On statues...

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crfriend
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Re: On statues...

Post by crfriend »

Sinned wrote: Mon Jun 15, 2020 10:09 amYour guess is as good as mine?
This'll be down to the way that the news outlet uses the data it gathers on its readers' behaviour. The EU has very stringent rules on what companies can do with such data, and rather clearly this one sells the data it collects which is in direct violation of EU law.
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Re: On statues...

Post by moonshadow »

crfriend wrote: Mon Jun 15, 2020 12:21 pm
Sinned wrote: Mon Jun 15, 2020 10:09 amYour guess is as good as mine?
This'll be down to the way that the news outlet uses the data it gathers on its readers' behaviour. The EU has very stringent rules on what companies can do with such data, and rather clearly this one sells the data it collects which is in direct violation of EU law.
Well.... I guess that squares that... but can we really be surprised? After all, in America, everything is for sale, right down to our very souls.
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Re: On statues...

Post by lazerr »

If these statues were put up during the civil war (or shortly after), I would be saying that it is history and they should be kept, but, what they are, mostly, are statues put up to glorify the confederacy years later. There is some thought that they were put up to show that the confederacy was a just cause and that possibly slavery was cultural and a way of life (which is abhorrent). It also was, possibly, meant to show that this "Way of life" was the right thing, and racism is good. Statues that offend the majority of people should be torn down. It isn't tearing down history, it is moving forward to a better way.

I'm not a southerner, but I remember visiting, and taking a Gray Line tour of Jacksonville, where the tour guide pointed out proudly, the separate restrooms and drinking fountains.

Now, the north, and Boston had very bad practices of racism also, but that doesn't make it any better.
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Sinned
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Re: On statues...

Post by Sinned »

Thank you Carl for that succinct explanation. It makes sense.
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Re: On statues...

Post by Pdxfashionpioneer »

I just read an article about Lee that was very clear that he was anything but what the mythology we have been fed about him portrays.

When the enslaved blacks who escaped his clutches were brought back to him he had them whipped to within an inch of their lives and had brine poured on their open wounds.

I too have always read that he agonized over whether to head up the US Army or join the Confederacy. Considering how committed he was to enslaving people I now find that hard to believe.

During the Civil War Lee proved himself to be a very skilled and wily battlefield commander who was well served by such generals as Jackson and Longstreet, who was reviled after the Civil War for trying to heal the wounds between the North and the South. However, when it came to grand strategy no one among the Secessionists showed any real aptitude.

To be fair, on the Union side the only one who saw the War for what it was and what it would take to win it was Grant. And maybe Sherman.

After the war Lee did nothing to reconcile Southerners to being reunited with the rest of the country. Indeed, he encouraged the Ku Klux Klan and the other guerilla groups that were using violence to undermine Reconstruction.

One of the problems we Americans, and anyone else who tries to understand the American Civil War, suffers from is that unlike every other war in history, the original histories of the Civil War were written by the vanquished.

Finally, Fred, while we usually agree with one another, I feel compelled to very explicitly disagree with you on this one. Moonshadow got the issue exactly right; the statues in question glorify traitors to the United States of America who took up arms against the Constitution they swore, as officers and gentlemen, to defend. The statues were erected around the turn of the century as blatant messages to blacks that they were still subservient to their white "masters."

Furthermore, no one is suggesting that we erase history let alone burn history books. To the contrary, what is being insisted upon is that we finally get the HISTORY RIGHT. The Confederate Armies weren't organized to fight gallantly for the Lost Cause of States Rights; they were organized to enable white men to enslave blacks. Period.

You don't have to take my word for it; read the original proclamation of secession of your or any other state you fancy. They all explicitly say the same thing; they seceded to maintain slavery within their state. Period.

It's beyond me why anyone of any moral character would want to glorify the people who fought for such an infamous cause with statues in prominent places, let alone name US military assets after them!

As a side note, what's truly stupefying to me is that the stateside base of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division and special operations formations, which are among our most storied, elite soldiers, is named for one of the most incompetent of those traitorous officers, Braxton Bragg, namesake of Ft. Bragg! If we're going to train men and women to willingly jump out of perfectly good airplanes so they can fight behind enemy lines until the rest of the Army can catch up to them, you'd think we would house them in a base named after someone who was good at that sort of thing rather than an incompetent who betrayed his solemn oath as a US Army officer. Wouldn't you?
Last edited by Pdxfashionpioneer on Mon Jun 22, 2020 1:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: On statues...

Post by Shilo »

Must admit that I’d not heard of Brixton Bragg before. A brief research leaves me dumbfounded as to why anyone would want to name anything after such an incompetent. Even more as to why Jefferson Davis would want him as a military advisor. He seemed to act with complete disregard for the lives of the men under his command in pursuit of his own glory and had a completely inflated view of his own abiliities.
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Re: On statues...

Post by Pdxfashionpioneer »

At its heart, this thread is about the lasting impact of the American Civil War on Americans' understanding of their country's history. Therefore, it's highly germane to ask, "What was the war really about? " and "What do many, if not most, Americans think it was about?"

As this essay explains, too many Americans still believe our Civil War was about states' rights; it wasn't, it was about slavery. I was impressed by how thoroughly the author covered the topic in so little space.


A brief history of the "Lost Cause": Why this toxic myth still appeals to so many white Americans."

Racist myth-making conquered American history — and white people's minds — for far too long. Time to face the facts

Read in Salon.com. [Originally I had a link to Apple News that turned out to be a lot less than helpful.]
Last edited by Pdxfashionpioneer on Mon Jun 22, 2020 1:50 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: On statues...

Post by Faldaguy »

Dave, tried to read this -- got a big bunch of ads for Apple, no story.
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Re: On statues...

Post by Shilo »

Same here!
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Re: On statues...

Post by Pdxfashionpioneer »

Sorry about that, Ya gotta love Apple News.

If I can find the original article, I'll post it.

In the meantime I'll delete the link.
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Social norms aren't changed by Congress or Parliament; they're changed by a sufficient number of people ignoring the existing ones and publicly practicing new ones.
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