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New Orleans Starts Tearing Down Confederate Monuments, Sparking Protest
- Thread starter Black Republican
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One Eyed Willy
Member
I'm vacationing in NOLA this week and literally every person I've talked to who is local is pissed.
It took us something like 60 years to get rid of our own traitor Pétain's name off French streets.
And that guy was actually one of the biggest war heroes before he was one of the biggest traitor.
No one is going to forget about WWI anytime soon either.
Tear down these statues, melt them and make proper monuments to honor fallen soldiers if you want but by god do not celebrate people who preferred to die before they would recognize that black people were worth more than the shit they take.
If you come to France, you'll notice a distinct lack of monuments dedicated to enemies of the State. Stop honoring traitors with horrible deeds.
And that guy was actually one of the biggest war heroes before he was one of the biggest traitor.
No one is going to forget about WWI anytime soon either.
Tear down these statues, melt them and make proper monuments to honor fallen soldiers if you want but by god do not celebrate people who preferred to die before they would recognize that black people were worth more than the shit they take.
If you come to France, you'll notice a distinct lack of monuments dedicated to enemies of the State. Stop honoring traitors with horrible deeds.
I wonder where the locals you talk to are from. Most people in the city proper are against the statues; if it were put up to a vote, they'd come down easily.
But the suburbs outside of the city are drastically more conservative/Confederate-friendly (Steve "I'm David Duke without the baggage" Scalise is the congressional rep), and the folks living there - many of whom commute into the city for work - have no problem screaming as loudly as they can about how we should run our city.
It's a theme that we've seen for decades around here: many suburban residents are people who followed white flight out of New Orleans in previous decades, but they still hold strong, loud opinions about the city and its inhabitants. This issue has flared them up like very few I've ever seen.
Psychoward
Banned
You must be talking to the wrong locals m8. I lived there and everyone I know is happy and thinks the outrage is pathetic.
This is what I figured. The city proper is pretty goddamn liberal.
Psychoward
Banned
I mean I'm fine with having them in a museum but I don't understand how you need a giant statue of a confederate leader to learn about the confederacy. I don't see many Hitler and Mussolini statues lying around.
ShadowSwordmaster
Banned
You don't need statues that honor traitors do this.
EdibleKnife
Member
What Psycho said. You don't need a deified monuments of traitors to learn history. You want monuments? The historical cup runneth over with black heroes pivotal in gaining rights for people rather than fighting to strip people of them.
NOLA_Gaffer
Banned
To me it's not that we're preserving the history of the Civil War, but that we're preserving the culture of New Orleans. Which why I'm totes cool with the removal of the monuments but not so cool with their (probable) destruction. Some of these monuments are more representative of the city itself than what they actually depict.
I don't think I'll ever stop calling the roundabout around where the Robert E. Lee monument was "Lee Circle".
NOLA_Gaffer
Banned
Ideally they would find an area to place them around the Civil War Museum in New Orleans, but there isn't really a whole lot of free space around it.
JordanN
Banned
When they only attract Nazis and alt-right, I don't see why not.
We're not talking about the Mona Lisa or Dinosaur fossils that actually serve a purpose.
These are statues that represent a slave state that had to be destroyed by force.
SoRuffShoNuff
Member
Thats cool, but whats even better is that in a generation or two that group of people will NOT remember that roundabout as Lee Circle.
foxuzamaki
Doesn't read OPs, especially not his own
Hoooly shit, this was what was on there? Even in 2017?
Artistic value / merit then? I don't know... of course statues of Hitler would have been destroyed, but at this time it would be interesting to have some around to look at...
At the time both sides would have considered each other "traitors"... do you get to call them "traitors" today only because they lost? I didn't realize America was still fighting this conflict... I guess the people who care still feel you are.
Angelus Errare
Banned
"History" with no context and objective fact isn't history, it's deification. You want to make the history argument then put up statues of slaves who died, of slaves who overthrew their masters, of slaves themselves who fought in the war.
Putting up statues on US territory of people who didn't want to be part of the US and seceded from it makes no sense, the argument about history makes even less sense because by such a remedial argument we should put up statues of Japanese pilots who bombed Pearl Harbor, you know to learn from history and all
bggrthnjsus
Member
i hope they melt all these down and turn them into a giant megastatue of obama that you can see from anywhere in the state, purely out of spite
ShadowSwordmaster
Banned
You have photos and paintings that would do a better job.
Waylon Drums
Member
I've never seen a more proud set of losers than Confederate enthusiasts.
NOLA_Gaffer
Banned
If you're going to build a megastatue of someone to spite Louisianians, I can think of better candidates than Obama.
Escape Goat
Member
Just imagine how much better this country would be without Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana. Or at least if they weren't full of ignorant, "Christian" fundies.
I once asked someone from Covington how their residents would feel if people from New Orleans dictated that they must keep a statue of Hillary-&-Barack-hugging in one of their prominent public spaces. 😋
Good lord, if you want to study these statues I bet there are tons of pictures of them. Today we have something called the 'internet' - may have heard of it. Lots of information to be gathered there, including studying statues if your heart so desires.
We really really don't need physical representations anymore of these guys holding up literal white supremacy plaques.
Again I say if people really don't want them destroyed, then stick them in the middle of a landfill and let all who admire them reek of filth.
We really really don't need physical representations anymore of these guys holding up literal white supremacy plaques.
Again I say if people really don't want them destroyed, then stick them in the middle of a landfill and let all who admire them reek of filth.
You really going to cape for people that were fighting to keep other humans as cattle? To keep the right to murder, rape, mutilate them as they please? We really "both sides" this bullshit.
Must be great to be so above the bullshit like human rights
If using public founds to preserve and keep this monuments is an issue I think they should be scrapped and reused to form a new monument so that history of the statues can be preserved while building a more worthwhile historical foundation to remember. Simply destroying them seems like a waste of potential positive value. People in the future should know that this battle of ideas was fought in 2017.
ShadowSwordmaster
Banned
These traitors seceded from the United States because they wanted to keep their slaves and fired on a federal fort that started a civil war. These people are traitors by its definition.
I find it weird that people conflate erasing history with getting rid of monuments. The history doesn't disappear, and we don't forget it, just because there's not a monument up somewhere. The purpose of a monument isn't as an aide to memory, it's because we are memorializing things that speak to our values and are important to us.
Robert E Lee and his entire history aren't going to be forgotten because a statue gets moved, or even destroyed. The Civil War still happened, he still lost, no one is forgetting any time soon. The argument that the statues themselves are important is much akin to the idea that it's the flag, rather than what it represents, that's important.
Both ideas are wrong-headed. They're just objects that we've imbued with meaning, and the specific meaning those statues were imbued with is a thing no reasonable American believes in anymore.
Stick them in a little room somewhere and call it a Confederate Museum.
Robert E Lee and his entire history aren't going to be forgotten because a statue gets moved, or even destroyed. The Civil War still happened, he still lost, no one is forgetting any time soon. The argument that the statues themselves are important is much akin to the idea that it's the flag, rather than what it represents, that's important.
Both ideas are wrong-headed. They're just objects that we've imbued with meaning, and the specific meaning those statues were imbued with is a thing no reasonable American believes in anymore.
Stick them in a little room somewhere and call it a Confederate Museum.
makingmusic476
Member
God, I'd love an Obama Circle.
History isn't just a bunch of statues.
He's right in suggesting that the CSA didn't see themselves as that. Much like the Colonists didn't see themselves as that in the revolutionary war.
The south being traitors isn't the issue here. The fact that they supported racial slavery is the issue. It's fine to have statues of traitors. It isn't fine to have statues glorifying racial slavery.
Uhh yes? They are very much traitors to the United States of America back during the civil war as much as they are today. They are the definition traitors.
dark_chris
Member
I agree. They should have been moved to a museum and make it a learning experience for people. They didn't have to really tear them down
Psychoward
Banned
bruh
the south seceded from the union because they didn't let slavery expand as much as the south wanted to
there was only one side of traitors
gutter_trash
Banned
Beauregard, not buregard
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III
His father must have been a super confedrate racist to name his son after two Confederate jerks
xDUMPWEEDx
Banned
Colin Moriarty did a really good video on this very topic for Colin's Last Stand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLrn5eE-wMY
He basically calls the Confederate leaders all traitors and thinks it was BS how they received zero punishment after the war for their traitorous actions. As for the monuments, he completely agrees with them being taken down from public lands and placed in museums.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLrn5eE-wMY
He basically calls the Confederate leaders all traitors and thinks it was BS how they received zero punishment after the war for their traitorous actions. As for the monuments, he completely agrees with them being taken down from public lands and placed in museums.
Angelus Errare
Banned
Some of you are trippin. And I'm dying at someone actually invoking "both sides" argument, what shit.
How do you propose they move them to a museum without taking them down?
How do you propose they move them to a museum without taking them down?
Psychoward
Banned
This is a pretty surprising stance for him to take tbh
ShadowSwordmaster
Banned
They might not have seen themselves as traitors, but they were they still traitors.
Sure, but what he's saying is that traitor is one of those notoriously slippy words that lacks much in the way of analytical value in favor or pure rhetoric. Look at the conversation earlier in the thread on Cromwell.
Focusing on them being traitors is pointless anyway.
Focus on the thing they did which was actually bad. Which is supporting racial slavery.
EdibleKnife
Member
Whether both would have considered each other traitors means little since only one of those sides were factually correct in standing by the union and the imperative to free slaves. They are not traitors because they lost, they are traitors because of their actions and beliefs. Those who still buy into their shit today are traitors to the ideal of the US as a land where all men are free as well as traitors to the human race as a whole for believing their race is inherently superior to another.
They became traitors because of their continued and ardent support slavery, oh and states rights... to own people. What is with the semantics games people are playing to not call these people what they were?
I mean literally in your statement you're turning this into it being about racial slavery. This is the root of the issue. Focusing on anything else gives apologists room in which to maneuver.
I'm not sure what you're getting at with semantic games here. I'm certainly not trying to paint this figures in a positive light.
Fenderputty
Banned
Statues should be removed and put in a museum with accurate historical context next to them. Destroying them goes too far IMO
TestOfTide
Banned
No, it's definitely the Confederacy that were fucking traitors for the following reasons:
- Hypocritical Confederacy refused to allow East Tennessee to rejoin the union
- No where in the constitution gave confederate states the right to leave the union
- Confederacy only started because confederate states refused to accept that explicit slavery was going to soon go away
- Confederates were ALREADY engaging in war-like behavior with the shit they did in Kansas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacking_of_Lawrence
Once torn down, these statues' only purpose now would be to remind people how the people in the state viewed the traitors long after their rebellion was quashed.
As it is, it's a good piece of history to show how willfully blind people were in trying to glorify actual slavery and white supremacy.
As it is, it's a good piece of history to show how willfully blind people were in trying to glorify actual slavery and white supremacy.
The protests only strengthen my resolve that the statues should be removed.
People want to talk about "remembering history", but it's pretty clear what's going on. Especially when the same people like to "forget" certain parts of history.
That said, I think they should be placed somewhere. Knowing that one statue literally had a line about white supremacy carved into it was an eye opener and I'd like people to know that existed.
People want to talk about "remembering history", but it's pretty clear what's going on. Especially when the same people like to "forget" certain parts of history.
That said, I think they should be placed somewhere. Knowing that one statue literally had a line about white supremacy carved into it was an eye opener and I'd like people to know that existed.
ShadowSwordmaster
Banned
Would you rather call them Successionist then? The CSA was formed to protect slavery when the federal government had a party that had anti-slavery as one of the main points and wanted the states to move away from slavery and abolished it. It says in the Constitution that no states can leave the Union and they did it anyway. They open fire against the federal government by attacking Fort Sumter that were the first shots of the civil war.
If we're talking about them in the context of taking down statues I'd prefer to call them Militant White Supremacists.
The reason succession was bad was because it was done to preserve a particularly horrible system of white supremacy. Focus on the actual problem here.
(On a tangent: the GOP also wasn't anti-slavery so much as anti-slave power. The South succeeded because they misunderstood that.)
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