A synoposis of Zelikows review of the film Lincoln

The main thrust of the review is that Zelikow liked the movie. His reason for this is that he felt that the creators of the movie had moved the understanding of history forward in a way that had not been treated by scholars. His appreciation of this contribution hinges on the timing of the passage of the 13th Amendment as a method for ending the Civil War and that, concomitantly any hesitation in rushing the passage through would have caused the ammendment's defeat. According to the film, had the war ended, any passionate support for the amendment would have been immediately deflated.

The Fundamentals or the Basics

When a football team is new or when an old team's performance drops the coach will say: "we need to concentrate on the basics." One of the basics is that you pounce on a dead ball. This is the real reason that Zelikow wrote this article. Something Lincolnesque comes on the horizon that looks like it will gain a lot of popular support and Zelikow pounces on it to claim ownership for the Republicans: this is our guy, the Emancipator, and we are the party of Lincoln. The reason for this pouncing is that the Republicans "got nothing." I could write a medical treatise on exactly where the artery is that causes stroke because I feel it throbbing every time you criticize one party and people assume that you are supporting the other one and I assure you this is not the case because the Democrats "got nothing" either.

It Is Not That Way Now

It is not that way now but when I checked mid election cycle, say 2010 or so, the Republican National Committee's web site was just a stump. There was page after page of no content, whatsoever, save the page frames with each page having a header at the top with a picture of an historical black person and a brief biography all done in somber tones of sepia and russet. It looked like a website for a black history museum or something thrown together for black history month. That has all changed now and the theme is now all red,white and blue with the focus on victory. A telling item in their store is a hat with the screed Nobama and this is what passes for political discourse in America now, a Newspeak word, not even a slogan but a truncation and concatenation of two words that, in the end, say nothing. And remember, we are only talking about Republicans here because we are focusing on Zelikow. The Democrat's web site is just as bankrupt. On neither site are to be found any White Papers or any kinds of ideas or solutions or ways to move forward and I, personally, have more information on my personal computer than both of these websites combined and I have fewer resources than either party as you can imagine.

Finnegan's Wake

I saw a blurb the other day that stated that: "most new jobs don't require a college degree" which is fully in keeping with the ongoing third-worldization of the United States. I think it is time that we rework The Princeton Guide to Colleges, Peterson's and other such compendiums of supposed excellence in education. The University of Virginia, where Zelikow teaches, is considered a high-value institution a state ivy. Groucho Marx said that "I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member." Conversely, who would want to be in a club with Zelikow in its membership? But Zelikow's inclusion in the faculty of UVa is merely a symbol of the elite's closing of ranks in education in America. Through various exclusions like grades, money, and other barricades, education in America is rapidly changing its face. Colleges and universities are becoming among other things, political action committees, the inclusion of people like John Yoo, Zelikow, Kenneth Starr, Condoleezza Rice, Newt Gingrich, Viet Dinh and to be non partisan, Barrack Obama are not in, or have been in, those positions to educate people on how things are supposed to be done but on how things are to be done. Other radical changes in education are that advanced institutions are now becoming primarily research institutions to the detriment of entry level students. And I don't mean research in a good way but a research whose primary focus is on how to make pointier missiles and more toxic weapons. By all means read Zelikow's review and think if it would be worth good money to have you kids educated by this guy. To me it was hard to get through. I had an easier time getting through Finnegan's Wake .

To be clear, The Lincoln review is a one off. PZ becoming a regular movie reviewer is not happening as darkly absurd and comical that would be.

Lets re-focus back on his special participation in the care of the public 9/11 myth.

Some of you here might have missed this one.

From the 16th annual Frankel Lecture Nov. 4. "Codes of Conduct for a Twilight War." Here Zelikow says outright the OVP (office of the vice president) OK's torture BEFORE 2003 Iraq invasion (and he should know because he wrote the 2002 Bush Doctrine). Toward the end he brags about how to manipulate a team of researchers."giving each one a nugget that they think they discovered on their own".

Zelikow starts, a second speaker comes in and speaks on a similar topic, and then Phil comes back.