Yesterday we talked on the meaningless of Dow 16,000
Today we're going to talk on another meaningless topic-- the Gettysburg Address, the 150th Anniversary of which is today November 19th
We are sure we offended just about all our readers with that statement.. Didn't mean to.. Really Truly.. But those famous words are meaningless..
Since his death in 1865, Lincoln has been treated as if a perfect President..Loved and beloved in his time.
And all the schlock terms of endearment created by the 19th century PR people who needed to promote his death and create martyrdom to push fuel the hate of the South for another dozen years and thus push the radical draconian policies of Reconstruction through Congresss
Lincoln was the Great Emancipator.. the rail-splitter.. ol' Honest Abe..
Resting in Peace in Heaven with the Angels..
He was also a lawyer in every true sense of the profession
Here are some facts about Lincoln most people do not know or wish to know...
For one thing Lincoln was not pro-emancipation.
He saw blacks as inferior to whites in every single way one race can be to another. Lincoln was a product of his times and his views may have been anti-slavery but they were not pro-equality or anything remotely close.
"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races -- that I am not, nor have ever been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negros, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which prevents them from living together on terms of social and political equality.
And inasmuch as they can not so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race"
And Emancipation (declared on January 1, 1863) actually was merely a political move to motivate soldiers whose enlistments were to run out at the end of 1862 to re-enlist on moral grounds rather than simply keeping the Union intact.
They had to wait for a Union military victory at Antietam in September 1862 to announce it or else would have seemed too desperate and pathetic a move.
And it only supposedly 'freed' slaves in the southern states where the North had no jurisdiction and left slavery alone in the border states like Maryland and Kentucky where the Union did.
Habeas Corpus is a court order that requires a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court. The goal being to ensure that a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention—that is, detention lacking sufficient cause or evidence.
Lincoln burnt down any newspapers that held southern sympathies and arrested & imprisoned its publishers for long duration without the ability to retain an attorney or appear before a judge to provide a pleading and have bail presented.
When the US Supreme Court protested, Lincoln ignored them.
Quite monstrous and unconstitutional.
So many people complain about those held at Gitmo because it was under Bush (boo..hiss..) but the same treatment was done to Americans and because its the God-like Lincoln, we rationalize it and shrug.
We love our double standards.
Woodrow Wilson during WWI felt Lincoln didn't go far enough dealing with people who dared to speak out against the government in wartime and expelled anyone non-native born back to their home country who disagreed with his policies.
So this Lincoln is painted as a moral man who cares about people and life and yet happily encouraged Sherman's March through Georgia and ultimately March to the Sea in 1864 because it meant re-election..
Thousands upon thousands of civilians had to have their homes burnt or looted, their livestock stolen, their women raped and their cities razed to amber by Sherman's soulless forces...
All to give Lincoln an 1864 re-election victory.
A year prior Vicksburg, MS was captured after a prolonged siege (on July 4, 1863).. most people were forced to live in man-made burrows to protect from the constant shelling and eating rats for food when all other food including horse meat ran out
And Lincoln went 'ehh..'
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The people of Vicksburg, MS had such deep hate in their heart for the Union and the way they suffered, the town refused to celebrate the Fourth of July for 100 years afterward..
People think the Union won the Civil War..
It was a Pyrrhic victory, the definition being a victory with such a devastating cost that it is tantamount to defeat.
Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way; however, the heavy toll negates any sense of achievement or profit.
It forced two sections of the nation that deeply hated each other into a shotgun marriage for the sole economic benefit of the north.
Most of that hate is gone today thanks to 150 years of educational indoctrination that everything about the Confederacy was 'Evil' and everything about the American Union was 'noble' and God's will..
And southerners of the present accept all the propaganda without merely a retort in defense for their past. Most southerners can't even muster the strength to defend the battle flag of their ancestral kin, many who lost their lives fighting for it..
Too afraid of being seen as insensitive.
The narrative was created by the supposed 'victors' that all the south back then was backward and evil..
Except Robert E Lee..
He is OK to admire without any guilt much like it is unacceptable to ever admire a Nazi... well, except for General Erwin Rommel. He's safe.
And in the process, the needless war cost 600,000 lives, billions in treasury that took many many decades to pay back to the European banks and the continued decay of society caused by all of Emancipation's repercussions.
1) Slavery will either be abolished Forever or forever Federally protected without governmental interference in its practice..
2) A state has a right to secede for any reason under the provisions of the 10th Amendment or once a state ratifies the Constitution, it is in the Union forever-- no exception.
And instead both issues were left open-ended and left to interpretation...
So that's why we argue the Civil War was a waste and Gettysburg Address is meaningless as any words anyone has spoken or written anywhere.
They were a few meager sentences spoken by a devious politician (Lincoln) who was not even on the ballot in half the US states in 1860 and garnered such disrespect in his day, newspapers called him a baboon
And of course in death the man became deified.
Its time people begin to sincerely Think for themselves and Question the world around them.. Question what you were taught.. To ask yourself what is was the agenda and who stood to gain?
We know its scary and unnerving to realize how little we truly know after so many years of public school education but we're all adults here.. Big boys n' girls..
Surely we can handle the truth can't we?
