The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Ike, George and Omar

As good as the movie?

Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton and Omar N. Bradley, the three outstanding American commanders in North Africa and Europe from 1942 to 1945, were, if not exactly “brothers in arms,” at least friends, even if their friendship was often disrupted by envy, backbiting and disagreements over strategy. Fellow graduates of the United States Military Academy, all three were immensely ambitious.
Eisenhower and Bradley were impervious to the outward trappings of military glory and took little or no pleasure in warfare.

Patton, on the other hand, operated at a higher and more brittle emotional level. He undercut “Ike” and “Brad” whenever he could, yet was just as likely to be swept away on a wave of sentimentality about them when his mood changed. He clearly suffered from bipolar disorder, though the condition wasn’t recognized at the time, and one of the real pleasures of Jonathan W. Jordan’s “Brothers, Rivals, Victors” is reading about this Peck’s Bad Boy of the American military.

But could you make a good movie - to say nothing of a great movie - about Ike or Brad? Both men were fine generals in their own way. Eisenhower the diplomat, logistics man and ego wrangler. Omar Bradley the excellent infantry soldier even if he lacked Patton's flashes of brilliance and showmanship. Ah, Patton. We love him because he's something the ancient Greeks would have understood. Something deep within the western psyche. Achilles and Hector battling under the topless towers. Far more understandable than the sordid and cruel nature of modern war.

War on Drugs = War on Blacks?

Well not exactly:

The "main obstacle(s) to getting black America past the illusion that racism is still a defining factor in America" are, he says, "the strained relationship between young black men and police forces" and the "massive number of black men in prison."

And what accounts for this? Prohibition.

"Therefore, if the War on Drugs were terminated, the main factor keeping race-based resentment a core element in the American social fabric would no longer exist. America would be a better place for all."

McWhorter sees prohibition as the saboteur of black families. "It has become a norm for black children to grow up in single-parent homes, their fathers away in prison for long spells and barely knowing them. In poor and working-class black America, a man and a woman raising their children together is, of all things, an unusual sight. The War on Drugs plays a large part in this."

Fair enough. But no one is forced to become a drug dealer. And the idea that prison is what keeps many black American fathers away from their children is a wee simplistic. There are plenty of working class Americans who despised the illegal drug trade and would never engage it. This isn't to question that the Drug Wars have had a disproportionate impact on American blacks. But McWhorter doesn't really explain why a disproportionate number of blacks engage in the illegal drug trade.

It also beggars imagination that ending the Drug Wars would end America's racial divisions anytime soon. Racism and slavery are America's original sins, they are not about to be washed away, even in a generation, by the termination of one pernicious policy. There are too many vested interests on both sides. A psychology of mistrust among the whites. A massive racial grievance mongering industry among the blacks. This unholy mess will take much time to pass away.

A Colony for Freedmen

Lincoln and the British:

It claims, among other things, that in 1862 Lincoln urged a White House audience of "free blacks" to leave the US and settle in Central America. He told them: "For the sake of your race, you should sacrifice something of your present comfort for the purpose of being as grand in that respect as the white people." He went on to say that those who envisioned a permanent life in the US were being "selfish" and he promoted Central America as an ideal location "especially because of the similarity of climate with your native land – thus being suited to your physical condition".

The idea of sending American freed slaves "back" to Africa was originally proposed by Thomas Jefferson, whom Lincoln idolized. The idea found fruition in the country of Liberia. Interestingly, the American black settlers in Liberia soon began to behave much as European settlers in Africa would a few decades later, quickly establishing a political hegemony that would last until the 1980s. By the 1920s the League of Nations was investigating charges of slavery having re-emerged in Liberia. Plus ca change..

Presidential Pretensions

Or lack thereof. Like Old Tom:

Thomas Jefferson, however, gave the office much more of a populist flavor, says historian Gordon Wood. “He saw himself as speaking for the people; I don’t think Washington saw it that way at all,” Wood observes. Unlike Washington, who held weekly levees reminiscent of those held by European courts, “Jefferson really threw all that out and opened himself to the people” — sometimes answering the White House’s door in his slippers.

That must of shocked the hell out of the pizza delivery boy.