Sacre Boom!

All I have for today are some brief musings about Libya. I'm also open to any other opinions, as I seem to have run rather low on give-a-damn these days.

I was at Starbucks this past weekend and I heard people talking about the U.S. joining in to help establish a no-fly zone in Libya. I was shocked (for reals this time) and all I wanted to do was to point out to these people that we are already involved in two other wars that no one ever talks about! They were acting as if our military's presence is not already being felt in two Muslim sand lands and has been for the past ten years. But no, I just let them talk. I think I was too stunned to even pipe up, anyway.

Speaking of the no-fly zone, why are we participating in the bombing of things? There have been buildings bombed and trucks bombed and all sort of stuff bombed. Last time I checked, none of those things flew. How is this a no-fly zone and not just a bunch of planes and subs bombing stuff? Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily against it (though I don't think that I can necessarily be for it), I'm just pointing out that those things don't fly.

I'm tired of the U.S. being the world's policeman. There is absolutely no reason for us to be involved in the Libya thing. The U.S. has no vested interest in Libya one way or the other. I'd also like to know who is in charge of picking and choosing which atrocities we get involved in. OK, so the Libyan forces were killing the rebels. (Are we all really so surprised that Gaddafi isn't going quietly into the sand dunes like Mubarak did over yonder in Egypt? I'm more surprised that Mubarak didn't do the same thing that Gaddafi is doing.) There is constant rape going on in the Congo. Or is it just Congo? Whatever it is, it's very rape-y over there. That's not important to stop? What about Kim Jung Il? He's a lunatic in platform shoes and ladies eyewear and likely has nuclear weaponry. Why don't we take him out while we're at it? No, instead we're all focused on Libya for some reason.

I know this is very surface stuff here. Some might even call it trite. Hell, I might call it trite. But I just cannot stomach the thought of the U.S. being the face of aggression in another Muslim dominant sand land and for who knows for how long?! Don't even get me started on what this is going to end up costing us. I can't even stomach adding a couple of pictures to this. I'm just so done with this country putting our soldiers in harms way for no reason. I think I'm also done talking about this unless something overly asinine develops. I'm open to any other opinions, by the way. Feel free to leave them in the comments section.

"Disunion" (Civil War History Series) in the New York Times

I'm going to sing the praises of The New York Times today, and note that since October 30, 2010, it has been publishing one of the best and most informative series of articles, mini-essays, and nonfiction stories (tales, in the older sense), under the title "Disunion," that I have read in any newspaper, journal or other periodical anywhere, ever. The pieces, along with a timeline, interactive maps and documents, and photos and engravings, commemorate the 150th anniversary of the breakup of the United States, in 1860, from period leading up to the election of Abraham Lincoln, to the chain of state secessions that provoked the four-year US Civil War (1861-1865). Each day one of several eminent and less well known historians, archivists and writers (Adam Goodheart, Ted Widmer, Susan Schulten, Jill Lepore, Jamie Malanowski, etc.) produces a short imaginative, usually narrative entry, based on their own or others' historical research, journalistic and archival documentation, and so forth, that fills in key gaps about how the North and South split, or rather, the cultural roots of the national divorce, in which North pressed its political, economic and sociocultural case to represent the nearly 100-year-old country's best interests, prevent its dissolution and end slavery, while the South hewed to the interests of its slave-owning leaders and began the process of secession to defend this odious institution. Some are more engaging than others, many incorporate the various trends underway in contemporary historiography (material, cultural and political history, the role of various discourses, the role of race and racism, feminist historiography to some degree, historical theorization and cultural theory, and quantitative methods), yet present vivid stories of our national unbecoming and becoming.

Others have focused on the particulars of candidate and then elected-but-not-yet-inaugurated new president Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican to hold office, shrewdly announced one approach publicly but manipulated his fellow party members behind the scenes; how Southern leaders, like Senators Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, James Henry Hammond of South Carolina, and Robert Toombs of Georgia, and plantocrats like Robert Barnwell Rhett, uttered rhetoric as harsh as any heard today espousing a desire to defend slavery at all costs, white supremacy as the social, cultural and political ideals of the Confederacy to come, and, in Toombs' case, the possible extermination of all black people if the Southerners did not get their way; how leading authors, like Walt Whitman and Herman Melville, discursively and creatively imagined this moment of national fracture; and how famous former US residents, like Giuseppe Garibaldi, a revolutionary in Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul) the founding hero of a united Italy, were linked directly what was occurring on these shores.

In today's paper, Harvard historian Lepore historicizes Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride" to show how it was as much about preparation for the coming war as about the Revolutionary era hero, and writer and memoirist Edward Ball shows that South Carolina, the first southern state to secede (and which will celebrate the 150th anniversary of its secession tomorrow), made clear in its articles of secession that the right to enslave fellow human beings as property was central to its traitorous fissure.

One of Goodheart's entry, one of the most moving and riveting I have read yet, described Harriet Tubman's final pre-war journey south, to rescue her sister and niece and nephew in Maryland. Yet when Tubman learned that her sister had died and then her family members did not turn up at the appointed meeting place, Tubman helped a couple escape, which entailed a drama fitting of the best narrative poem or short story one might imagine (an allegedly "crazed" white man was repeated walking about and mumbling to himself in a clearing near where Tubman and the fugitives had hidden, and after a while Tubman realized he was giving them secret instructions about how to get away!). Tubman, the couple and their infant, who had to be drugged to remain quiet, did make it across the Mason-Dixon line, they heading on to Canada and she back to her home in Auburn, New York, and this story, which I have read about in more than one book, came to life for me again in a way that felt as fresh and thrilling as any version I'd heard of it before.
Yet another entry, Schulten's exceptional interactive entry, "Visualizing Slavery," discussed the demographic particulars of the slavocracy on the eve of the war, in 1860, with a superb map I have pored over. One could compare this to current racial-ethnic demographics as well as voting patterns and draw obvious conclusions.  My native state, Missouri, interestingly enough, had the second largest total population of any of the slave states (after Virginia) of over 1.1 million people, the second largest free population (mostly white), and the second smallest population, by percentage, of enslaved people (only Delaware's was smaller). That free white population by 1860, I know from my own reading and research, consisted of many immigrants from German-speaking Europe (many having fled after the failed Revolution of 1848) and Ireland, as well as a good number of internal migrants from upper South states like Kentucky, Tennessee, and western Virginia (which would, during the Civil War, become its own state). Though the article did not discuss this, it fascinates me to consider how Missouri's demographics accounted in part for why the state split during the Civil War, with a pro-Union governor and both its Congresspeople still in Washington, and a Confederate government in exile, in Texas.  It was to this government, another "Disunion" article noted, that Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, appealed for resolve, as the likely depredations of the looming war became ever clearer.  Missouri remains split, now mainly between the two Blue-Democratic urban-suburban poles (Saint Louis and Kansas City, and their surrounding counties/suburban areas) and the rest of the state, which is often mostly a sea of red (GOP-conservative). The parties have flipped, but the ethos, 150 years later, would not be so strange to residents of that earlier era....

The US slaveholding states, as of 1860 (Texas to Delaware)

I highly recommend reading as many of these pieces as possible. One thread that emerges clearly is Lincoln's steely, far-sighted skill as a tactician even before the War, and the utter failure of his predecessors, particularly James Buchanan (at right), as inept a president as ever held the office. However horrible we may consider George W. Bush, or notable ringers like Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Pierce, etc., none apparently compares to the extremely qualified but extremely ineffectual, feckless Pennsylvanian, who watched South Carolina, and then a handful of other states, threaten and then leave the United States, and responded with blandishments, a non-binding agreement and then silence, which only emboldened the other states thereafter. His cabinet also disintegrated apace. Lincoln, "spewed out of the bowels of Kentucky into Illinois," as the South Carolinian fire-eater Rhett labeled him, was quite aware of what would transpire if the Senate passed the Crittenden Act, which would have papered over the growing political rifts, or similar legislation, and pushed the country towards division, such that the federal government, through its military, would have to confront and end the slave system. How he did this was masterful, but as entry after entry demonstrates, it was bound and had to occur. In the best of hands, thankfully, the nation's fate landed, after a long stretch of some of the worst tenure imaginable.

It would be a great boon to all if the New York Times would pick other periods and other skillful scholars and writers to focus on. Concerning the US, perhaps the Gilded Age, or the Great Depression, or the Vietnam War, or, going further back, the pre-Revolutionary period, or the War of 1812, would be moments to choose. Historical periods outside the US, such as the era of European encounters with Africa and the New World beginning in the 1500s, or earlier moments of political, economic and cultural exchange between China, Japan, and Korea, or the revolutionary period in 19th century Latin America, say, might also be enlightening. The success of this series, which I suppose is still to be measured, might also point to the Times regularly publishing fiction, poetry, and other imaginative work, as well as accessible scholarship too. The blogging format is a good one for short pieces, and as the "Disunion" series demonstrates, when done well, it can provide news, 150 years old yet, as anything else appearing in a newspaper's pages.

Julian Assange's Double Talk

Up until now, I've kept myself out of this whole WikiLeaks thing. Mainly because I don't like saying WikiLeaks. I think it sounds ridiculous. But I do have an opinion on this whole thing and I also have a point to make. Shocking, I know. But bear with me.

So, this Julian Assange character likes to obtain classified or secret documents from various governments or institutions and then publish said information online. His most recent target has been the United States. It's not really all that clear to me what his goal is, as he is an Australian and doesn't seem to have any direct dealings with the United States. He is against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think that has a lot to do with it. I also think that he's delusional if he thinks that he's going to be able to put a stop to these wars with his reckless release of information. Extremely delusional.

Just the other day, The Australian ran a piece by Mr. Assange entitled "Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths". It is within this piece that Mr. Assange rambles on about how people need to know the truth. In some ways, he is correct. The people of a country should not be lied to by their government. That doesn't mean that the people need to know every bit of information that goes on behind the scenes. It's not something that is unique to America. Every country has information that is classified. I don't get what he doesn't understand about that.

But it's in this piece that Mr. Assange proclaims his "innocence". According to him, it's not like these releases of classified information are hurting anyone. He's just putting the truth out there. In fact, he states "WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time we have changed whole governments, but not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed." Not so fast WikiWeenie.

Back in August, Mr. Assange was the subject of a piece by a one Carole Cadwalladr over at The Guardian. In that piece, Mr. Assange talks about "...the Kenyan 2007 elections when a WikiLeak document "swung the election"." Really? According to him, yes. Really. The document of which he speaks "...exposed massive corruption by Daniel Arap Moi, and the Kenyan people sat up and took notice. In the ensuing elections, in which corruption became a major issue, violence swept the country." Huh. Anything else? Glad you asked! He then claimed "1,300 people were eventually killed, and 350,000 were displaced. That was a result of our leak." Ohhhh. So close!

Look, I don't know what document he's talking about and I'm not interested in looking into it. But I absolutely believe him that people lost their lives because of his leak. He knows what he's doing and it isn't to promote "open government". If anything, other than being a pain in the ass, he's promoting anarchy. And while I'm really unhappy with the way that this guy has chosen to go about things, I'm even more unhappy with the fact that classified documents were so easily accessible in the United States that it was possible for a lowly Private First Class to download them all onto CDs and hand them over to Assange. I do agree with him that he's the "messenger", but give me a break, that doesn't mean that he's blameless in all of this.