Ed Dueling protests spark state of emergency in Virginia.

[Henri McPhee]

I fully appreciate that this is a sensitive matter. It's partly due to the after effects of the American civil war. Robert E Lee was a great Confederate General. You can't just airbrush these people out of history by demolishing their statues. Have statues of Lincoln and Grant and Sherman been demolished?

There is a similar sort of problem in Bristol UK at the moment where black people are urging the Local Authority to demolish the statue of the extremely rich slave owner hundreds of years ago, Edward Colston, who had a couple of schools named after him, and alms houses and a Concert hall They want the names changed, besides closing most of the libraries. Call me old-fashioned but leave it as it is I say.

There was another controversy when the Queen Mother unveiled a statue a few years ago to 'Bomber Harris' of RAF Bomber Command during the second world war. I think it's having a sense of history to have such a statue.

This is from the internet about the matter:

Historian Madge Dresser from the University of the West of England tells the group, "The plaques on the statue demonstrate Colston's expertise as a trader and his charitable giving.
"But it's what the statue doesn't say that's so interesting.
"It doesn't say that a significant portion of his wealth was based on the labour of enslaved people."

 

[Thermal]

It is not.
Caveman insinuated that capitalism is the root cause of 300,000 deaths annually (in the USA, I think). Here is the argument chain:

1. He cited that poverty causes additional deaths (which is certainly true),
2. ...AND that capitalism is the reason for poverty;
3. THEREFORE capitalism kills 300,000.

What he didn't consider is the fact that non-capitalism makes people even poorer, and is correlated with even lower life expectancy, such that non-capitalism would kill much more than those 300K if it were the social system in the USA.
In turn, Caveman ought to have argued that capitalism, for pulling the poor up to higher levels of wealth and education than any sort of non-capitalism, actually SAVES lots of lives.

Great observation. I am a capitalist/business owner too, and occasionally work with Habitat for Humanity and church groups to help out others. The State also uses tax monies for a wealth of social programs, funded by us capitalist swine. The success of capitalists inarguably benefits those in need.

 

[Garrison]

Yeah, it's kind of like saying that the Allies were as bad at the Axis because they declared to war with them.

And I expect that those who came out to protest the removal of a monument to a Confederate general would be happy to make exactly that claim...

On topic despite all the rhetorical tap dancing you have an act of domestic terrorism carried out by a White Supremacist and an administration refusing to condemn it.

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

You can't just airbrush these people out of history by demolishing their statues.

That's not what the removal of the statues is meant to accomplish. It's simply a demotion of these individuals—and, by association, the ideals they stood or fought for—from places of honor.

I think it's having a sense of history to have such a statue.

Nonsense. That's what history books and classes are for. For instance, Japan doesn't have a statue of a mushroom cloud or Truman at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, because statues aren't meant to symbolize the terrible things.

 

[Beerina]

Is there some corollary of the Godwin rule that all Nazi threads quickly drift away from Nazis?

 

[Oystein]

... Robert E Lee was a great Confederate General...

...fighting for an unjust cause.

Hjalmar Schacht was an excellent central banker, Albert Speer an excellent urban planner, Adolf Eichmann an excellent burocrat, and the German Wehrmacht had many excellent generals - some historians consider it to have been among the best national militaries of the 20th century.

We don't keep monuments, streets or schools named after any of them, because clearly they all worked for an immoral regime and thus supported immense harm.

This is pretty straightforward, actually.

 

[Tony]

...fighting for an unjust cause.

Hjalmar Schacht was an excellent central banker, Albert Speer an excellent urban planner, Adolf Eichmann an excellent burocrat, and the German Wehrmacht had many excellent generals - some historians consider it to have been among the best national militaries of the 20th century.

We don't keep monuments, streets or schools named after any of them, because clearly they all worked for an immoral regime and thus supported immense harm.

This is pretty straightforward, actually.

Should we change the name of the month "July" because it is named after a genocidal dictator?

 

[Thermal]

I fully appreciate that this is a sensitive matter. It's partly due to the after effects of the American civil war. Robert E Lee was a great Confederate General. You can't just airbrush these people out of history by demolishing their statues. Have statues of Lincoln and Grant and Sherman been demolished?

There is a similar sort of problem in Bristol UK at the moment where black people are urging the Local Authority to demolish the statue of the extremely rich slave owner hundreds of years ago, Edward Colston, who had a couple of schools named after him, and alms houses and a Concert hall They want the names changed, besides closing most of the libraries. Call me old-fashioned but leave it as it is I say.
There was another controversy when the Queen Mother unveiled a statue a few years ago to 'Bomber Harris' of RAF Bomber Command during the second world war. I think it's having a sense of history to have such a statue.

This is from the internet about the matter:

Military effectiveness aside, why celebrate a military leader who was fighting for...nevermind.

 

[caveman1917]

An excellent sign. I hadn't heard of that, do you recall where and when? And did antifa leave after the neos cleared out?

Not really. It was somewhere in the US (obviously) and I think the nazi group which showed up was "traditional worker party" or something, and one or two other groups as well. It's about all I remember, it just caught my attention because it seemed such an odd scene with the Trump supporters fraternizing with antifa against the fash.

 

[casebro]

The only good thing to come out of Shemp is his avatar. Thanks for that Shemp.

 

[Oystein]

Great observation. I am a capitalist/business owner too, and occasionally work with Habitat for Humanity and church groups to help out others. The State also uses tax monies for a wealth of social programs, funded by us capitalist swine. The success of capitalists inarguably benefits those in need.

In the US spectrum of things, I am certainly quite far on the left, and surely advocate wealth re-distribution to maintain social peace and indeed fairness. For example, I advocate the effortless base income for all. Or negative income tax for the poor, or whatever you want to call it: Realizing that our capitalist societies are a) so rich we can simply afford to pull the poor up and b) so empathic we really want to do it. Everybody has a right to use their skills and hard work to become rich, but I don't see there's a right to become super rich just because your money gives you leverage over those not so fortunate.

In my opinion, the US political system has a terrible flaw: It is open exclusively to the very rich. The richest 0.2% of the country choose 98% of all the candidates for political offices. This gives the office holders an extreme incentive to benefit those already rich, to the detriment of the middle classes and the poor. So change that system! Trump is a symptom of this cancer.

So there. Leftist enough for you?

Still, I am in favour of capitalism. Just keep the capitalists from buying the political offices, and wealth will be distributed fairly. That is my creed.

 

[Beerina]

The only good thing to come out of Shemp is his avatar. Thanks for that Shemp.

I am triggered by the lack of an Oxford comma.

 

[Oystein]

...it seemed such an odd scene with the Trump supporters fraternizing with antifa against the fash.

Militant left (of which the organized, activist antifa is a part) is often really just the other coin of naziism. The extreme left and right warp over backwards and pretty much meet at the ends, where they share common hatred: Against Jews, against capitalism, against democracy.

 

[Thermal]

Should we change the name of the month "July" because it is named after a genocidal dictator?

I think it could be argued that Caesar did many things as an Emperor, good and bad. Lee only had one real claim to fame.

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Should we change the name of the month "July" because it is named after a genocidal dictator?

That question might have been more meaningful 19 centuries ago.

I don't think people currently view the name given to the fifth month of the year as a symbol for their particular hateful ideology or so-called heritage, so it's a bit of a non-issue at this point.

But, yeah... If we left these statues in place for another 19 centuries, I'm sure they'd lose their original symbolic association, too.

 

[Childlike Empress]

...fighting for an unjust cause.

Hjalmar Schacht was an excellent central banker, Albert Speer an excellent urban planner, Adolf Eichmann an excellent burocrat, and the German Wehrmacht had many excellent generals - some historians consider it to have been among the best national militaries of the 20th century.

We don't keep monuments, streets or schools named after any of them, because clearly they all worked for an immoral regime and thus supported immense harm.

This is pretty straightforward, actually.

Says someone who has a Haus Spiess, named after a Napoleon lackey, just around the corner in his little kaff. LOL

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

I am triggered by the lack of an Oxford comma.

I'm triggered by you not knowing what an Oxford comma is.

 

[Oystein]

Should we change the name of the month "July" because it is named after a genocidal dictator?

In an ideal world: Yes.
It is much easier to rename a street or a school, so let's start there.

"September", "October", "November", "December" (from the latin words for 7, 8, 8, and 10) are the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th months of our calendars. We ought to change that while we're at it.

"March" is named after the God of War. Away with it.

 

[Oystein]

Says someone who has a Haus Spiess, named after a Napoleon lackey, just around the corner in his little kaff. LOL

Ooh Putin's henchmen have my address - scary!

ETA: To call a communal clerk "a Napoleon lackey" is a little far-fetched, dontcha think? The main job was to secularize the state and introduce the Code Civil - both actually rather amazing, and utterly positive, improvements. Can you point out any harm that Mr. Spiess supported?

 

[Thermal]

In the US spectrum of things, I am certainly quite far on the left, and surely advocate wealth re-distribution to maintain social peace and indeed fairness. For example, I advocate the effortless base income for all. Or negative income tax for the poor, or whatever you want to call it: Realizing that our capitalist societies are a) so rich we can simply afford to pull the poor up and b) so empathic we really want to do it. Everybody has a right to use their skills and hard work to become rich, but I don't see there's a right to become super rich just because your money gives you leverage over those not so fortunate.

In my opinion, the US political system has a terrible flaw: It is open exclusively to the very rich. The richest 0.2% of the country choose 98% of all the candidates for political offices. This gives the office holders an extreme incentive to benefit those already rich, to the detriment of the middle classes and the poor. So change that system! Trump is a symptom of this cancer.

So there. Leftist enough for you?

Still, I am in favour of capitalism. Just keep the capitalists from buying the political offices, and wealth will be distributed fairly. That is my creed.

Yepper. Lousy voter turnout and lack of political involvement by the poorer folk sends the dominoes falling in ways that a lot of people don't appreciate. Maybe the poor are genuinely too comfortable to get politically active? Asked only slightly tongue in cheek.