Posted on 02/04/2003 3:42:54 AM PST by kattracks
Washington (CNSNews.com) - A video presented at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington appears to suggest that former President Abraham Lincoln would have supported modern-day, left-of-center political causes such as homosexual rights, abortion rights and the modern feminist agenda.
One tourist from Wisconsin, who viewed the video in the memorial's Lincoln Legacy Room, called it "awful" and said the "political correctness of it is beyond words." Other visitors to the memorial told CNSNews.com they believe the video clearly implies that Lincoln would have supported left-wing political causes.
A National Park Service spokesman told CNSNews.com he was "reluctant" to comment on the Lincoln video because the whole issue had the "potential to be quite controversial."
The video features an actor who sounds like Lincoln speaking about the Civil War and slavery. He then leads into clips of Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington.
About halfway through the approximately eight-minute video, footage of modern-day marchers is shown over "Lincoln's" booming voice as patriotic music and songs associated with the civil rights movement play.
At this point, the video shows snippets from modern-day marches. A sign reading, "The Lord is my Shepard and Knows I am Gay" kicks off a series of visuals featuring left-wing social causes, while "Lincoln's voice" and patriotic music blare.
The other visuals include signs reading "Gay & Lesbian Sexual Rights," "Council of Churches Lesbian Rights," "National Organization for Woman" (NOW), "Reagan's Wrongs Equal Woman's Rights," "ERA Yes," "Ratify the Era," "I had an illegal abortion in 1967 - Never Again," "Keep Abortion Legal," "I am pro-choice America," a Vietnam-era video clip of a woman asking: "President. Nixon where are our men?" and a sign reading, "Who will Decide NARAL (National Abortion Rights & Reproductive Action League).
The video features the theme song of the civil rights movement, "We Shall Overcome," and continues with visual display of liberal causes, including signs reading "In Opposition to King Richard [Nixon]," "U.S. out Now," "Equal Opportunity for All," "Peace," "Hell No We Won't Go," "No More Lies, Sign the Treaty Now Coalition," and marchers chanting U.S. Out Now" (crowd chanting).
The video also features an excerpt from a Martin Luther King speech and then progresses into a banner reading "Pass the Brady [Gun Control] Bill Now." Pro-life demonstrators appear in the video once, in a brief clip where they are shown clashing with abortion rights activists. No other political causes that could be considered right-of-center appear in the video.
'Beyond Words'
CNSNews.com asked several of the tourists visiting the memorial what they thought of the video and whether they believed it implied Lincoln would support modern-day causes such as homosexual rights and abortion rights.
"I liked it... I think [Lincoln] would have [supported homosexual and abortion rights] because that's how Lincoln was; he was very supportive of the people. He didn't care who you are and what you are, he loved everybody," said Elizabeth Baksi, a high school student from Houma, La., after viewing the video.
Darre Klain of Baltimore, Md., also agreed that Lincoln would have supported today's liberal political causes as implied in the video.
[Lincoln] seemed like a very progressive, forward-thinking man, ahead of his time," Klain said.
But Paul Meisius of Sheboygan, Wis., rejected the video's message as he interpreted it, and he chastised the National Park Service for showcasing it.
"That's awful," Meisius said as he finished watching the video. "The political correctness of it is beyond words. I don't think that's proper. They are giving themselves credit to be able to say whatever they want about Lincoln's political views," Meisius told CNSNews.com.
"Our national monuments are being stripped of their true heritage. They are being uprooted and taken and changed. It's an atrocity that they are rewriting history in the sense that these people have political agendas," Meisius said.
Meisius, who was visiting Washington, D.C., with his wife and five children, believes the video is an attack by revisionist historians.
"The wrongness and incorrectness of this -- this stripping of the true essential biblical aspects of our foundation - are being replaced by political correctness," he said.
Angela Brewer, a program instructor for the Close Up Foundation, a citizenship education organization, denied the Lincoln video implied the former president would have supported modern-day, left-wing social causes.
"[The Lincoln Memorial] has frequently has been used as a backdrop for groups that seem to me to be liberal. I don't know that there is a particular purpose behind [the video]," Brewer said.
Gary Perkins, who coordinates exhibits at the Sweetwater Historical Museum in Green River, Wyo., has written about the difficulty our national museums face when presenting historical materials. Perkins believes that the National Park Service may be guilty of historical overreach with the video in question.
"We do not know what Abraham Lincoln thought of gay rights. We have no clue, he never talked about it," Perkins said after hearing CNSNews.com's description of the Lincoln Memorial video.
"We can't really infer he supported gay rights," Perkins added.
'Quite Controversial'
Bill Line, a spokesman for the National Park Service's National Capital Region, told CNSNews.com that the Discovery Channel produced the video for the Lincoln Memorial.
Asked if the video intentionally makes it appear as though Lincoln would have supported homosexual rights, abortion rights and feminist causes, Line was unequivocal in his initial answer.
"I have seen the video, and I don't know how you can contrive that out of it," Line said.
However, after specific examples of "liberal causes" were pointed out to him, Line backed away from his previous comment.
"I am reluctant, quite frankly, to say much to you because I don't know the whole other premise that you are coming from or the background or the fuller context that the story is being written in, and it has potential to be quite controversial," Line explained.
Finally, Line announced he needed to see the video again before he would have any official comment.
"It's been a while since I reviewed the videotape. Before I can adequately comment and give to you something you can use in your story, I need to go and review that videotape myself," Line said.
As of press time, Line had not contacted CNSNews.com with further comment on the video.
'Left-wing gestapo'
Cultural critic David Horowitz was not surprised by the description of the video that CNSNews.com provided. Horowitz believes that left-wing political perspectives are the dominant philosophy of the curators of the U.S.'s national monuments. Horowitz, a former 1960s radical, is co-founder of the Los Angeles-based Center for the Study of the Popular Culture.
"The whole museum field has been taken over by the left wing Gestapo," Horowitz said.
"People have to wake up. This is the America hating left. It is in charge of our national monuments. It's a disgrace and testament to how the academic history profession is totally dominated by the political left," Horowitz said.
E-mail a news tip to Marc Morano.
Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.
They didn't "rebel", they seceded. They believed that they had every right to do that. And nothing has ever been brought forth in unambivalent proof that they didn't, all of the phoney half-ass arguments to the contrary presented by you Union supporters not withstanding. All they wanted was their freedom, Lincoln reused to allow them that. Lincoln was responsible for the war. And if there is a hell, he deserves to burn there for it. We can be sure he wouldn't be admitted to heaven, after trying to place the blame on God.
I can agree with that.
And that black man is -on- the record as saying that HIS OPINION was that The Lincoln was prejudiced against blacks. That black man even stood up and said so at a freakin' memorial service for The Lincoln:
"It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man. He was preeminently the white man's president, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men."
"I have said that President Lincoln was a white man and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race.
"Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery."
Some samples of Frederick Douglass's opinion on The Lincoln's prejudice against blacks. Since you claim The Lincoln valued Mr. Douglass's opinion over every other American, I thought maybe his opinion would of interest to you. And these quotes all come from a memorial service for Lincoln, just imagine what he must have been saying in private.
No, not really. I simply went out to verify an alleged quote you cut n' paste here a few days ago and discovered that the only place it appears on the net is in various posts from none other than you. Curious upon finding your name next to it on many usenet posts, I clicked on it to see what else you had been up to over there. From there it was surprisingly easy to stumble across that little quote of yours.
That's not an AOL newsgroup.
My mistake then. It came up via google and listed the organization as AOL, but upon looking back it appears that this was a reference to your ISP organization.
I was going round and round with some Brits, one Belgian and an Australian about the bombing of Germany.
Perhaps you were, but in that statement you (1) trashed the founding fathers and US Constitution in terminology usually exhibited by the most radical of the left wing america-hating revisionists, and (2) proudly explained your personal affiliation with the Democrat Party and its far-left candidate Al Gore in 2000.
As is evidenced by the generally icoherent and goofy response you offered to my statement, it appears that you are again projecting your own habitual indulgences onto others.
What a hoot!
I suppose I can agree that you do "hoot" a lot, if that is what you are seeking.
There is not a nickel's worth of difference about the way that Washington, Madison, Jackson and Lincoln viewed the nature of the Union. Howzat?
It is not what you said a few posts back. You stated "There was not a nickel's worth of difference in what Washington, Madison, Jackson and Lincoln thought about Union and the Constitution."
Then post it! Show your evidence and let others check its context!
But that letter does help dispel some of the undeserved myth that surrounds the man.
For you to speak of an undeserved myth surrounding one man is akin to a Jesse Jackson sermon on the sin of adultery. The hypocrisy in both is apalling.
No Walt. He did not. There was no popular vote. There were votes for state legislators, but those votes were not cast solely or even primarily on the issue of the senate race. The names of state legislators were on the ballot. The Lincoln was not.
When the votes were counted, although Lincoln won a slight majority of the popular vote
His name did not appear on the ballot. Therefore he did not win any popular vote.
That, is a lie. And what's more, waltrot, YOU KNOW IT IS A LIE. The Lincoln deliberately separated himself from those who wanted full rights for blacks. He made it clear he did not advocate full rights for blacks. His last speech is testimony to that fact:
"It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers."
He very clearly separates himself from those who wanted full rights for blacks and lays down his exclusionary conditions. He would only give rights to "the very intelligent" ones, and to "those who serve our cause as soldiers". What of the rest? Also, it seems apparent from his exclusionary criteria that even the children of the ones that pleased him enough to recieve rights would have to pass one of his "black intelligence" tests, or serve in the military to obtain rights for themselves. Lurkers should note that Lincoln's political opponents quickly outlawed Abe's exclusionary and prejudiced ideas regarding black suffrage, and ensured that blacks were given full rights, against the wishes and plans of Lincoln.
Find it then. I am curious to see if there was.
They seceded through their own properly seated governments.
They didn't have to recruit an army 10 times larger than the Union army.
They did when they knew that The Lincoln was going to invade them shortly after taking office. Lincoln did exactly that and, to facilitate it, raised his own army of comparable size.
They didn't have to fire the first shot.
Not really. The Lincoln took care of that one for them when the Harriet Lane arrived in Charleston.
They could have done a lot of things, but they had their mind set on a fight from the beginning
History indicates otherwise. Davis left the senate by making a speech that pled for peaceful separation and against war. After the southern delegation left, the only remaining deep south senator, Wigfall, argued repeatedly for peaceful separation up until the day of the inauguration. He warned the yankees that if they sent armies and fleets and blockaders south, there would be a war. He warned them that war would bring devastation and massive loss of life to both. He even implored them to let the seceded states go and refocus their efforts on trying to convince the border states to remain in the union. But they did not listen - after all, they thought it would be a quick march south over a couple weeks and the whole thing would be settled. Lincoln thought this. Seward said it in even more explicit terms, telling others that things would be back to normal in a month or two. The yankees thought this all the way up to first Manassas. It would be a quick march to Richmond, they said. Well, all of that changed when the south, as Wigfall warned, resisted.
because they all knew that one Southerner could beat any 10 yanks.
I think the best was at Sabine Pass, where every southerner repulsed the equivalent of 13 yanks and half a warship. Needless to say, the predicted quick march to Richmond never happened. It took for long bloody years of invasion in which 100,000 more yankees died than did confederates.
Just out of curiosity what would you have had Lincoln say? Had you bothered to include the complete quote, you would see that he was addressing Black sufferage in Louisiana. A state where the year before there had been no Black sufferage of any kind, where 95% of the black population had been slaves the year before. Lincoln first suggested black voting rights in a letter to the governor of Louisiana in March 1864. Who else was suggesting that? Were the good people of Louisiana or any other southern state talking about sufferage for both races? You claim that President Lincoln was separating himself from those who wanted full rights for blacks. Well, who were they? How were they hindered by President Lincoln's actions? Where are those who were pushing for more than the President was willing to give?
Sufferage is also a state issue. President Lincoln could not by executive order give blacks the vote throughout the country. Given what he had to work with why is his position surprising? We know what the attitude was towards free blacks in the south before the war, and we saw what happened after the war. Sufferage for some was a first step, a step that nobody but President Lincoln was willing to fight for. But that obviously escaped you.
Somewhere 'deep inside, that small captive rational part of his mind is screaming and banging on the walls of the cell it is held prisoner in.'*
* - Name withheld by request
Make that Gettysburg memorials. GNMP has a gazillion monuments, statues and plaques. I've been to Gettysburg 3 times. If on the first visit (in '83) I'd stopped to read every memorial, I'd still be there.
foreverfree
Crampton's Gap has to come close where 2000 Union cavalrymen held of 26,000 troops under Longstreet for 6 hours. No warships, though.
That, is a lie. And what's more, waltrot, YOU KNOW IT IS A LIE.
I don't know any such thing. I also don't know why you want to belittle Lincoln.
James McPherson says that Lincoln's position on race in the 1850's was at variance with perhaps 2/3 of the voters in Illinois. He still made a strong stand.
"I think the authors of that notable instrument [the Do f I] intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal,—equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.
They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all,—constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even, though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere.
And when this new principle—this new proposition that no human being ever thought of three years ago—is brought forward, I combat it as having an evil tendency, if not an evil design. I combat it as having a tendency to dehumanize the negro, to take away from him the right of ever striving to be a man. I combat it as being one of the thousand things constantly done in these days to prepare the public mind to make property, and nothing but property, of the negro in all the States of this Union."
-- speech at Alton, Il 1858.
Now, the thing is that most people north or south were still very opposed to black equality. If the 179,000 black Union soldiers were given the vote, that was a foot in the door -- that is working towards full rights for blacks.
I don't see how an honest person could see it in any other terms.
Walt
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.