If we were to demolish statues of Robert Lee but not statues of Christopher Columbus

[Nye Bevan]

what kind of message would that send to Native Americans?

[malthaussen]

1. Once you start smashing statues, there's just no end.

As I mentioned in a different post, in Philadelphia stands a statue of George Brinton McClellan. I think that one should be demolished, too. Why should we honor mediocrity?

Cicero nailed it long ago: "I would rather people ask why there is no statue of Cicero, than that they ask why there is."

-- Mal

[Agnosticsherbet]

2. Washington and Jefferson owned slaves,

Perhaps we should destroy their monuments.

[NuclearDem]

3. That stupid talking point isn't getting any less stupid.

Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and everyone else in the damn Confederacy rebelled against the Union so they could keep owning human beings as property. The secession was about ducking away from the abolition movement in the rest of the country.

Washington and Jefferson didn't rebel against the British for the right to own slaves.

Now, can we put this ridiculous false equivalence to bed already?

[Agnosticsherbet]

5. Oh, I agree about Davis and Lee. I just want to know

Which historical leaders we should tolerate and who we dump.

So what do we do with the reviled former leaders monuments?

[PeaceNikki]

8. Columbus is an easy add to the "dump" list.

[Agnosticsherbet]

10. I think it is better to recognize the real contributions people made

Rather than their myths.

[PeaceNikki]

13. Columbus contributed nothing but being a pioneer in transatlantic slave trading.

[Comrade Grumpy]

29. That's a completely jaundiced view. He is a key figure in the creation of global capitalism.

Within 30 years of his initial voyage, Spaniards were initiating the trans-Pacific trade with China. The rest is history.

For better or worse.

[PeaceNikki]

31. At minimum, several hundred thousands were enslaved, tortured and died because of him.

Likely in the millions. Due to his need to perpetuate a system of imperial domination and greed. Genocide. That's fact, not a jaundiced view.

[Starry Messenger]

60. "He is a key figure in the creation of global capitalism."

Which was created by the slavery...kind of the same thing!

[oneshooter]

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

[PeaceNikki]

16. No, and that's quite a leap from, "stop honoring Columbus".

He was a genocidal maniac.

[SwankyXomb]

20. He only has the one talking point

and he's been spamming it on every thread he can today.

[PeaceNikki]

23. He thinks he's posting a real "gotcha" question to show what "monsters" we are.

[oneshooter]

27. Several posters have said yes.

Kind of scary.

[MADem]

34. Those people aren't "historical leaders" of the "United States of America."

They were traitors, in essence.

Our landscape isn't dotted with monuments and highways to Benedict Arnold, either.

It's just a lousy comparison. Hell, not to Godwin the conversation, but should we put up monuments to Hitler and Rommel, too? Hitler was a leader of a force we beat roundly after a crushing war, and Rommel was one helluva military strategist.

Put the better monuments in a museum, preserved so people can see them. Take the tacky knock-offs, melt them down, and hold a contest to create a monument that honors the slaves who did the heavy lifting building this nation. Incorporate the melted down statues into this new, improved monument.

Put THAT on the doggone mall in DC.

[seveneyes]

22. Everyone draws their own line

[jberryhill]

4. Christopher Columbus attacked the United States?

[PeaceNikki]

7. Columbus did horrible things to the indigenous people of this country.

He's no hero. The Catholics just wanted one so they made up cute bullshit stories about him.

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/10/14/8-myths-and-atrocities-about-christopher-columbus-and-columbus-day-151653

Also: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day

[jberryhill]

35. Yes, I understand that

what does that have to do with venerating symbols of enemies of the United States?

[RobertEarl]

6. The point is

Statutes and the like are regressive in that they are monuments to the horrid past.

Progressives, otoh, look to the future and build foundations for it, using sometimes, the rubble from the past.

History tells us where not to go and what not to do, other than that it is just rubble.

[Snobblevitch]

9. I would not be surprised to learn that

there are many statues of Lee. I wonder how many Columbus statues there are in the U.S.?

[HFRN]

11. once you outlaw monuments

only outlaws will have monuments

[Zorra]

12. Good point. Columbus should go too. nt

[morningfog]

14. So we should continue to honor Lee?

[edhopper]

24. That is the only point

This nonsense seems to make.

Ignore monuments for racist, treasonous people who wanted to keep sdlavery because other people were bad too.

But point that out and the reply is "that's not what I'm saying."

Well, what are the saying then?

[Starry Messenger]

17. Let's add him too. I'm game.

[City Lights]

18. Columbus has to go, too. nt

[philosslayer]

21. Good. I've always hated THE Ohio State.

n/t

[PowerToThePeople]

19. I agree, Columbus was bad.

This should be required reading for all liberals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People%27s_History_of_the_United_States

Columbus to independence

Chapter 1, "Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress" covers early Native American civilization in North America and the Bahamas, the genocide and enslavement committed by the crew of Christopher Columbus, and incidents of violent colonization by early settlers. Topics include the Arawaks, Bartolomé de las Casas, the Aztecs, Hernán Cortés, Pizarro, Powhatan, the Pequot, the Narragansett, Metacom, King Philip's War, and the Iroquois.

[edhopper]

25. what's the message

of honoring Lee, Ravi, Stonewall etc...?
What's the message of flying the confederate flag?

[kwassa]

26. well, unless native Americans cared about Robert E. Lee, it would send no message.

How about them Redskins?

[cherokeeprogressive]

28. Dude... we still allow the sale of Bacardi! Hell, rum in general should be banished!

And don't even GET me started on Aetna...

[bravenak]

30. The message to get sledgehammers? I say smash them alll! Smash all statues of racists!!!

We can blow them all up for all I care, every statue. George Washington? He had slaves, SMASH HIM! Jefferson? Same thing, SMASH HIM!! We can stop forcing young colored children to look up to our racist founders with doe eye innocence; I hated history class because our history is written for white people to feel good about all the terrible genocides and thefts and enslaving and murder and racism done in their name, done to give them a position of prominence. Smash the statues and start telling the truth.

[PeaceNikki]

32. This ^

[Spatened]

38. There are other issues besides race in history...

... To some at least.

[Kurska]

40. What about homophobic views?

Or misogynistic views?

You realize we'd end up smashing nearly every statue of a person from before 100 and very nearly 50 years ago right?

Or is it only race that deserves this historical judgment.

You may not value history or apparently even art, but many people do. It requires you to put people into their social context. I'm sure in 100 years from now your children's-children will damn you for doing some kind of intolerable thing like eating meat after we as a society evolve past it. I wonder if you'd be holding a sledgehammer to your own statue then.

[bravenak]

41. The op is related to race.

And since there were multiple genocides I decided that racist statues can be SMASHED. You can decide for yourself if you want other statues SMASHED. You can even write your own op, if you please.

[Kurska]

42. Nope, the equivalence behind the idea is clear.

Gays have been suffering a slow motion genocide for centuries in western culture. If you're going to put forth a moral position that X should happen because of Y, but not because of Z, you are saying that Y is more important than Z.

This the problem with activism, it goes off half-cocked without considering the full implications of what they are asking. Shakespeare wrote some of the most beautiful words ever in the English language, yet had several openly anti-semitic characters. Should we burn down the globe theater and smash his statues? Should we go as far as to burn his plays?

Either have the intellectual courage to face the obvious equivalence or admit you're just playing favorite with the issue that is most pertinent to you.

If there is some kind of decision to be made based on how bad their views were or their accomplishments, who gets to chair this committee of cultural demolition.

[bravenak]

43. No. You think I have to see the world on your terms.

I do not see the world through your lens, it is your job to state your positions and opinions and it is my job to state mine.
That is how I feel personally on a viceral level about the idea of honoring slave holders and rapists and holding them up to my daughters (who would have been prime stock as slaves) as their 'founding fathers' without bothering to tell the truth about slavery and their disgusting deeds. If you feel like writing a disseration on your subject of choice, be my guest. It is not my job to do what you feel like I should do in order to prove to YOU that I have intellectual courage. I am not amused with your bullshit.

[Kurska]

44. Everyone is required to hold logically consistent positions.

You're not holding a logically consistent position. You're judging historical figures on racism more harshly than you judge them based on homophobia or misogyny. I'm simply stating either you're ignoring the obvious parallel or that you think one issue is more important than the others.

Of course I judge all of them based on their views on those things, yet I also try to place them in their historical context. I can hardly fault someone for going along with the cultural zeitgeist, as I'm sure there are things I believe that will be viewed as ignorant and backward 300 years from now. I'm sure there is also things you believe that will be viewed as the same. Thats why I don't let Shakespeare's antisemitism ruin his work for me, because I understand that is simply how people thought back then. I don't excuse it and I'm aware of it, but I keep it in the context of his time.

[bravenak]

48. If people were ACTUALLY required to hold logically consistant positions, the world would be perfect.

And yes, I do have my issues that I am most interested in and pay attention to most of all.
We teach our children history and leave all the context out of it. We gloss over the bad parts. And since my people still suffer the after effects of slavery, I feel like smashing statues. I feel no attachment to the founding fathers and I'm sure you feel none towards Hitler. If I time traveled back there to meet the founders I'd be a slave and probably beaten for being uppity. I see them through that lens and that is my right as a black woman.

[Kurska]

49. You can feel like smashing statues.

I'm just saying to actually advocate it you need to understand the full logical implications of such a position.

[bravenak]

50. I'm unconcerned.

[Kurska]

51. People often are unconcerned.

Until they see the full possible consequences of their position.

[bravenak]

53. I'm just as concerned as the founders were concerned with preserving black bodies and lives

They did not care about the consequences of their position on slavery; they were not the ones to suffer.

[Kurska]

54. I don't think it is as simple as you portray it.

Many founding fathers were opposed to slavery.

[bravenak]

57. And Many held slaves. Rotated them in the white house to prevent them becoming free.

[Warpy]

33. Or of any of the Indian fighters immortalized in the west

for that matter, along with renaming Mt. Taylor Turquoise Mountain the way it was in a couple of different native languages and even teaching the whole story in our schools.

I remember touring the Kit Carson House the first time I came out here and I was struck by how primitive it was compared to the way people back home in New England were able to live in the 1880s and opined "no wonder he was such a bastard."

The Indians looked really shocked and then giggled. The docent just looked shocked. Yeah, my big mouth is always getting me into trouble. That day, it got me invited to a feast the following weekend, one I couldn't attend because I was just passing through.

Still, this country began with genocide, much of it passive through diseases the Europeans had no clue how to control, and then warfare, followed by indentured servitude and slavery.

We'll be all grown up when we acknowledge this. We'll also be unique in the world if we do.

[1939]

37. Jamestown and Plymouth

There is a historical thesis that the east coast Indians would have wiped out both of the early colonies except that contacts with European voyagers in the 16th century led to epidemics which seriously depopulated the coastal tribes. The colonists (and the French in Quebec) were greeted by the coastal Indians as possible allies against the stronger tribes of the interior where disease had not made such inroads.

[Warpy]

63. But disease had wiped them out

90% were dead within a few years of first contact. Patuxent had been abandoned, the Wampanoags taking the diseases with them as they fled from them, leaving the colonists cleared fields and shelter that they eventually spurned in favor of European style houses, animals on the first floor and humans in the loft, mud and wattle chimneys that burned the places down in a couple of years. The colonists fared better, only 50% succumbing to disease and starvation the first year until they got desperate enough to eat the food the locals slowed them was edible.

At that, the truce didn't last long, the cultures were just too different and the newcomers just too full of themselves and religious righteousness.

Of course, tribes at full strength would have kicked them out, especially fishing/farming/hunting tribes like the Wampanoags with their semipermanent settlements. Europeans desperate for land away from things like primogeniture and an aristocracy fixed in stone would likely have returned with military forces and fought their way in soon after. With superior hardware plus horses, they'd likely have won.

It would have been easier to abolish the aristocracy, but that didn't occur to them for a few hundred years.

[CBGLuthier]

36. Fuck Columbus, let's do something about that real asshole Andrew Jackson

Columbus was inevitable and a man who lived in ugly times.

Andrew Jackson was a murderous sickening prick responsible for the forced march of thousands. Fuck him. fuck his memory and fuck his skinny ass face on your money.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

58. He should be the one coming off the $20 bill, not Madison from the $10

[CBGLuthier]

61. Yep. Out of all those who grace our money he is the worst.

Franklin the best, followed by Jefferson and Washington. But it is Hamilton on the 20. Not a fan of democracy but some days I think he may have had a point when he told Jefferson that the people are a great beast. Aristocratic but we sure have a beats at large today.

[Pooka Fey]

39. Doing the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the USA, a nation with no culture (almost)

Well, Nye, you know as well as I do that once these things get going, they take on a momentum of their own. The smashing of violins will begin independently of the illogic of the message, i.e. parity between atrocities done to Indigenous Americans vs African Americans. But I hear you.

The Chinese had over one thousand years of culture to purge. In the USA, we have just over 300 years. It won't take long.

Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a social-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 until 1976. Set into motion by Mao Zedong, then Chairman of the Communist Party of China, its stated goal was to preserve 'true' Communist ideology in the country by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society, and to re-impose Maoist thought as the dominant ideology within the Party. The Revolution marked the return of Mao Zedong to a position of power after the Great Leap Forward. The movement paralyzed China politically and significantly affected the country economically and socially.

- Historical relics

-snip-

China's historical sites, artifacts and archives suffered devastating damage as they were thought to be at the root of "old ways of thinking". Many artifacts were seized from private homes and museums and often destroyed on the spot. There are no records of exactly how much was destroyed. Western observers suggest that much of China's thousands of years of history was in effect destroyed or, later, smuggled abroad for sale, during the short ten years of the Cultural Revolution.
-snip-

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Cultural_Revolution#Historical_relics

[LanternWaste]

45. Begin with small steps. Simply rename the Washington Redskins.

Begin with small steps. Simply rename the Washington Redskins and place a lithograph of this photograph on or near any monument to the confederacy... not merely does it deny destruction, it adds relevant historical historical context.

[Nye Bevan]

46. That photo also belongs on memorials to Washington and Jefferson.

Given that they each owned hundreds of slaves and did not free a single one during their lifetimes.

[LanternWaste]

47. I reiterate... begin with small steps.

I reiterate... begin with small steps. Allow the historically challenged to rationalize why a thing should be hated for later days.

[peacebird]

52. Statues & memorials should remain. The battle flag should NOT be endorsed by govt

Which means it should not hang in Capital buildings or grounds, should not adorn lic plates, should not be part of a state flag.

[earthside]

55. An absolutely horrifying thread.

An American Taliban of the left?

Purge, smash, delete from history anyone not politically acceptable to the so-called sensibilities of a certain faction of the leftwing?

Dangerous stuff ... and a political trap to start demanding a liberal orthodoxy and punish offenders.

[WinkyDink]

56. Who is doing the former? BTW: WHO calls Robert E. Lee "Robert Lee"??

[Nuclear Unicorn]

59. How about the statue of Lenin that's in Seattle?

The Soviets were just as evil, if not more so, than the Nazis.

[mwrguy]

62. Tear them all down

All the monuments to imperialist, racist fucks.

And rename everything named after them, except for a few landfills.

[LeftinOH]

64. Destroy every monument or building that doesn't fit

our current narrative... and you get this:

[eShirl]

65. I have yet to see a single statue of Christopher Columbus. n/t

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

66. Oh look. More trolling from you, pretending to be clever. nt