What the current state of politics could learn from Civil War Soldiers

From a review of a Civil War Art Exhibit in NYC presently.

The Picture is "Home Sweet Home" by Winslow Homer.

This is all a quotation from the review.

Homer's "Home Sweet Home" is a painting of a couple of tired soldiers outside their tents watching a pot boil on a campfire under a sky of fair weather clouds.  In the middle distance light glints off the brass horns of a military band presumably playing the titular tune.  Far away, across a river, there's another encampment with campfire smoke drifting above it.  A heartbreaking back story goes with this image.  It had become a common practice when Union and Confederate troops happened to camp across rivers from each other for their bands to engage in musical exchanges.  They would take turns playing their own favorites, eliciting cheers from both sides, and then the bands would play "Home Sweet Home" in unison.  After one such interlude, a Confederate soldier wrote in his diary, "I do believe that had we not had the river between us that the two armies would have gone together and settled the war right there and then."

Unfortunately, the current state of animosity between the GOP and the Democrats resembles the politics that led up to the Civil War.  While the Democrats are willing to negotiate on budget issues, the GOP feels they need the threat of default or some other potential calamity to be present for their participation in such a negotiation.  Meanwhile, most voters would just as soon get-along and sing patriotic songs on the 4th of July celebrating this land of freedom.


For those readers, who get this far, this week I read a column remembering a grandfather who entered the US from Canada without registering and was a hard working contributor to the US economy and produced offspring who fought to defend this country.  That is not unlike many of the undocumented immigrants in the US today.  And wouldn't the country be better off if they were legally registered.

My own grandfather walked across the border from Canada and registered when he got to NYC.  All these brave immigrants wanted was a chance to work hard and live a solid life in secure circumstances.  What makes all these immigrants so brave is they are prepared to give up everything they have and go forward with nothing but their own energy.  I think many of the opponents of immigration (particularly those in rural areas) are threatened by this because they cannot imagine going somewhere with nothing and starting over.  Because these rural areas have lost out from globalization, they are fearful of even greater losses from forces they can neither control nor understand.