American Culture on the 4th of July

Peace and Freedom - Policy and World Ideas ^ | July 4, 2007 | John E. Carey

[Lou L]

American Culture on the 4th of July

By John E. Carey
Peace and Freedom
July 4, 2007

I am never sure whether it is our American culture that shapes our TV, movies and other media or whether our media shapes our thinking to such an extent that it changes culture.

Probably a little bit of both.

What is culture? One very good online dictionary calls it “The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought. These patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population.”

On July 4, 1963, as a young lad, I was fortunate enough to be at Gettysburg, PA. The Centennial of the greatest land battle in the history of North America had just concluded. That Centennial event was marked with religious services, re-enactors in uniforms and period clothing from the 1860s, and my Dad’s gigantic Ford “Country Squire.”

Just as a reminder, on July 4, 1863, some 50,000 Americans lay dead on the fields and in the town of Gettysburg. The slaves had been freed but the issue of one or two nations sharing this part of the continent was still undecided.

In 1963 at that Centennial, America had a vastly different culture than it has today. JFK was president and the Republican Party largely cooperated with the government called “Camelot.”

In 1963, at Gettysburg, there were no protesters, many men wore a “crew cut,” homosexuality was not discussed, girls wore skirts to the knee, and the Beatles were still hot.

[hedgetrimmer]

I am never sure whether it is our American culture that shapes our TV, movies and other media

American culture hasn't shaped our media since Al Gore's Telecommunications act of 1996 that allowed foreign ownership of the media. It is only the globalists in foreign corporations and governments that shape our media now.

[AzaleaCity5691]

Once again, the war was not about slavery, and incidentally, on July 4, 1863, the slaves had not been freed. The Emancipation Proclamation applied to states in the Confederacy. The Confederacy was it’s own nation, and as such, did not recognize U.S. authority in that matter. In states where there was an actual legal authority to do such a thing, the border states that stayed with the Union, not a single slave was effected by the proclamation.

The Emancipations was all style and no substance, and yet a large part of the country reveres it’s deliverer as some kind of hero.

And we would have won at Gettysburg if not for a tactical error.

[NucSubs]

The war was about slavery.

And who is “we”? Are you an American?

[AzaleaCity5691]

Actually, the war was not about slavery. What I will assume from your statement is that you are from a place north of the Mason-Dixon.

And when I say we, I refer to the C.S.A, because well, I didn’t have a single forebear who fought for the Union in that war, that, and I believe that the South was fundamentally right in what it was trying to do, as it was the same thing the whole country had done back during the Revolutionary War.

[NucSubs]

Actually, the war was clearly about slavery.

Claiming I deny the Neoconfederate myth of the lost cause because I am from the south is a typical ploy of Neocons.

So you wish the South had defeated the United States.

Do you fly the U.S. flag? If so why? You believe the U.S. was wrong and your “nation” was right and that its defeat was a bad thing. That would be like a person who flew the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes while they pined for the lost victory of the Brits.

[AzaleaCity5691]

I never said I wished the South defeated the United States, I never made a value judgement. What I am saying is, we were justified in our position, and we were justified in the idea that just because a state joins the Union, it doesn’t mean it is supposed to be permanently bound to the Union. At least, thats the way it is supposed to be. Northern victory set up an erosion of our constitution, the example of which was set by Lincoln, who had zero respect for that document while in office. Lincoln’s only redeeming quality is that he understood us well enough to know that any attempt to “reconstruct” us would be asinine.

But, Lincoln was shot, and that allowed the radicals to go against the will of the only sensible man in the government of that time, even leading to a sham impeachment trial. The Radicals were the liberals of their day. There is not much of a difference between what Sumner was in his day, and what Ted Kennedy is today.

I fly both the U.S. and Battle Flag. I don’t see a contradiction in terms, cause I think the U.S. can return to what it once was, but we’ll have to fight for it. I fly it for my belief in the ideal nation, the nation that wouldn’t interfere with the individual states in order to set a national imperative.