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On Point: Memorial Day In Contemporary America
Strategy Page ^ | 24 May 2023 | Austin Bay

Posted on 05/25/2023 8:52:55 AM PDT by Rummyfan

Memorial Day emerged from America's most deadly and destructive war: the Civil War.

Agreed, social, political and moral divisions are wracking and weakening contemporary America. But no external or internal challenge quite compares to the Civil War -- at least not yet.

Measured by soldiers and civilians killed in combat and by war's derivative killers -- starvation, disease and exposure -- the Civil War has no rival.

Physical, economic and social destruction are more relative terms and comparing them in different historical eras is tricky.

The Union's best generals, Grant and Sherman, targeted Confederate economic productivity. They knew the South's ability to supply its armies prolonged the war. Sherman's vow to "make Georgia howl" expressed the strategy succinctly.

Blue and Gray armies burned farms and factories. The Confederate and border states (Kentucky, Missouri, even Maryland) suffered terrible devastation from both armies. This assertion is debatable, but I think it has merit. It took the Deep South 90 years (and the unifying effects of two world wars with international enemies) to overcome its economic backwardness, in comparison to the Yankee Northeast and Midwest.

Yet the social-political Civil War lingered... and lingered.

(Excerpt) Read more at strategypage.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Politics; Society
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1 posted on 05/25/2023 8:52:55 AM PDT by Rummyfan
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To: Rummyfan

.


2 posted on 05/25/2023 8:59:21 AM PDT by sauropod (“If they don’t believe our lies, well, that’s just conspiracy theorist stuff, there.”)
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To: sauropod

Lincoln said the conflict would last longer than the cause of the conflict, no?


3 posted on 05/25/2023 9:03:32 AM PDT by scrabblehack
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To: sauropod

When America enters into CWII, it’ll not be between the states, but between urban and rural areas within each state.


4 posted on 05/25/2023 9:09:03 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd (Donald Trump is a setting sun. Ron DeSantis is a rising star.)
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To: Responsibility2nd

Enters into? We are in it, NOW!,


5 posted on 05/25/2023 9:14:18 AM PDT by cowboyusa (YESHUA IS KING OF AMERICA! AMERICA FIRST! DEATH TO MARXISM AND GLOBALISM!)
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To: cowboyusa

That is right, sadly.


6 posted on 05/25/2023 9:44:13 AM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: Rummyfan

I’ll be at the war memorial as soon as I’m able to, to honor our vets and post on FB so that the vets around me get some of the honor they deserve.

If liberals obama their jeans over it, so be it.


7 posted on 05/25/2023 10:50:50 AM PDT by I want the USA back (The democrat party is the most subversive and harmful institution on the planet. Tied with media.)
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To: Rummyfan
“The 1950s and 1960s desegregation movement was a Civil War battle, hopefully the last battle.”

Integration was a noble experiment. No one can deny that.

8 posted on 05/25/2023 11:26:20 AM PDT by jeffersondem
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