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General Sherman killed thousands of Americans and starved thousands of others. By today's standards he would be a war criminal and sentenced to death.
General Sheridan killed thousands of Americans and then tried to starve the Indians. By today's standards he would have committed crimes against humanity.
General Grant fought against Confederate traitors hellbent on preserving slavery. Grant outlawed the terrorist group known as the KKK as president and also did a good job by 1860s-1870s standards of trying to enforce black voting rights as president.
General Sherman and General Sheridan SAVED Confederate traitor lives by shortening the war when the struck at the food supply line.
General Sheridan has a complicated legacy with the Native American battles out west, but that is a national sin. He was enforcing national policy. I won't complain if a community takes down any statues of him.
Stop destroying history soon our kids won’t know who the first President was. You have to learn from history so it doesn’t get repeated but you can’t distort it or wash it away.
I’m not so sure if it’ll happen, but I like the name change and Ray Benavidez’s military legacy. He’s certainly a worthy man to name a Texas fort after...seeing as how he’s also a native Texan.
Hood was a Confederate, not from Texas at all (he did serve in Pre-Civil War Texas however), and served in rebellion against the United States. So it just doesn’t make sense to name an installation after him.
Moreover, I like the idea of naming a Post after an enlisted man, being a former NCO myself.
In any case, I’m not sure what the hurdles will be in renaming a Post. Obvious it’ll have to be after Trump leaves, but that’ll be soon enough.
I'd be in favor of an Army post named after Benavidez, but not Ft Hood...at least not until someone gets Ft Hood fixed. As long as it's the cesspool that it is (and it's been that way since at least the 60s, according to the Army careerists who were my father and uncles), I'd rather it stay named for Hood.
Stop destroying history soon our kids won’t know who the first President was. You have to learn from history so it doesn’t get repeated but you can’t distort it or wash it away.
No one is destroying history. You can teach history without commemorating traitors.
Consider for a moment that there was no mechanization to pick cotton until the 1920’s...the South would’ve maintained slavery until AT LEAST then! Now of course, you don’t give a damn and you’re affording yourself this cavalier attitude towards the topic because it wouldn’t have affected YOU!
My ancestors however would’ve been deeply affected, and they’re all natives of the Deep South where slavery was super cruel. I can’t afford your insouciance. Sorry. I carry grudges, as I should.
Hood knew damn well what he was fighting for, and ALL SOUTHERNERS knew that the institution was evil, immoral, nihilistic, and cruel. None of them thought that what they were participating in was okay or justifiable on any grounds. They even twisted their Bibles in order to salve their consciences.
Enlightened men wrote a beautiful constitution in the 1700’s, so educated Generals knew damn well that slavery was wrong in the 1860’s, and chose to fight and kill thousands of Americans to preserve it. So the “men of their time” excuse doesn’t hold up. They were the opposite...cowards. Afraid to face the future without the cruel massive subjugation of human beings. And the rampant rapes, beatings, selling away of children or their parents was SURELY realized as an evil even THEN by the participants.
So their names need to be removed from our federal installations and other infrastructure and put in museums and books. But they should not be honored. And no black American should pay a single dime towards the maintenance of any monument or edifice named after these evildoers.
BTW...these men were NOT my ancestors; they were the dedicated tormentors of my ancestors.
Wholeheartedly agree, history matters, preserving the accurate history matters.
Quote:
It is ridiculous to seek to excuse Robert Lee as the most formidable agency this nation ever raised to make 4 million human beings goods instead of men. Either he knew what slavery meant when he helped maim and murder thousands in its defense, or he did not. If he did not he was a fool. If he did, Robert Lee was a traitor and a rebel–not indeed to his country, but to humanity and humanity’s God.
Nah. No can do. It’s time to stick a dagger in the Confederacy’s Lost Cause Mythology. It’s been allowed fo fester too long without opposition.
It all has to come down just like Jim Crow did. We can’t leave any vestiges of it laying around. This thing has to be made right.
On point again!
In today's lingo, the Confederacy sought a way to 'monetize' their ridiculous then & now 'cause' by revising history.
They continued to brainwash generation after generation of American people to forward their ridiculousness through the 'Lost Cause' mythologies & propaganda that is still being taught in primary & high schools. They continue to monetize by the authoritarian Texas textbook industry propagandists.
I'd be in favor of an Army post named after Benavidez, but not Ft Hood...at least not until someone gets Ft Hood fixed. As long as it's the cesspool that it is (and it's been that way since at least the 60s, according to the Army careerists who were my father and uncles), I'd rather it stay named for Hood.
Give the name Benavidez to a good post.
I'm with you on this. The current Fort Hood doesn't deserve the name Benavidez. Besides, Benavidez already has a bunch of military facilities, schools, and other institutions named after him. Dump the Hood and go simple. Something like Fort Killeen.
The reason these forts were named as they were was very clear. The Civil War was viewed as a war between brothers. In many cases that was true. Mary Todd Lincoln (President Lincoln's wife for those who don't know) had 5 brothers/brother-in-laws fighting for the Union and 5 fighting for the Confederacy. When one of the Confederate brother-in-laws was killed, Lincoln invited the widow to stay in the White House and mourned with her.
The forts were named in pairs, one for a Union general and one for a Confederate general. It was to bring the country back together. Even after all the bitterness and loss of life, they realized we were all Americans. People today aren't as wise as people back then.
That sounds kind of like what Nelson Mandela attempted to do in the movie Invictus when he let the white South African rugby teem remain primarily white. He gave the white minority a gesture to keep them from getting worried that didn't really cost anything.
That sounds like it might have been a good idea to calm down the South that way.
If that's true, then it's served its purpose already and that's no longer a reason to keep those Confederate general names on the forts.
That sounds kind of like what Nelson Mandela attempted to do in the movie Invictus when he let the white South African rugby teem remain primarily white. He gave the white minority a gesture to keep them from getting worried that didn't really cost anything.
That sounds like it might have been a good idea to calm down the South that way.
If that's true, then it's served its purpose already and that's no longer a reason to keep those Confederate general names on the forts.
Re: bold: The big problem with this way of thinking is that it didn't work, there were (perhaps unintended) consequences, & likely the biggest problem: the Confederates & the neo-Confederates of the present day still have not calmed down.
Justice means what it has always meant. As Desmond Tutu expressed, "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."
General Sherman killed thousands of Americans and starved thousands of others. By today's standards he would be a war criminal and sentenced to death.
General Sheridan killed thousands of Americans and then tried to starve the Indians. By today's standards he would have committed crimes against humanity.
But those aren't ticking as many people off as the Confederate statues currently, so far as I can tell. I think that's the most important point. If they do someday, then maybe we can take them down too.
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