President’s Day should be renamed War Criminal’s Day

President’s Day is one of the officially recognized holidays in the US. Most local, state and the federal government have the day off, as do mail carriers. I’m glad that mail carries get another paid day off.

Companies love President’s Day, since they get to run sales and demonstrate how patriotic they are, even if they do sell sweatshop clothing made in Vietnam. However, the larger problem with President’s Day is that it prevents us from having any serious examination of those who have sat in the White House, especially the policies they enacted.

Some people might think that the titled of this post is a bit over the top. I get it, we were all subjected to the US education system, where critical thinking, even at the university level is not really a priority. However, I believe there is plenty of evidence to show that every US President has committed War Crimes, in some for or another.

First, look at the history of Indigenous Nations in the US, where the US stole their land, murdered many of their people, forcibly relocated Native communities, violated virtually every treaty they signed and forcibly removed thousands of Indigenous children and put them in what are euphemistically called Boarding Schools. 

Second, think of all the US Presidents that been complicit in chattel slavery, Jim Crow policies, the so-called Drug War and Mass Incarceration. See Margaret Kimberly’s book, Prejudential: Black Americans and the Presidents. 

Third, look at how many times the US military, the CIA and other US agencies have directly intervened in countries abroad – always in the name of democracy – but ended up occupying those countries, building US Military bases, providing military weaponry, military training or propped up dictatorships. See Zoltan Grossman’s excellent chronological history of US Interventions from 1890 to the present. https://sites.evergreen.edu/zoltan/interventions/

Just investigating each of these points should make any reasonable person question the very idea of celebrating President’s Day.

Lastly, it is important that we do our own investigations of this history. I think reading Howard Zinn’s book, A Preople’s History of the United States, is important, along with books by James Loewen such as: 

Lies My Teacher Told Me

Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong