Paolo now returns to blogging after several weeks of layoff due to the death of his mother.
This Thursday, February 12, is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln (and, coincidentally, Charles Darwin). Abraham Lincoln is commonly lauded as "our greatest president" by the mainstream media. You can thus be assured that the opposite is undoubtedly true: he was without the question the worst president, at the worst possible time, in American history.
So thorough is the indoctrination we all receive in Lincoln-worship, that most people go into a glazed look of disbelief whenever I tell them Lincoln was a big-government, tyrannical, warmongering, racist, corporatist slime-ball.
But, the heroic Lincoln fought a war to free the slaves, they often reply.
Well, no he didn't. Lincoln made it very clear, many times, that he didn't care if the South kept the institution of slavery, so long as they stayed in the Union. Lincoln also believed African-Americans should be forcibly repatriated back to Africa, or (if costs proved prohibitive) to the islands of the Caribbean, because the tropical climate there would suit them.
Why did Lincoln advocate this? Because he wanted America to be reserved for white workers. He opposed expansion of slavery into the western territories, not because of some high moral calling, but because he didn't want white men to have to compete with slaves for jobs.
You can start researching all of the above here, in an essay by Walter Williams. Thomas DiLorenzo has written several books and many articles, all of them meticulously footnoted and researched, documenting the life and crimes of Abraham Lincoln. See also the comments by Paul Craig Roberts (the heroic old-line conservative who has been a prominent critic of the Bush Administration) here.
Many pundits recently have identified George W. Bush as the "worst president ever." Don't buy it for a moment. I say this, even though I acknowledge George W. Bush is a criminal who, in any just sort of legal system, would right now be in the stocks where his victims could pellet him with over-ripe fruit. Lincoln was the criminal who made all the despicable presidents after him possible, by transforming the "Union" (a confederacy in which the jealous states carefully delegated only a few powers to the central government) into a "Nation" (a land in which the states are merely subservient entities taking their guidance from the all-knowing central government).
If you are in shock that anyone could do any less than deify Lincoln, go to the above links and start reading. If we are ever to start unmaking this gigantic, bloated monstrosity of Washington DC central government, a good place to start is undoing the myth of Abraham Lincoln.
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Good to see you back, but I am sorry for your loss.
Your post reminds me of the flack Ron Paul took in the media during the pre-primary campaigning when he said that the civil war was unnecessary.
Paul claimed that slavery could have been abolished through peaceful means, as it had been done in every other country to that point. He claimed that Lincoln could have bought off all the slaves for far less that the monetary cost of the war, not to mention the costs in human lives.
The media had a field day with that. But only a few weeks later it was revealed that Lincoln was seriously considering that very option. Not a peep from the media about that.
You're right, and so was Paul. The civil war was about centralizing federal power and had very little to do with the issue of slavery.
And what do we have a hundred and seventy years later? Americans competing against slave labor again. Only this time it's low cost labor imported via Mexico and the visa system or off-shored to China and other points abroad.
By extending your so-called "logic", George Bush is the Best President this country has ever produced.
Applying todays mores & ethics to explosive situations that occured 150 years ago is both assinine & small-minded....not to mention absurdly ridiculous.
At first I appreciated this expose against Abraham Lincoln, but am getting horrified that loss of civil liberties and oppress during the Civil War, Revolutionary War, and World War I is being reviewed of late, but the horrors of World War II is a sacred cow. All this leads to the conclusion that loss of freedom is the nature progression of things.
The truth of the matter is that we lost freedoms during war and gained them again after the war was over except for World War II immediately was followed by the Cold War, so our freedoms remained suspended since, but we began to slowing get them back under Carter, but now we suddenly have to deal with al Qaeda before our liberties had a chance to fully return.
During World War II, the Teamsters Union was turned over to the Mafia which was part of the alliance against Hitler. The Teamsters had been dominated by the Socialist Workers Party that didn't support the war and was going to have a wartime strike.
Communists on the other hand were slow to join the war effort, but after the Hitler-Stalin Pack ended, they were the most gung-ho war supporters and made great salesman for the idea that now everyone hates Hitler and given prominent position in the media to do so. But then the Cold War started so the entertainment union was turned over to the Maffia to chase the [deleted]s out and criminals used for all kinds of anti-Communist efforts during the Cold War.
Routinely when a drug runner was busted, he’d try to whisper, I’m on your side, and cultivate some kind of credential to try to prove it or bluff it.
There during World War II was the senseless firebombing of Dresden, plus a lot of grim necessities to keep the fact the German secret code was broken, and a whole lot of horrors in between.
Here’s a link on the typical diatribe about evil US repression throughout the years by Stephen Lendman with my much more detailed than the above response following his diatribe, http://www.phillyimc.org/en/obamas-war-terror
http://www.phillyimc.org/en/obamas-war-terror#comm...
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I read in the newspapers the choice of top "historians" for the best Presidents. Any serious student of history must either be dry-heaving in the toilet or laughing their guts out after reading it. Either someone is reading the list upside down or doesn't realize the list is from the worst on the top on down. Here's my list of the country's top worst five Presidents. If you want an explanation just ask. Since "I wasn't there" I'll refer you to writings and books of those who were.
1. Lincoln (Worst for America)
2. George "Dubya" Bush (come to think of it... I was there! Total idiot)
3. Woodrow W. Wilson (Worst for the world)
4. Franklin D. Roosevelt (WWW II or Woodrow W. Wilson the second)
5. McKinley (Father of American Imperialism)
They should be referred to as the "Ameri-Monsters"!
XLNT points, jadgerz!
Lincoln was definitely the worst. W Bush probably does come in number two. I have this difficulty in attributing evil to nitwits, but I'm working at overcoming this obvious flaw in my reasoning. G W Bush is both evil, and a nitwit. In fact, his being a nitwit is probably what makes him as evil as he is.
Wilson--no argument there.
FDR--no argument there.
McKinley. You're probably right, although his successor, the psychotic masculine over-compensator T R Roosevelt may have been worse.
Good post!
Paolo,
I limited my list to five but if I had added a sixth "Teddy" would have been it. McKinley, the "Yellow Press" and whatever other powers behind the scenes precipitated the Spanish-American War, subjugated the Philipinos, annexed (conquered) the sovereign nation of Hawaii, and a lot of other sins. A good read on these subjects can be found on Google Books called "American Imperialism", a paper written by Carl Schurz in 1899. More good reads from the time are by Mark Twain when he became a member of the Anti-Imperialist League. Teddy couldn't quite beat McKinley's record but I'm sure he wanted to.
When I say "whatever other powers behind the scenes" I'm toying with the theory these awful presidents are just tools of those behind (or leading) them. Wilson's words and actions are like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Possibly he wanted to do the right thing and was "ordered" to do the bidding of others. I suggest anyone interested in Wilson's role involving America in WW1 read the book; "Shall it be again?", by John Kenneth Turner, 1922. Very eye-opening. If you read it take note this was written a decade before Hitler came to power or before anybody had even heard of nazis or Hitler.
Which brings us to "Dubya". I think his record and the National Debt speaks for itself. I cannot fathom how Congress could have bought into those lies to involve us in Iraq. Maybe it was they who were "bought". The current fiscal crisis was precipitated to provide a smoke screen to cover the Republican retreat from power. I don't know if anybody could hear him or not but "Dubya", while he was getting into the Presidential Copter for the last time, turned back to the crowd and said; "SO LONG SUCKERS!!!!". I fully support Senator Patrick Leahy's proposal to bring these scoundrels to light.