Confederate Symbolism; Time to Stop Nursing Grievances and Relitigating Past (racist, border)
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According to you? We need to teach and leave visible history because otherwise........
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
― George Orwell, 1984
The statues were put up in an attempt to alter history the lost cause movement was very clear about this. Confederates can't claim the high ground on this one.
We can look at the juxtaposition of Cromwell's statue facing that of Charles I, for instance.
The statue of Charles 1 is at Charing Cross/Trafalgar Square, on horseback, looking down Whitehall toward Parliament Square.
The Banqueting House is on the left in Whitehall, almost opposite Downing Street, The Banqueting House is where Charles was executed in 1649.
Oliver Cromwell's statue is in the grounds of Parliament, facing St. Margaret's Church, which is situated where St. Margaret Street meets Abingdon Street.
There is a lead bust of Charles 1 on the wall of the church, facing Cromwell's statue, Cromwell appears to be looking down, which had lead historical theorists to say that he is avoiding looking at the King.
The statues were put up in an attempt to alter history the lost cause movement was very clear about this. Confederates can't claim the high ground on this one.
That's very true, and I'm glad you mentioned the "Lost Cause" fairy tale. People want to say taking the statues down erases history -- which it doesn't. It helps rectify the "Lost Cause" baloney.
That's very true, and I'm glad you mentioned the "Lost Cause" fairy tale. People want to say taking the statues down erases history -- which it doesn't. It helps rectify the "Lost Cause" baloney.
Well a poster a few pages back on here from Tennessee claimed that it was really about Fed Power overreach on the South. So there you have it, they still believe that revisionist claptrap that it was about states rights. Pure bunk.
They wouldn't accept the results of a free and fair election because the man elected had run on a platform, and continuously campaigned on ending the expansion of slavery into the west. The theory was that as new states were added, eventually a constitutional amendment would pass that outlawed slavery as the South and slavery would be a minority of states. Not only that, the South approached Lincoln in 1865 after the 13th Amendment had passed and said they would re-join the Union if the 13th Amendment were repealed. It was never ever about Fed power overreach, but about Lincoln and the Union wanting to stop adding any new slave states. That's it. Read their declarations of secession. It is slavery, slavery, slavery, and a few brief mentions of Fed power. So folks of the Lost Cause persuasion like to point to one or two sentences about Fed power and ignore the paragraphs about how blacks were meant to be slaves forever. The Confederacy was a disgusting form of government and shouldn't be glorified by anyone in the US.
And as far as that organization the Daughters of the Confederacy, I would like to ask Southerners to explain to me what kind of women in America today joins that outmoded, weird, organization that worships the Confederacy and goes around the US putting up monuments with statements like "To The Glory of the Confederacy" which was written on one I actually saw once in the South. I felt like urinating on it.
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And as far as that organization the Daughters of the Confederacy, I would like to ask Southerners to explain to me what kind of women in America today joins that outmoded, weird, organization that worships the Confederacy and goes around the US putting up monuments with statements like "To The Glory of the Confederacy" which was written on one I actually saw once in the South. I felt like urinating on it.
Well, it's a spectrum of beliefs that is far to the right of central reality, but not quite as far right as the loons who worship Hitler and the KKK. Frankly, if I were the type of Southerner who worships "the Glory of the Confederacy", and I saw those Nazis and KKK members marching in Charlottesville (and elsewhere), I'd have to stop and do some pretty hard thinking about the same cause they latch on to.
It is really ironic that after the election, the Trump supporters' mantra was "you lost---get over it" was what Democrats heard when Trump drew their ire...
But it's ok for them to enshrine and continue to honor and justify the creeds and heroes of the Confederacy when THAT war was fought and lost in a non-deniable way so long ago...
So you lost--get over it alt-right and lovers of the Confederacy, and neo-Nazis and other pseudo whatever groups who deal in hatred and racism...
But why would anyone in Charlottesville erect a statue in 1924 of a traitor to the United States and a loser of a rebellion that ended 60 years earlier? Why would that need to be commemorated?
You mean like the traitors to Britain of 1776? Is winning the only thing that makes a sacrifice worth remembering?
The statues erected in the 20s were one to reinforce the idea of white supremacy and make blacks who were beginning to experience some financial growth and political/social freedoms because of the economy and exposure to literacy and other features of society that gave them a window to see a better existence was possible...
The statues of Confederate generals, Southern Confederate piliticians were in place as reminders that even thought that war might be over people in power still held the same beliefs in repressing blacks...
The statues erected in the 20s were one to reinforce the idea of white supremacy and make blacks who were beginning to experience some financial growth and political/social freedoms because of the economy and exposure to literacy and other features of society that gave them a window to see a better existence was possible...
The statues of Confederate generals, Southern Confederate piliticians were in place as reminders that even thought that war might be over people in power still held the same beliefs in repressing blacks...
And, the 1920s saw a resurgence of the KKK, including in the Charlottesville, Virginia area (that particular statue was erected in 1924).
I'll just offer a some angles from which I tend to view the topic:
Many, if not most of these statues, have stood for decades (or longer) absent a nationwide degree of outrage and scrutiny. As such I cannot help but wonder what the motivation suddenly was for external (non-local) parties to elevate these things to some earth-shattering consideration.
It's a local issue, and a legal one at that. If the residents and/or elected official(s) in a given locality wish to remove, relocate, or do otherwise with such symbols, then that is their right to do so.
Do blacks (or anyone else for that matter) have the right to ask that public tax dollars not be spent on the maintenance of public monuments that in some respect commemorate a dark period in American history? Absolutely.
Should people in general invest time and energy on more pressing and legitimate issues plaguing contemporary society? Without a doubt, but it is the right of American citizens, as individuals, to advocate for whatever cause(s) they deem appropriate and to whatever extent they wish to do so. At least, only up to the extent of breaking laws in the process, which is what we're now seeing. That must be universally condemned.
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