{"id":5717,"date":"2009-05-25T15:32:58","date_gmt":"2009-05-25T23:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=5717"},"modified":"2009-05-25T15:41:41","modified_gmt":"2009-05-25T23:41:41","slug":"memorial-day-burning-pols-in-effigy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/25\/memorial-day-burning-pols-in-effigy\/","title":{"rendered":"Memorial Day: Burning Pols in Effigy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I stopped by the Visitors Center at Manassas Battlefield Park last month and was struck by a quote capturing Georgia private B. M. Zettler\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reaction to being enmeshed in the battle of Bull Run:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I felt that I was in the presence of death. My first thought was, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThis is unfair &#8211; someone is to blame for getting us all killed. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come here to fight this way\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em><\/p>\n<p>An excellent sentiment &#8211; one that should not be forgotten on Memorial Day. It would have been fairer if the politicians had been in the front lines on both sides at Manassas. <\/p>\n<p>Sheldon Richman, the editor of the Freeman, proposes renaming Memorial Day as <a href=\"http:\/\/sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com\/2008\/05\/happy-revisionist-history-day.html\"><strong>Revisionist History Day<\/strong><\/a>. General Patton said that an ounce of sweat can save a pint of blood. Similarly, a little reading and thinking this time of year can save a heap of grave digging in the future. <\/p>\n<p>Sacralizing the war dead usually results in exonerating the politicians. Rather than parades, it would be better to celebrate this holiday like the British used to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day &#8211; by burning politicians in effigy, or a reasonable facsimile.<br \/>\nToo harsh?<\/p>\n<p>Read the Pentagon Papers &#8211; and recognize the proper fate of all the politicians and political appointees who hatched and perpetuated that sham.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise for the Iraq war &#8211; and a heap of others. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I stopped by the Visitors Center at Manassas Battlefield Park last month and was struck by a quote capturing Georgia private B. M. Zettler\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reaction to being enmeshed in the battle of Bull Run: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I felt that I was in the presence of death. My first thought was, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThis is unfair &#8211; someone is to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5717"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5721,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5717\/revisions\/5721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5717"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}