“Times they are a changing’” Robert E. Lee became an American when I was four years old on August 5th, 1975. Upon being made an American for a second time, through the restoration of the birthright he repudiated with treason ,105 years after his death, President Ford said this 👇
“ General Lee’s character has been an example to succeeding generations, making the restoration of his citizenship an event in which every American can take pride”. The removal of the Lee statue from Monument Blvd isn’t an erasure of history. It is a remembrance of it. We have
arrived at a settling of the record. When the cornerstone for the monument was laid Col. Charles Marshall, a Lee adjutant said Lee was a defender of the Constitution and the Union as it was before Lincoln destroyed it. He also spoke at the dedication of Grant’s monument in
NYC. He drafted Lee’s acceptance of unconditional surrender and was present at Appomattox. His nephew George would go on to be the one man whom FDR dared not address by his first name. General Marshall helped save the world, more than once. History is complicated. The American
story is a reality, not a myth. It should be faced head on. Reconciliation was paid for ultimately by black suffering. The North looked away and abandoned the overwhelming majority of black men and women (Freedmen) to a violent Southern Apartheid state that teemed with
Lawlessness, oppression and hatred. In 1910, the population of the United States stood at 92 million people. More than 90% of blacks lived in the South. The “Great Migration” north, of millions of Black Americans would last from 1915 to 1970. None of this was taught in school.
Black’s moving North collided with the greatest mass of immigrants in world history, mostly European, who arrived in the US largely between 1870 and 1920. This was the story taught in school. It was my family history but it was only a fraction of the American story. Oppression
was the meaning of the Lee Monument. Politeness dictated an exculpatory group think among whites who wanted to pretend that honor and dignity were the declaration being made by the 40 ft high marble Lee astride his faithful Traveller in the middle of the physical heart and
emotional soul of the fallen South. The telling of lies is always found in a societies monuments. When ignorance erodes any trace of memory it becomes possible to declare that history demands the lie be made sacred and indisputable. Yet history seems to be a relentless pursuer.
There it fell. In Richmond. In 2021, one of the last great monuments to injustice, slavery, treason, totalitarianism, oppression and violence that stood in America was toppled. Along with it came the shattering of the thin glass of the “Lost Cause Myth” that built the monument
to begin with. History’s judgements comes slowly. Yet, come they do.
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During the last 20 years, starting with CIA Officer, Johnny Micheal Spann, the first American killed in combat in Afghanistan and including General Mark Milley’s fellow Green Berets who charged the Taliban on horseback, the United States has placed hundreds of thousands of young
Americans into impossible, treacherous and lethal circumstances. Mark Milley, a Princeton graduate who volunteered to serve his country in uniform has risen to the highest possible position in his chosen profession. He has commanded soldiers at every conceivable level, served 2/
in combat with valor and has never done one thing in 41 years of uniformed service that would lead any person of good faith and good will to question his honor, commitment to duty, probity, rectitude and loyalty to the United States. Yet, the General finds himself in an 3/
During my political career I have had occasion to think a great deal about the elements that combine to create conventional wisdom, tribal responses and the type of media sorting around the dispositions and character of secondary actors like Pence. Since Trump is so odious, there
was always a ready audience to believe that Pence was better. Trump was an amoral stumblebum who found his way through instinct and the freedom that comes from being unmoored from any sense of common good, noble purpose, sense of ethics or weight of shame. His ignorance was
combined with a type of performative nihilism, neo fascist posing and combative idiocy that formed a cult of personality strong enough for 35 percent of the country to abandon faithfulness to the Republic. Pence is one of them. His cynicism exceeds even his extremism and
Political Analysis: Chris Christie is maneuvering. His speech was a type of public pondering; a question, deployed like a fisherman’s net, hoping to scoop up affirmation to the great question at hand. Should Christie mount a second Presidential campaign. All campaigns are rooted
in a theory of the case. Sometimes that foundation is set in concrete and other times a soft sand. Put aside the criticism of the various absurdities captured by @amandacarpenter and others and look squarely at Christie’s strategic calculus. He will draw the line at the
Insurrection and the generalized insanity that is the default setting of the Trump led movement. From that spot, Christie is betting there is a GOP market for a tamer Trump. Him. Original recipe if you will. This belief is predicated on the idea that what will follow Trump will
The 43rd President of the United States of America stood on some of this nations most hallowed ground today, on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 atrocities, at the impact site of United 93, where we enshrine an act of American martyrdom, heroism, defiance, love, fierceness and
patriotism. He spoke important words. For as long as the United States endures as a free nation we must all remember the blood sacrifice made in a Pennsylvania field that saved the Capitol of the United States from annihilation on 9/11/01. At this spot, lives of ordinary
Americans ended in an instant, after a vote, a charge, a death struggle and victory. In that instant, forever, that soil became part of a story made sacred by the ultimate sacrifice and act of love one human may ever offer another. Each life sacrificed saved not just countless
.@EdwardGLuce should be a regular must read for any person interested in the qualities of sobriety, thoughtfulness, historical perspective, honesty and common sense in the commentary surrounding our tumultuous times. Much of the political media covers politics with the
breathlessness of an X games commentator fresh from the student radio station. The overall effect is to create a type of undertow, a rip tide that pulls the whole of the population towards stupid. That’s unfortunate and frankly unsolvable but the good news is that it remains
relatively low on the list of escalating National crisis. All Presidents are tested by crisis and the accumulation of events. The American Presidency is a character test. It reveals its occupants fully. For example, some say the President is stubborn. What will be revealed
Did a walk about around one of the prettiest cities in North America today. 1/
walked by the US Embassy and saw this memorial plaque commemorating the friendship and gratitude of the American people for the great kindnesses and decency shown by the Canadian people on 9/11/01. (2)
Also walked by the Saudi Embassy and took this picture 👇Amazing! A literal ray of light. A beam. Maybe it’s a sign that after 20 years and the end of the Afghan War, the American people and 9/11 families deserve the declassification of all information around Saudi involvement.