Sam Waterston & Gore Vidal on Lincoln

[FinallyTheNight]

Lincoln's public utterances concerning slaves are troubling. As a lawyer he represented slave-owners in support of the Fugitive Slave Act. Lincoln's steadfast dedication to keeping Illinois a "free" state meant that there would be no Negro slavery is Illinois because Negroes would not be allowed to settle in Illinois. Illinois would be a free state: a Negro-free state.

[bookkeeper57]

I don't like Gore Vidal: Lincoln did not "bring on a civil war he could have avoided".

Lincoln inherited a political situation that was brewing for nearly 50 years, and a conflict that was already underway.

[Strefanash]

I find it rich that while the Americans could secede from the British Empire they refused to allow the South to secede from the American Empire.

this kind of double standard is an outrage

[bookkeeper57]

@Strefanash Americans seceded from the British Empire over the question of 1st class citizenship and fair taxation. In the process, they drafted a unique constitution which founded the most successful democracy the world has ever seen. Even if you are British, you don't deny that. Over the same constitution, the American civil war was fought. The Confederacy chose a constitution that mimicked the original in every detail except the right to enslave human beings;

and it was doomed. 

[Ramubay]

@Strefanash The British Empire was not allowing America a vote in their destiny. Something called "taxation without representation." The south had the right to vote. Your lack of knowledge of simple facts is the real outrage. You are an example why mentally-challenged couples shouldn't have kids.

[Strefanash]

some research and my opinion of Abe Lincoln, the American Bismark, changed absolutely.

No longer am I moved to anything but disgust when i see photos of the colossal statue the lincoln memorial.

Free the slaves? He was an imperialist who only freed them as a proaganda stunt when his armies were being trounced by the south

, and yes his treatment of native american was typically criminal

[bookkeeper57]

@Strefanash Wrong: Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation only after the Union had a significant victory in the field; check your facts. That proclamation had conditions: the south could keep what slaves they had, with no hope of recovering those who ran north or joined the army, for ending secession. Lincoln was a constitutional lawyer, and an abolitionist at heart, but he knew that slavery was an entrenched abuse, not to be resolved in one lifetime.

[Strefanash]

@bookkeeper57 I stand corrected on this point. Lincoln did indeed announce only after a victory by northern forces, in order to appear strong. My sources, who i quoted in good faith, were in error.

as to thinking him a good or great man, that i do no longer. I stil regard him as the American Bismarck.

I regard him niot as an abolitionist but as a politician whose aims were suited by abolition. After all it broke British and French support for the South

[bookkeeper57]

@Strefanash To each his own: if you are an American citizen, the country you live in would be very different if Lincoln failed to preserve the Union or uphold the original constitution. South of the Mason-Dixon line would be a corrupt, despotic banana republic where enslavement was a fact of life. The British in fact had their own political and economic agenda in supporting secession; or the dissolution of the 13 original colonies that threw them off American soil 100 years earlier.

[tripleheshy]

@Rico8458 What brain dead Communist hippie taught you that bullshit? Never heard of the trail of tears?? Of course not because Jackson was a Democrat like you. Ignorant asshole.

[TheWorldFarOff]

Lincoln on Slavery: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery." --- March 14, 1861

"What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races." --- 7-17-1858, fr. a speech delivered in Springfield, Ill.

"I am not in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, or of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people." --- September 15, 1858

[TheWorldFarOff]

[Don't praise our worst Chief Magistrate, our version of Hitler: Abe Lincoln. His war killed 620,000 citizens and maimed millions more. Stop! Think! Clean up your act you miserable fawners!]

[nohonor89]

@TheWorldFarOff Holy cow, you don't even finish the actual sentences. How's that for taking things out of context?

Anyone who believes these quotation are fair representations of truth should really read them in their original form and context.

[filmmaven]

Total 2001: a space odyssey flashback for a moment, there.

[atrickpay11]

Vidal: "he could have avoided the Civil War."

Amen to that!

[chinchonchinchon]

@atrickpay11

Let's re-write history then.

[bookkeeper57]

@atrickpay11 Wrong: he could have avoided the Civil War if he was Gore Vidal.

The Civil War was being fought out in Congress and there were incidents daily over runaway slaves. For exercising their right to free speech, well known abolitionists

were being shot.

[tripleheshy]

@atrickpay11 What an asinine thing to say. Gore Vidal is a tumor on the soul of this country.

[atrickpay11]

@tripleheshy if you're pro-establishment pro-State maybe you'd think that.

[Lingerfoot]

Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul - 2012

[lincolnsbetterangels]

"No breath of shame

Can touch his shield,

Nor ages dim its shine.

Living, he made life beautiful,

Dying, made death divine..."

Louisa May Alcott

[Lingerfoot]

Ron Paul and Jesse Ventura - 2012

[foxisnotnews]

fuck ya bro

[Lingerfoot]

Ralph Nader and Ron Paul - 2012, The Dream Team!!

[kurtisblow3000]

Ron Paul is a racist psychopath.

hurry up and give me thumbs down zeitgeist drones!

[Lingerfoot]

Jesse Ventura - 2012!

[RationalEmotive]

I love the intro.

[kungfu2u2]

History is written by the victors, but only a fool will believe it.

And so you do.

[nrein89]

But you believe the history you brought up in your previous comments, right?

I'm not taking any side with or against you, except that Hitler was worse than Lincoln in that I don't recall reading (more foolish history) anything that stated or implied that Lincoln wanted to enslave/dehumanize/destroy a whole people, unlike Hitler.

[just2w4tch]

Gore Vidal is so full of himself. should be punched in the face.

[87viola87]

Aram Khachaturian in the background. Sweet!

[melissa13549]

i love sam here because he has still black hair and not grey during Law & order and how he is in the real and not on law & order.

[lincolnsbetterangels]

What a great video! Thanks for posting!

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.... You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it." - Abraham Lincoln's Inaugural Address

[kungfu2u2]

"Saruman, I have heard speeches like this before, but only from the agents of Mordor to deceive the ignorant. Have you no others to offer?"

--Gandalf

[w738]

Are you being facecious?

[w738]

Lincoln was a monster. He trampled on the Constitution to start a war that killed 620,000 people out of a population of thirty million. He suspended habeus corpus, shut down newspapers, and arrested and imprisoned political opponents. He was one of our worst presidents.

[carsel3]

Oh whatever, lets face it you gotta break a couple of eggs to make an omlet.

[savedfromcaptivity]

There's nothing sacred about the Constitution -- if Lincoln trampled it, he did so to protect the people it and the government failed to. And to claim he started the war is to ignore 250 years of previous history; might as well blame Arch Duke Ferdinand for another war.

[kungfu2u2]

I agree-- same goes for Hitler too, he was just saving his country. So was every dictator.

[lombard34]

If all Hitler had done was help Germany to become a strong nation again, no one would have had a problem with him. This was part of why the Europeans were willing to appease him, they figured that all he wanted to do was get rid of the unfair terms of the Treaty of Versailles. But no intelligent person, especially with hindsight, would claim that all Hitler wanted to do was save his country. You, kungfu2u2, are either a great distorter of history, or a very poor interpreter of it.

[kungfu2u2]

That assumes you're intelligent, which you're not:

"I agree-- same goes for Hitler too, he was just saving his country. So was every dictator."

That's SARCASM. Lincoln was a dictator.

"If all Hitler had done was help Germany to become a strong nation again, no one would have had a problem with him."

Then I guess you think Stalin wasn't a threat to Germany or anyone else, and the Cold War "just happened" by magic.

Lincoln was worse than Hitler.

[lombard34]

I see, you weren't being a Hitler apologist, you were being a sarcastic nerd. Improvement.

Stalin wasn't a threat to Hitler. Stalin was very pleased with his pact with Germany, and had no intentions of attacking Germany. But Hitler was paranoid.

Lincoln, whether it was his goal or not, freed the slaves. Hitler wanted to enslave all of Europe. Lincoln's army was attacked at Fort Sumter, he was defending his nation; Hitler was aggressively attacking all of his neighbors.

Read up.

[kungfu2u2]

"I see, you weren't being a Hitler apologist, you were being a sarcastic nerd. Improvement."

It sure beats a clueless douche like yourself.

"Stalin wasn't a threat to Hitler."

I guess the Cold War was just a horrible dream. (ass)

"Lincoln, whether it was his goal or not, freed the slaves."

And Hitler created the Volkswagen. Big fucking deal, Putz; imperialism is imperialism. "Hitler wanted to enslave all of Europe."

Funny how he left Britain alone until they started it.

[lombard34]

Stalin had no intention of attacking Nazi Germany. Hitler was paranoid, as surely as you are an idiot.

Freeing the slaves from bondage is not comparable to creating the volkswagon. Only a true scumbag would make that statement, and you seem to qualify.

Hitler left Britain alone? Well, one thing at a time; he was too busy annexing Czechoslovakia and Poland. Fuckwit.

Fort Sumter belonged to the Union and the south attacked it. Lincoln had a responsibility to respond.

Read up, worthless rodent.

[lombard34]

By the way, the Cold War started after World War II, not during the time that Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Maybe you should consider re-taking 3rd grade history, shithead.

[patcorkery1985]

@lombard34 :D

[kungfu2u2]

"Lincoln's army was attacked at Fort Sumter, he was defending his nation; Hitler was aggressively attacking all of his neighbors."

You fucking moron, the United States is not a nation like Lincoln claimed,, any more than the Germanic states were part of the nation of Germany-- like HITLER claimed. And Hitler was freeing German states that were under Soviet rule thanks to US intervention that created communism in WWI.

Fort Sumter was deep inside the state of South Carolina. Fuck off turd.

[Bastardozer]

Deluded neo-nazi conspiracy theorist claims U.S. inadvertantly created communism and that the **UNITED states were still autonomous colonies prior to the Civil War. How have you not blown your own head off already?

[conspiracist]

It wasn't inadvertant.

[davideley]

In times of War the Constitution will bend - it will forgive a little. In the case of Lincoln he had to

bend it or lose the Union. That Slavery was abolished

in the process was one redeeming reason the Union stayed together.

[kungfu2u2]

Actually he trampled on international law, which is HIGHER than the Constitution; and every state was a sovereign nation under international law.

But Lincoln just claimed that the US owned the states-- and when Hitler, Stalin and Saddam Hussein invaded other nations, they said the same thing... looks like great mind minds think alike.

[atrickpay11]

Kunfu2u2: Agreed.

People should check out Tom Dilorenzo's book "Lincoln Unmasked." It smashes the myths of the "Lincoln cult."

[kingslice75]

I've seen so many episodes of Law & Order and have never known Sam Waterston for anything else, so to see him in something like this, as himself, is amazing!

[kungfu2u2]

A left-wing jackass?

[ffairlane57]

I like Lincoln.

[thatdrattedcat]

wow, what a neat video!

[jhjenn]

Wow. Personal handwritten letters to the families of the deceased. Can you imagine? Today we have (had) our Sec. of Defense using an automatic signature machine.

[CharlieChan007]

Good video. Thanks.

[GusF]

Very touching.

[jhankins]

These are really great, Michael. Thanks for sharing your work.

[jdpenfold]

Oh and thanks for sharing this with us by the way, mlfilms. Very moving.

[mcsas]

If anyone has the famous confrontation between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley from many years back can you please upload it. I have never viewed it lo these many years.

[jdpenfold]

Have found a site where you can watch the Vidal-Buckley debate in 5 parts. Unfortunately it's on a tiny screen and not great quality but is still enjoyable nonetheless. http://kronykronicle.com/1968/­index.html

[mcsas]

Thanks JD. I checked it out. You're right, kinda small but at least now I know what I've been missing.

[seans10]

Thanks for posting that link to the Buckley-Vidal debate. I've always wanted to see it.

[jdpenfold]

I like Vidal's expression after Buckley loses it - slightly scared but also very satisfied that he's annoyed the hell out of him!

[sgraniknn]

What about Vidal and Norman Mailer on dick Cavett show. Anyone seen that?

[jdpenfold]

Have searched the net in vain. Even more frustrating is that the various descriptions of it out there just make me want to see it even more - Mailer tells Cavett to "just read your cue card" and Cavett replies "Why don't you fold it five ways and stick it where the moon don't shine."

[kurtisblow3000]

slightly scared? I saw no scared, just amusement with Buckleys oafish stupidity.