🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3l5eg250r4ra12l448m0aojt0p2niud1u4@4ax.com>,
 Seymour Bigby-Heinz <sbutz@crock.o-stuff> wrote:

> On Tue, 12 Sep 2006 14:48:12 -0500, bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
> 
> >I _must_ be dense, right? What was Condi talking about?
> >
> >Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice compared critics of the Iraq war to 
> >Northerners who sought peace with the South during the Civil War. 
> >"There were people who thought the Declaration of Independence was a 
> >mistake," she said.
> 
> How about including a link so that we can see the context?
> 
> Sy

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/05/ap/politics/mainD8JUS0PG0.shtml

or:

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6059891,00.html>

bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:

>I _must_ be dense, right? What was Condi talking about?
>
>Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice compared critics of the Iraq war to 
>Northerners who sought peace with the South during the Civil War. 
>"There were people who thought the Declaration of Independence was a 
>mistake," she said.

No wonder it sounds confusing.  You have conflated one quote against
another.

More accurately:

quote-
Rice then offered a parallel between critics of the administration's
Iraq policies and "people who thought it was a mistake to fight the
Civil War (in this country) to its end and to insist that the
emancipation of slaves would hold."

"I'm sure that there were people who said, "why don't we get out of
this now, take a peace with the South, but leave the South with
slaves."

continuing...

Rice, a former academic, said she spent the summer reading biographies
of the Founding Fathers and said she was certain "there were people
who thought the Declaration of Independence was a mistake" as well.

-close quote

In the first case, she is referring to copperheads.  These were
northerners who had some sympathies with the south.  After a few
battles, there weren't as many of these, and those who remained were
shunned or silenced.  As you probably know, the civil war wasn't as
much about slavery as the power of the central government, an issue
which had been unresolved, or at least untested,  since the
revolutionary war.  

As for the second quote "there were people who thought the Declaration
of Independence was a mistake"  That was much earlier, and the people
who felt that way (tories and loyalists) were often forcibly driven
out of the country, with a lot of them ending up in Canada and other
more stable parts of the British empire.

There are always people who will oppose a war.  Sometimes they are
wrong.  In the summer of 1940 German troops occupied Paris, and
Marshal Philippe Petain became the head of the French government,
suing for peace. Gertrude Stein soon translated Petain's speeches and
hailed him as a hero of the French nation.

Hemingway lauded the fight against the fascists in Spain, who were
more accurately fighting a communist takeover of the country.
Remember that Hemingway was also kissie kissie with Castro.

You might read more history.

<hchickpea@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:450927e0.26751407@news.earthlink.net...
> bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>
> >I _must_ be dense, right? What was Condi talking about?
> >
> >Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice compared critics of the Iraq war to
> >Northerners who sought peace with the South during the Civil War.
> >"There were people who thought the Declaration of Independence was a
> >mistake," she said.
>

> You might read more history.

Certainly Condi is trying discredit the anti-war crowd by comparing them to
those with such "obviously" ridiculous views. I think an interesting thing
to consider is whether, at the time, those positions were really so
unreasonable. Would it have been necessarily so wrong to oppose violent
rebellion against the English government during the revolutionary period? In
the case of the Civil War, was it ridiculous to suggest that the Southern
states be allowed to form their own union, especially considering the
incredible cost in human life and property caused by the conflict?

Historically, isn't the "rightness" or "wrongness" of the two sides of a
conflict always determined, after the fact, by the victor?

In article <450927e0.26751407@news.earthlink.net>,
 hchickpea@hotmail.com wrote:

> No wonder it sounds confusing.  You have conflated one quote against 
> another.

Actually, I completely understand the historical reference. But because 
I am so ignorant, it seems like she just pulled it right out of her 
ass. I just don't see any relation at all to the war in Iraq. Like most 
of the executive branch comments on practically every aspect of this 
military action, it muddies the water (at least for me).

The only comments that seem clear (to me, at least) are the criticisms.

> You might read more history.

Yeah, no doubt that couldn't hurt. But I don't think it would resolve 
my obvious intellectual shortfall in understanding the Bush 
Administration's synthesis on just about every issue they address.

bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:

>I just don't see any relation at all to the war in Iraq.

Mmmm. I can see the point she is trying to make, but it is a weak one.
We agree on that.

Bottom line, Saddam would have been a better ally in TWAT (gotta love
that acronym) than most of the other governments in the area, but W
couldn't see the forest for the trees.  Now that we're there, the shit
still needs to be shoveled.

"Young J. Putt" <j.putt@verizon.net> wrote:

>
><hchickpea@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:450927e0.26751407@news.earthlink.net...
>> bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>>
>> >I _must_ be dense, right? What was Condi talking about?
>> >
>> >Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice compared critics of the Iraq war to
>> >Northerners who sought peace with the South during the Civil War.
>> >"There were people who thought the Declaration of Independence was a
>> >mistake," she said.
>>
>
>> You might read more history.
>
>Certainly Condi is trying discredit the anti-war crowd by comparing them to
>those with such "obviously" ridiculous views. 

Of course.

>I think an interesting thing
>to consider is whether, at the time, those positions were really so
>unreasonable. Would it have been necessarily so wrong to oppose violent
>rebellion against the English government during the revolutionary period?

In a word, yes.  The reasons are too many and too deep to repeat here.
Suffice to say, the colonies were being treated like a bastard
stepchild.  In a later time, with far greater numbers and a weaker
opponent, Gandhi was able to forment a non-violent rebellion, but the
time was not yet ripe for such niceties.

> In
>the case of the Civil War, was it ridiculous to suggest that the Southern
>states be allowed to form their own union, especially considering the
>incredible cost in human life and property caused by the conflict?

That question *if you take slavery out of the mix* is more nebulous.
One never goes into a war knowing the costs beforehand.  Before asking
"was it worth it?", another question should be asked.  Would an
independent nation in the south have worked?  I think not.  The south
was inherently weak.  It had no industry to speak of, no ability to
make large amounts of arms at a moments notice, and an economy based
almost completely on cotton, the production of which was heading to
India.  That shift alone would have turned it into a country of
poverty.  Perhaps it would have utilized the coal and iron deposits
around Birmingham to form industry, with the help of English
engineers, but the thrust of the country was agrarian.

Whatever the costs of the civil war, the alternatives would have been
far worse.  The successful secession would have quickly opened the
door for the Balkanization of the other states, and the weakening of
the defensive power of the nation, leading to more battles between
states and countries.  Mexico would have surely taken Texas and the
west, at considerable loss of life, the northern states would have had
constant skirmishes over disputed land, Napoleon might have found
Louisiana more enticing than Egypt, and more importantly, the outcome
of WWII would have been vastly different.

Would the average Joe of the time have any inkling of this?  No.
Would the short term outcome have been better?  Probably not.  

>Historically, isn't the "rightness" or "wrongness" of the two sides of a
>conflict always determined, after the fact, by the victor?

History (in the short term) is written by the victor, and with victory
belong the spoils, but the morality of a conflict exists independently
of the winning or losing, as any native american will attest.

On Tue, 12 Sep 2006 16:08:32 -0500, bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:

>In article <3l5eg250r4ra12l448m0aojt0p2niud1u4@4ax.com>,
> Seymour Bigby-Heinz <sbutz@crock.o-stuff> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 12 Sep 2006 14:48:12 -0500, bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>> 
>> >I _must_ be dense, right? What was Condi talking about?
>> >
>> >Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice compared critics of the Iraq war to 
>> >Northerners who sought peace with the South during the Civil War. 
>> >"There were people who thought the Declaration of Independence was a 
>> >mistake," she said.
>> 
>> How about including a link so that we can see the context?
>> 
>> Sy
>
>http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/05/ap/politics/mainD8JUS0PG0.shtml
>
>or:
>
><http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6059891,00.html>

Isn't it a bit dishonest to put both statements into the same
paragraph, as if they were both expressing the same idea?

<hchickpea@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:450d6a18.43705981@news.earthlink.net...
>
> Whatever the costs of the civil war, the alternatives would have been
> far worse.  The successful secession would have quickly opened the
> door for the Balkanization of the other states, and the weakening of
> the defensive power of the nation, leading to more battles between
> states and countries.  Mexico would have surely taken Texas and the
> west, at considerable loss of life, the northern states would have had
> constant skirmishes over disputed land, Napoleon might have found
> Louisiana more enticing than Egypt, and more importantly, the outcome
> of WWII would have been vastly different.

Omigosh! You've come around to the domino theory!

Don 

"Don K" <dk@dont_bother_me.com> wrote:

><hchickpea@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:450d6a18.43705981@news.earthlink.net...
>>
>> Whatever the costs of the civil war, the alternatives would have been
>> far worse.  The successful secession would have quickly opened the
>> door for the Balkanization of the other states, and the weakening of
>> the defensive power of the nation, leading to more battles between
>> states and countries.  Mexico would have surely taken Texas and the
>> west, at considerable loss of life, the northern states would have had
>> constant skirmishes over disputed land, Napoleon might have found
>> Louisiana more enticing than Egypt, and more importantly, the outcome
>> of WWII would have been vastly different.
>
>Omigosh! You've come around to the domino theory!

Merely that the above are likely scenarios.  Military success has been
based on chance and weather as much as relative strengths.

Kublai Khan invasion of Japan - thwarted by cyclone
Spanish Armada vs English - defeated by bad weather
British Invasion of Washington - cyclone
Napolean invasion of Russia - snow
Nazi invasion of Russia - snow, then mud
etc. etc.

In article <450c6807.43176431@news.earthlink.net>,
 hchickpea@hotmail.com wrote:

> bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
> 
> >I just don't see any relation at all to the war in Iraq.
> 
> Mmmm. I can see the point she is trying to make, but it is a weak one.
> We agree on that.

I thought her references would be more relevant if she compared American 
Iraq war critics to mangy whipped pups who won't learn obedience, or to 
the unpleasant stuff she sometimes has to scrape off the bottom of her 
shoe after a walk in the park.

But I guess I am just not smart enough to understand.

On Tue, 12 Sep 2006 23:58:58 -0500, bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:

>In article <450c6807.43176431@news.earthlink.net>,
> hchickpea@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>> bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>> 
>> >I just don't see any relation at all to the war in Iraq.
>> 
>> Mmmm. I can see the point she is trying to make, but it is a weak one.
>> We agree on that.
>
>I thought her references would be more relevant if she compared American 
>Iraq war critics to mangy whipped pups who won't learn obedience, or to 
>the unpleasant stuff she sometimes has to scrape off the bottom of her 
>shoe after a walk in the park.
>
>But I guess I am just not smart enough to understand.

I think we can all agree with that statement.

"Seymour Bigby-Heinz" <sbutz@crock.o-stuff> wrote in message 
news:ojheg2d4ld9k9bv3aufk4fv62uhqq3gf2h@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 12 Sep 2006 21:58:23 GMT, hchickpea@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>>As you probably know, the civil war wasn't as
>>much about slavery as the power of the central government, an issue
>>which had been unresolved, or at least untested,  since the
>>revolutionary war.
>
> Confederate sympathizer, huh?  The importance of slavery in the Civil
> War depends upon the individual answering the question. Different
> people were fighting the war for different reasons.  For wealthy White
> Southerners, the war may have been almost entirely about slavery.  The
> same goes for African-Americans, both North and South.  For poor,
> non-slave-owning White Southerners, slavery might have been less
> important, as long as they retained lynching rights.
>
> The simple fact of the matter remains: if the Confederacy had won,
> slavery would have continued. Because of the motivation of the Black
> troops who entered service in the latter part of the war, one might
> justifiably say that slavery had less influence on the starting of the
> Civil War than it had on the winning of the Civil War.
>

a great book on the reasons lincoln started the civil war is:

the real lincoln   by thomas dilorenzo
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=br_ss_hs/103-7402952-1763845?platform=gurupa&url=index%3Dstripbooks%3Arelevance-above&keywords=the+real+lincoln

frm the reviews:

"Lincoln's defenders often employ the slander that criticizing the Great 
Emancipator is the moral equivalent of defending slavery.  But history shows 
that slavery ended around the world during that era, and no place required 
the bloody war Lincoln waged. DiLorenzo proves that throughout his life, up 
to and including the War, Lincoln's driving force was his devotion to Henry 
Clay's 'American System' of internal improvement, nationalized banking, and 
a powerful central government. As DiLorenzo shows, a confederacy of states 
exercising their (previously unquestioned) right to secession would have 
been an intolerable obstacle to Lincoln's driving ambition."

"The American System was a platform of three planks. 1. Protective tariffs, 
read high taxes and protectionist trade barriers. 2. Internal improvements, 
read welfare for business. 3. Central bank, read welfare for federal 
government. This was Lincoln's vision. Don't all tyrants have a vision? To 
this end Lincoln didn't mind subjugating the North, using the North's 
resources and lives to subjugate the South, killing over six hundred 
thousand Americans in the process, poisoning race relations for over a 
century, and destroying the unique form of government bequeathed to us by 
our founding fathers. Well you can't make an omelet without breaking a few 
eggs, can you? What an omelet indeed!"

"(1) Lincoln basically allowed an unnecessary and horribly bloody war to 
occur in order to further his political vision of a strong state;
(2) Lincoln was a "constitutional dictator";
(3) Lincoln was never terribly concerned with slavery as a moral injustice."

"William Manchester used the phrase 'American Caesar' to describe General 
Douglas MacArthur, but it applies much more fittingly to Abraham Lincoln, 
America's first (and God willing only) full-fledged military dictator. The 
gravedigger of the U.S. Constitution, Lincoln buried the founders' Union as 
completely as Lenin buried the Romanovs. And like Lenin, Lincoln built an 
empire on bayonets, brutality, and centralized power. As historian Richard 
Bensel (quoted by Thomas DiLorenzo in the introduction to this book) wrote, 
any student of the American state should begin his reading with 1865. 
Whatever happened before then no longer has any relevance."

"This book not only tells about how Abraham Lincoln influenced what this 
country has become, but it connects the dots from the big government 
Hamiltonian Federalists to the Federalist Party to the Whigs and finally the 
Republicans of the 1860s, to show how the US strayed from the freedom that 
was our birthright."

"The Real Lincoln" is a fast paced easy to read three hundred plus pages 
chock full of fascinating history. It is a panoramic expose' of America's 
first and (up to now) only tyrant. If you grew up as I did believing that 
Abraham Lincoln was one of the three greatest American presidents and that 
the Civil War was fought to free the slaves, hang on to your hats; you'll 
never be the same again after reading DiLorenzo's book."


 

bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:

> In article <450c6807.43176431@news.earthlink.net>,
>  hchickpea@hotmail.com wrote:
> 
> 
>>bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I just don't see any relation at all to the war in Iraq.
>>
>>Mmmm. I can see the point she is trying to make, but it is a weak one.
>>We agree on that.
> 
> 
> I thought her references would be more relevant if she compared American 
> Iraq war critics to mangy whipped pups who won't learn obedience, or to 
> the unpleasant stuff she sometimes has to scrape off the bottom of her 
> shoe after a walk in the park.
> 
> But I guess I am just not smart enough to understand.

You shouldn't be so subtle.

Marsha/Ohio

"AllEmailDeletedImmediately" <derjda@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:JTSNg.8990$xC3.2660@trnddc06...
> a great book on the reasons lincoln started the civil war is:
> the real lincoln   by thomas dilorenzo

Libertarian revisionism can be fun to read, but is best taken with a grain of salt.

Don 

<bearclaw@cruller.invalid> wrote in message
news:bearclaw-1A6C74.14481212092006@news.supernews.com...
> I _must_ be dense, right? What was Condi talking about?
>
> Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice compared critics of the Iraq war to
> Northerners who sought peace with the South during the Civil War.
> "There were people who thought the Declaration of Independence was a
> mistake," she said.
SPIN

<hchickpea@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:45108bdd.52352232@news.earthlink.net...
> "Don K" <dk@dont_bother_me.com> wrote:
>
> ><hchickpea@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:450d6a18.43705981@news.earthlink.net...
> >>
> >> Whatever the costs of the civil war, the alternatives would have been
> >> far worse.  The successful secession would have quickly opened the
> >> door for the Balkanization of the other states, and the weakening of
> >> the defensive power of the nation, leading to more battles between
> >> states and countries.  Mexico would have surely taken Texas and the
> >> west, at considerable loss of life, the northern states would have had
> >> constant skirmishes over disputed land, Napoleon might have found
> >> Louisiana more enticing than Egypt, and more importantly, the outcome
> >> of WWII would have been vastly different.
> >
> >Omigosh! You've come around to the domino theory!
>
> Merely that the above are likely scenarios.  Military success has been
> based on chance and weather as much as relative strengths.
>
> Kublai Khan invasion of Japan - thwarted by cyclone
> Spanish Armada vs English - defeated by bad weather
> British Invasion of Washington - cyclone
> Napolean invasion of Russia - snow
> Nazi invasion of Russia - snow, then mud
> etc. etc.
>
I think that's kind of the point I was getting at. Given that the costs AND
benefits of war are impossible to predict with certainty, I don't think it
would have been an unreasonable position to oppose the war for independence,
or the one to preserve the union. The colonists could have lost the
Revolutionary War, and who can say what would have happened had the south
been allowed to succeed. Would slavery have been abolished at some point in
the future anyway? Even if the outcome could have somehow been known ahead
of time, I would have hated to be the President who needed to weigh the
value of 600,000 + lives versus an accelerated end to slavery, and decide
whether to make that trade. I'm not taking a side one way or another, just
saying that I don't view the correct decision to be "obvious", so I wouldn't
retrospectively ridicule those who would have decided differently.

Having said that, I am forced to wonder: "What the heck does all this have
to do with Frugal Living??" :)