Charlie Rose

SharkswithfrikingLazers  09/21/2012 07:38 PM Report

You have to glorify death in war.

Leaving bodies to rot, having Southern farmers plow through them, throwing bodies into water wells does not serve the military well.

Good thing Americans had no idea how bad it was or this slaughter of citizens would have had to stop.

Then where would those 7 Million (in today's numbers) be?

Perhaps they would be fighting in our continuous wars so there would not be so many tours of duty?

Perhaps their descendants would be at work now solving our worst problems?

SharkswithfrikingLazers  09/21/2012 07:20 PM Report

The contraband segment was very, very interesting:

The contrabands erected housing outside the crowded base from the burned ruins of the City of Hampton. They called their new settlement Grand Contraband Camp (which they nicknamed "Slabtown").

By the end of the war in April 1865, less than four years later, an estimated 10,000 escaped slaves had applied to gain "contraband" status, with many living nearby.

Across the South, Union forces managed more than 100 contraband camps, although not all were as large.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraband_%28American_Civil_War%29

Goofy America.

Gelles  09/19/2012 07:21 PM Report

I have just re-watched the TV Documentary -- PBS “American Experience” film called “Death and the Civil War”.

It may be that some Americans and others that care about civilization on this earth will not see “Death and the Civil War” -- they will not see what Drew Gilpin Faust offers an audience of readers and TV watchers, whose freedoms were procured by all that death long ago.

Some of those who miss hearing the message handed down to us will have some lame excuse. Some will be vehement deniers of the importance of TV in a world gone mad or even in a world as sane as it can be. The art of politics and art drawn from history is not compulsory for them: they know what they like -- and they don't like dead bodies or reasoned lessons by an historian they know nothing of. The documentary touches on Confederates who never saw in Lincoln the father of a new America paid for by the dead and injured, their families, and all those others who made the outcome of that war the end of a kind of slavery that ought to have never been. Today's people who avoid the lesson, experience and appreciation of this chapter of "American Experience" may be strange neighbors of people who take the time to hear this story. Strange, or worse. Some of them will be satisfied with their own reasons for doing something else having a different view.

No American is obligated to love Lincoln or those who died to make us free. At least not obligated in law. And some say, "What else is there?" If we cannot be free as individuals without a history, why live another day? -- they may feel or say. And to them I can only echo, "why".

Gelles  09/19/2012 09:49 AM Report

The story of the casualties and of those who died in action and of disease on account of a war to end slavery (if not poverty) that ended in 1865 did not end at death.

There was death, burial, reburial, and memorial deeds that history reveals as happening. Then there were effects of all that history on the history to this day -- that follows.

Had I not seen and appreciated what these television producers and artists wanted me to know (if possible), I would have remained less -- on account of that "not".

I may not have been her responsibility at Harvard -- but she reached me where I was, and I owe her thanks.

The full and final response to all that death and dying a century and a half ago changed the nation that survived -- and that nation may survive, even triumph, over challenges yet to be encountered if its current and future residents due their duty when they live and die tomorrow.

There is a dead hand of history that plagues us. And there is the other hand that inspires us. Our celebrated historians enlighten that other hand and change its potential effect for the better -- if we let them.

tabs  09/19/2012 04:19 AM Report

The authors of this program seem to think that Lincolns Gettysburg address reflected a transformational justification for a war of attrition where the bodies started to pile up. Rather Gettysburg was a reflection that the old notion of the decisive battle being the determinate of who won the war finally fell away to the realization that the South was determined and that only total war would suffice (Lincoln was angry that Gen Meade let Lee slip away after Gettysburg). Thus the advent of the two proponents of the philosophy of total war came to the fore, Grant and Sherman.

To this end Grant realized that the only way to beat Johnny Reb was to grab him by the collar and not let go until he hollered Uncle Abe. Grant realized that as part of the realization of this strategy in the 1864 campaign was that his army would get its nose bloodied in the process. But the point that proves the authors wrong in their revisionist history is that the only order that Grant regretted giving during his tenure as a commander during the Civil War was the frontal assault (Grant never gave the order for a frontal assualt again) on the Confederates dug in position at Cold Harbor in the early summer of 1864. After the horrific slaughter of Union troops in short order at Cold Harbor the TACTICS of the Civil War finally caught up with the destructive power of the rifled musket. There after the tactics became a war of trenches and stalemate at Petersburg, which were designed to curtail the horrific casualties suffered earlier in the war.

Gelles  09/19/2012 03:01 AM Report

TO: Rick Burns and Drew Gilpin Faust and Charlie Rose ~

Congratulations and thank you. I believe you have accomplished the decent purpose that drove you to do this great work.

I had seen DEATH as a very limited word and concept. You have proved, as the pyramids in Egypt foretold, DEATH is part of LIFE -- and it has meaning beyond the the "nothing" that may "happen" afterward to the DEAD.

To the survivors, to the living, DEATH is part of life. You have performed a miracle of lasting value.

I believe there is history in history that a professional like President Faust can see long before a reader would imagine before reading her future product.

Thank you all again. I have seen your film and I will see it again.

badoodahbad  09/18/2012 07:51 PM Report

I don't think they wasted a whole lotta time crying over an advertising buzz word like, 'Obamacare'. By their standards, their descendants have become a bunch of sissy ass losers.

badoodahbad  09/18/2012 07:30 PM Report

The way those people suffered and died. No conveniences what so ever. 'The high ground' equivalent to the air force; shoes with hard thin soles (NO NIKES).

Just everything we take for granted now, (in medicine, transportation, air conditioning, information, EVERYTHING) they had none of it, just the night sky .

badoodahbad  09/18/2012 07:22 PM Report

We have No Idea! NO IDEA!

Gelles  09/18/2012 03:14 AM Report

In the New Yorker for 10 September 2012, in Briefly Noted books, on page 101, a review of the new book "Why does the World Exist", whose author was Jim Holt (whom Charlie Rose recently interviewed), concluded with this stunning thought from Jim Holt:

....."the life of the universe, like each of our lives, may be a mere interlude between two nothings."

There was "nothing" before the universe started. There will be "nothing" after its gone. Yet it is the "something" that does temporarily exist, like cultivated fields, whole cities, enormous results of human physical and mental effort, exemplary factories, networks, understandings, etc.

Least of all these logistical pieces are the dead bodies of warriors and civilians alike, who made everything God did not do happen.

I do not belittle the idea of trying to contemplate and honor the dead. But it is their lives that mattered.

Death belongs to the poets. Books that comprise the literature of Why and What of Existence are intended for living events. Book-ends prop up the books that begin and end with life.

I have not yet seen tomorrow's documentary PBS film on Death and the American Civil War. I am sure it will not be "nothing". But from here it looks to me as though it may have tackled the least important something associated with all wars. All life dies. But some of it creates history.

In 1941, before Pearl Harbor, I often enjoyed eating my lunch in an old cemetery nor far from our military academy at West Point. It had old soldiers and old civilians. They were all dead. Soon I'll join them. I welcome poets who take any notice. About prose and research I'm not sure.

lecole54  09/17/2012 05:40 PM Report

Actually REMant, this is quite different from anything Ken Burns did. While he certainly did dwell -- possibly too much -- on the deaths, what Faust and Ric Burns do is look at the *consequences* of that much death -- for the American psyche and how we deal with death, for government policy towards both the dead and survivors, in the creation of organizations that filled in the governmental gaps, etc.

constancek  09/17/2012 02:42 PM Report

Charlie, there is an important video showing tonight on Facebook, called "The Invisible

War" about military sexual trauma. Why don't you have a show featuring the movie

and its director and some of the people impacted by this horrific experience. I am

the mother of a veteran of the Iraq War. I also have been peripherally involved with this issue. It is important to bring this to light. That's what you do best. I have been watching your show since it began and I have learned so much by doing so. Thank you, Charlie.

Max83  09/17/2012 02:33 PM Report

Today, September 17th, is the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Antietam

Also according to one of my favorite astrologers Robert Wilkinson, today, September 17th, is actually the true astrological birthday of the United States of America.

From an article by Robert Wilkinson:

''After years of studying various charts to see correlations between those charts and national events, I am of the opinion America's "birth chart" should be the one for when the Constitution was finally agreed upon before it was sent out to the individual states for their ratification. That makes our birthday September 17, 1787. The Articles were a prototype for the Constitution, but didn't include certain key clauses the Constitution contained that moved us from an inter-colonial agreement into a relatively unified Federal Republic.''

Here the link to the full article by Robert Wilkinson: http://www.aquariuspapers.com/astrology/2012/07/a-very-merry-2012-unbirthday-to-the-united-states.htm l

Happy 225th Birthday U.S.A. !!!

tabs  09/17/2012 12:08 PM Report

Death is the ultimate reality in life. When one comes face to face with death one goes from I think to I know. In other words one finds a certainty and clarity about life's events. There is no more ambiguity, the stark reality is either you are alive or you are dead and this is how you get there.

In death there is a peaceful relief or release from the struggle and or pain of drawing another breath and as such we give up all of life's pursuits of seeking wealth, power and success as in the end, we find those are meaningless pursuits of a temporal life. As one has stated before the only enduring quality in this life is our capacity to love and to show kindness to our fellow creatures.

What one finds in this little discussion is that the authors of this documentary are stating, is that when a person dies at home which was the normative situation before the American Civil War one was faced with death in a up close and personal way. After the civil war and trending into the current era is that in the Developed World in particular the death of a loved one has become ever more sanitized as it takes places out of the presence of their loved ones. As such one concludes that one not only loses a bit of their sense of clarity about life but also their understanding about the importance of their capacity to love and to show kindness. In the end we lose a bit of our humanity in favor of alienation,and a pursuit of the visceral or material to fill the void created in our spiritual ethos.

BTW: One does believe that there is synchronicity in the universe. As this is a subject that one wanted to bring up, and now the venue to do so has been created.

REMant  09/17/2012 11:35 AM Report

Actually, Burns' Civil War dwelt on this aspect excessively, to the point of nausea, and omitted almost all the rest. But there is no little irony in the consideration that the same ppl who dwell on this would undoubtedly have been in the vanguard of those who urged the war on the South 150 yrs ago, and still go "abroad in search of monsters to destroy." Those dead did die in vain, as in all wars, and there's no such thing as a just one. The exactions levied on the defeated South ought to be proof enough that many in the North were unmoved, nor did they mind doing equal violence to the Constitution. I suppose the idea of national cemeteries followed from the national draft used to fight it - also a first - and the fiat currency employed, not done since the Revolution. I am not surprised that many had difficulty coming to terms with it: all of it flew in the face of republican and Protestant "values." To argue that the war's silver lining was that it provided an opportunity for philanthropy and instruction in "citizenship" is such a perfect example of hypocrisy, even St Paul would retch. Ms Faust would seem to be in league with the president, who undoubtedly also believes Lincoln's drivel "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." But nationalism is nationalism. I should rather hope that one day we will be emancipated from the history of women, slaves and Indians. I notice, incidentally, that when Ms Faust moved to Harvard the university seems to have felt obliged to offer her husband a position there as well, a typical act of collegiate nepotism.