Spielberg's Sovietization of U.S. History

By Thomas J. DiLorenzo

When Steve Spielberg’s movie "Lincoln" came out Time magazine featured interviews with him and his historical advisor on the film, Doris Kearns-Goodwin. Spielberg said the movie is based on part of Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals, because he was so impressed with her scholarship and the great detail and abundance of historical facts in the book. Goodwin herself wrote in Time that she spent ten years researching and writing the book to assure audiences that the movie was in fact very, very well researched. (This project was commenced shortly after she was kicked off the Pulitzer Prize committee and PBS for confessing to plagiarism related to an earlier book of hers).

Time’s cover story included another article by another historian, in order to further persuade Americans that the movie portrays The True Story about the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution that ended slavery. Another major theme of the movie, one which is accurate but not developed nearly enough, is how much of a political conniver, liar and manipulator Lincoln was, and how he ignored the law and the Constitution in myriad ways. This was brought out in the movie so that the punditry could then editorialize about how President Obama should be "more like Lincoln" and ignore any and all constitutional constraints on presidential powers. The punditry did indeed behave in exactly that way before and after the November election.

A couple of years before the movie came out Goodwin was a pervasive presence on various news programs proclaiming how brilliant and magnanimous Lincoln was to have appointed several former political rivals to his cabinet and praising Obama for doing the same (keeping Bush’s Defense Secretary, for instance). In an LRC article entitled "Team of Liars" I pointed out that numerous presidents had done exactly the same thing for generations prior to the Lincoln presidency; the main theme of Goodwin’s Team of Rivals is therefore trivial and false. Nevertheless, these instances are examples of how dishonest "historians" like Doris Kearns-Goodwin attempt to twist and manipulate history in service of the state.

Yours truly recognized the Spielberg movie as fraudulent from the beginning. In another LRC article entitled "Spielberg’s Upside-Down History" I pointed out that Harvard’s Pulitzer prize-winning historian David Donald, the preeminent mainstream Lincoln historian of our time, wrote in his biography of Lincoln (page 545) that Abe in fact had almost nothing whatsoever to do with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, contrary to the main story line of Spielberg’s movie. In fact, as Donald wrote, when asked by genuine abolitionists in Congress if he would assist them in getting the Amendment passed, Lincoln refused. (He did struggle mightily, however, to try to get a first Thirteenth Amendment, known as the Corwin Amendment, passed in 1861 that would have enshrined slavery explicitly in the U.S Constitution).

To my surprise, a member of Congress recently noticed a glaring falsehood in Spielberg’s "Lincoln" and called him out on it. Congressman Joe Courtney of Connecticut was sitting in the movie theater when he was informed by the film that Connecticut congressmen voted against the Thirteenth Amendment. He smelled a rat, and contacted the Congressional Research Service, which informed him that the "facts" portrayed in the movie are false; the entire Connecticut delegation voted FOR the Thirteenth Amendment.


Congressman Courtney wrote to Spielberg asking him to correct the inaccuracy in the DVD version of the movie but was ignored. Spielberg was painted into a corner: If he did what the congressman requested he would be admitting that his film contained a heavy dose of propaganda, contrary to the great effort that had been made to assure audiences of the movie’s historical accuracy. If he ignored the Congressman he risked having him make a big deal of the issue with further press releases. So Spielberg’s screenwriter, Tony Kushner, eventually came out with a feeble defense of the falsehood by writing in USA Today that the purpose of the now-admitted falsehood was "to clarify to the audience the historical reality" of how the Thirteenth Amendment was passed. There you have it in the words of a famous left-wing Hollywood screenwriter (is there any other kind?) –clarifying historical "reality" for the public requires lying about historical reality.

This is the kind of bait-and-switch game that is played by Hollywood leftists with their statist propaganda films. They trot out "distinguished presidential historians" like the disgraced, confessed plagiarist Doris Kearns-Goodwin to assure audiences of the movie’s historical accuracy, but then when they are caught red handed in a pack of lies they plead "poetic license" and argue that "it’s only a movie, after all, and not a portrayal of reality." No wonder some people believe that the word "cinema" is a combination of "sin" and "enema."

I do not own this article. This article belongs to Tom DiLorenzo and lewrockwell.com

Some Good Points on why Price Controls are evil

In a blog post at lewrockwell.com, John Keller states the following reasons why price controls are immoral:

The government interferes directly with the right of contract between two consenting parties
The government claims some ownership over the goods in question by dictating its price
They are a government reaction to prices, which show government's mismanagment of the currency
They are an attempt to shift the blame for said mismanagement from the government to the productive class
They inculcate a sense of entitlement and jealousy among the less educated, who complain about price gouging
They are always accompanied by edicts to report said price gougers, turning the entire nation into potential informers
They lead inevitably to shortages of the most basic items which are always the target of controls - gas, food, and other staples (no one puts price controls on Bentleys and Rolexes) 

What is the deal with Chuck Hagel?

Ever since President Obama has chosen former Senator Chuck Hagel as his nominee for the Secretary of Defense, many in the political establishment of Washington D.C. have been complaining. Most criticism of Chuck Hagel come from establishment Republicans and neoconservatives who are very supportive of the American Empire, the War on Terror, the adjacent covert wars, and a war against Iran on the side of Israel. Bill Kristol of the The Weekly Standard stated that Hagel is "out on the fringes." GOP Senator Lindsay Graham stated of Chuck Hagel: "Chuck Hagel is out of the mainstream of thinking ... on most issues regarding foreign policy," Why are many in the Washington establishment opposed to Chuck Hagel?

Most opposition to Chuck Hagel is due to some of his views on foreign policy. Chuck Hagel is seen as anti-empire and anti-war, much to the disgust of the War Party. Hagel has promoted the idea of the United States talking to Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, supported the Iraq War but soon opposed it, and has claimed that "A military strike against Iran ... is not a viable, feasible, responsible option."

Some comments that Chuck Hagel has made in regards to Israel has earned himself the smear of "anti-Semite" from the neoconservatives. Hagel told author Aaron David Miller that "Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up there". He has since conceded that he misspoke in using the phrase "Jewish lobby". But there is indeed a "Pro-Israel lobby" whose goal is the shape and mold U.S. foreign policy to the benefit of the State of Israel while not necessarily benefiting the United States. Hagel would go further to say that "I am a United States senator, not an Israeli senator," he told Miller. "I support Israel. But my first interest is I take an oath ... to the Constitution of the United States. Not to a president. Not to a party. Not to Israel. If I go run for Senate in Israel, I'll do that." 

Chuck Hagel has earned the smear of "anti-Semite" because he supposedly places the interest of the United States before the interests of the State of Israel. To your typical neoconservatives, if one does not equate the interest of the United States with the interests of the State of Israel, they are smeared as anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-Semite deserving the greatest condemnation. 

The neoconservatives and the Washington establishment also fear his views on talking to Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran. They fear that such talks will make America "weak" and that talking to our supposed enemies will only encourage them. As Patrick Buchanan has stated, "Harry Truman talked to Josef Stalin and read Vyacheslav Molotov the riot act in the Oval Office. Ike invited Nikita Khrushchev to tour the United States three years after he sent tanks into Budapest. Richard Nixon went to China and toasted Mao Zedong, 20 years after the Chinese were killing U.S. solders in Korea and brainwashing our POWs, and at the same time they were conducting their maniacal cultural revolution and shipping weapons to Hanoi.

Israel negotiated with Hezbollah to retrieve the remains of airman Ron Arad and traded 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in a deal with Hamas for the return of Pvt. Gilad Shalit. And we can't talk to them?" 

Many believe that the nomination of Chuck Hagel will bring change to U.S. foreign policy. Even many anti-war conservatives and quasi-libertarians are jumping on the Chuck Hagel bandwagon. But as Congressmen Ron Paul has stated, such belief is "really just a mistaken over-emphasis on personnel over policy. We should not forget that cabinet secretaries serve the president, and not the other way around." He further states that " But let us not forget that he did vote for the war against Iraq, he has expressed support for multi-lateral sanctions on Iran, and last year he wrote in the Washington Post that, on Iran, he supports 'keeping all options on the table, including the use of military force....the real problem is in placing too much emphasis on the person the president hires to carry out his foreign and defense policy, as it ignores that policy itself. If the president has decided to continue or even expand US military action overseas through more covert warfare and use of special operations forces, which seems to be the case, it will matter little who he chooses to carry out those policies. If the president decides to continue to provide support to rebels in Syria who have dubious ties to Islamic extremists, to continue to meddle in the internal affairs of countless countries overseas, to continue to refuse to even talk with Iran without preconditions, and so on, we will not see a return to foreign policy sanity no matter who occupies what position in the president’s cabinet." 

As Laurence Vance, a Christian author and a libertarian, has put it: "Hagel as secretary of defense will change nothing when it comes to U.S. foreign or military policy. Will the U.S. Navy no longer be a global force for evil (not good as the commercials say)? Of course not. Does Hagel want to bring all U.S. troops home from overseas? Of course not. Has he ever said that U.S. troops should no longer be in Germany, Japan, and Italy--since WWII ended in 1945? Of course not. Does Hagel want to close all foreign military bases? Of course not. Does he want to close any? I mean out of principle, not because they are no longer an efficient use of resources. Does Hagel think very highly of the U.S. military and its role in the world? Of course he does. Will Hagel be loyal to the president and his foreign and military policy objectives? Of course he will. Does Hagel think that the U.S. military should withdraw from the Middle East and stop intervening? Of course not. Would Hagel be "better" than Rumsfeld? Only in the sense that getting hit 9 times is better than 10 or getting $9 stolen is better than $10." 

I am not very optimistic that the nomination of Chuck Hagel will change the fundamental foreign policy of war, empire and interventionism to a foreign policy of "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations- entangling alliances with none" of our Founding Fathers.

Ron Paul: War, Politics and the Future of Peace

Peter Klein: Big Business-Friend or Foe?

Robert Murphy: The Social Function of Profits

The Story of Refusing Gun Control: Lexington and Concord

Refusing to Disarm: Lexington and Concord

 An Excerpt of Conceived in Liberty By Murray Rothbard

Despite the mounting tension in the South, the main focus of potential revolutionary conflict was still Massachusetts. The British authorities, ever more attracted to a hard line, were becoming increasingly disenchanted with the timorousness and caution of General Gage, who had actually asked for heavy reinforcements when everyone knew that the scurvy Americans could be routed by a mere show of force from the superb British army. Four hundred Royal Marines and several new regiments were sent to Gage, but the king, one of the leaders of coercion sentiment, seriously considered removing Gage from command.

There were a few voices of reason in the British government, but they were not listened to. The Whiggish secretary of war, Lord Barrington, urged reliance on the cheap and efficient method of naval blockade rather than on a land war in the large expanse and forests of America. And General Edward Harvey warned of any attempt to conquer America by a land army. But the cabinet was convinced that ten thousand British regulars, assisted by American Tories, could crush any conceivable American resistance. Underlying this conviction—and consequent British eagerness to wield armed force—was a chauvinist and quasi-racist contempt for the Americans. Thus, General James Grant sneered at the “skulking peasants” who dared to resist the Crown. Major John Pitcairn, stationed at Boston, was sure that “if he drew his sword but half out of the scabbard, the whole banditti of Massachusetts Bay would flee before him.” Particularly important was the speech in Parliament of the powerful Bedfordite, the Earl of Sandwich, first lord of the Admiralty, who sneeringly asked: “Suppose the colonies do abound in men, what does that signify? They are raw, undisciplined, cowardly men. I wish instead of... fifty thousand of these brave fellows, they would produce in the field at least two hundred thousand; the more the better; the easier would be the conquest... the very sound of a cannon would carry them off... as fast as their feet could carry them.”

There was another reason, it should be noted, for Sandwich’s reluctance to use the fleet rather than the army against the enemy. While the army was to dispatch the Americans, Sandwich wished to use the fleet against France, with which he hoped and expected to be soon at war.

Accordingly, the Crown sent secret orders to Gage, reaching him on April 14. The Earl of Dartmouth rebuked Gage for being too moderate. The decision had been made; since the people of New England were clearly committed to “open rebellion” and independence of Britain, maximum and decisive force must be slammed down hard upon the Americans—immediately. While reinforcements were under way, it was important for the British troops to launch a preventive strike, by moving hard before an American revolution could be organized. Therefore, Gage decided to arrest the leaders of the Massachusetts provincial congress, especially Hancock and Sam Adams. As in so many other “preventive” first strikes in history, Great Britain itself precipitated the one thing it wished most to avoid: a successful revolution. Interestingly enough, the Massachusetts radicals were at the same time rejecting hotheaded plans for a first strike by rebel forces, who would thus be throwing away the hard-forged unity of the American colonists.

Adams and Hancock were out of town and out of reach, near Concord; so Gage decided to kill two birds with one stone by sending a military expedition to Concord to seize the large stores of rebel military supplies and to arrest the radical leaders. Gage determined to send out the force secretly, to catch the Americans by surprise; that way if armed conflict broke out, the onus for initiating the fray could be laid on the Americans. Gage also used a traitor high up in radical ranks. Dr. Benjamin Church, of Boston, whom the British supplied with funds to maintain an expensive mistress, informed on the location of the supplies and the rebel leaders. (Church’s perfidy remained undetected for many more months.) Gage learned from Church, furthermore, that the provincial congress, under the prodding of the frightened Joseph Hawley, had resolved on March 30 not to fight any armed British expedition unless it should also bring artillery. By not sending out artillery, Gage figured that the Americans would not resist the expedition.^[1]

Gage, however, immediately encountered what would prove a major difficulty in fighting a counterinsurgency war by a minority ruling army against insurgent forces backed by the vast majority of the people. He found that, surrounded by a sullen and hostile people, he could not keep any of his troop or fleet movements hidden. The rebels would quickly discover these movements and spread the news.

On April 15, the day after receiving his orders, Gage relieved his best troops of duty, gathered his boats, and on the night of April 18 shipped 700 under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith to the mainland, from which they began to march northwest to Lexington and Concord. But the Americans quickly discovered what was happening. Someone, perhaps Dr. Joseph Warren, sent Paul Revere to Lexington to warn Adams and Hancock. Hancock, emotional, wanted to join the minutemen, springing to arms; but the sober intelligence of Sam Adams reminded Hancock of his revolutionary duty as a top leader of the American forces, and they both fled to safety. Revere was soon captured, but Dr. Samuel Prescott was able to speed to Concord and bring the news that the British were coming.

As news of the British march reached the Americans, the Lexington minutemen gathered under the command of Captain John Parker. Rather absurdly, Parker drew up his handful of seventy men in open formation across the British path. When Major Pitcairn, in charge of six companies of the British advance guard, came up to confront the militia, Pitcairn brusquely ordered the Americans to lay down their arms and disperse. Parker, seeing his error, was more than willing to disperse but not to disarm. In the midst of this tense confrontation, shots rang out. No one knows who fired first; the important thing is that the British, despite Pitcairn’s orders to stop, fired far longer and more heavily than necessary, mercilessly shooting at the fleeing Americans so long as they remained within range. Eight Americans were killed in the massacre (including the brave but foolish Parker who refused to flee), and eight wounded, whereas only one British soldier was slightly wounded. The exuberant and trigger-happy British troops cheered their victory; but the victory at Lexington would prove Pyrrhic indeed. The blood shed at Lexington made the restraining resolution of Joseph Hawley obsolete. The Revolutionary War had begun! Sam Adams, upon hearing the shooting from some distance away, at once realized that the fact of the open clash was more significant than who would win the skirmish. Aware that the showdown had at last arrived, Adams exclaimed, “Oh! What a glorious morning is this!”

The British troops marched happily on to Concord. This time the Americans did not try any foolhardy open confrontation with the British forces. Instead, an infinitely wiser strategy was employed. In the first place, part of the military stores were carried off by the Americans. Second, no resistance was offered to the British entry into Concord, thus lulling the troops into a further sense of security. While the British were destroying the remaining stores, three to four hundred militiamen gathered at the bridge into Concord and advanced upon the British rear guard. The British shot first, but were forced to retreat across the bridge, having suffered three killed and nine wounded. The despised Americans were beginning to make up for the massacre at Lexington.

Heedless of the ominous signs of the gathering storm, Colonel Smith, commanding the expedition, kept his men around Concord for hours before beginning to march back to Boston. That march was to become one of the most famous in the annals of America. Along the way, beginning a mile out of Concord, at Meriam’s Corner, the embattled and neighboring farmers and militiamen employed the tactics of guerrilla warfare to devastating effect. Knowing their home terrain intimately, these undisciplined and individualistic Americans subjected the proud British troops to a continuous withering and overpowering fire from behind trees, walls, and houses. The march back soon became a nightmare of destruction for the buoyant British; their intended victory march, a headlong flight through a gauntlet. Colonel Smith was wounded and Pitcairn unhorsed. The British were saved from decimation only by a relief brigade of twelve hundred men under Earl Percy that reached them at Lexington. Still, Americans continued to join the fray and fire at the troops, despite heavy losses imposed by British flanking parties.

Despite the British reinforcements, the Americans might have slaughtered and conquered the British force if (a) they had not suffered from shortages of ammunition, (b) the British had not swerved into Charlestown and embarked for Boston under the protecting guns of the British fleet, and (c) excessive caution had not held the Americans back from a final blow at the troops on the road to Charlestown. Even so, the deadly march back to Boston was a glorious victory, physically and psychologically, for the Americans. Of some fifteen to eighteen hundred redcoats, ninety-nine were killed and missing, and 174 wounded. The exultant Americans, who numbered about four thousand irregular individuals that day, suffered ninety-three casualties. Insofar as these individuals were led that day, it was by Dr. Joseph Warren and William Heath, appointed a general by the Massachusetts provincial congress.

Events could not have gone better for the American cause: initial aggression and massacre by the arrogant redcoats, then turned to utter rout by the aroused and angry people of Massachusetts. It was truly a tale for song and story. As Willard Wallace writes, “Even now, the significance of Lexington and Concord awakens a response in Americans that goes far beyond the details of the day or the identity of the foe. An unmilitary people, at first overrun by trained might, had eventually risen in their wrath and won a hard but splendid triumph.”^[2]

Above all, as Sam Adams was quick to realize, the stirring events of April 19, 1775, touched off a general armed conflict: the American Revolution. In the immortal lines of Emerson, penned for the fiftieth anniversary of that day:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood

And fired the shot heard round the world.

I do not own this article. This article is owned by the Mises Institute