Posted on 09/30/2014 12:29:23 PM PDT by 11th_VA
Rewriting history to egregious ends, Field of Lost Shoes recounts the true-life saga of seven Virginia Military Institute cadets who in 1864 died in service to the Confederate Army during the Battle of New Market.
Awash in phony-looking facial hair and clichéd period drama, Sean McNamara’s drama defines those brave boys via their love of black people, their embrace of Jews, and their desire to fight so that they might protect their homeland from “foreign invaders,” uphold their “traditions,” and preserve their “future.” Save for a brief prologue, there isn’t a pro-slavery Southern man to be found in this fantasyland vision of the Civil War, only kind-hearted, open-minded progressives who want to be with their love-at-first-sight gals, or pursue sculpting careers, or liberate their oppressed African American brethren.
That counterfeit romantic portrait is contrasted with the contemptuous depiction of Ulysses S. Grant (Tom Skerritt) as a “butcher” and the Union as a bunch of child-murderers led by a goofily mustached David Arquette.
(Excerpt) Read more at villagevoice.com ...
You’re actually going to rest your argument on the definition of “acquiesce”?
You must be kidding? Do you mean to tell me the meaning of words is something you ignore?
It would seem to me that the argument is over whether the US put up, complainingly or not, with British troops garrisoned in US territory for a full decade after the end of the Revolution, rather than whether that putting up constituted acquiescence or not.
The Chinese keep troops on the Indian border because after more than 30 years, India has not acquiesced and does recognized it seized territory as part of China.
So, in other words, you’re saying that countries can and do put up with what they consider foreign forces occupying parts of their territories without opening fire on those forces when someone attempts to resupply them.
Actually, I suggested SC should have done that and wait out Sumter. If Lincoln wanted a war, he would have to find some other way to start it.
The problem was that it was the south that wanted a war. The longer things went on, the squishier they realized people were going to get. Most importantly, they needed to do something to draw Virginia and North Carolina onto their side. Shelling Sumter was that something.
No I don’t condone those things and where specifically did I say that I did? I said you destroy an enemies ability to wage war and the infrastruce that supports it and that means civilians have to die. Since you seem to be so enlightened and self-righteous maybe you can tell the generals how to fight a war in which no civilian dies. I’m sure they’d love to hear it. In the mean time spare me your self-righteousness because it’s nothing more than a phony form of respectability.
You’ve got the brain of a five year old child and I bet he was glad to get rid of it.
I think we can agree that the troops on the ground during Sherman’s march behaved badly at times. That is really not arguable. Raping, looting and shooting civilians is certainly not acceptable behavior for armed forces.
The real question, though, is to what degree we should hold Sherman morally accountable for these actions. Obviously, as a leader, Sherman must bear some culpability. However, at least in my opinion, there’s a big difference in culpability between a leader who orders his troops to take what supplies (livestock, crops, etc.) from the civilian population and destroy the rest so that these supplies can’t be used by the enemy and a leader who tells his soldiers (either directly or implicitly) that they can burn homes, rape women and steal non-essential items from the civilians. In the first case, an argument from military necessity can be made. In the second, no such argument exists.
Which is the case for Sherman? I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I don’t think he had rape, murder, and pillaging in mind when he devised his idea of the march to the sea. I think his idea was to increase his army’s mobility by outpacing his supply lines and having his army live off the land. On the other hand, though, he sure didn’t seem to be overly concerned with his army’s behavior during the march, and discipline from above was certainly lacking. I don’t think what happened was necessarily what Sherman intended, but I do think he did not do enough to prevent it.
I’m not saying you can fight a war in which no civilians die. That is pretty impossible. Some are going to die, usually on accident when you target military targets and they happen to be too close. But you aren’t supposed to target civilians on purpose.
I’m not saying you can fight a war in which no civilians die. That is pretty impossible. Some are going to die, usually on accident when you target military targets and they happen to be too close. But you aren’t supposed to target civilians on purpose.
Couldn’t think of a real comeback so you resorted to ad-hominem? heheheh
Take a look at South Carolina politics. They were the only state that didn't count the popular vote for president. The state legislature chose the electors. There were property requirements for holding office, and wealthy planters distributed political positions among themselves.
In such a tight-knit polity it wasn't hard for panic and obsession about tariffs to take over, especially since John C. Calhoun, who originally favored the tariff, was agitating for nullification. In other, less elite-ridden parts of the South, it would have been much harder to gin up such indignation.
Northern newspapers were sympathetic about allowing the southern states to secede, even applauding the idea with a “good riddance” thrown in to boot. That was before South Carolina reduced its tariff to 10% and the newspapers realized that would apply not only to foreign goods but to northern goods as well now that they were “foreign”. The newspapers screamed for war when the tariffs were reduced.
Well, no. Firing on Fort Sumter had a lot more to do with changing Northern minds than Southern tariffs.
The big ticket item was capital goods that southern manufacturers wanted in order to industrialize.
Most of the promoters of secession were planters or professionals or possibly involved in finance. What few industrialists there were weren't that crazy about secession. Use your head, please: many of the industrialists in the South may not have objected to tariffs that would protect them against European competition. Of course, many of the industrialists owned slaves and slaves manned their factories, so there were industrialists who did favor secession, but Southern industry wasn't a major factor in the secession drive.
I pretty much agree. He knew what was happening, and that according to policy it shouldn’t be happening, but he did nothing to stop it.
The aim of the Luftwaffe was to kill civilians in the cities they targeted. Without civilians there are no soldiers, no workers to make the weapons of war. It was the Luftwaffe that instituted the tactic of ‘’terror bombing’’. The aim of the RAF Bomber Command under General Arthur “Bomber’’ Harris was to do the same. And you think being called ‘’self-righteous’’ is an ad homimen?
No, I was referring to the lame “brain-of-a-five-year-old” remark that you made. Did you forget what you posted?
Oh,yeah that one. Actually I borrowed that one from one Groucho Marx. I said that because you seem to have this rather simplistic view that war shouldn’t involve the deliberate killing of civilians. In the wars America has fought in the 21st. century, Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom this was not the intention. The American military is the most professionally trained and most powerfully military force in the history of armed conflict and despite what our enemies say our military doesn’t deliberately target innocent civilians. But this is a different kind of war we find ourselves in now. The jihadi who drives a taxi by day plants IEDs by night. Kids kicking a soccer ball around tell the local Taliban leader where the Americans are. When shit goes down it’s sometime unavoidable that they’ll be killed. It’s happened before in the last century. Buddy of mine walking point in Vietnam pushed through some tall grass and came face to face with a kid he figured to be no more than fifteen or sixteen leveling an AK-47 at him. What do you think he did? In Somalia kids that age and younger grabbed weapons and joined the mobs attacking the Army Rangers in Mogadishu. Like I said war sucks. People die. When you find a cleaner, more sanitized way to fight one tell the generals. ‘’SicSemperTyrannis’’. maybe it’s me but man, there’s some irony in that choice of a screen name.
Well, if they are attacking you then that is obviously different. Of course you shoot someone shooting at you. But not all civilians do that kind of thing, in fact, most in the civil war for sure did not (remember this was the war we were originally talking about), and yet you want to use this as an excuse somehow for Northern troops treatment of civilians in the South?
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