Flash Points USA - America at War - Colleen Shogun
Flash Points USA - America at War - Colleen Shogun
Flash Points USA - America at War - Colleen Shogun (speaking about various Presidents) 04.01.35 Colleen Shogun speaks about President Abraham Lincoln, "Lincoln doesn't really rally the public to war, what he does is call the Congress back into session after the Civil War has already started and issues an address to Congress on July 4th, 1861 and talks about what he has done up until this point in prosecuting the war .....he uses the address to justify that the states do not have the power to secede the Union legally, he believes that the Union actually existed before the states, the Union actually created the States, therefore the States can not leave the Union legally without an unjustified revolt." 04.02.37 She continues to say that Lincoln actually waits for the "war" to come to him, "He could have had the choice to prosecute the war, the Confederates surround Fort Sumter in Charleston, and Lincoln could have easily ordered the troops that were hold up in Fort Sumter to fire upon the Confederates, but Lincoln is always three steps ahead of everyone else, that's sort of Lincoln's gift, and tells the Union to freeze and as a result the confederates get antsy and get impatient and he waits until the Confederates fire upon Fort Sumter. Lincoln does this because then a state if insurrection already exists, he did not start the war, the insurrection already exists and as a result he can prosecute the war as commander in chief, unilaterally without Congress' intervention." 04.03.53 Colleen Shogun speaks about Lincolns background, that he was not the first choice for the Republican nomination. She says that Lincoln was underestimated, he was a "dark horse" within the party. "Even during Lincolns Presidency, he's not perceived to be a "war hero", he's not considered a popular president, he doesn't think he's going to win the 1964 election. ......Lincolns is really catapulted into his very preferred status, his revered status after his assassination, but during his Presidency he's not considered someone who has saved the Union, someone who is trying to stick up for the principals contained in the Declaration of Independence. The Legacy that is conferred onto Lincoln comes afterwards, but not when he is President." 04.07.13 Shogun continues to say "The war definitely makes his legacy, the second Inaugural Address also makes his legacy. Probably his most famous piece of Presidential rhetoric, it's very complicated at the time because Lincoln is saying that the blame of the Civil War does not fall squarely on the shoulders of the South, that the South and the North have to share the blame of the war and that he is not in the position to judge who is good and who is evil, that actually god will judge who is good and who is evil." She states that this is very different from the rhetoric of Presidents of today, etc, judging who is good and who is bad, who has done things correctly or incorrectly, Lincoln on the other hand takes a step back and refuses to judge the North or the South. 04.09.01 Speaking about Woodrow Wilson and the Treaty of Versailles, she says "For the most part, throughout the war Wilson is able to garner public support for the war in the United States, he's certainly a hero in Europe and this is in part why he wants to go to Paris by himself, because there's parades, commemorations and dinners all thanking Woodrow Wilson and the American leadership in the war, so this is Wilson s time to shine in Europe. ........Originally Wilson backs away from war and says the alternative to war is armed neutrality, we can be prepared in the United States, we can be armed, but we can also remain neutral and then he changes his tone and says "armed neutrality" is no longer an option, because he views WWI as being a threat to democracy..." 04.12.14 Shogun states "Wilson is without doubt a principled visionary and is motivated by his own philosophical beliefs. Wilson is a political scientist, he's a scholar before he becomes a politician and is motivated by ideas of democracy, motivated by what he believes as being the institutions of democratic government. He's definitely ideologically and philosophically and intellectually motivated by his actions." 04.14.43 Shogun continues "What Truman says is that wars are no longer "declared" anymore, we have to react to situations as they evolve. So, Truman's understanding of it is that World affairs have changed and as a result the Presidency has to change along with the fact that world affairs have been altered." She continues to speak about President Truman and says that the Truman Administration classified the Korean War as a "police action". 04.17.41 "President's look at war and war making as an activity that can enhance their constitutional authority. They look at the commander and chief clause as being a vehicle for power, a vehicle for enhancing their own political capitol. It's an attractive prospect, because it allows the President to act independently. The problem is that wars don't often go the way that President's want them to go and there's an unpredictable nature to wars, all wars have an unpredictable nature, but particularly in modern warfare Presidents can't control everything that goes on in modern warfare and as a result they end up being more controlled by the war than controlling the actually event itself." She continues to say that modern President's should take a page from Lincoln who said "I understand that events control me, more than I control events." 04.19.13 She talks about George Bush, Sr. and that the strongest part of his legacy was his foreign policy involvements and the Iraq War, however his domestic record is weak.