Jindal Wants To Block Removal Of Confederate Monuments In New Orleans

[struggle4progress]

By CAITLIN CRUZ
AUGUST 14, 2015, 9:46 AM EDT

... Republican presidential candidate and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is exploring his options to halt the removal of four Confederate monuments in New Orleans, including statues of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, the New Orleans Advocate reported Friday.

The New Orleans Historic District Landmarks Commission recommended removing the four Confederate monuments around the city on Thursday night.

“Gov. Jindal opposes the tearing down of these historical statues and has instructed his staff to look into the Heritage Act to determine the legal authority he has as governor to stop it,” Jindal spokesman Doug Cain said in an email to the New Orleans Advocate ...

The commission also voted to remove the Liberty Monument, which memorializes attacks by white New Orleanians on the state's biracial government during Reconstruction ...

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jindal-confederate-statues-new-orleans

[shenmue]

1. More poorly concealed pandering to the far right

[yeoman6987]

3. So silly. I've been to New Orleans numerous times

and never notice a single statue. Who cares about keeping them. Get rid of all statues. Waste of money anyway. Keep the ones on the Washington Capitol grounds and get rid of the rest all through the U.S.

[Elwood P Dowd]

6. Same here. Been there a few times and don't remember seeing one, and I

am a southerner from the deep south about 4 hours away. Maybe it was from listening to all the jazz and drinking too many adult beverages.

[yeoman6987]

8. Exactly. Don't go to NO to see statues

Have a good weekend!

[LuvNewcastle]

11. There are statues all over New Orleans.

I enjoy looking at all of them, but if New Orleanians find some of them offensive, they should have the power to take them down, as long as they're on city property. No matter how much I love that city, I think the people who live there should have the final say about what stays and what goes.

[Katashi_itto]

15. I live in NOLA. There are lots of statues here. But really don't

care if they are removed. Waste of money to remove them and they are of historic significance if placed in proper context.

General Lee Monument


I agree about the removal of Confederate flags though, the flags are an ongoing racist symbol, that has been given countenance by the states.

Seriously NOLA has a ton of more important problems to deal with.

[Sherman A1]

2. Unless they are state monuments

I doubt he has any standing in the matter. That said, such never bothered members of the GOP in the past, soooo Proceed Governor.

[JI7]

4. jindal wants a pat on the head from racist whites

[TlalocW]

5. He is definitely catering to the right wing

He wants to be able to stand up and say something like, "While my colleagues all talk a good fight, I'm the only one on stage that actually fought against the federal government on same-sex marriage, defunded Planned Parenthood, and worked to save Confederate history."

It's too bad for him that republicans are never going to vote for a non-white guy for president, especially after 8 years of full-on Obama hate.

TlalocW

[smirkymonkey]

10. Definitely a self-hating Indian.

Sad.

[struggle4progress]

7. Law Cited By Jindal To Keep Confederate Statues Doesn't Even Exist

ByCAITLIN CRUZ
AUGUST 14, 2015, 4:45 PM EDT

... Jindal's office told the Advocate newspaper on Thursday that the presidential candidate was exploring his options to halt the removal of four Confederate monuments in New Orleans.

“Gov. Jindal opposes the tearing down of these historical statues and has instructed his staff to look into the Heritage Act to determine the legal authority he has as governor to stop it,” Jindal spokesman Doug Cain said in an email to the newspaper.

But according to the Advocate, no such "Heritage Act" exists in Louisiana ...

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bobby-jindal-heritage-act-confederate

[struggle4progress]

9. As city committees call for Confederate monuments’ removal, state GOP leaders seek ways to block it

BY JEFF ADELSON, WILL SENTELL AND JAQUETTA WHITE
Aug. 14, 2015

... as the issue wends its way through the city’s processes, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s staff is researching ways to block the plan, three of his potential successors have come out against it and the state Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism has suggested at least one statue might be out of the city’s jurisdiction entirely.

The last claim, in particular, could create a thorny issue for city officials as they move forward with Landrieu’s proposal to use a city ordinance that allows the council to remove statues from city property that are declared a “nuisance.” That designation can be applied to monuments that honor ideologies that conflict with the equal protections provided by the U.S. Constitution or support racial supremacy.

Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, who is one of the Republican candidates running for governor and who opposes the removal of the statues, said Friday that his staff is looking into the ownership of all four monuments. While three appear to be owned by New Orleans — which would mean their fate is up to city government — he said evidence so far points to the Beauregard statue being the property of City Park, which is technically a state park under Dardenne’s office and overseen by an independent board ...

At the very least, that ownership would require officials in Dardenne’s office to produce a report on the historic significance of the statue if the city tries to remove it; the report would then be sent to the federal government for review. But it could also mean the city could not use the nuisance ordinance to remove it because that law deals specifically with statues on city property ...

http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/13180254-172/as-city-committees-call-for

[yellowcanine]

12. He wants to keep rebel monuments but get rid of Planned Parenthood.

Okay.

[LuvNewcastle]

13. Jindal probably never carried New Orleans

in an election. He just wants to stick a finger in the city's eye. I would hate to see the statues destroyed, but I think if residents want them removed, they should be. Maybe they could auction off the statues for the city or for charity? Or maybe there's a museum that would like to have them.

[yellowcanine]

14. Some of that bronze might be worth a bit melted down.

The city could use the money. Just sayin. FWIW here is Robert E. Lee on Confederate flag and monuments.

Lee did not want such divisive symbols following him to the grave. At his funeral in 1870, flags were notably absent from the procession. Former Confederate soldiers marching did not don their old military uniforms, and neither did the body they buried. “His Confederate uniform would have been ‘treason’ perhaps!” Lee’s daughter wrote.

So sensitive was Lee during his final years with extinguishing the fiery passions of the Civil War that he opposed erecting monuments on the battlefields where the Southern soldiers under his command had fought against the Union. “I think it wiser moreover not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavoured to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered,” he wrote.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/15/even-robert-e-lee-wanted-the-confederate-flag-gone.html

But as the article points out, there can be a fine line between wanting to bind up the wounds of civil war and historical revisionism, which Lee may have have crossed. So some display of these artifacts in a museum with accurate interpretative commentary seems appropriate. But do we need to keep the more egregious ones, I wonder, such as statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest? Maybe just take pictures and then melt them down?

[LuvNewcastle]

18. When I see a statue, what the statue represents

is really secondary. I look at it and see whether it's quality work first, and then I think about whether the work is equal, below, or transcends the subject.

Some of the works are undoubtedly good, but many of them are hideous as well. I guess it would be up to the individual to see whether the work suited him or not, which is why I was thinking that they could auction off the statues. Put the statues in private hands and on private property if they're too controversial for city property.

One thing that does concern me though is how far they would go when deciding which statues can stay and which ones can't. Probably the most famous statue in the city is the one of Andrew Jackson on his horse in Jackson Square. Jackson killed a hell of a lot of Indians and he was a slave owner. Jean Lafitte was a slave trader. If you go through a city picking out statues of men, who are all flawed, you'll find a reason to tear them all down.

I agree that there really isn't anything good about Forrest, though. If they sell that one, they should be careful who they sell it to. It would suck if the Klan bought it and honored it when they burn their crosses or whatever they do. Lee wasn't as bad as some of the others, but as you pointed out, he probably wouldn't have wanted the statue made in the first place.

It's a hell of a mess to sort out, but if that's what they want to do now, then it's their prerogative. I'd just hate to see good works thrown away or melted down because of some phase the public might be going through at this time. Perhaps they should do away with some of them and commission statues of prominent minorities to replace them, depending upon the neighborhood. I don't want to see the end of public art, but I'm afraid that if we're too critical of all the monuments we have, there will be none left standing.

[yellowcanine]

20. Melt down N.B. Forrest and make a Nat Turner statue out of it.

Now there's an idea.

[LuvNewcastle]

22. I could go for that.

[Katashi_itto]

16. Nobody in New Orleans would vote for Jindal unless they are RW nutjobs

I live in NOLA. Seriously he's as popular as the plague here. He just annihilated the Film Industry here a month ago.

40 Productions just moved to Georgia.

[LuvNewcastle]

19. I heard about that.

I live in Biloxi, and our local news said that we might be seeing more films made on the coast because of that. It sickens me that Jindal can run for President with a straight face. I think y'all should throw rotten eggs at him every time he shows his face in Louisiana. Our governor isn't much better. All Jindal's doing is running to get the Koch money, knowing all along that he doesn't have a chance in hell. We have awful people in control of our country, and I don't know if we're going to get the chance to do anything about it.

[Katashi_itto]

21. I totally agree. Frankly I don't see anything but a downhill slide for

the country

[Laxman]

17. There's No Pandering Better....

than ignorant pandering! Yes, New Orleans. Heart of the Confederacy. Oh no, maybe not. The city was occupied very early in the Civil War and remained firmly in Union hands for the duration. They've got a museum with a pretty good collection of Civil War items. They've got the obligatory giant Robert E. Lee statue. Union General Benjamin Franklin Butler had more of a connection to the city than Lee. This was no hotbed of the rebellion. This was an occupied port city that served as a key choke point in strangling the confederacy's war efforts. You want to put up a Civil War monument-put one up that commemorates THAT!