dagblog - Comments for "Toppling statues? Here’s why Nelson’s column should be next "

Trivial point: Navy enlisted

NCD — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 03:13:48 +0000

Trivial point: Navy enlisted almost always put the f*** expletive before a given USN ship name, especially if they are crew. As in "The f***ing ( ship name) deploys next week". It's a tradition.

If you want your name cursed for years by thousands, get an aircraft carrier named after yourself.

They are tools of war. Do you

A Guy Called LULU — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 03:08:49 +0000

In reply to I understand why you're

They are tools of war. Do you think anyone doesn't understand that?

Yes, they are tools of war [ what the hell do you think Lee was?] as significant as a death star but they are also symbols. They are given their name as an honor to the namesake to align their purpose with something noble.. I would have expected everyone to understands that. The reality I refer to is that they are part of an unsustainable effort to maintain hegemony over vast populations by whatever means are necessary. They represent what has become "The American Way'. They are instruments used ruthlessly, mostly on dark skinned peoples who have been dehumanized, and so it is done comfortably with all kinds of currently respected people justifying whatever is done to those people. There are ideologies in play but what keeps the game going is the profit motive. We have to, or rather we should, redefine the motive of warfare so it aligns with reality and might possibly be avoided with some common sense applied. Or else not. Why break the historical cycle?

It's just history.

ocean-kat — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 02:56:34 +0000

In reply to Toppling statues? Here’s why Nelson’s column should be next

It's just history.

I understand why you're

ocean-kat — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 02:28:27 +0000

In reply to Some more trivia:

I understand why you're trying to make a point by calling battle ships monuments but they aren't. They are tools of war. Do you think anyone doesn't understand that? What reality beyond that do they represent that you think we need to redefine? When the tool is no longer useful they're decommissioned with at most a short ceremony and scrapped. They're not preserved to honor the person they're named for. No matter the name on them no one cares when they're melted down and recycled.

To ocean-kat and Lulu: ah but

artappraiser — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 01:54:54 +0000

In reply to I think you're losing nuance

To ocean-kat and Lulu: ah but you are both taking thoughts where I hoped they would go.

Lulu, your "trivia" examples: such an interesting point!

But then the armed services were often a little ahead of the game over conservative society on this with certain things, were they not? Because they wanted that cannon fodder?! Excuse me for my cynicism, I think it has always been: try not to offend, until you get them to sign on the dotted line. I

Comes to mind this is going to be in the news shortly, the military (especially the Navy & Coast Guard, no?) they want those transgenders that want to serve! I never followed that closely who in the brass wanted "don't ask don't tell" and who didn't. In any case, we are way beyond that now.

Some more trivia:

A Guy Called LULU — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 01:23:41 +0000

In reply to I agree with your

Some more trivia:

USS Robert E. Lee, USS Stonewall Jackson, USS Dixon, and USS Hunley—In the 1960s, the U.S. Navy seemed to have forgiven their Civil War adversaries and named several ships after Confederates (including George Dixon who sank a U.S. Navy ship while commanding the submarine H.L. Hunley). With the issue of honoring Confederates having grown more contentious in recent years, the Navy has avoided controversy by not reusing the names of such ships after they were decommissioned.

I agree with your

A Guy Called LULU — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 00:53:33 +0000

In reply to I think you're losing nuance

I agree with your construction of the situation. I differ with were you end up going but I don't have a solution of my own to offer but maybe a better way to hope people would someday look back at our history, both early and the one we are forging now, more accurately and as a lesson that will always need relearning.

Some monuments being built in our time that I would like to be seen now for the reality of what they really represent are partially listed below.

Lyndon B. Johnson, has the
- USS Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002), began construction in April 2012 and to be placed in service in 2018.
  - Zumwalt-class destroyer
Gerald R. Ford, has the
- USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) (planned for 2015)
  - Ford-class supercarrier, lead ship
Jimmy Carter, has the
- USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) was named in 2004; Jimmy Carteris still alive.
  - Seawolf class submarine
Ronald Reagan, has the
- USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), commissioned in 2003.
  - Nimitz-class supercarrier
George H. W. Bush, has the
- USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77), commissioned in 2009; George H. W. Bush is still alive.
  - Nimitz-class aircraft carrier
- Edited to move a comma.

I think you're losing nuance

ocean-kat — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 23:39:43 +0000

In reply to The surge in Confederate

I think you're losing nuance by lumping all these statues together. Statues are always propaganda. What is the message they're meant to convey? What is the culture of the time they were installed? How has that culture changed over the years? How has the changing culture effected the meaning of the statue and how people feel about it?

I'm not British so I can't answer many of those questions about British statues without much study. Let's leave it to discussions of American statues. People aren't saying the confederate statues should come down simply because the figure depicted owned slaves. What people are saying is that the message sent by the white supremacists who installed them to both whites and blacks was that, The nigger is back under our control. Enough people are pushing back against that message and want the statues down.

Jefferson was a slave child rapist. But the statues of him weren't put up as a message to black people that whites can fuck your children when ever we want. They were put up to honor the author of the Declaration of Independence who wrote, " WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." However incomplete that self evident truth existed in reality that is the message meant to be sent with Jefferson statues.

American culture has changed enough that blacks finally have the power to make a meaningful objection to the message of the confederate statues. They can say it in mass and protest at the statues without being lynched. American culture has changed enough that enough whites will stand with them and and agree that the statues need to come down to repudiate that message of black oppression.

Perhaps a time will come when we reject the good a person has done for America if that person was a slave owner. Perhaps some decades from now American culture will have changed enough that statues of Jefferson and others are deemed inappropriate. But for now it seems to me that the evolving consensus is that confederate statues need to come down.

Your theoretical community is

rmrd0000 — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 23:33:27 +0000

In reply to Sigh there are plenty enough

Your theoretical community is not my theoretical community. Trump and the Nazis put Confederate statues front and.center. The Nazis are evil and Trump is mentally unstable. Libraries, museums, etc.will provide people with the truth. The statues are remnants of the Lost Cause. Germany doesn't put up statues to honor Nazis. We have no need to honor Confederates.

in fact, the racist Confederate heritage people actively hid one Confederate General because he was the Robert Byrd or his day. Byrd went from Klan recruiter to being considered an icon by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Confederate General William Mahone was a staunch secessionist and brilliant tactician. After the war however, Mahone formed the Readjuster Party, an interracial political party that saw blacks rise to political power. He was considered a traitor by his former Confederates in arms. He was essentially erased from history by the Confederate because he was not the racist that the Confederates needed to send a message to blacks about who was in charge.

http://thelensnola.org/2016/11/28/trump-and-the-gop-hate-new-orleans-let...

I do nuance. We just happen to disagree on many issues. I think you go out of your way to diminish the impact of race.

Edit to add:

Robert E. Lee felt that establishing monuments only keep open the wounds of war.

“I think it wiser . . . not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered,”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-no-surprise-were-refighting-...

I read what you said. You

rmrd0000 — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 20:16:51 +0000

In reply to The surge in Confederate

I read what you said. You want me to have sympathy for your theoretical small Southern community that wants to cling to the Civil War. I have sympathy for the black people who grew up in those small Southern towns, that is why I focus on intimidation. Black people died when they defied the status quo. That is the end point of intimidation. We have markedly different world views. You see the city councils. I see the pain of black people. It is not trolling to say that in this current era, those city councils will have to explain why the statues exist.

Edit to add:

Native Americans are free to suggest removing statues of Columbus, Custer, or Buffalo Soldiers.