Martyrs are used by messianic movements to sanctify violence. To show any mercy or understanding toward the enemy is to betray the martyr and the cause the martyr died defending.
Chris Hedges: The Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk
Tag: Civil War
Russia at a Crossroads
Moscow’s military campaign under Putin’s leadership has focused on avoiding escalation, says John Wight. But Ukraine’s drone strike deep into Russian territory is a gauntlet thrown down.
John Brown, Violent Crusader, Blazed Lincoln’s Moral Path
The Mystery of the Civil War’s Camp Casey
From the Archive: President Trump says removing “beautiful” Confederate statues erases U.S. history, but the South ignored other Civil War heroes, the freedom fighters in the “colored regiments,” as Chelsea Gilmour noted in 2015.
Trump’s Fragile Grasp of History
President Trump may have been a reality-TV star but his grasp of reality has always been tenuous, underscored by his weak understanding of U.S. and world history, as Michael Winship explains.
Mystery of the Civil War’s Camp Casey
From the Archive: U.S. history is distorted by the prism of race, even the Civil War, which was fought over slavery but then enshrined white heroes when Jim Crow racism quickly asserted itself, a reality relevant to Black History Month…
John Brown’s Anti-Slavery Legacy
For some American abolitionists, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863, was a long time coming, but it was a moment for rejoicing among a racially mixed force in Kansas that included veterans of John Brown’s anti-slavery uprisings, writes…
When New Year’s Meant Freedom
Some white Americans still try to dismiss the evils of slavery, pretending that many slaves were happy serving their white masters. But the morning of Jan. 1, 1863, showed a different reality when President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and…
How to Eradicate Racism
The massacre of nine black churchgoers in Charleston and a rash of arson at other black churches across the South show that despite conservative self-serving claims and liberal wishful thinking about racism becoming a thing of the past, much more…
Confronting Southern ‘Victimhood’
Exclusive: Many white Southerners are getting their backs up again over demands that the Confederate flag and other symbols of slavery be removed. But the core problem is that the South never admitted that slavery and then segregation were wrong, instead…