BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Apr 12 - 09:46 AM

Note to LH: Thanks for the info that you get your history from movies! Are you also a fan of "Gone With The Wind" and "Birth of a Nation"? and the novels of Shelby Foote?

That explains your generally overly simplistic and naive viewpoint on the War of the Rebellion, sociology & group psychology and your conclusion that people aren't responsible for their actions because, after all, "It just happens" and, of course, that the majority of the population was "only following orders" from the politicians and folks "at the top". Rubbish. Turn off the movies and pick up a real history book, or a dozen.

As far as taking things to absurd extremes, your non-judgementalism is a case in point.

Thus, its useless to continue this. Adios.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Apr 12 - 09:31 PM

Ah. And now you're putting the words in my mouth, Greg. ;-) The same deal either way.

Look, if you promise not to make all kinds of glib assumptions about what I'm supposedly thinking, and I promise not to do the same thing to you, we might actually get free of this little squabble here and get on with the rest of the possibilities the day offers.

It isn't necessary for either one of us to prove that the other guy is "wrong". And what prize would we get even if we did? ;-)

See what I mean? I just want you to be a bit friendlier to other people when you talk to them here. I don't need you to agree about every issue that comes up...just don't be so hostile about it. Is that too much to ask?

Yes, I have been in the South. I usually disagree radically with their general views on society and politics, so I avoid talking to them about it if I can. I just nod and say as little as possible when they get on that kind of subject.

One of my favorite movies is "In The Heat of the Night" with Rod Steiger and Sidney Poitier. Have you seen it? It was a brilliant depiction of racism in a small southern town, with a really intelligent script and great acting from the whole cast.

Nope. Haven't read the Ordinances of Secession. I think I'd probably agree with you anyway about what they say and what it implies. I doubt we'd see that any differently.

Don't stretch a point I make to an absurd extreme. Try to think in shades of gray. I was certainly not saying that "no-one is responsible for anything- they're all hapless victims of societal influences and things beyond their control"

No. That would be taking what I said to the absurd extreme. I was saying only one thing. One very simple thing. That when a country goes to war, specially if it is facing an invasion, virtually all the citizens will support the war effort. That's just a natural reaction of people in a country at war. They seldom understand all the complex issues that are in play, and their politicians and leaders don't tell them the truth about that stuff anyway. But they do understand that the nation is under a foreign threat, and they are mostly willing to support the war effort.

Why did northerners go to war? Because the South fired on Fort Sumter. Why did souutherners go to war? To preserve their independence from the North. The war was inevitable, and it was just a question of where the first shots would be fired. The moment the first shots were fired, Pandora's box was opened, and what happens after that? Loyal citizens on both sides volunteer to fight, and the whole tragedy unfolds. I don't judge northerners for that. I don't judge southerners for that. It just happens. People get swept along in the whirlwind.

The only people I would judge harshly for it are the small number of hardheaded political leaders at the top who weren't willing to compromise and find a better way. It was they who made that war inevitable...and the ones in the South bear the greater responsibility for it. They should not have seceded. Secession virtually always results in war, and they should have known that. They also should have known that they couldn't win it, because they didn't have enough money and industry in the South to win it.

But I don't blame the ordinary people who carried rifles or supported the war on either side. I blame the political leaders in Congress who were too proud and arrogant to compromise and find a peaceful solution to their differences.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Ed T
Date: 23 Apr 12 - 09:17 PM

""The culmination of a dream that began many decades ago. There is clear and tangible evidence that this ambitious project is at the peak of the construction phase-not only moving rapidly, but making tremendous progress towards the goal. However, they are not in a race to do this at record pace, as they only have only one chance to get it right ... and many chances to get it wrong.""

Don't forget to Email me just before the celebration-the unveiling/cocktail party.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Apr 12 - 05:01 PM

As usual, LH, putting words in my mouth. Knock yourself out- Have fun with it.

Your premise is apparently that no-one is responsible for anything- they're all hapless victims of societal influences and things beyond their control- absolute Horseshit.

And you have a very superficial understanding of U.S. history- nothing to do with being Canadian; most US schools still teach the "states rights", "Lost Cause" and "redemption" myths, to their shame.

By the way- you've apparently never been in the South-- there ARE statues of them in most every sizeable Southern town. Heroes to the cause of chattel slavery - whether or not they fought brilliantly & with valor is secondary to what they were fighting FOR.

PS: Didja check the variousordinances of secession & the whole Douglass speech & what's your take on 'em? IOr are facts and primary documents irrelevant to your thesis?

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Apr 12 - 03:07 PM

Cute. ;-D So you think that Lee, Davis, and Jackson are equivalent to Adolf Eichmann?

Heck, if they'd won, there'd be a statue of them in every sizeable town south of the Mason Dixon line. If the Nazis had won, I doubt there'd be any statues of Adolf Eichmann standing around in town squares anywhere. He'd be unknown and forgotten...just like the uniformed flunkies who presently waterboard and otherwise torture Third World people for America and Israel will be unknown and forgotten.

Leonard Cohen makes a good point there. Ordinary people are   capable of doing terrible things when under terrible leadership. It could happen in your country too. Easily. If it does, you'll know it.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Apr 12 - 02:31 PM

For LH's Benefit (or not):

"Frank and Jesse James were products of their environment. They were sent out into the woods by their parents to forage for berries, truffles, rutabagas, and roots of all sorts. Put yourself in their place...you'da been mean too!"

       -Kingston Trio, 1958

************


All There Is To Know About Adolph Eichmann
Leonard Cohen, from Flowers for Hitler, 1964

EYES:.......................Medium

HAIR:.......................Medium

WEIGHT:.....................Medium

HEIGHT:.....................Medium

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES:....None

NUMBER OF FINGERS:..........Ten

NUMBER OF TOES:.............Ten

INTELLIGENCE:...............Medium

What did you expect?

Talons?

Oversize incisors?

Green saliva?

Madness?

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Megan L
Date: 23 Apr 12 - 01:55 PM

Mechty there are some fowk wid start a fecht in a broom cupboard. It is easy to talk about the past a more honourable thing is to stop the past replying itself today.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Apr 12 - 01:46 PM

"Otherwise, just bugger off." is another personal attack, Greg. Open hostility and verbal abuse toward whomever you're talking to doesn't make you right and them wrong, even if it does give you a nice little adrenalin buzz every time you indulge in it.

I have already made it clear that I believe the South was politically and morally wrong to uphold the institution of slavery. I don't admire them for it. They were way behind the times to be maintaining that custom, and it was unjustifiable.

You say that people should be held accountable for their actions. Ahh....but to what extent? Don't you think that conquering and devastating the entire Southland in a huge war and killing hundreds of thousands of people and ruining millions of others wasn't enough in being held accountable? What more would you have done to them after that? Crucify them? Boil them in oil? Lee and Jackson did nothing more in that war than to lead their troops brilliantly. I see no reason to condemn them as individuals because they happened to be born in the wrong state and did what they saw as their civic duty when 2 separate nations went to war.

Lee's primary concern was the State of Virginia. If Virginia had remained in the Union, Lee would have fought for the Union. I don't think you realize how strongly Americans in the mid-1800s identified with their home state. A Virginian or a Texan was seen as a Virginian or a Texan first, and as an American second, and a great many people felt that way in those times, both in the North and the South, but perhaps morseo in the South, because it was a more traditional agrarian society. It's much less like that in the present day, because things like radio and television and the automobile have pretty much homogenized national consciousness and made things "the same" everywhere to the point that it has to a great extent supplanted regional consciousness as it used to exist. People are much more cosmopolitan now, and it's been achieved by our greater mobility and our mass media. An American is an American first now...a citizen of his state second...except, perhaps, in Texas! Texas is kind of a special case when it comes to that.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Apr 12 - 12:56 PM

As I said, LH, do educate yourself. I realize that you are the embodyment of relativism, and the king of apologists, but "ideas" and "causes" don't do things, individuals do. And individuals should be held accountable for their actions.

As for your reading into what I have said that I have "demonized" anyone or called anyone "evil", by all means make up & believe and "imagine" whatever you wish. Far be it from me to confine you to dry facts as you have such a wonderful flow of flowery, irrelevant and self-serving language.

Nowhere in this thread did I attack any induividual.

Otherwise, just bugger off.

PS: did you read the Ordinance & the whole Douglass speach, or are you just spouting off, as usual?

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Apr 12 - 11:28 AM

Greg, stick to attacking political ideas, political attitudes, political policies, and stuff like that...and stop attacking other individuals and we will have no argument whatsoever.

We both oppose the idea of slavery utterly. And we both always have done so and always shall do so.

But you don't just go after the bad ideas. You personally denigrate other human beings on an individual basis. You personally attack other people. You do it a great deal on this forum to other posters. You do it in history to other individuals. You personalize your attacks toward other people and demonize them because they were part of some cause, but you didn't walk in their shoes, and you don't really know who they are or what they had to face or what their personal character was. You stereotype them into cardboard figures that you can spit upon to vent your ill will. That's what I object to. That is virtually always what bothers me about the stuff you say, it takes the form of personal attacks on other individuals.

I do not in any way object to your condemnation of the South's practice of slavery. It deserves condemnation. I reiterate that if you had been born a Southerner in the USA and had lived through the events of that time, you would probably have willingly fought for the Confederacy...for a variety of totally obvious patriotic reasons...just like almost everyone else in the South did. This would not have made you an evil person who wants to enslave people.

If you don't think that could have possibly happened in your case, well, then I think you just lack the imagination to put yourself in another time and place...and to consider how you might have been affected by the conditions all around you at that time.

You're not perfect either, Greg. So don't expect other people to be. Have a little regard for those you disagree with on something...they're not 3-horned monsters just because they don't agree with you on every single point of dogma.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Apr 12 - 09:35 AM

In short, LH, you're spouting absolute bullshit. I can't tell if you're simply ignorant of the history of slavery in America, of the history of the Ante-Bellum South, of the politics iof the run-up to the Civil War, or you're simply among the group of Neo-Confederates perpetuating the pernicious & fantastical "Lost Cause" and "Redemption" myths.

I suggest you read the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession, available on line in dozens of places, and then tell me what the South went to war for. Check those of the other confederate ststes as well.

In closing, I'll leave you with the words of Frederick Douglass; this is an excerpt & the whole address is well worth reading.

Good, wise, and generous men at the North, in power and out of power, for whose good intentions and patriotism we must all have the highest respect, doubt the wisdom of observing this memorial day, and would have us forget and forgive, strew flowers alike and lovingly, on rebel and on loyal graves. This sentiment is noble and generous, worthy of all honor as such; but it is only a sentiment after all, and must submit to its own rational limitations. 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. If the observance of this memorial day has any apology, office, or significance, it is derived from the moral character of the war, from the far-reaching, unchangeable, and eternal principles in dispute, and for which our sons and brothers encountered hardship, danger, and death.

Speech delivered at Union Square, New York City, on Decoration Day, May 30, 1878 New York Times, May 31, 1878

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Stu
Date: 23 Apr 12 - 06:32 AM

Got a bit of the monument here in my office. Not a bit I nicked, but a bit I paid for.

Wonderful part of the world and the museum attached is excellent.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Apr 12 - 11:06 PM

Ain't about the rightness of the the Crazy Horse carving but whether or not it will ever be completed...

Doesn't seem that it will...

Too bad... It could open up some conversations long over due...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Apr 12 - 10:54 PM

The primary motivation to fight on the part of most Confederate soldiers was the simplest motivation of all...to defend one's home ground against an invader...and to preserve one's own society and its various customs and institutions and its sovereignty.

Populations everywhere do this instinctively in wartime...they step up to defend the home ground and the culture they have grown up in...and there's nothing the least bit unusual about them doing so.

This was also true of the vast majority of Germans who fought in WWII, the vast majority of Russians who fought in that war also, and indeed the vast majority of any soldiers everywhere in just about any war that ever happened...specially if invading armies came across their borders onto their home territory...and almost all the fighting in the US Civil War was done on southern territory, with purposes of forcing seceding states back into the Union. It is simple patriotism to one's own home that gives people the will to fight in a war.

Why would southerners NOT have fought invading Union armies? Wouldn't northerners have fought an invading Confederate Army? And for the very same reason. Northern soldiers generally fought better on home ground than on southern ground (in the very few significant battles that occurred when Lee counterattacked the north). No surprise there! People always fight harder on home ground, because it's utterly clear what they are fighting for.

Yes, the southerners' defence of the institution of slavery was wrong. No kidding! Anyone with even a grain of intelligence can figure that out now. It's a no-brainer....and you DON'T prove your great progressive moral credentials to anyone now by pointing out that slavery was a bad thing. But it was not the only reason why they were fighting. The main reason they were fighting, once the shooting started, was the same reason that anyone fights in a war...they were fighting for their own sovereignty over their own affairs, in defence of everything they knew, and for the men next to them in the line of battle...as ANY people will once a war has started. This does not make the southerners in that war bad people. Neither does it excuse the awful institution of slavery, which is a totally wrongful institution in any time or place.

We have some totally wrongful institutions now too...and people often take them for granted, just like most southerners then took slavery for granted. People have their blind spots. This does not make them "evil" people, though it may blind them to an evil consequence.

In short, Greg...you're not better than they were. Nor am I. Nor are any of us. We just have the benefit of a great deal of historical hindsight. Congratulations! Back then, if you'd been born a southerner, you'd probably have proudly enlisted under Lee's banner, and so might most of us, myself probably included. We would not have then had the benefit of the historical hindsight that we have now, and our views would most likely have already been formed by the culture all around us at the time.

And that's why I say, we're not better than them. At least, we have no business assuming that we are. If we do assume so, it's just a bunch of self-righteous posturing, in my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Apr 12 - 09:04 PM

When are they going to add the Black folks in chains that Davis, Lee & Jackson were fighing to perpetuate to the tableau on Stone Mountain?

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 22 Apr 12 - 06:52 PM

For a referemce re "schedules" one might compare:

Stone Mountain Monument.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Apr 12 - 12:15 PM

Well Howard, they started out working on Crazy Horse in 1948......64 years to get to where they are today. Mount Rushmore took 14 years.

Yet another way the (insert pc word for what used to be called "Indians" here) have been screwed by the white man......


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 22 Apr 12 - 11:19 AM

It's certainly made progress since I visited the site in 1976, when it was, well, just a mountain.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Apr 12 - 12:03 AM

I dunno' Hawk......be okay as long as the action packed webcam is still working.


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Apr 12 - 11:07 PM

Yeah. They'd all be mystified. And possibly rather offended over what's being done to the mountain.

It was well known among the Lakota and other Indians that White men do a lot of insane stuff that has no rational explanation. Unfortunately, no one could come up with a solution for it at the time, other than killing them (they wouldn't leave voluntarily)...but there were just too damn many of them, as it turned out. And that's how we ended up in the fix we're all in now.

Will the Crazy Horse Monument one day look sardonically down on the crumbling ruins of our vanished civilization, rather as the Sphinx gazes cryptically across the desert towards the Nile? I think probably so.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Apr 12 - 11:01 PM

If the ghost of Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake is watching he must also be quite puzzled. So would be Phizí, Xunka Kuciyedano, Ité Omáǧažu, Ve'ho'enohnenehe, and a whole host of others.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Apr 12 - 10:49 PM

If the ghost of Crazy Horse is watching, I think he must be quite puzzled by the whole thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Apr 12 - 10:33 PM

YEs Hawk....Like you I keep a regular eye on the progress of the carving with the webs most exciting webcam. The other day two tourist stopped by towards evening. I think the shop was closed but they stood on the deck for awhile.

Its that kind of action that keeps me coming back again and again. Gives me a boner just thinking about the days when they blast.......


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Apr 12 - 10:12 PM

Yes! And that is why they are pushing ahead with it at such a frenetic pace. They want to get it done before it's too late...

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Apr 12 - 10:04 PM

Are you talking about hydrogen or until it goes through the whole cycle to iron. If the second is the case the people finishing the job will have to wear some sort of environment suit. Also when the sun's core becomes iron the conversion to a red giant would soon destroy the statue rendering the whole thing moot.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Apr 12 - 07:48 PM

According to the Wes Ginny Slide Rule Crazy Horse will have his p;lace of prominence before the sun runs out of shit to burn...

But ya' keep is posted, LH... You know, on both he sun thing and C.H....

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Apr 12 - 03:56 PM

At the moment I think the monument itself kinda looks a bit dachshund-y.

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Apr 12 - 03:37 PM

"leaps and bounds" lol

In generations to come and when it is finally complete, modern human beings will no longer marvel at how long it took to build the pyramids...

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Apr 12 - 03:17 PM

Still there!

Right... where would it go?

Subject: RE: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Apr 12 - 02:56 PM

Impressive!

The planned monument. Not your dog.

Subject: BS: Crazy Horse Monument - still there!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Apr 12 - 02:41 PM

And moving ahead by leaps and bounds!

It makes for pretty exciting viewing, so I usually check it every 5 minutes or so all day long, and I'm keeping a daily journal of observed progress towards completion.

My Dachshund finds it utterly boring, however. "It's not edible," he said, and he went off to take a nap...his main hobby, aside from sounding the alarm and stealing food.