They say that an American War Veterans group in Oklahoma got into Big Trouble with their parent organization because, though overwhelmingly Indian, they elected one of their White members as Post Commander because he was really good at Organizing things, got along well with just about everyone, and had fought bravely and honorably for his country during World War II. The problem was that, during the war, he was a German citizen, and fought on what we’d consider (and what he now considered) The Wrong Side.

(Disclaimer: I may be somewhat prejudiced, here, because my paternal grandmother’s grandfather had been press-ganged into the British navy during the War of 1812, and didn’t settle in Upper New York state until a few years after that.)

Accounts of how that Veterans Post handled the situation vary, though I prefer the one that says they followed the National Organization’s directives, but kept the guy doing just what he’d been doing before, though with other (U.S. Veterans) names in the spaces on the paperwork.

The point here, and in these various commemorations of past wars, seems to me to be that we honor people who fought bravely, even though their allegiance may have been misguided, and that we mourn the fact that there were, are, and continue to be, wars at all.

Ah yes, that perfectly normal, unobtrusive election in 2000 where the Dem won a majority of the vote and had his election stolen by Republican lawyers in Florida.

Nothing to see here, moving right along.

When the modern conservative movement doesn’t get what it wants, it tries to change the rules. Can’t argue against the factual basis of evolution? Let’s start our own universities in Jesus/Bizarro-land!

Actually, Bulworth, I think you’d find a better comparison to how many Democrats reacted after the 2000 election. “He’s not my president.” “Let’s not elect him again in 2004.” “Selected, not elected.” “Jesusland.”

Considerably less extreme, of course, but much the same sentiment.

J.

They died with honor defending an odious and barbaric practice.

What odious and barbaric practice did the Union defend? Scorched earth tactics?

It’s not something which keeps me up at night because, frankly, I’d be long dead. But it does give me pause to think that well-intentioned people will decide that disinterring my remains and building a shopping mall is a good idea because I happened to have been in a military which found itself on the wrong side of history.

Assuming that they’d even both disinterring me. In that case I guarantee some serious haunting of the food court.

They died with honor defending an odious and barbaric practice.

Got it.

By any definition it is treason. And those who are treasonous deserve death.

“Treason” is a very popular term these days. Too popular for our own good, I think. Too easy.

The fact is that, as usual, both sides are partly right. The Civil War was fought over slavery, and it was fought over State’s Rights. Specifically, it was fought over the right of individual states to determine whether slavery would be permitted, even if that went against federal law. Federal supremacy won out in the end.

So what is “treason?” Is treason decided by the victors, and all who fought against them traitors? I suppose that’s one way to look at it. By that measure, every citizen who voted for secession could be seen as guilty of treason. Perhaps Oliver would like to have seen the white residents of the South rounded up into death camps and exterminated in their hundreds of thousands. Certainly there were pogroms before, and since; it wouldn’t have been unprecedented to massacre so many after a failed revolution. And certainly the former slaves would have had ample cause to see such a thing as justice too long delayed. But would that have been in keeping with the ideals of America? President Lincoln didn’t seem to think so.

As far as honoring the Confederate dead, I think Obama’s compromise struck exactly the right balance. ALL who fought in the Civil War (save those who did it for the money only) ultimately did so out of conviction that their side was right. Robert E. Lee was one of the best generals in American history; he fought for the Confederacy because his home state, Virginia, seceded and he felt his duty lay there, with his family and the people of whose community he had always been a part. We may dispute whether his choice was wise, but to demand his death as a traitor when all he did was try to do his duty as he saw it strikes me as a desire for simple revenge. That’s the spirit behind the tumbrels and guillotine of the Reign of Terror, not America.

The Civil War is part of our history. It put an end to an odious and barbaric practice and reaffirmed the concept of federal supremacy, as well as preserving the union. Those who fought on both sides are deserving of remembrance; they fought and died with honor, even if the cause of the Confederacy was less then noble. By all means stress that point, that it was good that the Confederacy failed; that’s part of understanding history, so hopefully we do not repeat it.

They were NOT Americans. They were Confederates. That was the whole point of seceding!

But they weren’t successful in their attempt to secede. I’m far, very, very far, from being a Civil War scholar, but isn’t the actual status of the states in the Confereracy that they were always part of the USA, even though they were in open rebellion? No nation recognized the CSA, and the states of the Confederacy didn’t have to go through the actual process of applying to join the USA that potentional new states need to go through.

I think Lincoln’s Secretary of State put it pretty well.

…they (The rebellious states) must always continue to be, equal and honored members of this Federal Union, and that their citizens throughout all political misunderstandings and alienations, still are and always must be our kindred and countrymen.

That said, the whole point to ‘post-war reconcilation’
as proposed by Lincoln and imperfectly executed by his
successors was to assist the (white) South in getting
over its big bad self and joining the rest of the
country. We all see how well THAT worked out. Granted,
almost everything else (no Reconstruction at all, radical
Reconstruction, etc.) might have been worse, but let’s
not fool ourselves about how things went 1865-1965.

There’s the problem with “Originalism” in a nutshell.

AO, your cherished “states’ rights” seem to include the right for one human being to hold another against his or her will for profit. That’s indefensible in any context. As a matter of fact, we had a war about it and the “states’ rights” side lost.

It was in the papers. Maybe you read about it.

Gee, Amused, if there was a context for understanding slavery 150 years ago, surely there must be a context for understanding it today.

Would you care to enlighten us as to why modern slave traders are “honorable men”?

You’re not going to get away with setting up a strawman about understanding history in the context of the times being the same as condoning slavery. In fact you may be a wee bit hypocritical on the whole subject of slavery. I don’t recall you using your bully pulpit here to worry much about slavery that is going on right now in the modern world, only about the slavery of your relations that ended 150 years ago.

It’s a shame but you are unable to set aside your personal animosity and actually understand both American and world history in the context of the times. It has been said that politics is the art of what’s possible.

Neither you or Repack are willing to acknowledge the concept or validity of States rights. Do you honestly think that the southern states whose economies were based on plantation style agriculture would have agreed to join the Union if they thought they would face economic ruin in 3 or 4 generations time?

Without thier agreement thier would have been no Union to preserve. Or if there was it would be much smaller and not include the south. It is highly unlikely that a United States that consisted of only the north would have done anything to abolish slavery in the “foriegn” lands to the south.

Slavery would have continued perhaps until economics crushed it through the inherant ineffiency that slavery creats. It is damn hard to get consistant effiency out of a workforce whose only recourse to unjust conditions is to withhold as much as possible.

“And those who are treasonous deserve death.”

LOL Oliver, a bit of a drama queen moment. If you actually know what giving aid and comfort to an enemy in a time of war means you can’t possibly believe anyone is going to take your statement seriously. You are in effect saying Jane Fonda deserves death. She may very well do so but you don’t believe it.

As I said earlier I understand you personaly have a hard on about the south for enslaving your ancesters. That is an understandable human emotion. But when you let it color your perception of history so much you destroy your credibility. Regardless of what you think it’s not all about you.

You push hard against those you perceive as your political enemies. When you push so hard you have to expect some of your fellow Americans to push back.

“

J.

I’m always astonished to find adult human beings bringing this up as though it cast the whole institution of slavery in some gentler new light. A certain relatively small percentage of the slave population enjoyed special comforts… how does that in any way redeem the fundamental evil of the institution, or improve the case of the millions that toiled and died in a state of misery?

The power to control a slave, absolutely and arbitrarily, is vile whether or not it is used. The power to inflict limitless cruelty on another human being, on a whim, without any legal or social consequences, is wrong SIMPLY BECAUSE IT FUCKING EXISTS.

If you’re joking about screwing with the dead, Oliver, why not disinter all of the dead who are buried on the Lee family farm, the first 600 acres of Arlington National Cemetery, and salt the earth while you’re at it? Then you could put up a theme park. Call it YankeeDisney or something. If you really wanted to sell the product, you could put all those Confederate bones in a big latrine at the park, too.

It’s not like they were Americans or anything. Except that a lot of them were. When they died, they were Americans. They were covered under various pendant and postwar amnesties proposed by Lincoln and Johnson, and they lived for decades after the war was over as citizens of the United States. One of them went on to fight in the Spanish-American War as Teddy Roosevelt’s CO. One served as an official archivist for the War Department, gathering Confederate records for decades. One was a minister in Washington DC for years after the war. A couple of them were Congressmen.

In this day when the Republicans have so effectively shot themselves in the foot – well, both feet, over and over – and to their continuing shame have let some racists have any voice at all in a national party, it’s easy to pick live targets. You don’t kick a man when he’s down, and especially not when he’s six feet down, and you don’t kick his wife buried next to him either. Leave them be, even in words. There are plenty of targets above ground.

Mr Obama is under no obligation to continue this “tradition.” It didn’t take me long to find out that President George H.W. Bush discontinued the laying of a wreath on the Memorial back in 1990, because he was tired of dealing with all the Lost Cause groups too. For the whole decade, no wreath was laid there on Memorial Day by an Administration official, or on his/her orders. The previous President revived that practice in 2001. It can be set aside again. It’s not about national unity anymore; it’s about the Lost Cause. The SCV, the UDOC, and their Republican backers have seen to that.

KC