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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>This is ten years old, but still relevant.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Art Hilgart<br>
<a href="mailto:ahilgart@kzoo.edu" title="mailto:ahilgart@kzoo.edu">ahilgart@kzoo.edu</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p align=center style='text-align:center'><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:18.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Memorial Day</span></font><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p align=center style='text-align:center'><i><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:18.0pt;font-style:italic'>Art Hilgart</span></font><o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p><a name="BM_1_"></a><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:18.0pt'>If today is typical of Memorial Days past, editors and
commentators throughout the nation (and perhaps elsewhere on this page) are
paying tribute to those who died for our freedom. The only problem in these
facile sentiments is history. On another Memorial Day, a prominent columnist
numbered among those who died for freedom the fallen in the American
Revolution, the Civil War, and our invasion of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Viet Nam</st1:place></st1:country-region>. </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt'>The point
of the American Revolution was not freedom, but whether our capital was to be
in <st1:City w:st="on">London</st1:City> or (eventually) the <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">District of Columbia</st1:place></st1:State>. Our personal
liberties, such as they are, are provided by the post-war afterthought, the Bill
of Rights. The Civil War was a similar conflict, this time over whether the
Confederacy would have its seat of government in <st1:City w:st="on">Richmond</st1:City>
or <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State>.
Emancipation was another post-war round of constitutional amendments. The
connection of our liberty to our Indochinese wars is known, if at all, only to
those who assert it.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:18.0pt'>Liberty</span></font></st1:place></st1:City><font
size=5><span style='font-size:18.0pt'> is a fragile thing that has nothing to
do with battlefields. The Bill of Rights was the work not of generals, but a
small group of intellectuals— liberal intellectuals. The freedom promised
by our Constitution is realized only through the untiring work of the American
Civil Liberties Union and similar organizations acting in the courts on our
behalf. Warriors, on the other hand, seem to have little regard for the
Constitution. <st1:PersonName w:st="on">Richard</st1:PersonName> Nixon killed
in Asia and gave us Watergate; Ronald Reagan killed in <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nicaragua</st1:place></st1:country-region> and
gave us Iran-Contra. George Bush ran against the Bill of Rights and invaded <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Panama</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Our
ongoing Gulf War is to maintain the illegal feudal ownership of <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kuwait</st1:place></st1:country-region> by the Al
Sabah family, not for anybody’s freedom. </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt'>And even
if our wars were somehow related to our freedoms, there is the other side of
dying for them-- killing for them. Let us say that our right to vote was
somehow contingent on the action at <st1:place w:st="on">My Lai</st1:place>. In
that case, I would willingly give up my vote to restore those lives. It is one
thing to risk one's own life for a principle and quite another to kill the
innocent for one. If one seeks exemplary death for freedom, look to Martin
Luther King, to the six at <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Kent</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">State</st1:PlaceName> and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Jackson</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceName w:st="on">State</st1:PlaceName></st1:place>, to Goodman,
Schwerner, and Cheney. </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt'>Those who
seek to sanctify our past wars by tying them to liberty are undoubtedly moved
by sympathy with the survivors of the sons and husbands who died carrying out
orders issued from the safety of <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State>.
The past is past, they may rationalize. What are a few lies to make people feel
good? What they do, of course, is prepare another generation of sons and
husbands to kill and die in the fantasy that it is all for liberty. Some
sympathy.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt'>The name
of the holiday is Memorial Day. Let us therefore honor the past by remembering
it and not by inventing it.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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