The Unites States of America Won: The Confederates Lost –
The Lincoln Memorial: Glynn Wilson
The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –
WASHINGTON, D.C. – So it appears we will end this trip about where we started it, talking about the damn Civil War, one more freaking time. Historians say history runs in cycles and often repeats itself. I guess it’s true.
Appomattox Court House: Robert E. Lee Surrenders to Grant, Ending Civil War
Donald Trump Is a Big Fan of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Huge
A statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands in National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol: Glynn Wilson
I wrote about it last year from here, and I guess that statue of Robert E. Lee is still there in Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol. No one got around to protesting that.
Why is Robert E. Lee’s Statue in the U.S. Capitol Not Yet the Subject of Controversy?
There is an election coming less than a month from now, and it might as well be Abraham Lincoln running for president in 1860.
The most ignorant of presidents, who knows nothing of the Civil War except for what Sean Hannity says about it on Fox News, made a campaign stop in Lebanon, Ohio Friday night and, rather than standing with the winning side, the Union, you know, the United States of America for which he is president, Donald J. Trump praised the losing side’s general.
“So Robert E. Lee was a great general,” Trump said in a stump speech to an audience from a Union state filled with people who apparently would have rather been on the losing side of history. They applauded like a bunch of Confederate soldiers from Alabama.
“And Abraham Lincoln developed a phobia,” Trump claimed. “He couldn’t beat Robert E. Lee. He was going crazy. I don’t know if you know this story, but Robert E. Lee was winning battle after battle after battle. And Abraham Lincoln came home, he said, ‘I can’t beat Robert E. Lee.’”
Trump then went on to say that despite having “the greatest people” in its army, the Union “didn’t know how the hell to win, they didn’t know how to fight.” The winning side didn’t know how to fight. Right.
So according to Trump’s fake news, alt-facts version of history, Lincoln turned to Ohio’s own General Ulysses S. Grant.
“He was incredible,” Trump said. “He went on to knock the hell out of everyone.”
Never mind General William Tecumseh Sherman and his March to the Sea, burning Atlanta and everything all the way to Savannah.
Of course apparently Trump likes the fact that Grant “drank a little bit too much, you know who I’m talking about,” Trump said, apparently talking about Judge Brett Kavanaugh, not Grant. He claims advisers told Lincoln: ‘You can’t use [Grant] anymore. He’s an alcoholic.’”
But according to Trump’s version of history, Lincoln said: ‘I don’t care if he’s an alcoholic, frankly, give me six or seven more just like him.’”
“He started to win,” Trump told the conservative crowd, wearing red for winners, not blue like the Union they live in.
Then after siding with the wrong side of history which would have kept blacks in slavery, Trump claimed the Republicans in November will “get the African American vote.”
He said it was true, and hey, he may be right. All they need is a small percentage of voting African Americans and the Republican Party will remain in power for the rest of our lives. Give Trump another term and he may have us all working for Trump enterprises for nothing. He’ll lock up all the immigrants on the southern border, every journalist who doesn’t kiss his ring, and everyone who criticizes him on Facebook.
What will it take to get people to wake up and stop reliving the past? Can we just burn the Confederate flag once and for all and start focusing on the future — if we want to survive on this planet?
The story of our time should be climate change from global warming due to the burning of fossil fuels for energy. As long as people are still cheering for Robert E. Lee and waving the Confederate flag, we will keep being pummeled by hurricanes, sea levels will keep on rising, and before long, all the residents who moved from Ohio to Florida to escape the cold will be moving back to escape the heat.
Look, I have been hopeful about the future since I wrote that story in 2008 about the demographics of the U.S. moving away from racism. This trend should come to the South and Alabama in about 2020.
Fighting the Final Battles of the Civil War
But if we allow politicians to keep getting elected who keep talking about the past and not the future, we will end up with an entirely new generation of racists to deal with. As we speak, there is a pickup truck here with a Confederate flag tag on the front pulling a Boy Scout trailer. No, it’s not a troop from Alabama. It is from upstate New York.
The Boy Scouts for Trump are the Nazi Youth of our future. What are these parents thinking? Do we really want to keep fighting the Civil War all over again? Not me. You?
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That war was a bad idea 150 years ago and it is a bad idea to keep talking about it today. 600,000 people lost their lives so a couple hundred rich plantation owners in the south and some industrialist in the north could keep their moneyed positions. So we did away with the slavery of the south and exchanged it for the debt slavery of the north which we live with still today. Today when we should be doing something about this debt slavery we have people still pining about the stupid Civil war.
Racism, sexism, discrimination against the working poor has always been a bedrock of colonial, now American, society. Perhaps it started with the “Mayflower Compact” and alleged agreement between “GOD” and the rich white guys on the Mayflower-women, people of color, and poor whites were forbidden to participate in this “contract” with “GOD.” Later Manifest Destiny, another of “GOD’s wishes”, justified the deaths of more Indians and allowed the government to ‘steal’ our Western states… Remember the USSC actually adjudicated Dred Scott as PROPERTY not a human being-all we need to do is look in the mirror….