They were going to take it down not because it honors traitors to our nation (actual insurrection, not Jan 6th!) with a statue in our national cemetery but because of some racist imagery that your news source opted not to share. Subservient black people comforting CSA soldiers! It's now not being removed but under review.
They were going to take it down not because it honors traitors to our nation (actual insurrection, not Jan 6th!) with a statue in our national cemetery but because of some racist imagery that your news source opted not to share. Subservient black people comforting CSA soldiers! It's now not being removed but under review.
Your CNN link doesn't state what you said it does, but I'm aware that some, including members of the artist's family, have made the subjective claim that it glorifies slavery and the Confederacy.
My subjective claim is it depicts scenes of the soldiers going to war. In the South, for the few soldiers that were wealthy enough to own slaves, it was common for them to follow their masters to war - as is depicted on the monument. I think it would be more racist to erase from history the fact that they existed and were caught up in the whole bloody conflict.
A year before the monument was erected, Union and Confederate war veterans gathered at Gettysburg, as President Wilson said, "as brothers and comrades in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather, our battles long past, the quarrel forgotten":
These Union soldiers had been shot at by the Confederacy and many of them had lost family members and friends in battle - yet they were able to reconcile.
This monument to reconciliation was erected and unveiled by President Wilson in that spirit.
Unlike many "confederate statues", this marks an incredibly important part of our nation's history. The ability to make peace with one another.
I encourage all to read President Wilson's address to see how far our nation has fallen from these spirits of brotherly love:
"My privilege is this, ladies and gentlemen: To declare this chapter in the history of the United States closed and ended, and I bid you turn with me with your faces to the future, quickened by the memories of the past, but with nothing to do with the contests of the past, knowing, as we have shed our blood upon opposite sides, we now face and admire one another."
Apparently the chapter isn't as "closed and ended" as President Wilson had believed, as 100 years later we are opening it right back up.
Your term "monument to reconciliation" is, for me, really the crux. The monument, like most, is intended to preserve a snapshot in history. An eternal remembrance of what was fought and what was lost, in hope that the same mistakes may not be repeated. Destruction of such monuments in an ephemeral expression of instantaneous emotional tantrum -- driven by manufactured rage bred from the contrived lies and false histories taught by academia and perpetuated through social media -- fully intends to eradicate the history, suffering, and legacy of the past.
The monument is intended to whitewash the true, vile, history of the Confederacy. It shows no history, but valorizes the filth. If it is history you want, then there are plenty of books. But no monuments to the US's version of the 3rd Reich.
Yeah, because "reconciliation" with the trash that had Jim Crow in full swing at the time is, what, desirable to your fevered mind? You don't make "peace" or "reconciliation" with slavers. You kill them and desecrate their memory. And no, commemorating how whites from the South loved owning and torturing black people is not less racist than leaving the "mammy" figure off of your shit-headed monument to "reconciliation" with bloodthirsty, treasonous, slavers.
Yeah good point, maybe it wasn't about reconciliation at all. Maybe Democrats like Wilson really were still on the side of the slavers. Hell, maybe they still are.
You don't reconcile with Confederates any more than you would "reconcile" with the Third Reich. And, I mean, Wilson was definitely on the slaver side. And no no, we know who is still on the side of evil. It's the people who defend monuments to the Confederacy and Southerners who vote Republican.
"The Solid South" was the term, in case you forgot. The former Confederate states full of white conservatives who voted Democrat no matter what, because they wouldn't vote for the party of Lincoln. Until, of course, 1964. Now, what was it that happened in 1964, that caused all these pro-slavery racist monsters to switch, en masse, to the Republican party? What made the former Confederacy, previously "solid" for Democrats, to become equally as solid for Republicans? Oh yeah, it was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, followed by Barry Goldwater's presidential run, which he predicated on opposition to the CRA.
And so, boom. There you have it. Conservatives have been pro-Confederacy and pro-slavery since forever. And continue to be on the side of the mass-murdering, slaving traitors to this day. As evidenced by both your comment and others.
They were going to take it down not because it honors traitors to our nation (actual insurrection, not Jan 6th!) with a statue in our national cemetery but because of some racist imagery that your news source opted not to share. Subservient black people comforting CSA soldiers! It's now not being removed but under review.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/17/us/confederate-memorial-removed-arlington-cemetery/index.html
Your CNN link doesn't state what you said it does, but I'm aware that some, including members of the artist's family, have made the subjective claim that it glorifies slavery and the Confederacy.
My subjective claim is it depicts scenes of the soldiers going to war. In the South, for the few soldiers that were wealthy enough to own slaves, it was common for them to follow their masters to war - as is depicted on the monument. I think it would be more racist to erase from history the fact that they existed and were caught up in the whole bloody conflict.
A year before the monument was erected, Union and Confederate war veterans gathered at Gettysburg, as President Wilson said, "as brothers and comrades in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather, our battles long past, the quarrel forgotten":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1913_Gettysburg_reunion
These Union soldiers had been shot at by the Confederacy and many of them had lost family members and friends in battle - yet they were able to reconcile.
This monument to reconciliation was erected and unveiled by President Wilson in that spirit.
Unlike many "confederate statues", this marks an incredibly important part of our nation's history. The ability to make peace with one another.
I encourage all to read President Wilson's address to see how far our nation has fallen from these spirits of brotherly love:
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-arlington-national-cemetary-closing-chapter
One quote from it to leave you on:
"My privilege is this, ladies and gentlemen: To declare this chapter in the history of the United States closed and ended, and I bid you turn with me with your faces to the future, quickened by the memories of the past, but with nothing to do with the contests of the past, knowing, as we have shed our blood upon opposite sides, we now face and admire one another."
Apparently the chapter isn't as "closed and ended" as President Wilson had believed, as 100 years later we are opening it right back up.
Thank you, Mark, for such an elucidation.
Your term "monument to reconciliation" is, for me, really the crux. The monument, like most, is intended to preserve a snapshot in history. An eternal remembrance of what was fought and what was lost, in hope that the same mistakes may not be repeated. Destruction of such monuments in an ephemeral expression of instantaneous emotional tantrum -- driven by manufactured rage bred from the contrived lies and false histories taught by academia and perpetuated through social media -- fully intends to eradicate the history, suffering, and legacy of the past.
It is Orwell realized.
The monument is intended to whitewash the true, vile, history of the Confederacy. It shows no history, but valorizes the filth. If it is history you want, then there are plenty of books. But no monuments to the US's version of the 3rd Reich.
Yeah, because "reconciliation" with the trash that had Jim Crow in full swing at the time is, what, desirable to your fevered mind? You don't make "peace" or "reconciliation" with slavers. You kill them and desecrate their memory. And no, commemorating how whites from the South loved owning and torturing black people is not less racist than leaving the "mammy" figure off of your shit-headed monument to "reconciliation" with bloodthirsty, treasonous, slavers.
We wouldn't even have this country today if people like you ruled the day.
Yeah good point, maybe it wasn't about reconciliation at all. Maybe Democrats like Wilson really were still on the side of the slavers. Hell, maybe they still are.
You don't reconcile with Confederates any more than you would "reconcile" with the Third Reich. And, I mean, Wilson was definitely on the slaver side. And no no, we know who is still on the side of evil. It's the people who defend monuments to the Confederacy and Southerners who vote Republican.
"The Solid South" was the term, in case you forgot. The former Confederate states full of white conservatives who voted Democrat no matter what, because they wouldn't vote for the party of Lincoln. Until, of course, 1964. Now, what was it that happened in 1964, that caused all these pro-slavery racist monsters to switch, en masse, to the Republican party? What made the former Confederacy, previously "solid" for Democrats, to become equally as solid for Republicans? Oh yeah, it was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, followed by Barry Goldwater's presidential run, which he predicated on opposition to the CRA.
And so, boom. There you have it. Conservatives have been pro-Confederacy and pro-slavery since forever. And continue to be on the side of the mass-murdering, slaving traitors to this day. As evidenced by both your comment and others.
Yeah, screw those guys... some of those scumbags went so far as to eulogize Robert Byrd.
The South was not solid for Republicans since 1964.
Please look up the electoral map for 1976, for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_United_States_presidential_election
Then look at 1992:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_United_States_presidential_election
Reality is much more complicated than in your world of absolutes.