The Top Five Most Stupid Battles of All Time

War is hell.  And stupidity.  Just ask any vet sporting one of those futuristic blade-runner legs they're fixing our amputee service-people with from Iraq or Afghanistan and they'll give it to you straight.  Sure, they volunteered, but that doesn't make war such a good idea. And if you want to know just how exactly dumbass war is, it totally flies in the face of evolution, removing the young and strong from the gene pool and leaving the old dip-shit admirals and generals who are too busy writing their memoirs and getting their brass knobs polished to do any actual generaling/admiraling to give the first fuck about the lives they're about to toss into the meat grinder.  As a testament to the idiodacity of war, I present you, in no particular order, with the five most stupid battles ever fought.

1. The Battle of New Orleans - War of 1812.  What should have gone down as the best showing of the new American Repiblic's armed forces under the dynamic leadership of General Andrew Jackson, who had a real goddamn pirate fighting on his side during the course of this humiliating rout of the British Army, instead must necessarily be consigned to the "Whoops, we blew our chunks all over THAT one!" file, because the Battle of New Orleans happened after the fucking war was already over!  If there were NFL referees, the U.S. of A. would be hit with a "personal foul-late hit" penalty for this monumental communications breakdown.  Now granted, it's not like General Jackson could have called up the White House and told them "We march at dawn!" and President Madison would have said, "Umm, don't because we just beat them, ok?"  Still, it's not like guys that died at the battle would have been like, "Ok, guess we'll just go home now and not get killed, so have a nice day!"  So to recap: big win, totally bogus battle.

Um, you guys are late.  Does this battle really count?

2. The Battle of the Crater - U.S. Civil War.  The Confederate Army at Petersburgh was dug-in so superbly that finer trenches would have to wait for WWI to be built.  Robert E. Lee's troops nickname for their famous general was the King of Spades, not because he always seemed to have one up his sleeve during officer's poker-night, but because he properly understood the devastating effect of the rifled musket, the repeating rifle and the canister-shot shell, so he always had his troops well dug-in if time and conditions favored it.  This, of course, peeved Ulysses S. Grant to no end, who wished to march his Army of the Potomac right over Petersburgh on their way to Richmond.

The siege of Petersburgh had settled down to the dreary long-range artillery duel that so much of the Western Front would experience in 1914-1917, punctuated by sorties of brigade-sized units that made absolutely no headway, until one day, an officer from General Burnside's IX corps informed the mutton-chopped general he had an entire company of soldiers from Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, the heart of coal mining country, who had an ingenious plan: they would tunnel under the Confederate lines. pack the tunnel with gunpowder, blow it up, charge through the gap and be heroes.  Burnside gave the go-ahead, but his superior, General George Meade, basically saw it as a way to keep the men busy during an otherwise boring siege.  An elite corps of black Union troops would lead the assault.  It would be totally kick-ass!

You will note at the center of the map, General, a very large crater.  Try and go around it if you can.

June 30 arrived, the mine was detonated, the Confederate lines were blown up, and then absolutely nothing went right after that.  The black troops were replaced by uninformed white troops whose commander was drunk the day of the battle.  And these troops, instead of intelligently charging around the massive crater in the earth where Confederate defenses used to be, charged straight down into the fucking crater, then got stuck and couldn't get out. The Confederates counterattacked, many of them giving turkey calls because a battle between two armies had just degenerated unto a turkey-shoot.  And so the siege of Petersburgh would go on for another seven months.

3. The Battle of Gettysburg - U.S. Civil War.  Robert E. Lee wasn't immune from making dumb strategic moves --he just made 85% fewer of them.  Case in point was the Battle of Gettysburg.  Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had invaded the North with two goals in mind: to win foreign intervention from Britain and/or France, and to bring about a negotiated settlement to the Civil War.  Although the war had been a nearly even affair up to that point, superior Union industry and numbers of soldiers were beginning to tip the balance.  Lee thought if his army could attack and take Pennsylvania's capital at Harrisburg, there would be a very good chance for an end to the war.

"Men! Up and to your posts!  Remember, you are from Old Virginia!
And you're working for Ted Turner!"

The one thing Lee didn't count on was Pennsylvania's macadam-covered turnpikes.  The Army of Northern Virginia was mostly shoeless, but they didn't really mind because most of the roads  they trod were dirt.  Macadam was a different story.  Think asphalt, but way more sharp and pointy.  His army was basically bleeding-out on the roads, and not a shot had been fired.  Lee's intelligence reported that there were shoes to be had up the road at the small town of Gettysburg, so he sent a detachment of troops to liberate said shoes.  Instead of returning triumphant with Pradas, Kate Spade's, vintage Chuck Taylors and classic Bostonians, Lee's scroungers ran into a detachment of dismounted Union cavalry, who stubbornly stood their ground.  So Lee sent more men in, forcing the Union elements to evacuate the town and take up positions on the best fucking terrain around.

During the night and into the next day, each side continued to pour more and more men into a totally nowheresville Pennsylvania town with absolutely no strategic value or military advantage.  And the shoes?  Someone had fucking lost them by day 1!  There was now nothing to do but fight: up Little Round Top, Culp's Hill, Seminary Ridge, the Peach Orchard, the Wheat Field, the Devil's Den, the Sunken Road, and finally, make George Picket destroy his entire division attacking the union center in the stupidest frontal assault of all time.  To his credit, Lee realized what a total mind-numbingly dip-shit he had been to fight here of all places, claiming the loss was "All [his] fault," but I personally think he should have been busted down to sergeant for such total pig-headed stupidity.  However, he didn't have his "eyes and ears" with him during the battle, as the Confederate cavalry under J.E.B. Stuart was absent for most of the fight, so we'll give him a pass on just this one.

3. Dunkirk - World War II.  The German War Machine had patched itself up from it's shabby old condition at the end of World Way I and had proven itself by conquering Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and was just about to conquer France and destroy the British Expeditionary Force which was holed-up in the picturesque seaside town of Dunkirk, when the unthinkable happened.  The armored columns were told to halt and let the National Socialist Luftwaffa destroy the British on the beach.  Nazi General Gerd von Rundstedt was all like, "Umm, hey, we’ve got these Limeys in the bag, so why don’t we just go ahead and finish them?” But Hitler was all like, “Nope, Fat Herman’s gonna do it for you.”

"Quick men, commandeer that rowboat!"

What happened next was that Goering did send in his air force, which at that time consisted in large part of these slow dive-bombers called Stukas, which made a terrifying noise, but were fairly easy for anti-aircraft guns to hit.  While this duck-shoot was going on and the odd bomber was getting through, the British assembled the weirdest looking flotilla of anything that could float --ships, ferry boats, yachts, Huck Finn's raft, garbage scows, three guys in a tub --and sent it over to Dunkirk, where they saved the British Expeditionary Force, a few of their French and Belgium friends, and a dog named Digby, who went on to fight Rommel in North Africa and eventually fuck things up in Operation Market Garden, which is just barely edged-out by this bit of mind-fucking stupidity of the Dark Ages, starring the Saxons (basically half-British Germans) and the Vikings (not the NFL team from Minnesota).

4. The Battle of Maldon - Viking Invasion of England.  There were basically three types of Vikings: Swedes, Norwegians and Danes.  The Swedes were the ones who explored all of Russia's rivers, founded its first cities, traded in timber and amber, and got so stinking rich and famous that the Eastern Emperor in Constantinople kept a bunch of Swedish Viking warriors on retainer as his Varengi Guard.  The Norwegians explored the Orkneys, Shetlands, settled Iceland, Greenland and Vinland (Newfoundland to you and me), spreading their DNA from Oslo to Canada and back.  Then there were the Danes.  These were the "Let's kill everybody who won't make a good slave, rape the rest, steal their stuff, burn everything else, then get drunk and swap stories in Heorot Hall, pass out, and get eaten by the monster, Grendle during the night."  --oh, it was also this lot that attacked England.

"Unleash the ultimate Viking weapon: IKEA!!"

To a Danish Viking, England, Ireland and Scotland must have looked like easy pickings.  The place was chock-full of these places called monasteries, filled with unarmed men, who had lots of gold crosses and other nice stuff, and could be enslaved to do all the busy-work an important Danish Viking just doesn't have time for, because their days were heavily scheduled with berserk-fighting, dashing babies' heads out against stones, and drinking mead.  That is, until they ran into the Anglo-Saxons, those German-blokes who were slowly turning into Englishmen, who knew a thing or two about fighting.  Their king was one Ethelred the Unready, which doesn't have anything at all to do with how well prepared he was, because the Saxon form of his name is "Unroody," which means "unschooled," or "self-taught."  The Saxon force consisted of this citizen-militia called the fyrd, which was about as good as any citizen militia can be expected to be, plus the king's Housecarls and Earls, professional fighting men who could seriously mess you up if you had the poor sense to tangle with them.

The Vikings, for all the terror they caused, were essentially ship-borne raiders, whose main tactics were surprise attack and swift retreat with their jacked-stuff.  But once in a while, Ethelred's Earls and Housecarls caught up with the Vikings, and things would then be fairly evenly matched.  The Battle of Maldon was one of these occasions.  However, because of the inexplicable stupidity of the Head Saxon in Charge... well, just see for yourself.

Contrary to popular opinion, I am ready
...to pay-off the Vikings 

The Vikings had been looting and burning the English coast in Folkstone, Sandwich and Essex, before turning their attention to Maldon.  Landing on an island connected to shore by a land bridge at low tide, the Saxon commander, Ealdorman Brihtnoth, got into a shouting match with the Viking leaders when they demanded plunder and Eldorman told them to suck it.  The Vikings then made an incredibly ballsy request: put off the battle until low tide, so they could all cross and fight a proper battle at full strength.  And wonder of wonders, Ealdorman, whose fyrd and retainers were a smaller force than the Vikings had, actually agreed!

The battle was an especially brutal one, but luckily, Ealdorman was killed.  However, his boys fought so bravely that the Vikings said, "Aw, fuck it!" and limped back to their ships, leaving Maldon intact.  However, King Ethelred was convinced that with dip-shits like Ealdorman running his army, it might just be better to pay the Danes a heap of gold so they would just go the fuck back to Denmark.  Which they did.  Except for the bunch that didn't and settled on the East Coast, where they lived under their own Danish laws and customs.

Because of his incredibly stupid conduct at the Battle of Maldon, two new terms enter the English (or Anglo-Saxon) language: Danegeld, or gold paid to the Danes so they'll stop murdering and raping us, and Danelaw, the place the Danish Vikings settled and eventually became English.

5. The Battle of Los Angeles - World War II.  Folks were jittery in 1942, and quite understandably.  Following an invasion of Martians in Grover's Mill, New Jersey on Halloween in 1938, and the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December seventh in 1941, America was all like, "Just don't FUCK  WITH  ME  because if you do, I will SERIOUSLY fuck you up!"  Which partly explains what happened the night of February 24, morning of February 25, 1942.

The night before, a Japanese Submarine's deck gun opened up and pumped 14 shells into the Ellwood Oil Refinery, just north of Santa Barbara.  The next night, before midnight, air raid sirens sounded in Los Angeles.  A total blackout was ordered and air raid wardens were called out to enforce it.  Searchlights swept the sky, looking for all the world like the worst Hollywood movie premiere ever.  Then at about 3:16 a.m., the 37th Coastal Artillery Brigade went off the reservation, blasting away with their .50 caliber machine guns and 12.8 pounder anti-aircraft flak batteries.  Shrapnel rained down on Lala Land as the gunners fought like hell to bring down what was either some kind of  meteorological balloon or a barrage balloon that had slipped its moorings. Or it could have been a flying saucer.  I mean, there's this one pic of something caught in the searchlights that looks kinda E.T.  I'm just sayin'.

Weather balloon my ass.

Total casualties from the Battle of Los Angeles: 5.  Three car wrecks --L.A. drivers can't drive in the rain, fer chrissakes.  How do you expect them to drive during a blackout with shrapnel raining down? --and two heart attacks.  The balloon was never recovered.  Or so they say...

HONORABLE MENTION goes to something the British called "The War of Jenkins' Ear."  There were some good battles and it was by all accounts a decent war, but really?  Jenkins' Ear?  Come on.

5 Ways We Could Have (and probably should have!) lost the Revolutionary War

John Adams once wrote that there were three camps of American opinions about what he called "independency:" one-third who wanted to remain part of the British Empire, one-third who didn't, and one-third who were either too slave, female, illiterate, Indian, insane, or too far away from the colonial centers of population to give a shit about it one way or another.  Of course, John Adams had the luxury of writing this before the war for independence had gotten started, and his polling methods may not have been statistically sound, but he did not write this from prison at the close of an unsuccessful revolution awaiting the hangman, so he and his co-conspirators must have done something right.  Or did they?  What if American independence wasn't won by the Founding Fathers, but lost by an inept British king and his mad-cap, bumbling, 3-stooges-like ministers.  Here are, in no particular order of importance, 5 times we could have lost our revolution.  And the first is:

1. Lexington and Concord- On one very early April morning in 1775, His Majesty's troops stationed in that loutish city of Boston were on a super-secret mission: about 700 redcoats under Lt. Col. Francis Smith were to row across the Charles River, march to Concord (about 25 miles away), destroy arms and ammunition that radical colonial Whig politicians were storing there, and bring back two disreputable characters, John Adams and John Hancock, for questioning.

This wasn't a very tough assignment.  And this army had done the same type of thing before.  When they marched north to Salem, Massachusetts (yes, that Salem!), the town militias  along their way turned out and escorted the British Regulars down the road.  Once they arrived in Salem, they were greeted by Salem selectmen and were told that the army wasn't allowed into town until Salem's militia that did not contain any witches had finished hiding their secret stash of arms and ammunition, even though the British army was very keen on confiscating it all.  So there things stood, quite literally: the Salem militia, town fathers, other town militia units, umm, milling around, and the King's Own Regiment of Foot or some other bunch looking very silly because they weren't allowed to kill anybody.

Oh, please? Can't we kill just one person? Somebody you don't like?

To stop that sort of embarrassing thing from happening this time, strict secrecy was to be observed.  It was so secret that Paul Revere and all his friends and drinking buddies at the Green Dragon, a couple of prostitutes that specialized in British officers, one washerwoman, five apprentices and a guy named Phil were the only ones on the Colonial side to know.

To make a long story short and way more interesting, Revere, William Dawes and Dr. Samuel Prescott woke up the captain of the Lexington Militia. as well as everybody else along their route.  The militia did the sensible thing: voted to go home.  Then a bunch of them went to Buckman's Tavern for some 'flip, the colonial equivalent of the mudslide.  Then they got a bit bottle-brave and lined-up on Lexington Green.

And nobody would have sculpted me!

And here is where we could have lost the war before it even started.  The Lexington Minutemen stood their ground in a very manly fashion, while a British officer screamed at them to lay down their arms and disperse.  Nobody moved.  Farmer, husband, teenager, battle-scarred veteran of the French and Indian Wars, all stood facing a detachment of the army that won the 7-Years War, and nobody blinked. Then some idiot's pistol went off and the British column threw a fiery sheet of lead musket balls into the Minutemen, dropping a lot of them in the process.

But what if nobody shot anybody?  The troops would have gone to Concord, the same stand-off would have happened as at Salem, cooler political heads would have prevailed, America would have stayed in the British Empire, and we all would be like Canada today, except maybe not quite as polite.

You see, it was the out-of-control soldiers who fired against their orders that touched-off the swarming militia response that battered the retreating British column until it was rescued by Brig. Gen. Hugh Percy.  Without the battles, the Second Continental Congress would have adjourned after sending a severe message to Parliament to leave our taxpayers the fuck alone, commercial trade with America and India would have paid off Britain's war debt, and British North America would have run from the North Pole down to the Bahamas, but only as far west as the Mississippi because Napoleon probably wouldn't have sold Louisiana to the British in order to raise money to attack them.  Sure, imperial foreign policy might have had us invade Mexico and add all that Southwestern territory, and we might have bought the Louisiana Purchase from France a little later on, or maybe not. However, there would have been no Civil War in 1865, because slavery would have been ended in 1833 when it was ended in the British Empire.  So, tell me again why we fought this stupid war in the first place?  Oh yeah, Taxation without Lap Dancing is Tyranny.  Or Give me Rogain, or give me one of those cool powdered wigs.  Or some shit like that.

And George Washington?  Gentleman planter of Virginia's Tidewater, never to grace the one dollar bill, or quarter, or ever to have a new car sale dedicated to his birthday.

2. Bunker Hill- Just about everybody I talk to except historians, who are really hard to wake-up at faculty mixers, think that we won Bunker Hill.  We did not.  The town of Charlestown had the shit burned out of it by flaming cannon balls fired from British warships, and the earthenware redoubt constructed on Breed's Hill, not Bunker Hill, fell after four determined British charges.  But it WAS a Pyrrhic victory, because we wasted so many British regulars that day, with an especially high proportion of officers killed.  This is the reason that General Gage was so cautious about breaking out of the ring of colonial militia that kept him a prisoner in Boston.  But what if things had gone slightly awry at Bunker Hill?

Tell me again why we're attacking this stupid fort?

The two big heroes on the American side at Bunker Hill were William Prescott and John Stark.  Prescott lead the bunch who fortified the hill in the first place, and Stark played pivotal roles both during the battle and during the retreat.  If Prescott had built the fort on Bunker Hill like he was supposed to, the British in Boston couldn't have shelled it from their warships.  They might not have even attacked it, because it was too far away from Boston to do the colonists any good offensively either.  So no battle.  No battle, no casualties.  No casualties, no cautious British commander, who probably would have blasted out of Boston some other way.

I am John Stark and you must believe me
when I say, "Winter is Coming."

John Stark is the other variable.  His 1st and 3rd New Hampshire Volunteers were among the last to arrive on the scene, having to bully their way through a bunch of guys who had deserted before the fight actually started! so he was able to immediately see that the fort could be easily flanked on either side.  It looked like the British were going to try the side where a rail fence was first, so Stark sent his troops over there to shore up the fence as well as they could with straw and big rocks.  Sure enough, the British came his way first.  Stark had his guys hold their fire until the British had already passed them, making for an even more unpleasant surprise.  After getting sliced to ribbons by the future Granite Staters, the Brits came back and charged again.  Even though they were ready for Stark's men, they still got their asses handed to them and kicked down the hill.

By now, British command took the wise step of going full-frontal on the fort (slaughter continues), so they figured, why not do it again?  As luck would have it, the Americans were out of powder, shot, and witty "yo-Mama" insults to hurl down the hill, so on the fourth charge, everybody broke and ran for it.  John Stark to the rescue!  He held the only piece of land that connected Charlestown Peninsula to the rest of the dry land, and he calmed down the fleeing idiots that came running down the hill, making the American retreat off Breed's Hill much more orderly and profitable for the nascent American Army, for he who turns and runs away, lives to fight another day.

Hanging.  Because the British
don't do pinatas

So, what if Stark hadn't shown up?  What if he never got through that bunch of deserters, or had deserted along with them?  What if he had instead marched his volunteers to the coast to protect Portsmouth, New Hampshire, from an attack from the sea?  New Hampshire had to temporarily relocate its capital during the war for that very reason.  What if Stark had been killed during his service in Rogers' Rangers during the French and Indian War?  The other New Hampshire military light, General Cilley (pronounced "silly."  I swear I am SO not making this shit up!) was more of a politician than a soldier.  It's fairly certain that if he was in command of the 1st and 3rd New Hampshire, they may not have even sought out the most vulnerable point on the battlefield to defend, and in the unlikely event they did, they might not have withstood the first British assault.  And the retreat would have been a mess, so tons more Americans would have died than British.

So instead of no battle, we're faced with a big loss for America, fewer British casualties, an emboldened British commanding general, and one revolution crushed when Gage breaks out of Boston and begins stringing-up rebel officers at Town Neck in Roxbury.

3. New York City- The British had three, count 'em, three chances to obliterate the American Army and end the revolution --four if you count the diplomatic mission the Howe Brothers were charged with, so let's start with that.  The British landings at Staten Island was the largest amphibious landing ever seen until that time, only to be eclipsed by the Crimea, Gallipoli and Normandy D-Day in the future.  New Yorkers who saw this display of imperial might quite wisely ran-up the Union Jack and tried to get their daughters married to a handsome British or German soldier.  Congress and Washington, perversely, prepared for a fight.

Whole books are devoted to Washington's mistakes during the defense of New York.  Suffice it to say that he divided his outnumbered force in the face of overwhelming numerical superiority (a big no-no), and stuck his soldiers into trench works and breastworks of questionable design.  But before all the shooting, the Brothers Howe were entertaining certain gentlemen Congressmen on board Sir Richard Howe's flagship.  The topic of conversation was pardons.  The Howes were authorized to give anybody a royal pardon and once the army outside that was making all the tactical and engineering mistakes had disbanded and people started singing "God Save the King" again instead of "Yankee Doodle."  They would then take all their scary soldiers and go home.  --but leave behind a few JUST IN CASE Indians attacked.  Or the French.  Or Dutch.  Or Chinese.

Nice boat.  But beg your pardon, no pardons needed here, thank you.  Oh yes, I will have another crumpet!

If the Crown was really serious about ending things without bloodshed, they would have sent a few cabinet ministers as well who would have worked out a way to redress American complaints and keep her in the British Empire, not just a pair of military brothers armed with blank pardons.  To get a pardon, you have to admit you've done something wrong, and the Congressional delegation told the Howes that America had done nothing wrong, so no pardons needed, so fuck off and take your hired Kraut mercenaries with you.  Was this a real peace offering, or just a stalling tactic for both sides so they could get ready for the slaughter to come?  There are few hints in the extant letters, but the Congressmen were impressed by the cordiality and sincerity of the Howes, so at least they believed it, but everybody knows how easy soldiers are to fool into doing stuff, so who really knows.  The fact remains that the British had an opportunity to stop the war after only a few battles, make nice with the Americans, and they blew it.  Onto the shootin' war!

The British kicked-ass in Brooklyn, Long Island, Haarlem Heights, White Plains and some death trap named Fort Washington, and were about to finish annihilating the American Army when it got all cold and rainy, so General William Howe called off the attack so that he could take what he believed would be the American surrender in the morning, after everybody had had a good night's sleep.  Dumb move.  Washington's whole entire army slipped out of town like a sleazy salesman slipping out of a motel without paying.  The whole hot mess ended up in New Jersey, where they would go on to cause havoc at Trenton and Princeton, but most importantly, they were all alive and very much in the game.

Yeah, you bitches need me.

Had William Howe pressed his attack that night, the Americans had a huge army in their face and a river at their backs.  They would have all been shot down or surrendered.  The fight for American independence would have either died that night, or would have morphed into a hit-and-run guerrilla war that would have torn the country, its people and the imperial occupiers apart.  America could have become like Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

Finally, during one particularly badly fought battle around the Big Apple, the redcoats sounded the fox-hunting call as they chased fleeing Americans through some tall swamp grass.  This pissed-off Washington to no end.  He wheeled his horse around and then rallied anybody around him (about 16 guys who were looking for the ferry to Hoboken) and charged the offending British.  For his trouble, most of the guys died and Washington himself was hit multiple times in the coat, the hat, his saddle and his horse.  BUT  NOT  HIM!  Washington may have had some kind of Matrix-Ninja-ass stuff going for him, because this wasn't the only time he got shot but not anywhere in his body.  Since Generals Stirling and Sullivan were captured during the New York defense, that would leave Congress with Nathaniel Green, "The Fighting Quaker," Horatio "Granny" Gates, and Benedict "You guys wanna trade, 'cause I'm a great traitor" Arnold as possible replacements.  Not quite the Big GW.

4. West Point- Today, it's the home of the U.S. Military Academy, but back in the day, it was the most strategic spot on the whole Hudson River, which is strategic in itself because it is navigable all the way to Albany, deep in the interior of New York.  To get there, you have to sail past West Point, the part of the river that sailing ships of the day had to make a series of tacks, only if the wind is cooperating, which makes them vulnerable from getting blown out of the water by cannons from the West Point fort.  Benedict Arnold was given command of this fort, after he had married the most beautiful Loyalist girl of Philadelphia society, Peggy Shippen.  And after he was pissed-off at the way other generals and Congress treated him, passing him up for promotion again and again, and not giving him the credit he thought was due to him. 

It's not polite to Point.

Strangely enough, Arnold decided to sell the plans of the fort and the fort itself to the British, after doing everything he could do to weaken the fort's defenses.  All was set for him to defect.  Once in British hands, they had a chance to control the Hudson, despite Burgoyne's failed invasion from Canada.  Then two things happened: a robbery and a surprise visit.  The robbery was committed on the person of British Maj. John Andre, spy extraordinaire, and former boyfriend of Peggy Arnold.  The highwaymen who robbed him found West Point plans stuffed in his boots, and turned him over to a local militia unit.  The surprise visit was George Washington and company, come to see the Arnolds socially, and to inspect the fort, militarily.

Needless to say, it all fell through.  Andre was hanged, the Arnolds were shown the door (Peggy was.  Benedict had already defected).  But what if the "keys to the continent" wound up in British hands?  The force from New York City could have secured British access all the way to Albany.  The British then, having enjoyed naval superiority throughout the war, could have stockpiled provisions in Albany, concentrated troops there, and linked up with the garrison in Canada.  This would cut New England off from the rest of America and allow the British to blockade it and then destroy it.  Under this scenario, America would have probably become a place like Ireland or Scotland, occupied and beaten, but still in the British Empire.

5. The French Stay Home- Pretty much every historian says that it was French involvement that tipped the balance scale in favor of the Americans.  Not that there was any real love between the French and the American colonists.  The French were regarded as half-Indian frontier rats who fought dirty and were <gasp!> Catholics.  This was a clear case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  It was the French fleet that chased the British away from the Chesapeake; it was French engineers and artillerymen who designed the siege at Yorktown.  Finally, it was the French who the British tried to surrender to --Rochambeau refused, indicated Washington, who refused, indicated General Lincoln who had just been chased out of Charleston, South Carolina, who finally accepted it.

But what if there were no French?  They were almost broke at the time; the American Revolution put them firmly in the red, causing a fiscal crisis that started their own revolution.  What if Louis XVI's ministers convinced him that America was a lost cause?  After all, the only Frenchman Washington liked was the Marquis de Lafayette, the rest of the French volunteers being stuck on KP or latrine duty.  Let's say that Franklin, Adams and Jay completely botch their diplomatic mission.  Who was left?  Who could replace French power and might?

Now zis is what a real army looks like.  Go and fetch my poodle.

The Dutch sent some money and allowed St. Eustatius in the Caribbean to be used as a smuggling port.  Spain sent food and cloth through their possessions in Florida.  Russia was sympathetic, but it was doubtful the Czar would send any troops.  Prussia was too expensive to hire as mercenaries, as were the other German principalities.  Poland sent a couple of generals, one of whom created the U.S. Cavalry even!  Unfortunately, all this well meaning help would still not have been enough to replace the French if they didn't show.  So merci beaucoup Frenchies!  Without you. we'd be just like Canada, but not the hip, cool, chic French part.

Our revolution was by no means a sure thing,  In fact, it should have failed.  What is surprising is that it did succeed.  And a good thing, too!  Where would this world be without World Wars I and II?  There is no way in hell Germany, a new nation in 1874, would have started anything untoward, certainly not against a humongous British Empire that included all of America.  World War I might have just been the 3rd Balkan War, with minor participation by Russia and Austria, with a peace treaty mediated by France or even Romania.  And without World War I, no World War II.  Hitler would have lived and died in obscurity.

No Civil War, maybe no Vietnam either, but there's a downside too.  We would have been involved in every British colonial fight in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.  And who knows: we, not India, might be the brightest jewel in the crown, and therefore the last one to go, if at all.  I'm sure that Britain would have had the sense to get rid of the endemic corruption American Patriots complained of.  I am also sure that the democratic movements of the 19th and 20th centuries would have been well received in Britain and her North American possessions, and also that Constitutional Law and English Common Law would take deep root in American soil.  And it wouldn't be too bad to be like Canada --hey, they seem to like being in the British Empire, unlike those Israeli kooks who hated the British because they wanted their own little synagogue-sized country, but hey every family has some nuts.

Woodstock: Fact or Fiction?

Woodstock, or as it was billed, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, did, in fact, happen.  However, there are a number of anecdotes connected with the festival that are just plain myths, outright lies, or blurred facts of the kind that worm their way into just about every historical event.  In order to debunk these hardy weeds of history, please allow me, Ex-Prof, free access to the natural amphitheater-bowl on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Upstate New York, so that I may drop the historian's equivalent of Agent Orange on the sea of mud left after the last flower-child pooped her last poop into the Porta-San, stamped-out her Panama Red joint, and departed for the next "happening" during the Summer of '69.

1. Woodstock happened in Woodstock.  ><ah-OOO-gah!>< Lie.  The concert promoters had talked initially about a small outdoor festival there, but the Woodstock selectmen voted down their permit application.  The Town Board of Bethel, where the festival was eventually held after some last minute realtor shenanigans, tried to do the same thing, but by then it was too late.  The stage had almost been constructed and bunches of fans had already started to show up, so to prevent the riot that would have happened if the concert was shut down, the building inspector, Tom Clark, wisely did not enforce the Stop Work Order he had been given by the Town Board.

"Oh, Mama, could this really be the end?
To be stuck inside of England with the QEII Blues again?"

--> So why was it called Woodstock?  Because a) that's where it was originally planned, b) Woodstock is the nearest largish town, and c) it's where Bob Dylan lived.  By the way, Bob Dylan was a no-show to the festival.  He was bugged that hippies had begun turning up at his home to begin with, and he was booked to play the Isle of Wright Festival that summer, so when the ultimate "happening" of the 1960's was getting started, the Zimmerman (Bob's real last name) family was boarding the Queen Elizabeth II for their trip to England.

2. Woodstock was a free concert.  Partly true.  The promoters clearly intended to make money off of it.  Tickets were printed and sold, posters and other advertising had been purchased, bands had been hired and paid, Porta-San toilets had been rented, so there was way more good old American capitalism at the start than most would readily admit.  It turned into a free concert when promoters realized that they had resources for either a kick-ass stage and sound system, or a fence and ticket booths, but not both.

--> So how much money did they make?
 Not much.  In fact, if it weren't for the film and record album, they wouldn't have made any money at all.  Let's face it: there wasn't a whole ton to be made on what inexorably became a free concert.  To be honest, if I were one of the dopes who bought tickets in advance, I'd be pissed!  Still, wish I could have been there, although I don't know how much a four-year-old would have gotten out of it all.

Note the complete absence of a t-shirt vendor in this pic.  Amateurs!

3. So many people showed up that the New York State Thruway was closed. ><ah-OOO-gah!>< Lie.  This one came straight from Arlo Guthrie's mouth when he declared on stage that "The New York State Thruway is closed, man!  A lotta Freaks!"  While the interstate highway had severe backups and local roads were overwhelmed by rain, mud and throngs of concert goers who just drove as far as they could, abandoned their cars and hiked the last bit, the Thruway never closed down.  New York Governor Rockefeller almost sent in 10,000 National Guardsmen to keep order, but the organizers persuaded him to not do that.

Even this one was abandoned!  Zoinks!

-->So how did the acts get there?  At least one act, Joan Baez, was flown in by National Guard helicopter.  Most of the others were really, really late.  Richie Havens, the opening act, had a two hour set, mainly because there was nobody around backstage to go on next!  One act, John B. Sebastian, was attending the concert and agreed to perform because the Keef Hartly Band (ever hear of them?) were late.  The first big act to sign, Creedence Clearwater Revival, went on so late that almost everybody in the audience was asleep! By sunrise on the third day, almost everybody had left, leaving Jimi Hendrix to belt-out his psychedelic Star Spangled Banner to the clean-up crew and only 10,000 hippies who had slept in late that day.  Afterwards, Bethel and surrounding towns had to deal with lots and lots of abandoned vehicles.  Concert goers left stranded cars and vans stuck in the mud and hitch-hiked their way back home.

4. The conflict-free, caring atmosphere of the concert was a demonstration of the pure, peaceful power of the "Age of Aquarius."  ><ah-OOOOOOO-gah!!!!  BIG  LIE.  If anything, the concert demonstrated peaceful affect of a much maligned herb, Cannabis Americana.  Most of the attendees were well-prepared, if not for the rain, mud, and lack of food --they brought lots of pot with them.  Those who didn't could buy loose joints or take a toke off a buddy's spliff.  In fact, the only ones who walked away from the festival with more money than they started were the bands who had, in fact, been paid, and the dope-dealers.  Can we now dispense with criminal sanctions for pot growing, selling, possessing and using?  Oh, the other reason the statement is a lie?  The Age of Aquarius either happened in 2012, or it will happen in 2597.  Woodstock happened in 1969.

I call this batch the "Age of Aquarius Peacemaker" because --wait, what?  Aw, fuck it.  Anybody got a Zig-Zag and a light?

-->So what about the harder drugs?  Yes, there was a fatal heroin overdose.  Also, according to the stage announcer, "The brown acid is specifically not too good.  Stay away from the brown acid."  Finally, Yippee front-man Abbie Hoffman dropped a few hits of acid and ran onstage during The Who's set,  He tried to get the crowd to chant Yippee slogans, but was instead smacked off the stage by The Who's Pete Townshend.  So yes, the more serious drugs produced problems which, thankfully, were mitigated by all the stoners.

"Gimme an F!  Gimme a toke! --no, wait, Gimme a U!"

5. Every band that was there became instantly famous.  Partly true.  Sha-Na-Na, the 50's-style doo-wop band, wasn't too well known outside of their niche in the music industry.  The exposure they got from Woodstock drove their success into the early 80's.  Some acts like The Who, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead were already pretty famous, so Woodstock was merely one more notch on the necks of their guitars.  For one act, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, it was their first gig together as a group.  The constituent members had known each other for a while and had been in other groups like Buffalo Springfield, but had not performed together until Woodstock.  And some groups like Country Joe "Gimme an F!" MacDonald and the Fish were lucky to stay together through parts of the 70's.

-->So what about the bands who were invited, but didn't come?  Some were sorry they didn't make the scene.  Dylan was on the way to England; The Doors thought it would be Monterrey Pop all over again, and regretted their non-appearance.  Lead Zeppelin were at the Asbury Park Convention Center in The Boss' neighborhood.  Chicago's manager substituted Santana, a band he also managed, and booked what was still called The Chicago Transit Authority for the Filmore West that weekend.  Joni Mitchell missed because she was booked to do the DicK Cavett Show, but made up for that by writing that great song, "Woodstock," and letting Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young record it later.  And Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention?  Frank declined, later saying, "A lot of mud at Woodstock."

6. One-half a million attended Woodstock.  Who the hell knows?  Maybe.  Probably not.  Besides, people came, went, came back with friends, two children were born, there were two deaths, so yeah, a half-million is a stretch.  More like 350,000-400,000.

-->So, what's YOUR Woodstock story?  Were you there? Were you prevented from being there?  Want me to research a myth/truth for you?  Let's hear some comments on this one, people!  So until we meet again, Peace, Love and Dope!

...and birds!  Don't forget the Bird!

5 Things You Can Do To Make the U.S. Government Work

Since not every reader has a spare couple of billion bucks to splooge on advertising for the candidate of your choice (hint: do this before Citizen’s United gets repealed!), I thought it would be a fun exercise in civics to list five things that you, Oh Great and Terrible Blog-Reader, can do in order to fix all the crap that’s wrong with government these days.  That, or you could just sit on your couch watching Fox News and bitching about Obama and how shitty things are today.  Or move to Idaho and dig yourself a survivalist shelter, and stock it with tons of canned food and ammo for your legally protected firearm.  Ready?  Spoiler alert: all of these things will require you to actually interact with another human being, perhaps even talk to them face-to-face and in the same room!!!  Hey, republican democracy is a fully interactive, participation required sport, so I ask again: READY?!?

1. Get to Know 5 Elected or Appointed Officials in your Hometown.  The late, great Thomas “Tip” O’Neil once said that “all politics is local.”  No, he wasn’t a white gabacho trying to sound all Latino-like and say it’s all loco; he meant that the most important politics take place right at the local level.  Do you know who the Registrar of Probate is in your county?  Do you even have the tiniest inkling of what that dude does?  No?  Then ferChristsake, find him or her and actually have a conversation with them.  Here, I’ll give you some talking points:  a) Hey dude(ess), I’m fill-in-your-name-here.  So, you’re the Registrar of Probate for Essex County, huh?  No shit!  What do you do?  Uh-huh.  Uh-huh.  b) Cool!  So, how do you like it?  c) What do you see as your greatest challenge?  d) What would you change if you could?  e) Would you like my assistance in making that change?  f) Do you like sport peppers, onions, mustard, relish and poppy-seed buns on your hot dogs, or is that just a weird Chicago-thing?

Nope- even people from Essex County, Massachusetts
loves them some good ol' Chicago-dog!

àWhy this will work: most elected or appointed town officials interact with the public only on those rare occasions when there is a contested election (meaning, an election that has a different human being running for the same office) and don’t deal with the public the rest of the time.  Why is that?  Mostly because they are busy doing the job they were elected/appointed to do!  Our local officeholders labor on for the most part in lonely obscurity, occasionally gaining nationwide fame because they’re refusing to give a same-sex couple a marriage license, despite the fact that the SUPREME  FUCKING  COURT of the UNITED  STATES of AMERICA  basically told them they had to.  Your little visit with the Registrar will in all likelihood make his day, if not his entire week.  It will also remind him that he works for you.  It’s good to remind our officeholders of that little fact.  Even the President.  Especially him (or her?)

2. Vote.  Then make everybody in your family vote.  Then shame all of your friends into voting.  Then volunteer down at the Senior Center to drive the old folks to the polls on Election Day.  Did you know that just before this country was founded, one needed to be white, free (as opposed to an indentured servant, which was kinda like a white short-term slave), male and, in Virginia at least, Episcopalian AND own enough property to qualify to vote?  Right after the revolution, things got WAY more equal: all the above qualifications remained, except for the Episcopalian one.  Even Jews were allowed to vote, provided that they were white, male, free, etc. etc.  It took a fucking  CIVIL  WAR  to get the vote to black folks, then the repeal of poll tax, then the Civil Rights marches, Martin Luther King Jr., the Seneca Falls Convention, the Women’s Suffrage Movement, Edith Bunker standing up to Archie on “All In the Family,”  the Vietnam War, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, and the whole 1960’s student protest movement, to get where we are today.  Every citizen over 18 who registers to vote may do so.  So GO  AHEAD  AND  VOTE, you lazy dumbasses!  And if you’re concerned that it will be too hard or take too long, then you might want to share your concerns with the Afghan voters who, in their latest election, braved Taliban fighter attacks and waiting lines TWO  DAYS  LONG in order to cast their vote.

And if you didn't you're an IDIOT, gosh!

àWhy this will work: incumbents count on the fact that roughly 15-30% of potential voters, and 20-40% of registered voters will show up for Election Day, so guess what they do?  They make sure that every one of their friends and their friends and so-on actually show up and vote for them, meaning that they go into the election with a stacked-deck and count on voter apathy to keep them in office.  This works great if the official up for election is actually doing a good job.  If they’re using the office as a cash-cow and as a way to get their entire extended family government jobs, and not even bothering to show up and pretend to do the work they were elected to do, you’ve only got your own lazy-ass self to blame for the fact that they don’t get voted out of office.

3. Get educated about the Issues.  From more than one source.  This item is deceptively hard, because for every Fox News, there’s an MSNBC and a PBS.  And, for every message, there’s a media: billboards, blog posts, newspaper and magazine articles, pop-ups, TV and radio commercials, blimps and skywriting.  And thanks to Citizens United, those political messages will be EVERYwhere, literally screaming at you in an attempt to get your attention.  And heaven help you if you live in a state or district that is considered politically up-for-grabs.  I lived in New Hampshire for a while, and the media avalanche during the Presidential Primary Season just about buried me.  So, how do you do it?  How do you educate yourself?  Use the computer you’re on right now for something other than reading Cracked.com or scoring the coolest Star Trek coasters on Amazon.com.  Start with Google and Wikipedia, then go to wherever the answers lead you.

OMG, WHY is mom researching Immigration Policy?
Does that mean we have to move AGAIN?!?

àWhy this will work: despotic rulers, demagogues and really fiendish douche-canoes rely on an uneducated, apathetic, easily intimidated population in order to impose their will on the masses.  What works for a Hitler or a Mao also works for politicians within a democratic republic, albeit in smaller doses, and without all the killing.  If you’re uneducated about a particular issue, you just might believe whatever line they’re singing about it at the moment.  And really well funded politicians have ads, focus groups, and talking heads who can increase the volume level and coverage of any politician’s message.  So figure things out for yourself first. This will help you to sift through the mountain of crap-ola that invades the mediasphere every Election Season.

4. Make your own laws.  I live in Massachusetts, which has as one of its quirkier laws the one that says citizens have the right to propose laws, and their representative in the Great and General Court, our legislature, is required to introduce the proposed law for debate and a vote.  Lots of states have these laws on the books, generally known as initiative laws.  If not, your state might have a process for putting petitions on the ballot.  This is how a lot of citizen-laws are made.  There’s nothing so magic about it.  Sure, it’s a good idea to have a lawyer draft it, and you’ll probably have to get a lot of signatures to get your question on the ballot, but at the end of the process, you will have made your own law.  Just make sure the law is a good one, not a selfish or silly one, like making every May the fourth “Star Wars Day” on your state.  Even though it SO  TOTALLY should be!

...or get stabbed by this totally phallic pen!

àWhy this will work: hey, if the old laws aren’t working for you, maybe your new law will be just the right fix we all need.  This is what democracy is all about.  The people, demos in Greek, rule, “cratia,” also Greek.  This is because democracy was invented in Greece.  We practice it here in America, kind of.  We have a Republic, the Roman’s take on Greek democracy.  Res Pvblica means “the people’s business,” which is actually done by our elected officials so that we, the people, can devote our energies to our jobs, families, and our wacky, borderline hobbies like turning the living room into an exact replica of the USS Enterprise (TNG)’s bridge.  However, sometimes we the people have to take matters into our own hands and “do it like Greeks.”

5. Revolt and start from scratch.  Did I mention I lived in New Hampshire for a while?  Those wild Granite Staters have as part of their state constitution the Right to Revolt.  I kid you not.  If you live in the 603, a.k.a the “Live Free or Die” state, you can revolt against New Hampshire, overthrow the government and start from scratch.  There are a few caveats, however: you have to try all the peaceful  (and legal) ways of change first.  You then have to overpower the state police, the National Guard, and all the 2^nd Amendment gun-nuts way up north.  THEN, your revolution MIGHT succeed, unless the United States of America intervenes (which they might), so it’s an iffy prospect at best.  In that case, how about having a revolution outside of New Hampshire that has a chance at succeeding?  Why not call a new Constitutional Convention and draft an entirely new system of government, one which takes into account all of the info-tech improvements that have happened since the first American Revolution in 1776.

àWhy it will work: ok ok, this one's the hardest to pull off (don't try this alone or at home!), but the case can be made that it's time to have a new government here in the United States.  Back in 1776, the fastest a message could go was limited to the speed a person could sail in a boat or ride on a horse.  Today, information travels at light-speed.  This means that the citizens can, in fact, exercise direct democratic rule, a-la Athens during the Age of Pericles.  Why not have a nationwide broadband channel that broadcasts just public policy questions that must be voted on.  Bribe the citizens into participating by giving tax credits for every vote cast.  Run government this way, and we can eliminate Congress and the Senate.  We'll still need an executive department and head of state, so the President stays.  And we'll still have to have a highest court in the land, so The Supremes can stay.    

Clarence Thomas isn't smiling because he didn't get the memo to "Go Commando" under the robes for this year's pic

If this sounds far-fetched, remember that our Founding Fathers convened the first Constitutional Convention with the limited purpose of making changes to the Articles of Confederation.  They ended up scrapping the whole enchilada and creating the federal government we enjoy today.  Or don’t enjoy.  And there is, in our Constitution, a procedure to allow us to do the same thing they did to the government they created.  If you want to look it up, it’s in Article V.

So now that you know how to make government work, go out there and DO something about it!  If you don’t, I don’t want to hear any of you whining about how crappy our government is, because, you slacker, you refuse to do anything at all to fix OUR government!