Tag: history

One hopes that President Obama will strongly and clearly frame our mission in Afghanistan tonight, including the reason for our continued presence in a country that has known wave after wave of outside invaders fighting to advance their own ends.  We are but the latest army to set up shop and increase troop presence in pursuit of an elusive and often invisible enemy force.  The ultimate result is cloudy at this juncture, as was the previous President’s troop surge in Iraq when it was proposed.  I would hasten to call the latter decision an unequivocal success, but it did largely and surprisingly contain a low-grade Civil War.  It is with this fact in mind that many will choke down the prospect of another round of foreign entanglement, troop deployment, and media saturation coverage of major military skirmishes.      

One could, I suppose, reach for an obscure citation describing a similar conflict to which the United States committed troops.  In this situation, however, there are no easy parallels and no conventional warfare nor wisdom to cite.  The Soviet Union’s disastrous nine years in the country might be the best possible comparison under the circumstances, but the peculiarities of that conflict leave it more akin to Vietnam to our current endeavor.  The Soviet War in Afghanistan was an attempt to bolster the existing Communist party from collapsing against the Mujahideen.  We, of course, allocated weaponry and financial support to the Islamic insurgents as a means of undermining the Soviets.  

What has been forgotten in this day is that for nearly fifteen years, the Communist government ruled effectively and made great strides in developing a civilization rather than a backwards state beholden to constant conflict.  With the collapse of the USSR in 1991 came the decline of the Communist state and the rise of the Taliban, which single-handedly destroyed years of reform and plunged the country back into the Dark Ages.  The country deserves lasting stability if it is ever to move forward in time but until it ceases to be a designated battleground, it never will.

Chief Black Kettle:

I want you to give all these chiefs of the soldiers here to understand that we are for peace, and that we have made peace, that we may not be mistaken by them for enemies.

I am being challenged to support my assertion that history has lessons to be learned, and that these lessons are meaningful in terms of “what we should do next.”  There will be a long prologue in which I spell out possible metaphors for the momentum of history — readers who are interested in this discussion are recommended to read it well, whereas those who crave controversy are recommended to skip to the conclusion below, which talks about “health insurance reform” and speculates upon the future.

(Crossposted at Orange)

and out of that heightened violence came the massacre for which Thanksgiving is named.

My Lai photographer Ron Haeberle exposed a Vietnam massacre 40 years ago today in The Plain Dealer

The intent to commit genocide at Washita is hidden in plain view, unless key elements are brought together. These are: that the Cheyenne were placed on land where they would starve while promises to avert starvation were broken; that George Bent observed how Civil War soldiers did not harm white women and children by a “code of honor,” while Indian women and children were slaughtered; that Sheridan declared “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead;” and that the War Department did not differentiate between peaceful and warring Indians. Hence, the orders “to kill or hang all warriors.” As the consequence, the intent was to kill all men
of a specific race.

http://images.google…

“In a little more than one hour, five or six hundred of these barbarians

were dismissed from a world that was burdened with them.”

“It may be demanded…Should not Christians have more mercy and

compassion? But…sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents…. We had sufficient light from the word of God for our proceedings.”

-Puritan divine Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana

The clear origins of the Native American Flute date back several thousand millennia to flutes made of bone, to petroglyphs, and oral history. Unclear “origins” involve the Spanish Conquest insofar as the Spanish stealing the bamboo flute from Asia, and then introducing it to the Five Civilized Tribes. A Cheyenne Flute Maker relayed this to me. The idea goes, that the bamboo flute was made out of river cane by the Five Civilized Tribes after the Spanish “brought” the bamboo flute to the “New World.” Subsequently, river cane flutes then proceeded to be constructed out of cedar wood by the Plains Tribes; hence, its origins within this idea being called Asian – Spanish. However, the Cheyenne Flute Maker said that the tribes already possessed the flute prior to the invasion, and the Spanish may have introduced it to a few. That raises some questions, but the ultimate answer we shall see is one of mystery.

Here’s something to test your knowledge, of Politics, History, and Trivia.

I will post 10 Quotable Quotes.

See if you can Match them up to the Person “Who Said That”?

The Person’s Names will be in random up order, different from the order of the Quotes.

(you can click on a person’s name link, only if you need a clue — or if you want to cheat, lol)

“Don’t Let the Perfect become the Enemy of the Good” — it’s common knowledge, right?

Important words of wisdom with Great Historical Significance, right?

OK, if you say so …

François-Marie Arouet, better known by his pen name Voltaire, was a French writer, deist and philosopher.

Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.

* The better is the enemy of the good.   — La Bégueule (1772)

 Variant translations:

   The perfect is the enemy of the good.

   The best is the enemy of the good.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V…

Voltaire

Author and Philosopher, 1694 – 1778

Francois Marie Arouet (pen name Voltaire) was born on November 21, 1694 in Paris. Voltaire’s intelligence, wit and style made him one of France’s greatest writers and philosophers.

[…]

In 1726, Voltaire insulted the powerful young nobleman, “Chevalier De Rohan,” and was given two options: imprisonment or exile. He chose exile …

Woooo, some drama … could be a notable lesson here?  

It’s an honest question.  First I look at the legacy of historical progressivism at the beginning of the 20th century.  There will be an interlude to question the progressive credentials as regards the desire for power.  I will conclude by casting a brief glance at the situation with health care reform.  The argument will be pervaded through-and-through by a class analysis, in which progressives ignore class struggle at their peril while the rich accumulate power through their wealth.

No, this is not about “patience.”  It’s about whether or not you all have the nerve to ask for what you want, and to continue to ask for it (while building your power base around those demands) until you get it.

(Crossposted at Orange)