Not Only Should Obama Not Send Flowers for the Confederate Monument at Arlington…

"They shall beat their swords into plowshards, and spears into pruning hooks"

That is from Isaiah and it is carved around the memorial. This memorial is for the 30,00 American dead that served in the confederacy and were interned in various plots in the north and then later moved to Arlington veterans cemetery. While you can find atrocities on both sides these were not the politicians who decided to start the war, but the boys who died in it. Lets let the dead rest.

And yes I think 30,000 American dead is worth a remembrance.

And yes I think 30,000 traitors dead is worth a remembrance.

Yes indeed, DQ, why should there ever be any attempt to put a grievance behind and an attempt to move forward be made?

That attitude has worked so well through history, from the Middle East to current U.S. politics.

Hate now, hate later, hate forever.

The whole point of the war is that we were all Americans right? Indivisible? Then they should be respected as Americans.

The whole point of the war is that we were all Americans right? Indivisible? Then they should be respected as Americans.

Ummm, I think the whole point of the war was that Southerners were not Americans -- or did not consider themselves to be, or want to be. I think the whole point of the war was that Americans were not indivisible. And if the Confederate dead should be respected as Americans, shouldn't the black-skinned people who were freed from slavery be respected as Americans?

Yes indeed, DQ, why should there ever be any attempt to put a grievance behind and an attempt to move forward be made?

Whose grievance? Whose definition of moving forward?

Ummm.... I'm no fan of the confederacy. I've even been known to take my patronage down the road to a competitor when a business is flying the rebel flag (you see that now and again down my way still...)... but Kathy, what the heck are you talking about here?

"And if the Confederate dead should be respected as Americans, shouldn't the black-skinned people who were freed from slavery be respected as Americans"

Interesting William Ayers signed the letter. I'm sure that will fuel speculation.

I wonder if Don Quixote goes more than 6'4" and 215? Sure would like to meet him coming around a corner some day.

I wonder if Don Quixote goes more than 6'4" and 215?

5'10", 210 and late 40's...

Call me any time you come to NYC...

OK kids, knock it off. The war's over, haven't you heard?

The state's rights issue has been resolved, states rights lost. so what if 650,000 americans died fighting over this.

Soldiers, the grunts on the ground eating bayonets and lead, should all be honored; pitied and honored.

Honoring the men does not honor their cause.

IMO

Ummm.... I'm no fan of the confederacy. I've even been known to take my patronage down the road to a competitor when a business is flying the rebel flag (you see that now and again down my way still...)... but Kathy, what the heck are you talking about here?
'
I'm saying that if the presence of a Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery is an indication of respect for the idea that we're all Americans, then how do we indicate to the descendants of slaves that they are respected as Americans as well?

I'm not sure how I make that clearer.

I actually still don't know your point, Kathy. Are you saying that we should add a memorial at Arlington for the descendants of slaves? Are you saying that to honor soldiers on both sides of the Civil War denies honoring descendants of slaves? My best guess is the latter: that the only way we can honor civil victims of the American states that practiced slavery, we must dishonor their fighting forces. Is that your position?

The more I think about this, the more I'm getting angry. Should never write a comment in that circumstance, but I will anyway.

1) The entire HNN article that the main blog post links to rests on two stupid premises: a) that the history of a monument is eternally what it means. It's false in language and its false in memorials. Pointing to the history of the monument is very interesting, but that doesn't always have to be its meaning or purpose. b) It's letting a small minority of people who live in certain states define those states. The whole thing talks about the neo-Confederate movement and on and on. As a Southerner, my experience is that the neo-Confederate movement plays almost no role in daily life in the South nor does it represent the views of more than a small number living there. For instance, some schmuck and his buddies stuck up a god awful ugly statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest on the main highway into Nashville a few years back. What do most Tennesseans think of the thing? Ugly, annoying, offensive, but it's private land so we were stuck with it. And yet we are going to ignore all of those Southerners and their view of a Confederate monument in Arlington because we don't want to support the neo-confederates? The article itself states that even in 1914, the majority of Southerners disagreed with both secession and slavery. That's almost 100 years ago now, and yet we are still letting the minority dictate the view of the memorial.

2) This seems to be the logic in some of the comments here: The Confederate army fought for a bad cause, and therefore we should pretend they never existed or at least have no monuments in their honor. And yet, California once outlawed Chinese people from entering. Should we refuse to honor the police or immigration officials of California since they enforced that law? Many American soldiers, even from the perfect, upstanding North were heavily involved in the wiping out of Native Americans across this nation. Do we take down all statues to the American military?

On all of these things, naturally there must be limits and one must try to do the memorial in the best way possible. For instance, we might still have monuments to the American military, but clearly wouldn't focus on the destruction of the Cherokee. I would be very happy to work with Mark Daniels or others to find a monument which simultaneously tries to not wipe soldiers of the Army of Tennessee or the Army of the Potomac from memory yet handle all the concerns that their cause brings. Americans of all states have believed all sorts of horrible things for a long time. There must be a way to remember them but not celebrate their errors.

3) A lot of this does look like disdain for a certain part of the country that lingers today. As an example, I find John Stewart very funny and periodically insightful. And yet he can, on one hand, defend New York from people attacking it for being insufficiently American and from making fun of its culture, and then turn around and make horrible fun of the people of West Virginia for not being sufficiently like him. As another example, how does an American pretend to be stupid? They put on a Southern accent. It's just the same as someone trying to act stupid by putting on a foreign accent or trying to speak the dialect known as AAVE or just Black English. It's using social power and false beliefs about speech patterns and intelligence to enforce one group's position over another.

In short, southerners who fought in the civil war are also Americans. They deserve not to be forgotten even if they lost the war or if their cause was not right. Still Americans.

The state's rights issue has been resolved, states rights lost.

I would not be so sure about that if I were you...

Bankers Share Whining Rights With Fed-Up States: Ann Woolner

Whether the problem is meddling in drivers’ license requirements or limiting gun ownership, state lawmakers accuse the national government of usurping their powers in blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution.

This revival of states’ rights fever has prompted legislatures in five states to proclaim their sovereignty and demand that Washington halt its unconstitutional power grab. In seven more states in the Midwest and South, similar resolutions have made it halfway through the legislatures.

SC groups call for passage of states rights bill

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Conservative groups called on South Carolina legislators Tuesday to pass a measure that declares the state has the right to ignore any federal law or policies it deems unconstitutional.

States' rights resolution fails in House, for now

AUSTIN, Texas — A controversial pro-states' rights resolution touted by Gov. Rick Perry was quickly killed on a technical point Tuesday.

The resolution would have informed Congress that Texas claimed sovereignty and states' rights under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Rep. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, presented the resolution shortly before the technical point was raised by Houston Democratic Rep. Senfronia Thompson.

Supporters of the legislation and Perry have said the resolution was a reaction to expansion of the federal government, particularly programs and funds related to the federal stimulus act

State sovereignty resolution continues forward

Tennessee Joins 8 other states in reclaiming state sovereignty

Tennessee joined eight other states this year in moving forward with resolutions to declare sovereignty under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. This week, House Joint Resolution 108 cleared the committee system, and will now be scheduled for a vote on the House floor.

The Ninth Amendment reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The Tenth Amendment specifically provides, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The resolutions have been filed in response to what many state lawmakers believe is an increased level of fiscal irresponsibility on the federal level, and over-reaching by the federal government. Republican lawmakers in Tennessee argued that the federal government has handed down a series of unfounded mandates and directives that are dangerously close to violating the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the Constitution.

The House is expected to take up House Joint Resolution 108 sometime next week.

Now that Democrats control the House, Senate and the Presidency, it's time to get the Federal Government out of our affairs unless there is a natural disaster in which case those no good bums in DC danm better come and bail our asses out with the taxes that they collected in the Blue States.

so what if 650,000 americans died fighting over this.

Won't happen next time, The whole of the South is not worth the bones of a single US Marine.

Honoring the men does not honor their cause.

So you won't mind if we start throwing parades to honor the brave members of the Waffen SS who fought so bravely against the Communist hordes. After all we would just be honoring the men, not their cause.

DQ, 1) do you realize you are saying that many of the very people you are speaking with are not worth the lives of a single U.S. soldier? I know for you the South is a demonic place of hatred and ignorance, but there really are actual people there and you are currently speaking to many of them -- of many different varieties. I'm in Hawaii now, but born in Louisiana. Polimom's in Texas. But she's not worth anything to you either since she's in the South. T-steel, Joe Windish, CStanley, all in Georgia. Elrod, in east Tennessee. You seem to want to get rid of us all.

2) You're going to have problems since many of the units you wouldn't want to use to defend the South are from the South and stationed in the South.

3) What do you think of Memorial Day? Is it okay to you? Because the American Military has worked on some rather dubious causes at times - I assume you think Iraq was a bad idea, maybe Vietnam, maybe the Spanish-American war. Fire bombing Dresden, nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How about the American military's role in the conquering of the West. Many of these things are not judged well by us today, but most Americans still think Memorial Day has a place, both because the military has done many other things we think worthwhile and, probably more importantly, because it is the American military and we are Americans.

Interesting stuff at the memorial website http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/csa-mem.htm . Apparently the Confederate dead were disinterred from various sites and re-buried at Arlington in a spirit of reconciliation, one that apparently has disappeared today.

do you realize you are saying that many of the very people you are speaking with are not worth the lives of a single U.S. soldier?

If the South is part of the US and is invaded by Foreigners, then yes we should fight to protect every one who lives in the South, if on the other hand tomorrow morning there is an secession referendum in a Southern State which is won by the secessionist, it is not worth the bones of a single US Marine to keep them in the Union.

Because the American Military has worked on some rather dubious causes at times

Other than the Revolutionary war, the Civil War and WWII, "rather dubious" is an understatement.

Fair enough, DQ. And so do you think we should take down every monument to the american military since they've only been on the right side three times (according to your comment) and on the wrong side a good... 15 times? Or is three enough to justify a memorial or two?

on the wrong side a good... 15 times?

15 you're kidding right? with a little hard work you can easily come up with 15 offensive military operations since WWII.

Pakistan Bombing - current
Yemen Bombing - 2000's
Iraq - Invasion & Occupation 2003
Afghanistan - Invasion & Occupation 2001
Serbia - Bombing 1990's
Haiti - Invasion 1994
Somalia - Invasion 1992
Iraq - Invasion 1991
Panama - Invasion 1989
Libya - Bombing 1986
Granada - Invasion 1986
Cambodia - Bombing 1970's
Dominican Republic - Invasion 1965
Vietnam - Invasion & Occupation 1960's
Lebanon - Invasion 1958

Not counting the countries whose government were overthrown by the CIA...

Not planning on answering the question, huh?

Not planning on answering the question, huh?

You can have all the memorials you want if it 'l make you happy.

I actually like the Vietnam Memorial, there is a blunt honesty to it, there was a war and here is a list of dead people, no glory no bullshit just the ugly facts.

Life Expectancy Is Declining in Some Pockets of the Country

The study, published Monday in the online journal PLoS, analyzed life expectancy in all 3,141 counties in the United States from 1961 to 1999, the latest year for which complete data have been released by the National Center for Health Statistics. Although life span has generally increased since 1961, the authors reported, it began to level off or even decline in the 1980s for 4 percent of men and 19 percent of women.

“It’s very troubling that there are parts of the wealthiest country in the world, with the highest health spending in the world, where health is getting worse,” said Majid Ezzati, the lead author and an associate professor of international health at Harvard. It is a phenomenon, he added, “unheard of in any other developed country.”

Counties with significant declines were concentrated in Appalachia, the Southeast, Texas, the southern Midwest and along the Mississippi River. Life expectancy increases were mainly in the Northeast and on the Pacific Coast.

The Short End of the Longer Life

The most startling evidence came last week in a government-sponsored study by Harvard researchers who found that life expectancy actually declined in a substantial number of counties from 1983 to 1999, particularly for women. Most of the counties with declines are in the Deep South, along the Mississippi River, and in Appalachia, as well as in the southern Plains and Texas.

The study, published in the journal PLoS Medicine, concluded that the progress made in reducing deaths from cardiovascular disease, thanks to new drugs, procedures and prevention, began to level off in those years. Those gains, as they shrank, were outpaced by rising mortality from lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes. Smoking, which peaked for women later than for men, is thought to be a major contributor, along with obesity and hypertension.

“Some people are actually sinking,” said Majid Ezzati, one of the report’s authors. “The line of excuse that we can live with inequality as long as no one is getting worse is just no longer there.”

The researchers found statistically significant declines for women in 180 of the 3,141 counties in the United States and in 11 counties for men. In an additional 783 counties for women and 48 for men, there were declines that did not reach the threshold of statistical significance.

Of particular concern is that the gap in life expectancy between top and bottom counties expanded by two years for men and by about 10 months for women. In the worst-performing counties, all in southwestern Virginia, the drop in life expectancy over the 16-year period was nearly six years for women and two and a half years for men. In the counties showing the greatest improvement, many in the desert West, life expectancy rose nearly five years for women, and nearly seven years for men.

Third world policies get you third world results...

DQ

Your point was my point in sarcastic dress. The howling over state's rights ignores the results of this war. If one wishes to hold that a state is independent of the federal government, one must also acknowledge that slavery is just one more example of their independence. Anti miscenegationtion laws lasted until 1948, so this current state's rights argument is more political than legal.

Mark Daniels
"The thing ought to be dismantled."
=========================

It goes both ways Mark.

Do that and some enterprising Southern youth may want to 'dismantle' a Yankee statue.

Okay I’m going to throw in my two bits here, who are we to say what any man fights for is wrong. The war of northern aggression was a hard period in the history of two nations. I know people hate that term but one can hardly call any war civil and I’m not about to pretend. Every soldier has his reason to fight something pushes them to the hirer calling of service, on the memorial there is a carving that I have always found inspiring “not for fame or reward not for place or rank not lured by ambition or goaded by necessity but in simple obedience to duty as they understood it. These men suffered all sacrificed all dared all and died.” For anyone to say that the war was only about slavery is stupid, slavery was a piece of a bigger economic picture. ( and I’m not saying slavery was right so don’t go there.) That picture was argued years before when a group of colonists asked if they had the right to govern themselves and decided to fight for the right to do so. Because of that brave fight we have the right to post here today, What the south wanted was no different. That war as were all wars was fought in the name of greed on the backs of brave young men and woman from both sides who fought and died in simple obedience to duty as they understood it.

I’m not saying all causes are noble jack holes strapping bombs to themselves so they can have the right to abuse woman claiming GOD says its okay are a disgrace and bear no further discussion.

What I am saying is this I have family in a few spots at Arlington including my great-grandfather and my grandfather, I also have family in the confederate lot. For what ever nation they fought Arlington is about something more, it’s a way we say “for whatever your reason you stood up in the face of perceived oppression and said no this is not right.” its what we as Americans were taught to do by our forefathers be us northern or southern by strong men and woman who bled the ground red fighting for our freedom. I have to believe that idea is what has lead this country to what it is today, and we have no right to disrespect the graves of any man or woman who fought in the name of that idea no matter what side they fought on.