Most people don't want to erase history

In what might shock the GOS, it turns out that liberals are in a minority on the issue of tearing down statues and blowing up Mount Rushmore.
Three polls came out, an NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist University poll and a Economist/YouGov, both conducted a few days ago.

Sixty-two percent of respondents to an NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist University poll conducted after the violence in Charlottesville said that statues honoring leaders of the Confederacy should remain standing as historical symbols rather than be removed. In a different poll, by Economist/YouGov, a plurality of people (48 percent) said they disapproved of removing the Robert E. Lee statue from the Charlottesville park while 30 percent approved of taking the statue down. Notably, more than one out of five people (22 percent) had no opinion — a show of real ambiguity from Americans who aren’t sure about the best thing to do.

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A Rasmussen Reports poll came out today.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 88% of Likely U.S. Voters oppose removing the names of Washington and Jefferson from public places and taking down statues in their honor. Just seven percent (7%) favor the removal of their names from the public square because Washington and Jefferson like several of the other early presidents were slave owners.

And then here is the clincher.

Ninety-four percent (94%) of voters agree that it is better to try to learn from the wrongs of the past than to erase them. Just four percent (4%) think it is better to erase the wrongs of the past instead.
Voters tend to agree with President Trump’s defense of historical statues, and few think getting rid of Confederate monuments will lessen racial tensions in America.

Look, most of history is full of some pretty f'd up sh*t.
Tearing down the statues, blowing up the monuments, and editing the history books won't change anything, other than preventing us from learning from those mistakes. The past cannot be undone.
Eliminating the bad stuff also eliminates the significance of those heroes who fought against the bad stuff.
What's more, people in history, both good and bad, sometimes get "revised".
Even the present situation might not be what you think it is.

Just 28% believe that the removal of Confederate monuments from many cities will help race relations. Thirty-nine percent (39%) think the removal of those Civil War-era statues will hurt race relations instead. Twenty-six percent (26%) say it would have no impact.
Interestingly, blacks (43%) and other minority voters (42%) are more likely than whites (38%) to believe the removal of the Confederate statues will hurt race relations. Thirty-five percent (35%) of blacks think the statues’ removal will help race relations, but only 28% of whites and 24% of other minorities agree.

Of course there are limits to this, and moderation is preferable over any absolutes.
OTOH, someone will always be offended. Sometimes they will even have a legitimate grievance.

This is why children can't watch hard-core porn, but banning Catcher in the Rye from the library is a bad idea, even when someone says they are offended.

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detroitmechworks's picture

As we know, polls of the people are completely inaccurate and cannot be relied upon. That's why Hillary Clinton is president.

/snark

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Meteor Man's picture

Too many people getting butthurt over stupid shit.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

@Meteor Man
that white liberals want to tear down the statues more than blacks do.

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Bollox Ref's picture

@gjohnsit

Meanwhile, people who live where the statues are, have to deal with where the statues are.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gjohnsit A lot of Black people probably know their enemy well enough to know that this is nicely calculated to jack their ordinary vicious shit up to a new, higher level of rage. While providing almost no benefit to Black people, beyond the small psychological benefit of not having to look at Jefferson Davis' face.

So, a strategy that will be incendiary to the right, and provide next-to-no benefit for Black people, other than the Black people who are working in politics and the media, who will make bank.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

divineorder's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

this is nicely calculated

Are you saying there is a conspiracy behind this movement?

Or do you really mean 'a major consequence of these actions'

Need more info. Thanks

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@divineorder @divineorder I truthfully don't know. I have two competing hypotheses. Either seems equally likely to me.

1)A sincere group of organizers started this strategy of taking apart racist white history by removing statues and flags because they desperately needed to offer their demoralized base a winnable fight. They needed a victory, or preferably a series of victories. So they decided to focus on removing statues instead of, for instance, investigating the white supremacist infiltration of the nation's police departments and purging those influences out of the departments--something the federal government should be asked to do. That could be the centerpiece of a movement I'd get behind, boy howdy. Or, if they wanted to focus on something else important, they could have focused on the toxic shit Black people are asked to accept in their water--if they're allowed to have city water at all. Little Black kids' IQs are going down right now because of this environmental injustice. Either of those things seems to me a better centerpiece for a movement. Or a Rolling Jubilee aimed specifically at Black people, which could get some Black people out from under the burden of debt. But taking down statues is doable.

2)It's an engineered piece of political nastiness conjured up in some think tank or consultant's office. I'll say this much: it couldn't be better for the rich white elites if it were specially constructed for them. They don't care whether statues stay up or go down, mostly b/c they don't give a shit about culture or history, since their power doesn't come from either, but rather comes from money. Most of the right-wing white people who object to this will not be wealthy, nor even upper middle class. They will be from the bottom 3 or 4 percentiles of the economic ladder. Since people like the Kochs don't give two shits what happens to a working-class guy on the radical hard right, it's fine for the elites to make them into the target and fade into the background. It also means every shitty thing being done by the elites will also fade into the background. And what would make this truly marvelous would be the fact that, if successful, Black people won't get one single damned thing out of it except an empty space where a statue used to be.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@gjohnsit who the hell ASKED to have the statues removed.

Insofar as I can tell, it's been decided unilaterally and arbitrarily at the state or local government levels. Insofar as I can guess, it seems intended to maximize division and unrest, with the side benefit of blaming Trump's incendiary rhetoric.

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Cassiodorus's picture

Tearing down the statues, blowing up the monuments, and editing the history books won't change anything, other than preventing us from learning from those mistakes.

How 'bout if we edit the history books to include the stories of those who didn't make it into the "Great Men" version of history, the one promoted by the monuments and statues?

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus
The biggest problem with our history books is what gets left out, not what gets put in.

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GreyWolf's picture

@Cassiodorus

In 1921 Roosevelt faced a twist in his plans as he developed polio and lost the use of his legs. “It took Roosevelt years to realize that he would never walk again” (Burns 87). While that time produced little of concrete value, his abandoned written works are interesting, especially FDR’s analysis of history that showed a “socio-economic interpretation, as against the ‘great man’ theory of history” (Burns 89).

Burns, James MacGregor. "Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox"

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus How 'bout we change the curricula and change how those Great Men's lives are taught. If we did that, and changed the story, we wouldn't have to take down the statues. The problem is the uncritical belief that they are Great Men. And taking down the statue won't mean diddly squat if the curricula don't change anyway.

As for the other part of what you said, I've been thinking from the beginning that, if we're going to talk about statues, I'd rather see the building of statues of Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, and Tamir Rice than taking down the statues already there.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

How 'bout we change the curricula and change how those Great Men's lives are taught.

We could do that, but then these same "great" white men would be just celebrated as ambiguous figures, which wouldn't change anything. Telling everyone that Jefferson screwed his slaves doesn't change a whole lot outside of getting the Jefferson-worshipers to erect defenses. No, the problem is that history has itself been made into a monument to "great" white men, and that the making of that history is itself the real story behind the Great Men version of history.

There are plenty of things to make history into, but the history of history reflects 1) the making of the Great Men version and 2) a sort of chipping-away at that version for the sake of accounts of "what really happened."

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus It's not tangential, but it was poorly stated. Let me state it better:

What I mean is: teach history differently. There's more or less four places people get their assumptions about the past: school, parents, movies, and church. Taking down the statue while the school, parents, movies and church stay the same is less than desirable. In fact, it won't do jack shit to change anybody's understanding of history. Two sides will have entrenched views, and the rest of the population will opt out of the fight, if they even remember that there ever was a statue in that empty space at all. And the Great Man/racist slaveholder way of teaching history will continue apace. Nothing will change except that some people will be able to say "Yay! We win! We made those shithead racists take down their statue/sign/flag!"

At the beginning of the Reagan Revolution, they first came for the School Boards and public school curricula. Because that's a pressure point where you can influence how people understand their history and culture. If we're going to focus on history and culture and how we understand the past, rather than focusing on any of the dozen material issues Black people are facing in the present, then we should change how we teach about the past. And if we can't make the mainstream system change its teachings, then we need spaces for alternative pedagogy and alternative history.

I'm not really in favor of any of this, because I think the possible gains are paltry while the possible risks are high. But if we're going to focus on history, then let's actually try to make changes. I'm not interested in an activism of scoring points off of racists and Nazis, unless scoring those points results in real change. I'd rather have a movement that aims for real change in material conditions, but if we're going to focus on symbolism, culture, and people long dead, let's at least try to change how people are taught to think about those symbols and people.

Removing Davis' statue, or Washington's name, is basically like punching a neo-Nazi media guy in the mouth. It accomplishes nothing but a temporary sense of win.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal See, for instance, NFL players boycotting the National Anthem. It started with Colin Kaepernick, but now it's:

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/22/sport/cleveland-browns-players-kneel-d...

Eventually it might amount to something. Or not; we must wait and see.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus That's one of my two theories of why this is even happening.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

The Aspie Corner's picture

Black Millennials preferred Sanders to Clinton and so did Millennial feminists. White folks? Nah, apparently we preferred a right-wing enabler like Clinton or Kaine.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

MarilynW's picture

Hitler has a history in Germany, how many statues of Hitler in that country?

ZERO

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To thine own self be true.

Strife Delivery's picture

@MarilynW This is true.

However, they also never went forward to create one either.

We have various statues and figures that people don't like right now. So what do we do with them?

Destroying them is over the top and ultimately does not solve anything.

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@Strife Delivery say in the 1910s and 1920s during the time Woodrow Wilson resegregated the Federal work force and the KKK resurged into prominence. At about the same time, history got "Southwashed." The Civil War became not about slavery, but "import tariffs."

Of course, this in a country who put the genocidal Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill . . .

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Strife Delivery's picture

@SancheLlewellyn Right, well I mean, thing is we can debate on if they should have ever been constructed.

Thing is they have been, so what to do with them. That I suggest then follows my post further down the thread.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@Strife Delivery with an explanation of their history.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Strife Delivery's picture

@Cassiodorus Mhmm that was one of the options I listed in a post further down the thread haha.

Either that, or if a museum couldn't or wouldn't take them, either store them somewhere or sell to private collector. Easy peasy folks.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@SancheLlewellyn if we take down a statue of Robert E. Lee.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Big Al's picture

@Cassiodorus The thing is, all the books about him are hidden inside the statue. That's the thing most people don't know.

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Strife Delivery's picture

@Big Al Sounds like a Nicholas Cage movie.

Break Confederate Statues, find the hidden treasure somewhere in the South.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus It's possible that the current strategy of statue and flag removal could become part of erasing history. It could end up like that. But it's not that now. As I said elsewhere, "erasing history" is not my main problem with the strategy.

My main problem with the strategy is that it's lameass. Despite the fact that I am ambivalent about erasing history, I'd probably like this strategy a little better if it were trying to erase history--if the idea were the following:

the history which celebrates slaveowners is bad history and we need to revise it.

It's not where I'd start working, if I were leading a movement, because such strategies are usually high on heat, low on light (and also low on discernible gains to ordinary people); fighting over symbolism when power relations and material conditions are at a toxic low strikes me as a weird choice. But the choice to prioritize the removal of statues, names, and flags would go up several notches in my estimation if it were a part of a well-thought-out attempt to revise how our history is taught and understood; if there were a corresponding push to revise the curricula of the public schools; if there were alternative pedagogical venues teaching alternate histories (like "teach-ins" maybe, or maybe like the educational work Dorothy Cotton was doing with the SCLC); if there were indie movies or even games being designed that served a function of conveying the improved history or debunking the old, flawed history; if there were, well, anything to suggest that this strategy wasn't either

1)Something somebody came up with because they were desperate to come up with some kind of win for their political base, and taking down statues is a winnable fight, whereas stopping state-sanctioned racist murder isn't,

or

2)Something some asshole in the political establishment or the press came up with because they want division, spectacle, anger, and violence between non-elite residents of this country, and racism is one of their favorite tools. It's the U.S. establishment gift that keeps on giving. You can work it from every angle and still jerk people around like puppets. Notice that nobody gives a shit right now what the elites are doing. People aren't even focusing on the cops anymore; that's been replaced by (mostly) non-cop Nazis. It's Nazism that has been identified as the problem, not state-sanctioned racist murder. There are connections between those two things but in the hullaballoo over the statues, they are not being explored. And I'm sure all these developments are making the rich and powerful very happy indeed.

Especially the part where Black people looking for justice after centuries of racism get together with the bosses of poorly-paid right-wing white people and get them fired.

You couldn't ask for something more pleasing to the elites.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@SancheLlewellyn

I'm guessing there are more statutes and monuments celebrating the losing side in the Civil War than to the winning side.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@HenryAWallace We need rich people to fund a statue of Robert E. Lee's slaves.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

questions were phrased and the poll sample: From the essay:

Ninety-four percent (94%) of voters agree that it is better to try to learn from the wrongs of the past than to erase them. Just four percent (4%) think it is better to erase the wrongs of the past instead.

Who, other than post-terrorization process Winston Smith, wants to come down on the side of erasing history and not at least trying to learn from the mistakes of the past? I am dead certain that I could construct a question equally biased from the other side that would be far more historically accurate and realistic. The question itself is full of fallacy. (For example, since when does absence of a statue = erasing the past? And since when does making an venerated icon of a general who fought against the United States of America = trying to learn from the mistakes of the past?)

Also, getting near unanimity on something this controversial in the real world, whose population and wording is not controlled by pollsters, suggests to me that something about the population sampled may have been skewed as well. Inasmuch as I have not checked the underlying poll data, that is admittedly a guess, but one based on knowing how divisive this issue is in real life. However, the question was patently worded to elicit the responses it got; and that is not a guess.

IOW, like Winston Smith, I smell a rat and probably many more than one.

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@MarilynW
Unless you can show me where Lee committed genocide.

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@gjohnsit

an internet discussion thread became, the likelier it was that someone would post a Nazi or Hitler comparison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
IOW, it's a law of probability, not a law of silencing;.

Of course, the longer any discussion becomes, the likelier it is that almost anything else will get mentioned, too. So, odwin's Law (of Probability) is something of a truism.

Nazis and Hitler were bad in many ways, from book burnings to Crystal Night to bigotry to repression and on and on. The Holocaust and even invading Poland, came after many of those things. Yet, the Holocaust, though unfortunately, not unique in horrendousness, was certainly a landmark event in human history.

So, what kind or person or official or government benefits from seeking to end comparisons to Hitler unless a Holocaust equivalent is involved? Someone who is like Hitler in one or more ways, but excluding the Holocaust? And wouldn't that description have fit Hitler, before he had the Nazis begin rounding up Jews and others? https://caucus99percent.com/content/breaking-repeal-godwins-law

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@MarilynW Then again, Hitler didn't found Germany. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were among those who founded the United States. We can pretend that only non-slaveowners founded the country, and stop talking about all those who did, including the one who wrote the original document announcing the separation from Britain, and the one who led the armies that eventually won independence, but it seems like a pretty stupid way to deal with the situation.

If it had been merely Confederate statues and the Confederate flag, I would have mostly shrugged, because the South was being stupid (among other things) by putting up those statues and flags after they lost the war. It's really not done, and it's long past time for those statues and flags to go, and I say this as a white Southerner myself--though I'd put them in a history museum rather than destroying them.

My only problem with taking down the Confederate cultural paraphernalia is that it is nicely calculated to produce the most rage in the white right while also producing the smallest gain for the Black people on the other side. Also, it doesn't disturb the establishment one bit. The money keeps flowing and their police state flourishes, including the white-supremacist-infiltrated police departments, which we will apparently do nothing about.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal stop?

There are plenty of people who could be aggrieved over any number of statues/pictures/street and park names and on and on.

Maybe the better thing to do is to establish memorials to recognize the other side's contributions - such as, these railroads were built by the Chinese, etc.

There might be many other places where something like this might work,and there already are a lot of memorials of this type.

I saw a show about Germany that said the country had landmarked even where Jews had lived to always remind the Germans to never repeat this evil.

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dfarrah

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@dfarrah I would have been much more supportive of an effort to put up statues to Trayvon Martin and Sandra Bland, or maybe a memorial like the war memorials, listing names of those Black people killed by cops or white vigilantes--you couldn't manage to list them all, but some is better than none. And you could have a vigil or something at the statue site yearly, adding the names that would surely be there to be added, which is horribly grim, but so is this situation. Or perhaps a concert in honor of the dead. I think music would be a good thing to apply to this situation.

It would confront white people with the racist system in which they live, and it would confront those who celebrate that racism with their own wrongdoing, but it would do so in a way that would generate more opportunities for action, and more focus on those who have been wronged than a bunch of dead racists.

That's if people want to focus on statues/symbolism.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal @Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal , when you consider that human slavery is a growing industry in today's world.

Modern human trafficking might give some of those ol' rednecks a new perspective.

btw and completely off topic: watched a youtube of funniest signs created by the homeless and one said "spread a little cheese on this old cracker".

My favorite by far though was: "Need penis enlargement. Please donate. I'm a little short."

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Strife Delivery's picture

I mean this really shouldn't be this hard:

1) Local vote to decide if statues should be taken down or not.

2A) If people decide to leave them up, OK then.

2B) If people decide to take them down, then various options open up.

3A) Move statues to a museum
3B) If no museum has space or won't take them, place them in storage or sell them to private collector.

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CS in AZ's picture

@Strife Delivery

The local city council voted to sell the statue, so their plan was that it would be moved - to wherever the buyer chose to put it. Horrors!

Unfortunately, what happened next was, instead of respecting their local decision, a bunch of people who don't live there decided it was a national emergency and that cities cannot be allowed to decide what to do regarding art and displays in their city parks.

Next thing you know, it's the same as blowing up mt Rushmore and removing all references to George Washington from history books, and, and ... where will it end!?

This line of argument is reminding me of those who oppose weed legalization with cries of "where will it end!? What's next? meth at Starbucks? heroine in infant formula?! My God, this is madness. One change of any kind will inevitably lead to complete disaster!"

The overblown overreacting is what tells me this is not actually about anyone caring about history. Which, obviously, isn't erased if a statue is moved or sold to a museum.

I would like to see a new opinion poll and ask Americans "do you think people who don't live in your town or city or state should get to decide what statues you are allowed to put up or take down in your local parks?"

Any guesses how that would go?

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1. These are works of art intended to glorify the persons depicted as if they were Great and Larger Than Life.
2. The art work is often placed near seats of government, such as State Capitol buildings, or County Courthouses.
3. The blacks answering the poll are correct. Taking them down will inflame racists and may hurt more than it helps to take them down.
Solutions: Move the statues to art or history museums. Educate every man, woman, and child that visits Mt. Rushmore that our historical figures who founded and shaped our democracy were slave owners, only wanted democracy to extend to white male landowners.
Over time, blacks were freed, women and non-land owners were eventually allowed to vote.
As long as we have civil war battlefields, history is damn well not being erased.
When TPTB decide to subdivide Gettysburg Battlefield, or Yorktown, I will object.
Battlefields preserved are true and accurate history.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

MarilynW's picture

@on the cusp
ask the local First Nations how they feel about that monstrosity on their sacred lands.

But that's another story.

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To thine own self be true.

Mark from Queens's picture

I've been ruminating about "statues" for a long time, with respect to their role in Propaganda. In this and most cases, I believe they are explicitly designed to call allegiance to Militarism and Imperialism. The exaltation of certain individuals to hero status, when in reality there wouldn't be enough room to venerate all who were truly heroes even in their definition, is another aspect that I think we need to do away with: hero worship.

We could use a lot more We, and not Me. When Frederick Olmsted created Central Park in NYC he fought bitter battles with legislators who wanted to appease their benefactor donors who saw an opportunity to erect yet more statues. He stood firm. Central Park opened with just one, of an angel with spread wings, making sure the park was the park of the people, an ode to the oppressed and an oasis for the kept city dweller to experience some rustic peace the way their bettors could freely escape to when/where-ever they pleased. As another example of doing the right thing in terms of reverberating modesty, Thomas Jefferson's tombstone makes no mention of his being the 3rd President. Instead he took credit for writing the Declaration of Independence and creating a university, UVA.

In most every single town square across the country you'll be able to find some kind of monument exalting some war "hero" or heroes or battle. It's so ingrained in our culture, along with the insane, fervent flag-waving display tics Americans are given to, that no country in the world rivals our sick fealty to nationalism and xenophobia. I'm sick of walking by another plaque, monument, or statue whose very presence is designed to calibrate in me a feeling of allegiance to War, that the only way to be "protected" is by having lots of guns and bombs and using them on "bad" people, that which in turn represent our power, which then crystallizes one major element of the pernicious Propaganda assaulting us from childhood on, that America is the Greatest Country In the World. Very dangerous.

Why then don't we also find plaques and monuments to the Everyman, the farmer who tills the soil of which without we perish, the poet/artist/singer/ whose creativity inspires us to live more fully, the scientists who lean upon the great discoveries before them to introduce new and better tools into our world, etc?

I'm tired of personal veneration, especially when it becomes a plaything of vanity for the well-connected and wealthy. Scumbag vainglorious oligarchs do enough to make the landscape of this country an eyesore of moneymen and corporate vanity, or to be used as advertising in the quest for evermore profit. How many more 3M Stadium, Citifield, David Koch Theater, Langone Medical do we have to tolerate?
Fuck these people...

All over Europe their town squares are named after poets, scientists, inventors, musicians, authors.

Personally, I'd be in favor of starting a campaign to venerate what in my view is our biggest and best cultural export to the rest of the world. And it's not Disneyland, McDonald's or Tommy Hilfiger.

How about a statue of Little Richard in every town square? How about statues to the great activists and organizers who brought us the 5 day work week/the 8 hour work day/ended child labor? How about Jonas Salk, who cured polio and never asked for any money for it by accepting no patent on what he said he culled from all the work done before him? How about Howard Zinn, who dedicated his life's work to telling the untold history of social change beginning at the grass roots with solidarity of working people? How about statues erected wherever there had been a lynching? How about the birthplaces and/or homes of all the great literary greats? How about statues honoring the multitude of unknown/little know jazz and blues greats?

What a different feel the landscape of America would have...

I could go on and on and on. But you get the point, don't you?

Stonewall Jackson's great, great grandson's wrote an eloquent, wide-ranging statement regarding the effect of Confederate statues and the effects of that representation of a racist and oppressive American world. They felt those statues can no longer be abided. I'm with them.

More We. Less Me.

More unity, less division.

More common man, less "hero."

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

@Mark from Queens Thank you!

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MarilynW's picture

@Mark from Queens
They are not works of art, they are mostly works of propaganda, tributes to politicians and militarists.

We had a big fight in Quebec, Canada over a huge statue of Deplessis, a very corrupt, thieving politician who ordered it for himself. After his death it ended up being put in a shed. Who knows where it is today.

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To thine own self be true.

In Washington D.C., a sculpture of Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger is displayed at the Smithsonian and a group of African American pastors from nine states are calling for it to be removed. However, reports today indicate the Smithsonian refuses to remove the statue.

The museum has the Sanger bust in their “Struggle for Justice” exhibit, which is supposed to honor those of the past who were “champions of justice.” The pastors wrote the Smithsonian a letter explaining that Sanger was far from a champion for their race because of her strong ties to the eugenics movement.

A sign beneath the bust says that Sanger was “profoundly affected by the physical and mental toll exacted on women by frequent childbirth, miscarriage and self-induced abortion.”

It also mentions the controversial nature of her work. It reads, “During her campaign, Sanger became associated with the eugenics movement – which promoted, among other practices, the forced sterilization of those deemed mentally unfit and for a time was endorsed by many of the era’s prominent thinkers.”

Now, CNS News reports the Smithsonain is denying the request to remove the statue:

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

detroitmechworks's picture

@dkmich Do they beat down the doors and drag those who refuse to hastily constructed trials? Stuff that has been applauded by some online communities for those who didn't agree on the Confederate statues...

Seriously, this is ridiculous, and over and over the media proclaims the rightness of the people to go and create havoc in the name of their appointed leader, whose time it is...

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

@dkmich How many of the early leaders of the suffragist movement still held the beliefs of white superiority.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@SancheLlewellyn
and some of them never really do, because there will always be fools.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@dkmich @dkmich I'm with the Smithsonian on this one; the only thing I'd say is that perhaps they don't want to organize the exhibition around the idea "champions of justice."

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

vtcc73's picture

of learning from it. History is normally written by the victors/survivors carrying with it their biases and version of "truth". So sure, blow up statues and monuments. The Taliban will be proud that were're turning into them. Osama has won.

My mother's family came to the New World in the 1620s settling in what was called New Amsterdam. Some of them fought in the Revolution against the British. The single family unit from whose branch I came moved to northern Virginia, bought land, and established a farm on the Potomac. My grandmother's grandfather was that farmer. My grandmother was born in 1891 to his son on the farm adjoining the Custis Estate. (Her barn sat where Clarendon Circle now stands in the late '20's and was sold in the Great Depression. No sons were available to farm the land and they needed the money.) One of her uncles was a lieutenant in the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee's command. I went to Va. Tech called VPI then becoming VPISU during my attendance. (Pronounced "V piss U" by those of us unhappy with the change.) Our fight song was Dixie and it was played by VTCC (Va. Tech Corps of Cadets) band the Highty Tighties at every football game. Dixie was a frequent target for charges of racism that were defended by counterclaims of heritage. I remember all of the heated arguments that were not finally settled until well after I graduated. My heritage and almost everything that I learned when my family and friends idolized and idealized the South and their heroic stand made by the Southern armies against the oppression and aggression of the North. I, like most of us, took this as gospel.

I was unerringly wrong. They were all wrong. Are wrong now if they haven't reconsidered. The people of the South were the oppressors of an entire race of people forced into slavery on land first stolen by the Europeans, my family included, from the native peoples already in the Americas and, second, by the citizens of the US. They were thieves, murders, and people who thought little of the evils they inflicted on innocents to maintain an evil system designed to benefit a very few wealthy land owners. Then, not unlike today, the average free white man, of course man, supported then later fought and many died for a system that didn't do much of anything for them. None of them were heroes. They were traitors.

I did not come to this realization until much later in my life. I may never have come to it had I not followed through on an uneasy feeling that something was terribly wrong with what I'd been taught. None of it leveled with my base values as a human. I asked the question and followed the evidence to the conclusion that the South was based on incredible inhumanity that can easily be termed evil. Many of the attitudes here, I currently live in Tennessee but not much longer, follow from accepted teachings without the benefit of rigorously honest examination. This after more than 150 years is sort of amazing until I consider the thousands of years the people in the Middle East and elsewhere hold murderous rage over old grudges and hatreds. I would think the most exceptional people ever to have lived could say they are wrong to claim freedom for themselves while denying it to everyone else. What a silly thought.

The town I live in has a vibrant active downtown area. It's named for one of our most famous Founding Fathers and was called the nation of that same Founder for a time. There's a roundabout in front of the old courthouse with a well kept monument to the Confederate heroes of the Civil War. I recently had a younger couple, friends from Rome - the original, visit for a few days during their August holiday road trip from Chicago to New Orleans. Both nights we had dinner near the town square (round?). They asked about the monument so we went out there to look at it. Their English has become very good and they quickly read the flowery inscriptions tog the heroism of the Southern soldiers. Both were puzzled by a monument to the losers of a revolt against their government. I told them about the big Civil War battle and national battlefield park a few miles away. That's how it is in the South and this one is actually pretty tame. I also said that it is definitely strange that a country whose people proudly boast of their exceptionalism and worship of freedom would permit the spawn of traitors and oppressors to maintain such a thing.

I also said that I'd not have it any other way. How else could there be such a stark reminder of how wrong people can be? How do you ever learn to avoid doing stupid shit like that again? Removing that monument does several bad things. It hides the history of monumental flusterclucks we Americans have enthusiastically engaged in. Hell, we hide/deny or history well enough by refusing to treat these topics honestly in our teachings to our children and in the official histories. We do it time and time again. Not removing them won't change that. Not "probably" won't, won't. I mean, 150+ years hasn't done it so why now? However, removal will enable a self righteous claim of grievance, reinforce feelings of repression and victimization, and provide reasons for embracing that old cause.

I'd much rather go to these monuments to traitors and tell others that they are exactly that.

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"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."

@vtcc73

thousands of years the people in the Middle East and elsewhere hold murderous rage over old grudges and hatreds.

Here is an example of just the opposite. Right now, the Lebanese Army is attacking Da'sh Along the Lebanese/Syrian border from the West. This is in press called a 'Lebanese Army Only' event. Meanwhile, supposedly totally unrelated, the Syrian Army and Hezbollah are attacking the same pocket of Da'sh from eastern side.

Christians, Sunnis, 'Alawites, Shi'ites all attacking Da'sh in one combined battle but they can't say they are because the dumbass U.S. thinks along simplistic lines and thinks the Lebanese are fighting Hezbollah. If anyone dares say otherwise it will anger the U.S. and blow the minds of all the Washington Think Tanks.

Another interesting reading subject is the Jews from Aleppo. Of course you must read numerous sources. Did you know that until Zionism and economic collapse of northern Syria that Aleppo was the base for Judiasm for hundreds of years?

Our current knowledge of the Middle East is just that. Current. And based on current prejudices. Jews and Arabs fought together against Western Christians. 'Alawites were only considered Shi'ites recently. Tribes were far more important than sects in many of the regions.

The West has done a wonderful job of separating the peoples and getting them to fight one another based on what they want. England was quite good at it. The U.S. has excelled! Bush funded both Shi'ite and Kurdish rebellions against Saddam based on sects. The regime responded and it inflamed a sectarian war. We blame Saddam. We blame 'those Arabs'. We ignore that we should be that shining nation that builds bridges, not burn them.

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Lily O Lady's picture

@vtcc73

would remain standing if erected in Georgia? He made his historic March to the Sea here. There may be historic markers where battles were fought against him, but there are no statues/monuments to him south of Washington, D.C.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

at a time when struggles over symbols take precedence over struggles for actual power. Even banish the notion of actual power from political discourse. Wait! Did I say 'thank heavens'? I meant 'What the fuck?!?'

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

@jim p
How did the left get lost in a never-ending battle over symbols, rather than over real world policies?

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@gjohnsit donate to The Party.

But there's the essence of the situation. Top down 1% Mass media, gated peer-to-peer horizontal communications; Mix with now, literally, 3-4 generations of TPTB spending billions on theory and practice in shaping public opinion and priorities and....

If there were headlines today from Big Media/Info Ministry "Trump, Hillary in Love Triangle with US Grant Statue" tomorrow the internet would be 95% people divided on whether it happened at all, whether one of the named wasn't Involved...

TPTB clearly want as close enough to a civil war as to require suspending the few remaining civil liberties. To redirect public anger (felt by all factions among us commoners) at their doings away from them. Plus chaos is opportunity for the organized and funded.

That's why, as I reiterate as often as possible, we are insane to not focus our creativity, imaginations, and effort on taking on the chief instruments of propaganda and divisive agitation: the widely-hated corporate media. Not someday. Now. Or die.

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@jim p Yeah, why would we want to do something like make a demand from all corners of the nation that there be an Eliot-Ness style federal investigation of all the police departments to root out the white supremacist infiltration that has made a historically bad situation worse?

Why would we want to do that when we can take down statues of Jefferson Davis?

Why would we want to get the FBI, the NSA, and the DHS to take a little break from keeping an eye on where we buy lamb chops, what books we check out of the library, what websites we go to and what conversations we have with our friends, and instead use their massive post-9/11 budgets and fancy tech and complete power to do whatever the fuck they want whenever the fuck they want to whomever they want, to uncover these white supremacists and remove them from our police departments? Many of those groups are not just hideously racist but also want to take down the government of the United States. Is this not an issue for the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI? Are my lamb-chop purchases more integral to the security of the nation?

One might ask: Then why didn't you start such a movement already, white girl? but the answer is: because I am white and it's inappropriate for me to take the lead in a movement about Black rights, and if I had started any such thing, I would have been attacked from all sides, including, and maybe especially, by the very people who would most benefit from such a strategy. Rather than ending in a successfully organized action, it would have ended in a wrangle about whether or not white allies should be able to decide the direction of a Black movement.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

zett's picture

from these statues anyway? Do they have plaques on them saying "cared more about preserving slavery than being part of the United States"? Or do they have a bunch of horse shit about the noble South? If the damn things stay up, they should have an accurate portrayal attached at the very least.

But I'm really with Mark from Queens. We should be celebrating our poets and musicians, not our war makers and political liars.

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...as a big fat thumb in the eye of the emancipation proclamation. Many of these monuments were installed as a giant middle finger to the union long after the war was over and the honoree dead. The greatest number of confederate school naming and statue making happened in 1909 and 1910.

These were put up, not by history buffs, but as a reminder that lotsa crackers out there are ready to protect their race and "heritage". I've got an idea, in the spirit of maintaining historical reference, let's put up a statue of Gen Tecumseh Sherman in every city and town touched during his southern tour. It's the exact same line of thinking that places Lee, Jackson et al in such reverence.

Make America Great Again - *hurl*

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Roy Blakeley's picture

@Blueslide I have to point out that the Emancipation Proclamation did not outlaw slavery nor free very many slaves. It was a transparent attempt to get slaves to rebel. Slaves were key to Confederate supply lines, and if they had rebelled in significant numbers the war would have mercifully ended much earlier with a tiny fraction of the deaths that later ensued. It did not apply to the Union slave states (Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia [which was in the process of being split off from Virginia], Kentucky and Missouri) nor to certain regions of the Confederacy controlled by Union Soldiers. In fairness to Lincoln, he perceived that if the Emancipation Proclamation applied to the Union slave states, they would likely secede and the Union would collapse. The slaves were actually freed by the 13th amendment, which Lincoln did not support until 1864, probably again because he did not want to antagonize the Union slave states. By 1864 the war was looking much better for the Union and it was unlikely that any of the Union slave states would secede. Interestingly, although Lincoln was an abolitionist, he made it very clear in his first inaugural address that he did not intend to outlaw slavery in the states in which it existed. He also supported the Fugitive Slave Act and agreed with the Dred Scott decision. The Confederate States forced his hand, and did not leave him with peaceful options to preserve the Union. His preferred solution to slavery was to buy the slaves from their owners as had been done in some other countries.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@Roy Blakeley

By southern law, as Commander-in-Chief, Lincoln shrewdly rendered the enemy's "property" as a military asset, which it certainly was. While Southern Generals mustered all the soldiers they could get on the battlefield, slave labor was the source making that happen behind the lines. In addition to being integral to supply lines, they were also digging fox holes, building fortifications, and repairing railroads and bridges. What Lincoln did with the Emancipation Proclamation was both tactically and strategically brilliant if for no other reason than the psychological warfare it must've waged on Southern generals.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

TheOtherMaven's picture

@Roy Blakeley
they refused to be stampeded by the "war panic" that gripped the rest of Virginia after Fort Sumter. They dug in their heels and said, "Hell No, We Won't Go!"

It was touch and go for a bit whether the northern Shenandoah Valley would also balk, or not. Unfortunately they gave in to the stampede momentum.

What's particularly amusing is that while Virginia felt it was within its rights to secede from the United States, they strongly objected to any counties presuming to secede from them. Just more typical hypocrisy.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Roy Blakeley's picture

1) The emphasis on this subject and the way it is portrayed in the news seems like an attempt to further divide the races or perpetuate racial divisions. The identity politics practiced by both parties is a form of racism and playing poor whites and poor blacks off against each other has long been a staple of US capitalism.

2)Slavery, although heinous, is hardly the worst atrocity committed by the Europeans that settled the continent. That distinction would go to the genocide committed against Native Americans. Somehow, the two atrocities that we are encouraged to have angst over are slavery and the imprisonment of Japanese Americans in WWII. Perhaps this is because these stories have a sort of happy ending. Both slaves and Japanese Americans were freed. There was not any semblance of a happy ending for Native Americans. The deaths due to US imperialism seem also to be beyond the acceptable boundaries of Angst.

3) I have mixed feelings about the destruction or removal of Confederate Statues. I would not care if all of the statues of R. E. Lee or Jefferson Davis were to disappear. However, I don't like the erasure of history, even phony history. What I would object to is the removal of monuments to the Confederate War Dead, just like I would object to the bulldozing of the Vietnam memorial, even though the war was imperialist and resulted in the unnecessary deaths of 3,000,000 people.

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@Roy Blakeley Yeah. A person has the option to take those long lists of the killed in war as a warning. The names represent people with lives exactly as real as our own. It matters to feel that when looking at them.

I wouldn't mind stipulating that such displays have a simple bronze sign attached "War is not glorious; it's painful" or such.

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

lotlizard's picture

@Roy Blakeley  
a naval base at Pearl Harbor. Very probably, most of the people stationed there in 1941 were racist against Hawaiian “locals” and particularly people of East Asian ancestry. Maybe we should tear down the Battleship Arizona memorial?

Dr. Seuss made extremely racist cartoons about Japanese-Americans — maybe we should rid our homes and children’s minds of his books?

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Roy Blakeley The emphasis on this subject and the way it is portrayed in the news seems like an attempt to further divide the races or perpetuate racial divisions. The identity politics practiced by both parties is a form of racism and playing poor whites and poor blacks off against each other has long been a staple of US capitalism.

Now, now, you conspiracy theorist! Have you been talking to Vladimir again?

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Roy Blakeley Well now, that is a point, isn't it?
Are we saying that American Black people's lives are worth more than those of Vietnamese? That slavery is worse than imperialism?

I'm playing devil's advocate, a little bit, but then there's this, which may seem more pertinent:

Dr. King believed in "praying the gay away," so should we take down his statues because it hurts LGBT people to look at them? Or is it OK because King's position isn't widely known?

So, since I had no idea before I looked it up today that George Mason was a slaveowner, and I bet most people don't even know who he is, much less that he owned slaves, should we leave statues of him up? What is the damage being done here? Is it the mental anguish of Black people who have to see statues of racists, or is it an abstract moral opposition to having statues of racists up regardless of whether anybody knows it's a statue of a racist?

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

yes or no.
Personally I object to destruction more why the statue was placed in a certain position. Many were placed where they are for specific reasons often to intimidate [specifically the more modern post 1900 Confederate ones].
They can be moved to a more appropriate site, say a museum.

Yes no polls are inadequate.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@LaFeminista That would be fine with me. Too bad it's far too late for that. We are now caught up in a frenzy of media-manipulation and crap:

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Russia!!! North Korea!!!

I am sick of the excuses.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@LaFeminista If you think I'm making excuses, you're wrong. I'm observing that the chances are low of a white person like myself proposing a middle-ground solution and having the result be anything except more flame wars and character attacks. If Black people wanted to suggest this option, that would make the chances of success go up considerably.

Ordinary white people cannot direct a movement for Black rights (deals that Black leadership makes with powerful white people like the Clintons are a different matter). And I'm not even in disagreement about that, but it used to be that allies could meet with Black leaders and occasionally make suggestions in those meetings. Now it's all about marching in lockstep. Black people are supposed to be marching in lockstep with their own leadership, and white people are supposed to be marching quietly behind. Which, again, I'd probably do without comment if it weren't for the fact that I think these strategies and tactics are rotten.

I can express my opinion about what a Black movement should have done, but I can't propose my opinion as if I have some authority to organize a Black person's movement for Black rights. In the old days, I'd just mention my views to Black leaders, organizers, or activists, and they'd either agree or not, and we'd go from there. But that relationship is essentially destroyed.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

TheOtherMaven's picture

@LaFeminista
Exactly that happened with the Old Frederick County Courthouse in Winchester, VA, and its lawn statue of the idealized Confederate soldier. The city built a spanking new modern courthouse a few blocks away, and turned the old one into a Civil War Museum.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

@TheOtherMaven is worth a visit.

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with Meteor Blades about this topic when he wrote a quite strong anti-statue diary. I sent him a link to an article which demonstrated that the local community in Charlottesville, which had held 17 public meetings on the question, was ambivalent about statue removal. This included local black citizens and civil rights leaders. many of whom stated at the meetings and in writings that statue removal may also remove awareness of the history they suffered in that area during the civil war. Meteor Blades told me that every black person he had talked to since the 60's want those statues down, and therefore I didn't know what I was talking about. I shared more evidence that blacks were split on this question to no avail.
This is the Party who thinks they represent all black citizens in this country? In fact, they do it so well, they don't need to pay any attention to actual POVs from that community! Isn't that wonderful?

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

orlbucfan's picture

of being wrong. I've told him so in the years before MM showed his true Repuke colors! I hold very strong suspicions that this whole racist artifacts uproar is more Frightwingnut deliberate distraction. As a life-long world history junkie who is also female and part Cherokee, I don't want these items destroyed. History needs to be learned from all sides. How else would we learn from such horrors as the myriad religious wars, extermination of native peoples, etc., etc. if we didn't have the records and symbols from all sides? Rec'd!! @Fishtroller 02

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Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Fishtroller 02 This is one of the problems I have with the whole thing, though not the main one:

statue removal may also remove awareness of the history they suffered in that area during the civil war.

That's why a historical museum would be better than demolition.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Fishtroller 02 It's not about evidence. You're not supposed to offer evidence. You are supposed to choose a side and adhere to it.

That, and the justification of bullying, are basically the reasons we are here and not there.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

divineorder's picture

war and American Exceptionalism as well.

I am with these guys. Fuck this 'history.'

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@divineorder My main objection to blowing the monument off the side of Mt Rushmore is that I don't like blowing the sides off of mountains, here or anywhere else.

Although, like I said, trying to erase these guys from history when they were in our history seems foolish.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

TheOtherMaven's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
Eventually the faces will go the way of New Hampshire's "Old Man of the Mountain". End of problem?

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@TheOtherMaven Except that that was sad. Sad

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Hawkfish's picture

@divineorder https://crazyhorsememorial.org/

Sadly I doubt I will live to see it completed.

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

divineorder's picture

For me this came up after reading this part

Look, most of history is full of some pretty f'd up sh*t.
Tearing down the statues, blowing up the monuments, and editing the history books won't change anything, other than preventing us from learning from those mistakes. The past cannot be undone.
Eliminating the bad stuff also eliminates the significance of those heroes who fought against the bad stuff.
What's more, people in history, both good and bad, sometimes get "revised".
Even the present situation might not be what you think it is.

then thinking of this event:

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@divineorder Are they snarking? Because obviously, Saddam Hussein wasn't removed from history.

That's why "erasing history" isn't my main problem with any of this. I'm ambivalent about that, but I also know that there's a lot more to erasing history than taking down some statues. If you want to erase or rewrite history, you have to tackle the school curricula, and possibly also make some movies (since you can't necessarily control how Hollywood portrays U.S. history, and you will want to counter their versions with your own.) Nobody's talking about doing that, which is one reason why the whole thing looks poorly thought out to me. Even if what you want to do is revise history from a crappy racist version to a better version, this strategy isn't going to accomplish it. If successful, it's going to rile a lot of people, and make a lot of other people feel a little bit better because they don't have to see Jefferson Davis' ugly mug every day.

That seems like a pretty paltry success to offer Black people, given the circumstances.

It either represents organizers casting about for a win, any win, they can offer to their rank-and-file (i.e. we can't fix the police, so let's aim for a winnable goal and take down statues), or it was designed to do exactly what it is doing: getting people angrier and providing the media and politicians an opportunity to make the biggest, loudest circus out of this conflict that they can, while giving the people who actually need real change a token change that won't change their lives very much.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

divineorder's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal An you fleshed out the thinking behind the snark.

But, see, I don't think there is a conspiracy here where across the country a small group is pulling the strings of removal.

Media coverage of it, yeah, I could see that.

I think there are disparate groups in many different places who have decided to rectify some real or imagined wrongs, each in their own way.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Anja Geitz's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

while giving the people who actually need real change a token change that won't change their lives very much

Frankly, I'd like to ask both black and white Walmart workers standing in bread lines trying to feed their families what issues they'd like TV "News" and Barbie and Ken "journos" to cover on their behalf? Maybe someone could even film it, rate the issues by importance, and then run their very candid answers on a loop in the middle of Times Square. It'd be interesting to see where removing statues would rate among that particular constituency, eh?

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Just as with opposition to McCarthyism & the Viet Nam war, and support for the Civil Rights movement and environmental laws back in the day (tiny at first, huge majorities within just a few years), and then a few decades later same-sex marriage, trans issues etc. etc., public opinion changes over time. I expect this will move in a similar direction.

These Confederate memorials exist to glorify people who were known solely for fighting very hard, with an enormous amount of bloodshed, to maintain and extend the institution of chattel slavery. Not coincidentally, they also exist to remind descendants of former slaves who their masters are. I fail to see any good in either justification.

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