Claire McNab

#HeatherCoxRichardson is an eminent American historian. She also writes a substack, with >2 million readers.

Her latest post https://archive.is/pkR9b labels the #WhiteHouse as "the People's House".

That is fantasy. It's a mansion for an imperial president with a button to blow up the world.

Yet American public discourse laps up this blatant mendacity. The label "People’s House" is widely used.

#HCR should be chased out of town for such crass propaganda. Instead, she's celebrated. 😡

#uspol

May 28 at 1:42pmWeb
Show threadWILLIAM B PECKHAMMay 28
@2legged She is celebrated because she is correct. That house was built by the people for their chosen representative to administrate from while representing them. (until they get sick of him and kick him out, or until his term is up, whichever comes first.) just because it's being misused and mucked with right now doesn't change what it is or why it's there.
Show threadClaire McNabMay 28

@wpeckham Sounds like you are a happy believer in the glory of the empire.

Is it fair to assume that you slso salute the flag and praise military service and believe that the USA stands for freedom?

Show threadWILLIAM B PECKHAMMay 28
@2legged I believe that the USA has stood for freedom. It hasn't always practiced what it preached or supported its values that it claims to espouse. I believe in the goals and the standards that it claims to want to achieve. And I want it to achieve those standards. No matter how long it takes, it's worth the work. As for military service, I did stand at combat arms for this country for 23 years. In that time, I never received an illegal order that I had to turn down. I do not envy the men and women that are currently serving in the US military because they are receiving orders that they have to in good conscience refuse. The good news is, they are refusing them, even if that means the end of their military career. Some of the people in government and people in charge may not stand for the goals and values of the United States and the promises of its Constitution, but most of the rest of us do.
Show threadClaire McNabMay 29
@wpeckham the USA allowed slavery for its first 90 years, the Jim Crow for most of the next 90. Since then, it has become the most imprisoned nation on earth.
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You come across as a decent & civil man. But if you really think that is standing for freedom, you got some big logical gap. I don't blame you personally for that, 'cos most Americans have these big lies hammered into them by the world's most potent propaganda system. But its why so much American political discourse is as bizarre as HRC.
Show threadWILLIAM B PECKHAMMay 29
@2legged Slavery should never have existed in the United States once it was established as a nation. It took us a long time, but we finally fixed that. There were a ton of other things that we fixed. Some of them stayed fixed, and some of them came back a time or two, and we're still fighting them. The so-called "war on drugs" that filled our prison system was an ill-conceived attack on people of color and especially Latinos. It was stupid, and we've been fighting it ever since, and we're beginning to win that one. We have a lot of other things still to fix, but the principle of being a bastion of freedom and individual rights is still valid. But it's not a goal you can ever say you've achieved as long as there's anyone who doesn't have rights. There is no end point. It's a process that goes on forever. There are always things to fix. There are people that don't understand that, and trying to have a conversation with them is just weird. I'm not one of those. But I've been in this fight for 74 years and I'll fight until I'm not alive anymore. And I'm not alone.
Show threadClaire McNabMay 29

@wpeckham it's a good fight. I wish you well..

But so long as such a huge proportion of the population are systematically denied freedom, then callingtvte USA free is not true. This isn't a detail to be fuxed; it's a fundamental misrepresentation of what the USA has always been