Pencemegeddon

[TheDeamon]

But rendering the south and their support for slavery to be equivalent to the Nazi's is not objectively valid.

I suppose not - they were not equivalent - but in some ways, slavery was worse.

Well, the Nazi's did that too.

But for the Confederates, unlike the Nazis, with few exceptions, the Confederates weren't deliberately turning previously free people into slaves. The enslavements themselves either happened in Africa, or Colonial America for the most part. And if you're wanting to condemn the practice of slavery itself, you need to remember that the Confederacy only existed for 5 yeas. The United States allowed slavery to exist for decades under its own banner. (The UK gets a double whammy, the Union Jack was involved in enslavements and slave trading for centuries. So if you're condemning on the basis of slavery alone...)

[LetterRip]

The confederates were treating slaves like animals forcing them to breed or raping the women and then taking their children and forcing the children to be slaves.  I think that is likely worse than kidnapping people and forcing them into slavery.  It is a bit absurd trying to say which horrifically evil thing is worse.  I think calling it an evilness of a similar nature and vileness with holocaust appropriate.

[Aris Katsaris]

And if you're wanting to condemn the practice of slavery itself, you need to remember that the Confederacy only existed for 5 yeas. The United States allowed slavery to exist for decades under its own banner. (The UK gets a double whammy, the Union Jack was involved in enslavements and slave trading for centuries. So if you're condemning on the basis of slavery alone...)

It's exactly because it lasted for only 5 years that it's very easy to judge it and condemn it in its entirety for the cause it championed in those 5 years. Same as it's easy to judge Nazi Germany, but not Germany as a whole.

The Union Jack of the British Empire, lasting for centuries, and likewise with the United States, are conversely NOT to be condemned in their entirety for they have fought on both sides of good and evil at different points.

[DonaldD]

I thought it was implied, but by "slavery" I meant "slavery in the United States, which predated the confederacy proper, which itself was made up primarily of the states that most benefitted by slavery, and that went to war to fight to maintain its practice ".  Oh and of course, this slavery, which lasted for centuries in the colonies and states making up the confederacy (not just those states, but pretending it was only 5 years that could be blamed on the confederacy, when the illness was endemic in the USA, but primarily the southern states, for more than half the existence of the USA in total, is... interesting).

I would wager there is not a person in the USA above the age of 15 who has not had it explained to them, reported to them, or heard the explanation, that the confederacy fought to maintain the practice of slavery, and the confederate battle flag is directly tied to that - not to put too fine a point on it - evil regime.  If you have to bring up the nazis to make the confederacy look better, you're not doing it right.

[DonaldD]

I know it's beating a dead horse, and is overshadowed by the president and members of congress effectively inciting insurrection, but The New York Times has a piece on how Trump was seriously considering ousting the acting US AG and replacing him with Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department lawyer and a graduate of internet university, who almost convinced the president he could unilaterally undo the Georgia presidential election results: Trump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting Attorney General.  This was happening concurrently with the president trying to brow beat Georgia AG Raffensperger into fraudulently discarding ballots cast for Biden.

[kidv]

I always wondered about all of the confederate statues in the north.  I know the Daughters of the Confederacy got most of them installed, but for the life of me I do not know why city commissions in the north agreed to them? I mean we fought them in the  Civil war. why would we want to put statues up honoring their dead leaders.

 . . .

But by the same token, if the Daughters of the Confederacy managed to get Northern communities to agree to putting memorials up in their town, don't you think that the Grand Army of the Republic and its associates might have had something to say about it too? They actually fought against those people, had friends and associates die to them. Yet they left it alone. If they set it aside and moved on, don't you think we should be able to as well?

Thinking about the implications of this argument really serves to highlight the complete lack of political power and social protection held by black communities.  If you're to think that the purpose of the monuments in the 20s was as an adjunct to Jim Crow, to create stakes of memory along the lines of "white supremacy - we lost the war but we're still here," then it's even more disheartening to think of northern communities allowing those monuments while ignoring the impact felt by the unrepresented.  The fact that the monuments were created and still exist seems to highlight the present need to tear them down; seems to highlight the sad present need to continue to take actions for society to be aware of the history of racial injustice in America.

[Grant]

then it's even more disheartening to think of northern communities allowing those monuments while ignoring the impact felt by the unrepresented. The fact that the monuments were created and still exist seems to highlight the present need to tear them down; seems to highlight the sad present need to continue to take actions for society to be aware of the history of racial injustice in America.

Is the goal here to highlight the needs of society to be aware of the history of racial injustice in America, or to address the impacted feelings of minorities?  What exactly happens when you knock down a statue or block of stone that some ol biddy put up in Seattle in 1926 because her daddy fought for the Confederacy and all her uncles were killed in the war? 

[Aris Katsaris]

Is the goal here to highlight the needs of society to be aware of the history of racial injustice in America, or to address the impacted feelings of minorities?  What exactly happens when you knock down a statue or block of stone that some ol biddy put up in Seattle in 1926 because her daddy fought for the Confederacy and all her uncles were killed in the war? 

What happens, presumably, is that black kids passing by that spot in the future will no longer have to suffer the constant insult towards them that the statue's existence represents.

[Grant]

What happens, presumably, is that black kids passing by that spot in the future will no longer have to suffer the constant insult towards them that the statue's existence represents.

What does this teach black children, and children in general, about what is insulting and how to deal with it? 

[Aris Katsaris]

What does this teach black children, and children in general, about what is insulting and how to deal with it? 

True things.

- If people put up statues that honor the ones who enslaved you, it's because they have contempt for you, disregard for you, and they want to show you that society belongs to them and they can act to humiliate you with impunity.
- The proper response to such a society that still treats you with such open contempt rather than as an equal citizen is to war against it, until it learns to at least pretend to be treating you like an equal by taking down the statues and symbols of your enslavers

[Grant]

- If people put up statues that honor the ones who enslaved you, it's because they have contempt for you, disregard for you, and they want to show you that society belongs to them and they can act to humiliate you with impunity.

You don't know that Aris.  I don't know how you can claim it to be a "truthism".  You've never met any of those old farts that put those damn statues up because they're all dead.  They're rotting in the ground.  They were either forgiven by God or their roasting in hell or they're just gone forever.  Either way, you should be satisfied.  100 years from now we'll all be dead as well, and anybody alive that is insulting you is going to be in the same predicament, as will you. 

The proper response to such a society that still treats you with such open contempt rather than as an equal citizen is to war against it, until it learns to at least pretend to be treating you like an equal by taking down the statues and symbols of your enslavers

See, you're making the same mistake the Trumpers make, which is that society and politics are an open war between different segments of society.  They actually learned it from you, to be honest, so you could say that this kind of thinking gave birth to Trumpism and all the silly little forms of white nationalism and other bs running around.  You can't fight the old biddys in the ground anyways, and all the old idiot farts who wore grey.  They're dead, man.  They can't have contempt for YOU.  They never even met you or anybody else running around.  If they had contempt for your people or your ideas, you can't beat them by iconoclasm.  You have to defeat their ideas.  You have to prove that your people or your ideas are righteous and good and theirs were wrong or evil.  Politics and society isn't a war, dude.  I know Marxism wants you to see everything in those terms, but it's a lie, and just leads to greater evil.  Don't be a Marxist man.  There is a better way to live your life.  Don't be constantly at war. 

People are teaching these kids to be insulted by dead people and dead ideas and dead symbols.  It's teaching them to fight everything.  They're finding statues and symbols of enslavers everywhere, because slavery was everywhere.  When you teach them that, they want to tear down statues of Washington, Jefferson, and even Lincoln and Grant. 

[Aris Katsaris]

Grant, I disagree with removing statues or Washington and Jefferson, for the same reason I said I disagreed equating the Union Jack with the Confederate Battle flag. The UK has fought for both good causes and bad causes. Washington and Jefferson (and Churchill) are mostly celebrated for a good cause.

The Confederacy, same as Nazi Germany, is as pure an evil cause as you are likely to get. Their leaders and generals and soldiera and flags, all honor an evil cause.

Don't talk about needing to learn to not take offense from confederate statues unless you are also willing to raise a statue of Osama Bin Laden in the middle of New York.

Or do you think perhaps New Yorkers, even Republicans, might not appreciate such a statue to Osama Bin Laden? And they might try to vandalize it and knock it down?

But tell you what, if the people who support keeping confederate statues erect such a statue to Osama Bin Laden in the middle of New York, I'll stop being angry about these confederate statues.

See, you're making the same mistake the Trumpers make, which is that society and politics are an open war between different segments of society.

Kinda blatantly so when we are literally talking about the Civil War, and confederate generals, and the confederate battle flag. Not talking about honoring poets and athletes here, eh? We are talking about a war.

[TheDeamon]

What does this teach black children, and children in general, about what is insulting and how to deal with it? 

- If people put up statues that honor the ones who enslaved you, it's because they have contempt for you, disregard for you, and they want to show you that society belongs to them and they can act to humiliate you with impunity.

Pretty sure there nobody alive today who was enslaved by a member of the Confederacy. Pretty sure there is basically nobody alive today is a child of anyone who was enslaved by a member of the Confederacy.

- The proper response to such a society that still treats you with such open contempt rather than as an equal citizen is to war against it, until it learns to at least pretend to be treating you like an equal by taking down the statues and symbols of your enslavers

I think I'd favor a society that portrays its enemies in a proper context, to help people better understand that "histories greatest monsters" weren't entirely monsters. It helps serve as a warning for others who seek to battle against monsters in the future, as it should keep them mindful of the risk of becoming a monster themselves.

[TheDeamon]

Don't talk about needing to learn to not take offense from confederate statues unless you are also willing to raise a statue of Osama Bin Laden in the middle of New York.

In the proper context, I wouldn't object to someone commissioning a statue of OBL. Of course, getting that "proper context" is likely another challenge entirely, as he's basically on par with Hitler. The best either likely deserve is something more in line with what Benedict Arnold received.

See, you're making the same mistake the Trumpers make, which is that society and politics are an open war between different segments of society.

Kinda blatantly so when we are literally talking about the Civil War, and confederate generals, and the confederate battle flag. Not talking about honoring poets and athletes here, eh? We are talking about a war.

It's a dead war man, nobody is fighting for the Confederacy anymore.

[kidv]

then it's even more disheartening to think of northern communities allowing those monuments while ignoring the impact felt by the unrepresented. The fact that the monuments were created and still exist seems to highlight the present need to tear them down; seems to highlight the sad present need to continue to take actions for society to be aware of the history of racial injustice in America.

Is the goal here to highlight the needs of society to be aware of the history of racial injustice in America, or to address the impacted feelings of minorities?  What exactly happens when you knock down a statue or block of stone that some ol biddy put up in Seattle in 1926 because her daddy fought for the Confederacy and all her uncles were killed in the war?

" An overwhelming majority of Confederate memorials weren’t erected in the years directly following the Civil War. Instead, most were put up decades later. Nor were they built just to commemorate fallen generals and soldiers; they were installed as symbols of white supremacy during periods of U.S. history when Black Americans’ civil rights were aggressively under attack."

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/confederate-statues/ [please read]

The context in which the statues should be torn down is that in which the intent at the time they were put up was to say "F You" to black people who saw them and to be an act of rewriting history and sanitizing the confederacy instead of memorializing its actual history.  These were mass-produced statues littered across the country to act as seeds of southern slaveholding ideals.  Germany has the right idea and the proper correlative in that no one celebrates their dad being a Nazi and nobody would think of putting up statues celebrating the Nazis 60 years after the fact.

In the context of the confederacy fought a war to uphold slavery, lost, killed Lincoln to prevent reconstruction, had to put up with Grant enacting reconstruction, became so obstructionist that they semi-stole a presidency and finally killed reconstruction.  Then many in the south promptly mass-slaughtered blacks seeking civil rights and took on a decades long project to deny voting rights through law, intimidation, lynchings and Jim Crow, until civil rights at least got the factual support of law with the civil rights act. 

[Grant]

Grant, I disagree with removing statues or Washington and Jefferson, for the same reason I said I disagreed equating the Union Jack with the Confederate Battle flag. The UK has fought for both good causes and bad causes. Washington and Jefferson (and Churchill) are mostly celebrated for a good cause.

But see, Aris.  That's exactly what those old biddys were thinking when they put up those statues.  They were able to see those idiots through the lens of their entire lives, not just as soldiers in the Confederacy.  They found the good in their fathers and uncles.  I think there is an important case to be made that they were specifically honoring their actions as Confederates, and that they apparently found some good in that as well.  If idiots, at least they were brave idiots. 

The Confederacy, same as Nazi Germany, is as pure an evil cause as you are likely to get. Their leaders and generals and soldiera and flags, all honor an evil cause.

I don't know Aris.  I find it hard to see any individuals in such a black and white way.  You're also talking about the specific governments instead of the specific people.  While there are plenty of monuments to Confederates, I don't think there any very many, or any at all, to the Confederacy itself.  The biddies tried to separate them.  I get that separating them is problematic at best and something of a white wash.  But I'm unsure if it's accurate to describe some of these men as "pure evil".  I'm not sure if anyone has ever been "pure evil".  All I believe is that at some point you get to be evil enough.  I honestly can't say that I know that the old biddies were honoring these evil concepts of slavery and secession. 

Don't talk about needing to learn to not take offense from confederate statues unless you are also willing to raise a statue of Osama Bin Laden in the middle of New York.

There's not a whole bunch of fundamentalist Muslims living in New York City that want a statue of Bin Laden up there. 

Kinda blatantly so when we are literally talking about the Civil War, and confederate generals, and the confederate battle flag. Not talking about honoring poets and athletes here, eh? We are talking about a war.

The war is over, man.  It's been over.  Nobody is fighting for slavery and secession except a few wackos.  You can't fight racism by removing statues. 

None of what you are writing addresses the points that taking insult from statues of dead men and defeated causes is righteous and that removing these things is a victory in some sort of culture war.  It's fine that you have a kind of benchmark for judging if a person or their country is pure evil or not.  Nobody else is going to have that same benchmark.  It's not furthering justice.  The racial injustice that does exist today is not being caused by the Confederacy or any of those old dead farts or their statues.  Most people wouldn't even know they exist. 

[kidv]

Grant, I disagree with removing statues or Washington and Jefferson, for the same reason I said I disagreed equating the Union Jack with the Confederate Battle flag. The UK has fought for both good causes and bad causes. Washington and Jefferson (and Churchill) are mostly celebrated for a good cause.

But see, Aris.  That's exactly what those old biddys were thinking when they put up those statues.  They were able to see those idiots through the lens of their entire lives, not just as soldiers in the Confederacy.  They found the good in their fathers and uncles.  I think there is an important case to be made that they were specifically honoring their actions as Confederates, and that they apparently found some good in that as well.  If idiots, at least they were brave idiots. 

"“The UDC was very focused on the future,” said Karen Cox, a historian, University of North Carolina at Charlotte professor and author of numerous articles and books on Southern history and culture, including “Dixie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture.” “Their goal, in all the work that they did, was to prepare future generations of white Southerners to respect and defend the principles of the Confederacy.” It wasn’t just Confederate monuments, either. They also rejected any school textbook that said slavery was the central cause of the Civil War; they praised the Ku Klux Klan and gave speeches that distorted the cruelty of American slavery and defended slave owners.

From around 1920 to the early 1940s, there was a second wave of statue building. Jane Dailey, professor of American history at the University of Chicago, said this period of construction coincided with more Black Americans’ fighting for civil rights and pushing back against widespread lynchings in the South. “You have Black soldiers who have just fought for their country [in World War I] and fought to make the world safe for democracy, coming back to an America that's determined to lynch them,” said Dailey. “[T]hose were very clearly white supremacist monuments and are designed to intimidate, not just memorialize.”

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/confederate-statues/

[DonaldD]

Shouldn't Blacks just get over it and stop getting all butt-hurt over having to walk by statues depicting men who not just enslaved their ancestors but tried to tear the country apart for the right to do so, statues that were put up decades later as a reaction to Blacks organizing and agitating for equality, and, as was alluded to before, were a big "F you" to those uppity nigras of the time?

Of course they should.  What a bunch of snowflakes.

[Aris Katsaris]

There's not a whole bunch of fundamentalist Muslims living in New York City that want a statue of Bin Laden up there. 

Gee, now you somehow recognize that only fundamentalist muslims would want a statue of Osama bin Laden (actually they wouldn't, it's against their faith, but you get my point). And yet somehow fail to recognize that only racists would want statues of confederate generals.

You can't fight racism by removing statues.

No, but if you aren't even willing to do that, it's a surefire sign you don't want to fight racism at all.

It's like saying you want to fight antisemetism while wearing a shirt with 'Camp Auschwitz' on it. Perhaps *censored*ing take off the t-shirt first. If you don't like Islamism, take down your ISIS flag. If you are not a communist what"s with the hammer and sickle.

Perhaps take down the statues first, take down the confederate flags, the easy thing for a community to do if it cares one bit, and then we *might* discuss about fighting racism.

[Fenring]

Shouldn't Blacks just get over it and stop getting all butt-hurt over having to walk by statues depicting men who not just enslaved their ancestors but tried to tear the country apart for the right to do so, statues that were put up decades later as a reaction to Blacks organizing and agitating for equality, and, as was alluded to before, were a big "F you" to those uppity nigras of the time?

Of course they should.  What a bunch of snowflakes.

I think the case would be stronger - or rather your debate opponents would see it as stronger - if it was evident that the existence of the statues was in fact something causing significant issues to average black people 'walking by'. In the city where I live there are statues all around, and I have no idea who most of them are. Even if I did happen to know of the historical figure, I'd never know it just looking at the statue. I'd have to read the plaque or something to even know who it was. Many a statue of a guy in a coonskin hat would be a bit of a giveaway, but do average citizens walking by even notice them very much? This isn't even a leading question, because I can see the case being made if there was a real problem in day to day life. If Jews in Germany had to put up with a statue of Hitler (whom everyone would recognize on sight even now) I am quite persuaded that it's not just some left-wing agenda that would argue that the statue probably shouldn't be there.

What I would like to know about the statues that were taken down, is were they actually a problem for the black community, and their appeals to have something done was ignored by the white majority or government? If so I would probably side with the idea of at least discussing removing them. But on the other hand if it was a small group of radical activists making huge noise, mostly to aggrandize themselves and whip people up into a frenzy over the statues, then I see it as being little different than Trump and the mob in Washington. Almost identical, really. So the facts on the ground would be very relevant to me in considering your idea that the mere existence of the statues is a big F U to black people in America. It isn't if that's not how the statues actually affected then. Offense by proxy is getting all too common, getting upset over the harm done to someone else when that someone may not even feel that way. I've seen it firsthand in my own community, and it's not pretty. But again, maybe the statues were really upsetting regular people over the years, and maybe it was time to do something. I would be curious whether you know which it was (or something in between).

[msquared]

How about this. Those statues offend me because they disrespect my great great grand father who fought in the Civil War on the Union side.

[TheDrake]

If you actually read what people in such communities say, it is a mixed bag.

Derek Summers Jr., 36, and the founder of Loudoun County’s Citizens’ Committee against Domestic Violence, said he feels the Confederate statue’s gun pointing at him when he drives or walks past it on North King Street nearly every day.

“It’s like letting you know that in the hearts and mind of some of these folk here, the fight’s not over,” said Summers, seated on a bench next to the statue.

David Dixon, 59, owner of Jackson’s Barber Shop a few blocks down the road, has passed the statue on his commute to Leesburg for 24 years. He said the monument doesn’t bother him.

“My personality and the way I am, I really don’t care,” he said. ” . I look more toward the future than the past.”

article

But you don't have to walk by, or even be in the local community, to be affected. Most people didn't walk by the confederate flag flying atop the SC capitol. That doesn't mean that its presence wasn't known to every SC resident, and impact even beyond that. It was an affront to many.

In most cases, statue decisions are being left to local communities. If the referendum doesn't pass, and many don't, nothing happens to the statue. I vehemently denounce the unilateral defacing or destruction of such statues. But that doesn't mean that people shouldn't agitate to move the statues from places of authority, like in front of a courthouse, to somewhere more appropriate. Or alternatively, putting it in better context. Like writing on the plaque, "slaveowner, fought to preserve slavery" instead of "hero of the south".

You very well might find a statue of hitler in Poland, against a mural of the deathcamps and a descriptive text of just how evil he was.

[Grant]

You very well might find a statue of hitler in Poland, against a mural of the deathcamps and a descriptive text of just how evil he was.

Just when I was about to write that I find that very unlikely, I do a google and find a statue of Hitler put up in the Warsaw ghetto by an Italian artist.  As you can imagine, the Warsaw Jews are not happy.  Of course, the thing wasn't put up by a bunch of old biddies trying to memorialize der fuhrer.  I can almost understand that.  You can't tell an old biddy anything and they always thing that 50 years ago was the height of civilization.  It's a universal phenomenon.  But no, this is a work of art.  But the Chief Rabbi of Poland seems to think it's ok because it's simply art.

I fully support the right of any community to remove any statues it wants by referendum.  Feel free to call anybody who doesn't support the referendum a racist.  It will help.   

[TheDeamon]

How about this. Those statues offend me because they disrespect my great great grand father who fought in the Civil War on the Union side.

You have one too? What a coincidence. (Not really)

I also have several *-uncles who fought for the Union. I'm less inclined to think they found the statues disrespectful towards them. I'd also be inclined to say several of them would have something to say about "love the sinner, hate the sin." While the men memorialized are being so because of the sin, the guys still stood for their convictions, flawed as they may be. That is worthy of some respect in its own right. And for many of them, that fight wasn't about slavery, it was about loyalty to their state; right or wrong.

Because you're also forgetting the standard of the time was you were a citizen of your State first, the United States second. So for you they're a traitor to the Union, but even among the Union soldiers, they could respect the Confederates keeping loyalty to their home states. It isn't as clear cut as you'd like it to be.

[Fenring]

How about this. Those statues offend me because they disrespect my great great grand father who fought in the Civil War on the Union side.

I guess this may sound dismissive, but I wouldn't really take your offense seriously unless you're talking about statues in your own town; and even then I'd have to take you at your word that they always bothered you, rather than only when the activism movement called attention to how offended you should be. I really don't buy into the whole 'offended in theory' thing. Lots of things offend lots of people, as in, it offends their taste, their beliefs, even their feelings. I could legitimately say that many religious people are no doubt offended by all sorts of things trumpeted in popular culture; things they find actually evil. And lots of atheists are no doubt offended by various things on their side. But being offended isn't enough to start to say a thing should be banished, because then everything would be banished. There is scarcely a thing you could find that probably doesn't offend some people. So the bar can't just be set at you don't like it. It involved the community as a whole deciding what their daily life should be like; what they want their town to feel like; and whether something is doing them net harm more than good. That is not for one person to decide by saying they're offended. I'm not actually challenging your right to take offense at certain statues, but rather suggesting that I don't think you should take your own offense nearly as seriously as you do. I can sympathize with taking up a cause for people who can't fight it themselves, by the way. The weak, or poor, or oppressed may need a champion. But white knight syndrome is easily mistaken for that at times. Like I said, I have no problem with a community deciding they want their town to be a certain way. But a small group with a loud voice should not be hijacking the megaphone.

[kidv]

Like I said, I have no problem with a community deciding they want their town to be a certain way. But a small group with a loud voice should not be hijacking the megaphone.

This of course carries weight.  (Individual communities).  And there's some things that are sculptures, that have artistic merit.  The vast lot of this confederate statue deal was created by exactly what you complain of, though: a group of barnstorming outsiders who wanted to put up signposts to racism across the south, slapping up a bunch of identical dimestore statues in 650 communities and slapping different labels on them.  In that context, and for this particular part of the argument, having a group saying let's go through and clean this stuff up now, seems an appropriate response to how we'd like the country to look facing forward.

But um, er, it would probably be bad form for a predominantly white community to have a "good old days of lynching" memorial even if only a certain small group in town really objected to it. (Or even if some rambunctious freedom rider yankees came through and pointed out that maybe that's not a good idea to have on public property?)

[Fenring]

The vast lot of this confederate statue deal was created by exactly what you complain of, though: a group of barnstorming outsiders who wanted to put up signposts to racism across the south, slapping up a bunch of identical dimestore statues in 650 communities and slapping different labels on them.  In that context, and for this particular part of the argument, having a group saying let's go through and clean this stuff up now, seems an appropriate response to how we'd like the country to look facing forward.

First of all, I find it hard to believe you have the information at hand that can demonstrate that this is how all statues of Confederate heroes in the south were erected. Even if there was some kind of mass production as you suggest of some statues arbitrarily distributed, are you really saying you know for a fact that all the statues in the south were from this particular distribution? In any case, aside from this point you will get yourself into a quagmire anytime you go back in history to justify a bad action in the present. You will see this kind of mentality ratcheted up to 11 in the Balkans, the Mid-East, and elsewhere, were land claims going back hundreds of years justify present-day land grabs, where slights from generations ago justify ethnic warfare, and where the 'real victims' going way back need to get back what's theirs. That mindset is a dead-end street. I am actually sort of surprised you would even use this type of argument.

But um, er, it would probably be bad form for a predominantly white community to have a "good old days of lynching" memorial even if only a certain small group in town really objected to it. (Or even if some rambunctious freedom rider yankees came through and pointed out that maybe that's not a good idea to have on public property?)

The mores of a town will no doubt govern whether or not it cares at all about the sentiments of a minority. I would wholeheartedly agree with the racist epithet in the case of a town whose black minority was routinely ignored by a white majority, and especially in the case where the black minority was complaining about racist historical references. It is the job of a well-governed democratic state or city to protect all of its members, even the minorities. To whatever extent some areas were or are definitely racist and don't care at all about non-white opinions, it is a tough situation because handing democratic tools to people who do not have a democratic ethic essentially gives license to oppress the underclass in precisely the same way a despot could. To the extent that a particular city's populace might well be despotic in its inner sentiments I actually sympathize with chaotic actions to shake up the system. So again this would boil down to whether the people of these towns (especially black people) were actually being bothered by these statues or not; and adding to that, whether in fact steps were taken by them to do something about it which were ignored by an un-democratic majority keen to inflict their power on the minority. In the latter case I could see an avenue opening up to justify some mayhem. But it would have to be if the people were actually bothered and tried to do something about it; not just if some hack bloggers claimed they were offensive while they actually bothered no one.

[kidv]

The vast lot of this confederate statue deal was created by exactly what you complain of, though: a group of barnstorming outsiders who wanted to put up signposts to racism across the south, slapping up a bunch of identical dimestore statues in 650 communities and slapping different labels on them.  In that context, and for this particular part of the argument, having a group saying let's go through and clean this stuff up now, seems an appropriate response to how we'd like the country to look facing forward.

First of all, I find it hard to believe you have the information at hand that can demonstrate that this is how all statues of Confederate heroes in the south were erected. Even if there was some kind of mass production as you suggest of some statues arbitrarily distributed, are you really saying you know for a fact that all the statues in the south were from this particular distribution?

There were some expensive individual commissions of marble and bronze, but it seems nearly all the Daughters of the Confederacy monuments were zinc castings bought from Monumental Bronze Co. in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

https://newrepublic.com/article/158715/secret-history-americas-worthless-confederate-monuments
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/white-bronze-civil-war-statues
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/0418/Civil-War-Silent-Sentinels-remain-quiet-memorials-to-the-common-soldier
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/06/11/confederate-statues-attacked-protesters-george-floyd/

The interactive graphic included with the Southern Poverty Law Center study, which documents every Confederate memorial, could zoom in and give an exact count of which of the 780 confederate memorial statues are the zinc castings.  I find it interesting that this count explicitly excludes memorials and statues at battlefields, graveyards, or specific historical sites; what they are tracking are memorials to the confederacy on public ground, not historical markers.

https://www.splcenter.org/20190201/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy#findings
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/confederate-statues/  (link again, with the interactive graphic of every memorial)

Something I learned this pass through: the Society of Architectural Historians released a statement calling for the removal of confederate monuments from public spaces:

"Because the scholarly consensus is that the original intent of monuments to the Confederacy was to reinforce racist ideals, a concept that should be abhorrent to all Americans, SAH supports and encourages the removal of Confederate monuments from public spaces. Their existence can no longer be justified based on aesthetics, or their value as works of art or public sculpture. "

https://www.sah.org/about-sah/news/sah-news/news-detail/2020/06/19/sah-statement-on-the-removal-of-monuments-to-the-confederacy-from-public-spaces

The full statement seems a worthwhile read for knowledge seekers, from a historical perspective.

[Fenring]

https://www.sah.org/about-sah/news/sah-news/news-detail/2020/06/19/sah-statement-on-the-removal-of-monuments-to-the-confederacy-from-public-spaces

The full statement seems a worthwhile read for knowledge seekers, from a historical perspective.

Thanks for the read, kidv. This organization was founded at Harvard, and now operates out of Chicago, which to me raises the issue of the North and South. I don't really know anything about this organization, but am interested to know whether some might perceive statements coming from them about Southern monuments as being another case of the North sticking it to the South and telling them what to do with their culture. That wouldn't mean they were wrong, and it seems they are also collaborating with the University of Virginia on some work, so I guess my question would be how much people from the South should really take this kind of message to heart, versus just hearing it as yet another cases of the North telling the South it sucks in some regard. Like, are there equivalent calls from Southern organizations to do away with troublesome historical monuments? I'm trying to disentangle the idea of a North/liberal echo chamber, which obviously is going to agree with itself, from whether there is a general agreement across the board that some historical statues really were put up in bad taste even at the time, and without a larger community approval; and likewise whether the current local communities agree that these are an eyesore. 

[Aris Katsaris]

Thanks for the read, kidv. This organization was founded at Harvard, and now operates out of Chicago, which to me raises the issue of the North and South. I don't really know anything about this organization, but am interested to know whether some might perceive statements coming from them about Southern monuments as being another case of the North sticking it to the South and telling them what to do with their culture. That wouldn't mean they were wrong, and it seems they are also collaborating with the University of Virginia on some work, so I guess my question would be how much people from the South should really take this kind of message to heart, versus just hearing it as yet another cases of the North telling the South it sucks in some regard. Like, are there equivalent calls from Southern organizations to do away with troublesome historical monuments? I'm trying to disentangle the idea of a North/liberal echo chamber, which obviously is going to agree with itself, from whether there is a general agreement across the board that some historical statues really were put up in bad taste even at the time, and without a larger community approval; and likewise whether the current local communities agree that these are an eyesore.

Gee, strange how conservatives and Trumpists suddenly have no problem with an 'oppressor/oppressed' rhetoric, when the oppressors are the Yankees oppressing the poor slavery-admirers of the South.

Grant, will you also tell Fenring to not be such a 'Marxist'?

[Grant]

Grant, will you also tell Fenring to not be such a 'Marxist'?

I think he's framing his argument towards the idea of bias rather than oppressor/oppressed.  So I don't think I could.  His argument is totally different than mine, raising the question of bias from sources Kidv is giving.  My argument deals with justification of the FEELING of being oppressed by statues and monuments and the actual productivity of focusing so much emotion and energy on statues and monuments. 

I'm sorry for calling you a Marxist, Aris.  Or asked you not to be one.  I don't that it's accurate or fair.  The framing of politics into oppressed/oppressor isn't necessarily Marxist.  I think to be a Marxist requires more than that.  But I will stand by the idea that it is Marxist-like.  Marxist-ish.  A bunch of people on the right like to categorize critical theory in the framework of Marxism, of which class warfare was a major portion.  But Marxism itself is more detailed.  You know I'm a stickler for definition and as far as I can tell, you're not a Marxist.  But constantly framing politics in the nature of oppressed/oppressor is Marx-ish. 

There is plenty of it going around and I feel it's poisonous to society.  I don't think that progressivism is guilty alone in this.  There is plenty of framing politics as a battle between elites/non-elites coming from Trumpism. 

[DonaldD]

but am interested to know whether some might perceive statements coming from them about Southern monuments as being another case of the North sticking it to the South and telling them what to do with their culture.

I didn't realize that it was an accepted fact among southern apologists that southern culture is so dependent on the racist ideals imbued in those monuments.. or is that just the part that is normally not said out loud?

[Fenring]

Gee, strange how conservatives and Trumpists suddenly have no problem with an 'oppressor/oppressed' rhetoric, when the oppressors are the Yankees oppressing the poor slavery-admirers of the South.

I take it I am being put in with conservatives/Trumpists in this abstract statement? I find it strange that a straightforward question (or a few questions) should result in you trying to undermine the questioner rather than addressing the question. It's almost as if it's easier to pidgeonhole people you don't agree with than to understand why they don't agree with you. Especially interesting is that I was take a position that might well align with yours depending on certain facts, but you find it easier to put me (it would seem) in the enemy camp rather than to have to deal with that.

[Grant]

I didn't realize that it was an accepted fact among southern apologists that southern culture is so dependent on the racist ideals imbued in those monuments.. or is that just the part that is normally not said out loud?

Southern culture is basically defending the south from any comments even remotely negative about the south, or your particular state, particularly negative comments from yankees or Europeans, who are seen as insufferably rude, over-privileged, and stuck-up.  To wit, being a southern apologist IS southern culture. 

[Fenring]

but am interested to know whether some might perceive statements coming from them about Southern monuments as being another case of the North sticking it to the South and telling them what to do with their culture.

I didn't realize that it was an accepted fact among southern apologists that southern culture is so dependent on the racist ideals imbued in those monuments.. or is that just the part that is normally not said out loud?

As Grant suggested, I'm talking about whether the SAH is another instance of a left-leaning echo chamber, or whether they represent a more diverse set of voices from North and South. If they are essentially left-wing people who will predictably cowtow to left-wing public positions, then an appeal to their authority is just an appeal to left-wing values in general. Since kidv was citing them as a good, neutral (or objective) group to go by, don't you think it's relevant whether in fact they are that? I'm not actually trying to undermine them, but rather to figure out whether they are a good example to pick from. Let's say he had cited Black Lives Matter on the topic of Southern statues; hardly anyone other than BLM proponents would take that citation seriously, because of course they would be in favor of taking the statues down. It's meaningless to say that 'even BLM is for that, when they would be the first in line for that. The SAH isn't BLM, but I guess we'd need to know where in fact they lie on the spectrum to understand how to interpret their statement.

Think of an analogy: if a university released a statement about the importance of safe zones and non-white spaces, it would mean a very different thing coming from a conservative bastion than from a liberal one. So the message is only one part, the other part being who's saying it.

[TheDeamon]

Gee, strange how conservatives and Trumpists suddenly have no problem with an 'oppressor/oppressed' rhetoric, when the oppressors are the Yankees oppressing the poor slavery-admirers of the South.

I take it I am being put in with conservatives/Trumpists in this abstract statement? I find it strange that a straightforward question (or a few questions) should result in you trying to undermine the questioner rather than addressing the question. It's almost as if it's easier to pidgeonhole people you don't agree with than to understand why they don't agree with you. Especially interesting is that I was take a position that might well align with yours depending on certain facts, but you find it easier to put me (it would seem) in the enemy camp rather than to have to deal with that.

Welcome to the new reality. A lot of people who were comfortably in the Liberal end of the spectrum under Bush(43) just 13 years ago are now finding themselves being labeled as Conservatives. Some have embraced it, others have either not realized the window has moved, or are actively fighting it.

[Aris Katsaris]

Lots of blah blah to escuse the inexcusable, and lots of goalpost-shifting. Are the statues to remain because they were never racist to begin with, or are they to remain because it'll be seen as a sign of Northern oppression on "Southern Culture" to take them down? Do we care about the facts, or do we care about whether we can also get a Southern consensus on those same facts? Are we discussing reality or are we discussing whether a Southron majority can get convinced on reality?

Weĺl, whatever. Keep having your equivalent to statues to Nazi Germany and waving those equivalent to swastikas flaga, while saying you are totally not nazis or racists. Just don't expect other people to believe you.

[Aris Katsaris]

I take it I am being put in with conservatives/Trumpists in this abstract statement?

I did kinda think you'd voted for Trump? Perhaps I'm misremembering. Apologies if you didn't.

[Fenring]

I take it I am being put in with conservatives/Trumpists in this abstract statement?

I did kinda think you'd voted for Trump? Perhaps I'm misremembering. Apologies if you didn't.

You are misremembering

[Fenring]

Lots of blah blah to escuse the inexcusable, and lots of goalpost-shifting. Are the statues to remain because they were never racist to begin with, or are they to remain because it'll be seen as a sign of Northern oppression on "Southern Culture" to take them down? Do we care about the facts, or do we care about whether we can also get a Southern consensus on those same facts? Are we discussing reality or are we discussing whether a Southron majority can get convinced on reality?

Weĺl, whatever. Keep having your equivalent to statues to Nazi Germany and waving those equivalent to swastikas flaga, while saying you are totally not nazis or racists. Just don't expect other people to believe you.

Dude, you're really reading into my posts things that aren't there, and I feel aren't reading the things that are there. I would seriously advise putting the racist card away and seeing what else you can find out there. If all you see is "my side" and "racists" you're really going to hate the world.

[rightleft22]

Lots of blah blah to escuse the inexcusable, and lots of goalpost-shifting. Are the statues to remain because they were never racist to begin with, or are they to remain because it'll be seen as a sign of Northern oppression on "Southern Culture" to take them down? Do we care about the facts, or do we care about whether we can also get a Southern consensus on those same facts? Are we discussing reality or are we discussing whether a Southron majority can get convinced on reality?

Weĺl, whatever. Keep having your equivalent to statues to Nazi Germany and waving those equivalent to swastikas flaga, while saying you are totally not nazis or racists. Just don't expect other people to believe you.

Dude, you're really reading into my posts things that aren't there, and I feel aren't reading the things that are there. I would seriously advise putting the racist card away and seeing what else you can find out there. If all you see is "my side" and "racists" you're really going to hate the world.

I often find myself having to re-read your posts multiple times trying to understand what your saying and where you stand. Sometimes it comes of to me as if 'blaming the victim' . I acknowledge that often a attempt to understand why something happens is interpreted as blaming the victims so that could be my bad. (If we understand why a murderer murder's does that make them less accountable. in the eyes of the law it should not but often I think does. It gets messy) 

I wonder if its not these furzy arguments that unintentionally maintain the status que turning them into systemic problems?  We talked of soft racism as being less harmful yet it was the soft resist that allow for leaders like Mussolini to hold onto power. 

[Fenring]

TheDrake just above denounced the idea of a mob tearing down statues. So does that make him a soft racist too? After all, it appears that failing to agree with a fringe contingent obviously means you are a member of the equal and opposite fringe 

[Aris Katsaris]

TheDrake just above denounced the idea of a mob tearing down statues. So does that make him a soft racist too? After all, it appears that failing to agree with a fringe contingent obviously means you are a member of the equal and opposite fringe 

I'm sure some extremists would so consider him, same as many would consider me a racist too, for whatever nonsensical reason they have in their mind (perhaps my views on affirmative action for example).

I mean the People's Party of Judea and the Judean People's Party are bitter enemies (Monty Python Sketch). In real-life Greece, I think so are the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), and the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party. Many people don't accept even mild disagreements before declaring the other person a sworn enemy.

On my part, I'll say there are many valid positions about what are appropriate means in rectifying a misdeed. It's the people who want the statues and confederate flags to remain in place that I can't take seriously when they're protesting their supposed total not-racism.

"Confederate statues" isn't the difference between center-right and center-left. It's not even the difference between libertarianism and socialism. With confederate statues people are literally admiring one of the most evil causes in human history.

[kidv]

https://www.sah.org/about-sah/news/sah-news/news-detail/2020/06/19/sah-statement-on-the-removal-of-monuments-to-the-confederacy-from-public-spaces

The full statement seems a worthwhile read for knowledge seekers, from a historical perspective.

Thanks for the read, kidv. This organization was founded at Harvard, and now operates out of Chicago, which to me raises the issue of the North and South. I don't really know anything about this organization, but am interested to know whether some might perceive statements coming from them about Southern monuments as being another case of the North sticking it to the South and telling them what to do with their culture. That wouldn't mean they were wrong, and it seems they are also collaborating with the University of Virginia on some work, so I guess my question would be how much people from the South should really take this kind of message to heart, versus just hearing it as yet another cases of the North telling the South it sucks in some regard. Like, are there equivalent calls from Southern organizations to do away with troublesome historical monuments? I'm trying to disentangle the idea of a North/liberal echo chamber, which obviously is going to agree with itself, from whether there is a general agreement across the board that some historical statues really were put up in bad taste even at the time, and without a larger community approval; and likewise whether the current local communities agree that these are an eyesore.

Re: The SAH particularly.  I agree they have a name which seems to fill the field but we have no idea if they do represent all Architectural Historians, or just the one's they like, and that's what Fenring is driving at. 

I do accept that they at least are actual historians (which Fenring's search seems to show, coming from Harvard et. al.).  The takeaway that I accept from their statement is "the scholarly consensus is that the original intent of monuments to the Confederacy was to reinforce racist ideals," which is the kernel of what I think is critical.  I.E. We're not interfering with history, great art, or even architectural significance by potentially removing these from public spaces. 

[And the issue of can we reform our public spaces seems valid.  As I dig in and see deliberate campaigns to lynch and disenfranchise black voters at the same time that confederate memorials are being put up at courthouses, as a message to black people seeking justice in the courts, I see potential value in saying, "Let's not put an ongoing imprimatur on support of the justice system for the ideals of the confederacy."  Like, maybe we don't want the 12 white jurors who walk into a courthouse and refuse to convict the admitted killers of Emmitt Till to walk out past a memorial on the courthouse grounds that validates the ideals that allowed them to do so?] [Obviously there's a lot of things which feed through the hopper.]

[rightleft22]

TheDrake just above denounced the idea of a mob tearing down statues. So does that make him a soft racist too? After all, it appears that failing to agree with a fringe contingent obviously means you are a member of the equal and opposite fringe 

I think you misunderstood

I suspect that I'm a soft racist in that my past shows that when I see policies and such that discriminate I rarely say anything or do anything to change them. I'm a old white guy and the status quo works to my advantage. I shake my head sadly at the current situations, not my fault..

[Fenring]

TheDrake just above denounced the idea of a mob tearing down statues. So does that make him a soft racist too? After all, it appears that failing to agree with a fringe contingent obviously means you are a member of the equal and opposite fringe 

I think you misunderstood

I suspect that I'm a soft racist in that my past shows that when I see policies and such that discriminate I rarely say anything or do anything to change them. I'm a old white guy and the status quo works to my advantage. I shake my head sadly at the current situations, not my fault..

I see, thanks for the clarification. In context it sounded like you were saying that asking questions (which I was doing) rather than doing something about it is the sort of soft racism that allows power structures to stay in place.

[DonaldD]

The extent of the attack on the Capitol coming into sharper focus: The Capitol Police union says nearly 140 officers were injured during the riot

Two dead officers, one lost eye, a number of brain injuries, broken vertebrae, one officer stabbed with a metal fence stake... I guess we can be thankful that the insurrectionists love the police.

[DJQuag]

On the subject of Confederates, here's a link.

https://youtu.be/J5b_-TZwQ0I

Now, John Oliver has his biases and all but his team actually spends between two and three weeks researching every long drop segment they do. And they're good at it.

I can understand that the idea of the Confederacy can be attractive. However it's what they were fighting for that is disgusting. State's rights were an excuse, an excuse needed to allow them to continue to enslave human beings.

Anyone who spent a modicum of time examining history beyond the admittedly weak American standards understands this. And this is why I'm genuinely confused as to how anyone, at least on this site, could possibly try to excuse people invading our Capitol building whilst waving Confederate flags.

State's rights are one thing, but the Confederate flag being waved shows that these people have an attachment to a mindset where if the State declares it, people can be enslaved. In other words, two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for dinner.

[DJQuag]

If you're interested in the statues and don't have time for the whole clip, he gets into it around 12.30.

[rightleft22]

They say history is written by the victors however with regards to the civil war it has been written by the defeated. .
A study of dismantling of president Grant legacy is fascinating at the same time as the rise of the confederacy symbols