5fish
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I found this interesting thought about honoring people. Its an article asking question for society to think over...
snip...
Memorial Day and Veterans Day often get equated, but there is an essential distinction between the two. Veterans Day honors all who have served the American military in wars. Memorial Day honors those who've perished. It's an annual reminder that wars have grave human costs, which must be both recognized and minimized. Those costs are not inevitable. We ought to also set aside time to remember those throughout American history who have tried hardest to reduce them, to prevent unnecessary loss of life both American and foreign: war resisters
snip... like Lincoln...
Abraham Lincoln, then in his only term as a congressman from Illinois, questioned Polk's rationale and introduced what came to be known as the "spot resolutions" demanding that the president point out the exact spot on which American blood had been spilled, to prove that it was really American land. Lincoln received vociferous attacks from Democratic newspapers and meetings back in his district; participants at one rally condemned him as "this Benedict Arnold of our district." But he was on the right side of history: the war was unjustified and caused needless suffering.
snip... 1st Amendment
And for the crime of opposing US entry into that morass, dozens saw federal prison time, mostly under the Espionage Act of 1917. In World War I alone, socialist leader Eugene V. Debs, Rep. Victor Berger (socialist-WI), Jehovah's Witnesses leader Joseph Franklin Rutherford, activist Kate Richards O'Hare, anarchist Emma Goldman, and German-American businessman William Edenborn all served time behind bars for their opposition to the war. Berger was denied his seat in Congress for his conviction, one of the few times a duly elected American politician was barred from office for having the wrong opinions
snip...
Outside the United States, World War I resisters suffered even more. More than 20,000 Britons refused the draft, and of those more than 6,000 were sent to prison and endured "hard labor, a bare-bones diet, and a strict 'rule of silence,'" as the writer Adam Hochschild explains. Those who refused to fight upon making it to the front often faced death. The British and French armies shot 320 and 700 men, respectively, for refusing to kill.
It's time we have a holiday to honor those who try to stop wars, too
Memorial Day remembers the cost of war. Let's honor those who tried to minimize it.
www.vox.com
snip...
Memorial Day and Veterans Day often get equated, but there is an essential distinction between the two. Veterans Day honors all who have served the American military in wars. Memorial Day honors those who've perished. It's an annual reminder that wars have grave human costs, which must be both recognized and minimized. Those costs are not inevitable. We ought to also set aside time to remember those throughout American history who have tried hardest to reduce them, to prevent unnecessary loss of life both American and foreign: war resisters
snip... like Lincoln...
Abraham Lincoln, then in his only term as a congressman from Illinois, questioned Polk's rationale and introduced what came to be known as the "spot resolutions" demanding that the president point out the exact spot on which American blood had been spilled, to prove that it was really American land. Lincoln received vociferous attacks from Democratic newspapers and meetings back in his district; participants at one rally condemned him as "this Benedict Arnold of our district." But he was on the right side of history: the war was unjustified and caused needless suffering.
snip... 1st Amendment
And for the crime of opposing US entry into that morass, dozens saw federal prison time, mostly under the Espionage Act of 1917. In World War I alone, socialist leader Eugene V. Debs, Rep. Victor Berger (socialist-WI), Jehovah's Witnesses leader Joseph Franklin Rutherford, activist Kate Richards O'Hare, anarchist Emma Goldman, and German-American businessman William Edenborn all served time behind bars for their opposition to the war. Berger was denied his seat in Congress for his conviction, one of the few times a duly elected American politician was barred from office for having the wrong opinions
snip...
Outside the United States, World War I resisters suffered even more. More than 20,000 Britons refused the draft, and of those more than 6,000 were sent to prison and endured "hard labor, a bare-bones diet, and a strict 'rule of silence,'" as the writer Adam Hochschild explains. Those who refused to fight upon making it to the front often faced death. The British and French armies shot 320 and 700 men, respectively, for refusing to kill.