#BREAKING Protesters in #Durham topple confederate monument downtown pic.twitter.com/a3BNIavyxC
— Derrick Lewis (@DerrickQLewis) August 14, 2017
It was erected in 1924. Almost all Confederate veterans were dead by then. Durham County has always had a significant African American population so a statue supporting slavery standing in front of the courthouse has its own meaning.
Be careful out there.
japa21
Sure are a lot of white folk there.
Omnes Omnibus
@japa21: Honestly, it’s probably safer that way.
HyperSphericalCow
First thought: that thing crumpled like a rag when it hit the ground. Not only was it a Confederate monument, it was a *crappy* confederate monument.
Major Major Major Major
Good.
MikeBoyScout
Illegal action, but one I’d be proud to be convicted of taking.
Bravo!
TenguPhule
Sadly, the Fascists are gonna copycat. In the middle of the night more likely then not.
Zach
Is there a legal defense fund for people doing this? Best thing I’ve seen since the woman took down the confederate flag a few years ago.
JPL
@HyperSphericalCow: lol
Roger Moore
@HyperSphericalCow:
Bronze statues are usually a pretty thin shell. There’s not a lot of point in making them thicker and heavier than they need to be to support their own weight. Any heavier, and you’re just wasting money and material and making them harder to deal with.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: What are they going to do, knock over tombstones at a Jewish cemetery? Again… Destroy the Emmett Till monument and marker? Again…
There’s a pattern here.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Copycat how? What statues to famous African-Americans or other POC are available to be pulled down?
Mike in NC
I believe there was mention on local TV news recently that last year the Republican-controlled legislature of North Carolina pushed through a dumb bill protecting such monuments from being removed. Oh, well. Maybe the GOP will waste taxpayer money standing them back up. That will play out well.
The other night we had cocktails with friends who recently moved here from NoVA, where they said there is a serious effort underway to change the names of a lot of the streets and buildings — mostly schools — memorializing Confederate generals and politicians (i.e. Jefferson Davis Highway in Arlington).
Mike J
@TenguPhule: They already attacked the holocaust memorial in Boston today. Arrest made.
Salter Wobchak
Durham is actually a pretty fucking cool city to live in these days.
Mike J
@Mike in NC: Let’s get rid of Ft Bragg, Ft AP Hill,. and a dozen other US military bases named for people who killed members of the US military.
dmsilev
@Mike in NC: The thing that offends me most are all those Army bases named after Confederate generals, many of whom foreswore their oaths to the US Army and fought against it.
Edit: I see Mike J and I are mind-melding.
Baud
@Salter Wobchak: You never know what’s going to go down.
JPL
Under Armour CEO has left Trump’s council Expect tweets to follow.
efgoldman
@Mike J:
I’d bet that whoever got arrested is shocked – SHOCKED – that his actions might have consequences.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: @dmsilev: My seminar room at USAWC was the Stonewall Jackson classroom.
Baud
@JPL: Oh wow.
germy
Mnemosyne
Texas A&M cancels white supremacist event based on safety concerns
As I have said many times, IANAL, but I’m pretty sure that universities are allowed to cancel free speech events if there’s a threat of violence, and apparently they were already having white supremacists say they were going to bring guns to the event.
TenguPhule
@Mike J:
Well they’re consistent, I’ll give them that much.
lamh36
ANDDDDD… another one bites the dust
Ya think Steph Curry was like “Yo…ya’ll want me to stay or nah?”
Baud
@TenguPhule: C’mon. I’m confident the Creation Museum is on the list. They are just going in reverse alphabetical order.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Any public monument that they think destroying will piss off liberals. Cleek’s Law, writ large.
JPL
@Mnemosyne: Illinois Senate labeled neo-nazi’s as a terrorist group. I assume that you can ban terrorists groups, but I don’t know the law. If so, maybe that’s what states should do.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Do you think they have black people under B, D or N?
dmsilev
@germy: I’m vaguely curious as to how one holds a press conference at a secret location.
TenguPhule
@dmsilev:
Never seemed to stop COBRA.
lamh36
Re-posted from last thread, as it perfectly reflects my mood bout all these Confederates monuments…
https://twitter.com/ZeeNTheCity/status/896729647408455680
Another Scott
@Zach: Meet Bree Newsome (from January):
Women like her, and Heather, and Hillary and Michelle, will save humanity if we work with them.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
I keep wondering about Stone Mountain. A bas-relief of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis. There’s no way to pull that down the way you could pull down a bronze statue. It would have to be sandblasted off, at great expense, time, and commitment by several jurisdictions. I love SM geologically, but I hate what it represents (and of course the mountain was once owned by KKK leaders). I would dearly love to see those images just disappear. Don’t think it’ll happen within my lifetime, though.
dmsilev
@JPL: I hate Illinois Nazis.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Name one that they haven’t vandalized or destroyed yet. We’ve already had a fucking white supremacist murder people at the American Holocaust Museum. We’ve already had assholes leave nooses at the African-American History Museum.
As Adam said, they constantly desecrate shit. It’s not going to make much of a statement the 20th time the Emmett Till memorial gets vandalized.
Adam L Silverman
More Manafort:
lamh36
Seeing all the articles bout the Charlottesville terrorist and ALL the warning signs and other times where dude’s racist bigotry was front and center, and ignored by alot of folks who KNEW him…not us strangers..
Courtesy of Deray
https://twitter.com/deray/status/897251656571785216
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: That Adam guy is making me look bad!
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
I just Googled a picture of it. There’s plenty of room for some additional figures on there. Maybe Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, and John Lewis? It’s past time for Rep. Lewis to have a statue anyway.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
Like I said below, I don’t necessarily agree with the manner in which this was done but can understand why and think it should have been removed.
Not that surprised after Charlottesville to see this happen. The backlash is starting.
different-church-lady
Welp… game on.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
He apparently has been arrested several times for beating up his mother, who is in a wheelchair. He’s also threatened her with a knife.
No wonder she didn’t ask where he was going this weekend.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Trump unveils new White House logo (photo)
Ruviana
@TenguPhule: This is too easy: All of them Katie.
Anne Laurie
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@SiubhanDuinne:
You could always dedicate other monuments there to slaves and other AfAm leaders, along with large plaques that give the confederate monuments context.
Adam L Silverman
@different-church-lady: This game is not likely to be pleasant.
sigaba
@HyperSphericalCow:
Like American conservatism more generally, It’s designed to weather the elements and look good, not for dynamic loads.
Jay S
Yep, full Saddam style, but apparently with less fakery.
Mike J
Jim Ross (wrestling announcer) soundtrack to statue topple.
https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/897254799841906688
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
But they will be very hungry.
different-church-lady
Liberals will always be more creative.
Roger Moore
@SiubhanDuinne:
Or you could use explosives.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
People are just tired of all the winning.
mai naem mobile
@lamh36: there’s a lot more people on the board including Richard Truman and somebody from the Teamsters. There’s the COS or former CEOS of 3M, Lockheed, Caterpillar ,Ford, Campbells, United Tech, GE, Novartis and Michael Dell. There were some others but i don’t remember seeing Google,Amazon or Apple.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: Given that Ric Flair is in a medically induced coma…
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
I think they’re going to step their game to more prominent targets. Not just the standard evil shit they’ve been doing all along. I’ve got a bad feeling that the next one is going to be quite noticeable and send a very unmistakable message.
Major Major Major Major
@mai naem mobile: I think the tech people are on the tech advisory board…?
Mike in NC
@Mike J: @dmsilev: Yeah, I believe this topic was discussed here a while back, about how military bases mostly built during WW1 and WW2 were named in a manner that at the time was intended to unite the country against foreign enemies by naming them for both Union and Confederate generals. Would be interesting to read about which ones were eventually closed during the BRAC process beginning in the 1990s.
Driving along I-95 near Spotsylvania, VA you will notice signs directing visitors to the “Stonewall Jackson Shrine” (the small farmhouse in which he died). I used to cringe every time I passed it.
mike in dc
…how many ropes and people to pull down Trump Tower?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@JPL: He’s white, so Trump won’t attack him.
Previously, Elon Musk resigned, as did head of Disney Bob Igor, and he didn’t attack them. He didn’t even attack Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, who openly bashes Drumpf.
But he made sure to attack the black CEO who resigned. Coincidence.
mai naem mobile
@Mnemosyne: oh,no it should be Barrack OBama because it drives the RWNJs crazy.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Such as? Name one that hasn’t already been repeatedly attacked, vandalized, and/or desecrated.
Shana
@Mike in NC: And JEB Stuart High School.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t know. And that’s what worries me. Their side keeps doubling down.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
Then fuck them. No backing down, no surrender, no going back. The Germans in the 1930s did not have the advantage of hindsight. We do and we know that standing by and doing nothing allows evil to win. You can claim America failed last year, but I think this is going to be our finest hour.
Patricia Kayden
@Major Major Major Major: Echoing your “Good”.
Break them all the hell down and dissolve them in acid so they can’t be fixed.
ThresherK
This should go on the newsreel with Iraqis (sic) tearing down that Saddam Hussein statue.
Mike J
@mai naem mobile: Here’s the list:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/president-trump-announces-manufacturing-jobs-initiative
jl
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: You could repost the link you gave in the previous thread about ways other countries have dealt with problematic historical monuments. I gave some other ideas along the same lines.
I think those ideas would be good things to attempt as an alternative to removigng all of the confederate memorials. I have doubts whether the reactionaries would accept them. I am sure the rest of the community would accept them more readily than the reactionaries would.
The reason is that these monuments are not history to them. They are political weapons that they want to use in an ongoing struggle to roll back progress in civil rights. I think anything that de-weaponizes these monuments as political tools would not be acceptable to the fascists, Nazis and white supremacists.
But it can be good to make an attempt for a more civil solution, even you have good reason to believe the offer will be refused.
If Trump and his hard core racist flunkies, and their racist voting base, stay on their current course, all of the statues will eventually be removed. And they won’t have any place at all anywhere, not even in a museum, since their own defenders don’t want them as history or as commemorations of sacrifice in a war, They want them as political weapons. If they cannot let that idea go, all the statues will be removed, and I think the reactionaries will have themselves to blame for it, even if they will never see it that way.
lamh36
@Mnemosyne: there are just as many people, who DON’T have violent relatives who don’t say shit to those relatives and instead bitch and moan about how racist those relatives…
so you ask “well did you say that’s bullshit”…uh..uh…
“well then I sure wouldn’t want to be around that type of hate, did you say…stay away from me and mine with those types of racist BS…” …uh..uh…
Posted this on one of the Friday or Saturday night of the violence in Charlottesville, and I’m posting it again…
Martin Luther King, Jr. – “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
japa21
@Omnes Omnibus: Re: Your question on the last thread. Water levels looked good. Not too high at all. I was up in Hayward so can’t speak to other areas. Interesting story which I will tell another time. Talked to my conservative nephew and while may not have changed mind totally, he definitely was thinking about what I said in relation to Confederate statues. Back to unpacking.
efgoldman
@Shana:
Daughter hopes that in the ~10 years until granddaughter goes to high school, the name of Washington & Lee HS in Arlington will have been changed.
A Ghost to Most
If there are any traitor statues in Denver, my truck has a winch and 100 feet of stout cable.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Mike J:
I wish someone would put Whitney Houston’s rendition of The Star Spangled Banner over it.
/yes I know the natl anthem has some racist history behind it. It would still be cool
Eric S.
@Adam L Silverman: I grew up on Stonewall Ave. In Woodridge, IL. A Chicago suburb. Jackson Blvd, Lee St., and Perry St. are other roads in that neighborhood. I bet there more I’m not remembering.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: And it is a huge exercise location for African American and other minority folks. I’ve climbed it for sunrise a couple of times and it’s incredibly diverse. For the town that held huge Klan rallies Stone Mountain, the city, is pretty African American.
Felonius Monk
Whatever shall we do about a U.S. Army installation named Fort A.P. Hill?
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden: we should melt them into better statues.
A Ghost to Most
@Mike J: Fort Hood, etc. This always sickened me.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
Yeah, it’s more that if my son who was supposed to be my caretaker was beating me and holding a knife to my throat, I wouldn’t be real curious about where he was spending his time out of the house either.
lamh36
@TenguPhule: If they were to do what you are suggesting…guess what…they will harm their cause MUCH more than the Liberal activist have or ever likely will..
To do what you think they will…would have to involve…60s era proportions.. and this is NOT the 60s…the response is NOT likely to be in their favor…
hueyplong
@lamh36: As a grad of Curry’s school, I really hope he did influence the Under Armour CEO’s decision. I have no doubt that he supports it at the very least.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Again, you need to read about the history of the Civil Rights Movement. You don’t seem to realize how many people were murdered over those years.
Gravenstone
@Roger Moore: Performance of the 1812 Overture, with live artillery sited on the effigies? Not the properly corresponding war, but I’m trying to be creative.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@jl:
Here you go: https://theconversation.com/what-to-do-with-confederate-statues-81736
Another way to look at what happened in Durham; the NC ledge passed a law preventing municipalities from removing confederate memorials. This is what happens when you pass a law that a majority of people in a place hate and disagree with; open defiance.
A Ghost to Most
@SiubhanDuinne:
In one of my happier fantasies, I commandeer an A-10 Warthog plane, and empty the tank killer cannon into the face of that traitor propaganda.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
The Lincoln Memorial. Gets their point across as clear as glass.
raven
Here’s the historical marker in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta. It has Jewish, African American, Confederate and Union Sections. I’m pretty sure my Confederate ancestor who was killed in the Battle of Atlanta is buried in beneath the Lion of the Confederacy, the place where a couple of thousand unknown Confederates were buried,
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Roger Moore:
Isn’t the Lincoln Memorial surrounded by people all the time, included armed guards?
raven
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
A Ghost to Most
@different-church-lady: Thank you. The out loud laugh at that really helped.
Please don’t use these tiki torches for any racist crap, you Nazi assholes needs to be a tagline.
lamh36
@Mnemosyne: Right…I think you know my commentary well enough on here, to know I am not talking about folks in an abusive caretaker/husband/son/daughter…whatever w/a vile racist bigot.
But other folks in the articles were co-workers, classmates, a teacher who said he’d say racist shit or “let something slip” more than a few times…this same kind of quotes you always generally here WHENEVER this happens.
For every abusive situation…there are more situations where abuse is NOT even a condition…and you have folks who STILL don’t speak up or take a stand..
different-church-lady
@Roger Moore: Actually, it got paint-gunned a few years back.
NorthLeft12
@David Canadian Anchor Baby Koch: Deadbeat Donald is just a cowardly lickspittle. If I thought he had the mind to be calculating enough, I might think he purposely attacked Mr. Frazier to appease his racist base. But really, I just don’t think he is intelligent enough to think any of this through and he just let his id loose. In Trump’s mind Mr. Frazier is an affirmative action hire anyway, so he might actually think that other CEOs approve of his ignorant insults.
schrodingers_cat
Mumbai still has railway stations on its local railway lines (commuter rail) named after British governors, Grant Road, Elphinstone Road, Sandhurst Rd etc, from the top of my head. There is also a Grant Medical College and King Edward Memorial Hospital and no one much seems to care.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: The Robert Gould Shaw is next, I’ll bet.
efgoldman
@raven:
Haven’t been there since, I think, the late 80s, but I remember that place, in particular, as being totally wide open.
Once upon a time, the public WH tour went thru ~twice as many areas as it does today. There was also a special advance tour available on congressional tickets that went thru places like the kitchens.
ETA: As I recall, the National Park Rangers don’t carry firearms.
coozledad
There’s one of these in Roxboro past its due date for being melted into commemorative butt plugs.
Come git ‘im.
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: Imagine the list Native Americans have.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: Just as good the second time.
Ian G.
@Mnemosyne:
@SiubhanDuinne:
I liked the idea of adding Outkast to it. No, really.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/16/us/georgia-stone-mountain-outkast-confederate-monument/index.html
lamh36
BTW…still hasn’t heard anything about this! I swear I saw on the LIVE feed in Charlottesville on CNN or MSNBC…the young man stumbling/running away, tripping from this structure…and no one thing anything but film it.
Her son was assaulted in a parking structure that was RIGHT NEXT TO A POLICE STATION!!
raven
@efgoldman: Yea, the times that I have been to the Wall I’ve always walked over there.
Roger Moore
@Felonius Monk:
Why not rename it after a newer general? We could have Forts Pershing, Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, Powell, Schwarzkopf, etc.
hueyplong
Where I live there is a statue of an angel bearing a Confederate soldier to heaven.
Courtesy of the US Army.
Did the same to some Nazis.
raven
@lamh36: They have definitely ID’d a couple of them.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: Well Indians did manage to throw the British out, but the names still remain. Native Americans on the other hand..
Amusing Ourselves to Death
First encouraging thing I’ve seen since November. Those nazi assholes are killing ppl in broad daylight now. Take the things they love away
jl
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Thanks.
I think the crux of the problem is that the racists really don’t view these monuments as history. They see them as political weapons in a war that they cannot admit that they have lost. As long as they have that attitude, the dishonesty of how they use these monuments will grate at the rest of the population, and sooner or later they will be removed. And not to more appropriate sites, or outdoor museums with full context, or inside history museums. They will be destroyed.
It wasn’t a bunch of super-annuated Civil War veterans, from the late 1940s onward who waved the Confederate battle flag commemorating their kin who were killed in battle (and I’ve read that they didn’t use it that way even back in the day long ago). It was a bunch of racists using history as political weapon, in the cause of denying civil rights to other groups.. Their racist ancestors polluted the very history they claim to cherish. It’s a sad result, but they committed the desecration of hisotry, not anyone else. So, today we see the sad results.
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev: Never fails to bring a smile.
Felonius Monk
@different-church-lady:
The guacamole is a nice touch.
lamh36
@Omnes Omnibus: lol…yep…already changed my FB profile page…lol
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
There’s a huge difference between eliminating a symbol of past wrongs and eliminating a symbol of contemporary, ongoing wrongs.
sm*t cl*de
Painting them bright pink is fine, though.
NorthLeft12
@jl: Up here in Canada there are some lively discussions going on over some of the former governors of Upper and Lower Canada and their monuments. There were some brutal wars between English, French, and native populations. One governor in Nova Scotia put out a bounty on the natives that were fighting with the French against the English. These are sticky and difficult discussions. Personally, I prefer making sure the plaque on the statue details the crimes the guy was responsible for. Make it a real teaching moment.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
Rachel Maddow is really bringing it tonight. I’d grown weary of her long openings, but this episode is strong.
Major Major Major Major
The Nazis are coming to SF (where the guy next to me on the tram has BO ?)! http://www.sfexaminer.com/white-supremacist-patriot-rally-coming-san-francisco-counter-protest-already-planned/
coozledad
@sm*t cl*de: @sm*t cl*de: Or welding a giant bronze dong to their foreheads.
Another Scott
@different-church-lady: WaPo in 2013 (a homeless woman was charged).
There was another incident in February (with markers) also too.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mike J:
Never got why the US Military named one after Bragg since he was considered quite the horses south end by his fellow officers in both the US Army and the Confederacy.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
We’ll see if they’re as brave in a state that doesn’t allow open carry.
Jeffro
@JPL: I just saw that! I wonder if Trumpov will be equally venomous to a white CEO? Will his brain even be able to compute that there are white CEOs who think racism (and Trumpov) sucks?
Ithink
@japa21:
Alt-Right would designate those folks as “race traitors”; nothing else much to see or discus here otherwise. Just glad they’re (finally) all coming down!
Honus
@TenguPhule: have to go some to top Oklahoma City.
TenguPhule
Hey Adam, what’s your take on this?
Please tell me this is not as bad as it sounds. Pretty please?
MoeLarryAndJesus
Just toss it into a pig manure lagoon somewhere.
chris
@SiubhanDuinne: Never heard of it so googled a pic. There’s a giant lawn and there were little groups of people in lawn chairs all facing the rockface. That’s just creepy.
Ropes, rockdrills and dynamite. Some assembly required.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Uh oh.
Ithink
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
“Free speech for me and for thee!”
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: True. I am not passing judgment at all. Just making an observation, what I was getting at was Indians have forgotten their colonial history, not necessarily a good thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major:
We feel your pain.
raven
@chris: There is a huge laser show there every night during the summer.
different-church-lady
I just thought of something. You know what would be great? If the company that owns the Tiki brand donated one dollar to the Southern Poverty Law Center for every torch they sell this summer.
TenguPhule
@Honus:
The guy they arrested for the bank bomb attempt was already trying.
The Other Bob
@SiubhanDuinne:
Anyone have a spare Sherman tank?
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore:
Honus
@efgoldman: and Robert E. Lee HS in Staunton, Virginia.
SoupCatcher
@Major Major Major Major:
They took out a permit for Crissy Field? They’ve obviously never tried to get in and out of that area. If they get bottled in, their best option is to wade.
raven
THIS motherfucker was running the show
Sgt. Michael Tubbs was the big biker looking dude seen it a bunch of footage including the guy getting beaten in the parking deck.
lamh36
Of course not, it’s Arizona…was Arizona even a part of the Confederacy…smh
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
Yes! Very fine indeed.
Another Scott
@chris: That’s old-school. Flame-jet drills may be the way to go.
It’s an amazing rock, but the carving needs to go (or be substantially changed).
Cheers,
Scott.
Felonius Monk
@Roger Moore:
Makes one wonder why this hasn’t already been done.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@jl
Can’t admit, how about to blind stupid to realize? The Nazis; picked a fight with the entire world they knew they were going to lose, and lost it. The Confederacy, anyone who had been to the North knew the North was going to whip the South like a redheaded step child, like what happened, still did because it was awesome at the time. Racists are flicking idiots and that’s what makes them so dangerous.
Patricia Kayden
@germy: Lol. He must have a big apartment to hold so many douches and egos.
Ithink
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
A-f***-ing men!
Ithink
@lamh36:
Preach, preach & PREACH it all again! Until we do change some minds…
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
Yeah, I’m not making any excuse for anyone else in that article. They knew what he was like and they kept making excuses for him. It’s only his disabled mom that I’m not surprised was asking as few questions as possible.
Honus
@raven: the police detectives were all over that area, going into businesses asking if the owners had any surveillance cameras. They are working to ID and arrest people. That parking garage has cameras all over it. It may be a few days, but I think they will ID the thugs that beat that kid.
randy khan
@Mike in NC:
Alexandria is making a real effort to change names, etc. that commemorate Confederates. Unfortunately, some of the names were adopted at the state level, and can’t be changed. The most egregious item – a statue at the point where Confederate soldiers left the city – also is protected by state law. When it was knocked down close to 20 years ago, the city was forced to put it back up.
TriassicSands
@japa21:
White people put them up. White people can take them down.
There should be a deadline (No, not 2019 or later) set for the removal of all Confederate statuary, memorials, and monuments. Once the deadline passes, all such items should be moved to a landfill. It’s time to get this garbage out of public view. If it is to be saved, then it should all be housed in museums in areas devoted to atrocities. The South lost. It’s time they accepted it. People who fought for the right of one person to buy, sell, and own others should not be honored.
Eric
@Mike J: so awesome.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Yeah, but I can’t imagine what they must think or feel whenever they see the north face.
Laura
@Major Major Major Major: the SF Skins aren’t gonna like that.
chris
@raven: I saw that. Maybe it just needs an inscription. “These traitors lost, get over it.”
Wapiti
@Mike J: Preach it!
Seth Owen
@Honus: At least one of the thugs has already been identified by the Internet. Should not be too hard for the police.
Wapiti
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I think most of the southern bases named after treasonous scumbags were created in the run-up to WWI, and were named after local military heroes in order to encourage enlistment. So Bragg might have been a NC favorite son, even if other Confederates didn’t like him.
TriassicSands
@SiubhanDuinne:
At the very least, a large sign should be posted pointing out that these men fought for the right to buy, sell, and own other people. That they do not deserve to be honored and nothing will be done to maintain the bas relief as nature gradually reclaims the face of Stone Mountain.
I’d prefer to see it removed completely.
chris
@Another Scott: Those are very cool. Hot, too.
zhena gogolia
Just watched Julia on TCM. Strangely appropriate, lots of Nazi scum running around.
Cacti
Good for them.
Long past time for the local second place trophies for traitors to come down.
Marguerite Hill
@lamh36: Silence, in the face of bigotry, is not golden. It is appeasement. It is unspoken consent, unvoiced stamp of approval.
Some white people believe they have the luxury, the privilege, the undeserved honor of remaining silent in the midst of chaos. That is cowardly and unconscionable.
When my cousin married a Latina, some in my African-American family (there had been a few AA/white marriages/relationships previously) wanted to bigoted idiocies, but a few of us banded together, spoke as one voice, and nipped it in the bud. It wasn’t easy because these were individuals we loved and revered. But it had to be done. Since then, it has become old hat, and love abounds. Do one or two still cling to their foolishness? Probably so, but when we all attend family gatherings their action is Academy Award worthy. Good.
One last thing, how will history remember you? Will you be able to hold your head up proudly knowing that you stood up for American values? Or will you hide in shame because you refused to help your country in its darkest hours?
I have heard so many people moan about the spineless Democrats. Well, this time political party is secondary. We must all stand as Americans against white supremacists, kkk, neo-nazis, skinheads, and other thugs and criminals.
Fair Economist
@schrodingers_cat:
There’s not a major movement trying to get India back under British rule. It’s a dead issue, so they can treat it as history. (Although they did change the name of Mumbai from Bombay, so sometimes they care.)
Honus
@TriassicSands: there’s a big sign in front of the statue of Lee today that says “Heyer Memorial Park” Everybody I talked to was in favor of making it permanent, so it might happen. Hopefully with a nice big statue of Heather directly in front of lee, with a plaque explaining the significance. We could clean and polish Heather’s statue every day, leaving lee covered with bird shit. Governments have a right to express political opinions so there would be no 1st amendment problem. Anybody found cleaning the lee statue could arrested under the state law barring the removal or desecration of such monuments for interference with and alteration of a war memorial.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
Also, I think many of us have said this, but:
Yes, I used to not speak up when my family would say racist shit. I am ashamed that I didn’t speak up, but I can’t change the past.
That free pass for them expired on November 9, 2016, and it’s never being renewed. Now that I know what the consequences are for letting things slide, I will never do it again.
Interestingly, my family has never tested this. All of them have kept their damn mouths shut since the election, except for one cousin who avoids me now.
SoupCatcher
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
At least one of his former soldiers thought enough of him to name a small Northern California fort for him in 1857.
HyperSphericalCow
@Roger Moore: That makes sense. I just thought it was funny how the representation of the Confederacy was so fragile.
gene108
@Mnemosyne:
I think new targets will involve a body count.
Vandalism isn’t scaring the rest of us into compliance
BruceFromOhio
Too late, the demons have found the breaks in the pentagram.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: My non-confrontational mom (yeah, I take after my dad) has quit avoiding political issues with relatives. Specifically, she has always avoided politics with a first cousin who was like her sister when they were growing up. The cousin went off the rails on religion while her husband was on his second tour in VN as an artillery officer. Mom has started dropping comments about medicaid (cousin’s mom – a staunch Dem who gave her donkey glasses to my mom because her kids were goofy – survived on medicaid for years) and the GOP’s crusade to kill it. Cousin couldn’t believe it – did research and said “That’s wrong, but Hillary….” Now she will do the white supremacist angle. Cousin lives in LA and volunteered her ass off after Katrina. It may have not effect, but mom wants to make sure that at the very least her cousin is made uncomfortable.
Me, I will not speak to any of the cousin’s kids. I walk past them without speaking at family events.
BruceFromOhio
@gene108: This. Alas.
And so we confront the banality of evil. Having fought a civil war, and then a world war, and now we must confront the same old fears, the same old hatred again. My regret is that these paths are littered with choices poorly made, and the blood and bodies of the innocent.
PIGL
@chris: Excene Cervenka A song about that. It’s on her first solo album “old wives tales”.
Omnes Omnibus
@PIGL: You know that she has gone full-blown wing-nut, right?
DanysDragon
@TenguPhule: Jesus Hussein Christ, do you know how to feel anything other than eternal pessimism?
Marguerite Hill
@different-church-lady: It would be great if these newly awakened politicians renamed counties, schools, roads after Native Americans.
Mnemosyne
@gene108:
They already have. I am friends with someone who’s friends with someone in Charlotteville who was in the path of that car on Saturday. Fortunately, she escaped with a broken arm and some impressive bruises.
They are going to start killing people to try and intimidate us. We need to be mentally prepared for that and not allow it to scare us into standing down.
David Evans
The Indians have adopted a civilized attitude to at least one monument commemorating a British victory, by placing a statue of their own fallen hero in front of it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6242346.stm
It’s not surprising that they have kept British names for some railway stations – we Brits built the damn railroads, after all. And unlike some other people I could mention, we neither enslaved the Indians nor drove them off their land.