On banning the Confederate Flag and Renaming Military Bases

Mott the Hoople said:
OK, I’m the descendant if a GAR veteran. I’m justly proud that he served in an Indiana Regiment and did his part to end both rebellion and slavery. I’m equally embarrassed that his Grandson, my Great Grandfather was a member of the Indiana KKK during its second iteration during the 1920’s. I am no apologist for the Stars and Bars. It certainly has no place in my State if not our nation. I loath the historical revisionism of the lost cause mythogies as they, to this day, have a pervasive and evil influence in our Nation.

Most statues built to honor Confederate Historical figures were not built after the Civil War but at the turn of the 20th Century and in the 1950’s and 60’s as a means to intimidate blacks and to reinforce beliefs in Jim Crow Segregation and opposition to civil rights. If a community decides that these symbols no longer represent their values then down they should and will come.

The naming of US Military Forts after Officers that we’re not only enemies of the United States but many, like Braxton Bragg were also Jackasses and military incompetents is both absurd and ironic. Equally insulting is that not a single Military instillation is named after U. S. Grant who was by far the greatest General of the Civil war and a savior of our nation but was also the first truly modern military General. I would like nothing better than to see Fort Bragg’s name changed to Fort Grant.

Having said all this I’m critical of much that is being written at this time by polemicist who want to eliminate these historically absurd iconography (not that I don’t support that). They tend to be guilty of two historical crimes. The first is “The victor gets to write the history” and the second is viewing history anachronistically. For example this dismissive attitude of Southerners and how the could have went to war over a cause as terrible as slavery.

The Civil War was in fact, as many Southerners claim, the second American Revolution or more correctly counter revolution. The aristocratic agrarian South with it’s feudal social system was far more like the rest of the world at that time where slave/serf caste systems predominated and the small geographic regions of Northern Europe and the Northern US with their industrial revolution dependent on highly skilled free labor were in fact revolutionary. In that respect the Confederates weren’t exactly wrong in considering themselves the true inheritors of the American Revolution by fighting a counter revolution against the United States Industrial Revolution and to protect slavery and a white supremacist aristocracy. This is important history for us all to understand as it gives us an understanding of why so many good people could support such a vile and evil system as chattel slavery as that is how most of the worlds societies were at that time.

So even though we have grown as a nation and found a far superior and egalitarian way to structure our society that is infinitely superior these facts of history should not be forgotten or dismissed as old and obsolete history but should be remembered and used to reconcile this nation from its divided past.
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I don’t want them erased from history, I want them removed from positions of honor.
 
Hello Micawber,

Micawber said:
If only the Republican apparatus got out front on things like this there would not be a groundswell of deplorable opposition.
They know it is wrong, they just don't want to be told what to do. :rolleyes: That's the way this goes across the issue board.
Climate change, civil rights, money in politics, covid response, pick any topic, the resistance to it is usually not substantive,
it about the erroneous perception fomented by their leaders that elites, experts and liberals rubbing their nose in their ignorance and mistakes.
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So true.

Person A makes a statement about an issue.

Person B disagrees, but can't find a reasonable counter argument, so they launch an ad hominem attack on person A.

If person B had a good counter argument, logically, they would use it.

But they don't, so we see many ad hominem attacks.

Many do not come here to discuss politics. All they want to do is attack people who say things they are trying to deny.
 
Grajonca said:
She's truly a loony, typical Millennial shit for brains. Without him there would have been no Operation Overlord and liberation of Europe.
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yes. The Roosevelt/Churchill friendship and understanding allowed the warvto unfold te way it did . i'm working cant answer in detail
 
Eagle_Eye said:
They are not honoring anything except what your telling yourself. Back off on the racism sport we see where the true institutional racism lives and it ain't the South.
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Why you think those statues were built?
Why you think the South quit the Union?
To keep slavery going
 
War is always about money. We disguise it in patriotism as the wealthy send the youth to secure their resources again and again. As Smedley Butler wrote, he was the general sent to take over countries with profitable resources" War is a racket". It is rare for a war to be about principles. We sent troops to Vietnam and the middle east. The soldiers just did their duty as ordered, but did not know why they were there
The south fought about their industries and wealth that were based on slavery. It was about preserving a system of wealth and power predicated on slaves. There is nothing honorable about that.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
OK, I’m the descendant if a GAR veteran. I’m justly proud that he served in an Indiana Regiment and did his part to end both rebellion and slavery. I’m equally embarrassed that his Grandson, my Great Grandfather was a member of the Indiana KKK during its second iteration during the 1920’s. I am no apologist for the Stars and Bars. It certainly has no place in my State if not our nation. I loath the historical revisionism of the lost cause mythogies as they, to this day, have a pervasive and evil influence in our Nation.

Most statues built to honor Confederate Historical figures were not built after the Civil War but at the turn of the 20th Century and in the 1950’s and 60’s as a means to intimidate blacks and to reinforce beliefs in Jim Crow Segregation and opposition to civil rights. If a community decides that these symbols no longer represent their values then down they should and will come.

The naming of US Military Forts after Officers that we’re not only enemies of the United States but many, like Braxton Bragg were also Jackasses and military incompetents is both absurd and ironic. Equally insulting is that not a single Military instillation is named after U. S. Grant who was by far the greatest General of the Civil war and a savior of our nation but was also the first truly modern military General. I would like nothing better than to see Fort Bragg’s name changed to Fort Grant.

Having said all this I’m critical of much that is being written at this time by polemicist who want to eliminate these historically absurd iconography (not that I don’t support that). They tend to be guilty of two historical crimes. The first is “The victor gets to write the history” and the second is viewing history anachronistically. For example this dismissive attitude of Southerners and how the could have went to war over a cause as terrible as slavery.

The Civil War was in fact, as many Southerners claim, the second American Revolution or more correctly counter revolution. The aristocratic agrarian South with it’s feudal social system was far more like the rest of the world at that time where slave/serf caste systems predominated and the small geographic regions of Northern Europe and the Northern US with their industrial revolution dependent on highly skilled free labor were in fact revolutionary. In that respect the Confederates weren’t exactly wrong in considering themselves the true inheritors of the American Revolution by fighting a counter revolution against the United States Industrial Revolution and to protect slavery and a white supremacist aristocracy. This is important history for us all to understand as it gives us an understanding of why so many good people could support such a vile and evil system as chattel slavery as that is how most of the worlds societies were at that time.

So even though we have grown as a nation and found a far superior and egalitarian way to structure our society that is infinitely superior these facts of history should not be forgotten or dismissed as old and obsolete history but should be remembered and used to reconcile this nation from its divided past.
Click to expand...

After WW II the first thing Germans did was remove any trace of Hitler and Nazism from the culture, they saw no redeeming purpose, the same should apply to public Confederate memorabilia in this country, it also has zero redeeming purposes, when you see the dimwits in Michigan protesting shutting down the State packing with Confederate flags on their jackets it says it all
 
Micawber said:
Assuming the south had some ancillary consideration that explains how "good people" could support that insurrection to maintain slavery,
there is no rationale for people of our day supporting those who did. Hillbilly folk want that flag to say fuck you to liberals at the expense of black people, not to turn back industrial might to save agrarian economy.
The explanation of good people doing bad things is as simple as the Milgram experiment demonstrated.

Take those statues down and place them in a museum of tolerance or civil rights museum. Anyone who opposes doing that is basically a traitor.
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That’s true but that’s not the intent of my piece. My intent is to try to understand how we got here from there. Which i feel is important to understand if reconciliation and change are ever to finally be achieved. My fear in posting my thoughts is that it would be misinterpreted as wanting to compromise with bigots and racists. That is not my intent. Knowing our factual history and understanding how certain events happened is important to know if we are going to effect change now.
 
PoliTalker said:
Create a museum of hatred.

Make hatred something of the past, something to be remembered so it does not return.
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Very much like the Holocaust museums. Good idea. Let the world see the sins and mistakes that were made, and that we won't forget them -- or repeat them.
 
Mr.Mason said:
Why you think those statues were built?
Why you think the South quit the Union?
To keep slavery going
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It was primarily an agrarian economy, slavery would have died out anyway. The British were dead against it and would have insisted it was phased out as a condition to buying US cotton.
 
archives said:
After WW II the first thing Germans did was remove any trace of Hitler and Nazism from the culture, they saw no redeeming purpose, the same should apply to public Confederate memorabilia in this country, it also has zero redeeming purposes, when you see the dimwits in Michigan protesting shutting down the State packing with Confederate flags on their jackets it says it all
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I was appalled at that. My parents and other ancestors were from Michigan. On my dad's side several served during the Civil War, in the Union army, and one died as a result of his wounds shortly after the war ended. The Covidiot Crusaders really didn't give a shit about "freedom." They were just there to show off their bang-bangs, look like fools, signal their white supremacy ideals, and catch the virus.
 
Micawber said:
If only the Republican apparatus got out front on things like this there would not be a groundswell of deplorable opposition.
They know it is wrong, they just don't want to be told what to do. :rolleyes: That's the way this goes across the issue board.
Climate change, civil rights, money in politics, covid response, pick any topic, the resistance to it is usually not substantive,
it about the erroneous perception fomented by their leaders that elites, experts and liberals rubbing their nose in their ignorance and mistakes.
Click to expand...
Agreed. During the protest against George Floyd’s killing they could have easily deescalated the situation had they simply joined the protesters and found common ground by agreeing change was needed. Instead they behaved like pseudo soldiers and exacerbated the situation.
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
I was appalled at that. My parents and other ancestors were from Michigan. On my dad's side several served during the Civil War, in the Union army, and one died as a result of his wounds shortly after the war ended. The Covidiot Crusaders really didn't give a shit about "freedom." They were just there to show off their bang-bangs, look like fools, signal their white supremacy ideals, and catch the virus.
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Wonder why you don't castigate the protestors/rioters in Minneapolis?
 
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