How is a "Gen Lee High School" any different from a "Heinrik Himmler High School"?

[Stinky The Clown]

How is a "Jefferson Davis Highway" any different from an "Adolf Hitler Highway"?

Yeah, I know. I went there with the Hitler reference. Tell how that would be wrong.

No one allows the Nazi names to be honored. Why do we allow the traitor Confederate names to be so honored? I fail to see the difference. And I don't give a shit if you're a direct descendent of Jefferson Davis. There are almost certainly Germans alive today who are direct descendents of well known Nazis, yet their country does not allow the sort of memorials some people in this country wish to continue for our traitors and war criminals. The only "memorial" to the Nazis are sites such as the concentration camps; sites that makes us reflect and consider, and to never forget the evil.

Tear them all down. Rename them all. Enough of the government endorsed perpetuation of the celebration of our period of white supremacy.

If we want Civil War symbols to be a part of our national consciousness, how about we limit it to restored slave houses on restored plantations? How about we endow forever the preservation of sites like the Andersonville Prison in Georgia, including a plaque explaining why war criminal Capt Henry Wirz was tried for murder, legally convicted, and executed? How about we memorialze WHY we fought a civil war; what the Union wanted and what the traitors wanted?

It is long past the time to change the paradigm from "The War of Northern Aggression" to the end of America's dark sins and crimes against humanity and initial attempts to atone.

[KamaAina]

1. NOLA activists have dealt with the existence of Jefferson Davis Parkway

by unofficially renaming it "Angela Davis Parkway".

[Stinky The Clown]

3. That needs to become official.

[KamaAina]

2. It probably has a higher dropout rate

German education being far superior to our own.

[MADem]

4. I agree with you. Aside from the racist implications, America isn't in the habit of celebrating

losers. And those failed white supremacists WERE a bunch of losers. They belong in the ugly past, dead and buried. Their lives deserve to be examined for their shortcomings, not praised for their lousy warfighting.

It's one of the terrible disconnects I feel when ever I am south of the Mason-Dixon. You meet friendly people, and then drive on roads past monuments named for slave overlords. It creeps me out.

[malthaussen]

10. Your post made me wonder if there was a statue of William Westmoreland...

... I Googled it, and apparently there is not. I did, however, stumble across this interesting tidbit: Westmoreland chaired the committee that erected a statue to Washington in Charleston... which was put in to replace one of William Pitt (the elder), which was crumbling away and has now been relegated to a museum. There's a moral there, somewhere.

-- Mal

[MADem]

12. He's been dead a decade, now. I think the horse has left that barn.

Statues from that era tend to be of rank and file people, as it should be, or memorial walls emphasizing the great waste of the enterprise in terms of loss of life. This one, of course, is quite well known:



This one is at the California Vietnam War Memorial Museum:



IIRC Westmoreland ran for governor (GOP, surprise, surprise) of SC a long while back. Didn't win.

[malthaussen]

18. The figure on the left in the Three Soldiers...

... bears an eerie resemblence to actor Miguel Nunez, who played Marcus Taylor in "Tour of Duty." But a serving Marine was the model.

-- Mal

[edhopper]

5. Considering American slavery

resulted in anywhere from 2 to 10 million deaths, not much of a difference.

I would compare Lee to Rommel, not a true believer, but still a General who fought for a horrible cause.

[Lizzie Poppet]

13. I was about to suggest that comparison.

But the only school I know named after Rommel is on the Simpsons...

[leveymg]

20. Lee didn't turn against the Fatherland. Rommel did in the end.

Because he was national hero, Erwin got a black capsule instead of hanging by piano wire which the rest of the April 10 conspirators got.

The thing that distinguishes the American Civil War was the remarkably low incidents of civilian casualties and atrocities against civilians, something the World War Two German Army, even under its better commanders, could not claim.

[edhopper]

21. Lee turned against the Country he swore an oath to defend

when he sided with Virginia.

[leveymg]

23. That is true, as well.

He got off to a worse start and didn't finish the war as well, comparatively.

Still, one can't compare either side in the American Civil War with the German Army, at least as far as civilians were concerned. On the other hand, neither side in the Civil War had a good record of treatment of POWs.

[former9thward]

6. Should we rename Washington D.C.?

He was a slave owner. Remove all slave owners from our money? Rename the state of Washington and every school in American named after Washington or Jefferson?

[LanternWaste]

11. Or simply continue celebrating slave owners for being slave owners?

Or simply continue celebrating slave owners for being slave owners? Seems rational minds may find nuanced and relevant distinctions. I understand your inability to do so.

[former9thward]

19. And I understand your refusal to be consistent.

[edhopper]

22. Is Washington only honored for being a slave owner.

Because the South is only honoring these men for the treasonous war against their country.

[exboyfil]

30. Actually Lee had a marvelous record

in the Mexican-American War and with establishing improved shipping on the Mississippi through his engineering activities. These two accomplishments alone are worthy of recognition.

This is kind of like Benedict Arnold when they refused to burn one leg in effigy because Arnold had been wounded at the Battle of Quebec.

[edhopper]

32. recognition yes

but do you think that has anything to do with the monuments and places named for him?

[NuclearDem]

24. Try again.

The Confederacy existed solely as an entity rebelling against the country's inevitable trend towards abolition. It existed entirely because of slavery, and in fact, to fight to keep slavery alive.

[MADem]

34. He didn't try to break away from the country in order to preserve the institution of slavery.

It wasn't an issue that rose to the level of civil strife fracturing a nation during his lifetime. That's the distinction and the difference.

It's time for some honesty on this topic, and with any luck, this sleazy flag will help to open the discussion about our actual "American heritage." America needs to own the fact that the country was built on slavery--hell, the WHITE House was built by BLACK men, and they didn't have a choice in the matter, either.

In point of fact, more than half of his slaves were actually MARTHA's!! He got them because women had no rights back in the day, either...they were slaves in much improved circumstances, in essence. I don't think his slaves were particularly well treated, though--he sounds a bit vindictive to me.

Here are some fascinating facts about George and the institution of slavery:

http://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/slavery/ten-facts-about-washington-slavery/


Despite having been an active slave holder for 56 years, George Washington struggled with the institution of slavery and spoke frequently of his desire to end the practice. At the end of this life Washington made the bold step to free his slaves in his 1799 will - the only slave-holding Founding Father to do so.....

....3. Marrying Martha Washington significantly increased Washington’s number of slaves

After marrying Martha Dandridge Custis in January of 1759, George Washington's slaveholdings increased dramatically. As the widow of a wealthy planter who died without a will in 1757, Martha’s share of the Custis estate brought another eighty-four slaves to Mount Vernon. The stark increase in the enslaved population at Mount Vernon at this time reflected similar trends in the region. When George Washington took control of the Mount Vernon property in 1754, the population of Fairfax County was around 6,500 people, of whom a little more than 1,800 or about 28% were slaves of African origin. The proportion of slaves in the population as a whole rose throughout the century; by the end of the American Revolution, over 40% of the people living in Fairfax County were slaves.

4. Accounts vary regarding Washington’s treatment of the Mount Vernon’s enslaved population

Sources offer differing insight into Washington's behavior as a slave owner. On one end of the spectrum, Richard Parkinson, an Englishman who lived near Mount Vernon, once reported that "it was the sense of all his [Washington's] neighbors that he treated his slaves with more severity than any other man." Conversely, a foreign visitor traveling in America once recorded that George Washington dealt with his slaves "far more humanely than do his fellow citizens of Virginia." What is clear is that Washington frequently utilized harsh punishment against the enslaved population, including whippings and the threat of particularly taxing work assignments. Perhaps most severely, Washington could sell a slave to a buyer in the West Indies, ensuring that the person would never see their family or friends at Mount Vernon again. Washington conducted such sales on several occasions.
....

6. On numerous occasions, slaves ran away from the Washington household in an attempt to gain their freedom.

Mount Vernon’s enslaved community took opportunities, when possible, to physically escape their enslavement. For example, in April of 1781 during the American Revolution, seventeen members of the Mount Vernon enslaved population—fourteen men and three women—fled to the British warship HMS Savage anchored in the Potomac off the shore of the plantation. In other instances, members of the enslaved community who were directly connected to the Washingtons either attempted to or were successful in their escape plans. These individuals included Washington’s personal assistant Christopher Sheels, whose plan to escape with his fiancée was thwarted, the family cook Hercules and Martha Washington’s personal maid Oney Judge, both of whom escaped successfully.

7. Slaves at Mount Vernon also resisted their enslavement through less noticeable means

Running away was a risky venture that often did not succeed. As a result, Mount Vernon’s enslaved population frequently resisted their bondage through a variety of methods while working on the plantation. Individuals utilized less noticeable methods of resistance, including feigning illness, working slowly, producing shoddy work, and misplacing or damaging tools and equipment. More active means of protest included actions such as theft, arson, and sabotage of crops. Theft was a particularly frequently act of visible slave resistance. Over the years slaves at Mount Vernon were accused of stealing a wide variety of objects, including tools, fabrics, yam, raw wool, wine, rum, milk, butter, fruits, meats, corn, and potatoes.

[pnwmom]

37. Washington is remembered for much more than owning slaves. And he never fought for the

confederacy.

[former9thward]

41. Ask Obama to take down the statue of Jefferson Davis in D.C.

He has not said one word about it in the almost seven years he has been there.

[pnwmom]

42. He's had a few other things to do. But you could ask. n/t

[former9thward]

44. He plays a lot of golf.

And more power to him for that. But I do believe he is not working 24/7 as some try and make believe.

[malthaussen]

7. Well, that's easy.

Heinrich Himmler was not a rebel to his own country.

But let's be realistic, here. The men (and women) who rebelled against the U.S. and took up arms against her were excused and forgiven. There is no reason in law that their names can not be commemorated.

-- Mal

[Orsino]

8. General Lee actually did some atoning after the war. n/t

[Panich52]

9. Diff is that this country has a fetish for honoring military

Confederate officers like R E Lee & Stonewall Jackson were graduates of West Point. While that may enhance their crime of sedition, they were respected as brilliant military strategists even by Union officers.

On that, one may make a case for certain honors, at least in their home states. But for Confeds such as Davis and N B Forrest, no similar justiication can be made and I fully support erasing any hint of honor for them.

[okasha]

14. Lee dodn't commit genocide..

Himmler, U. S. Grant, Sherman and Sheridan did.

[edhopper]

16. It's not like he is responsible for more American deaths

than any person in history, is it?

[okasha]

35. No, it isn't.

That would be the US government responsible for the 250-years-and-still-counting war that has killed between 9 and 13 million Native Americans.

[edhopper]

47. point taken

does that make honoring Lee acceptable.

Does the continued legal discrimination against LGBT people make discrimination against black people acceptable?

[okasha]

49. Get back to me on Lee

when Grant's Tomb and all memorials to Sherman, Sheridan, Miles, and Andrew Jackson have been pulverized or melted down, and Jackson and Grant are off our money.

Here's something for you to think about. Everyone in this country besides white, affluent straight men endures discrimination. What justifies that?

[edhopper]

53. I disagree

you are still accepting the evil of the confederacy because there is other bad stuff.

bad argument.

that's all I have to say.

[okasha]

55. No, ed, I'm not

"accepting the evil of the confederacy."

I will thank you not to attribute to me words I've never said.

[edhopper]

56. you want it's symbols

And monuments to remain until the ones you don't like are also gone.

[okasha]

59. I never said that, either.

Keep trying, ed.

[edhopper]

60. But you said that is the issue

n a thread about confederate monuments.

Yes exactly what you said.

right back at you.

[okasha]

61. No, I didn't.

Once again, and for the last time, I will thank you not to try to attribute to me things I haven't said.

Have a good evening; this conversation, such as it is, is over.

[edhopper]

62. Yeah

you said it in #49.

Now your trying to worm out.

I can see why you want to end this. Good idea.

[leveymg]

25. Grant, Sherman and Sheridan committed genocide?

Perhaps, against the Native Americans.

[okasha]

27. Perhaps?

That is possibly the most morally vacuous and disgusting non-statement I've ever seen on DU.

[leveymg]

29. When I said perhaps, I meant I wasn't sure about Sheridan. On second look,

I see he was in charge of the US Army during the Great Sioux War and is reputed to have said, "The only good Indians I saw were dead." He also applauded the mass hunting of the Buffalo. On the other hand, he was one of the few ranking U.S. officers who really took Reconstruction seriously.

I did know about Grant and Sherman's record of war crimes against Native Americans.

[okasha]

36. Thank you for clarifying.

I appreciate that.

[B2G]

38. Like Native Americans don't count or something?? nt

[leveymg]

46. You don't read past the header, do you?

Much less the posts in the thread that follow.

[mwooldri]

15. It's wrong to use the Nazi comparison in this case.

We're talking about two different kinds of war here. The civil war was an internal war, fought among Americans. The latter was a war engaged by a madman intent on occupying Europe and beyond. In the civil war, there wasn't a mass extermination of people of a specific religious group or ethnic background, as there was in Nazi Germany and occupied countries.

There are roads, monuments, etc., named after British generals here in the USA - those who fought in the American Revolutionary War. Should these be removed too?

So a General Lee High School is OK with me, as is the Jefferson Davis Highway.

[TexasProgresive]

17. Why worry about a Lee High School when there are

these institutions of the U.S. Army; Fort Bragg, Fort Benning, For Hood, Fort Polk? All named for C.S.A. Generals, I think there is even a Fort Lee in Virginia.
General Braxton Bragg, General Henry Lewis Benning, General John Bell Hood, General Leonidas Polk,

[GP6971]

39. 9 Army posts are named after Confederate Generals

Ft A.P. Hill VA
Ft Benning GA
Ft Bragg NC
Ft Gordon, GA
Ft Hood TX
Ft Lee VA
Ft Polk LA
Ft Rucker AL (Colonel)
Ft Pickett VA

At one time, there were 13 forts named after Union Generals

[TexasProgresive]

40. Thanks, I knew there were more than my list

Those are the ones that reeled off the top of my head.

[Iggo]

26. Well, at first glance, because of all the genocide.

But I think I see what you're getting at.

[MohRokTah]

28. Point of order: More comparable to von Rundstedt High

There is no analogue for the SS in the Confederate Army.

[Warren Stupidity]

31. It isn't. It also is the same as Benedict Arnold Academy.

[NM_Birder]

33. Look at the resurrection of Joe Paterno's

legacy, and you will find the type of ignorant cheering section of idiots, that can deny the known years of child molestation plainly in his view .... all for the band to play the fight song to a winning team. They only see what they want to see.

same group that watches an ISIS video of peoples head being cut off,.... but can't condemn ISIS ................ can only "inform" how brutal Christianity was 400 years ago. It's pretty ironic what some will tolerate for the sake of believing they are right.

people on a mission can't see the reality of a situation because of their own personal objective,...... same is true for holding dear to the Confederate flag. I truly believe most people that want to keep it, are not wanting to keep it out of a racist black people hating culture. The Northerners were not innocent in the slave trade, but that is the part of history "Southern Haters" don't ever acknoqledge.

The one that always struck me as odd, was the term "African American". In the rush to label ourselves as "politically correct", or "sensitive" or what ever, nobody raised the point that 1-Not all black people are from Africa, AND 2-Not all people from Africa are black. Slowly "person of color" is now the accepted politically correct way of refering to a black person, but in order to clearly define a racist view ......... "white Hispanic" is perfectly acceptable, the fallout from someone being called a "white black" would be incredible....ironic isn't it ? A white 25 year old calls someone nigger, he is an ignorant racist, but a black 25 year old calls someone nigger, ...that's no problem. Even though BOTH 25 year olds have no concept of slavery, having BOTH been born in 1990.

I think the key to overcoming racism will come when " 85% of those surveyed believe the Confederate Flag to be a racist symbol " is a normal and everyday way of describing an issue. And we see the end of " Racist White Southerners, cling to the failed policy that allowed the righteous Northern Army to crush the bigoted white supremisist huckelberries in the civil war" Kardashian style reporting.

[Adrahil]

43. Lee =! Himmler

Lee was a military leader. Himmler was much more than that.

It would be more appropriate to compare Lee to, say, Erwin Rommel.

Never-the-less, I support renaming them. He did lead an armed rebellion against the USA, and was a traitor, IMO.

[winter is coming]

54. I think you're projecting present-day feelings about states and federal government on

mid-19th century people. Federal power and influence then was much less than it is now, and it was not clear whether or not states (colonies) that had agreed to join could secede. Communication and mobility was much less and there was a tendency to view one's state as a country rather than a part of a country. Some of those people you're labelling traitor for taking up arms against their country resigned their U.S. Army commissions because in their eyes, staying in the U.S. Army would mean taking up arms against their "country", i.e., their state.

Shelby Foote had an interesting observation: before the Civil War, people said, "the United States are" and afterwards, they said, "the United States is" with no awareness of the grammatical error.

[Adrahil]

64. Shelby Foote is a Confederate apologist.

I think he way overstates his case. There are plenty of references who referred to the USA as a single entity. And there are TONS of references to people believing the Confederates were traitors. Even some of the popular songs sung by soldiers refer to them as "traitors."

Confederates may have well felt a greater loyalty to their state, but it seems to me that this is mainly self-justification.

[winter is coming]

65. Calling Foote an apologist is a simplistic overstatement.

The point is, no one refers to the USA as anything other than a single entity now, whereas many (probably most) referred to it as a plural before the Civil War. Of course there were contemporary references to Confederates as traitors: it was a civil war, and there was plenty of propaganda on both sides. The South was enormously wrong about slavery, but their notion that states should basically be independent entities loosely confederated for common causes is more in keeping with how the founding fathers conceived of the US than what we have today. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, just that it wasn't a huge betrayal to believe that colonies which had joined together as a country less than a century earlier couldn't ever leave.

[DFW]

45. Here in Germany, my daughters went to a school named after a famous World War II person

Her name was Anne Frank.

My daughters went to the Anne Frank Elementary School.

[leveymg]

48. Germany had systematic de-Nazification. In America, the South rose again and controls the gov't

That was often remarked upon during the period of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, two sons of the South, who moved the United States to the Right, together.

[DFW]

50. The west did. The east did so in name only

Even in the west, some lower level Nazis managed to slip back into positions of responsibility (Filbinger, for example). The east, of course, copied the Gestapo with their Stasi, right down to their dreaded "secret" prisons and execution courtyards, their soldiers doing Nazi style goose-stepping, and their copying of the Nazi military uniform except for the helmet. I visited there often enough, spoke both German and Russian. VERY creepy place.

Don't compare the USA of the 1990s to anything like East Germany unless you also speak German and Russian (I do) and made a few visits to East Germany to friends who lived there (I did). You can't imagine what a place like that is without actually having visited. More than once, on the way back, they would pick out Westerners they observed speaking German (like me), and I spent more than one afternoon in cold interrogation rooms where I was the only without a gun, an East German uniform, or the right to stand up without permission.

By the way, Newt Gingrich is anything but a son of the South. He is an opportunist from Pennsylvania, now living in the Washington DC suburbs trying to peddle his scams to the unthinking. Georgia was a pit stop for him--a useful one, granted, but not any place he ever settled in. He hates Bill's guts, and the feeling is close to mutual.

[leveymg]

52. Here's my take on that.

My knowledge of post-war Germany and de-Nazification is based upon reading and long conversations with my Father-in-Law who was an agent handler with an alphabet agency who operated under NOC in Germany. With few exceptions, De-Nazification under McCloy and Clay skimmed only the top off the most prominent figures in West Germany. Even Adeneur was more concerned with the threat of Spartakists than the Nazis when he was purged from office in 1933. He was someone whom the Dulles Brothers could work easily with. As for the East and the Stasi, as I read the autobiography of Markus Wolf, the fanatical paranoia of the SED and DKP was not without its origins in a sense that the Soviet sphere offered the only reliable bullwark against Fascism. I think Fassbinder and the new wave of German Cinema later captured the ambivalence and underlying violence of Post-War politics in "Germany in Autumn."

As a Left of Center American growing up during that era in the New York area, I had plenty of contact with Red Diaper babies without being one myself. As someone involved with anti-war and related political organizations, I also has uncomfortable run-ins with the FBI and its infiltration agents. When the CIA tried to recruit me in college, I had to tell the recruiter no thank you, as the methods aren't sufficiently different from the other side. I was perhaps the only person I know who was approached by the FBI and the CIA for recruitment in the same year, and turned them both down. Howard Zinn, with whom I studied, thought that was a remarkable personal statistic.

As for political opportunists in both Parties, I've met too many, and have to again say, they aren't different enough.

[loyalsister]

51. There's a school named for Robert E. Lee in my city

It identifies as Lee Expressive Arts Elementary school. Meanwhile USS Grant elementary is a couple of miles west and Thomas Hart Benton elementary is a couple of miles north.

[Nye Bevan]

57. How is "Columbus, Ohio" any different from "Hitler, Poland"? (nt)

[oneshooter]

58. Would you support the bulldozing and destruction of confederate Graves? n/t

[Duppers]

63. You read my mind!

And I'm an old southern woman who's just sick of it all.