BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda

Subject: BS: Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: EBarnacle
Date: 19 Aug 17 - 01:49 PM

I have been watching the removal of Confederate statues and memorials with fascination and horror. They are certainly politically incorrect when treated as symbols . In some cases [not that many] they are also genuine art. To some degree, they honor local heroes. They are no worse than the monuments and statues honoring Union soldiers that can be found on many squares in the Northern states. At the gatherings after the Civil War, the soldiers who fought on the various battlefields greeted each other in a comradely manner.

I completely condemn the neoFascist marchers and KKK members who accompany them and use these removals as an excuse for violent protests. I do not believe, however, that erasing our history will change these vermin. They will just go underground. For good or ill, this is a remembrance of part of our history.

In the Middle East, al-Qaeda destroyed a pair of ancient statues of the Buddha ISIS has destroyed a at least one major world heritage site, which they condemned as idolatrous. The Palestinians are destroying evidence of pre-Muslim history in an effort to deny the existence of any culture before theirs. All of these are history, which may or may not be pleasing to the current denizens but represent facts.

Rather than saying that these people fought for slavery and were therefore evil, we should be saying that these people fought for a cause which was defeated and we must never repeat these sins. On both sides, many soldiers were draftees. Does this make them reprehensible?

What set off this rant is the article linked below reporting calls for the destruction of the Stone Mountain sculpture. Yes, there is unpleasant history here. This also, though, a genuine work of art. Having worked with a major artist, I have learned that art does not have to please everyone. It may even offend. If this current wave of political correctness persists, will we see Washington and Jefferson removed from Mount Rushmore because they owned slaves?   Will Fort Bragg be renamed because Braxton Bragg was a Confederate general? Where will it end?

As much as I hate the current atmosphere, all of these people are exercising their First Amendment rights. We need the people to change, as well as the conditions which create their hate and fear. We should not change the law. I am increasingly questioning whether we should make any of these decisions quickly to satisfy popular opinion.

What needs to change is the attitudes that cause violent behavior. When that happens, the memorials and statues that survive will return to simply being a remembrance of our shared history both nice and not so nice. As any archeologist can tell you, most of the world's art has been destroyed either by the ravages of time or by human action.

Stone Mountain threatened

Will Confederate faces on Georgia's Stone Mountain be removed?

www.msn.com

There are an estimated 1,500 Confederate symbols on display in the U.S. More than half a dozen of them in at least four states have been taken down since Saturday's violence in Charlottesville. Proposals have been made to remove several others including one on Georgia's Stone Mountain, America's largest Confederate monument. Manuel Bojorquez reports.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Aug 17 - 02:42 PM

And, can Confederate songs be sung?

Subject: RE: BS: Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Aug 17 - 03:25 PM

Stone Mountain commemorates one of the most shameful eras of Southern history (along with Jim Crow) and is an affront to any black person or any other decent American who happens to gaze on it. Tear it down.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Aug 17 - 03:38 PM

U.S. Grant characterized the Southern cause as "one of the worst for which a people ever fought."
Why the hell memorialize that?

Subject: RE: BS: Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Aug 17 - 03:40 PM

Worth repeating here from closed thread
Jim Carroll

"An insightful letter in this morning's Irish times on the 'historical value' of the Confederate statues
"Sir, - Oisin Keogh, who objects to the removal of, as he ' calls them, "symbolic monuments" of confederate leaders and generals, says history matters. If he cares that much about his¬tory, then surely he knows that the vast majority of these monuments were commissioned and financed during the 1920s - a period when the Ku Klux Klan was emerging and infiltrating local I and state government in the I US. These monuments are not symbolic in any way other than highlighting the deep-seated racism and anger over the loss of the war of Confederate sympathisers. People of any ethnic persuasion other than white have to walk past a monument to their oppressor anytime they want to go to a park, or school or any other public place where one of these statues has been erected. It would be akin to a statue of Rommel at Normandy, or Cromwell in Drogheda.
History does matter, and I would suggest that Mr Keogh read some to fully understand that while Washington and Jefferson were slave owners, and nobody is forgetting that, they at least created a declaration that stated "that all men are created equal" and a framework to free slaves. The people who marched in Charlottesville under the pretext of "statue rights" do not believe in that last statement. And if you agree with Donald Trump on this matter, then neither do you. - Yours, etc,
DAVID CONLON"

Another letter points out that the only ones with a real grievance about the removal of the statues are the pigeons

Subject: RE: BS: Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Aug 17 - 03:46 PM

They are no worse than the monuments and statues honoring Union soldiers that can be found on many squares in the Northern states.

Actually, they are CONSIDERABLY worse- to the point of obscenity. They are a monument to white supremacy, to slavery, to traitors who took up arms against the United States Government in order to perpetuate slavery. They are celebrating a mythical "lost cause" as if the southern slaveocracy were people in a Sir Walter Scott novel.

I do not believe, however, that erasing our history will change these vermin.

No one is "erasing history"- that's arrant nonsense. As long as there are books and historians, the history of that unfortunate period of U.S. history is abundantly available.

What's being removed, and not before time, is a celebration of the Confederacy, white supremacy, Jim Crow and racism.

Rather than saying that these people fought for slaver

Uh, sorry fella- that is EXACLTY what they did. As they themselves admitted. Do look up the Confederate Constitution, the writings of Alex. Stephens & Jeff Davis, as well as the several ordnances of secession. Its right there in black & white (as it were).

will we see Washington and Jefferson removed from Mount Rushmore because they owned slaves

More nonsense. Washington and Jefferson were not traitors who took up arms against the government of the United States in order to perpetuate slavery. Nor did they violate their sacred oath to protect and defend the United States & uphold the Constitution, as did Lee and other members of the regular U.S. army who defected to the Confederacy.

This also, though, a genuine work of art.

The same can be said for the works of Leni Riefenstahl.

Will Confederate faces on Georgia's Stone Mountain be removed?

One can only hope, as they were specifiacally carved ca. 1920's, during a period of resurgent KKK activity, as a statement supporting segregation and Jim Crow.

There are an estimated 1,500 Confederate symbols on display in the U.S. More than half a dozen of them in at least four states have been taken down since Saturday's violence in Charlottesville.

Well then, we'd better get busy: 1,494 to go, and not a minute too soon.

Isis?? al-Quaeda??? gimmie a fuckin' break. They're the middle east version of the KKK, Aryan Nations, Neo-Confederates, Neo-Or-Not-So Neo-Nazis & etc

Subject: RE: BS: Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Aug 17 - 10:11 PM

I think Greg is right on this one. One could argue that the Reconstruction (1865-77) was more harsh than it needed to be, but white Southerrners responded with a vengeance when it ended. The Democrats, who opposed Reconstruction, regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1874. U.S. Army troops were removed from the South in 1877, ending the Reconstruction.

During Reconstruction, many African Americans were elected to political office in the South. When Reconstruction ended, whites regained power and enacted Jim Crow laws and built the Ku Klux Klan. Most of those Confederate statues were erected in the early 20th century, to celebrate the return of white supremacy to the South.

But if we remove statues, where do we draw the line? Some of those statues were most certainly built to mourn loved ones who served in battle and died on the battlefield or thereafter. Several years ago, I spent a fascinating couple of hours touring Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery in Lexington, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley. The whole town of Lexington reeks of Confederacy. It's the home of the Virginia Military Institute, and Washington & Lee University (where Robert E. Lee is buried). To get rid of the mementos of the Confederacy, you'd have to bulldoze the whole town - and it's a really beautiful town, and I didn't find the mementos of the Confederacy to be overly offensive there. I did find it wonderful to see African American families walking free and proud through the town as tourists, with Barack Obama as President. So, I dunno. I'd like to see open, honest discussion before any more statues are removed - and I think decisions should be made locally.

But Stone Mountain is a big question. I suppose it's a really cool thing, not that I bothered to cough up the admission fee to see it. But it has far too much baggage. The story of the mountain and its carving is just too closely tied to the Ku Klux Klan. The trouble is, the Confederate Memorial is privately owned, while the surrounding property is a state park. This is one memorial that really should be blown to smithereens, but yet the ownership setup makes that very difficult to accomplish. Wish I knew how that one should be handled.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: EBarnacle
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 12:07 AM

History is written by the winners.
Joe makes my point. At what point do we stop? Do we rename every military installation named after a Confederate General? There are a lot of them.
Do we judge them on artistic merit? Tastes differ. I feel that many "artists" including Warhol and Basquiat are cases of The Emperor's New Clothes. Others disagree.
A lot of major art was funded by pretty nasty people. Should we get rid of it because of the original patron? I believe Stone Mountain falls into this category.
What are the limits to which we go to avoid offending people? I had a discussion with Pete Seeger about the inclusion of the N word in the song "Blow, Boys, Blow." His answer at that time was "If it is essential to the song, leave it in. If you can work around it do so."
There was a chapter in "The Great Explosion," by Eric Frank Russell, entitled "F-IW." Freedom is the right to say, I won't do it. The rule also applies to taking offense. What are the limits to being offended or giving offense?
That is what has to be defined.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: EBarnacle
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 12:19 AM

There is a point that Bill Moyers makes in his book on Democracy. The Civil War was a major point in the definition of citizenship. A large part of the reason many of the Southern generals elected to serve the Confederacy is that, while they were generals in the American army, they still considered themselves Virginians, Kentuckians, etc. first. Lee struggled with this before going South. He was offered command of the Union army but decided he could not fight against his home state.
Although condemned as traitors, these people were being true to what they considered their true citizenship. The war helped redefine the definition of American citizenship.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 03:18 AM

What you say EB, is truw of every war that has ever been fought
Would it be permissible for German towns to erect statues to Hitler, Goebbels and all the heroes of The Reich because they fought nobly for their cause and it was part of German history?
How about marches declaring that Aryans are superior to Jews - would that be OK too?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: akenaton
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 04:30 AM

Well said Barnacle. Thank god there are still some real people on this forum....not just a group of automatons.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 05:34 AM

"not just a group of automatons."
Your aggression towards those who argue against you typifies the Klan whose rights you are supporting
Why is it democratic for armed racists to take to the streets but treasonable for Anti Trump demonstrators to exercise their opposition to him?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 05:53 AM

yes

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Stu
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 06:36 AM

"What are the limits to which we go to avoid offending people?"

In the case of statues/carvings/public art etc I agree with Joe, each one has to be looked at on a case-by-case basis by local people, although we also need to consider how our wider society wants to remember the past.

Knowing that a number of our fellow countrymen would consider the statue of a person that was involved in oppression in the past very offensive, we have to decide whether that statue should remain or if choose to accept some responsibility for the actions of our ancestors and remove the offending object. If we don't care about offending others in our society, then keep the statue or carving or whatever.

Why is heartening is the way people have been galvanised into action by the presence of the extreme right on the streets. It might seem that with Trump and (in the UK) Farage plus Brexit the right are resurgent. Luckily there are enough people who won't forget that will go out on the streets to stop that happening.


"Do we judge them on artistic merit?"

Their artistic merit is irrelevant to the discussion.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 08:37 AM

So EB- to you, it would be acceptable if Jewish folk had to walk past a statue of Joseph Mengele every day of thrir lives.

History is written by the winners.

Please, not that old nonsense. As if nothing was written by anyone in or from the Confederacy?

Remember, too that Wilson thought the absolute bullshit of "Birth of a Nation" was "history written by lightening". This country has dealt for a hundred and fifty years - and still deals with on a daily basis- the fake "history" of the "Lost Cause" - It was even taught in school when I was a kid.

Although condemned as traitors, these people were being true to what they considered their true citizenship.

So what? The white supremecists and Nazis marching in Charlottesville were "being true to what they considered their true citizenship"- that of a white ethno-state. The parallel is exact.

What are the limits to which we go to avoid offending people?

This is not just about "offending people" tho that's a part of it. This is about celebrating and memorializing individuals, a society and a nation founded upon the principle that Blacks were sub-human property with no rights whatsoever.

Take 'em down & put 'em in an "I Wish I Wuz In De land Ob Cotton" theme park somewhare so real Americans don't have to look at them.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 08:44 AM

I think Greg is right on this one.

Thanks Joe - whooda thunkit? ;>)

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 09:52 AM

Those Confederate war hero statues weren't put up right after the war. They were put up by racists in the early twentieth century to impress upon African Americans to stay in what Southern whites considered the proper place of blacks. Barnacle may have discussed why generals decided to fight for the south; that has NOTHING to do with why statues were up up 50-75 years later.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 09:57 AM

And now, for a Brief Musical Interlude

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: robomatic
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 02:11 PM

As for the question posed by the OP: The answer is YES.

I have been to many (American) Civil War sites. I have found them to be a great resource of our common history, full of honest information which provokes great solemnity and emotion in the American heart.

I was taught up North by Mr. Wilkins that the war was fought over slavery. I have maintained that even when challenged with the southern argument that it was over States' Rights. Abraham Lincoln put paid to that argument when he answered simply and effectively that people can't ask for rights that they deny to others: their slaves.

There has NEVER been denial in the United States that from its founding there was an internal contradiction: That the rights the Founding Fathers demanded and debated were denied to millions of other inhabitants. Thomas Jefferson eloquently brought up the subject of the 'peculiar institution' and said among many other things: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

The wonder of our founding is that this disparate group of people were able to put together a country that lived to fulfill its own betterment to this very day.

It was never a sure thing and it is not a sure thing today.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: gillymor
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 02:13 PM

I agree with Acme when she wrote 'Barnacle may have discussed why generals decided to fight for the south; that has NOTHING to do with why statues were up up 50-75 years later.' but for the sake of this discussion it's worth noting that Robert E. Lee was a wealthy slave owner by marriage and by some accounts a brutal one, so it's reasonable to assume that his motivation for accepting a commission in the CSA army exceeded just the defense of The Old Dominion. His preference for his home state over the United States is another component in the myth of the "Glorious Lost Cause".

I couldn't begin to articulate the argument nearly as well as New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu so here is a speech he gave explaining the removal of Confederate monuments in his city. Incidentally, I found it at billmoyers.com, an excellent source of information:

billmoyers.com

Excerpts:

"The historic record is clear: The Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as the cult of the lost cause. This "cult" had one goal: through monuments and through other means, to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity. First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy. It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America. They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots. These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy, ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement and the terror that it actually stood for."

"After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone's lawn. They were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city."

"And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African-Americans — or anyone else — to drive by property that they own, occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person's humanity seems perverse and absurd. Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place."

"The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered."

Well worth reading or viewing if you're interested in this issue.

Also, I totally agree with Stu's statement "Their artistic merit is irrelevant to the discussion."
If people want to appreciate what they see as their "esthetic value", indeed, put them in museums but get them the hell out of public view for all the reasons Mayor Landrieu mentioned in his speech. I'd prefer to see them torn down and recycled into something useful.

Here is a timeline for Confederate monument and statue building between 1870 and 1980 (source-SPLC):

Mother Jones

and here is the article in which it appeared:

Mother Jones

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: robomatic
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 02:24 PM

Democracy Now has a fascinating interview with some descendants of General Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Mr Red
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 02:44 PM

In the recent vociferous debate over a University College founded by a slave trader there were inconsistences like students who were the beneficiaries of subsidies &/or burseries from the college. They wanted his statue removed.
I liked the comment "why not paint the face black" - a serious concept that would remind everyone and add substance to the history. As the epithet goes "Many a true word spoken in jest".
My feelings: why destroy when you can tell a story?
But you can't reason with evangelists. Logic is not their strong point, belief is! It is a religion with them, even though they don't admit it.

But it is a sign of an immature society that re-writes history. Russia did it with communism in 1917, then after Stalin, then Krushev and who knows who else. - Iraq, Romainia and it will continue. Maybe we should resist the conceit to put so many statues in future - knowing what human society will do.

Record history with truth, then cast it in stone. The future will cherry pick but can't deny.

And.......... how do the French depict Agincourt? (what is the imoji for rhetoric ? 🤔 )

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 04:53 PM

But it is a sign of an immature society that re-writes history.

I'm not sure where you're headed with this? Are you talking about the wholesale re-writing of U.S. history that invented the myth of "The Glorious Lost Cause" ?

My feelings: why destroy when you can tell a story?

Depends on which story you're telling and how, dunnit?

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: gillymor
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 05:08 PM

Not re-writing history, rather correcting a gross misrepresentation of it.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 05:19 PM

Its not just the Jackson G-G-Grandsons, Robo.

Descendants of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis want the monuments gone, too.

Ditto a group of descendants of the sculptor who created the Confederate Monument in Arlington National Cemetery (an anachronism if ever there was one- a monument to traitors in "the" National military cemetery).

Hell, if its good enough for these folks, its damn well good enough for me.

And about bloody time.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 06:00 PM

I suppose it was only a matter of time before one of the few people that can out-asshole Donal-Dumbo - Rush-Druggo - spewed this forth:

Limbaugh says white supremacists and the KKK 'are not the problem'.

"They are not the problem. The problem is on the other side," Limbaugh says. By the "other side" he means "the Antifa, the Occupy Wall Street, the Black Lives Matter, the United States mainstream media, the Democrat Party."

Limbaugh describes media coverage of Trump and the Charlottesville white supremacist rally as an effort to "distort information to wipe out from the vestiges of our history and our memory any collection of stories that testify to the greatness of America and her people."

Limbaugh's comments were laced with anti-Semetic tropes, blaming the violence in Charlottesville on "people like George Soros and any other number of international financiers whose objective it is to take the United States out and down as a superpower."

More Here if you have a strong stomach.



Can we get rid of Limbaugh along with the statues?

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: bobad
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 08:13 PM

"The essence of myth -- the knowing of the unknowable, the unknowing of the knowable -- is its capacity for infinite adaptation, its susceptibility to distortion, and, once distortion has occurred, its resistance to efforts to reestablish reality; myth is more stubborn than fact." -- Claude Lanzmann

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: robomatic
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 09:18 PM

"This is the West. . . When the legend becomes fact- print the legend."

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
If you haven't seen it, see it.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: EBarnacle
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 09:24 PM

I wanted to start a reasoned discussion and it seems we are able to have one on this very divisive issue.
Greg, you are throwing up a straw man with your Mengele comparison. The Germans themselves rejected that as a possibility with their post war anti-racism laws. That has not, however, stopped the skinheads and neos from proliferating in their ratholes. This time, their targets are Muslims--at least initially.
As I said in my OP, we need to change people's attitudes and beliefs. Only then will what the symbols reverence be defused.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 10:30 PM

The monuments in cemeteries and in battlefields don't have the "Southern Triumphalist" tone that is carried by the 20th-century equestrian statues of Confederate generals. On the battlefields, I think it helps that the statues are "bipartisan" - from both the Union and Confederate armies.

I generally think it's a good idea to remove Confederate statues from cities, but I'm not so sure about the cemeteries and battlefields.

Back in the 1980s, I went to the Deep South a number of times as a federal election observer under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I developed theories about the Civil War memorials I saw in the South. Most notable were Mississippi and Alabama. In Mississippi, I got the impression that they fought the war and lost. In Alabama and South Carolina, I got the impression that the entire state still contended that they won the war - same with Georgia. Virginia and Louisiana and North Carolina seemed to be politely embarrassed that they had been involved in the whole mess - except that the Shenandoah Valley was rabidly pro-Confederacy. These are just my impressions, but I had fun trying to discern the varying attitudes about the Civil War in various states.

I was on the tail end of my agency's Voter Rights trips. In general, we were received very well and there seemed to be a lot of friendly interaction between blacks and whites at the polls - in many places, it was far more friendly than I'd seen in black-white relationships in the North. But there always seemed to be one incident that made me think it was good that we were there to help keep the elections honest and fair.

I think it's a travesty that the Supreme Court more-or-less abolished hte Voting Rights Act. There are still many places in the South where people work hard to deprive African-Americans of their right to vote. I keep wondering what trick they're going to come up with next. The Department of Justice can no longer take preventative action in the South. They have to wait until the election is over, and then they can prosecute - after the damage has been done.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Aug 17 - 10:41 PM

Greg, you are throwing up a straw man with your Mengele comparison.

I rather think not. I'm not talking about a Mengele statue in Germany. Check with a few black folks & get back to me.

This time, their targets are Muslims.

I rather think it was black folks and Jews, from the chants in Charlottesville.

One way to change attitudes, as a start, is to do away with commemoration and celebration of a pernicious anti-historical "Lost Cause" myth and its trappings - particularly those trappings erected specifically to reinforce white supremacy and segregation and terrorize black folks. The symbols can't reverence squat if they're gone.

Then we can begin to replace the root myth with fact.

Time we got on with it- its more than a hundred years overdue.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Aug 17 - 02:48 AM

Depends on which story you're telling and how, dunnit?

We are visual beings.
Without the iconography, society will ignore.
Give them the standing statue and put your rewriting of history on it. Then we can read the stories. Blacken the face and it hits home, destroy and it has no ammunition.

Otherwise "History repeats itself, it has to, no-one is listening" (or reading).

Censorship is alt-facts by any name.

There is always a better way. Evangelists don't know that!

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Aug 17 - 08:45 AM

your rewriting of history

Once again: it is not "rewriting history". Nor is it "censorship"- you're starting to sould like Ake on the Boston Demo thread.

It is debunking a myth.

Then we can read the stories.

Plenty of other and more appropriate places to read the real story/ies other than on a monument to slavery & white supremacy.

We don't need these Confederate memorials to tell the true story; moreover thay make telling the real story more difficult.

And they're a poke in the eye with a sharp stick to every person of color who sees them, and an embarrassment to responsible, thinking white folks as well.

Sometimes I REALLY miss Azizi...

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Aug 17 - 09:46 AM

NB to Mudelves: I apologize for the length of this, but felt it needed to be seen in full. Delete if necessary.

Confederate Statues and 'Our' History

By Eric Foner, Aug. 20, 2017

President Trump's Thursday morning tweet lamenting that the removal of Confederate statues tears apart "the history and culture of our great country" raises numerous questions, among them: Who is encompassed in that "our"?

Mr. Trump may not know it, but he has entered a debate that goes back to the founding of the republic. Should American nationality be based on shared values, regardless of race, ethnicity and national origin, or should it rest on "blood and soil," to quote the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Va., whom Trump has at least partly embraced?

Neither Mr. Trump nor the Charlottesville marchers invented the idea that the United States is essentially a country for white persons. The very first naturalization law, enacted in 1790 to establish guidelines for how immigrants could become American citizens, limited the process to "white" persons.

What about nonwhites born in this country? Before the Civil War, citizenship was largely defined by individual states. Some recognized blacks born within their boundaries as citizens, but many did not. As far as national law was concerned, the question was resolved by the Supreme Court in the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857. Blacks, wrote Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (a statue of whom was removed from public display in Baltimore this week), were and would always be aliens in America.

This was the law of the land when the Civil War broke out in 1861. This is the tradition that the Southern Confederacy embodied and sought to preserve and that Mr. Trump, inadvertently or not, identifies with by equating the Confederacy with "our history and culture."

Many Americans, of course, rejected this racial definition of American nationality. Foremost among them were abolitionists, male and female, black and white, who put forward an alternative definition, known today as birthright citizenship. Anybody born in the United States, they insisted, was a citizen, and all citizens should enjoy equality before the law. Abolitionists advocated not only the end of slavery, but also the incorporation of the freed people as equal members of American society.

In the period of Reconstruction that followed the war, this egalitarian vision was, for the first time, written into our laws and Constitution. But the advent of multiracial democracy in the Southern states inspired a wave of terrorist opposition by the Ku Klux Klan and kindred groups, antecedents of the Klansmen and neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville. One by one the Reconstruction governments were overthrown, and in the next generation white supremacy again took hold in the South.

When Mr. Trump identifies statues commemorating Confederate leaders as essential parts of "our" history and culture, he is honoring that dark period. Like all monuments, these statues say a lot more about the time they were erected than the historical era they evoke. The great waves of Confederate monument building took place in the 1890s, as the Confederacy was coming to be idealized as the so-called Lost Cause and the Jim Crow system was being fastened upon the South, and in the 1920s, the height of black disenfranchisement, segregation and lynching. The statues were part of the legitimation of this racist regime and of an exclusionary definition of America.

The historian Carl Becker wrote that history is what the present chooses to remember about the past. Historical monuments are, among other things, an expression of power — an indication of who has the power to choose how history is remembered in public places.

If the issue were simply heritage, why are there no statues of Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, one of Gen. Robert E. Lee's key lieutenants? Not because of poor generalship; indeed, Longstreet warned Lee against undertaking Pickett's Charge, which ended the battle of Gettysburg. Longstreet's crime came after the Civil War: He endorsed black male suffrage and commanded the Metropolitan Police of New Orleans, which in 1874 engaged in armed combat with white supremacists seeking to seize control of the state government. Longstreet is not a symbol of white supremacy; therefore he was largely ineligible for commemoration by those who long controlled public memory in the South.

As all historians know, forgetting is as essential to public understandings of history as remembering. Confederate statues do not simply commemorate "our" history, as the president declared. They honor one part of our past. Where are the statues in the former slave states honoring the very large part of the Southern population (beginning with the four million slaves) that sided with the Union rather than the Confederacy? Where are the monuments to the victims of slavery or to the hundreds of black lawmakers who during Reconstruction served in positions ranging from United States senator to justice of the peace to school board official? Excluding blacks from historical recognition has been the other side of the coin of glorifying the Confederacy.

We have come a long way from the days of the Dred Scott decision. But our public monuments have not kept up. The debate unleashed by Charlottesville is a healthy re-examination of the question "Who is an American?" And "our" history and culture is far more complex, diverse and inclusive than the president appears to realize.

******
Eric Foner is a professor of history at Columbia and the author, most recently, of "Battles for Freedom: The Use and Abuse of American History."

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: michaelr
Date: 22 Aug 17 - 06:30 PM

Here's an idea for what to do with Confederate statues. Hungary put their Communist monuments in a lovely park designed for the purpose, where those who are so inclined can visit them, and those who are not so inclined don't have to encounter them in major public spaces. Bonus! Memento Park

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: EBarnacle
Date: 22 Aug 17 - 10:49 PM

On another site, a friend pointed out that many of these statues were essentially mass produced by the same foundries that were producing the "Yankee soldier" statues. Follow the money.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 03:59 AM

Nor is it "censorship"

quoted in Merriam-Webster on the very word - permitted a very limited dispersion of facts .

yes it is, like all politically correct proclamations.

As I said, put the alternative argument on the item itself and we get the message. Remove it and we are ignorant.

Are we ashamed of our past? If you ain't then go ahead remove the past and make more similar mistakes. You are following the pattern of history.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 07:37 AM

I'm with michaelr. A statue of a political figure is a political statement. I would have hated to have lived in one of those countries in which I was confronted daily by massive portraits of Mao or Ceaucescu or Stalin or Saddam everywhere I went. When I saw things like that on the telly they made me shudder. So what's so different about political statues? In democracies politics is often polarising, even divisive. Your choice of hero may not be mine. That requires respect on both sides and it requires compromise in order to avoid offence. Put the statues in museums or memorial gardens where no-one has to see them if they don't want to. That's freedom.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 07:44 AM

yes it is, like all politically correct proclamations.


The old "politically correct" bullshit.You ARE channelling Ake. Whu don't the two of you get a room somewhere?

Are we ashamed of our past? If you ain't then go ahead remove the past

Are you proud of Slavery, white supremacy, Jim Crow and Lynching? If so, then continue to memorialize and celebrrate them with statuary- on your own property, not in public spaces.

Once again, no-one is "removing the past" - which is in itself impossible.

An error is being corrected.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: gillymor
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 07:59 AM

Mr. Red wrote-"Give them the standing statue and put your rewriting of history on it. Then we can read the stories. Blacken the face and it hits home, destroy and it has no ammunition."

Many of the most offensive of these Confederate statues, that were designed to send a message of intimidation and white supremacy, were strategically placed in high traffic areas where the vast majority of those who see them are zipping past in autos or, in an earlier era, autos and horse-drawn vehicles. I'll wager that of all the folks that encounter them a very small fraction of them ever actually read what's inscribed on their base.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 09:19 AM

Excuse me? "They are no worse than the monuments and statues honoring Union soldiers that can be found on many squares in the Northern states." - so, nobody would have minded a statue of Mengele going up in a Jewish neighborbood in, say, Poland, 75 years after WWII? What twaddle. And I live in Charlottesville now.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 09:29 AM

It is removing the past. It is removing the evidence. Like I say, add your story. What are you afraid of?

Public shaming if that is what you want.

It is called context. Move it to a museum if you like. But removing stuff is censorship, or was the last time I read the entry in various dictionaries.

Or is censorship what others do to prevent you saying what you want. And removing is what you do?

Or am I talking in another language?

Now do we have an opinion on Roman statues? Some of the worse despots that maintained a slave culture. Ah! But that is antiquity, it has a different patina! And we value stuff that old.
Context? Try it.

And the UK police currently have an anti-slavery unit. Talk about history repeating itself............ Out of sight, out of mind!

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Vashta Nerada
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 09:43 AM

It is removing the past. It is removing the evidence. Like I say, add your story. What are you afraid of?

Removing Confederate propagandic statues isn't the same as Thomas Bowdler "cleaning up" Shakespeare. It doesn't diminish the lessons of war or the context. It isn't removing the past, it's more like cleaning up the unexploded bombs after a war.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 09:59 AM

In fact, the vast majority of those ancient Roman statues are now housed in museums and galleries in Italy. If you look into the "slave culture" of ancient Rome I think you'll find that it wasn't at all the same thing as was practised in the US. And there aren't too many descendants of ancient Rome left to take offence. There may be a debate to be had about when modern history, of the kind that all too sharply informs our attitudes to modern-day events, morphs into ancient history. The cutoff, if there is such a thing, may be at different points in different cultures. There may also be a debate to be had regarding those ancient sculptures about whether they should remain as examples of great art. You tell me at which point, for example, nude art is no longer good enough to not be pornography. There's no black and white, but there is a red line beyond which political partiality imposed on others can cause perfectly unjustifiable offence. And we do live in democracies in which we accept that personal freedoms may be compromised at the point where they start to tread on other people's toes. It's also well worth remembering, when you consider those confederate statues, that slavery is by no means dead in today's world.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: EBarnacle
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 02:51 PM

Getting back to one of my earlier questions, here is a case in which a broadcaster is so afraid of giving offense that Robert Lee, an Asian, is being removed from a UVa broadcast.

https://patch.com/new-jersey/baskingridge/s/g7n7t/espn-announcer-robert-lee-booted-from-u-va-season-opener-because-of-his-name

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: gillymor
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 03:14 PM

ESPN's explanation for it seems perfectly reasonable to me:

"We collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding, simply because of the coincidence of his name,"

Mr. Lee was switched to another game and won't miss a paycheck. Big deal.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 06:42 PM

Mr Red:Or am I talking in another language?

Yes. Gibberish.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 06:44 PM

Robert Lee, an Asian, is being removed from a UVa broadcast.

And that incident concerns the removal of Confederate/Confederacy-worshippiong monuments.......... how, exactly?

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 07:02 PM

Censorship is such a loaded word. It can be tossed around all too easily by scoundrels who want their hate speech or hate-iconography to remain immune from their adversaries' criticism (people who they'd quite likely characterise as "politically correct" or as "soft liberal lefties," etc.). Censorship is the authoritarian, arbitrary removal from public gaze of material that someone (probably no more qualified to do so than you or me) has decided may "deprave and corrupt" or, to be less kind, that might make them turn against their masters. There is nothing authoritarian about campaigning for the removal of statues offensive to a lot of people. In fact, there may well be an authoritarian angle to the attitude of the people who decided, divisively, to put up those statues in the first place and who argue on ideological grounds that they should remain in place. Democracy and common decency demand compromise. Put the damn things in theme parks or museums.

Subject: RE: BS:Statues-Are we any better than ISIS or al-Qaeda
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 07:46 PM

Or better yet, put 'em in the dump [tip].