Dave Fortin

@davidwfortin.bsky.social

917 Followers 1001 Following

History teacher in Philadelphia. APUSH, AP Govt. Dogfather. XC and track dad. STL Cards, Blues, and STLCity fan. Army vet (Gulf War). Notre Dame alum. Gen X. "The air tasted of lies.” S. De Beauvoir

Pritzker for Khan coffee mug
Prospero’s Books was garbage
The Fourth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment entering Vicksburg on July 4, 1863. (Photo Credit: Minnesota Historical Society)
“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and without remembrance, nothing can hold them back. For human beings, thinking of past matters means moving in a dimension of depth, striking roots and thus stabilizing themselves, so as not to be swept away by whatever may occur—the Zeitgeist or History or simple temptation. The greatest evil is not radical, it has no roots, and because it has no roots it has no limitations, it can go to unthinkable extremes and sweep over the whole world.” Hannah Arendt, “Some Questions of Moral Philosophy” (1966)
July 4th: hot as fuck and humid--typical DC in July. 40% chance of thunderstorms during the day and night.
But the sectional character of this war was merely accidental, and its least significant feature. It was a war of ideas, a battle of principles and ideas which united one section and divided the other: a war between the old and new, slavery and freedom, barbarism and civilization; between a government based upon the broadest and grandest declaration of human rights the world ever heard or read, and another pretended government, based upon an open, bold, and shocking denial of all rights, except the right of the strongest… There was a right side and a wrong side in the late war, which no sentiment ought to cause us to forget, and while to-day we should have malice toward none, and charity toward all, it is no part of our duty to confound right with wrong, or loyalty with treason. Frederick Douglas, 1878
They were all scum, but only Nixon walked free and lived to clear his name. Or at least that's what Bill Clinton says -- and he is, after all, the President of the United States. Nixon liked to remind people of that. He believed it, and that was why he went down. He was not only a crook but a fool. Two years after he quit, he told a TV journalist that "if the president does it, it can't be illegal” Shit. Not even Spiro Agnew was that dumb. He was a flat-out, knee-crawling thug with the morals of a weasel on speed. But he was Nixon's vice president for five years, and he only resigned when he was caught red-handed taking cash bribes across his desk in the White House…. Nixon's spirit will be with us for the rest of our lives -- whether you're me or Bill Clinton or you or Kurt Cobain or Bishop Tutu or Keith Richards or Amy Fisher or Boris Yeltsin's daughter or your fiancée's 16-year-old beer-drunk brother with his braided goatee and his whole life like a thundercloud out in front of him. This is not a generational thing. You don't even have to know who Richard Nixon was to be a victim of his ugly, Nazi spirit. He has poisoned our water forever. Nixon will be remembered as a classic case of a smart man shitting in his own nest. But he also shit in our nests, and that was the crime that history will burn on his memory like a brand. By disgracing and degrading the Presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream. Hunter S. Thompson, June 16, 1994
Peter Mancall, Contested Continent: The Struggle for North America, 1000-1680 (Oxford History of the US vol 1, 2026)