(Chamberlain’s Charge by Mort Kunstler)
This paragraph, from the foreword of a historical novel, has always resonated:
Late in June the Army of the Potomac, ever slow to move, turns north at last to begin the great pursuit which will end at Gettysburg. It is a strange new kind of army, a polyglot mass of vastly dissimilar men, fighting for union. There are strange accents and strange religions and many who do not speak English at all. Nothing like this army has been seen upon this planet. It is a collection of men from many different places who have seen much defeat and many commanders. They are volunteers: last of the great volunteer armies, for the draft is beginning that summer in the North. They have lost faith in their leaders but not themselves. They think this will be the last battle, and they are glad that it is to be fought on their own home ground.
Michael Shaara; The Killer Angels
(20th Maine Monument, photo by me)
We are once again forced to fight for Union. Let’s do it the easier way today at the ballot box!
You all know what you have to do!
Open thread!
A Ghost To Most
It really is this simple: the union vs the rebels.
Let’s hope this is the high water mark.
BGinCHI
I voted so hard I think I hurt my arm.
I also hope our shithead billionaire governor loses big and takes it very personally, because he should. He made the state worse and hurt people who needed help.
Adam L Silverman
@A Ghost To Most: That’s this photo:
https://i0.wp.com/emergingcivilwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Hancocks-Ride.jpg?ssl=1
A Ghost To Most
@BGinCHI:
Feature, not bug.
Mike J
Adam L Silverman
@BGinCHI: You’re in Chicago, you have another arm, go VOTE AGAIN!!!!!//
Mnemosyne
A “foreword” is the thing that is at the front of a book, not forward. Sorry, that’s one of my pet peeve homophones.
I’m doing my knee exercises right now before I shower and head to my polling place.
khead
We are all at Little Round Top now.
Side note: Cole turned me on to a computer game called “Ultimate General: Civil War” a while back. It is fantastic. There is nothing I enjoy more than stomping the Confederates at Culp’s Hill.
A Ghost To Most
@Adam L Silverman: The high water mark was Pickett’s Charge, the next day after LRT. I fully expect the corresponding stupid and futile gesture this year.
ETA LRT was the real high water mark.
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne: Thank you. That one bugs me more than most as well.
Matt McIrvin
Fight for Union so you won’t have to fight for secession.
Ian G.
Ah, Chamberlain, my favorite. Nothing must get under the skin of MAGAts more than a COLLEGE PROFESSOR routing their ancestors with a bayonet charge. Alex Jones told them all that a college education would make them into soyboy cucks.
eclare
That is a great book.
oldgold
The last paragraph of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address seems to speak to us on this day of reckoning.
Comrade Scrutinizer
Voted straight D as always the first weekend of early voting in NC. When I get off tonight, I’m going home, getting drunk on my ass, ignoring any election news, and going to bed. When I get up late tomorrow morning, I’ll see what tomorrow brings. No matter what, Trump will still be president*, and the Rethugs will still be deceiving, inveigling, and obfuscating, just like they have for the last 50 years.
Mary G
@Mike J: Yep, all the top trending topics on my Twitter are some form of VOTE FOR YOUR LIVES!
mellowjohn
Joshua Chamberlain looks suspiciously like Jeff Daniels.
Steve in the ATL
So I’m the only one here fighting for Management?
Chris
OMG YES. So much thanks for the reference to Gettysburg and the 20th Maine, and even more for “The Killer Angels.” I credit that book for my having not bought into Lost Cause crap.
Spanky
@A Ghost To Most: Well, opinions differ (which is why we’re all here). I’d say last year’s VA election was the Little Round Top – a harbinger of what was to come. Today, we hope, is the turning point. From here it’s all downhill for the Rebs.
No one knew on 7/4/63 how it would eventually turn out. There was still bloody work to be done. Merely turning the Rebs is not the same as defeating them. There’s still work to be done after today.
Gin & Tonic
@Steve in the ATL: Yes.
Kelly
Lyle Lovett “Election Day”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCC7VBxw_d8
Yarrow
I was going to help GOTV today but Sunday night I came down with a terrible sore throat that showed up very suddenly. It’s rapidly moving through the stages of a cold. I’m in the massive congestion stage heading to cough. Feel horrible. Can’t sleep well due to congestion so I’m really bleary-eyed. They’re going to have to make due without me.
I voted early so I don’t have to go vote feeling like this. Thank goodness.
raven
Funny, I went down the Signal Corps rathole during the last post and this pic of General Warren at the Little Round Top Signal Station popped up! Shoot, move and communicate.
tokyokie
@Mnemosyne: Back in the day, the introduction to the Wall Street Journal stylebook was under the heading “Foreward.” Kind of hard to take seriously the copy-editing chops of an organization that misspelled what was literally the first word in its stylebook.
dr. bloor
@mellowjohn: And you never see them photographed together.
JanieM
Great post, Adam.
As someone who has adopted Maine as my home (31 years now), and regardless of whether Maine has adopted me or not (I’m “from away,” after all, which in some circles is considered an insuperable handicap), I am always moved by the story of Chamberlain and Little Round Top.
From Wikipedia: “Maine was so eager for the cause that it ended up contributing a larger number of combatants, in proportion to its population, than any other Union state.[1] About 80,000 men from Maine served in the U.S. military as soldiers and sailors.”
I heard a radio talk about Maine in the Civil War a while back. Interestingly (esp. to me as someone who grew up in Ohio), a lot of Mainers who lived through the war didn’t come back. They had seen places (PA, VA, Ohio, etc.) where there were multiple feet of topsoil instead of the hardscrabble land here, where if you stick a shovel in the ground you’re as likely as not to hit ledge.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
To say nothing of demon clowns, vampire antique dealers and rabid St Bernards
Spanky
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Yes, and even if/when Democrats win a majority in one or both houses, there’s still 8 weeks of a dangerous lame-duck congress.
Roger Moore
@A Ghost To Most:
I believe the stupid and futile gesture you’re describing is known as The Trump Administration.
PaulWartenberg
I will cherish the photo I got of myself at the point the 20th Maine held that day. Holding that flank meant holding that hill, holding that hill protected the entire Union line, that Union line stood Pickett’s Charge to save the Union itself. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th Maine earned that Medal of Honor.
Roger Moore
@Steve in the ATL:
That’s right, class traitor.
msb
Add me to the people who would follow Lawrence.
Voted absentee weeks ago.
Josie
@Chris:
I am reading that book right now, since someone told me it would give me a good look at how to write battle scenes. I find it really impressive so far due to both the level of research and the writing style.
frosty
@Steve in the ATL:
LOL (literally). Thanks for the larf today.
zhena gogolia
@oldgold:
Something in my eye.
Baud laughed at me, but when I opened my eyes this morning I was thinking about Little Round Top, which I learned about right here on this blog.
CarolDuhart2
@Spanky: I wonder though, if the lame duckers may suddenly become rebellious. They don’t need Trump anymore for anything, and they don’t have to fear if Russia suddenly releases those emails…They are going home!
Mike in DC
I voted in MD this morning. About a 1 hour wait. Turnout had a 2006 vibe to it, which of course is a good sign.
MoxieM
Let’s hear it for teachers of Rhetoric! and voting!!
zhena gogolia
@CarolDuhart2:
They still need wingnut welfare. Why do you think Flake and Sasse act the way they do?
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: Fixed.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Um, I don’t mean to be that guy, but couldn’t this:
-apply to the Roman Republic/Empire, for example? Well, except for the “speaking English” part?
Anyhow, the core message stands: get out and vote!
Skepticat
@JanieM:
This is only one of the reasons I live elsewhere in the winter. There isn’t enough soil around my house on a Maine island to bury the water pipes, so there’s no water from mid-October into late May.
My ancestors went from being ship owners and privateers in Massachusetts to doing what my dad called “farming rocks” in Maine, and several of them served in the 20th Maine. Professor-General Chamberlain’s always been one of my family’s favorite heroes.
Adam L Silverman
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: The Roman army was largely not made up of volunteers.
Platonailedit
Adam L Silverman
@oldgold: That’s one of two possible posts from me tonight once the returns are in.
Chris
@A Ghost To Most:
Because I’m a Star Wars nerd, I hate calling them “Rebels” when they’re, at best, Separatists, and at worst, straight up Imperials. “Rebs” is as close as I’ll get.
Adam L Silverman
@Steve in the ATL: Apparently you are.
Platonailedit
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Have some soup, take a decongestant, go to bed!
RobertDSC-Mac Mini
Voted just a few minutes ago. Dianne Feinstein got my vote as well as all other Democrats.
While I am a proud Christian, as a liberal I really dislike having to perform my civic duty in a church facility. Is there *no where else* this can take place? Really?
japa21
@Adam L Silverman: Already written?
Chris
@Josie:
The military history is good (all the soldiers in my family love it), but I remember it for the politics it got into (mostly through the eyes of either Chamberlain or Fremantle) because I happened to read the book right around the time i was starting to become aware of that sort of thing. And because it was pro-Union where, I’d already noticed, most entertainment wasn’t.
(The movie does this too, but less, as you’d expect since they can’t delve into characters’ thought).
Keith P.
Looks like my ” I can’t vote ” post did not go through here. I was really not meant to vote this year it is pretty apparent now. Team Beto wants me to drive to my polling site, as does Harris county dem party hq. I finally emailed the state party annotated with “I tried to vote but my frustration tolerance is not boundless” hope Beto doesn’t lose by a vote (or maybe I do)
zhena gogolia
@RobertDSC-Mac Mini:
Wow. That doesn’t happen here. Firehouses and schools.
Adam L Silverman
@Platonailedit:
This is how the inprocessing to the reeducation camps starts…//
Adam L Silverman
@japa21: Yep. The second one is very short. I wrote it months ago.
zhena gogolia
I have P/T at 1:30 and then we’re going to vote!
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: I’m the world’s worst napper. I am a world class fail at sleeping during the day. I could go to bed but I’d probably just toss and turn and get annoyed. The decongestant is a good idea, though. I might give that a shot.
This cold is moving so rapidly, it’s kind of crazy. The sore throat came out of nowhere on Sunday night and was excruciatingly painful. Yesterday was the head congestion part and I’m already moving into the chest congestion part of it. I’m taking something called Umcka, which is supposed to shorten the duration of colds. My friend swears by it. Anyone ever tried it?
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: If you’ve got any blood pressure issues, get the Coricidin HBP stuff.
Platonailedit
raven
@Josie: Try “War Like the Thunderbolt: The Battle and Burning of Atlanta” for a look at another battle that saved the union. My ancestor was with the 11th Tennessee and died in that battle.
“The question remains, had the Confederate Army remained on the defensive within their extensive line of works and delayed the city’s capture a few more weeks, whether the outcome of the November presidential election and the war could have changed in their favor. The Democrats, who were projected to win the election, were running on a peace platform to end the war through negotiation, without a demand for an end to slavery.”
geg6
@PaulWartenberg:
Yep. Been there several times myself (seeing as I only live a few hours away and my dad was a huge history buff). It never fails to inspire. Joshua Chamberlain and his men are in my pantheon of super heroes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this is pretty much me– how many hours to go?
Platonailedit
I hope the rethugs get paid back in 2010 level of shellacking. They earned it.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@RobertDSC-Mac Mini:
Once upon a time the polling place for my precinct was in a public library. Since then, it’s been moved to two different churches on the same street as the library, across from the high school. I have no idea why they moved it, but I preferred when it was in the library on separation of church grounds.
For unrelated reasons, I vote absentee by mail now. So much easier and I get to have a week or so to take my time to vote.
Cermet
@A Ghost To Most: Pickets charge was a lost battle even before it began; there was essentially no chance it would have succeeded and the Confederate forces where in dire straights at that point – out numbered, ill supplied, and had a bad position to defend. Lee had trapped them in a terrible dilemma – stay and lose, or retreat and lose. Till the battle of Little Round Top, his options were rather different. So, the defense of Little Round Top would have resulted in the complete destruction of the Union flank and the lost at the Battle of Gettysburg if those men had failed. No battle during that conflict was more critical to the victory for the Union. Lee lost both the War and any claim to military greatest at that moment.
Mary G
Just got back from driving the teens to school. Detoured one block over to check out the polling station in a McMansion’s garage – full, people waiting to park or walking from way down the block. Less than a quarter mile further on, came across another one, in the lobby of a hotel, also no available parking and four or five people walking in. This is not usual for midterm elections here.
The teen’s girlfriend talked to her hated grandmother and found she was voting for all Republicans, so she bullied two of her cousins who just turned 18 into registering and voting Democrat to cancel her out plus one. I have a 16-year-old convert!
MoxieM
Gonna go vote, bringing a cane in case I need to stand for a while (which would be good, politically.)
My kid tried, and tried, and tried some more to get an absentee/overseas ballot from the city clerk here in the Hamp of North, and they just never fucking responded. I send her the Federal link (FVAP.gov) yesterday, but she was kind of steamed that she effectively prevented from voting by the inefficiency and we-don’t-give-a-shittery of our civic officials here. I don’t blame her.
onward.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
Hey, you’re not that kind of doctor! //
Kay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
They think Issue One is going to win, Goku, despite my prediction of a loss. I voted for it although I thought it would fail.
That’s a big deal in crim justice reform, if it passes. It’s amazing how far people have moved on that issue. It’ll be an earthquake.
Spanky
@Yarrow:@Yarrow:
It sounds disgusting, so it must really be good!!!
Adam L Silverman
@Platonailedit: Like this genius!
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/what-i-learned-last-weekend-s-rallies-donald-trump-barack-n931576
Raoul
Sometimes
Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.
A people sometimes step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.
Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen to you.
~ Sheenagh Pugh
LAO
My polling place was packed this morning (after 9am) and must say anecdotally, many many young people. So encouraging.
bookdragon
Going to vote at lunch time. My daughter is coming – last time she can vote with me since she’s 17 (and really, really annoyed she can’t cast her own vote yet).
I’ll vote straight blue and hope that next Memorial Day when I go to plant a flag at the grave of the gr-gr-grandfather who fought for PA in the Civil War, my Dad and I will be able to carry on the tradition of telling him that the Union still stands.
Mary G
Is she on a boat?
randy khan
I always enjoy the ritual of voting. In my precinct, there always are poll workers and party representatives I know, so I get to say hello to them. When your ballot is accepted, the machine that scans it makes a little “thunk” noise so you know it’s done (and also tells you on the screen), and you get your “I voted” sticker. Then I walk out the door to the PTA library book sale – you buy a book or two for the library, and put a bookplate in the front. Every year I write that it’s in honor of my mother, who was a reading teacher. This year, I bought a picture book called “The Peaceful Garden” and a chapter book by a Newberry Award winner.
Nothing can spoil that experience, certainly not a bit of rain, and not even the discovery that Reince Priebus lives and votes in my precinct, and apparently was there while I was. On the other hand, the precinct generally goes 2-1 or better for the Dem, so maybe it’s fitting that he votes there now.
Yarrow
@Keith P.: I saw your comment yesterday and replied with this website: Patient Voting.
Also, from the Harrisvotes website under Disabled Voters then Special Circumstances.
Link.
The Moar You Know
@RobertDSC-Mac Mini: It’s not like most election boards are awash in money so they take whatever is volunteered. I used to volunteer out my garage, but it was just too small. They use the firestation down the street from me nowadays.
A lot of schools do it but I am not sure from a security standpoint that doing so is a good idea.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
True, but I didn’t quote that part. Still, you’re correct. I was just trying to be a history pedant and failed :). The message is inspiring and thanks for sharing it.
Adam L Silverman
@Cermet: After reading a number of things about Lee and his decision making, my own theory, which I can’t prove, is that he suffered a series of micro-strokes as a result of his reported high blood pressure throughout the war which impaired both his judgement and functioning. This is in addition to the fact that he was a terrible strategist.
schrodingers_cat
Go Vote, kitteh has no time for your excuse making!
RobertB
@raven: Replacing Johnston with Hood was a Confederate own goal.
The Confederacy has the rep of better leadership, but that was not the case anywhere except for in Northern Virginia. Of course that theater was kind of important.
Steve in the ATL
@Adam L Silverman: “I’m delighted that the leopard is eating my face!”
Adam L Silverman
@Platonailedit: Or this lovely woman.
Spanky
@geg6: Same here. First time was a 9th grade field trip. We did Pickett’s Charge. Shit, that was a long walk!* I bet Pickett’s men didn’t have to wait for traffic on the Emmitsburg Road.
* – Maybe a half mile, actually, but it seemed to take forever to a 14 year old. I can only imagine what it seemed like to the Army of Virginia. My great grandpappy was working hard that day in a Federal artillery battery. All he saw was smoke.
zhena gogolia
To mix metaphors, Casablanca is on TCM tonight at 8:00 PM EST. We can watch Paul Henreid lead the anti-Fascists in La Marseillaise.
Our horrible Repug state senator left literature in our mailbox yesterday. I said, “Ooh, I wish I’d been here!” My husband said, “Major, there are some sections of [Our Town] that I wouldn’t advise you to try to invade.”
lamh36
every year I usually plead for a happy birthday shoutout from @idriselba but this is just as good! Idris Elba named Sexiest Mam Alive on my birthday…can’t be mad at that ?????
And he also encouraged folks to vote!!!
My day is already looking up! Hoping for good news tonight!!
Adam L Silverman
Well this is definitely weird. Not really subtle though.
Gin & Tonic
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: You’ll have to up your game to be a history pedant here.
zhena gogolia
@lamh36:
I thought of you when I saw the news about Elba!
Yarrow
@Mary G: I don’t think so. It looks like she’s in a gym. Those are exercise machines.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: “Third”?
Mary G
@lamh36: I saw that and thought of you.
Cermet
@raven: You forget who were the Generals on each side – zero chance Sherman would have allowed such an occurrence and he didn’t; Hood was too aggressive to sit in a siege he knew would end in disaster. Also, Sherman out flanked Hood and forced him to flee. Sherman would have loved if Hood had stayed. Atlanta was doomed either way and would have fallen quickly if Hood had “dug” in.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
Haha, the Trump crazy is so strong I didn’t even notice that!
Chris
@RobertB:
It’s virtually the only theater anyone talks about in that war.
(Except Ford Theater, but that’s a different story).
Mary G
Kemp gets more desperate every day:
Polling place moved with no notice in a black area to another which is a 40 minute walk away, and most residents don’t own cars.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: No, she’s in her home gym. She’s leaning on a really high end treadmill.
Keith P.
@Yarrow: Yeah, I’ve tol Team Beto, my hospital social worker, AND Harris County Dem party, but the never reply. I’d still need printer and postal stuff since I am literally confined to a hospital bed. I was gonna do a party line vote this year, too, but this cycle just leaves a really bad taste….if I never get a donation solicit or hear about how important every vote is, it’ll be too soon
Raven
@randy khan: It’s old business around here but when I came home from Vietnam in Sept 69 I was still only 19 and couldn’t vote for 14 months. I don’t miss.
lamh36
Come on Texas!!!
Adam L Silverman
@Steve in the ATL: It kind of tickles after a while…//
rattlemullet
A book all Americans should read.
Kay
Hah! Let’s celebrate that one. Especially said on Fox, with their horrible, gross greedhead “reporters” who campaign for Republicans and spread lies.
MazeDancer
Pouring rain. Knock on door. Drenched person on porch.
From the Delgado Campaign!
Wanted to know if I needed anything. Would drive me the 3 blocks to vote. Thanked her profusely. She’s sees my sticker: “Oh you voted”. Told her, yes, I bought the stickers for the town. She pointed to her sticker. Big Smiles all around.
Really impressive GOTV. Most encouraging.
And spending 8 bucks on Amazon for 500 stickers was one of the most rewarding things ever. All the poll workers were excited. People were happy. Not having stickers past two elections has left many crestfallen leaving the polls.
Pretty sure it’s GOP Run County voter suppression. When Dems take over – Stickers for everyone!
cain
@Adam L Silverman:
Foreclosed right before election night? Yeah, definitely something is up there. It’s amazing to me that we experience this level of vote suppression. They are scared shitless.
Dorothy A. Winsor
My niece’s husband wrote a well-written, interesting book about Sickles at Gettysburg. I recommend it if you’re into that. The nephew-in-law is a docent at the battlefield.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: I just copied and pasted the tweet. I’m trying not to actually think about it.
FelonyGovt
I inked my ballot so hard I shook the whole voting stand. Oops.
zhena gogolia
@MazeDancer:
He’s my guy I adopted via Swing Left! I so hope he wins!
Fair Economist
@raven: Maybe, but Hood only withdrew after Sherman had cut his supply lines, in September, and by that point he was outnumbered more than 2:1. Had he stayed he would have been besieged and his army destroyed. The war wouldn’t have ended until Lincoln left office and that wouldn’t be until March. There was just no way Hood would have sacrificed his army to *maybe* change the election. Having both major Confederate armies under siege by tremendously superior forces wouldn’t be a horrible situation for Lincoln to run on anyway.
Yarrow
@lamh36: Was just coming here to post this! Just when you think Idris Elba couldn’t get any better, he does.
pk
@randy khan:
I hate going to vote. I moved to PA from a state where all voting was by mail. First time I voted I got into an altercation with an older white woman who took it upon herself to chastise two black children climbing a tree at the voting place. Called the kids “unruly negros”, and when I spoke up she told me “this is not what we do in America”. I’ve hated going to the polling place ever since.
Our demographics have changed a bit since then, but my inner dialogue every time I go voting is “Oh God! Ugh! It’s full of old white people voting for republicans, why am I even here”? In 2016 it there were MAGA hats and Alex jones t-shirt guys and I wanted to kick them.
Ours is swing district this time, so of course I’m voting, but it’s pouring with rain, thunderstorms expected and not going to be pleasant at all.
RobertB
@Adam L Silverman: I figure The Killer Angels had the right notion of it; Lee had drank so much of the ‘morale is to the physical’ koolade that he thought his army could pull it off. But at that point it was Fredricksburg redux, with the Confederates on the losing side.
Raven
@Fair Economist: Yea, the quote is from a review and I’m no expert.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Kay:
That sounds amazing! I had a feeling it was going to fail too. It still might. But hopefully not!
It’ll help a lot of people if it passes:
By the way, who was saying they think it will pass?
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman:
Interesting. It would explain how he could be so sharp one day and spaced out the next.
If true, Day 2 Gettysburg was the most clutch popped capillary of all time.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: @RobertB: @Cermet: This was a recurring problem with Lee’s generalship. He was a terrible manager of his talent, for lack of a better term for it. Hood was very good at being a hunter and a killer, but he’s not the guy you stick in charge to hold the line. He’s the guy you send out to get around and behind the enemies lines and make mischief.
Spanky
@MazeDancer: You really are awesome. Do you know that?
Raven
@Adam L Silverman: I guess that all-night march was supposed to give themn the element of surprise but humping it down to Lakewood and back in wool uni’s in July probably wasn’t the best thing to do.
Chet
@Mike in DC: 2006 is the feeling I’m having today too. Do you remember the Iraqi election where they dipped their fingers in purple ink? In 2006 I went out and bought a bottle of purple ink, and I spent all election day dunking my middle finger in it.
lamh36
@lamh36: oh and just in case ya wanted a lil sexy ya brighten up ur morning… there’s a video?
ur welcome crow Idris fans
Kay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
The people at the bd of elections.
Our entire law enforcement apparatus did a front page editorial in the local paper opposing it- police, sheriff, prosecutors, judges but it was bullshit fear mongering. They know better. It really left a bad taste in my mouth, like they’re protecting the criminal justice industrial complex. I had already voted for it but I was so pleased I did when they published their big pack of lies. I’m ashamed of the judge. He’s smart. He knows these dire predictions of criminals running free are BS. They still have PLENTY to charge people with and if they run short they’ll just create some new felonies. This idea that they might run out of criminal charges is just nonsense.
MomSense
If any Jackals are ever in Mid Coast Maine, go check out the Joshua Chamberlain museum. It’s quite good. As a reminder that the fight continues, my son and I saw a truck flying a confederate flag when we exited the museum in our last visit.
Last week I early voted for Chamberlain’s doppelgänger and hometown Senator Angus King. Seriously they look exactly alike.
I’ve been thinking lately about the story of one of the last battles of the civil war. Chamberlain instructed his men to salute the captured confederate soldiers and officers. It was his way of preparing for reunification. I’ve been so full of rage for so long now, I wonder whether I will have the ability to follow his example.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Gin & Tonic:
Challenge accepted : )
Gravenstone
@Mary G:
Better. You have a 16 year old activist.
RobertB
@Fair Economist: Until the loss at Atlanta, the 1864 election was still close. If Atlanta was still held by the Confederacy, it could have made the difference. Had Johnston been in charge at Atlanta, he might have managed to last for the six months or so needed to get McClellan in office with peace still on the table.
Chet
I also played this a lot in 2006: The revolution will not be televised by Gil Scott-Heron.
JPL
@Mary G: It says the page doesn’t exist for me. Lyft is offering free rides to the polls in poorer districts in GA.
Adam L Silverman
@Raven: Most likely not.
RobertB
@Adam L Silverman: It’s been a while since I read Lee’s Lieutenants, but IIRC the moral of it was “All the good generals got shot.” Freeman might be marinating in Lost Cause, but it’s been a while since I read it and his biography of Lee.
Doug R
@Chris:
First Odor
NotMax
Repeating.
(Puts on Tom Levenson hat.)
Election Day.
{Removes Tom Levenson hat.)
Fair Economist
@Adam L Silverman: I always thought Hood was a conscious Hail Mary pass by the Confederate leadership. Yeah, his chances were slim, but with “sensible” strategy Atlanta was going to fall in short order and at that point the war would be over and it was just a matter of time. From Atlanta Sherman could march in any direction he chose along a railroad supply line and the Confederates didn’t have a force to stop him anymore (Johnston was badly outnumbered even before Hood converted nearly half his army to casualties). I think they knew Hood would probably lose horribly, as he did, but there was some chance he might win and that really might have won McClellan the 1864 election.
Yarrow
@Keith P.: That’s terrible. I’m sure they’re all just slammed today. Do you have friends or family who can print out the forms and bring them to you? I just hate leaving any voter on the sidelines. We need to get you whatever you need so you can vote!
H.E.Wolf
@bookdragon:
This is for your g’g’grandfather, may he rest in peace and power.
From Steven Vincent Benet’s short story, “The Devil and Daniel Webster”:
*************
It’s a story they tell in the border country, where Massachusetts joins Vermont and New Hampshire. Yes, Dan’l Webster’s dead — or, at least, they buried him. But every time there’s a thunderstorm around Marshfield, they say you can hear his rolling voice in the hollows of the sky. And they say that if you go to his grave and speak loud and clear, “Dan’l Webster — Dan’l Webster!” the ground’ll begin to shiver and the trees begin to shake. And after a while you’ll hear a deep voice saying, “Neighbor, how stands the Union?” Then you better answer the Union stands as she stood, rock-bottomed and copper-sheathed, one and indivisible, or he’s liable to rear right out of the ground…
*************
Sister Golden Bear
@Adam L Silverman: You’re working the morning shift for TengaPhule? //
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Gin & Tonic: She thinks he’s a reptile and already has two?
Adam L Silverman
@Raven: That was most likely unhelpful either.
Kay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
This is interesting- Columbus trumps Cleveland:
Doug R
@Kay:
Cannabis legalization and INSITE and Canada turning into weed central seems to show a turning of the tide on the “war on drugs”.
Raoul
@Raoul: Note: Pugh’s language is too gendered for my tastes, really. But the heart of the poem touched me, even as it seemed from another era.
Manyakitty
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I voted yes on Issue 1. Hope it passes! Straight D ticket, of course. I even voted for the one judge I usually abstain from (I know her personally, and meh).
Keith P.
@Yarrow: Nope, and I am well past my desire to vote.
Adam L Silverman
@RobertB: Never read it. The issue was really the culture of Lee’s command combined with Lee as a leader who was a poor strategist. It was very unique.
NotMax
Election day memory from the TV.
There’s a certain politician i n Hawaii who does win a lot (but not always) and whom I’d say is dumb as a box of rocks except that would be an insult to both boxes and rocks.
Anyhoo, local reporter was at his HQ and periodically, over more than an hour, they’d come back to him: “He’s still not here.”
Eventually the reporter was able to intone (NOT making this up): “We’ve found out why he’s taken so long to show up. Apparently he got lost in the parking lot. In fairness, it is an L-shaped parking lot. Back to you at the anchor desk.”
Kay
@Doug R:
I wonder if people started to think of it as a scam. It has become endless. They’re arrested and convicted of something relatively minor and years later they’re still in the system- “on paper”, in treatment, reporting, whatever. No one could GET OUT of the system once they landed in it. And the fees! They’re always paying fees, which they don’t have which also keeps them in the system. It starts to look like a racket, like the point of the thing is to maintain the thing. We have to feed the big machine bodies so it keeps chugging along.
Ksmiami
@pk: wtf is wrong w Pennsylvania? I did a road trip through the country there and the towns were literally these disgusting little morasses of prisons, meth heads and nursing home denizens – how do these places exist?
MoxieM
@lamh36: Idris Elba is beyond fantastic. Thanks for sharing that. I cannot count the number of times I have watched and re-watched Luther (love Brit police procedurals, and love Mr. Elba, so there you go!)
Yarrow
@Keith P.: Are you sure? There’s still time left in the day. Can we help you get what you need?
The Moar You Know
@Keith P.: But you had to show up here and tell us all what a horrible job the Democratic party apparatus has done in getting out the vote. Gotcha. Pied and done.
MoxieM
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I reckoned she meant the lump on his shoulders, that other one, and a new one? Or more likely, being a Trumpster, she just can’t count. To two.
Fair Economist
@RobertB: I’m not disagreeing that Atlanta holding out *might* have changed the election, but Johnston’s army would have been doomed if it had tried to stay. Sherman could have cut all the supply lines and he’d have been under real siege, like Vicksburg, not quasi-siege like Petersburg (where there was railroad supply throughout the siege). Vicksburg only held out 6 weeks, and Johnston would have had to last 6 months. No general would have done that.
I also think Lincoln would still have won because if both major Confederate armies were trapped in sieges, it would have been very obvious the war was almost over anyway. I’m not even sure that would have been worse for Lincoln than the actual situation at the election, which had the Confederate Army of Tennessee marching back towards Tennessee (they had not yet been defeated) and Sherman incommunicado in Georgia doing an unprecedented march without supplies.
My ultimate point is that the Confederate leadership pretty much knew these risks and there was absolutely no way they would ever have ordered an army to stay in Atlanta hopelessly under siege.
Skepticat
@Platonailedit:
I always work hard to offset my insignificant other’s mistakes, at the polls anyway.
@MomSense:
They DO, don’t they? Funny, I never noticed that, but now I won’t be able to forget it.
NotMax
@Ksmiami
Keeps the dingy cinder block buildings housing taverns in business.
Steady business.
;)
Adam L Silverman
@Sister Golden Bear: Not that I’m aware.
Kay
This is bullshit but hope springs eternal, I guess.
He’ll never have a “different tone” because this is what he is- he’s a racist, mean-spirited asshole. It’s not an act. He’s a bad person. He’s been a bad person for 50 years.
Keith P.
@The Moar You Know: You have no fucking idea of what condition i am in so fuck off, really.
smintheus
@Kay: Nobody forced Trump to kidnap children from asylum seekers. He’s the scum of the earth and that’s how he’ll always behave.
The Moar You Know
@Keith P.: You just stated you no longer want to vote because – your words – Beto and the Democratic party have let you down. If you’re not willing to take an offer of some help and get your vote in, but just want to sit there and bitch about how the Dems have let you down, I’ll be totally honest: I have no use for you.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@The Moar You Know: I imagine he’s exhausted by this point. People get cranky when they’re exhausted. Let him be.
Uncle Cosmo
@Keith P.: JFC, did you not click over to the website for Patient Voting you were pointed to??? Here: https://www.patientvoting.com/texas
Get someone in the hospital to print you out the form requesting an emergency absentee ballot (there’s a link at that page). (I’m sure you can find a sympathetic staffer. Use your jackal charm!)
Fill it out.
Get someone (maybe call one of the local campaigns?) to pick it up & take it to the Early Voting Clerk & bring back an emergency absentee ballot. Hopefully s/he can wait while you fill it out & sign it & then take it (it appears) back to the Early Voting Clerk.
All the links you need are on that site. Time’s a-wastin’!
(ETA: Cleanup in Aisle Blue…)
smintheus
Heavy turnout in my rural PA town this morning. The parking lot was backed up, which I haven’t seen since 2008. The town usually votes 2/3 Republican, so I don’t know what that foretells.
On the other hand, my wingnut neighbor usually has yard signs up for several candidates weeks in advance of election, and is eager to talk politics. But he has only a single sign recently put up, for a gubernatorial Trumptard who’s almost certain to lose, and he never brings up politics with me any more. He’ll vote party line GOP, and he appears to be in much closer contact now with several more extreme neighbors of ours who are just out and out racists, but he’s too embarrassed to admit to me that he still backs these fascists. It’s a weird dynamic.
Miss Bianca
@Raoul: I just stole this poem and posted it on FB to get my point across to my non-voting cohort (yes, sadly, regrettably, I still seem to be acquainted with a few), rather than swearing at them. Thank you for sharing!
Miss Bianca
@lamh36: That voice…that face…that presence…SWOON.
*And* he says “get out the vote”?
*Recovers from swoon, swoons again*
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Kay:
That might help put Cordray in the governor’s office. It’s going to be close so I’m not getting my hopes up too much : )
J R in WV
@Spanky:
I hear that if you eat a garden slug you’ll never have another bad cold.
wait for it ::
‘Cause you’ll be dead!
Tick Tock Mutherfuckers!!
Late last night, 4 am, my Irritable Bowel Syndrome (which has been quiet for quite a while now) showed up for midnight surprise. I took my med, which helps a little, but sometimes doesn’t just stop things. After a while I was able to go back to bed, at 8 or so. Catnapped for a while, going to go vote soon.
At 5 am and 6 am in the toilet, I was rethinking this early voting idea… maybe next time? Almost certainly!! On a day I’m feeling so much better than I am now. Stress at this level sucks!
Stress works with IBS to fuck you up!
Mohagan
Great post. I was unexpectedly moved to tears by the end. I think it was the picture of the Twentieth Maine monument that did it. Chamberlain was indeed a great man, and The Killer Angels is a great book. The only CW battleground I’ve seen is Shiloh, and it was profoundly moving. All those state and unit memorials! I’m sure Gettysburg is that in spades.
Gary K
@Yarrow: Attend a lecture. This is sure-fire. But try not to snore.
Yarrow
@Keith P.: JeanneT posted this info in the next thread:
If KeithP gets back in touch, the Houston LWV has an all day phone bank to answer voting questions. They might know if anyone has extra volunteers who could be Keith P’s personal voting assistant. I imagine he’s not getting responses from the folk he called already because they are currently out in the precincts with helping people get to the polls AND doing poll watching AND door knocking/phone calling their voter lists.
But the League has live people waiting to answer questions and might have some contacts who can help. Anyhow, here’s the info:
LWV Houston voting day phone bank. Open till 7:00 p.m.
English: 713-778-8920
Spanish: 713-778-8930
frosty
@geg6: We went to LRT right after the book came out. 20th Maine wasn’t prominent then and kind of hard to find. Saw the monument for NY, said, nah, they were left of here, kept walking. Got mostly down the hill, saw the monument for the unit on their flank, then further down in the trees we saw the 20th Maine. Way on the left, out there on their own.
Spanky
@Mohagan:
It is, surpassed only by Antietam.
(IMO, obviously.)
Bruce K
My ballot went in back in September, via Hellenic Post to the Manhattan election office. Just got off Skype with my family back Stateside, and they’re reporting that in Manhattan, there were lines around the block at their polling place despite punishing rain.
So, yeah, the motivation’s definitely there.
And in the spirit of the thread header image, we can’t fall back, we can’t stay where we are, so…
BAYONETS!!!
Mel
@H.E.Wolf: I go and visit my Grandma’s grave after I vote. She was an election poll worker until she was in her 70s, and nearly every year after that, she would go door to door with her best friend (also in her 70s and then 80s) in the little town where they lived, making sure that everybody would be able to get to the polls, helping people who needed absentee ballots to get them, and encouraging anybody who was aparhetic or frustrated to stay involved. She did it until she was 89, and her arthritis made it too hard to do the long walk.
I think the sight of those two little old ladies, one with a walker, that damned determined to get out the vote, motivated a lot of slackers.
Her two best lines: “I had an ancestor that lost his leg fighting in the Revolutionary War to make this country happen for us, and my husband was in the Sourh Pacific in WWII. They gave up so much so that people could have the freedom to vote and to have a say in what happens to the regular people in this world”, and “Even if you don’t feel like voting, I bet there is someone who needs you to be their hero and vote to keep rhem safe. I have two grandkids, and I want them to be safe and healthy and have a chance to get a good job. I want to know that they’ll be safe long after I’m gone. Who do you love that you could get out there and stick up for with your vote?”
I miss her so much.
stan
No battle is lost before it begins. Events are contingent. I mean, here we are in a thread using the defense of Little Round Top as an analogy. The 20th Maine ran out of ammunition – and then they won!!!
Mohagan
@RobertB: Yes, people have forgotten him, but Albert Sidney Johnston was supposed to be the best Confederate general (he was certainly the highest ranked) at the start of the war. He died at Shiloh.
stan
Yeah, its so weird how they fought all those civil war battles near the monuments. ;)
...now I try to be amused
The sentence “They have lost faith in their leaders but not themselves” is burned in my memory.
@RobertB:
“Gettysburg was the price the South paid for having R.E. Lee.” — Shelby Foote
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@geg6:
Not much given to heroes of any kind, but I happily make an exception for Chamberlain. Wonderfully apropos painting to accompany this post.
lahke
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot: But his autobiography/account of the Civil War is just about unreadable, unless you are comfortable with Olde High Victorian. To be fair, I don’t think he wrote it until the 1890s, after a long career as an academic.
Best memoir remains Sherman’s, IMHO. Get the second edition, when he talks about his early career. Lots of great stories, which I’ll hold off on since I bet this thread is dying……