Posted on 11/30/2012 12:10:03 PM PST by Kaslin
Every schoolchild with enough smarts and curiosity to get beyond the latest video game of "Call of Duty" ought to go see "Lincoln," the movie, and check out the references and his own attention span. It requires patience, but it shows through dramatic action how a self-taught rustic from the deep backwoods had the emotional and intellectual discipline to overcome poverty and grow up to be a president to rank among the greatest.
This is not about the American Dream or a Horatio Alger story. (Does anybody remember him?) Nor is it mythmaking. It's made of sterner stuff than that. Although there are 16,000 or so books about Lincoln, and a famous movie with Henry Fonda as the young Lincoln, there's enough freshness in this late portrait to animate anyone eligible to watch a movie with the PG-13 rating.
To whet an appetite, there's the excerpt available on the Internet where the president, played by Daniel Day Lewis, explains his political philosophy to two young men working in the White House telegraph office. Lincoln recalls Euclid's 2,000-year-old dissertation on mechanical reasoning, the principle that "things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other." Euclid says it's "self-evident." Lincoln agrees.
Such nuggets of wisdom abound, along with references from Shakespeare and a bawdy story about a portrait of George Washington hanging in an outhouse to inspire relief for British soldiers in the Revolutionary War. Lincoln was a learned man, but he was earthy, too. He drew on deep learning and applied it widely. He talks in parables and finds a story to illustrate just about every situation and strategy.
In one scene, while he waits with his Cabinet for news of the shelling of Wilmington, N.C., he begins a story: "I heard tell once." The phrase so exasperates Secretary of War Edwin Stanton that he walks away, telling the president, "I don't believe that I can bear to hear another one of your stories right now." This is no marble president on a pedestal.
But Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" is an epic of sorts. It begins in the middle of things. The Civil War, though nearing the end, has been going on for four years. Lincoln is the old "war horse," but unlike Spielberg's earlier movie of that name, "Lincoln" has only one brutal battle scene.
The most poignant evocation of war shows Lincoln riding through a field of ripped and rotting corpses, and Lincoln takes off his stovepipe hat in homage to the dead, North and South and Americans all. This is not a hymn to "arms and the man" so much as a long mournful dirge played on the strings of banjos, fiddles and the keys of a parlor piano. It's as gritty and earthbound as the America of Mark Twain.
This "Lincoln" is not about heroism and ideals, but about reality and fighting for what's right, even when "right" is seen from two distinctly different points of view -- or, as Lincoln puts it, "the right as God gives us to see the right." If there was no room to compromise over slavery before the war, the struggles for compromise are not over afterward because the winds of war still blow. They merely change direction.
While every schoolchild knows that Abe Lincoln freed the slaves, not many that I've met actually know how he did it. Few seem to understand that the Emancipation Proclamation freed only the slaves in the 11 Confederate states. Fewer still know why Lincoln thought it crucial before he began his second term, and before the war was over, to enact the 13th Amendment to give all men equality under the law. That's the tight focus of the movie.
I watched "Lincoln" with two precocious teenagers, who in spite of their bravado and smarts leaned toward the screen to listen closely to Lincoln's complicated and legalistic explanation of why the country needed the 13th Amendment. They conceded they learned things they didn't know about both the law and Lincoln. (So did I.)
This is a talky movie. Compared to popular 3-D spectacles, it's muted and low-key. Many reviewers have written about how it's "relevant" today, and that Barack Obama could learn from Lincoln's cunning to keep from falling off the fiscal cliff. A knowing titter goes through audiences in Washington when Thaddeus Stevens, the radical Republican abolitionist from Pennsylvania, castigates Lincoln for his inability to win legislative compromise. "I lead," Lincoln says. "You ought to try it."
But it's about a lot more than relevance. It informs as it entertains, engages, enrages, champions, challenges and reminds once again how hard it is to bring about change in a democracy -- and do it with malice toward none.
So you’re spamming me now? Typical....
Loser
At some point, you either need to simply stop posting or just admit that the facts are more rational than your most recent post.
I know you are but what am I?
At some point, you either need to simply stop posting or just admit that the facts are more rational than your most recent post.
waiting....
At some point, you either need to simply stop posting or just admit that the facts are more rational than your most recent post.
You have had an “ah-ha” moment I see. Enjoy it.
At some point, you either need to simply stop posting or just admit that the facts are more rational than your most recent post.
This was something I followed with amused detachment because I was curious just how pointlessly tendentious you would be. I now know. Frankly I’m bored with it and will allow you to have the final word...after a thought or two...
No, I don’t have to admit anything of the sort, especially your fanciful view of the world. What’s even more interesting (to me at least) is a cursory review of our respective posts for the last 15 days you have chanted the same idiotic non sequitur. You have commented on no other threads or participated in any other conversations with anyone. By contrast I have communed with a great many folks on a variety of topics. I don’t mention it in any greater than/lesser than thing but feel obliged to offer the observation that it must be terribly lonely being that alienated from the rest of the community.
Whether you acknowledge it or not - whether you like it or not - yours is the outlier viewpoint on Civil War history. I believe that you know it but your contentious nature compels you otherwise. So be it. A facet of these threads is the opportunity to influence opinions. Granted many if not most come with entrenched attitudes but a well crafted and presented argument can change hearts and minds. Something you might want to think about.
So I leave it to you pea, have at it. I’m not inclined to pursue this face any further.
As I have said in the past, the more one tolerates your buffoonery, the greater the probability that you are going to eventually use personal attacks in place of reasonable commentary.
And true to your tendancies, you finally got around to the ad hominems.
Creativity Sir, please!
I certainly do not think that your personal remarks about me are founded on any facts, regardless of how intelligent you think you are. In this case, you do not know what you think you know.
That having been said, you should restrict your postings to honest and factual information or decent humor instead of your angry, self righteous, and falsely indignant opinions.
You cowardly puke - you can’t even post your tripe directly to me. That’s OK, the next time a WBTS thread comes around and pea-brain starts spouting I’ll just point them in this direction.
TO: ROCKRR
FROM: PEARIDGE
SUBJECT: YOUR POST
Thank you for vacating your irrational postings.
As I have said in the past, the more one tolerates your buffoonery, the greater the probability that you are going to eventually use personal attacks in place of reasonable commentary.
And true to your tendencies, you finally got around to the ad hominems.
Creativity Sir, please!
I certainly do not think that your personal remarks about me are founded on any facts, regardless of how intelligent you think you are. In this case, you do not know what you think you know.
That having been said, you should restrict your postings to honest and factual information or decent humor instead of your angry, self righteous, and falsely indignant opinions.
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