1916

16 years old when I went to the war,
To fight for a land fit for heroes,
God on my side, and a gun in my hand,
Counting my days down to zero,
And I marched and I fought and I bled and I died,
And I never did get any older,
But I knew at the time that a year in the line,
Is a long enough life for a soldier,

We all volunteered, and we wrote down our names,
And we added two years to our ages,
Eager for life and ahead of the game,
Ready for history's pages,
And we brawled and we fought and we whored 'til we stood,
Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder,
A thirst for the Hun, we were food for the gun,
And that's what you are when you're soldiers,

I heard my friend cry, and he sank to his knees,
Coughing blood as he screamed for his mother,
And I fell by his side, and that's how we died,
Clinging like kids to each other,
And I lay in the mud and the guts and the blood,
And I wept as his body grew colder,
And I called for my mother and she never came,
Though it wasn't my fault and I wasn't to blame,
The day not half over and ten thousand slain,
And now there's nobody remembers our names,
And that's how it is for a soldier.


1916 by Mötorhead

July 28th in history: The 14th Amendment is Passed

On Twitter awhile back, I asked what amendment to the United States Constitution most people feel is the most important. I heard a lot of 1st Amendment, and 5th Amendment, and even a 21st Amendment, but only Mark got it right - the most important of the lot is the 14th Amendment. 132 years ago today, that particular amendment was incorporated in the United States Constitution. Because of the impact this amendment has had, I've chosen it to represent today's Day in History.

The 14th Amendment was one of the Reconstruction Amendments, designed to end forever slavery and inequality in the Union. Part of the price for being readmitted to the Union for seceded states was to ratify the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, usually via the influence of Freedmen, Carpetbaggers, and Scalawags in the new state governments. This amendment was the most influential of the three; whilst the 13th Amendment was important at the time, there have been few cases of slavery in the US since - similarly, the 15th Amendment was neatly skirted for around 100 years by Jim Crow laws.

However, the 14th Amendment was the key to shattering Jim Crow, the method by which Dred Scott v. Sanford was nullified, and most importantly, the mechanism by which the Bill of Rights was extended to every citizen under every government in the purview of the United States of America. Serious business.

The Amendment itself says:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

As one might expect, the first section became the most important. The part of Section 1 known as the Citizenship Clause immediately the invalidated the terrible decision of Dred Scott v. Sanford, which had declared that no black person could be a citizen of the United States. It ensured that even slaved recently freed of bondage were (in theory) entitled to equal protection under the law. In recent years, it has meant that the children of illegal immigrants, born in the United States, are citizens, and has led to some contentious discussions of what to do with their parents when caught.

The Due Process Clause was primarily used to strike down labour laws in the United States, but by the 1930s, this use of the clause was repudiated. Now, the Due Process Clause has been most famously held to protect the right to privacy, such as in Roe v. Wade, which you may have heard of - also Lawrence v. Texas, which you should take a moment and read about. Also, the Due Process Clause has been held to force judges who may exhibit a conflict of interest to recuse themselves; this may become very important as the current federal government appeals the original decision of Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC v. Salazar, which overturned the federal government's moratorium on exploratory offshore drilling in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

The Equal Protection Clause has again been the source of both consternation and difficulty, yet equality and the end of a horrid era in US history. The Supreme Court held first in Plessy v. Ferguson that the Equal Protection Clause was not violated, so long as governments extended "separate but equal" services, ushering in a century of segregation that would lead to bitter court battles, entrenched governmental racism, several Academy Award winning films, and the government deployment of soldiers. The Equal Protection Clause was successfully used by the Warren Court in Brown v. Board of Education and the many, many successor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boynton_v._Virginia to that ruling; it was also used, in conjunction with the Due Process Clause, to overturn anti-miscegenation laws in the USA during Loving v. Virginia. It's also used to overrule the most heinous of gerrymandering attempts (see League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry).

Finally, there's Incorporation. This is the big reason why the 14th Amendment is the best amendment there is. Before the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court had held in Barron v. Baltimore that the Bill of Rights (those free speech, trial by jury, etc. amendments) did not apply to the several states, but only to the Federal Government. Basically, that means that the US government could not stop journalists from reporting on secrets in government, but the State of Virginia and the City of Detroit sure can! Obviously, this was a serious limitation on liberty, and one that led to the repression of what we now consider to truly be universal rights, at least in the western world. However, starting with the Slaughter-House Cases, and continuing with the Civil Rights Cases, the Supreme Court has incorporated most of the Bill of Rights to the several states via the 14th Amendment, including the rights to freedom of speech, religion, press, and assembly. The First, Second, Fourth and Sixth Amendments have been fully incorporated, and parts of the Fifth and Eighth Amendments have been incorporated.

Without the 14th Amendment, the Several States of the Union could never have become the rather more national and powerful United States of America we all know (and some love) today.

Historical Event of the Week: End of the Marathon of Hope

Many of you non-Canadians out there probably haven't heard of a fellow named Terry Fox. Terry was a young Canadian doing what lots of young Canadians loved to do in the late 70s. He played basketball and was noted for his determination, and went off to university at Simon Fraser. The difference was that Terry had cancer, and he died very young of the disease in 1981.

Instead of being a pussy, Terry refused to give up. They took his leg, but that just gave him a greater balls-to-dude ratio. Terry decided to run across the fucking country, from Newfoundland to BC. He dipped his leg in the Atlantic Ocean and ran across the island of Newfoundland. Nobody gave a fuck.

He ran across Nova Scotia. People started to care, they lined the highways in some places. Quebec was pretty rough on Terry, but then he hit Ontario, and realized he was a celebrity, and beloved. Millions came in to help fight cancer. And Terry was given interviews and Darryl Sittler gave him his All-Star Jersey, and everything.

But this is about the end of the Marathon of Hope, because Terry Fox's cancer metastasized to his lungs. He couldn't run anymore, because he had trouble breathing. He stopped outside of Thunder Bay, and the place where he stopped has become a point of national pilgrimage.

Terry couldn't run anymore, but his Marathon never really stopped. The Marathon of Hope continued as fundraisers went across Canada, and massive telethons raised over $24 million in Terry's name. Every year, kids across Canada (and the world) take place in the Terry Fox Run, wherein they raise money for cancer research with pledges to engage in mini-marathons. Crossing Canada has become a thing to do for anyone with a cause, like Rick Hansen did in a wheelchair.

Terry Fox died on June 28, 1981, but he remains a hero to many Canadians and cancer patients. I always think of him as the guy who spat in Death's face and said, "Fuck you. I'm gonna run across Canada, leg or no leg. Take my life if you want - because it's worth it."

But maybe we should look at Terry's own words about doing this:

...everybody seems to have given up hope of trying. I haven't. It isn't easy and it isn't supposed to be, but I'm accomplishing something. How many people give up a lot to do something good. I'm sure we would have found a cure for cancer 20 years ago if we had really tried.

Historical Event of the Week: Operation Jubilee

This has nothing to do with the X-Men character of the same name. Operation Jubilee is the codename for a raid that occurred on the coast of France on August 19th, 1942. It was the largest seaborne raid of World War II that wasn't intended to make a lodgement, and also failed spectacularly. In Canada, this operation is synonymous with waste and failure. It's better known as:

The Dieppe Raid



This mission was a clusterfuck from the beginning. Basically, the idea was to use a major raid to capture a French seaport from the Germans to see what the reaction time of German High Command would be; in addition, the Allies wanted to see what the reaction of the Germans would be to a raid in force, and hopefully draw the Luftwaffe into a battle where the RAF would apply overwhelming force and cripple the defenders of German-held France.

None of this worked. First of all, the mission was originally set up to go in July, but the Germans figured the damn thing out, and hit the buildup with bombers. So, the Germans had a pretty good idea something was coming. Secondly, Mountbatten (the guy in charge of the raid) didn't really have much permission to launch the attack, so his intelligence was out of date. Thirdly, the forces brought were wholly insufficient to pierce Hitler's Atlantic Wall.

Let's talk about the Atlantic Wall for a moment. This was one of Adolf Hitler's little projects wherein he thought the Atlantic Coast of the Reich should have an impenetrable wall build up upon it. It wasn't a reality, but most French ports were already fortified, and so Hitler added a bit to them, specifically in the form of German soldiers. The Allies targeted Dieppe because, quite frankly so they could blow stuff up as they withdrew. They were to find out that hard targets were a poor choice for an amphibious assualt.

Finally, the plan needed soldiers. Canadians were chosen, for no better reason than they hadn't been in a fight in too long. Add in some commandos to take the flank, a few tanks, and no direct fire naval support, and you have a huge recipe for disaster and damnation.



As you can see, Dieppe is surrounded by fucking cliffs. Brilliant, isn't it? Fucking cliffs! Rule 1 in amphibious warfare: DON'T ATTACK FUCKING CLIFFS.

Rule 2 in amphibious warfare: have direct fire support from the fucking navy! It's not like Canada was bobbing around in rowboats, anyway. They were being brought along by the Royal Navy. They had ships. They just didn't care to use them.

Rule 3: air support is a good thing. The RAF sent in like 70 squadrons, most of which were Spitfires operating at their maximum range, and completely outclassed by the Fw-190s they came up against. With little time to linger, they had to bug out or be shot down after a very short engagement. Longer range fighters would be needed in order to support future raids.

Rule 4: DON'T ATTACK CLIFFS.

So, the attack went down, and was a total clusterfuck. The commandos did their job pretty well, but the Germans in the centre, where the Canadians were attacking, held and inflicted around a thousand fatalities on the day. The landings were delayed, letting the Germans take all the time in ze veld to get ready for the attack. Adding on to that, the Allies had no idea what the beach conditions were like - no tanks got off the beach past an anti-tank barrier.

It would have been nice to blast open the anti-tank barrier, with say, naval support, but six destroyers just didn't have the short-support capacity needed to effectively blow shit up for the landing. In the end, the boys barely got off the beach, and the Canadians took something like 60% casualties in the raid.

Dieppe changed the way the Allies looked at amphibious assault. It became obvious that you couldn't do this on the cheap, that you needed to plan and plan and plan. Future assaults would have prodigious aircraft cover and direct fire support; save for the Torch landings in November, there would be no more attacks on harbours. There would be airborne and better tank support. Armoured vehicles designed to clear beach obstacles were designed.

Still, though, 907 Canadians died on the beaches of Dieppe, a cost far too high to pay for lessons that should have been well-known already. A damn tragedy.