Was it not real?

Comment by waldopaper on July 18, 2008 at 9:07pm

OK- i aint really big on this "patriotic" bullshit... this is about the icManitou (the individual-collective Spirit). The Maine boys at the top and the Alabama boys coming up got caught in separate definitions of the icManitou. Who can say which of the individuals involved had some kind of handle on it... and which ones were doing it because everybody else was?
I think because their experience was so fucking horrible... and because the intellectual translator (Lincoln) got snuffed before Reconstruction, we are dealing with the same fucking problem today: the nature of the relationship between the individual and the collective.
My own wild-ass speculation: Lincoln was vaguely aware of Marx' theories and was keeping them on his mental back burner until he had to deal with full-blown post-war Reconstruction.
Booth's bullet shattered the one brain on-place at-the-time that was capable of bringing the icManitou into our dimension.
That is why I wept at Lincoln's tomb... fully 100 years after he would have been dead anyway.
That is why I took my children to Little-Round-Top ... and believe it is an opening to the Spirit World.

Comment by pan on July 19, 2008 at 8:05am

Change the sound score on the charge down Little Round Top and the patriotic swelling of pride changes into a sense of disgust and loathing. The viewers' emotional experience is controlled by the music and the little semiotic clues (note the flag in the upper left corner of the screen as the "tough old Mick" who is about to have his arm sawed off takes the time out from his pain and suffering to congratulate his commander for putting his troops' lives in utter peril by rushing without ammunition at the enemy. Until, and unless, the USans start paying attention to the underscoring that the editors have put in every aspect of our lives and those "product placements" that fill the screen there will be more fools charging down the hill at live ammo for the chance to kill his brothers in defense of Little Round Tops that only matter to the owners.

Comment by BO on July 19, 2008 at 3:19pm

But...did you not hear? "The army was blessed." And as long as you're blessed, you gots the right to kill and steal for da lord. The lord. What an ingenious symbol the rich created in order to control the masses. So what if your life on earth stinks. No worries. You'll receive your rewards in heaven.

Comment by waldopaper on July 20, 2008 at 6:08pm

Yeah... it does that (romanticizes). It's a movie. As Shelby Foote said: "For all the talk of States Rights and the Union, men volunteered for much the same reasons on both sides: in search of glory or excitement, or from fear of being thought afraid, but mostly because it was the thing to do." By 1863 most of that had worn off.

It represents Chamberlain fairly well... who was probably beyond the glory/ "thing to do" booyah (being a Phi Beta Kappa and all). Of course there's cinematic roo-doo and fluff... especially the "old Mick" shot... they would have never allowed the "colors" to lay on the ground like that. Chamberlain remarked to (probably) General Wise at Appamatox that the goodwill displayed by the troops promised a better future... to which Wise responded: "You are mistaken, sir. You may forgive us, but we won't be forgiven. There is a rancor in our hearts... which you little dream of. We hate you, sir." Very little romance there... and it continues today.

You hear the same bullshit about "property rights" and "free trade," especially from the "libertarians" (who are now to embarrassed to admit they are neocons). The Civil War was one of the few (maybe the only one) that USAns experienced that wasn't a rah-rah football game in somebody else's yard. It started out that way...

I spent almost as much time and effort studying the US Civil War as I have Nazi Germany... for a lot of the same reasons... mainly, what the fuck were those people thinking?? Oversimplified and short answer: they weren't... thinking, that is. They were profiling and chest-thumping and looking for for a little excitement in their drab, dishwater lives... seeking a quick fix... looking for paybacks... demonizing something they really didn't understand. Sound familiar?

If you go to the places... whether it's Little Round Top or Birkenau... your brothers' blood will cry out to you from the ground.

It breaks his heart that things must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?
---Lindsay

Too many peasants fight, they know not why...

Comment by waldopaper on July 22, 2008 at 2:07pm

Don’t want to bring anybody down by harping on this… maybe it was a bad idea to try to illustrate it with this somewhat semiotic video clip. The point was… was it not REAL? Currently engaged in boxing with the “libertarians,” bay tunderin Jayzus, they piss me off. If you read contemporary accounts and articles from 1850-1860… it’s the same stuff: property rights… big government… we have hardly moved a mental inch in nearly 200 years.

Yes, legal slavery is gone. That’s something. But it’s not nearly enough. The Diggers had it right… and that was nearly almost 400 years ago. Dick Gaughan, perhaps the best performer of the excellent Leon Rosselson ballad, wrote: “The conclusion of the song, in my interpretation, is that, as they were not prepared to defend themselves, they were annihilated. The evidence of history is that revolutions are usually peaceful - but the resulting counter-revolution is usually extremely bloody and ruthless. Anyone who believes that any ruling class will give up power without extreme resistance is living in a different dimension.”

“The sin of property… we do disdain… no one has any RIGHT to buy or sell the earth for private gain…” this concept has been beaten and wheedled out of most USAns. I do not see how any transition can possibly be made without violence… but I don’t see how violence could possibly succeed. It is said that the Union won the war but lost the peace. It seems so, with so many bullet-heads jabbering about “property rights” and “free markets” when pursuit of both has dropped us all plop in the fucking toilet. Somehow they got the idea that this gimme-grab-grab shit is not only natural… but virtuous. But maybe I’m guilty of seeing nails because my only tool is a hammer.

I have spent years studying the US Civil War and Nazi Germany. It has creeped me out for the past several years to see the same kind of rank stupidity and brutality in the US that led to Nazi Germany… but hearing the rhetoric of the Confederacy all over again is just plain weird.

Comment by waldopaper on July 22, 2008 at 2:19pm

ps: background music... just imagine the background from "Psycho."

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