i call bullshit

Posted on April 14, 2014 by greg

Right wing extremists were celebrating yesterday. A lot of them are interpreting the decision by the Bureau of Land Management to de-escalate the tensions over the Bundy Cattle Fuss as a victory in the first battle of a new civil war.

We have big escalating issues here with an out of control government. Otherwise this entire government continues down the road to Russian style tyranny and control.

Civil war better now than later!

It will be Western US/State water/ag rights, that drive a new civil war. This battle, will be once again, motivated by Federal vs State. Water rights will be the up-front issue, used to fog the actual take over, by the Feds- of total control of State rights.

From Bunker Hill to Bunkerville…

I confess, I have mixed feelings about this. I think it was probably wise for the BLM to pull its personnel out of the area. It was a volatile situation, with a lot of protesters almost eager for a confrontation. It could easily have turned to gunfire — and it would be completely stupid for anybody to die over something this ridiculous.

Bundy supporters (with the flag of the nation Bundy doesn’t believe in)

On the other hand, it sends a bad message. On the surface, it lends some credence to Bundy’s arguments that he’s a victim of government overreach — which is bullshit. The truth is that Cliven Bundy is like one of those asshats who steal another person’s cable or internet service — only instead of stealing corporate services, he’s stealing taxpayer money.

Let’s look at his arguments. He claims the land in question doesn’t belong to the United States, but to the State of Nevada. That’s bullshit. That territory was ceded to the U.S. by Mexico after the Mexican-American War through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It remained the property of the U.S. Government when the State of Nevada was created, a fact specifically detailed in the Constitution of Nevada:

[T]he people inhabiting said territory do agree and declare, that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within said territory, and that the same shall be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States

Bundy also claims that Nevada’s ‘Open Range’ law permits him to trespass on that public land. More bullshit, and he knows it. He’s made that claim in the courts and in each case the courts have ruled against him. This is from the most recent court decision:

Bundy is incorrect in claiming that…Nevada’s ‘Open Range; statute excuses Bundy’s trespass. See e.g., Gardner, 107 F.3d at 1320 (under Supremacy Clause state statute in conflict with federal law requiring permit to graze would be trumped).

Bundy has tried every bullshit legal argument he and his lawyers can think of, and each time he’s been slapped down. And he still refuses to comply.

Bullshit artist Cliven Bundy (and the flag of the government he doesn’t believe in)

Imagine a similar scenario. Members of the Occupy movement rent a shelter in a city park for one day. They refuse to leave the public park the following day and refuse to pay another shelter fee. They treat that park as if they own it, building permanent structures on it, killing the wildlife that lived there.

Now imagine that when the authorities show up to remove them from the park, they arm themselves and loudly state they’ll do whatever it takes to continue to use that park.

Police response to Occupy Movement protesters (and the flag Bundy doesn’t believe in)

You think the government would allow them to continue to trespass on that park for twenty years, the way Bundy was allowed to do? Bullshit. Do you think the authorities would hesitate to use force against them? Would those ‘patriots’ in the conservative movement be outraged if the authorities used force against the protesters? Do you think those ‘patriots’ would support the protester’s cause? Bullshit. Do you think those ‘patriots’ would consider an attempt to enforce the law to be ‘government overreach’?

Hell no. There’d be bodies on the ground, and conservative ‘patriots’ would be cheering.

Here’s still more bullshit: Bundy’s supporters were outraged when, during a confrontation in which the protesters attempted to block a road, the police responded by tasering Bundy’s son and pushing Bundy’s sister to the ground. Police brutality! Gestapo tactics! Where was that outrage when force was used against the unarmed Occupy movement?

The fact is Cliven Bundy has spent twenty years using public land for his own personal profit. For two decades he’s been stealing from us, from the people. He’s done that knowingly, well aware that he’s in violation of the law. And yet he’s been treated with astonishing patience by the government — and when the government finally acted, he whined like a baby.

Cliven Bundy is no patriot. He’s certainly not a hero in a new civil war. He’s a cheap-ass crook and he’s hiding behind a flag he doesn’t believe in. I call bullshit on Cliven Bundy.

Addendum: You know how you say to yourself ‘Things can’t possibly get any more stupid than they are right now’ and then hey, bingo — things get more stupid? Yeah, that just happened. A state legislator from neighboring Arizona — Kelly Townsend (do I need to say she’s a Tea Party Republican?) said this about the video of Bundy’s son getting tased:

“Watching that video last night created a visceral reaction in me. It sounds dramatic, but it reminded me of Tiananmen Square. I don’t recognize my country at this point.”

Yes, it does sound dramatic. It also sounds incredibly stupid. We don’t really know how many men and women were killed during the 1989 Democracy Movement in Beijing, but the most reliable estimates are in the 400-800 range. Let’s compare that to one guy getting hit with a taser while trying to assert his father’s right to graze cattle illegally on government property.

Arizona legislator Kelly Townsend (R – OMFG)

I can only assume Kelly Townsend is stupid at the molecular level. So she’s got a great future ahead of her in the Republican Party.

loathsome creatures

Posted on February 28, 2014 by greg

Seriously, this shit surprised me. I mean, I know there are ~~some~~ a lot of Republicans in Congress who are ideological dicks more interested in making political points than in participating in the actual process of governing the fucking nation. But THIS? This is some outrageous shit, is what this is.

I’m talking about Senate Bill 1982. The Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014. It’s not what you’d call a sexy title, but this bill — had it passed — would have provided US$21 billion of extra coin over the next decade to expand military health benefits (including mental health treatment). It would have increased veteran education benefits. It would have expanded job training programs.

Senator Saxby Chambliss, mewling canker-brained minnow-hearted fuckwit Republican from Georgia voted No

The bill — had it passed — would have done a lot of small things that would make military service somewhat less onerous. If, say, a National Guard member was a licensed electrician and his license expired while he was deployed in Afghanistan, this bill would protect that license and extend the time in which it could be renewed. It would protect troops whose apartment leases expired while they were on deployment. It would forestall home foreclosures until troops could return from deployment and give them some time to get their financial matters straightened out. Little shit like that matters to ordinary folks.

But the bill didn’t pass. It didn’t pass because Senate Republicans blocked it. Seriously. Why did they block it? Bullshit reasons, that’s why. Some objected to the inclusion of ‘reproductive treatment and services’ based on some incomprehensible Jeebus-sparked twaddle. But here’s the thing — if some poor bastard gets his cojones shredded by an IED on a road in Helmand Province, but still wants to have a family, Jeebus ain’t going to plant no baby in his wife’s womb. Medical science will do that.

Senator Bob Corker, pampered leech-nurtured addle-pate Republican from Tennessee voted No

Some Republicans were concerned about the cost. Of course, they weren’t terribly concerned about the cost of going to war. And, of course, they’re all supportive of the new Lockheed-Martin F-35 Strike fighter — which, so far, is US$163 billion over budget and seven years behind schedule. But $21 billion stretched out over ten years for veterans? Too fucking expensive.

Even worse (and lawdy, you wouldn’t think there could be anything worse than denying a guy who left his balls in a combat zone the right to have a family), the Republicans tried adding some totally unrelated, politically motivated bullshit amendments to the bill. Like sanctions against Iran and some nonsense dealing with that Most Giant of Political Turds, Benghazi.

Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, fawning pasty-hearted dissembling pig’s bladder Republican from Alabama voted No — and Benghazi!

Even so, 56 Senators voted in favor of the bill. Only 41 voted against it. That’s right, a minority — all Republicans — were able to kill a bill that would help veterans. And this was as bipartisan a bill as is possible in this insane tea-party environment. More than two dozen of the provisions in the bill were Republican ideas.

But they still killed it. Not because it was a bad bill. They killed it for political reasons. For ideological reasons.

Senator Chuck Grassley, spongy po-faced corn-fed fustilarian Republican from Iowa voted No

I’m sure, if you asked, all forty-one of those senators would claim to support the troops. I’m sure they all think of themselves as patriots. I’m pretty confident (though I haven’t bothered to check) all of them were (and probably still are) supportive of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For them to vote against this bill is contemptible. It’s despicable and disgraceful. These people should be ashamed to be photographed in front of the flag. They should be forced to visit VA hospitals and explain their votes to the men and women there. They should be held up for ridicule and scorn by everybody who truly supports the troops. And since these people undoubtedly consider themselves to be Christians, they should suffer the most appalling of Biblical curses.

These are loathsome creatures.

macho bullshit and a handy gun

Posted on February 18, 2014 by greg

Somebody asked me why I haven’t written anything about the so-called ‘Loud Music Murder’ trial. I said “Because it’s a sad and terribly stupid situation, but there’s nothing new or unusual about it.”

The thing is, this wasn’t about loud music at all. The trial was about a privileged white racist asshole, Michael Dunn. It was about four proud but resentful black teen-aged boys. It was about testosterone and a handy firearm. You remove either of those last two variables from the equation, and none of this would have happened. Remove the gun, or remove the macho bullshit, and everybody goes home alive.

Gas station/convenience store where the murder took place

What folks keep overlooking is the fundamental fact that this tragically stupid incident took place at a convenience store. The entire point of a convenience store is you get in, get what you want, and you leave. You’re there, what…five minutes? Maybe ten? How could things spiral so badly out of control in just a few minutes? Macho bullshit and a handy firearm.

Here’s what happened. Michael Dunn pulled into the convenience story lot and parked next to an SUV. He asked the teens in the SUV to turn down their music. It didn’t matter to him that they were there first, that he pulled up and parked next to them. It didn’t matter that he was only going to be there a short time. He was a middle-aged software engineer and they were black kids playing what he described as ‘thug’ music. He felt they should heed his perfectly reasonable desire for quiet. They should have some consideration for others. The world doesn’t revolve around them. He deserved a little bit of respect.

Michael Dunn

And hey, at first they complied with his request. They turned the music off. But one of the kids asked the obvious question: who the hell did this guy think he was? Nobody asked that jerk to park next to them. Why in the hell should they have to turn off — or even turn down — their music to please him? Fuck him. Fuck him and his disrespect. Turn the music back on. Turn it up louder.

It became a dick-measuring contest. The teenage boys in the SUV weren’t going to back down, because they were teens and boys and they can play their music as loud as they damned well please. Dunn wasn’t going to back down because he was a man with a good job and a handy firearm, and those kids owed him some goddamned respect.

Dunn’s 9mm Taurus handgun

Remove the macho bullshit from the equation, everybody goes home alive.

Dunn told the police he heard a kid in the back seat threaten him. He told the police he saw the kid pick up something that might have been a shotgun (no shotgun was found in the vehicle). So he pulled the Taurus 9mm out of his glove box and opened fire. Ten rounds in total. The first three or four rounds went through the rear door panel and hit 17-year-old Jordan Davis in the liver, lung, and aorta. Killed him almost instantly. The driver of the SUV slammed it into reverse. Dunn stepped out of his car and fired the remaining rounds. To keep their heads down, he told the police. To prevent any return fire.

Dowels showing the entry direction of the gunshots.

Remove the gun from the equation, everybody goes home. Instead, Michael Dunn is going to prison. Jordan Davis is in the ground. How profoundly stupid and sad is that?

Would Dunn have been so confrontational with those kids if he hadn’t had the pistol in the glove box? Maybe, but probably not. Would the situation have escalated so rapidly if it wasn’t for the macho bullshit? Probably not.

Would this incident have happened at all if women and girls were involved? Would there be a funeral for a 17-year-old kid if there hadn’t been a gun handy? Almost certainly not.

This wasn’t the ‘Loud Music’ trial at all. It was the ‘Macho Bullshit’ trial. It was the ‘I’ve Got a Handy Gun’ trial. Macho bullshit and a handy gun — remove those variables from every equation and the murder rate would drop radically. More folks would go home alive.

from sea to shining wtf

Posted on February 3, 2014 by greg

So this morning I get an email from somebody I don’t know (his…or possibly her…email address was a model of anonymity — a seemingly random jumble of letters and numerals brilliantly designed to be completely forgettable, and maybe intended to put you directly to sleep) asking me this question:

Can you believe the wingers were so mad over that commercial?

I’d only started my first cup of coffee, so it took me a couple of seconds to decipher that. Wingers, I knew, referred to conservatives (nobody calls left-wing folks ‘wingers,’ though I’ve no idea why that is; left-wing folks are called ‘liberals’ or ‘commie socialist pussies’). The commercial, I assumed, was probably a Super Bowl commercial. But which commercial?

Bob Dylan shilling for General Motors? Maybe. The puppy-Clydesdale beer commercial? Possibly — we’re talking mixed-species horse-puppy relationships, and no way was that puppy old enough to be legal. Laurence Fishburn singing Puccini? Probably not — I mean, that opera begins with an execution, and conservatives are usually pro-death penalty.

I decided to seek guidance from that wellspring of Conservative Thinking: FreeRepublic.com. And hey, bingo — found it. It was this commercial:

http://youtu.be/A8iM73E6JP8

What’s offensive about a multi-national corporation that sells its product worldwide making a commercial in which folks from different cultures sing America the Beautiful in a variety of languages? Here you go:

I was genuinely offended by the multilingual “America the Beautiful” Coke commercial. I mean REALLY pissed off! Big vote for WORST commercial.

The muzzie part of that ad was even worse than the foreign languages. The Coca Cola suits need to get the message loud and clear that mooselimbs are the enemy and that diversity is perversity. Real Americans should boycott all of their products including the Minute Maid brand.

Sing the song in English – even (especially??) if their speech is accented heavily with their native language.

Just watched the Coke ad. Think I’ll drink Pepsi tomorrow.

[S]o many seem offended by the multi-language Coke commercial. Was this the same Coke comemrcial that showed the gay couple skating? I’d be infinitely more offended by that than what language they were speaking.

[The gay couple skating] was the worst part of a commercial that went out of its way to be offensive on many levels.

I was REALLY pissed off at it. I never drink soda, but that makes me want to start boycotting Coke.

I remember the “like to buy the world a coke” singing commercial. Everyone sang in english. Language unifies. This commercial divides.

And in a classic case of Conservative Martyr Whining, we have this:

Coke airs an offensive ad. Conservatives are the only ones smart enough to recognize the offense and the liberal blogosphere immediately demonstrate their own “tolerance” by calling conservatives intolerant, stupid, racist, bigots for taking offense.

It’s apparently offensive to sing a song praising the beauty of this nation in any language other than English, especially if it’s sung by people who aren’t white, may not be Christian, and possibly aren’t heterosexual. If the folks who were offended by the commercial knew the history of America the Beautiful they’d be even more outraged.

It all began in Scotland in the middle of the 17th century. A minister named David Dickson, who was in and out of trouble for ‘nonconformist’ Protestant thought, wrote a long poem called O Mother Dear, Jerusalem. Seriously long — thirty-one painful verses describing the city of Jerusalem. For example:

Thy houses are of ivory,
Thy windows crystal clear,
Thy streets are laid with beaten gold —
There angels do appear.
Thy walls are made of precious stone,
Thy bulwarks diamond square,
Thy gates are made of Orient pearl —
O God, if I were there.

Despite thirty more verses of that, the poem remained popular among über-devout Protestants for a couple hundred years. Which is how Samuel Augustus Ward comes into the story.

: Samuel Augustus Ward

Ward owned a little music store in Newark, New Jersey, but he was better known as the organist for the Grace Episcopal Church. He also dabbled in musical composition. One summer day in 1882, as he was coming back from a day spent at Coney Island, a tune got stuck in his head. Ward borrowed a friend’s shirt cuffs (which, back in that era, were detachable) and scribbled down the notes to the tune. He called it Materna, and later realized the tune fit the words of Dickson’s appalling poem.

It was a lovely little tune. Almost nobody cared. Ward died in 1903, unaware his tune would become wildly popular a few years later — thanks to Miss Katharine Lee Bates.

Katharine Lee Bates

Katharine Bates was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts in 1859, the daughter of a Congregational minister. She was a rather independent and unorthodox woman. She obtained a degree from Wellesley College, studied for a while at Oxford in England, and eventually became a teacher and a writer.

In the summer of 1893, while she was briefly teaching in Colorado, Bates and some of her fellow teachers decided to visit Pikes Peak.

We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse.

She wrote a poem describing that beauty. The poem garnered a great deal of attention when it was published two years later in 1895. In 1910, her poem (with a few minor changes) was coupled with Samuel Ward’s tune Materna, and became known as America the Beautiful.

Why would conservatives be outraged by the history of this song? Because Katharine Bates lived for a quarter of a century with her ‘friend’ Katharine Coman. We don’t know for certain whether theirs was a sexual relationship, but there’s no doubt about the love they felt for each other. At some point Bates was described by a colleague as being a “free-flying spinster,” somebody who existed on the “fringe on the garment of life.” Bates response: “I always thought the fringe had the best of it. I don’t think I mind not being woven in.”

I think I’d have liked Katharine Lee Bates. I know I like the version of her song in the Coca Cola commercial. It pleases me that lyrics celebrating America written by a lesbian are sung in English and Hindi and Tagalog and Arabic. It pleases me that we see men and women of different races and different ethnic backgrounds and different sexual preferences and different religions celebrating this nation. And yes, even though the message being sent is ‘Buy Coke,’ it pleases me that the message is delivered in a way that is inclusive.

It does show an America that’s beautiful. And it’s a shame that some people can only find hate in that message.

Circumstantially newsworthy

Posted on December 16, 2013 by greg

174

So. Another school shooting. Kid named — well, it doesn’t really matter what his name was, does it. ‘School shooter’, that’s the only way Karl Pierson will ever be referred to from now on. Far as that goes, Karl wasn’t really a kid; he’d turned eighteen. Not old enough to buy beer yet, but old enough to go out and buy the pump-action shotgun and ammunition he used.

This shooting took place around the anniversary of the Sandy Hook slaughter. Which, let’s face it, is why the shooting has been so widely reported. If it had happened, say, three weeks ago, it would have been a local story. The national news media probably wouldn’t bother to report it. It’s a circumstantially newsworthy story.

Name doesn’t matter; you’d forget it soon anyway.

Nobody famous was involved, the body count was low (just ~~the school shooter~~ Karl), and the entire incident took place in less than two minutes. Yes, a 17-year old girl got shot, but if it weren’t for the Sandy Hook anniversary thing, the national news media would probably have ignored it. Still, they did what they could with what they had. They emphasized the Cute White Girl Who Loved Horses angle, making her a classic innocent victim. They found some really nice high school photos of her. What was her name? Kaylee? Claire? Callie? Something like that — pretty sure it starts with a ‘k’ sound. She got shot in the head. With a shotgun. Nobody wants to hear about that. And nobody other than her friends and family will remember her in a couple of weeks. Same with what’s-his-name, the school shooter. Karl.

Poor Kaitlin/Carly/Courtney wasn’t even the target. She just happened to be sitting there. The guy — you know, Karl — fired five rounds from his shotgun. Three were apparently just random shots down hallways. One took Kirsten/Cameron/Kendall in the head. The last round went into his own. Ninety seconds or so from the first shot to the last, and it was all over. Well, except for the girl — Kassidy/Kimberly/Caryn — who’ll be fucked up for the rest of her life. However long that’ll be.

The local sheriff said he believed what’s-his-name…uh, Karl…shot himself because he heard the approach of the deputy assigned to the school (think about that for a moment; we live in a society that has to assign armed personnel to patrol schools to shoot school shooters — how incredibly fucked up is that?). I don’t know. It seems unlikely to me that in the chaos of those ninety seconds ~~the school shooter~~ Karl would hear — and able to identify the footsteps — of an approaching school cop.

Pump action shotgun; brand doesn’t matter — they all do the same thing

I think it’s more likely he saw what his shotgun had done to Carmen/Kasey/Kelsey and couldn’t live with it. I’ve had the misfortune to see what a shotgun blast can do to the human head. It’s not like it is in the video games young Karl played. It ain’t pretty.

So what happens now? You know the answer to that. Nothing. Oh, politicians will look earnest and say something like “We must do something to keep our children safe,” but nothing will actually happen. Or maybe it will. Maybe they’ll try to find the money to make the doors to classrooms bulletproof, so children will have a secure location to ‘shelter in place’ when the next gunman goes roaming through the hallways. But that would mean raising taxes, so probably not. For certain, we won’t do anything about guns. Because, you know, it would be wrong to punish all responsible law-abiding gun owners because of the actions of some disturbed kid.

Of course, what’s-his-name…young Karl…was assumed to be a responsible law-abiding gun owner when he bought his shotgun. In fact, he was a responsible law-abiding gun owner until he carried his shotgun into the school. And that guy (I don’t remember his name) who killed all those people at the Navy Yard recently? A responsible law-abiding gun owner until he took his weapon out of the car. And the mother of the kid who murdered all those 2nd graders and their teachers in Sandy Hook? Adam Something? She was a responsible law-abiding owner of over a dozen firearms when her boy shot her four times in the head while she was asleep.

That guy at the Navy Yard, no longer a responsible law-abiding gun owner.

That’s the thing, isn’t it. Most mass murderers are responsible law-abiding gun owners up until the moment they start their mass murdering.

Oh well, freedom isn’t free as the gun rights advocates tell us. The occasional school shooting is just the price we have to pay for living in a free society. Well, it’s the price Kaylee has to pay. Chloe? Claire? Whatever.

a short note on the passing of saul leiter

Posted on November 27, 2013 by greg

Back in April of 2008 I did a Sunday Salon on Saul Leiter. Mr. Leiter died yesterday. He was 89 years old.

These days we tend to think of Leiter as a pioneer in color street photography. It would probably surprise most of Leiter’s modern fans to discover he actually made his bones as a second-tier fashion photographer. He said,

“I was constantly aware that those who hired me would have preferred to work with a star such as Avedon. But it didn’t matter. I had work and I made a living. At the same time, I took my own photographs.”

Those photographs — the ones he described as ‘my own’ — are the photos he’s known for today. But Leiter stopped showing those photos to people in the late 1940s. He simply filed the transparencies away in cardboard boxes. Half a century later, in the 1990s, he began to print and show them.

Nobody paid much attention to them. Not at first. But gradually his work began to infiltrate into the world of fine arts photography. Today, of course, he’s the famous Saul Leiter.

“I spent a great deal of my life being ignored. I was always very happy that way. Being ignored is a great privilege.”

Saul Leiter. 1923 to 2013. We’ll not see his like again.

to dedicate a portion of that field

Posted on November 20, 2013 by greg

There was a great deal of fuss yesterday about the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. And rightly so; it’s beautifully written — simple, eloquent, thoughtful. In fact, it’s hard these days to appreciate just how thoughtful it was.

That’s partly because we tend to think of it as a ‘speech’ — as an act of public oratory. A stirring and moving speech, to be sure, but basically we tend to see it just a speech given to an audience to dedicate a cemetery.

Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg

A cemetery. A burial ground. A graveyard. Yes, we all know the Gettysburg Address was to dedicate the ground on which the Battle of Gettysburg was fought. For us, that’s history. For Lincoln, it was a recent event. The dedication took place only four months after the horrific three-day battle. Nearly eight thousand men were killed. Nearly thirty thousand were wounded or went missing (‘missing’ might mean the men ran away; it might mean they were simply obliterated). Many of the wounded were still convalescing in Gettysburg when Lincoln gave his short remarks. Coffins were still stacked at the railway station where he arrived.

The battle had been so savage and so many people had died that almost immediately afterwards it was clear that something astonishing and awful (and I mean awful in the oldest sense of the term) had taken place at Gettysburg. Something so appalling that it was necessary for the entire nation to pause a moment and recognize it.

Dead troops at Gettysburg

Why did Lincoln wait four months to dedicate the battleground? Because it took that long to gather the dead, try to identify them, and rebury them. That’s right, rebury them. We forget that the battle took place in the first week of July. Try to imagine eight thousand human bodies (many of which were dismembered) scattered over several hundred acres. Imagine five thousand dead mules and horses. Imagine the July heat, and the stench of decomposition. The noise of bluebottle flies was said to be deafening.

Now try to imagine the task of cleaning all that up using Civil War-era technology. Picks, shovels, muscle. The horses were burned; the men mostly buried in quickly-dug shallow graves, many of which were later washed open by heavy rains that fell in the second week of July.

Confederate dead in shallow graves at Gettysburg

The grisly work was done by Union troops, by captured Confederate soldiers, and by unfortunate townsfolk who’d been dragooned by the authorities. The town of Gettysburg, at the time of the battle, only had a population of about 2500. Fewer than half the number of the dead.

In the four months between the battle and the dedication, the organizers bought the land on which the battle was fought, they laid out a design for where the graves would be dug, they re-interred most of those bodies, they telegraphed invitations and coordinated a public dedication (Lincoln, by the way, wasn’t the main speaker; his job was to present some brief closing remarks after the main speaker was finished).

To do all that in 120 days was a remarkable feat.

Dead horses at Gettysburg

And don’t forget this: the war wasn’t over. The outcome was still very much in doubt. There’d never been anything on the North American continent remotely like the ongoing slaughter of that war. They were more than two years into the war, there were already nearly a quarter of a million casualties, and nobody could guess how much longer it would last. That’s what Lincoln faced when he went to Gettysburg. Read his speech with that in mind, and you’ll see he wasn’t just dedicating a national cemetery; he was telling the nation there was more to come, and asking them to maintain their resolve.

Lincoln spoke about the “unfinished work” and “the great task remaining before us.” He acknowledged the uncertainty of whether the nation “or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” Despite all that, he talked about the necessity of an “increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”

Confederate dead laid out for burial at Gettysburg

To stand on the site where so much death and destruction had taken place, to tell the public there would be more of the same, and to ask the public to accept the necessity of sacrifice on that scale in order to maintain an ideal — that’s just astonishing. What’s even more astonishing is this: the people agreed to accept that burden. The war would stagger on for another year and a half after Gettysburg. Tens of thousands more would die. Lincoln himself would give the last full measure of devotion before the end.

Think about that. Then think about this: there are people in this nation today who talk of seceding from the Union because they dislike a health care policy. There are people in this nation today who talk about secession because they believe the president isn’t a Christian, or because they feel their taxes are too high, or that someday they might not be able to purchase high capacity ammunition magazines.

And those people consider themselves to be patriots.

intimidation? pshaw…

Posted on November 18, 2013 by greg

A week ago four women met at a restaurant in Dallas, Texas. It was the monthly meeting of a gun control group called Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (and you know these women were actually moms, because only a mom could come up with such a lame-ass title for a protest group). In response to this threat to the Second Amendment of the Constitution of These United States, forty members of a gun rights group called Open Carry Texas (a much more effective name, by the way — pithy and to the point) showed up outside the restaurant. And because they believe in open carry laws, they openly carried their weapons.

Photographs were taken. This is the one that got the most attention:

It looks like these 40 armed citizens have formed a firing line and are waiting for the members of MDAfGSiA to emerge. The four women didn’t emerge, though, on account of they were intimidated by — well, by 40 armed citizens.

Intimidation? Pshaw. The OCT folks say they weren’t there to intimidate anybody. They were there to show peaceful opposition to the position taken by MDAfGSiA, which was their right under the First Amendment of the Constitution of These United States. And they weren’t forming a firing line; they were posing for a much friendlier, cheerful, patriotic photograph.

See? Nothing to be afraid of. Just a bunch of smiling white folks carrying assault-style weapons and American flags. Outside a restaurant. In the middle of the day. Nothing intimidating there. The patriots at FreeRepublic.com point out how silly it was for those four women to feel bullied or intimidated.

The mommies met to peacefully talk about denying the constitutional freedoms of other citizens. Another group of citizens who stand by our constitutional freedoms met to peacefully protest their actions. Where was somebody bullied?

“Bullies!” is the new “Nazis!” code word little snivelers use when somebody disagrees with them.

This wasn’t some knitting club the OCT was counter-protesting, these are Bloomberg’s operatives that want to take our RKBA [Right to Keep and Bear Arms] away.

I’d just moon the dumb bitches and tell em “Put a Liplock On My Ol’ Love Porkchop” and go on my merry way… And THEN I’d show them the old “This is My rifle…. and this is my gun… This one’s for shooting… and THIS one’s for Fun…” See? I’m a nice guy!

Seriously, how could anybody possibly be intimidated by nice guys like this?

You want to know what’s intimidating? I’ll tell you what’s intimidating. An unsmiling black guy wearing a beret standing outside a polling station in a neighborhood in Philadelphia. Like this guy, during the 2012 election.

That’s some scary shit, right there. I mean, look at him. He’s standing right there, deliberately wearing a beret. A military style beret. And oh my god, he’s black. He’s got some sort of paper in his hand. Probably the Communist Manifesto of the Black Panther Party against White People.

This is clearly a threat. Obvious intimidation. A menace to public safety. What would the patriots of FreeRepublic.com have to say about this blatant attempt to frighten decent law-abiding citizens?

Call in the snipers.

These thugs should be arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced, and then hanged for treason.

How great would it be to see a “Sons of Anarchy” style motorcycle gang ride up on these fools to see how determined they were to stand on those corners? I’d pay to watch that.

a fine example of how “Americans” can regress into spear chucking tribalists…

The real motive behind these desperate actions is a concentrated effort to suppress the white vote

These bastards are robbing the people of their votes..Someone really needs to do something about the fools.

Everytime The Democrats or liberal media complains falsely about the Republicans being responsible for voter disenfranchisement, everyone needs to point to this story and the one 4 years ago when the 2 black new black panther thugs were carrying billy clubs outside of a voting district and intimidating voters.

Two black panther thugs! You know what’s even more intimidating than a black guy wearing a beret standing outside a polling station? TWO black guys wearing berets standing outside a polling station. Like these guys from the 2008 election.

Look at that one guy — oh my god, he’s holding some sort of stick! That could be used as a weapon. You could hit a person with it. What has this country come to? Do we really want to live in a land where black guys in berets can just stand on the street openly carrying sticks?

Black panthers are allowed to gang bang and hang out election polls? What the flying frack?!

people will be afraid to vote

I call this DOMESTIC TERRORISM

I wish there would have been Black Panthers outside my voting place. I have 4 years of bottled up anger inside me and that is one cork they don’t want to pop.

Forty white folks smiling, toting firearms, holding American flags — just an exercise in protecting Constitutional rights, perfectly fine, nothing to be alarmed about, don’t be silly. Couple of black guys, not smiling, holding pamphlets and sticks, wearing berets — that’s intimidating, be afraid, call the police, or stand your ground and shoot them.

And if four women meet at a restaurant to discuss gun policy — be brave; gather three or four dozen folks, arm yourselves, and stand outside that restaurant. Don’t let those four mothers intimidate you.

gregfallis.com

it's this or get a real job

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