Robert E Lee
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No problem, @Rainman , if readers' comments are what you are looking for, try this other fine news source on the same topic that also carry many readers' comments:
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@taiwan_girl said in Robert E Lee:
It was probably a good move by the US Marine Corps. I think it is true (from what little I know) that the Confederate Flag has been "co-opted by extremist groups".
As Jolly said, I am sure that there were many good people that fought who were Confederate, but that was 160 years ago! Nobody today has any memory or direct involvement in the US Civil War. I know some people say that "I am honoring my great great great grandfather, etc.", but I am sure there much better ways to do so.
For example, What are you doing to honor your great grandfather? He was a shoemaker who lived in the state of New York. How do you honor him?
It reminds me of a one cartoon when the US was in Iraq. A US soldier was riding with an Iraq soldier. They were passing through a village and the Iraq soldier mentioned he hated the people who lived in this village because they had fought his relatives. The US soldier says, "wow, when did this happen?" And the Iraq soldier says, "1534!!"
History is important and I love history and there are certainly ways to honor and remember history (like statues, memorials, museums, books, etc).
Darlin', my great grandfather fought in the Red River Campaign as an artilleryman. My MIL will spit before she says the words "Abraham Lincoln"
History is closer than you think...
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It's difficult to think about. Jordan Peterson talked at length about those soldiers that worked in the death camps of WWII. And, like he pointed out, those that committed the heinous acts were just like all of us. Outside of doing the unthinkable to others, thinking of the people groups as vermin to be irradicated, then go home with a (semi) clear conscience, kiss the wife, pet the dog.
Point is, the South lost the war, but the soldiers were NOT some sort of evil beings, or "vermin." They were just men, doing what they were told to do at a certain point in time, with a dog at home and a wife that wanted to be petted.
But now, the "woke" want to do exactly what they preach not to do: they make anything Confederate as if vermin, that should be as if killed again, because they were evil. Now, who's the evil ones, I can't help wonder. Lots of people need to clean their mirror, and take a fresh and honest view of themselves.
Lemmings don't have mirrors, there is that.
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It's I teresting.... Tennessee isn't exactly in the South, yet it's considered a southern state, it's called the volunteer State, apparently because so many Tennesseans volunteered to fight in the war. Yet for the most part Tennessee didn't approve of slavery. They say history is written by the victors so the narrative is that the civil war was about slavery. But most Tennesseans didn't have a dog in that fight, and saw it as a war of aggression.
Actually, Tennessee is for all intents and purposes 3 states... not very tall north to south but very long east to west. West Tennessee was solidly confederate, had slaves, etc. But to east tennessee, West Tennessee might as well be Mississippi. East Tennessee was pro-Union and antislavery.
How the hell will future generations learn about this and learn the finer points of our history if all evidence that any of it ever happened is destroyed and history rewritten?
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Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
@Rainman said in Robert E Lee:
Where the hell is Bristol? Like, that's not even American.
Something about a statue, best I can decipher.Yeah, comments. But they're not even in American, no help at all.
Bristol is a city in the U.K. When I linked the BBC piece, I prefaced that by saying it is the British’s version of removing a pro-slavery statue. The Black Lives Matter movement here in the U.S.A. has recently inspired a crowd in the U.K. to take down a statue of a former slave trader.
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@Larry said in Robert E Lee:
It's I teresting.... Tennessee isn't exactly in the South, yet it's considered a southern state, it's called the volunteer State, apparently because so many Tennesseans volunteered to fight in the war.
It was the war of 1812.
https://statesymbolsusa.org/symbol-official-item/tennessee/state-nickname/volunteer-state
Tennessee has had several nicknames, but the most popular and well-known is "The Volunteer State," a nickname earned during the War of 1812 (thousands of volunteer soldiers from Tennessee played a prominent role in this war, especially during the Battle of New Orleans). This reputation for volunteering was reinforced during the Mexican War when the secretary of state asked for 2,800 Tennessee volunteers and got 30,000 respondents.
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@Larry said in Robert E Lee:
Yet for the most part Tennessee didn't approve of slavery.
Your statement there is not supported by historical facts.
Excerpted from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_in_Tennessee :
In 1831, however, the state government [of Tennessee] mandated that emancipated slaves immediately depart the state, and prohibited the migration of free Blacks to Tennessee.
The 1834 State Constitutional Convention in Nashville defeated a proposal to gradually abolish slavery over a twenty-year period.[15][16] Despite wide-ranging debate, the pro-slavery faction was victorious across the board. The new constitution formally forbid Blacks, slave or free, from voting.[15] It also stripped the legislature of any "power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves, without the consent of their owner or owners." The right to bear arms was restricted to "the free white men of this State."[17]
Based on Tennessee’s state Constitution and state laws enacted in Tennessee before the Civil War, despite East Tennessee’s anti-slavery stance, the state of Tennessee literally approved slavery.
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@Axtremus said in Robert E Lee:
@Jolly said in Robert E Lee:
Next thing you're going to tell me is that blacks didn't own slaves in New Orleans...
Interesting ... is there any statue of a black slave owner installed in any public space in New Orleans?
I don't live in New Orleans. You tell me.
BTW, are there any monuments to slave owners just because they were slave owners, anywhere in the U.S.?
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
@Jolly said in Robert E Lee:
BTW, are there any monuments to slave owners just because they were slave owners, anywhere in the U.S.?
I sure hope not, though I have not done a survey of all monuments or read any such survey (should one exist) to say one way or another.
It seems the removal or statues/monuments are aimed at the statues/monuments memorializing those who own owned slaves and/or actively opposed emancipation, regardless of the reasons of memorialization at the time.
Specifically for the case of Robert E. Lee, though, certainly the General was memorialized chiefly for his work of fighting against the pro-emancipation forces, wouldn’t you agree?
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I think we need to take down all George Washington statues. I think we need to erase his image and Thomas Jefferson's image from our currency. I think we need to tear down that unsightly Washington monument in D.C. While we are at, let's get rid of anything honoring Abraham Lincoln, as the man would have gladly accepted slavery in 1862.
Shucks, Abe didn't even mind the band playing Dixie for his wife, who was -GASP - a Southerner.
Oh, BTW, did you know that 41 signers of the Declaration of Independence were slave owners? And 25 of the delegates writing the Constitution owned slaves.
Maybe we need to start tearing down a lot more monuments, statues and buildings. Well, maybe we can rename the buildings...Something less offensive, like Trotsky Plaza ...
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
@Axtremus said in Robert E Lee:
@Larry said in Robert E Lee:
Yet for the most part Tennessee didn't approve of slavery.
Your statement there is not supported by historical facts.
Excerpted from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_in_Tennessee :
In 1831, however, the state government [of Tennessee] mandated that emancipated slaves immediately depart the state, and prohibited the migration of free Blacks to Tennessee.
The 1834 State Constitutional Convention in Nashville defeated a proposal to gradually abolish slavery over a twenty-year period.[15][16] Despite wide-ranging debate, the pro-slavery faction was victorious across the board. The new constitution formally forbid Blacks, slave or free, from voting.[15] It also stripped the legislature of any "power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves, without the consent of their owner or owners." The right to bear arms was restricted to "the free white men of this State."[17]
Based on Tennessee’s state Constitution and state laws enacted in Tennessee before the Civil War, despite East Tennessee’s anti-slavery stance, the state of Tennessee literally approved slavery.
And if you go back even further, East Tennessee and part of North Carolina was the State of Franklin. Which has about as much to do with what i said as what you wrote.
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@Axtremus said in Robert E Lee:
@Jolly said in Robert E Lee:
BTW, are there any monuments to slave owners just because they were slave owners, anywhere in the U.S.?
I sure hope not, though I have not done a survey of all monuments or read any such survey (should one exist) to say one way or another.
It seems the removal or statues/monuments are aimed at the statues/monuments memorializing those who own owned slaves and/or actively opposed emancipation, regardless of the reasons of memorialization at the time.
Specifically for the case of Robert E. Lee, though, certainly the General was memorialized chiefly for his work of fighting against the pro-emancipation forces, wouldn’t you agree?
No, he was memorialized as a military leader of the Confederacy. This is why it is important that the eradication of historical figures is stopped. Without it morons will come along later and think the only reason for the war was slavery..... like you just did.
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@Jolly said in Robert E Lee:
I think we need to take down all George Washington statues. I think we need to erase his image and Thomas Jefferson's image from our currency....
If you drink Coke, you'd better stop. The guy who developed it was a Confederate Colonel who sought out something to replace his addiction to morphine.
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@Axtremus said in Robert E Lee:
It seems the removal or statues/monuments are aimed at the statues/monuments memorializing those who own owned slaves and/or actively opposed emancipation, regardless of the reasons of memorialization at the time.
Why bother?
The slave owners will eventually come back to power.
And they will just put the statues back up.
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London mayor Sadiq Khan has ordered a review of the capital's statues and street names after the toppling of the statue of an English slave trader by anti-racism protesters triggered a debate about the demons of Britain's imperial past.
A statue of Edward Colston, who made a fortune in the 17th century from trading West African slaves, was torn down and thrown into Bristol harbour on Sunday by a group of demonstrators taking part in a wave of protests following the death of George Floyd in the United States.
Khan said a commission would review statues, plaques and street names which largely reflect the rapid expansion of London's wealth and power at the height of Britain's empire in the reign of Queen Victoria.
"Our capital’s diversity is our greatest strength, yet our statues, road names and public spaces reflect a bygone era," Khan said. He said some statues would be removed.
"It is an uncomfortable truth that our nation and city owes a large part of its wealth to its role in the slave trade and while this is reflected in our public realm, the contribution of many of our communities to life in our capital has been wilfully ignored."
In the biggest deportation in known history, weapons and gunpowder from Europe were swapped for millions of African slaves who were then shipped across the Atlantic to the Americas. Ships returned to Europe with sugar, cotton and tobacco.
