WE ALL WANT MONEY. When the secessionists allowed a tax deadline to come and go without delivering tribute upon the Treasury Department of the Federal Government by officials of another government from only one of the southern states, it was on.
United States Navy commenced bombarding Fort Sumpter that very next day. The economic impetus for seccession couldn't be more plain. Regardless of how many men of that era are portrayed by Hollywood as surprisingly enlightened on racial views; the American citizenry went along with allowing other men to work for nothing but the merest material means of survival, and the hope that working your ass off will continue to provide a reason not to shoot him on impulse, as many African captives purchased death by the hands of Master's son, for a wealthy youth is often petulent, and slaves were punished to put on a show; they call it terrorism and it's not a racial or ethnic or religious body more prone to utilize it. Terrorism is a tactic, used most commonly by the tremendously outnumbered, and militarily weak, in comparison to any standing army in today's world. Insignificant unless they continue the 'fight'. Like everyone else.
THE MANY ARE USUALLY INVISIBLE. THE FOLLOWERS OF ISLAM ENCIRCLE THE GLOBE. IF A MILLION individuals practicing fundamentalist Islam live a life of worship, sobriety, work and study; who commit fewer sins than the average fundamentalist Baptist; there are the fringe who live the lives of Muslim warriors, in very undeveloped and treacherous terrain; convinced the Arab hordes defeated the Russian Army—not the high tech weapons we gave them like candy bars on Halloween. We provided the Afghan people with the means to inflict enough casualties on the commies, that the enterprise would become stagnant without escalation, and increasingly redundant, vain. What do we hope to bring about in Afghanistan if our Department of Defense employees remain in south Asia until retirement age comes? In my lifetime I have experienced a sure uncommon being too young for one war too old for the next. Even without my criminal record, I lack the degree to become an officer and I was too old to become a Private, 34 is the cut off date, for brand new enlisted men.
AT THE CONCLUSION OF WWII, IN THE TIME JUST AFTER HOSTILITIES CEASED WHEN NERVES WERE STILL RAW, how many thought it was just a matter of time before we went at it again of the ones who knew they would return alive, with all their body parts, totally uninjured, with the aches and pains common to you in your football days; still with pretty good sense, as much as you ever had.
You train yourself to be Master of your Memory; The things you saw were of a nature that induces shock; A level of shock and mental numbness is what propelled you through those days, and the corps—the other guys. You were rarely lonely.
Suprised you are able to remember so much of it, it went by so fast, the experience is presently more vivid sitting in your easy chair remembering it, than you experienced when it happened. It throws you off balance. The human mind is such a fine instrument. To withstand the fear you grew accustomed to, to shoot at people with pure hate pumping through veins and arteries without ever seeing a face, and still recall the most delicate details of falling in love, still aware of the beauty in life and able to treasure it.
WHEN THEY RENAMED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR, AFTER DETAILS OF THE ATOMIC EXPLOSIONS IN JAPAN HAD LONG GAINED CURRENCY; AFTER THE CREATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS WITH ROOSEVELT'S WIDOW REALLY TRYING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE; DID THEY DO IT FOR THE PURPOSE OF HOPE? War was all we studied in school; it seemed like the only reason anything got decided or changed. The energy and capital let loose during World War II, the industrial progress it required and the response of business will never be paralleled.
Those soldiers are our Department of Defense employees now. I wonder how the guys felt who changed the name of the Department of War, after over 40 million dead around the world. I remember when they ended the draft after Viet Nam. I was a kid, but I thought that was a pretty significant thing, making some amends, coming to grips with a sinful past.
CAPITAL GENERATED BY COTTON PROFITS FINANCED U.S. INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION; extensive inland waterways assured a regional advantage for attracting enterprise planning to provide a large volume of goods to be traded overseas, We have been told the story of Abe Lincoln all our lives, what a good guy he was. He was not a gentleman though, he was a tyrant; declared martial law; suspended habeas corpus. When
The Industrial North—death on an unprecedented, appalling scale; disease, almost universal dispossession, wrecked towns, homeplaces and landscapes. Plantation got knocked down to 'plant', as in "I always thought I'd end up working in the auto plant", Mechanization imposed economic displacement, forcing the largest migration of people from one region to whole differant region within our borders everand consolidation farmswith some high school, who had made the middle class team there in the victorious North, didn’t catch on and probably never asked anyone’s advice much less pick up a book for free at the public library.
