Saturday, July 01, 2023

Thoughts On Gettysburg and on American History

We are again at the first of July, the anniversary of the three-day Battle of Gettysburg.

It's been ten years - on the 150th anniversary - since I started blogging about this day, which kind of scares me how long I've been blogging in some respects the same things over and over.

I think I keep linking the same YouTube clip of Buford railing about the high ground.


I'm a little sad that some of the other clips from that movie keep dying out, either to copyright restrictions or the YouTube provider quitting. My blogger history is full of dead links anymore.

Anywho, on this day 160 years ago, the Union army held the high ground and General Lee was too stubborn, prideful, and unwell from an untreated heart attack in March of that year to pack it up and relocate his army somewhere safer like (checks map) Daytona Beach Florida. C'mon Rebs, it's summertime, get some surf in!

I shouldn't joke about the Civil War. In some respects we're still fighting that war over basic human rights for Blacks and for our society as a whole. There's this deliberate step backwards into our nation's darker eras as Republican conservatives push to whitewash history and reject the constitutional liberties their more liberal predecessors created for the United States to make us a more diverse, democratic nation.

We're at a moment in American history where we are called - each of us - to wage battle for equal rights in education and the workplace and our communities and even in our own homes.

Anyway, Twitter is dying so that particular battlefield is turning to ash, just wanted to let you know before the Confederates try to outflank everybody to Mastadon.

(psst, I'm on Spoutible at @paulwartenberg doom me at your peril)

1 comment:

dinthebeast said...

About Twitter, when Elmo took over it was good for me at first because he took all the page limits down for those who don't have accounts. I figured his greed would keep it that way, but that assumes basic competence, which in this case seems like a mistake.
Not allowing those without accounts to view anything on the site will do wonders for ad revenue, but he doesn't care, he wants to enforce his will on everyone and make them sign up.
I predict that it won't work. Is my prediction any better than Buford's? Time will tell.

-Doug in Sugar Pine