This is my first interview in 4 months. I’ve been on a hiatus in order to focus more on home-life priorities since (in case y’all haven’t noticed) modern life is pretty darn crazy. So for my toe-dip back in the podcasting pool, I chose to talk with my friend and brother in arms Paul C. Graham, author of the tremendous new book “Nonsense on Stilts: The Gettysburg Address & Lincoln’s Imaginary Nation.” The book tackles Abe’s famous war-craft speech, which Graham says “has achieved a status akin to holy writ” and resulted in a “quasi-religious orgy of praise.” Memorized by high school students across the fruited plains and touted by every neocon who draws breath, the Gettysburg Address has come to define the (false) “American psyche” and is a “contradiction we all live with.”
Download this episode, watch on YouTube or Odysee, or listen here.
A few relevant links pertaining to our conversation:
• Dissident Mama, episode 4 – Paul C. Graham
• Lincoln on Stilts by David Gordon
• Dishonest Abe’s False Alibi by Perrin Lovett
• “Nonsense on Stilts”: The Rhetorical Cornerstone of the American Welfare/Warfare State by Tom DiLorenzo
• Lyin’ Atlanta, part 2 by me: “Since the victors write the history, we now have our revolutionary bookends: Lincoln predictably cast as the ‘redeemer’ and MLK as the ‘healer,’ while the South with its (fill in the blank) ‘slavery,’ ‘treason,’ ‘racism,’ ‘greed,’ ‘backwardness,’ ‘laziness,’ etc. is forever framed as the enemy of the good, an ornery and cancerous impediment to the ‘holy work’ of our twin messiahs. It’s a Bolshevik blueprint with staying power.”
Comments
Great interview, Miss Rebecca! The Gettysburg Address has indeed been repeated so often that you become oblivious to what’s actually being said. Mencken’s noting its “nonsensicality” is spot on! In fact, I’d call it a beautiful lie, just like much of the “history” we’ve been taught for eons.
Author
Thanks, my friend. I say down with worship of the Gettysburg Address, and then next on tap? The Statue of Liberty https://www.dissidentmama.net/a-patriotic-perspective-against-the-pledge/. And then onward to knocking MLK off his pedestal, too https://www.dissidentmama.net/lyin-atlanta-part-2/!