In Contemplating the Civil War Today

Perhaps it is time to revisit the Civil War.

By JIM PURCELL

I studied history at Georgian Court College during my bachelor's years. It was a passion of mine. The field was a study of discipline, delayed judgment, analysis and there was strict methodology to it, as it was taught to me by my professors, Dr. Claribel Young (chair of the History Department during the early 1990s) most notable among them.

As I learned it, no judgment could reasonably be made about a war or some pivotal event without the distance of years and study. I had thought the history of the Civil War was a finished portrait, completed many years before I began my studies. The war was, to my understanding, an unfortunate collision of states' rights on one hand, on the other it was a redemptive moment of American history where -- finally -- slavery was abolished from our national conventions. The Civil War's soldiers of the North were not avenging angels of the ultimate justice, but they were ordinary men who erased the stain of slavery from the American future. The Confederate soldiers of the South were not monsters, but common men who fought to protect their "country," as they saw it, which were the states they were from, largely.

The bravery and skill of the Southern armies were commended, and monuments were constructed for them, they were buried with dignity and their devotion to their cause was celebrated in history books, on video and on film. Yet, I thought it was an apparent judgment of history that slavery was wrong and the fundamental flaw that up-ended any hope of righteousness on the part of the South. The Confederate States of America could not be just or right because it ultimately supported the enslavement of races, and advocated every form of violence against those races.

Well, in the days we live in now, the Confederate cause is being lionized by some reactionary elements of white society. To put it simply, there are voices that are calling for the destruction of peace between races, which advocate an America before the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and even the sexual liberation of the Women's Movement of the 1970s. And, the vehicle that is being used to hide these arguments lay in the proponents of "American history," as defined by the ill-fated Confederate cause between 1861-1865. Perhaps it is white supremacy in its death throes amid an ever-changing, ever-more diverse America; maybe it is a racism inspired by an economy that lay in embers from its heyday 30 years ago. Whatever the cause, one thing is clear -- we are a nation unprepared for the 21st century and everything it will bring.

So now, I will give my estimation of the Civil War, being someone who is white, served in the Army and whose family arrived to the shores of New Jersey from Europe a half-century after the Civil War was settled. I see the Civil War as being a conflict where the purest face of evil was defended by a loose confederation of so-called Christians from the South, who had no idea what that word meant. In fact, the root cause of the Southern effort was profane, not just against man but God, in my estimation. If ever there was an army that represented God's adversary on earth, among those ranks was the German Army, under Hitler, and the Army of the Confederate States of America, under President Jefferson Davis.

There should never have been recognition of the Confederate States of America as a civilized army. They were, by definition, traitors to their own country, in the worst ways. The names of their officers should have, rightfully, been stricken from any place of honor in history and they should have been rewarded only by long imprisonment and personal ruin for their efforts. I have always believed, quietly, that the practice of naming United States installations and equipment after this group of profane men was a great mark of disrespect to the actual soldiers of the Union who donned their uniforms and served a legitimate nation -- the United States.

If history is to move over time, and give way to fashion, then I suppose that my take on it is as fair as the next person's. The rebellion by the Confederate States of America was the greatest act of depravity in American history. It is a time when an army, as ill-meaning as those under Hitler or Mussolini, Tojo or Stalin, rose up to defend what was wrong in the world -- with a terrible zeal. Far from heroes, perhaps it is the greatest mistake ever made by this republic to seek reconciliation with the South by not saying it like it was. Clearly, that reconciliation has led to later generations brandishing the Stars and Bars in a new war cry. Thus, it was a mistake.

I submit that no cause ever crafted, with its intention being the debasement and enslavement of another people or group, has ever deserved a place of honor in this republic's history. In the case of the American republic, the Confederate States of America was a time when the teachings of Christianity were proven to be unteachable to the vast majority of Southern States and, as a consequence, 620,000 people perished. No stirring song or parade of garish uniforms, no solemn moments fecklessly given treasonous Confederate icons, will abolish the fact that the only differences between the Army of Northern Virginia and the Nazi Third Reich were a few shades of gray and several thousand miles.

There should never have been monuments to these confederates, nor tolerance of their icons. Today, in placating the South in defeat so long ago, it has stirred bitter embers invoked by the hideous relics of their failed and ungodly cause. Far from being a voice to save such monuments and remembrances, I do say plainly that I cannot imagine what mad thought ever allowed the sanction of such reminders of terribly mutiny.

America has been a diverse nation since it began. So many of our Founders believed at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence that it was a mistake to omit the abolishment of slavery right then and there. Well, it was settled in due course. How could they have known that the retraction of slavery would bring so many alleged "godly" people to riot and murder for the sake of that institution?

It is time to fold the Stars and Bars and throw it in some back alley somewhere for cats to make a home from, not to continue as emblems within legitimate flags and symbols of office within the nation that these colors rebuked. Slavery was a horror, nothing else. It was not romantic and it was not some secondary issue. People are entitled to be treated equally, according to the content of their character, and not the color of their skin.

Why People Are Afraid of Zombies: National Geographic

Everyone who has ever watched a zombie movie knows that zombies are terrifying. However, there is cultural evidence of paranoia about zombies in societies throughout the world: past and present. Today, though no one believes there can be or will be zombies, nevertheless these unsettled spirits claim a significant place in the modern imagination.

America's Revolutionary Past Not a Comic Book

By REV. JIM PURCELL

I am distressed about the past. Not my past. The past of our United States, and how some people attempt to turn events that took place into a comic book, worse yet they sometimes try and turn it into a coloring book. American history can be 'dumbed down' to the point where it can be depicted in a few blocks of cartoons with some quotes placed in white bubbles over the heads of drawn characters.

When I was at Georgian Court University, as a young man, I studied history. In time, I would go to seminary in New York and, certainly, there are great examinations of the past there as well. But, always, there was this fire to know what happened yesterday, and many yesterdays ago.

History is political, though. It serves as the motivation of actions for people today. Nations and people fight wars over the past. If everyone were to get collective amnesia tomorrow, Jews and Arabs would have nothing left to fight over. Blacks and whites would get along throughout this and every other country. The Chinese might actually work in friendship with India, and maybe India and Pakistan would operate together for a change. But, it is the past that binds people to it, like prisoners on a chain-gang. So, the mightiest person in that situation is the one who owns the chains, meaning the one who owns the history of what happened, when, with whom, for what reason, what purpose.

There are groups of people, with various political, industrial, business and religious viewpoints, that stand to profit if history suits their needs. It is for this reason that so many people attempt to, and sometimes successfully, re-write history. It is a fool who says, 'I don't care about history. It has nothing to do with me.' Well, I disagree. From the style and fabric of the clothes you wear on your back, to every morsel of food you put in your mouth, from where you work, to where and how you live and down to whomever you might go to bed with at night, history invades every fabric of our being. There is a lot of power at stake for the man, woman or group of people who control the edit function of history, people.

For example, there are neo-Conservative political faction in the United States who would attempt to re-write the American revolution so as to have precedent for turning our once-loved republic into a theocracy, which is unlike any theological likeness the Founders would have known or understood. But, when a political party is able to point to the Founders and say, 'Look -- we're just like them! So, don't enact laws because of what we say. No, change your laws because we -- we Conservatives -- are only following what the Founders would have wanted.'

First, who are the Founders? Well, they are the Class of 1775. They are the leaders, followers and people who founded this better-than-all-other United States of America behind their blood, sweat and tears -- and intractable optimism. "The Founders" are not just Gen. George Washington or his aides, not John Hancock nor just the 2nd Continental Congress, not just Patrick Henry or John Jay, or Thomas Paine or Benjamin Franklin. If you were to walk up to one of the leaders in that fine company and ask them who founded the country, they would not have forgotten to point to those muddied, bloodied, oil- and sweat-stained men pushing artillery through the middle of the night, fighting battles as half-trained volunteers, nor forgotten so many women who overnight became single-parents and sole-breadwinners for families while their men were busy moving artillery, fighting battles -- being all 'Revolutionary.'

You see, the Revolutionary Era, according to Elise Wilson, was a movement during a century or so, which involved generations of people, who primed the Revolutionary Generation, then there were the contributions of the Revolutionary Generation, and then finally there was interpreting the lofty ideals of the Revolutionary Generation within a governmental entity, which was the not insubstantial mission of the Post-Revolutionary Generation (which, it could be argued, in my opinion, actually ended with the Civil War and not in 1800, as is commonly discussed).

The real "American Revolution" was the central theme of generations. Understanding what that meant, in all of its complexity and simplicity, cannot be easily done -- let alone in comic book form for Fox News viewers.It is neo-Conservatives today in Texas who do not wish the specific contributions of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, former consul to France and author of the Declaration of Independence to be taught to school children. How does one do that? The Declaration wrote itself, the French just gave us stuff because they were intuitive, the Louisiana Purchase was a fluke? However, in my opinion, by not involving the contradiction of who the public and private Jefferson was, slave-owner and revolutionary for the freedom of "all men" what is achieved? Well, for one, as a society, it makes it easier by having less pointed conversations about slavery. Yes, the hard questions about how Founders allowed slavery become easier to talk about if we do not examine, in any detail, the life of Thomas Jefferson.

Like African-Americans, by not being reminded in school about slavery, will forget about it? Like anyone cold or should forget about slavery, its causations and impact upon American history and in our news today.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, that intellectual heavyweight from South Carolina, will tell you, as his has publicly that "Moses wrote the Constitution." Well, Mr. Graham knows a lot better than that. It took the Founders between 1776 and 1786 to come up with a workable, compromised document that enough people could live with unhappily to vote for. Neither the Whigs nor the Democratic Republicans were all that happy with the result. However, it would do. It would be close enough for two very different political mindsets to be able to do business with. Moses was long to the earth when that document was forged. However, the 'short-hand' that Mr. Graham is attempted to overlay upon that entire convention that produced the Constitution was that it was somehow: A. Jewish, B. divinely inspired and C. part of Divine Providence, as it is accepted in many circles religiously. He is attempting to turn a secular political convention of ideas and thought by humans and place a religiosity upon it, and translate the decade-long effort of people who did not agree with each other's politics very much as the authors of a religious document.

Well, I am a Baptist. I have a hard enough time with the real Bible, without Sen. Graham and his cohorts over in Fox News trying to create an annex to the Bible. Perhaps the only thing the Constitution and the Holy Bible have in common is that neither Sen. Graham, nor any of the cast of young, blond female commentators over at Fox, have ever read either of those documents. And, if they did, they couldn't understand a word of either. Mr. Graham was, as a matter of fact, a lawyer for the National Guard in South Carolina, who no doubt dealt with Constitutional issues somewhere along his tenure. However, as a professional, for Mr. Graham to try and pass along compromise political agreements as bona fide God-given law informs not only about his quality as a lawyer, but also his worth as a scholar, an American and an alleged leader of the people.

History should be a tool to learn from, not re-packaged to become a bumper sticker for the Grand Old Party. 

Military Technology: Never Standing Still and Always Advancing

By REV JIM PURCELL

Years ago, when I was a history major at then-Georgian Court College (now Georgian Court University), in Lakewood, New Jersey, the Great Depression and World War II eras fascinated me. One of the things that fascinated me most was the great leaps of technology that happened between Peal Harbor to the signing of the Japanese surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri, on September 2, 1945.

Iowa class battleship

I think the best way to discuss technological improvements, well perhaps the most obvious, is to talk battleships. The improvements of the Iowa class dreadnoughts from the earlier Pennsylvania class ships (among them the USS Arizona) are staggering.

Similarly, in the Charge of Krojanty, on Sept. 1, 1939, the clash of the past over the future was visible when Polish cavalry, some of the best in the world, were broken in the face of German panzer tanks.

Military technology cannot stand still because not only the safety of soldiers and civilians at stake, but also the course of nations and republics.

Today, it is robot, laser and nano-technologies that have inspired the creators of the next great wave of military weapons systems. I think technology's advancement is far. At the same time, though, it is more imperative on people to work on communication skills and non-violent means of resolving conflicts because the ante has been raised so high.