The wonderful and eloquent Greta Christina has written a detailed post regarding Jessica and the harassment she's been slammed with following daring to stand up for her rights. I suggest you read it in its entirety before coming back here.
What I'd like to do today is look at Jessica, and how she stands among a pool of Americans commonly considered great in times past. You see, those who study history know that there is a "right" side and a "wrong" side. The right side is the side that wins - and it tends to be, in American history, on the side of people who make the morally correct decision. In this situation, the situation of Jessica's First Amendment rights, we can look back through history and find some great Americans who would support - and those who would detract - from what she's done.
Please note that I am writing these as if these long-dead figures have knowledge of today's interpretation of the Constitution, including such important points as the 14th Amendment and Lemon v. Kurtzman.
I started this as a story some time ago, and as always, I pick and prod at such things. This is based on the idea of a different outcome to the American Civil War - one where the British become involved on the side of the Confederacy. Although I've only written 11,000 words so far, I did some extensive backstory work that isn't directly relevant to the action. So far, what I have written is one of my favourite pieces of fiction I've ever put to paper. I hope to one day write more on it, and I hope you enjoy what I have so far written. An excerpt, a link, and more detail below the jump.
I wrote this awhile ago. It's no longer current, and it's not always exactly what I think today. But I want to share it here anyway. Mostly so I don't have to crawl through 3 years of old posts on Maidenfans again.
It is hard for me to find things to say on this day. Half of me sits here and ponders that it is the day the world changed (indeed, for the worst), and that like so many others, I cannot forget exactly where I was when Al-Qaida struck down two of the world's mightiest buildings with the fire of their hatred. I remember the quiet aftermath of a terrorist strike deep into the body of a great nation, and I remember watching the great Union prepare to rise up and, as always, shake off the damage of an aggressor and prepare to move forward. Was it any different when the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, people asked. Was it any different when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor? Many people, many Canadians, have a lot of derision for the United States - I have a great respect for our allies, not least because in the past, the United States has been a beacon of strength, power, and inspiration.
What other country could drag itself, hand over hand, out of the deep pit of the Great Depression? What other country could rebuild savaged states in a matter of a decade? What other country could survive the destruction of an entire fleet at the hands of a surprise assault? You see, when the towers were struck, I, and many others with the sense to watch the world, drew in a breath and waited for the vengeance of America wounded, but not bowed. Certainly not broken under the terrorist's knife, for I believe there is not now and has never been any knife long enough to pierce the heart of America held by a foreign warrior. And the right things happened - all the world went to war against Al-Qaeda. The terrorist's bases in Afghanistan were broken by the assault of the world's free peoples; American, British, Canadian, German, Polish, Spanish, and more.
Political documents are somewhat of a hobby of mine, that is to say, I enjoy reading them and reading about their development and interpretation over time. I can remember being eleven and reading through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and being enthralled by the idea it held - a universal contract we are born into that protects our rights to exist. As I grew and was educated, I read other documents like it, and of course, the pinnacle of those documents, the first and the originator of the entire idea of modern western democracy: the Constitution of the United States. It seems to me, that the heart of our West, that the soul of our combined being are these documents that protect and demand the continued protection of our rights as individuals.
Opportunism and fear run hand in hand, and we can sadly see the same opportunism and fear running hand in hand today, as we could before. Sometimes when someone says to me, "Remember 9/11! Remember the Twin Towers!" in my mind I hear, "Remember the Maine!" Because this same opportunism that surrounded a fearful New England in 1898 exists today in all of the United States - the simple fact that the greatest country in the world has placed their forces into a war they cannot win (not in Iraq, but vs. "terrorism") because of some very fuzzy pictures and a series of bold-faced lies. Instead of turning the strength of the unified West against the ability of Osama Bin Laden to make war, the crucible was poured in Iraq and there the bloodied arms of the United States were thrust, and slowly they writhe and melt against the constant heat of those who believe in their beliefs enough to give their lives.
We must remember the events of September 11th, and we must support the troops deployed overseas. They are dying because the West was fooled by their own fear. They are dying because we are stifled. The Constitution of the United States, a sacred document to me, indeed, the most sacred of all documents save for my own Charter, violated by the man who swore to uphold it, and the citizens are blinded by the flashing lights and screaming alerts of FoxNews. Our greatest rememberance would be, now, to urge the Congresses and the Parliaments back to the task at hand: hunt down the man who perpetrated a great attack on the greatest nation, and to do so without succumbing to our own fear. Benjamin Franklin said that, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." If we allow our freedoms to be taken away, how long before we are not free enough to deserve safety? Our security *IS* our freedom, and we should fight to protect it.
I suggest not that we avenge but that we find justice for our dead. Justice for the dead of 9/11 is the capture and lifetime solitary imprisonment of Osama Bin Laden and his inner circle. Justice for the dead of Iraq is the impeachment and arrest of George Bush and his inner circle for violating his oath of office and misleading his nation into a war for no good cause. To cause the first I would see our nations join together again, to end a global terrorist ring. Our 54 dead of September 11th need their justice as well. To cause the second I urge my southerly neighbours to educate themselves towards politics. Your ignorance is the weapon of those who would see you without a voice, without meaning or matter. Mass media does not present the story that needs presenting, instead try newspapers, magazines, the Internet, and journals.
I believe with all my heart that the way our society will fall is not from without. Great societies have never fallen entirely due to exterior invasion. No - Alexander's Macedonian Empire crumbled when he died and left no clear successor. The Roman Empire fell to the corruption caused by the distance and time between cities and the inability of the Equestrian and Patricians to monitor the rule of the Emperors. Victoria's British Empire was auctioned by Attlee's Labour Party to the highest bidder after the Second World War, and the Soviet Union could not withstand it's public's cry for equality in a society that was supposed to exemplify it. If we forget that we are free men and women, born equal, for just a minute, that we all deserve the rights to free speech, religion, assembly, and press, then we risk losing our right to live the way we live. That we risk losing to those who would gladly take all in order to claim our wealth as theirs. That we risk losing our future, and the Age of Enlightenment's greatest child: liberty.
Friends, today, I'd like to remind you that the tradition of the left's tax-and-spend politics is not a recent tradition; it is in fact one that true, conservative, freedom-loving Americans have battled for over two centuries. You see, one of the things that George Washington did as President was to raise taxes when he decided to tax several luxury items that he considered distasteful. One of the prime purposes of President Washington's un-American taxation plan (they would have called it socialist but it's over a hundred years before the Communist Manifesto) was to alter the way people in the United States behaved and believed. This clear violation of the 10th Amendment was no more than a shady attempt to usurp states rights, disguising their intentions by telling the people of the United States that the money was needed to pay off the massive "debt" left by the Glorious War of Independence Against the Tyrant George.
A well-known liberal, Washington ignored the will of the people and chose to implement a form of taxation designed to conform behavior to progressive, liberal norms: he taxed whiskey. Like all people who hate freedom, Washington has a set lifestyle he wants Americans to live, and he had illegitimately abused his power this enact the tax. I don't know if you were aware of this, but Washington's Congress had only one party. Do you know what other country only had one party? That's right. Nazi Germany.
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.
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.
Okay, everyone has heard about Sarah Palin's interview with Glenn Beck, and the question Beck asked her on the Founding Fathers, basically saying which is your favourite. Palin responded with "all of them", much as she did with the Couric interview during the 2008 Presidential campaign, before eventually she narrowed it down to George Washington, because he was the leader of the Founding Fathers, and this seems to have gotten her out of a bit of the trouble she was in.
As Glenn Beck said: bullcrap.
American civics should teach us that George Washington was certainly a Founding Father, but he had little to do with the actual foundation of the USA from a political standpoint, being that he was somewhat busy actually fighting the war against the British. There's a reason Washington's name isn't on the Declaration of Independence - he had nothing to do with it. The Articles of Confederation? Washington was again in the field when they were written and had little to do with them (except for requesting that the Continental Congress insert provisions allowing for a strong control of the Continental Army). Washington was not an author of the Constitution nor of the Bill of Rights, though he was a delegate to the convention creating the former and President during the creation of the latter.
Indeed, he was chosen as the first President because his term as Commander of the Continental Army gave him significant recognition and respect throughout the United States, and there was a confidence in him from North and South that would not be held again by a single president for a long time. If you want to look at the people who actually held the true political power during the American Revolution (I *refuse* to call it a War of Independence), I suggest you examine men like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Harrison, Benjamin Rush, and, Edward Rutledge, and above all others, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. These men were part of the internal struggle to create the United States, and their stories are rather more important than the story of George Washington, who served at the pleasure of the aforementioned politicians.
George Washington may have defined what it means to be President, Mrs. Palin (something about which I believe you know very little), but Adams, Jefferson, Franklin et. al created the United States. Her answer was wholly a terrible one, showcasing how little she knows about American history. Washington was willing to serve as President, but humbled by his selection for a post that was half ceremonial at the time. George Washington didn't have a quarter of the power today's President has, and his Cabinet consisted of himself and four secretaries, not 15 secretaries and 7 Cabinet-level officials. Not even the Vice President was welcome in Cabinet under Washington, nor for many years thereafter.
Indeed, as Palin said, Washington served but two terms as President of his own volition, returning to end his life at his Mount Vernon estate. However, it should be remembered that Washington never wanted to be President anyway, nor run for any public office. He didn't want salary. He didn't even want to run the Continental Army. Yes, he served best because he had to, not because he wanted to - there was no equal for Washington as General in 1775, just as there was no equal for him as President in 1789 - but Mrs. Palin does herself a great disservice by pretending to share the same characteristics. George Washington was a truely honourable man who would never be considered for office in today's political world. In order to gain elected post now, you must be aggressive, distrustful, deceitful, and possessed of an ego larger than life, of which Washington was none, making him an entirely better man than all who have served since.
And those who want to serve, need and crave to be in the public's eye, like the idiotic broken mess of a woman that is Sarah Palin.
As an aside, I hate how only Sarah Palin seems to be able to motivate me to blog nowadays.
Here's a thing I've been noticing with our southerly neighbours. Everyone knows I'm a pretty pro-America Canadian with an interest in their politics and history. What I want to talk about here is when one of those two things infringes upon the other - that is to say, when politics infringes on history. I'm a member of a naval family, and I've managed to get a decent idea of what naval history means to the members of the service.
So let's point this towards our friends in the United States Navy, and how politicians are seriously fucking with their mojo. They've been playing politics with naming ships, specifically their capital ships, and that is bad. Sailors tend to take these things seriously, and a lot of them, even now, are superstitious.
Nobody wants to serve on a cursed ship. Nobody wants to serve on a ship that might have a name that is anything less than illustrious, and I think that naming something the Gerald R. Ford is a really, really bad start. Down to brass tacks - the last three administrations chose carrier names based on political affiliation.
The USN has added, since 1960, 15 carriers with a sixteenth named and under construction. Since 1972, all carriers have been named after people; previous to that, they bore names like Kitty Hawk, Constellation, America, and Enterprise. The John F. Kennedy was also commissioned in 1968, named after the recently late president. In 1972, the first of a new class was christened - Nimitz, after Chester Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet in World War II and a man who did just as much to win the war in the Pacific as Eisenhower did in Europe. Since then, the names have been rather more dubious.
The Dwight D. Eisenhower, after the Republican president, was named in 1970 (shortly after the Nimitz's name was announced), by Richard Nixon, who had served as Ike's Vice President. Nixon also ordered the Carl Vinson, named after a Democratic member of Congress. So he was fairly balanced - one Republican, one Democrat, and one Admiral, all of which with impeccable credentials to be considered worthy to have a US carrier named after them.
Reagan & G.H.W. Bush ordered the Theodore Roosevelt, the Abraham Lincoln, the George Washington, and the John C. Stennis. Two Republican presidents, one non-aligned president, and one Democratic Senator. Again, all men were considered great or important and all have grand credentials. You'd be hard pressed to pick more deserving presidents than TR, Abe, Geo. Washington, and Ike to have ships named after them.
President Bill Clinton named one: the Harry S Truman - a Democratic president. And George W. Bush named three - Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Gerald R. Ford. Now here's where we get to the "what the fuck".
Bill picked a president who had been around for awhile, and is currently considered quite good. And that's fine and all, but what about FDR? What about Woodrow Wilson? There are options here, of course. But that's not really as bad as GWB's selections. Ronald Reagan was not a good president (despite conservative love in the US), and the man served in the Army Reserve. I think this was just the standard Reagan sycophantism in the Republican Party.
If anyone else had named the George H. W. Bush, then I'd be perfectly fine with it. As it is, I'm pretty much OK - GHWB was a legitimate war hero. He was the youngest naval aviator in the USN in World War II, and flew combat missions at age 19 off of the USS San Jacinto, winning a plethora of medals. But Jerry Ford? Come ON. The man's considered a failure as a President. But at least he was in the navy, unlike Reagan.
In the end, these names are pretty much based on their fucking party. That's why I think the current president, who will get to name at least one and maybe two hulls, should very seriously consider these names. There's lots of great and historical names out there, names that mean a lot in the history of the United States Navy - names like Yorktown, Ranger, and Constellation. America, United States, President. And in 2012, a new name will become available, one I think should be chosen - Enterprise.
Some bills have been pushed into Congress suggesting names like Arizona and the Barry Goldwater. I think the former is inappropriate and the latter is stupid. Obama may choose a Democratic president - or he may choose a more abstract name. I think that a return to the abstract is called for, and may the history of the United States Navy be allowed to continue without consideration for politics and politicians - men and women that can never live up to the glory already earned by names like Lexington, Yorktown, and Enterprise.
The Republican National Committee has come up with the idea of charting future Republican candidates against a so-called "Reagan Unity Principle", holding all these Republicans running for office to a field of idealistic Reagan-like ideals. Candidates who fail to meet 8 or more of these ideals would be refused funding by the RNC as being ideologically unpure. The RNC will score candidates based on their voting record and public statements. I wonder how President Reagan would score?
The entire text can be found here (via Taegan Goddard's Political Wire).
So, let's take a look at them, shall we?
(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;
Oh, bravo. Ronald Reagan certainly supported smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits, and lower taxes, right?
Except, that when he was Governor of California, Reagan raised taxes. But that was in order to pay off the Californian deficit. Yet, he didn't seem to care so much about that when he was president: Reagan originally slashed taxes, but two years later increased those taxes somewhat. The US debt rose from 909 billion to 3.2 trillion from 1980 to 1990 - eight of those years were under Reagan. In addition, government expenditure still increased, albeit at a slower level than previously. So, Ronald Reagan clearly fails this section.
(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
This is certainly true. While health care was not a major issue in the 1980s, Reagan was very slow to act on the AIDS crisis. He was certainly not interested in interfering with health care, even in this limited area. Reagan gets the RNC Seal of Approval on this one.
(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
Such things did not exist when Ronald Reagan was president. However, Reagan did think that acid rain was nonsense, he deregulated the oil industry, and used federal environmental funds for political purposes. Seal of Approval!
(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
Yeah, Ronald "Strikebuster" Reagan supports workers' rights.
(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
Again, illegal immigration wasn't particularly an issue during Reagan's years as presidency. So I have no idea what Reagan was perceived to have done to defend the United States against the evil brown people who want to work for a living. So this is going to be an "invalid point".
(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
Ronald Reagan wasn't a very big fan of sending soldiers to actually fight. In fact, most of his presidency involved America paying others to fight for them. But he does like invading weak countries like Grenada. Presumably, he'd be okay with fighting a war the US was already in. Again, Reagan wasn't really on the record about Afghanistan and Iraq, having withdrawn from public life in early 2001 to battle Alzheimer's. This point is again invalid.
(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;
Ronald Reagan secretly sold weapons to Iran. He was not interested in containing them, rather arming them so he could fund his pet projects in Latin America covertly. Reagan fails at this point.
(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
Reagan is said to be personally tolerant to gay people, but firmly was against GTLB rights. He gets the RNC Seal of Bigoted Approval!
(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and
Reagan was very firmly anti-abortion for most of his political career. However, very early on, as Governor of California, he signed into law the "Theraputic Abortions Act" which was designed to reduce back-alley abortion. While this turned Reagan, personally, against abortion (so he claimed), the RNC is unlikely to forgive a moment of ideological impurity. So he is denied on this point, because Ronald Reagan once supported abortion rights, in even a small and limited way.
In addition, he appointed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is pro-abortion, to the Supreme Court, something that could never be supported by conservatives today.
(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership;
By the same note, Justice O'Connor voted for gun control. As a Justice appointed by President Reagan, he must be held accountable for choosing a judge that could not be relied upon by the conservative movement to uphold one of their Reagan Unity Principles. Thus, Reagan fails.
So, in conclusion, the Republican National Committee would not support Ronald Reagan if he were to rise from the dead and run for President once more, finding that he is not ideologically pure enough to deserve support, based on a rose-tinted look back at the terrible President of Ronald Reagan.
8 years ago, New York City and Arlington, Virginia were attacked by terrorists of Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda Islamist Jihad group. Everybody in the world knows the story of this horrid day - certainly I remember it being seared into my mind when Jim Burns came on the PA at school and announced it to a shocked group of teens in smalltown Nova Scotia. So I shan't recant the moment for you.
Instead, I want to remind you of Jon Stewart's thoughts when the Daily Show came back a couple weeks later. Or of Keith Olbermann's thoughts three years ago. Or alternately, of the cartoons that ran in the local paper a few days after September 11th. I want to remind you, my devoted readers (lol) about the realities of the situation, and the differences of the horrors of today compared to the horrors of the past.
September 11th is a horrible day, a terrible time in human history. But the wholesale and brutal slaughter of 3017 people is but a drop of dead in the timeline of the United States, as an example. 19,246 soldiers were killed in the Battle of the Bulge. 3654 Americans, north and south, died at the Battle of Antietam. What sets 9/11 apart is the sheer number of American civilian casualties.
We must remind ourselves that the Americans have never seen such civilian casualties in their history from a foreign source. The Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 never truly damaged the civilian population - those weapons didn't yet exist to cause mass civilian casualties without long, protracted sieges of starvation. The Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II never came to US soil in any meaningful way. The Cold War never became hot.
Of course, America was very good at damaging civilian infrastructure, and still is. Just go ask the Afghans and the Iraqis. So what 9/11 was, was a shock that people could actually strike a city that hadn't seen war in hundreds of years: New York. That the heart of the US military was not immune: the Pentagon. It was a crack in the myth of American invulnerability, a myth that had faded following Vietnam but returned in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the one-sided Gulf War. And this crack went straight to the heart of both the economic and military spheres of American life.
This isn't a bad thing. Every great nation has moments that shake it to its very core. How those nations are defined is the mannerism in which they act following this. Afterwards, everyone expected the United States to perform exactly as it had the last two times there was such a moment. They expected the (glorified and near-mythological) reaction of the North following Fort Sumter; a great uprising of the massive Union to put down the evil of terrorism. They expected the (less glorified and only semi-mythological) awakening of the giant following the December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor. In short, they expected the United States to act as the magnanimous but powerful superpower face it always put forward.
I remember the Bruce MacKinnon cartoons of Sept 12, 13, and 14, each detailing the image of Uncle Sam. The first had Uncle Sam on his knee, a thick knife titled terrorism stuck deep in his back. The second showed Uncle Sam struggling to his feet, reaching for the blade. The third showed the blade discarded, and Uncle Sam striding confidently, powerfully, towards the light. It was a powerful image of the way the United States has always, in the past, acted.
Five years later, Keith Olbermann gave a monologue from Ground Zero in New York City:
The world has changed, and the United States failed the challenge. They allowed themselves to be deluded by fuzzy photos and false reports on yellowcake and invaded Iraq for no good reason. Yes, they toppled an evil dictator, but they killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people in the process - and 4,334 US soldiers. The United States allowed itself to be manipulated by the government, who extended a hand saying patriotism whilst the other hand pushed the Constitution under the rug.
Yet a failure doesn't mean the dream is dead. One poor decision, or one poor government is not a permanent blemish on the Great American Experiment concocted by Jefferson, Madison, Adams, et al. After all, they lived through the Civil War; through the presidencies of Herbert Hoover and James Buchanan. George W. Bush could not be worse, could he? There's no way he's irrevocably damaged the Union...is there?
This is the question we hope will be answered by the Obama presidency, be it one term or two. I'm not saying that Obama is a saviour - I'm simply questioning whether or not the Union can work in the way it has for the past couple hundred years in the post Bush era. We're watching the health care bill right now, watching as people scream and deride and spit out the most vicious nonsense I've ever heard in political discourse - even the visceral hatred of Bush by the extreme left never hit this level of nastiness. Obama has 4 times more threats on his life in a day than Bush did.
If the government can still function in this morass, we just might be on the way forward. But I won't be happy until BOTH sides sit down and pass an important bill without the ideological discrimination that has dominated the Congress since, well, Gingrich. That's when we know the Union will be going forward, and not drowning out reason and sense in screams and spitting and angry rhetoric.
People have freedom of speech and can say what they want, but the same people should attempt to educate themselves as to what they're actually saying, instead of listening to the talking heads, who absolutely do not tell it how it is. The fear that came from 9/11 - that the United States is somehow vulnerable to evil forces like terrorism, or socialism, or illegal immigration, or you name it, is being exploited by the left and right instead of healed. It is not from without that the Union is vulnerable. It is from within - it is when Americans learn to hate other Americans that the real danger comes, and I think they are learning that right now.
Submarines are ships too. They are narrow, cramped, long, penis-shaped ships who's job is to shove similarly penis-shaped objects into other ships, exploding dramatically into a hole that then destroys the other ships.
I've been reading too much feminist literature. Everything is a penis now.
Anyway, this is about one of the most famous submarines in naval history. Like many other famous vessels, this ship had a long and distinguished career, but had one action that really made it stand out - one of the greatest submarine actions in American history. We're talking about:
Archerfish was one of 128 Balao-class submarines built by the United States Navy during World War II. The Balao-class vessels provided the bulk of the work done by the USN in the submarine war against Japan, and was very closely related to the preceding Gato-class ships. Like the rest of the ships in her class, Archerfish displaced around 1500 tons on the surface, was around 100 metres long, and could rip along at a stately 20 knots while surfaced. 10 torpedo tubes could deliver 24 torpedoes during one cruise.
Like many submarines, Archerfishstarted her war in 1943, and wasn't particularly notable right away. She had a few failed attacks and rescued the life of a downed naval aviator during air attacks on Iwo Jima. So, a fairly boring and basic life for a submarine.
That all changed on 28 November, 1944. Archerfish was stationed off Tokyo Bay as a recovery craft for B-29 crew from airplanes shot down or damaged over Japan. However, on that day, there were to be no B-29 raids. However, a large ship was spotted leaving Tokyo Bay - probably a tanker. Archerfish was given license to pursue the ship.
Upon reaching station, Commander Joe Enright, in charge of Archerfish, realized that the ship was not a tanker at all, but instead an aircraft carrier. He tracked the ship carefully, and the carrier turned into Archerfish's path. Enright prepared a spread of six torpedoes, to run shallow to hopefully capsize the top-heavy enemy ship.
Four of the torpedos hit, and Archerfish could hear the enemy vessel making breaking noises as she dove away from the scene of the attack. One of the enemy's escorts pursued the US sub, attacking it with depth charges. However, Archerfish survived, and was hailed as a hero. Enright won the Navy Cross - and Archerfish herself won the Presidential Unit Citation.
Turns out the ship the Archerfish sank was the Shinano, a Yamato-class battleship that had been converted into an aircraft carrier secretly by the Japanese, and was capable of carrying like 160 airplanes. She displaced 72,000 tons, and thus was the largest ship ever sunk by submarine.
Shinano was a rush conversion, and design flaws contributed greatly to Archerfish's ability to send her to the bottom. In addition, the damage was originally presumed to be minor; Shinano was able to continue steaming. But the ship's watertight doors weren't quite watertight - some theories have said that they failed to close due to incompleteness. In addition, the crew of Shinano was a skeleton crew, moving the ship to where her finishing touches would be added, and not very experienced in fighting floods.
She stayed up for 4 hours, then capsized and sank.
Archerfish served after the war, in the role of an attack submarine, and a research boat after the advent of the nuclear sub. She was finally retired in May of 1968 after 25 years of service in the United States Navy. She was then sunk as a target. In addition to her Presidential Unit Citation, Archerfish received seven battle stars - often as the role of lifeguard for US airplanes. But she will forever be remembered for her role in striking down desperate Japan's one last great weapon for making war.
This week's historical event was a product of the last war between the USA and Britain, and is important only as a historical note for most people, though of late, it has been an element of pride in common Canadian culture. The War of 1812 was a war fought for misguided reasons by the Americans against the British Empire, an Empire entirely distracted by the Peninsular War in Spain against Napoleon. During the war, York (now Toronto) was captured and the Parliament there burned. So in return, the English decided to strike back and perform:
At the time, Washington, DC wasn't quite what it is today. The government of the US was oft spread, as travel times from the capital to the states wasn't a train or a plane ride, but oft a long slog down the coast on a ship, or a horse or wagon ride of a lengthy period of time. There was no Pentagon at the centre of American military operations to strike out, and none of the famous memorials or museums had of yet been established.
Yet the English undertook to attack Washington - to damage the credibility of the young American state, and to prove to them what sort of fools they had become. In order to understand why this move was important, we must quietly examine the War of 1812 and what it came from - especially important for my European friends.
The War of 1812 was fought over the right of America to trade with Europe, free of the restrictions of the massive European wars that had raged on the continent since the arrival of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. In addition, the Royal Navy had been impressing US sailors who were supposedly escaped or mutineed men from the RN. Then the British had also been supplying arms to Native Americans fighting American expansion into the eastern frontiers.
Some said the war's real motivation was to snag the land now comprising Ontario and Quebec, as well as the lucrative and powerful British base in Halifax, whilst the British were busy fighting the French. Many Canadian historians have this opinion. My opinion is that the Americans simply wanted to prove they could fight the English, and probably wanted to secure their expansion westward, rather than northward. However, as the men who were the chief masters of the war never left any real indication, we'll likely never truly know.
What we do know is that nobody really won the war, because all it ended up being was a series of short-lived invasions on each side. The English never conquered anything of note in the US (just Detroit, nothing important at all); the US never held any English/Canadian territory for very long. Indeed, the most lasting legacies of the war have been symbols - the Star Spangled Banner is about the defense of Baltimore by the Americans, the USS Constitution was a famous frigate in the war, and Canadians have latched onto the concept of burning down the White House as a defining moment in our combined history.
Of course, the entire war was viewed by the English as a distraction; when Napoleon was captured in 1814, they actually started to send over regulars. The Americans quickly decided to look for peace once Napoleon was out of the war. The first, and only large-scale engagement of the British Army was at New Orleans, a battle easily won by Andrew Jackson. However, there can be no doubt that if the full scale of the British Army and Royal Navy was brought to bear on the US after Waterloo, that men like Wellington and his hardened regulars would have shown, and the US may very well have been crushingly defeated. I don't blame them for pussying out.
Pussers!
Anyway.
Washington was literally undefended. It was a civilian capital, and landing and occupying it was easy. A few partisans shot at the Brits, and that enraged the soldiery. The torches came out.
Some buildings were spared. The US Patents Office was spared by the impassioned pleas of its superintendent, who said the contents were important to both Americans and British. The Marine Barracks were spared because, unlike the rest of the American soldiers, the Marines were seen as honourable foes.
Everything else was put to the torch. White House? Burned. Capitol? Burned. Treasury Building? Ooohyeah she burned. Navy Yards? Burned like a bitch, including the USS Columbia, currently under construction. Basically anything the government built went up in flames.
A hurricane came through the next day, spawned a tornado, put out most of the fires and killed a few soldiers, convincing the English to gtfo. Really, no major military victory came from the attack - at most, it was a minor embarrassment to the USA. But in recent years, it has been seized upon by Canadians as a point of pride.
Here's the rub: we didn't do it. It was the English.
So, let's take it for what it was. A burning of an enemy capital that wasted time and lives and accomplished nothing militarily. The end.
The Great Raid is a 2005 war movie starring Benjamin Bratt, James Franco, Joseph Fiennes, and a few other decent bit players scrabbled together in an attempt to recreate the January, 1945 raid on Cabanatuan Camp. It shows the depth of success of the mission, which saved 514 soldiers from near-certain death at the hands of the vicious Japanese prison camps, and was not a bad movie. Though there were some things that truly bothered me. Regardless, that is what a review is about. Yarrrr.
The raid at Cabanatuan brought the 6th Ranger Battalion and allied partisan Filipinos through Japanese-occupied territory to the Cabanatuan camp. There was some disagreement between the principle commanders of the raid - US Lt. Col. Henry Mucci, US Captain Robert Prince, and Filipino Captain Juan Pajota - over how to make it go down. Pajota, being on the scene for much longer than either American, was the best help possible, and they delayed the raid for a day to make the necessary arrangements.
This raid was thought as necessary because it turned out the Japanese were summarily executing all their POWs as the Americans got close, throwing them into air-raid shelters, dousing them in gasoline...and burning them alive, to dispose of any evidence of their war crimes. Lovely people, the Japanese were. So this mission was out of desperation. Tens of thousands of Americans had surrendered to the Japanese, but only a few thousand were left alive, and those who were were malnourished, underfed, and diseased.
Pajota suggested that the Americans attack the camp while he and his partisans held off the Japanese at a nearby bridge. In order to let the Rangers approach the camp, Pajota suggested an American plane buzz the camp, distracting the guards. A P-61 Black Widow performed this task, lingering over the camp and eventually faking an engine failure, while the US Rangers crawled close. At sundown, they established a base of fire on the Japanese garrison, killing and wounding the majority of the 700 guards (523 casualties), while freeing the prisoners.
Two US servicemen and a prisoner died, and a couple dozen Filipinos were killed, but we don't have exact numbers for them. But 514 US servicemen were saved from the hell of Japanese prison camps - and the shorter-lived but ever so final hell of burning alive.
The movie did a very, very good job recreating the history leading up to the raid, especially the interactions between Mucci, Prince, and Pajota. The movie also tried to link the story of Margaret Utinsky to the camp by romantically linking her to Joseph Fiennes's character, who was mostly fictional. This part particularly failed to be accurate, but was effectively dramatic.
The assault was very, very well done. It showed the true power of an American platoon in combat in World War II - semi-automatic rifles, Thompsons, and BARs brought a huge amount of firepower to battle that the Japanese could not handle with their bolt-action Arisaka rifles. The amount of lead the US guys could throw out, wow. It was a very well done recreation of a set-piece company-level battle.
There was some additions to the battle; tanks that likely weren't there, added for the pure explosion and adrenaline factor. The movie didn't rely on shaky-cam technology, so that I found it easy to watch. The torture of the characters felt very real. Martin Csokas (Celeborn from Lord of the Rings) played a captain who was Joseph Fiennes's friend in the camp, but he was a real hardass who wanted to escape. When the Kempeitai threatened to execute 10 men for every one who escaped, he expressed that he didn't care. When he was caught, and 10 men were shot before he was, you could see the defiance just leeching out of him. A very good performance by a less famous actor.
Overall, I wasn't too sure what the movie was trying to say on the subject of religion. Benjamin Bratt's character, Mucci, declared that he didn't "want any damned atheists on this mission". Mucci was a fan of taking everything on faith. The faith of the prisoners was in focus; the common funerals were given by a prisoner padre. Men crossed themselves before being executed. Priests gave Margaret Utinsky shelter, believing in their faith, and were executed for it. Martin Csokas's character thought aloud, "I can't believe he still believes in god."
The other contrast was with men like Prince and Pajota, both of whom were against a headstrong attack, like Mucci wanted, and trying to plan everything out. Prince was shown as restraining the aggressive Mucci, but there was never a flat-out denial of religion. As an atheist, I would like to think that faith isn't needed to save people from hell on earth, but that seemed to be a requirement. It is possible they were trying to make a point about the pointlessness of faith, but I don't think it was well made.
Overall, it was an enjoyable movie. It was better at history than allegory, and I give it a solid 3.5/5.
If there was ever a pilot for all-time, this is the guy. Today's Dude of the Week is one of the most famous airplane pilots to ever hop in a cockpit, up there with Lindburgh and von Richthofen. He served with the United States Army Air Forces and the United States Air Force from 1941-1975, winning a plethora of medals. He was a World War II fighter ace, flew over a hundred missions in Vietnam, and was the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound. He is:
Chuck Yeager was a high school graduate from West Virginia who enlisted in the US Army Air Forces before World War II came to US shores, in September of 1941. Though he wasn't a university graduate, once war came, Yeager trained as a flight officer. He flew P-39s and P-51s, being shot down once and scoring 11.5 kills - including 5 in one day, and he snagged a Me-262. So, he's badass already.
After the war, Yeager decided that he needed to get the reputation as being the most awesome fucker who ever flew a plane, and he flew the Bell X-1 "Glamorous Glennis" to Mach 1.07, breaking the sound barrier for the first time in a manned aircraft. He did this with two broken ribs, and he couldn't even close the aircraft canopy without a jerry-rigged handle.
Yep.
Yeager did his best to keep his title as the fastest man alive. When Scott Crossfield became the first person to punch through Mach 2, Yeager planned to take the record from him, just before Crossfield was honoured as "the fastest man alive" at the 50th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' flight from Kitty Hawk. So, Yeager basically took a giant dump on Crossfield's head. Awesome.
As an accomplished fighter pilot, Yeager realized that if he flew fighter planes in Vietnam, it would just be too easy for the US to win, so he completely switched professions and became a bomber pilot, flying B-57s and F-4 Phantoms. He then hooked up with the Pakistani Air Force as a liason, helping their air force fight the Indians, spending his time fucking off in a F-86 Sabre for shits and giggles.
Since retiring, Yeager has gone off and set records in every airplane they'll still let him fly, usually light civilian types. He set speed records, distance records, and endurance records. In 1997 Yeager flew a F-15D to celebrate the anniversary of him ripping the sound barrier a new one. That's right, they let him fly a $30 million aircraft at age 74, because he is awesome.
In conclusion: Chuck Yeager is allowed to bone your girlfriend.
John Adams is the newest major miniseries from HBO. HBO has a tradition of putting out fantastic and award-winning minis, such as Band of Brothers and From the Earth to the Moon. John Adams stars Paul Giamatti in the title role, with Laura Linney as his wife Abigail. It's an examination of the life of one of the most influential men in the formation of the United States of America.
Episode 1 starts with the Boston Massacre. The captain in charge of the detail responsible for the Massacre is to be put on trial, and it is certain he will be found guilty of murder and hanged. He pleas for the best lawyer there is - John Adams. Adams thinks the men are probably guilty, like most, but he believes that the captain and his men deserve a fair trial and legal representation.
Adams becomes convinced the men were innocent and acting in self-defense, and he establishes a defense, using his personal contacts and his strict belief in justice to convince witnesses to tell the truth. He shows physical facts such as bullet marks on clothing and wounds on the accused to support his version of events. The men are found innocent.
John Adams is oft shown at odds with his cousin, Samuel Adams (yes, the beer guy). Samuel is a leader of the Sons of Liberty movement for independence from England; John believes in the rule of law, though both agree that the level and type of taxation is completely unfair. Samuel would prefer a rash action; but John shows that sort of dedication to human rights that will later define him, and the United States: that it is better to let a thousand wicked souls go free than condemn one who is innocent.
Later, Adams is offered posts, both in the government of Massachusetts and as an extension of the Admiralty, but he refuses both. He witnesses a man ordering a fellow named John Hancock to unload his illegal goods; Hancock incites the crowd to tar and feather the man. Adams is moved to tears, as he believes those actions to be worse than the crime of repressive taxation, and extols Samuel as such.
It turns out that Samuel Adams has listened to his brother, and as a result, has moved to nominate his cousin for the Continental Congress; Adams wins appointment, along with Hancock and others. He pledges, emotionally, to the cause of liberty for all, and departs with Samuel for the First Continental Congress.
I am very thoroughly impressed by this first episode. Giamatti is utterly fantastic as John Adams, a man who may one day rank in the top level of important people to walk this earth. I believe firmly in Adams's place, moreso than George Washington or Benjamin Franklin or many of his contemporaries, because he established so many of the ideas on which the US was built.
The first episode stuck quite closely to history; Adams was involved in the Boston Massacre trial (though two of the men were found guilty of manslaughter); Adams was offered many posts in government. Was Hancock a smuggler? I don't know, but the scene felt right - it felt that Adams would have reacted like that to this sort of thing.
Overall...it established, fully, that John Adams is a man who loved and desires liberty, freedom, and equality for all - that he would set such things above life itself. That...is true bravery and dedication.
Goddamn, sometimes a good song can really affect you. I can't pretend to be swayed by pop songs, or sex drugs & rock'n'roll songs, but a well-done song about a powerful piece of literature, or an amazing event can surely move me. Famously, I wept during the first time I heard "Paschendale", by Iron Maiden. And who can blame me? Check it out.
Warning: SHAMELESS PLUG
"Paschendale" is the story about a soldier at the Third Battle of Ypres, best known as the Battle of Passchendaele. This battle was a brutal slaughterfest in a raining field of muck and mud that was intended to be the first part of a major operation designed to cut off a large force of Germans, and deny them a valuable U-Boat base on the North Sea. However, it failed; taking the village of Passchendaele was only supposed to take a week. It took six months and 508,000 casualties to take that damned village.
Passchendaele was a mess of muck and mud; a filth-ridden series of trenches swarming in putrid disease, rats, and human remains. The worst rains recorded in French history thundered down on the battlefield, ensuring that it was impossible to navigate; thousands drowned in the muck, or were wounded and simply hadn't the strength to stay afloat. It was an unconscionable slog; a brutal and useless battle, and probably the worst fighting conditions in human history till Stalingrad.
The battle tells me the story of one particular soldier, who waits and waits for his turn to hop the trenches, waiting in terror and rain and fear. When the moment comes, there's the solos, short, intense, rapid sounds, a verse lamenting slaughter, and the soldier's violent death. It was probably the most hyped song of the Dance of Death album, and it hasn't lost its poignancy yet.
So, what are some others songs that affect me the same way?
Let's see. Let's try...Gettysburg (1863) by Iced Earth.
Yes, the song is like 30 minutes long, and comes in three parts. The Battle of Gettysburg was the largest battle ever fought on the North American continent, where one hundred and sixty-five thousand Americans clashed over three violent days, resulting in around 50,000 casualties. (Yes, that is one in four.) Gettysburg was a fluke; advance columns of Harry Heth's division of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia met with John Buford's Federal Cavalry under the command of the Army of the Potomac.
Buford correctly identified the heights surrounding Gettysburg to be a critical defensive position that must be denied to the numerically inferior Confederates. Buford, and many other Union generals, were familiar with the ability of the Army of Northern Virginia to defend - the Battle of Fredericksburg was not so long ago, where James Longstreet's Corps had handed the Union army a thorough drubbing from a strong defensive position.
Buford deployed his cavalry, dismounted, and engaged Heth. He held for some hours, waiting for reinforcements. Just before he was about to be pushed back, however, John Reynolds and the Union I and XI Corps arrived to reinforce. Reynolds (one of the most experienced and talented commanders in the Union army) took personal command until he was killed, likely by friendly fire. Winfield Scott Hancock arrived on the field to take command around noon; upsetting Oliver Howard of XI Corps who felt he was the senior commander.
Regardless, Robert E. Lee's full army was coming down on two Corps, eventually forcing them back through the town of Gettysburg and onto the hills behind it - Culp's Hill, Cemetery Hill, and Cemetery Ridge, forming a defensive "fishhook" as other Corps arrived - II Corps (Hancock) and III Corps (Sickles) formed the left end of the line along the Ridge, to the hill called "Little Round Top", while I Corps (now under Newton) and XI Corps held Cemetery Hill; XII Corps under Slocum entrenched on Culp's Hill on the far right.
The second day started with Lee's forces preparing an assault on the far left of the Union line. Longstreet formed up two of his three divisions for an assault. III Corps, responsible for that side of the line, moved forward out of position, and was caught in the attack by Hood and McLaws. III Corps was dissected and destroyed in detail; V Corps under Sykes was rushed into position, extending from the end of II Corps's line to the top of Little Round Top, where the 20th Maine Regiment under Joshua L. Chamberlain was placed.
A professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin University, Chamberlain was not a likely soldier. However, operating at the extreme left of the Union line, finding the far right of Hood's division coming up the hill at him, Chamberlain and his Maine boys performed admirably, firing till their ammunition was exhausted, then leading a charge down the hill with bayonets to rout their foe. Had the 20th Maine broken, the Rebels might have swept the line apart; by ending the charge, they ended the day's danger.
On the third day, Lee decided on a grand charge. Three divisions (Pickett, Pettigrew, and Trimble) under Longstreet attacked Hancock in the line's centre, trying to split the Union force in twain. Fifteen thousand men charged across a mile of field, being wracked apart by cannon and canister, by musket and rifle, and ending up in a vicious hand-to-hand battle. Armistead's brigade of Virginians broke the line, and for a moment the Confederate battle flag flew over Cemetery Ridge. But Armistead was mortally wounded, and the Charge broken. Around half of those who set out never came back, or were badly wounded, or captured.
Lee's final gamble failed spectacularly, and the Army of Northern Virginia was forced to retreat. Just as exhausted, George Meade and the Army of the Potomac followed, failing to press the issue. With around a third of the strength of both armies drained, neither felt like fighting too hard in the days following. It's a terrible time in American history, but capturing it, remembering it, is oh so important.
We'll do one more in this segment of "Historical Songs"...
Silver Wings by Bruce Dickinson is an examination of those who performed night bombing for Bomber Command during World War II, from the perspective of a pilot flying an Avro Lancaster four-engined bomber on a mission towards Germany. Night bombing was a thankless, exceptionally hazardous mission. There was no fighter escort, and by the late war, Germany had developed many, many effective night fighters to engage Allied airplanes.
The song laments the poor prospects of a bomber crew as they enter their raid over a German city - how the searchlight seems to have caught them, how they lose engines and have to dump the fuel, how the pilot advises the crew to bail out, and likely how his plane crashes to the pilot's death. It's a very...powerful song, both in the music and the words.
"Tonight, on silver wings, I am soaring through the mountains of the moon...on silver wings, flying where no angels fly"
Bruce's lyrical ability highlights the incredible joy of flying (he would know, as a pilot), the power one feels, with the simple fact that they were harbingers of death for those in Germany. Flying where no angels could fly. It makes me a little teary just pondering that terrible contrast.
