The Pledge of Allegiance did not include “under God” before 1954, when the United States inserted the two words as a way to push back against the ideologies of communism and atheism during the Cold War.
Tag Archives: United States
Russia Today anchor resigns on air
It’s a wonder we’re not all toast
72-plus point fonts. Really?
How big exactly would CNN.com and HuffingtonPost.com have their fonts if we had a national tragedy on the scale of 9/11? Here are the front pages from these two sites today:
And journalists wonder why the public has this animus toward the national media. I mean, 12 dead is a big deal; no one disputes that, but where is the limit? Do online news editors use some kind of strange calculus to correlate body counts to the appropriate font size, as if to say, “We only had one death today, guys. Let’s just go with 20 points.” Some national news outfits have sacrificed news gathering for sensationalism and deploy strategies such as these to simply grab website hits and visits rather than informing. By comparison, see the more respectable presentations from CBS and NBC:
Map of slavery in the deep South
According to historian Susan Schulten, in her book, Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-Century America, Abraham Lincoln consulted this map to keep track of slavery in the South during the Civil War. Here is the full map and a few comments on specific parts:
This section of the map, which depicts areas along the Mississippi River, shows how crucial victory in the West was for the Union Army in breaking up the slave power. Vicksburg, along with sieges at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, provided key leverage for the Union Army as it made its way eastward leading up to Sherman’s March to the Sea:
As a friend of mine pointed out, one can almost track the route Sherman took through Milledgeville to south Georgia and back up through South Carolina simply by following the counties in which slavery was the most entrenched. Sherman most certainly had a copy of Lincoln’s map or one like it to know where to go in order to strike the most severe blow possible to the slaveholders.
As he famously said:
Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless to occupy it, but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people will cripple their military resources. I can make the march and make Georgia howl.
The irony here of the next section is that in the land of Virginia natives sons, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Washington, men who helped build a nation that was based — loosely for a 188 years — on equality, slavery was deeply ingrained in their home state. The U.S. Constitution, of course, protected slavery, and many of the Founders, their best intentions aside, were more of less hamstrung to do anything about the peculiar institution lest they abandon striking any kind of compromise on ratification. Even with protecting slavery, ratification of the Constitution was far from certain.
Mountain folks largely eschewed slavery and preferred sustenance living, as we see a lower percentage of slaves in the foothills and hills of Appalachia. Some small-time, non-slaveholding farmers no doubt resented having to fight a war that was waged to protect the rich planter class and their ilk, who more or less spun the “state’s rights” argument to get Johnny Reb to keep supporting the war effort. And, of course, in the wake of Nat Turner and John Brown, Southern whites were constantly paranoid about the possibility for slave insurrections. Fear, as ever, is a powerful motivator:
Syria and presidential power
Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School, made a compelling case today in The Atlantic that regardless of whether President Barack Obama gets Congressional approval for some kind of military strike in Syria, he will have effectively increased presidential power to declare war, rather than, as some have contended, scaled it back:
If Congress says no to Obama, it will not significantly restrain future presidents from using military force. At best, it will preserve current understandings about presidential power. If Congress says yes, it may bestow significant new powers on future presidents — and it will also commit the United States to violating international law. For Obama plans to violate the United Nations Charter, and he wants Congress to give him its blessing.
According to the straight forward United Nations Charter — Syria is a member state — a U.N. security council, not an individual nation,
shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security. — Chapter VII, Article 39
and according to articles 41 and 42 of the same chapter,
41. The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.
42. Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.
This clearly states that other measures of mitigation should be attempted before any military strikes can occur, and if and when the Security Council determines that force is necessary,
46. Plans for the application of armed force shall be made by the Security Council with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee.
What is conspicuously missing from the charter is that individual member states may not decide independently and out of the purview of the United Nations Security Council — which is the United States in the case with Syria — that military action should be taken against another member state. Further, Syria has not threatened the U.S., so there has not been an act of aggression in theory or in practice. Still, Obama has said given the U.N.’s apparent ineptness in holding Syria accountable, the U.S. has the authority to take action.
Not so, said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
The use of force is lawful only when in exercise of self-defense in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations charter and/or when the Security Council approves of such action. That is a firm principle of the United Nations.
With or without Congressional approval, Obama seems resigned to move forward with plans to crack down on Syria, and I would wager that if he does, future American presidents will have near limitless power to police the world. George W. Bush’s notorious authorization for the use of military force in Iraq still stands as a black eye in American foreign policy. A new AUMF has been issued on Syria.
Here is Balkin again:
… the Syria episode offers Obama and future presidents new opportunities for increasing presidential power. Obama has submitted a fairly broad authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) proposal to Congress. It is not limited either temporally or geographically; it does not specifically exclude the use of ground troops; and it requires only that the president determine that there is a plausible connection between his use of force and the use of weapons of mass destruction in the Syrian civil war. If Congress adopts this proposal, President Obama and every future president can simply add it to the existing body of AUMFs and congressional authorizations.
While I’m not an isolationist by any stretch and think that the United States has a role to play on the world stage, we may be peering into the diplomatic abyss on this one. America should be partnering with other developed nations in identifying the best steps on moving forward when issues like the one in Syria arises instead of going it alone. Unfortunately, Obama’s star seems to be fading, even after finding and killing Osama bin Laden and avenging the lives of 3,000 Americans, and he seems to need or want another strong military success on which to hang his legacy, particularly after the Benghazi debacle. One has to ask: Where is the Obama who castigated Bush for his strong arm approach to foreign policy and where is the Obama who touted the use of diplomacy over force? Was that not essentially his raison d’être on foreign policy?
***
Addendum: Chapter 1, Article 2, number 4 of the United Nations charter makes it illegal for member states to wage strikes against other member states:
All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
My brief thoughts on Syria
With President Barack Obama apparently resigned to intervene in Syria and waiting for authorization from Congress, I’m about as conflicted as one can be on this issue.
In more cynical moments, I think: Let the place rot. After George Bush’s unconstitutional invasion of Iraq, after we poured billions into defense contractor pockets and after seeing mixed results to this day — the Sunnis and the Shiites still can’t, nor will they ever, learn to play nice — the success of a new military operation in yet another Middle Eastern nation is far from certain. While the Middle East is shrouded in oppression, tyranny, ignorance and religious fervor, violence and subjugation will never be eradicated from the region, and no amount of American intervention is going to change that. Only Turkey has managed to create a somewhat secular state with some success. The rest, it seems to me, is resigned and happy to exist in a sort of cosmic no man’s land between democracy and religious sectarianism and violence. In these moments, I think that they are getting exactly what they deserve.
Proponents of isolationism also point to the many problems we have here at home. Why are we trying to solve problems overseas, they say, when we have starving and suffering people here in the States who need help? Let’s address our problems at home, they say. Of course, many of those same people don’t think the government has a role to play in public life, so that sort of argument is self-defeating.
On the other hand, a gross injustice has apparently taken place in which the Syrian government has used chemical weapons on its own people. The question is this: Does America want to continue to be the world police and stand against oppression and international crimes wherever they may happen or does America want to concern itself with improving the lives of Americans? I am highly conflicted on the Syrian issue and others like it because I feel that if the United States has the resources to improve the lives of thousands of people, that is the morally right thing to do, regardless of nationality. Yet, thousands of Americans are suffering in poverty or sickness at this very moment, and we could divert the resources that might be sent to Syria to the States. The plot thickens, though, because even if we chose a completely isolationist approach to Syria and the Middle East, there’s no guarantees that the Know Nothings in Washington would even pass meaningful legislation to help people at home. Why? Because, for some reason, they feel that, while the federal government does have a role to play on the international stage — playing Big Brother for the world — we should just let folks at home rot away in poverty, illness and debt. Makes perfect sense.
My top 10 American history books (2011-13)
As a matter of total randomness, I have decided to make a list of the top 10 American history books I have read since 2011. I have listed them from good studies in American history (6-10) to imperishable works with few rivals (1-5).
Drum roll …
10. “Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief” by James McPherson. Read my review here.
9. “Union 1812: The Americans who Fought the Second War of Independence” by A.J. Langguth.
8. “From Sea to Shining Sea: From the War of 1812 to the Mexican War, the Saga of America’s Expansion” by Robert Leckie.
7. “John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights” by David S. Reynolds.
6. “Madison and Jefferson” by Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg. Read my review here.
5. “Grant and Sherman” by Charles Flood.
4. “Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society” by John Andrew III. Read my review here.
3. “Judgment Days” by Nick Kotz.
2. “Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788” by Pauline Maier.
1. “Grant” by Jean Edward Smith. Read my review here.
Honorable mentions
- “Reconstruction” by Eric Foner
- “The American Civil War” by John Keegan
- “Big Chief Elizabeth” by Giles Milton
- “This Mighty Scourge” by James McPherson
Poverty in America
I largely agreed with the first 1,600 words of this speech by Newt Gingrich that examines the continued persistence of racism, poverty and crime in the inner cities here in the 21st century and the fact that President Barack Obama’s high-minded rhetoric, inspiring though it may be, does not call for “real solutions.” The speech, which was originally made in 2008 after an address by Obama, was reposted by CNN this week after Obama’s most recent speech on race in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting and the unjust George Zimmerman not-guilty verdict.
In the earlier part of the speech, Gingrich quotes Obama then makes a cogent statement with which I can agree:
Obama said, and I quote:
“This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn, that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids; they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st-century economy. Not this time.”
Let me suggest to all of you that if you set aside the normal partisanship and cynicism of politics, that that’s a very powerful paragraph, and a paragraph worthy of response at the same level. I take up this opportunity, both to reject cynicism, but also to suggest that we find real solutions. But to find real solutions, I would argue, we have to have real honesty and a serious dialogue in which unpleasant facts are put on the table and bold proposals are discussed.
The latter half of the speech, however, goes off the rails when Gingrich uses the well-worn Republican strategy of partisanship and ignoring the facts, to make his case. The derailment begins when Gingrich, like so many in the GOP camp, criticized Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Great Society programs and ignored the sweeping impact the legislation made on poverty in the inner cities at the time.
Gingrich ignores the fact that Nixon and Reagan in something akin to blasphemy spent a good deal of their time dismantling various parts of the Great Society, thus disintegrating years of hard-won work by Johnson, Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders who led the nation, even white America, to get behind equality and social justice at an unprecedented level, so much so that all but the most odious, racist, segregationist white politicians in Washington sat with their indifferent arms folded.
He ignores the results that the Great Society had on poverty at the time. Johnson aided Joseph A. Califano Jr. addressed the myth that the Great Society was a failure in his 1999 essay, “What Was Really Great About The Great Society:”
If there is a prize for the political scam of the 20th century, it should go to the conservatives for propagating as conventional wisdom that the Great Society programs of the 1960s were a misguided and failed social experiment that wasted taxpayers’ money.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, from 1963 when Lyndon Johnson took office until 1970 as the impact of his Great Society programs were felt, the portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent, the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in this century. Since then, the poverty rate has hovered at about the 13 percent level and sits at 13.3 percent today, still a disgraceful level in the context of the greatest economic boom in our history. But if the Great Society had not achieved that dramatic reduction in poverty, and the nation had not maintained it, 24 million more Americans would today be living below the poverty level.
This reduction in poverty did not just happen. It was the result of a focused, tenacious effort to revolutionize the role of the federal government with a series of interventions that enriched the lives of millions of Americans. In those tumultuous Great Society years, the President submitted, and Congress enacted, more than 100 major proposals in each of the 89th and 90th Congresses. In that era of do-it-now optimism, government was neither a bad man to be tarred and feathered nor a bag man to collect campaign contributions, but an instrument to help the most vulnerable in our society.
I’m aware that Califano would, of course, want to defend the president for whom he worked, but the proof is in the pudding:
I shouldn’t need to point it out but I will, that poverty plummeted drastically in the mid-1960s as the chart shows and rose during the ill-begotten Nixon and Reagan administrations.
Killing in the name of
This chilling chart shows the likelihood that killings will be found to be “justifiable,” compared to white on white crime:
Here is a study conducted by John Roman and Mitchell Downey in 2012 and a related study, conducted at Texas A&M, suggesting that the “Stand Your Ground” laws enacted in various states may actually lead to more, not less, deaths.