Robert E Lee
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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).
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TG, I must disagree. You may be right about the Confederate Flag being co-opted in some way and I'm just unaware, but it also represents a prominent part of American history, and to disappear all traces of the South's role in the war sits badly with me. It is like enacting a real-life version of "pix or it didn't happen". Plus these removals attempt to lay a sense of shame over the South that is undeserved. Both sides fought with conviction and honor.
And we need to retain the dreadful lessons learned. 160 years is not that long ago.
My impression on this question is much influenced by emotion, I'll admit.
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@taiwan_girl said in Robert E Lee:
I think it is true (from what little I know) that the Confederate Flag has been "co-opted by extremist groups".
You know that in the same way you know that American white cops murder black people on the regular.
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Southern soldiers were treated as veterans after the war, and no small part of that decision was to rebuild and mend the rift between the north and the south. And you can say a lot of things about Mandella but he understood that idea too.
Want to move forward? Don't kick sand in the eyes of the losers if you have to live with them. Nevermind rewriting history, it's a bad idea for the future.
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The British version on removing pro-slavery statue:
George Floyd death: Protesters tear down slave trader statue
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52954305 -
@Axtremus
BBC sux. They don't allow comments, so there is no way for the reader to get info from people that weigh in on what's going on.Our local Oregonian also stopped allowing comments, for the same reason: they don't want any contrary input to whatever the bias is in the article. Too bad, as within all the nonsense, there can be some very smart and thoughtful input that people (I, that is, me) can learn from.
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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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Next thing you're going to tell me is that blacks didn't own slaves in New Orleans...
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?
