Pelosi At HuffPo: Does She Know Any History At All?

Amazing. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi apparently has no understanding of American history whatsoever. If she had, she could hardly have written this based upon and extensively quoting Julia Ward Howe:

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
- Julia Ward Howe, Mother's Day Proclamation, 1870

These words are from Julia Ward Howe, who called for a day in 1870 that carried a meaning different from the cards, flowers and chocolates we've come to associate with Mother's Day today (not that I mind the chocolates). After witnessing the devastating effects of the Civil War, Howe began what she called Mother's Day for Peace-a call to women across the globe to come together and bring an end to war.

Yes, Speaker Pelosi, she most assuredly did - in 1870, as you note. And below is what she wrote in 1862, during a Civil War her abolitionist beliefs compelled her to support.

Early in the war, Julia Ward Howe wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" to the tune of "John Brown's Body."

America was not at war in 1870 and I suspect she very much wanted to prevent another of any scope - as would any decent human being.

After the war she focused her activities on the causes of pacifism and women's suffrage. She was a member of the Unitarian church.

Read what Howe wrote in 1862, Speaker Pelosi. Tell me, post 9/11, with the prospect of freeing millions of Iraqis from Saddam Hussein's oppression, or their deaths at the hands of terrorists, which words of Howe's do you really believe she would invoke, Madam Speaker? Somehow I don't think it would be Happy Mother's Day, Peace - especially were she to be entrusted with the responsibilities of your current office: responsibilities you have proved time and again you are not up to shouldering. You should step down. Just wait until after Mother's Day. I wouldn't want it to break your heart. Read it all. A Fearless Voice you are not, Madam Speaker. Not even close.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Comments

[Carol H]

Julia Ward Howe was an active abolitionist before the Civil War. During the war she worked for the Sanitary Commission, the federal agency responsible for the health of the soliers, and saw first hand the horrors of war. She saw the war as the only change to free millions of her fellow Americans from slavery. It is impossible to know what her thoughts were on sending thousands of Americans to fight in a distant land for many complicated reasons, but is is highly doubtful that she would overturning a dictator as remotely comparable to eliminating slavery. She was also horrified and disgusted by war, and by 1870 had come to see the futility of mothers sending sons to war to kill the sons of other mothers, hence her promotion of Mother's Day as an opportunity for the mother's of the world to join together to stop war. Nancy Pelosi is not ignorant of US history, she knows that the views of a woman long dead are much more complicated that those expressed in a single poem, although that poem is how most people know her. As the mother of a son currently fighting in Iraq, I applaud Ms. Pelosi and have sent the to Mother's Day for Peace to many friends. You can go to the site and view a video of Julia Ward Howe's words and make a donation that will bring an Iraqi children injured in the war to the US for medical treatment. I know that the mother's in Iraq experience the same worries for the safely of their children that I do. Tomorrow I will worry about my son, hope that he is safe, and if I am very lucky I may get to talk with him on the phone. As a mother Julia Ward Howe speaks to me, and so does Nancy Pelosi.

http://mothersdayforpeace.com/

[Phoenix]

"I know that the mother's in Iraq experience the same worries for the safely of their children that I do."

"...but is is highly doubtful that she would overturning a dictator as remotely comparable to eliminating slavery."

So, no doubt Julia Ward Howe would have stopped short at Arabs deserving of the same freedoms as Americans? I mean, it's one thing to own slaves whose health and well-being we were behooved to keep. Unlike a dictator who doesn't mind killing hundreds of thousands of those oh-so-oppressed less-than-worthy humans under his charge.

How you blaspheme the thoughts of Julia Ward Howe. How you blaspheme your own thoughts!

[Phoenix]

Dan,

That's my favorite all-time song. It gives me chills. I have it on my iTunes now.... about five different times by different singers/groups. Makes my hair stand up.

.
P.S. I'm glad you like chocolate. You mother. :]

[Carol H]

So Phoenix, you are saying that it is better to be a slave, someone bought and sold, that to live under a dictator? You seem to be saying that while dictators kill and oppress slave owners take care of the health and well being of the happy darkies. In the 19th century the majority of people in the world lived under kings and dictators yet slavery was seen as a evil worse that that. In this country the oppression was happening on our own soil and abolitionists like Julia Ward Howe fought the evil here, not in far off lands. She also saw the horrors of war first had and became a paficist after the war. That is the reality and history of her life.

[Phoenix]

"So Phoenix, you are saying that it is better to be a slave, someone bought and sold, that to live under a dictator?"

Didn't say that. I made reference to your saying Howe wouldn't have bothered freeing those oppressed by a dictator... That she was only interested in the slaves here at home.

"You seem to be saying that while dictators kill and oppress slave owners take care of the health and well being of the happy darkies. "

Yes. Dictators do not care about those they oppress. Slave owners valued their slaves and most took good care of them. What good is a dead or starved slave?

"In the 19th century the majority of people in the world lived under kings and dictators yet slavery was seen as a evil worse that that."

No. Slavery has always been a commodity. It still is in many countries. In those countries living under a dictatorship, slavery was just another rung to step down. In kingdoms, it was disguised in class. We jumped ahead of all of that.

Good for Julia Ward Howe. She wrote a moving song. But if she refused to champion the rights of oppressed people everywhere, she is just another phony. Pacifists simply allow the oppressed to remain that way. They are as evil as any dictator. To stand by and not lift a hand to help another human? Evil.

"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on."

This is my favorite verse. It's blemished now thanks to you and your penetrating observations of Mrs. Howe's intents.

[Aussie]

" fought the evil here, not in far off lands "

I'm here because I honour the efforts made by Americans to defend the freedom of my 'far off land' (including the father of the President during WWII). And I hope our American friends will continue to make those efforts. It's your choice and we're profoundly grateful for your sacrifices. Surely if you wihthdraw from the world the dark age will return.

[Sir Sefirot]

Carol, it's true you can't exactly compare Saddam's Iraq with slavery. Iraq was WAY worse. That I know, slaves in the US weren't killed by the hundreds of thousands yearly by the government. Iraqi civilians WERE. If you really believe your own words, you have a SERIOUS problem with your logic, your knowledge of history, or both.

"As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free"

May this words be in the hearts of every decent person in the Western Civilization.

[Brian the sailor]

Excellent piece. You taught me something.
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