Surely the ONLY urgently relevant aspect
of Lincoln to be dealing with —for the FIRST
time, would be his quite possibly –FATAL–
diss of the Global USURY banking syndicate.
(CHECK OUT ‘Money Masters documentary)

And BEWARE! —this would NOT be the
first time Spielberg’s collusion and timing
was creepy.

BE AWARE! —he released his guilt-trippy,
PC revisionist ode to China ‘Empire of the Sun’
during the heyday of handover to RED China
and on the eve of the
———–TIENNAMEN MASSACRE.

MAO still beams over Tiennamen

—Their flag is STILL —-RED

——-EUGENICS is STILL unfolding

And this is the —’mysteriously overlooked’—
————–60th Anniversary—————-
of the RED China, Globalism and EUGENICS
‘unfriendly’

—————-KOREAN WAR——————-

But the puzzle remains: given that it’s apocryphal, K & S still retained it, while transferring it to the carriage-ride scene, which they prefaced with the clearly made-up comment about being out-for-a-ride on Good Friday. In other words, both Christianity and “Jerusalem,” Jewish version, are brought together in the script, with Lincoln ignoring Christian convention and aspiring towards Davidic Jerusalem. Coincidences? A K-S jeu d’esprit? My fertile imagination? None of the above?

The story does not have the ring of truth to me. After Lincoln’s death, clergymen tended to create apocryphal stories and quotations that made him appear more conventionally religious than he really was. He was of a religious nature, of course, and a close reader of the Bible, but he was not theologically orthodox. From what I’ve read about Lincoln, my sense of the man is that his first priority, after leaving office, would not have been a visit to the Holy Land.

From what I’ve just said, it would be rather odd if the story was incorporated into the movie to make Lincoln appear more “Jewish” than Christian.

I didn’t see any obvious Jesus-scenes; the opening scene with the two sets of soldiers was more Hal before the battle of Agincourt than anything in Scripture. As for his death-bed scene, when I saw it I didn’t detect any particular Christian-allusion. It was, however, quite obvious that the scene very very, very self-consciously framed, so I could have missed something. But it seems a stretch, e.g., to liken the attendant cabinet to the disciples. As for spending himself to the final penny of his strength, I too, would have aged a decade during the final year of the war, especially if I spent all night looking over pardons. That seemed required by historical verisimilitude rather than symbolism of some sort.

One thing I noticed about the historical license that K & P allowed themselves: the chief topic of debate during the 13th Amendment debate was the constitutionality of the amendment itself; that was completely ignored. Michael Zuckert’s very good on this point (and on the 13th and 14th Amendments in general).

Lincoln the family man was counterpoised to Lincoln the politician. “Father Abraham” didn’t quite span the two, I thought. In other words, the differences struck me more than any similarities. In any event, there’s a lot there to think about in connection with his relationships with his two sons and his wife.

I thought too many of the characters spoke too well. We needed some dialect and class differences.

The most false note in the movie for me was during the aforementioned ride on GF, when Mary expressed her concern about how she’d be viewed by history. Really? On the other hand, Lincoln certainly had views about America’s place in human history. They movie did not try to deal with his own ambition.

When I said “the low arts of politics,” I wasn’t deriding them as immoral. However, there was a clear suggestion that Lincoln, in crunch time, went beyond patronage-dangling. This, of course, was counterbalanced by his wonderfully deft one-on-one soliciting of votes (not all of which worked). But from the dialogue and action I gathered the consummate politician okayed bribery as well. (BTW: James Spader was wonderful as Bixby, although one could say the same thing about almost all of the actors.)

Among the best features of the flick: the portrayal of Lincoln’s speech: as lover and raconteur of stories (with a point); a very laconic public speaker (“And that’s my speech.”); possessing eutrapelia (i.e., well-adjusted to his interlocutors and situation; his capacity for drawing people out and thereby drawing them in (or vice versa).

Lots there. Chime in!

I have no doubt that Spielberg and Kushner are anti-Christian, but they are not much on Jewish identity, either, except to the extent that Judaism and Jewish identity are wholly identified with the Left, to the point of being submerged therein. (This is the standard approach to Judaism and its sources and symbols in all non-Orthodox movements today; everything is reinterpreted as symbolizing Leftist values.) A few years ago, Kushner offered the view that the founding of the State of Israel was a “mistake.” Of course, this is not because he believes that salvation occurs on a “spiritual” plane, but because he believes that salvation occurs through the worldwide progress to a Leftist vision of “justice,” from which parochial Jewish nationalism (aka Zionism) is a distraction.

Spielberg and Kushner also collaborated on the Munich movie, which is notably hostile to Israel’s program of rubbing out the terrorists responsible for the murder of the Israeli athletes. Rather odd for Obama worshippers to deplore such tactics, but then, they made the movie before BHO became president and began targetted killings of people on the other side of the world who, supposedly, might kill some of us one day.