In response to Mike Sakal’s piece on the sons of confederate vets: Mike you should have thought a little more than a cup of coffee before you wrote this piece on the confederate vets.
There was a reason all those men had unmarked graves and it wasn’t so we could remember them on Veterans Day either. Maybe you should have wrote about why they were in unmarked graves!
I think it is a real shame you couldn’t find more relevant, more meaningful tribute to write about on our USA Veterans Day.
Yes they did fight for a cause they believed in and some of them did die for that cause and they were soldiers for that cause as Mr. Brown says, but they were traitors and slave owners and killed and tortured those slaves when they didn’t listen to what they were told.
Lets have a John Wilkes Booth Day. He had a cause also.
They raped the slave women and their wives turned their back on them because they weren’t human but slaves. This kind of reminds me of a little war that was in Europe in the ’40s. Maybe we should have a day to honor Mr. Hitler. He had a cause to fight for also. Just ask the
6 million Jewish people he invited to take a shower!
Mr. Sakal, please don’t get in that, they were Americans too because in reality they were traitors. The man that blew up the federal building in Oklahoma, Tim McVeigh, also had cause. Are we going to honor him in 100 years as a veteran who had a cause? Maybe, who knows?
Scott Sternlieb
Chandler
Cerulean posted at 9:44 am on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
Kudos to this letter!
Yes, the confederate south is part of the Union, however I fail to appreciate the cause behind their attempted succession - brutal slavery.
Stevo357 posted at 9:48 am on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
This is what is wrong with America. The Civil War was not fought over slavery! Many seem to think it was, but it was not. The Civil War had to do with the different economies in the North and South. The federal government was placing tariffs on goods imported form Europe that competed with the Nothern economy (finished goods). The South was an agricultural economy that exported most goods to Europe. European coutries started placing tariffs against Southern imports. The South did not have the influence in the federal government to change this, which caused the war.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 10:25 am on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
Yes, we have seen the horror of the Jewish Holocaust and are now seeing the horror of the Palestinian Holocaust. The Jews in Israel have now switched roles and have become the perpetrators instead of the victims. The Palestinians won't let themselves become victims. The will not be "willing" victims to any perpetrator, just look at the old men, the old women and the children that stand in front of an Israeli tank and throw stones at it. Palestine will get it's Nationhood, it's ports and it's airport. Tyranny and Oppression can only last so long. Just look at South Africa.
Cerulean posted at 11:04 am on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
Stevo, you are correct that the issue centered on economies. However, you ignore that the engine that produced and supported the southern plantation was slavery. The North could not compete with the ‘free labor’ in the south and many were disgusted by the depressive, suffrage nature of slavery.
bubba posted at 11:48 am on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
Leon Ceniceros ...I had to look twice at the name on this comment. Leon, I totally agree with you on this one. Israel is like a bullying little brother that keeps starting fights and expecting his big brother (U.S.) to fight the battles they start. Israel's favorite hymn is Onward Christian Soldiers.
JNelson posted at 12:28 pm on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
One thing many people don't understand is, back in the mid-1800's, there was a lot more importance given to States' rights than there is today. States back then were far more like competing countries than they are today and dislikes and mistrusts were far more common and intense then. Southern States resented being told by the North what they could or could not do. While it is true than many Southerners were against slavery in principle, they still actively defended their State's right to it and many tens of thousands who were NOT slave owners fought and died for that principle. To equate them to Hitler or any other despot or even to Timothy McVeigh is neither accurate nor sensible.
One more thing to remember: back then most people still realized that the individual states had merely consigned to a federal government SOME of its own powers and the right to own and use slaves in a State's economy wasn't one of those surrendered. Thus, a common soldier fighting to preserve his State's rights could hardly be considered a traitor in the usual sense of the word as we use it today, IMO.
DrJCA1 posted at 2:22 pm on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
Leon & bubba: obviously you both know zip about middle east politics or history. The UN divided the area and gave the Jewish people a crappy little piece of land for their home in 1947. Jordan, Egypt, and Syria told the arabs living there to get out because they were going to invade and wipe out the new nation. A day or so later, the arab countries invaded the new nation and lost the fight. The refugees who chose to move (Israel did NOT throw them out) lived in makeshift villeges for the next 60 years. Not one arab nation has offered them any help. It was aslo the arab countries that started every war in that region of the world. The arabs who live within Israel have the same voting and other rights as the jews and Christians who live there. There are members of the Knesset (parliament) who are arabs. and finally, it is always the arabs who start flinging bombs at the Israelis, not the other way around. I suppose it's too much for the Jews to ask just to be left alone and in peace? Then you wonder why they act the way they do. If your neighbor kept threatening your families, what would you both do? sit there and smile, I suppose?
truth posted at 3:24 pm on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
If you travel around the world you will visit, most likely, the greates structures ever built. These are RELIGIOUS structures, churches, castles for kings or previous kings or dictators, or government buildings. ALL wars are fought for one reason only, greed and control of religious beliefs.
bubba posted at 4:22 pm on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
DrJCA1:....To understand what kind of ally Israel is to the U.S., Google USS Liberty.
Engaged Voter posted at 4:28 pm on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
bubba, you mean when the USS Liberty violated international treaty and illegally spied on the Israelis? After being told repeatedly not to?
I'm not saying the resulting deaths of American sailors was a good thing - but perhaps you need to learn the entire story before using it as a talking point.
Stevo357 posted at 4:34 pm on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
Cerulean, I did not ignore it because that was not the driving factor of those in the South that fought the North. People are trying to portray these men a certain way, which is another re-write of what really happened.
Look, the South started the war with the firing upon Ft. Sumpter. It started the war, not the other way. Were there evil people in the south, sure. I would just like to say they were a very small minority and most that fought for the South were not rich plantation owners.
I'm not trying to argue, but ignorant America does not know the facts. If you ask most people they will say that the Civil War was fough over slavery and that is just not true.
Dale Whiting posted at 5:10 pm on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
Traitors? Not hardy!
From 1789 to 1862 slaves counted as 4/5ths of a human being for representation of states in our Federal Government. Slavery was legal, not illegal. Some thought it wrong. Today we all understand it was wrong. But Traitors, not hardly!
The South withdrew from the Union. But the North would not hear of it. Both sides fought. Sure, Andersonville was a crime! That is an issue. But Southern Soldiers were not traitors to the Confederacy, their fledgling country.
bubba posted at 5:13 pm on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
Engaged Voter:...While I've read and concured with most all of your posts, I respectfully disagree with you on this one. I'm quite aware of the entire story and stand by my statements....http://ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/ul-ameu.html
My Take posted at 7:46 pm on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
I for one can't stand the confederate flag and don't understand why in this day and age so many people in the south still use it as some badge of honor. It represents human atrocities against blacks. The soldiers who fought for the south felt they were fighting the good fight, but we know better now that they were wrong. I wouldn’t classify them as traitors. In stating that there is no excuse why in 2012 people still stand with that flag. It shows defiance and disrespect for our country as a whole and sends the message that they still wish slavery existed.
pnutman posted at 8:20 pm on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
Steve---Logic is the same lack you have along with the BO support on the Presidency..Cry to the Bank when your OUTLAY $$$$ dwindles. Lack of credible reading is a major detractor in most of your thinking and the support you get.
By the way, if there was any real support in drafting the Constitution and BofR
We never would have had the WAR.....What is done is done and hope you will defend your PAD when all @#$% breaks loose when the Welfare Society breaks loose
when your locale will be a "WAR ZONE" then relate to that. It's coming around your corner. It was the BO support folks who will steal your "BED." The Entitlement Society will be Stalking cause we just Ran Out of Money......Chicago-LA oops.
Cerulean posted at 8:53 pm on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
Stevo, I rather disagree. The issue of slavery had been a point of contention between abolitionists in the North and slave owners long before the civil war. As I recall (I will have to do some research), the Missouri Compromise of 1850 has a place here.
I do not think they were traitors.
Masterrogue666 posted at 9:29 pm on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
You are not a traitor if you fight for what you believe in, rather, it's the opposite of that.
Cerulean posted at 9:49 pm on Wed, Nov 7, 2012.
Other events leading up to the civil war include the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court.
After the Dred Scott decision, the Richmond Enquirer wrote, “Now the territorial prize for which the two sides had often wrestled in the halls of Congress, has been awarded at last, by the proper umpire, to those who have justly won it.” The decision of the Supreme Court, “the accredited interpreter of the Constitution and arbiter of disagreement between the several States” has destroyed “the foundation of the theory upon which their warfare has been waged against the institutions of the South.” 1857 (Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin)
Dale Whiting posted at 1:42 am on Thu, Nov 8, 2012.
Looks like we have two issues being argued here. The majority agree that Scott was off base. Traitors go against their country. But whether they believe in it or not is not the issue. Southerners withdrew from the Union so their country was the Confederacy, not the United States. They believed in a right to withdraw from the Union and forge their own economy, one based upon slavery, a condition fostered by New England slave traders!
And on the dispute over who is right and who is wrong in Palestine, Isreal or the Palestinians, don't just start in 1947. One has to understand the history of Jews in Europe to understand their attachment to a land no longer theirs. In an effort to win back a homeland, a now infamous leader bombed the King David Hotel in order to get the British to leave. Eventually he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, not for this act of terrorism, but for making peace with Egypt. Anybody care to name this man of dubious distinction? The history of terrorism in Palestine begins with the Jews, not the Palestinians! Jews were foreign invaders to Palestine, invaders encouraged by a European society ashamed of what it did to them.
Try reading "Palestine, Peace not Appartheid" by James Earl Carter. Jimmy gets it right. Carter is the one who was realy due that peace price, not Begin.
Stevo357 posted at 8:49 am on Thu, Nov 8, 2012.
The Civil War war was fought in the 1860's, that is less than a century from the other rebellion that was the foundation of this country. It was the American spirit than and to some degree today to rebel against government intrusion into individuals lives.
The Dred Scott decision favored the south and was not reversed until the passage of the fourteenth ammendment after the Civil War.
The difference in the two economies is that the north was a finished goods exporter and the south was a raw materials exporter. When the government started placing tariffs on finished products being imported into the US, those countries retalliated by tariffs against raw materials being imported from the US. To the south, this was the government interfering with their lives.
This is just like the rebellion against England, which was fought over government intrusion.
Cerulean posted at 11:09 am on Thu, Nov 8, 2012.
Then there was the raid on Harpers Ferry.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/video/The-Raid-on-Harpers-Ferry.html
Cerulean posted at 12:20 pm on Thu, Nov 8, 2012.
It is true that the protective tariffs of ‘1832’ gave advantages to the North. That eventually led Calhoun to develop a theory of succession during the nullification crisis. However, through the nullification settlement, John Quincy Adams signed bills that cut tariff rates, gave duty free markets to the South, eliminated minimum valuations on woolens, etcetera.
“Ironically, the protective tariffs of the late 1850’s were lower than they had been in the previous 50 years.”
That was not the culminating reason for the civil war.
Opposition to the extension of slavery was central to the Republican platform in 1860 just before the civil war.
During Lincoln’s acceptance speech in 1858 he said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” He continued, “I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free, …I do not expect the house to fall- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing , or all the other.”
The issue was slavery.
http://civilwar.bluegrass.net/secessioncrisis/protectivetariffs.html
(http://mgagnon.myweb.uga.edu/students/4070/04SP4070-Hickey.htm)
Engaged Voter posted at 2:36 pm on Thu, Nov 8, 2012.
bubba - I was going to refute your citation with the official reports on the Liberty incident, but from your own citation:
7 June 1967, shortly before midnight. Office of the U.S. Defense Attaché in Tel Aviv sends coded message to U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) that Israel intends to attack the Liberty if her course is not changed.
So, why didn't the USS Liberty change course? Why did they continue to illegally monitor Israeli transmissions?
In other words, why did the NSA, through their own inaction, cause the USS Liberty to be attacked?
Engaged Voter posted at 3:21 pm on Thu, Nov 8, 2012.
Something I found that wasn't mentioned on the website RE: USS Liberty:
"In May 1968, the Israeli government paid US$3,323,500 (US$22.2 million in 2012) as full payment to the families of the 34 men killed in the attack. In March 1969, Israel paid a further $3,566,457 in compensation to the men who had been wounded. On 18 December 1980, it agreed to pay $6 million as settlement for the final U.S. bill of $17,132,709 for material damage to the Liberty itself plus 13 years' interest"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident
bubba posted at 9:20 pm on Thu, Nov 8, 2012.
Engaged Voter ...Please read the article in it'e entirety. This was an attempt to not just take out communications capability, this attack was meant to sink this ship and kill every sailor on board so as to leave no witness. Israel first claimed it to be a mistake. The cover up lasted for years. This was no friendly fire incident. Miscomunication lent a hand in the death of 34 sailors and injury to 171 others, but it was Israel that knowingly attacked the USS Liberty. Hardly an ally.
bubba posted at 9:54 am on Fri, Nov 9, 2012.
Another infomative read on Israeli's murderous attack on the USS Liberty: http://www.alanhart.net/israels-attack-on-the-uss-liberty-the-full-story-2/