louisiana for another history presentation.

**As any southerner can tell you, "Aleck" is pronounced "Ellick." People in Louisiana, for example, call Alexandria "Ellick."

How Utterly, Utterly American

Buy several! Give 'em to your friends!

"Looks like Osama bin Laden is worth more dead than alive. That is, at least, in the make-a-buck marketing world of souvenirs, collectibles and tchotchkes."*
          --Lead-in to story discussed below

How long did you think it would take American merchants to figure out a way to make money off the killing of bin Laden? If you guessed less than 24 hours, advance to Go and collect $200. This article appeared in USA Today this morning under the headline "Marketers act fast." Between midnight on Sunday and mid-afternoon on Monday literally thousands of people posted Osama-death product ideas on such sites as Zazzle.com and CafePress.com where they could perhaps earn royalties if some company picked up their idea and used it for a consumer product. Executives at both these places say they haven't seen such an outpouring in a long time. This is even bigger than the capture of Saddam Hussein!

Divided into roughly four categories--patriotism, military support, celebration, "justice is served"--you can get T-shirts, buttons, coffee mugs, caps, bumper stickers, neckties, a phone case for your iPhone at $51.40, and, but of course(!), a T-shirt for your dog. One of the marketeers explains that they've always reflected popular culture. "What's more important than personal expression?" (Oh, gee, I don't know. How about civility or taste or virtue?)

I'll let the psychologists explain this. "People wear these things or buy these things in order to inflict the final indignity on bin Laden, says one. "And $25 isn't a lot to pay to gain entry in the national act of ridicule." And while they do their explaining and read their tea leaves, I'll just be disgusted and embarrassed yet again by the accident of my birth to be identified with these idiots.

*Tell me the truth: did you have to look up "tchotchkes"?

Related articles

• Don't Be So Proud, America - Politics (whiskeyroundtable.wordpress.com)
• my 2-cents for now  (http://waroomniet.blogspot.com/)

I'm Not the Only One

Precisely!

The editorial cartoon above is brilliant. Capturing without a word the overarching truth about bin Laden's death. An act of vengeance disguised as something that advances the cause of liberty.

I didn't think I would be when I wrote yesterday's piece, but there had not yet been time for others to get out there and say the same kind of things I have been thinking. For example, Phyllis Bennis writing for the Institute of Policy Studies, wonders about Obama's claim that the killing of bin Laden somehow represented justice. And this piece by David Swanson who writes "Nothing is actually resolved, nothing concluded, and nothing to be celebrated in taking away life. If we want something to celebrate here, we should celebrate the end of one of the pieces of war propaganda that has driven the past decade of brutality and death."

Related articles

• Obama's "Big Lie": White House Propaganda and the "Death" of Osama bin Laden (usapartisan.com)
• Celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden:A moral conflict (multiverseone.wordpress.com)

A Great Day for America?

USA! USA! USA!

Late tonight word came that the U.S. military had killed Osama bin Laden, the supposed mastermind of the attacks that brought down the twin towers in New York City a decade ago, the man who has been the symbol and face of terrorism ever since then. The focus of the country's hatred for a decade. A troll in the eyes of millions. Surely the top of the most-hated list in this country. (Here is the AP account of the attack that succeeded in killing the guy. Along with links to other aspects of the story: the celebrations, the unit that carried out the killing, etc.) The president went on television to announce the news. It was "a good day for America," he said. He went on to say "Today we are reminded that as a nation there is nothing we cannot do." The country's reaction to the news is well illustrated in the picture above. Frenzied flag waving and manly chest-beating and celebrations like the team just won the Super Bowl would about sum it up. I read that the number of tweets on Twitter about bin Laden's death set records.

Well, at the risk of being the only person in America to say this or have these feelings, I will state that I have doubts about this being "a great day for America." And I categorically reject the notion that this military operation proves that as a nation "there is nothing we cannot do." I was from the beginning, from the very day of the attacks, against employing the US military in what I regarded then and still regard as a police matter, that is, the capture of criminals who carry out murders. The rest of the world which has also been victimized by terrorists, with the exception of Israel, I suppose, deals with attacks on its civilians as matters for the police to handle. But that is not the way the vile little pretender who occupied the White House from 2001-2008 handles things. He immediately called for vengeance and embarked on a course of war. We are still yet on the course he put us on, a trillion dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives later.

A great day for America? I have always stood for peace. Peace first. Always. So we should wave the flag and bellow "USA! USA!" at anything that in any way vindicates what we've been doing for the past ten in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya? No way am I celebrating that. How can I possibly cheer an event that excites the blood lust of people and stirs up frenzies of so-called patriotism in millions of people? the idea that whatever this country does is right by definition? that wars we initiate are just by definition? that the killing of enemies is a path to glory? that it's an event worthy of flooding out onto the streets as if it were a carnival? No. I'm not going to cheer that. Summary execution does not get my approval either.* This country is supposed to be a nation of laws. In my humble estimation, the legality, not to mention morality, of our ventures in the Middle East over the past decade are at the minimum questionable.

And as for the ridiculous notion that this killing somehow proves that the US is in the same category as God Almighty--"there is nothing we cannot do"--this is the kind of nonsense that Obama should be ashamed of himself for propagating. The fact is plainly that we cannot do many, many things as a nation, things far more important to our national welfare than a revenge killing which in the long view of history will simply be another death in a the carnival of death we as a nation have visited on that region. We cannot decently educate the vast majority of our citizens; we cannot insure equal justice under our laws; we cannot pass essential legislation to fight the warming of the globe; we cannot devise a health care system that is fair and effective; we cannot exist without war. Nothing we cannot do? This is not even a beginning of a complete list of everything that would fit that description.

Is it a good thing that bin Laden is gone? Yes. Is the price we have paid as a nation worth his death? No way. And one other thing. What do you think will change because of what's happened?

*Update I: The news reports Monday evening say that the mission against bin Laden was instructed to take him alive if possible. It's also reported that the CIA ordered that he be killed. Which version do you believe?

Update II: According to corrections made by the White House today, Tuesday the 3rd, bin Laden was not armed as first reported. But he was shot twice: once in the chest, once in the head over the left eye.

Related articles

• The Ability to Kill Osama Bin Laden Does Not Make America Great (alternet.org)