Tag: War Of 1812

RICH MAN’S WAR, POOR MAN’S BLOOD

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” – General Smedley Butler

I don’t need your civil warIt feeds the rich while it buries the poorYour power hungry sellin’ soldiersIn a human grocery store

Guns N’ Roses – Civil War

Whether it is a distinguished general who came to his senses in 1935, after doing the bidding of the monied interests by initiating conflict throughout the world to fill their coffers with blood money, or a rock & roll star fifty years later writing a hit song about the exact same theme, the song remains the same. The wealthy always benefit from war, the poor always die in their wars, and politicians are bribed to continually foment conflict, hate, and railing against whoever their puppet masters choose as the enemy of the moment. This is not a recent development, it has spanned centuries, just the sums of money feeding the military industrial complex are now astronomical.

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THIS DAY IN HISTORY – War of 1812 begins – 1812

Via History.com

The day after the Senate followed the House of Representatives in voting to declare war against Great Britain, President James Madison signs the declaration into law—and the War of 1812 begins. The American war declaration, opposed by a sizable minority in Congress, had been called in response to the British economic blockade of France, the induction of American seaman into the British Royal Navy against their will, and the British support of Indian tribes along the Great Lakes frontier.

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A NEW JACKSONIAN ERA?

“Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out!” – Andrew Jackson

“There is nothing the political establishment will not do, and no lie they will not tell, to hold on to their prestige and power at your expense. The Washington establishment, and the financial and media corporations that fund it, exists for only one reason: to protect and enrich itself. This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not We The People reclaim control over our government. The political establishment that is trying everything to stop us, is the same group responsible for our disastrous trade deals, massive illegal immigration, and economic and foreign policies that have bled this country dry.

The political establishment has brought about the destruction of our factories and our jobs, as they flee to Mexico, China and other countries throughout the world. It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.” – Donald Trump

Andrew Jackson was a bigger than life figure who lived from the early stages of the American Revolution until the country was on the verge of splitting apart over slavery and states’ rights issues. Born in the Carolinas shortly after his father died in an accident, he acted as a courier during the Revolutionary War. Andrew and his brother Robert were captured by the British and held as prisoners and nearly starved to death in captivity.

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1812: The Inconsequential War That Changed America Forever

WHY SHOULD I CARE?

Most adult Americans today are unaware of what caused the War of 1812, who started it, what the outcome was, or even who the belligerents were. If I recall correctly, my grade school / high school History Class covered The War Of 1812 — aka America’s Second War Of Independence, or America’s Forgotten War — for a total of maybe one week. And what a worthless week it was. Like most history teachers I’ve ever had, they turned an exciting story into a dry bundle of boring crap … focusing on memorizing dates and random events without getting to the real story behind the story; i.e. why did it happen, how does the war affect us today, and what can we learn from it?  This is a crying shame because the war had a tremendous impact on American political development, territorial expansion, and national identity.

A 19th century French historian said, “History studies not just facts and institutions, its real subject is the human spirit.” The word ‘history’ comes from the Greek, and literally means “knowledge acquired by investigation”. So, let us investigate the War Of 1812, and the spirit of humanity which caused it … and changed America forever.

OVERALL SUMMARY

There were two major reasons given for the war.

First, Britain was at war with France since 1793. For twenty years the British claimed they had the right – as a legitimate and necessary wartime measure — to intercept American ships on the high seas, seize and keep their cargoes, and search the crews for British navy deserters. The British between 1807 and 1812 seized some 400 American ships and cargoes worth millions of dollars.

Second, was the British practice of ‘impressment’. A chronic manpower shortage in the Royal Navy led the Brits to stop American merchant vessels on the high seas and remove seamen. Between 1803 and 1812 the Brits captured an estimated six to nine THOUSAND Americans in its dragnet. These men were subjected to all the horrors of British naval discipline—enforced with the cat-o’-nine-tails—and made to fight a war that was not their own.

America felt this violated its rights as a neutral and sovereign nation. So, we declared war against the Brits in 1812.

THE END OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR SEEDED THE WAR OF 1812

Isn’t that often the case … that the end of one war, and the demands of the victor, eventually leads to yet another war? The war for American Independence lasted until 1783 when the peace treaty with the British was signed. Imagine the giddy feeling you would have had at that time. Freedom! Independence! But the rational exuberance was met with irrational naivete.

The American populace, including its politicians, assumed that the British would continue to allow access to British ports …. as if nothing at all happened! America assumed that the Brits needed our wheat, the British Navy needed our timber, hemp, and tar, and British colonies in the West Indies needed our fish, wheat, and salt to feed their slaves. This was a big miscalculation.

Canada and Ireland delivered most of the same goods. In fact, America needed the Brits more than they needed us as we depended on British manufacturing goods. America had zero leverage, and it was Britain that dictated foreign policy. They admitted American raw materials on a case-by-case basis, excluded manufactured goods altogether from entering England, and closed West Indian ports to American goods. Bullocks to America! What could America do? Nothing. We had no navy to back up our demands.

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