The war on Western Civ: why destroy statues of Ulysses S. Grant or Francis Scott Key?
Commenter “AesopFan” calls attention to this:
Grant did briefly own one slave he freed years before the war; but as a general he smashed the Confederacy, and as president he crushed the Klan. He presided over the ratification of the 15th Amendment. People going after Grant probably just want to break things. https://t.co/rVtPOcvyAN
— Adam Serwer? (@AdamSerwer) June 20, 2020
I have little doubt that there are some people who “just want to break things.” But no; the mobs are not going after Grant and the others (including Junipero Serra, Cervantes, Francis Scott Key, and some abolitionists) because they “just” are destructive. They are destructive of some very particular things: Western culture as a whole, which they label as “white supremacist.”
They started with Confederate monuments, to which most white people and people in general had no particular attachment. Now it is Western civilization as a whole, and in particular statues of those people with the following characteristics: (1) anyone having owned even one slave, even for a short time (note the seamless segue from Confederates to slaveowners, which can include a far larger group of Americans and even several Founding Fathers) (2) anyone who can be labeled as colonial (Serra would fall into that group) (3) anything that celebrates the US and its history (its history also being irredeemably based on “white supremacy” and slavery, a la the mendacious NY Times 1619 Project, coming soon to a school near you).
This is an international undertaking, too. It’s happening in Britain, for example. And the vandals count on the passivity of authorities, particularly in very blue cities. In that, they have not been disappointed.
I called them “vandals,” but this is not “mere” vandalism as the term is ordinarily used in casual conversation. It has a great deal more resemblance to the historic group who gave the word its name and sacked Rome in 455. The parallel is certainly far from perfect; for one thing, most of the current group are Americans (I suppose there might be some foreigners, but I doubt their numbers are great). From that Wiki page [emphasis mine]:
A cause of significant controversy is the claim that the sack was relatively “clean”, in that there was little murder and violence, and the Vandals did not burn the buildings of the city. This interpretation seems to stem from Prosper’s claim that Pope Leo I managed to persuade Genseric to refrain from violence. However, Victor of Vita records that a number of shiploads of captives arrived in Africa from Rome, with the purpose of being sold into slavery. Similarly, the Byzantine historian Procopius reports that a church was burned down. Some modern historians like John Henry Haaren stated that temples, public buildings, private houses and even the emperor’s palace were sacked. Besides taking many Romans as slaves, the Vandals also committed other depredations like taking immense quantities of gold, silver, jewels and furniture, destroying works of art, and killing a number of citizens.
I won’t even weigh in on the controversy; suffice to say that the current crop have bigger fish to fry than just looting a city. They want to topple the government and they want to rewrite history according to their lights.
Some coverage of the San Francisco event (remarks in brackets mine) in a Bay area paper:
Protesters [note the euphemism] in Golden Gate Park toppled statues of Fr. Junipero Serra, Francis Scott Key and President Ulysses S. Grant on Friday night, spurring a national debate [oh, so what they really want is that great supposed goal of liberals and the left: debate and “dialogue”] over the complex legacies of those historical figures amid a broader movement to remove what critics say are monuments to white supremacy [indeed it is a very broad movement that labels the figures of American history and their accomplishments as being examples of white supremacy that therefore must be obliterated and their memory sullied].
A group of roughly 100 people [very few, but enough – if there is no defense mounted against them by authorities] pulled down the monuments displayed in the park’s Music Concourse near the de Young Museum and California Academy of Sciences, an eyewitness said. Police were called to the area just after 8 p.m., and said people in the group threw objects at the officers. The crowd dispersed around 9:30 with no arrests or reports of injuries [no arrests for assaulting officers or destroying public property – and I wonder how many officers were there, and what their orders were, although I can guess the number was small and their orders were to do nothing].
One video posted to Twitter showed the group using a strap to topple the statue of Serra. Photos also showed people vandalized a monument to Spanish writer Miguel Cervantes [his selection was probably either a mistake, or considered an example of Western culture, all of which must be destroyed], the author of “Don Quixote.” And parks officials said the group vandalized several other features in the Music Concourse as well, including sculptures, benches and a fountain [that’s the part that is the more pure destructive impulse, trying to ruin a public space for everyone and put one’s mark on it – which IMHO is the same impulse that leads to a lot of graffiti].
And this sort of response from the mayor is exactly why they do it, and why this will continue in blue cities (remarks in brackets mine):
“Every dollar we spend cleaning up this vandalism takes funding away from actually supporting our community, including our African-American community [about which they could not care less, as evidenced by all the destruction recent rioters have wreaked in black communities in particular],” [Mayor] Breed said. “I say this not to defend any particular statue or what it represents [of course not; can’t do that], but to recognize that when people take action in the name of my community, they should actually involve us [Breed is black, and she was indeed raised in the projects in poverty, so when she says “my community” she means it. She also was by no means one of the most radical of the candidates for mayor when she ran, and my guess is that she is walking a very fine line here because she actually is well aware that this is not going to help the black community].”
Breed continued, “I have asked the Arts Commission, the Human Rights Commission, and the Recreation and Parks Department to work with the community to evaluate our public art and its intersection with our country’s racist history [so in other words, the rioters/vandals win and are going to be rewarded for their behavior].”
Who is doing the vandalizing? It’s obviously a combination of Antifa and Black Lives Matter, with a mixture of some of those people who “just want to break things.” But this is organized and this is a serious attack on US history, an attack helped along by the educational system and the MSM, two fronts on which it is already quite well advanced. That is what allows it to flourish.
It wasn’t enough to banish Western Civ from the required courses. Nor was it enough to establish departments of Black Studies or units in elementary schools on Black History and its heroes. The persistence of actual Western Civ and its fruits in science, art, liberty, and the like must be destroyed, and the symbols of US and Western history pulled down and replaced by history as written by the liars at the NY Times and the haters in the academy, as well as the fake historian Howard Zinn.
I wonder – and I am serious here – how long Martin Luther King’s statues can stand. And I do not mean that they will be threatened by white people, although I suppose the few remaining actual white supremacists might stage something. What I mean is that Antifa and Black Lives Matter, as well as progressives everywhere, have roundly rejected King’s message of “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” King’s dream has died – at least for now, and for the foreseeable future – and only the statues remain.
The statue of Martin Luther you decided to use is soviet realism and was done by a communist…
So I am guessing given your question, it will not fall any time soon as it has the right pedigree
It gets far worse even than this.
Cancel Culture Strikes Again: Rioters Destroy Philadelphia Statue of Abolitionist Matthias Baldwin
https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2020/june/cancel-culture-strikes-again-rioters-destroy-philadelphia-statue-of-abolitionist-matthias-baldwin
Famous 54th Regiment monument vandalized (Boston)
https://www.bostonherald.com/2012/07/31/famous-54th-regiment-monument-vandalized/
The 54th was an all-black regiment.
WATCH: Rioters In California Tear Down Religious Statue Of Father Junipero Serra
https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-rioters-in-california-tear-down-religious-statue-of-father-junipero-serra
This is the problem — these people are totally ignorant of history, and match the criteria of “people who just want to watch the world burn.”
Grant was a war criminal and a slave owner.
This Southern, Independent, white, combat vet would love to see his images and monuments disappear.
Bkhuna, he set the one slave he had for one year free…
“The framers of our Constitution firmly believed that a republican government could not endure without intelligence and education generally diffused among the people. The Father of his Country, in his Farewell Address, uses this language: Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.”
Ulysses S. Grant
“THE CAUSE of the great War of the Rebellion against the United Status will have to be attributed to slavery. For some years before the war began it was a trite saying among some politicians that “A state half slave and half free cannot exist.” All must become slave or all free, or the state will go down. I took no part myself in any such view of the case at the time, but since the war is over, reviewing the whole question, I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true.”
Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, Vol. 2
.
“The great bulk of the legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre–what there was, if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too needed emancipation. Under the old regime they were looked down upon by those who controlled all the affairs in the interest of slave-owners, as poor white trash who were allowed the ballot so long as they cast it according to direction.”
Ulysses S. Grant
and perhaps directly to you and others..
“the most confident critics are generally those who know the least about the matter criticised.”
Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant
OBloodyHell:
You are making the error I described in my post.
They are not ignorant of history. They wish to change it and replace it, like all leftists everywhere.
See also this. Abolitionists are not exempted.
Artfldgr:
I have always disliked that statue, as a work of art I think it stinks. Nor does it convey the essence of the man at all.
I used it merely because it’s the one in DC, and the most prominent and well-known one.
I wrote at some length about that MLK statue, back in 2008. This is the post. You will see that I also mentioned its Soviet nature.
If we don’t have anarchy in the cities, I am not sure what anarchy is.
There will be a line drawn. Maybe in blood.
Just received an email about a situation in Coeur d Alene, Idaho. Don’t know if it is widely distributed. Anyway, as the story goes, word spread that there would be a protest about “something”; and that ANTIFA was coming from Washington. The citizens of the area came to town by the hundreds, maybe thousands, carrying their AR15s, with their hand guns strapped on.
Several vans arrived. One man got out carrying a crow bar; and was approached by a citizen carrying his own AR-15, who allegedly told him “you don’t need a crow bar to protest; I will take that”. And did. The vans left. Supposedly the protest ended up consisting of two people sitting on the steps of City Hall holding a sign. The email contained numerous pictures of crowds of peaceful, armed citizens; prepared to defend their turf.
Some have suggested that truck drivers will stop making runs into lawless cities. That would be a prudent move, and should be instructive to people who profess their desire to tear down civilization; as well as to the citizens and officials who enable them. I would support federal stimulus to truckers who lose income.
I am sure that everyone has seen the reports today of the shooting in CHOP, and the fact that the police were turned back from responding by the mob. The fire department EMTs would not go without police escort. It did not turn out well for the victims.
I have posted before about Suwanee County, Fl in my youth during the 1940s. No electricity, no telephones, no public transport, no police protection. Each family was prepared to defend its home.
If these people move out from the safety of their Urban enclaves, this could get interesting in a very messy way. The only question is what will government do then?
Today’s posts by Neo show a nation descending into hell.
I just read about the Antifa-BLM-Nihilist crowd trying to break into police HQ in liberal Austin TX. The cops watched from the roof, but the vandals could not gain entry. So the American and Texas flags were hauled down and burned.
Austin is the state capitol, and home of its premier public university. It is full of techies thanks to Dell Computer.
The Austin police dept. is very seriously short of officers already, The city council just voted unanimously to defund the police dept. Unanimously!
When the true pigs, the anarchists, looters and arsonists take over liberal havens, the outcome will be interesting. Murder rates and crime rates in general are rising fast in NYC and CHI. Broken window policing is out the window.
The Looting, Burning White-Hating Left may have reaped the whirlwind.
I bet NYC will not recover, nor will Seattle. It’s so easy to create another Deetroit–just a little violence and arson will do it when the cops are handcuffed.
I just realized that I am rather enjoying the sight of the left pushing the limits to the point where there may come a great clarification. No reason you cannot be of good cheer as the enemies assemble on the battlefield.
Maybe their natural insanity will cause them to devour themselves before there is even any real violence.
Maybe a little push here, a little shove there, will send them over the edge before they do much damage to others.
In the spirit of making such a contribution, and tendered with great feelings of solidarity, in a sensitive quest for understanding, I offer this additional YouTube video dramatizing an epochal event in the history these here our Americas. Or whatever.
Why, I ask, stop with Grant, or Washington?
Duh, are not the Tlaxcalans bad guys too?
Actually, the fact that it was a real, live, volcano, in the background, is too cool.
Artfldgr on US Grant, who got it exactly right: ““The great bulk of the legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre–what there was, if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too needed emancipation. Under the old regime they were looked down upon by those who controlled all the affairs in the interest of slave-owners, as poor white trash who were allowed the ballot so long as they cast it according to direction.”
-Ulysses S. Grant
And they died by the hundreds of thousands defending their homelands. The oppression that followed the War Between the States lasted for about 100 years, run entirely by Democrats. Democrats have not changed for the better, ever.
Back in the early 70s one of the chants was “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Civ has got to go”.
They weren’t kidding. Neither are their rotten grandkids.
Yeah this is nuts. But I will say that it’s good to see pushback on Twitter [from Democrats] against the guy who celebrated tearing down the Grant statue. No Democrat I know who I have talked to about this today approve of tearing down Grant or the other statues in SF. I would agree it is far left idiots acting like the Taliban. But I think the rise of all of this is because we have been shut down so long and the destruction and protests have filled in a void normally filled with normal life and employment. We can’t end this shutdown fast enough. Let’s get back to work! [Easier said than done]
“Austin is the state capitol, and home of its premier public university.”
‘Scuse me…I just spit my coffee…Texas University the “premier public university” in Texas? Those of us who sojourned in College Station politely disagree.
Notice I said “politely.”
Bkhuna:
History is like that, filled with imperfect men. War criminal? That’s a new one, think about Andersonville and get back to me. Or cogitate about what typically happens in civil wars to those who are on the loosing side.
Montage,
‘Pushback on Twitter’
Well, golly gee, they pushed back on Twitter. Where is Biden? Pelosi? Schumer? Obama? And not on Twitter, in person and not kneeling or wearing some African scarf. Too scared or feeble I spose.
As we all know deep down, the statues are being ripped down using the excuse du jour, because it’s a handy one and seems plausible. Tearing down historical statues is not about racism – many of the statues have meanings antithetical to racism, had the mob bothered to check. But the mob doesn’t waste time with checking its facts. It’s been going on for about 3 years now, irrational demands, imagined ‘systemic racism’ and ‘white privilege’. It’s not about those things either. There’s no clear objective, no mission statement, no stated goals.
Sometimes movies have the best lines for real events. In The Dark Knight Michael Caine (as Alfred Pennyworth) said of The Joker, “Some men just wanna watch the world burn”
And yet this statue in Seattle (Fremont neighborhood) has not been torn down, maybe they should move it to CHAZlandia?
https://fremont.com/explore/sights/lenin-statue/
The article spouts about artistry of the sculpture being so important you see.
Trump just said at his rally that he has offered assistance to Seattle, and others, to clean out their messes; but, it has been refused. He went on to say that it might be just as well to watch and let them stew for awhile.
He is right in a sense. The images of anarchy in Democrat controlled states and cities will play well politically across much of America. On the other hand, I am sorry to say that we probably need those cities. The unknown is the effect on the country if too many of them fail completely; although on a personal level, I would revel in seeing them humbled.
Muhammad Ali was asked about his thoughts on Africa, after the “rumble in the jungle”, and responded: “Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat”. But, Ali did not live in the violence and squalor of a Democrat controlled city in 2020. They make parts of the Third World look good.
One of the BLM founders is a fan of Maduro (Venezuela) maybe she likes to eat cat and other exotic animals (from the zoo)? No counting for taste as they say.
Marxist/socialist: we bring the third world to your world. For justice!
Oldflyer on June 20, 2020 at 7:13 pm said:
If we don’t have anarchy in the cities, I am not sure what anarchy is.
HELTER SKELTER….
Murder rates and crime rates in general are rising fast in NYC…
yes there were 12 shootings since friday..
one of the most interesting is a man walked up to someone washing their car and put a bullet through their neck.
Man shot dead in Brooklyn while washing car, latest victim in spate of citywide shootings since Friday
Kenneth Singleton, 35, was cleaning his car outside his home on Milford St. near Blake Ave. in East New York around 11 a.m. when the gunman came up behind him and opened fire, police and witnesses said.
[snip]
A video of the horrifying attack was released on Twitter by the NYPD Saturday, showing the victim hunching down while washing the car, the gunman boldly walking up behind him and then opening fire. The victim is then seen slumping onto the pavement.
Here is the video..
https://twitter.com/NYPDDetectives/status/1274448031514005504
Some, select, Black Lives Matter.
Diversity (i.e. color judgments) including racism breeds adversity.
#BabyLivesMatter
it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened
…
“THE CAUSE of the great War of the Rebellion against the United Status will have to be attributed to slavery. For some years before the war began it was a trite saying among some politicians that “A state half slave and half free cannot exist.”
Grant was an enlightened, principled man.
Under the old regime they were looked down upon by those who controlled all the affairs in the interest of slave-owners, as poor white trash who were allowed the ballot so long as they cast it according to direction.”
Democratic gerrymandering?
Murder rates and crime rates in general are rising fast in NYC…
The left-right nexus is leftist.
Tearing down historical statues is not about racism – many of the statues have meanings antithetical to racism
The prevailing theory is that they can, what are you going to do? They’re trying to trigger people, hoping that people will overreact, thus swinging public opinion to whatever their cause is supposed to be… The left-right, totalitarian-anarchist nexus is leftist.
Next will be the museums. Art by Dead White Men. Is that a step too far? Is anything?
I don’t know why all you guys are so opposed to (Certain) Black Lives Matter (h/t Jericho Green). I, for one, support all the goals of (C)BLM:
They want the cops out of their neighborhoods? Good! Send them to my neighborhood.
They don’t think DUI should be a crime. Great! I’ll just buy an armored personnel carrier and let them drive drunk.
They think (this week, anyway) a Taser is not a deadly weapon? Good! I can buy one without registering it with the state.
They don’t thinks cops should be spent to domestic disturbances or mental health problems? Excellent! Send social workers, the red shirts of today!
I call on all conservatives to support (C)BLM!
As I noted before, BLM, Antifa or whomever will be going after anyone or anything that has any connection or affiliation that has offended racial/ethnic minority groups: blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans. I wonder why Asians aren’t going crazy or jumping on the bandwagon of Cancel Culture.
They went after football coach Mike Gundy for wearing an OAN t-shirt during his family time seen on twitter, where one of his (black) star players said he wouldn’t stand for it (as if the player new what exactly OAN was).
They went after all of the St. Junipero Serra statues in California because Native Americans claimed the saint turned a blind eye when colonialists raped Native American women and that his missions were Nazi camp-esque if one refused to be converted to Catholicism.
Three black Pitt medical students wrote a 20 page list of demands for the school of medicine to act on, and if they didn’t the document stated that it would be a sign of compliance to systemic racism. At least 2/3rds of the demands were not med school related. One demand was that the medical school be renamed because the daughter of the benefactor supposedly donated money to “anti-immigration” policies and is anti-abortion. So it’s not what the benefactor has done, it’s what other family members have done.
On the issue of Ulysses S. Grant, I will take the liberty of reprinting something I put up in a thread about this over at InstaPundit:
Some of the posts on Twitter about this describe Grant as a slave owner. And it is true; at one point Grant did own a slave. The slave was a gift from his father-in-law Col. Dent, a plantation owner in Missouri. And what did Grant do with him? Why he set him free. And it worth noting that this was before the Civil War. So Grant did not get any favorable publicity for this. What is more, when Grant set this man free, Grant was in serious financial difficulties and he could easily have sold him for a substantial amount of money. No one would have thought twice about this if he had done so other than the most hard core Abolitionists. Instead Grant gave him his liberty. Not because he was engaging in moral preening or public posturing for political benefit but just because it was the right thing to do.
How many of the moral cretins who tore down Grant’s statue would ever do the like? Damn few, if any.
In Chapter 67 of Ulysses S. Grant’s “Memoirs” he describes Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. It’s a touching account, which is well worth reading today.
After Grant gets news that Lee is willing to meet, he rides, spattered with mud and suffering from a migraine headache, he rides to meet. Along the way he receives another message from Lee and learns Lee intends to discuss terms of surrender. Then Grant’s lovely sentence:
_____________________________________________
When the officer [bearing the message] reached me I was still suffering with the sick headache, but the instant I saw the contents of the note I was cured.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4367/4367-h/4367-h.htm#ch67
_____________________________________________
The meeting with Lee is anticlimactic. They discuss old times before the war. Lee is concerned that his men who brought their own horses to battle should be able to keep them. Grant agrees.
Not that much happens but there is such a civilized, albeit weary, feeling. No rancor after such a bitter, disastrous war.
Do we have to have a war today for the two sides to accept each other?
@n.n on June 21, 2020 at 1:18 am said: Democratic gerrymandering?
Not quite… an organization forgotten, The Knights of the White Camellia i posted before about Eliza Pinkston, and even linked to press and congressional records they busted into her home, slit her husbands throat.. drowned her baby.. and mutliated her breasts she survived and gave testimony of how the dems would run through the parishes murdering blacksat that time, the democrats refused to lose their place now that southern blacks could vote and wanted the radical republicans
but their terrorizing blacks had them voting democrat till today!!!
Knights of the White Camelia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_the_White_Camelia
The Knights of the White Camelia was an American political terrorist organization that operated in the southern United States in the 19th century, similar to and associated with the Ku Klux Klan, supporting white supremacy and opposing freedmen’s rights.
The Knights of the White Camelia was founded by Democrat-Confederate States Army Colonel, Alcibiades DeBlanc, on May 22, 1867 in Franklin, Louisiana. Author Christopher Long stated, “Its members were pledged to support the supremacy of the white race,[1] to oppose the amalgamation of the races, to resist the social and political encroachment of the so-called carpetbaggers, and to restore white control of the government”. Historian Nicholas Lemann calls the Knights the leading terrorist organization in Louisiana.[4] Their tactics, (which included “harassment, floggings, and sometimes murder”) “produced a reign of terror among the state’s black population during the summer and fall of 1868.”
Press clipping…
https://aadl.org/node/307318
The dems did everything they could to neuter the testimony, she got in trouble later on in life
In fact she was mostly the cause of the scandal in Hayest Tilden election and its been completely sanitized and erased
I put up links to the key book to read, but no one read it… sad..
The book was free and you could download it. i cant find it now I said to read it while you could an amazing report… her testimony is in the congressional record too… [the book was lost and later found under the staircase]
Black voters far exceeded white voters…. “either the number of Neg***s, defected from the Republican Party willingly, or…”
Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 2, Number 241, 30 November 1876
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SDU18761130.2.13&e=——-en–20–1–txt-txIN——–1
They COT THE BABY’S THROAT MtOM EAR TO EAR. Her own words were: ‘* I raised my hands and let my baby fall. They wanted to talcs something frcm me before they lulled me. Two of them bad dealings with me. When they shot me in the leg I ran under the bed. They caught me by tbe leg and palled roe out, and broke tha bed. They cat me with the ax. One man said: ‘It you are going to kill the woman, don’t l,e bothering with her,’ and they wanted to kill me, and he cut me with a knife. I struck Lim, and it flaw up and they never got it again. They got another knife, and they cut and stabbed me, and they cut me on the legs with the ax, and oa the side.” At this point the woman unfastened her dress and exposed her breast, which was all cut up, and wa3 A MOST rtOSIUBLE SIGHT. The effect of the examination caused her to faint, an 1 the examination was therefore delayed for a few moments until she recovered. They threw her child’s body into the lake, where J: remained eleven days. “
It was all over the press from coast to coast… but like others erased i brought up..
it never made discussion because the posts, like this would end up longer than the more entertaining ones and it didn’t fall under Neo’s interests to focus on, which is her prerogative… so it wasn’t covered…
The US also had their OWN red shirts…
The Red Shirts or Redshirts of the Southern United States were white supremacist paramilitary terrorist groups that were active in the late 19th century in the last years of, and after the end of, the Reconstruction era of the United States. Red Shirt groups originated in Mississippi in 1875, when Democratic Party private terror units adopted red shirts to make themselves more visible and threatening to Southern Republicans, both whites and freedmen. Similar groups in the Carolinas also adopted red shirts.
Among the most prominent Red Shirts were the supporters of Democratic Party candidate Wade Hampton during the campaigns for the South Carolina gubernatorial elections of 1876 and 1878.[3] The Red Shirts were one of several paramilitary organizations, such as the White League in Louisiana, arising from the continuing efforts of white Democrats to regain political power in the South in the 1870s. These groups acted as “the military arm of the Democratic Party.”
While sometimes engaging in violent acts of terrorism, the Red Shirts, the White League, rifle clubs, and similar groups in the late nineteenth century worked openly and were better organized than the secret vigilante groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. They used organization, intimidation and force to achieve political purposes of restoring the Democrats to power, overturning Republicans, and repressing civil and voting rights of freedmen. During the 1876, 1898 and 1900 campaigns in North Carolina, the Red Shirts played prominent roles in intimidating non-Democratic Party voters.
BKHuna:
“Grant was a war criminal and a slave owner.”
BKHuna is ignorant. Why?
“This Southern, Independent, white, combat vet would love to see his images and monuments disappear.”
That’s why. He’s still all butt-hurt because his ancestors lost a war over 155 years ago.
I wont be so sure that is the reason Roy… part of the reason isn’t so much losing the war, but how down right nasty it got all around… the burning of resources, and more… but that stuff was more Sherman, and i forget the guy that played Guerrilla games attacking and running (shoot and scoot) appearing here and there all over… Remember much of that war was fought not on northern territory, but on southern lands, which meant even if you werent involved directly, all manner of stuff came your way… and this includes the actions after the war, which was also quite nasty… we tend to ignore the smaller people who are caught up, and from whom these opinions come from than the larger more iconic people… the plantation owners the generals… most of the farmers of the south didnt own slaves and worked hard, only to have their years crop burned or stolen for the fight… on both sides… caught in the middle… its very easy to say its cause they lost, its a lot harder to understand the lasting scars such things did to people who would have rather sat out and gone about their lives.
That statue of Martin Luther King is looking… well… mighty white. I wonder if there’s anything Freudian about that.
Great nations and empires always die from internal causes and effects, not external defeats. Great Britain might be the sole exception, its manpower and wealth drained by two wars twenty years apart.
The USA is dying.
Pelosi and Schumer expect to ride the wave but they will end up as Robespierres.
They have led the way into a territory of nay-say, nihilism, anti-authority, anti-capital, white-hating, destruction-loving but Gaia-loving insanity.
We are entering a very dark age of long duration. An age of remarkable stupidity and ignorance, where “flattening the curve” is a good, despite its associated oppressions and the failure to recognize the total # of deaths will not diminish but just be spread out over time for “manageability”.
We will have to exercise the Benedict Option, but with arms. We will decay into a more brutal version of “Mad Max”.
It seems quite obvious.
Our “rights” keep proliferating, even to the right to deny our own DNA. Sex uber Alles, however you want it, whenever. Irrationality and mental illness have become the new normal.
Christianity, despite its ups and downs, has been the greatest civilizing movement in the history of the planet. Fr. Junipero Serra did not enslave the locals; he converted them to Christ. He supervised the building of great edifices called “missions” which were actually cathedrals, not finished until long after he was gone.
I despised the spineless cowardice of putative leaders in the 1960s. That cowardice led to sanctuary in academia for Bill Ayers et al., and we now see the fruits of Gramscian success in the current replay. I think Trump is right: let Seattle do its own thing, with “warlord” Raz carrying an AR-15 and a pistol in the CHOP.
BKHuna is symptomatic.
I think Texas A&M is a great school with a great culture. UT Austin is a UC Berkeley equal.
Of course, let’s game out the likely response to this “revolution.”
1. The overwhelming white majority (at least twice the size of America’s minority populations combined) furthers its embrace of identity politics.
2. This white identitarian movement either defends more vigorously American tradition and culture or revels in being released from those American ideals of tolerance and liberty.
3. Meanwhile, the Left will be struggling to prevent war between its incoherent conglomeration of identity groups. We’ve already seen the start of feminists vs. transgendered. That’s just a preview of unassimilated Muslim vs. Jew, unassimilated Muslim vs. gay, Latino vs. black, Asian vs. black, and all of them vs. the entitled white power structure that runs and funds the Left.
Get your popcorn ready!
Mike
Bkhuna on June 20, 2020 at 6:49 pm said:
Grant was a war criminal and a slave owner.
This Southern, Independent, white, combat vet would love to see his images and monuments disappear.
When your Catholic traitors killed Lincoln, was Lincoln a war criminal too?
We are entering a very dark age of long duration. An age of remarkable stupidity and ignorance, where “flattening the curve” is a good, despite its associated oppressions and the failure to recognize the total # of deaths will not diminish but just be spread out over time for “manageability”.
Wrong. Not very long. Just until 2021.
He’s still all butt-hurt because his ancestors lost a war over 155 years ago.
That’s how Demoncrats controlled the South for so long.
To blacks, they said vote D or else you will be enslaved and abused by evil Republicans.
To white Southerners, they said, vote D, or else white REpublicans will come take your slaves, women, and property. Giving it to the black Republican, to rule with, as an owner gives a dog some bones.
Demoncrats: Join us and mask yourselves with this white hood, and we will make sure no Republicans exist in the South.
Demoncrats 2020: Join us and mask yourselves with this mask due to Covid, and we will make sure our BLM/ANtifa/Soros riots will end Republicans like Trump.
AMERICANS KEEP FALLING for the same stuff.
Neo: “They started with Confederate monuments, to which most white people and people in general had no particular attachment. Now it is Western civilization as a whole, …”
Are you surprised?
Look at how you qualified the movement to destroy Confederate monuments – “…most white people and people in general…” – the ‘poll numbers’ weren’t perceived as good enough to merit not being ‘cancelled’.
Destroying any American history should never have been supported under any circumstance – by Southerners, Northerners, Easterners, Westerners, Whites, Blacks, etc. Especially if you knew that you had not invested the time to know more than just the pop culture version of history.
***
I may not have had a “particular attachment” to any of the Confederate monuments, but I do appreciate history; which is why I researched the topic. BTW – that is also what I admire about you Neo – your willingness to do your “homework (research).
I’ll add that our nation is so young that we don’t have that much in the way of accumulated “history” to remove from our town squares, traffic circles, plazas, parks, etc. Unlike older nations that have removed and replaced their “history” more times than they can remember.
And our nation is so young that we do not have an episode of having been conquered (foreign power) or suffered a revolution (internal power); which often precipitated the removal of earlier “history” in other nations.
Are we in the process of being conquered (by proxy), or undergoing a revolution?
Do we know who the conquering power or revolutionary power is?
***
I grew-up in the Southwest, West, and Midwest – and never gave much thought to the Civil War. However, the discussions around removing Confederate monuments motivated me to research and think about the topic.
Started by getting grounded on the facts, e.g., read each Confederate state Secession Declaration, read the Emancipation Proclamation (EP), reviewed maps & history since our founding.
I learned that:
a) 27% (4 of 15) of the slave states did not try to succeed from the USA.
b) 45% (5 of 11) of the Confederate states did not explicitly note Slavery as a reason for succeeding.
c) 63% (7 of 11) of the Confederate states specifically mentioned Rights in their declarations of succession.
d) the EP did not apply to all of the counties in the states that were part of the Confederacy (some were exempt).
e) the EP did not free slaves that were in states that were not part of the Confederacy.
f) the EP did not apply to Confederate states that rejoined the Union.
g) ~25 new nations were formed, between 1776 and 1860 (pre-Civil War)
h) ~10 new nations were formed, between 1861 and 1913 (pre-WW1)
i) ~69 new nations were formed, between 1914 and 1964 (50 years)
j) ~66 new nations were formed, between 1965 and today
I came to the conclusion:
1) The motives behind heated debates of any era are rarely simple to explain – and more than one “thing” can be true.
2) The political boundaries of 1861 were not carved in stone.
3) People of all eras know this simple truth: History is written by the victors.
4) Both the Union and the Confederacy are better off because the nation was preserved.
5) Supporting not tearing down the Confederate monuments means you are pro-American history, not pro-Slavery.
***
While we do not know with certainty why the pro-Confederacy supporters chose to erect their monuments; it seems reasonable to assume some did for the same reason pro-Union supporters did: To honor the sacrifice and service of leading participants.
We do know with certainty what citizens of our era have done:
• Deny history as told by the people who supported and made the decision to succeed (e.g., The Lost Cause).
• Denigrate anyone who acknowledges that historical perspective (e.g., racist, nazi).
• Destroy their history (e.g., tear down the Confederate monuments).
“its a lot harder to understand the lasting scars such things did to people who would have rather sat out and gone about their lives.” – Artfldgr
This is so totally connected to the rest of Neo’s recent posts (I was going to exempt the dance one, but it was about the Don Quixote ballet, and his statue was among those pulled down).
People want to be able to agree that “black lives matter, too” (since that’s what Montage says the signs really mean), and just go about their own lives. They want to sit out the war of #BLM and Antifa against the rest of America, but that may no longer be an option.
The Left/Democrat juggernaut thinks it has a lock on the end-game, but they may not be correct.
“Of course, let’s game out the likely response to this “revolution.”” – Mbunge
A lot of people on the right are going to feel forced into the scenario Mike describes.
At that point, everybody will have to take sides, and we aren’t even sure what all the sides are.
This white identitarian movement either defends more vigorously American tradition and culture or revels in being released from those American ideals of tolerance and liberty. –MBunge
I’ll take Door #1. Whites won’t call themselves an identity movement, but they will steadily, and in increasing numbers, vote Republican — as is already happening.
We already know the Left hates white males, but white women are on the chopping block now for the crime of electing Trump in 2016. Check the web.
I was thinking about this in the 2000s. Yes, if the Democratic Party assembles their rainbow coalition of minorities on top of their close-to-half of the white vote, they win. But if whites consciously or unconsciously start voting as a bloc, it’s adios, muchachos … so to speak.
I’m not saying that’s necessarily a good thing, but it’s entirely understandable. The Left doesn’t get to have their identity cake without whites getting to eat it too.
At that point, everybody will have to take sides, and we aren’t even sure what all the sides are.
Does anyone at anytime? I dont think the people around Kronstadt knew… nor did the people in the french revolution… like waves, everyone gets swept up, and what is at the end is never what was what was reasoned when it started…
kind of like that saying about battle plans going out the window after the first shot
“No plan survives first contact with the enemy: A piece of military wisdom deriving from a formulation by the nineteenth-century Prussian military commander Helmuth van Moltke. He wrote in 1880, “No plan of operations reaches with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main force.”
https://bootcampmilitaryfitnessinstitute.com/military-and-outdoor-fitness-articles/no-plan-survives-contact-with-the-enemy/
“The Left doesn’t get to have their identity cake without whites getting to eat it too.” – huxley
See the panel discussion video on the Candace Owens post, about 53:00.
Not everybody is happy with erasing POC on commercial branding:
https://www.nbc12.com/2020/06/19/family-woman-who-portrayed-aunt-jemima-opposes-move-change-brand/
Not everybody is happy with erasing POC (more particularly WOC!) on commercial branding:
https://www.nbc12.com/2020/06/19/family-woman-who-portrayed-aunt-jemima-opposes-move-change-brand/
The logical reductio ad absurdum.
https://babylonbee.com/news/down-with-white-supremacy-or-whatever-shouts-crowd-as-they-tear-down-statue-of-the-fonz