Confederate Memorials

[oneharmonic]

It's definitely easier to rewrite history when there is no memory of it.

I'm not sure why the winning side would need to rewrite the fact that they defeated the losing side?

I think they just don't want to stare at the losing side's statues and flags in the middle of town.

 

[Kruel J]

I guess I kinda look at it like this.....


Should Germany have Hitler statues? Russia have Stalin statues? Iraq have Saddam statues? They may all do, I don't know. But history isn't always good. History sometimes contains the WORST a country had to endure to grow and become what it is today. So do you commemorate it? Just because it's history?

I personally don't take any pride in the Confederacy or otherwise. I think it was a chapter in our country's history that shaped who we are today but not necessarily in a good way or in a way that needs to be memorialized.

 

[jayR]

I'm not sure why the winning side would need to rewrite the fact that they defeated the losing side?

I think they just don't want to stare at the losing side's statues and flags in the middle of town.

.

He who controls the past controls the future.

troll much ?

 

[Xaevian]

Please don't throw out the troll card. @oneharmonic is entitled to their opinion as long as it's not personally disrespectful, just as someone else is entitled to disagree respectfully. We are a nation of individuals and that diversity of thought and experience is what makes us great, IMO.

 

[Carbon]

Some examples of a new idea or majority rules culture re creating the environment in which they reside. Currently we are tearing down memorials and statues that a large local group find offensive in the US, also the UK just had a statue tossed into a harbor. A little while ago a group in the middle east found large buddah statues offensive and took them down/blew them up to make way for a new and better belief system in their hearts and minds, as well as many historical sites in Syra. An example of a long time ago could be how the egyptian priesthood destroyed the memory of akhenaten and tutankhamun, because of the fact they wanted a monothiestic religion, turns out once they passed, the priesthood rose up and had the old gods put back into observation.

I am just a simple thinking man, but 1,000 years from now, what will the scholars think of us, that "we" were progressive and fixed the world view, or that we destroyed a part of history that could have ended up in museums or history books for consideration of the struggles of the past...

Another thought, say auschwitz, a nazi death camp that still stands, should we as a progessive species tear it down, or keep it as a reminder to the people who come after us to remember the wrongs of the past?

So, should a "wrong" exist in society or should it be removed, who decides, the majority? The new powers that be? Time has a funny way of changing perspecives. I dont know, all I know is thoes that feel strongly one way or another do so with their hearts and minds, and so did all humans past and present who wish/wished to tear down the old. And they all conducted their actions believing they were right in doing so.

 

[jayR]

Public apology time.. Sorry @oneharmonic ..

Second part of the quote. who controls the present. controls the past

 

[oneharmonic]

Another thought, say auschwitz, a nazi death camp that still stands, should we as a progessive species tear it down, or keep it as a reminder to the people who come after us to remember the wrongs of the past?

Auschwitz is a historical site and a memorial. On the other hand, if there was a statue of Hitler or Himmler in the town square, it would have been torn down years ago.

Actually they were:

Libraries were stripped of Nazi books and periodicals, fascist newspapers shuttered, and all physical vestiges of the old regime removed and destroyed. In 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) criminalized the display of swastikas; the symbol was also scraped and sometimes blown off of buildings. The federal state systematically destroyed statues and monuments, razed many Nazi architectural structures and buried executed military and civilian officials in mass, unmarked graves so that their resting grounds would not become Nazi shrines.

 

[Aero Denezol]

While we're at it, I'd like to know why the hammer and sickle, and "CCCP" logo t-shirts have somehow escaped scrutiny.. Millions of innocent people "disappeared" under that regime, some of whose only crime was laughing at the wrong joke. I know people who grew up in occupied Eastern Europe for whom those symbols are tantamount to a confederate flag or swastika.

 

[Carbon]

I know these things stated by oneh above. So buildings and places are fine, but if it has a symbol or face then its not acceptable. Makes sense I suppose, the same was done to many of the still standing temples of old egypt. Blocks still stand, but the faces and some writings have been defaced. Perhaps trying to erase an idea or the memory of a leadership figure of that viewpoint. We proudly fly our flag here, but in other parts of the world they might happily burn it, perspecive plays a heavy role. What should "we" do with mt. Rushmore, some of the faces once owned slaves and I'm sure did things in their times that now "we" might abhor. and I'm sure the local native tribe loves having the faces of white settlers of their land on their mountain. Who has more right to deface mt. Rushmore? The blm movement or the local native tribe? How much time has to pass before the gauls of france no longer desire the flattening of rome?

 

[Oregonhunter5]

I don't support removing the flag. But i do question why anyone west of the Mississippi would fly one. What's the motivation?

 

[EHJ]

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[ma96782]

FREEDOM of SPEECH.

Believe in it or not?

Aloha, Mark

PS....I don't support BLM. But, the protesters are chanting it so loudly that their chants invade my space.

Certain people object to seeing things and I object to have to hear certain things. Where should it start or stop?

 

[RedCardinalSeven]

Ahh yes the War of Northern aggression..men who got tired of high taxes, gun confiscations, and the constitution being thrown out the window..So they left the union..then history warped the view and made them look like "evil" folks so that the younger generation wouldnt look up to them and repeat.

In this thread, who, other than you, made any of those arguments?

 

[RedCardinalSeven]

Memorials are fine. Statues in the center of town are not. We shouldn't idol worship the Confederacy. Take those statues down, and the flags too. We have one national flag in this country.

Who decides what statues in the center of town are okay and how do they decide that? I've never owned or displayed a Confederate flag but I'm glad to live in a country where, supposedly, people can fly any flag they want to. I'd also like to live in a country where literal mobs aren't actively or tacitly encouraged by politicians to take such matters into their own hands. Today, the USA is not such a country. This is not progress.

 

[Oregonhunter5]

People can fly whatever flag they want yes.

I'm just curious as to what some dude in a pickup in the west coast rocks a confederate flag. I live the flag. I love the general lee.
Again I've seen those that rock the flag and they all look the same.

 

[RedCardinalSeven]

IMHO....
Let the individual communities decide. It shouldn't be an executive decision.

Aloha, Mark

PS....G. Washington was a slave owner........Washington State should change its name, Rrrrrrright.....

Seattle is named after a man who led a genocidal attack against the Chimakum people. Most of the few survivors were enslaved by the Duwamish Klallam and Suquamish victors. Puget Sound tribes didn't abolish slavery until they were compelled to under treaties with the US government. In the case of the Duwamish and Suquamish it was Article 11 of the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott that abolished slavery.

About five years ago and again three years ago there were calls for removing the statue of George Washington from the UW campus. Curiously, the local indigenous history of genocide and slavery and the subject of renaming the city was never discussed that I could tell.

 

[oneharmonic]

Who decides what statues in the center of town are okay and how do they decide that? I've never owned or displayed a Confederate flag but I'm glad to live in a country where, supposedly, people can fly any flag they want to. I'd also like to live in a country where literal mobs aren't actively or tacitly encouraged by politicians to take such matters into their own hands. Today, the USA is not such a country. This is not progress.

I'd imagine for an African American person, seeing a Confederate statue in the town square would be like a Jewish person seeing a Nazi statue in the town square. I'm surprised it's taken us until 2020 to figure that out.

 

[RedCardinalSeven]

None of those pretend to be a national flag, nor do they represent insurrection and slavery like the Confederate flag does.

The whole point of my original post is that symbols can and do mean different things to different people and with good reason. Given oft-professed values of diversity and tolerance couldn't we agree that our interpretation of any particular symbol is not the definitive, irrefutable interpretation?

As for the "national flag," that is not a uniformly loved and respected symbol either. During the recent protests and riots in Portland a man displaying the US flag was sucker-punched, by a medic no less, and then beaten by social justice warriors. All the while someone in SJW crowd can be seen carrying the national flag of Mexico apparently unmolested, as should be the case.

 

[oneharmonic]

The whole point of my original post is that symbols can and do mean different things to different people and with good reason. Given oft-professed values of diversity and tolerance couldn't we agree that our interpretation of any particular symbol is not the definitive, irrefutable interpretation?

As for the "national flag," that is not a uniformly loved and respected symbol either. During the recent protests and riots in Portland a man displaying the US flag was sucker-punched, by a medic no less, and then beaten by social justice warriors. All the while someone in SJW crowd can be seen carrying the national flag of Mexico apparently unmolested, as should be the case.

Nobody here is saying you, I or anyone cannot *personally* carry whatever flag we want. It's your property, your truck, etc., you can put whatever you want on there.

A Confederate flag on government property? Not a good idea. A Confederate flag on business property? It's the business owner's choice, but even NASCAR just banned it so I'm guessing it's not good business for anyone to have a Confederate flag at this point.

 

[Xaevian]

Without those statues and monuments we wouldn't be talking about them. Burying the past doesn't do anything for anybody. Hard conversations are...hard. that is the point.