The removal of statues

[KeepTalking]

It's easy to destroy. It's hard to create. I'm always on the side of art and artists. At least if they're any good. Bad art I don't care about.

Y'know this last sentence pretty much undermines everything you've been saying in this entire thread.

Ok, please explain what you mean.

That statement implies that art you do not care for (i.e. "bad art") can be taken down simply based on your not caring for it. The people protesting these statues think they are bad art, they don't care for it, so they, like you, think that it is perfectly fine to take down these examples of bad art. Yes, you have in fact scuttled your entire argument with those two sentences.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Post #39

Since that post I've come to realize (thanks to Dr Zoidberg) that I was so wrong. I failed to see the multifaceted significance and benefit to future historians and art aficionados.
View attachment 12213
And actually it would be so relevant to today. He really could represent the disenfranchised black man in America.

You people don't understand - Saddam was a bad guy, but Confederates were good guys.

Also, did the Iraqis tear the statues down? I recall seeing videos which seem to imply that had happened, but there were few actually involved in taking down a statue. It was more propaganda from the W Admin showing how awesome they were and how Iraq was totally a great idea!

 

[blastula]

I fucking hate this and the importance we give to decedents of famous people. Stonewall Jackson was a historically significant person. His children and grandchildren are not. They're just random regular people. We shouldn't give their words any more weight than anybody else's.

Who cares what these people think?

I was once given a painting painted by a son of Picasso. It was a shit painting. Also, while painted by a Picasso, not painted by the Picasso who counts. I mostly felt bad that they'd paid good money for that shit.

You can't just dismiss their words because of who they are. What was wrong with what they said?

 

[Treedbear]

...
Also, did the Iraqis tear the statues down? I recall seeing videos which seem to imply that had happened, but there were few actually involved in taking down a statue. It was more propaganda from the W Admin showing how awesome they were and how Iraq was totally a great idea!

... We pulled down the statues of Saddam Hussein for the benefit of the Iraqi people and we should do the same for the unfairly disadvantaged minority in own country. ...

 

[Elixir]

From FB:

"Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments."
~ Donald J. Trump

 

[southernhybrid]

Please excuse me if this has already been mentioned since I didn't read this entire mess of a thread, but Robert E. Lee himself would likely be in favor of removing these hateful statues.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/16/us/robert-e-lee-statues-letters-trnd/index.html

Three years later, Lee was invited to a meeting of Union and Confederate officers to mark the placing of a memorial honoring those who took part in the battle of Gettysburg.
"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," he wrote in a letter declining the invitation.
But that didn't stop civic and heritage groups from erecting numerous monuments to Lee, commander of the Confederate armies during the Civil War, after his death in 1870.
Now, however, most of those memorials are under fire by those who see them as symbols of America's dark legacy of slavery.

There are numerous news articles about his objection to statues memorializing the Civil War. Since these monuments were built many years after that war was over, it's quite obvious to any open minded person, that the sole purpose of these monuments was to celebrate racism. So, you can say what you want about Lee, but he at least knew it wasn't a good idea to celebrate those who lost a very controversial war, one that was based on wanting to form a new country that gave its blessing to enslaving and treating black folks as chattel. I personally can't understand why any enlightened person would want to keep up these ugly symbols of racism and that includes that horrible mess on the side of Stone Mt. Georgia. Can we at least carve a big line through it to say that we don't approve of what it stands for?

Tearing down these atrocious things has nothing to do with revisionist history. We all know about the racist history of the US. We can read even more shocking truths about it in books like "White Rage", by Carol Anderson, Phd. As a white person, I try to learn as much as possible about how my country mistreated our black citizens throughout our history and I certainly see nothing positive in celebrating some of the worst elements of our racist past.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Yeah, but you could barely turn your head in Baghdad without bumping into a Saddam statue. It's one thing being reminded of history. It's another when history is constantly shouting in your ear and poking you in the face. Also, Saddam didn't represent any kind of significant movement. He was just himself and his cronies. His statues now mostly just represent that dictatorships is bad. Yeah... not profound.

Umm ... no.

The pulling down of Saddam's statues wasn't motivated by the number of statues he'd had built around town. It was motivated by what the statues represented - the celebration of the oppression and death that Saddam used to hold power over his citizens. If Saddam had made one statue which got pulled down or a thousand statues which got pulled down, the rationales behind the behavior would have been the same. There would have been no conversation along the lines of "Yay, we're free now. Let's keep this one statue of himself which our former dictator up in that park over there as a memory of this historical period". They would have gone over to that park and pulled it down because they didn't want a celebration of the man's oppression and death remaining in their city - regardless of how in their face it may or may not have been.

Similarly, the Confederacy represents the oppression and death of a group of people because of their skin colour. The motivations behind it are still an open wound in America and those statues are a celebration of that oppression and death.

You're really reaching here. I can think of loads of things the Confederacy represents other than that. I don't claim that it's still not an open wound in America. But letting the racists have 70 (racist) statues... in all of USA... it's barely any. USA is big.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Please excuse me if this has already been mentioned since I didn't read this entire mess of a thread, but Robert E. Lee himself would likely be in favor of removing these hateful statues.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/16/us/robert-e-lee-statues-letters-trnd/index.html

Three years later, Lee was invited to a meeting of Union and Confederate officers to mark the placing of a memorial honoring those who took part in the battle of Gettysburg.
"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," he wrote in a letter declining the invitation.
But that didn't stop civic and heritage groups from erecting numerous monuments to Lee, commander of the Confederate armies during the Civil War, after his death in 1870.
Now, however, most of those memorials are under fire by those who see them as symbols of America's dark legacy of slavery.

There are numerous news articles about his objection to statues memorializing the Civil War. Since these monuments were built many years after that war was over, it's quite obvious to any open minded person, that the sole purpose of these monuments was to celebrate racism. So, you can say what you want about Lee, but he at least knew it wasn't a good idea to celebrate those who lost a very controversial war, one that was based on wanting to form a new country that gave its blessing to enslaving and treating black folks as chattel. I personally can't understand why any enlightened person would want to keep up these ugly symbols of racism and that includes that horrible mess on the side of Stone Mt. Georgia. Can we at least carve a big line through it to say that we don't approve of what it stands for?

Tearing down these atrocious things has nothing to do with revisionist history. We all know about the racist history of the US. We can read even more shocking truths about it in books like "White Rage", by Carol Anderson, Phd. As a white person, I try to learn as much as possible about how my country mistreated our black citizens throughout our history and I certainly see nothing positive in celebrating some of the worst elements of our racist past.

A man's memory is public domain. Lee doesn't get to decide what happens to his likeness after his death. Nor does he get to decide how he is remembered. I'm sure Hitler would be livid if he saw how he was remembered. I'm sure he would have loved to be remembered as a cuddly and lovable defender of his people. Too bad those who came after him had other plans. Nobody cares what Hitler thought about it and we shouldn't care what Lee thought about it either.

 

[DrZoidberg]

You people don't understand - Saddam was a bad guy, but Confederates were good guys.

Also, did the Iraqis tear the statues down? I recall seeing videos which seem to imply that had happened, but there were few actually involved in taking down a statue. It was more propaganda from the W Admin showing how awesome they were and how Iraq was totally a great idea!

I googled. There's quite a few of Saddam's statues still standing. The reason is that there is so many and removing them costs money and the Iraqi state have prioritised other things. But they are slowly getting eroded from vandalism. His biggest one in Baghdad has been left standing.

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1029504

I doubt there's any Iraqi who has any love for Saddam. Even his own family hated him

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Umm ... no.

The pulling down of Saddam's statues wasn't motivated by the number of statues he'd had built around town. It was motivated by what the statues represented - the celebration of the oppression and death that Saddam used to hold power over his citizens. If Saddam had made one statue which got pulled down or a thousand statues which got pulled down, the rationales behind the behavior would have been the same. There would have been no conversation along the lines of "Yay, we're free now. Let's keep this one statue of himself which our former dictator up in that park over there as a memory of this historical period". They would have gone over to that park and pulled it down because they didn't want a celebration of the man's oppression and death remaining in their city - regardless of how in their face it may or may not have been.

Similarly, the Confederacy represents the oppression and death of a group of people because of their skin colour. The motivations behind it are still an open wound in America and those statues are a celebration of that oppression and death.

You're really reaching here. I can think of loads of things the Confederacy represents other than that. I don't claim that it's still not an open wound in America. But letting the racists have 70 (racist) statues... in all of USA... it's barely any. USA is big.

Well, the members of the Confederacy would disagree with you about what they represented because the Slaveholding States were extremely clear and straightforward about who they were and what they represented.

Also, letting the racists have a lot of statues is a bad thing and it really doesn't matter how spread out those statues are. If someone put up a statue of Jeffrey Dahmer, would you say that the parents of the people he ate need to man up and get over it because his cannibalism was part of the city's history?

 

[blastula]

Yes, the racists want to spread their white supremacist propaganda by memorializing confederate figures. We should try to stop those memorials when we can. DrZ, you've presented nothing that successfully rebuts that position.

Oh and I don't know where you got the number 70, but There Are Still More Than 700 Confederate Monuments In The U.S. | FiveThirtyEight. As if 70 was a small number anyway.

 

[Keith&Co.]

But letting the racists have 70 (racist) statues... in all of USA... it's barely any. USA is big.

You never did explain why 'letting the racists keep their statue(s)' is a thing?
We're not supposed to be a racist country. There's little area for a compromise position between 'a big melting pot' and 'kill the Jews!'
So, on what basis do the racists get to keep 'their' statue on land that belongs to us?

They CAN put their memorials on private property. THey do. I can't say boo if a neighbor has a confederate flag on his truck, his belt buckle, or his lawn. Or a Nazi flag. Or a picture of Pepe.
I CAN make a fuss if he tries to fly it out of his window at his courthouse job...

 

[DrZoidberg]

But letting the racists have 70 (racist) statues... in all of USA... it's barely any. USA is big.

You never did explain why 'letting the racists keep their statue(s)' is a thing?
We're not supposed to be a racist country. There's little area for a compromise position between 'a big melting pot' and 'kill the Jews!'
So, on what basis do the racists get to keep 'their' statue on land that belongs to us?

They CAN put their memorials on private property. THey do. I can't say boo if a neighbor has a confederate flag on his truck, his belt buckle, or his lawn. Or a Nazi flag. Or a picture of Pepe.
I CAN make a fuss if he tries to fly it out of his window at his courthouse job...

Person A can have a statue that honours those dead for a lost cause. Person B can have a racist statue. Person C can have a statue commemorating men on horses. Person C can have a statue honouring bearded men. Person B can have a statue commemorating the end of slavery. It's the same statue!

Symbolism is something we project onto a statue. It's just a statue. A beautiful statue at that. The Lee statue is smashing. The same statue can mean different things to different people. And this one has been around for nearly a hundred years. That makes it historically significant. Even more reason to keep it

 

[Keith&Co.]

Person A can have a statue that honours those dead for a lost cause. Person B can have a racist statue. Person C can have a statue commemorating men on horses. Person C can have a statue honouring bearded men. Person B can have a statue commemorating the end of slavery. It's the same statue!

Are persons B and C schizophrenic?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Person A can have a statue that honours those dead for a lost cause. Person B can have a racist statue. Person C can have a statue commemorating men on horses. Person C can have a statue honouring bearded men. Person B can have a statue commemorating the end of slavery. It's the same statue!

So, that's the mechanism for HOW i could let Racists keep their racist statue....
But i was asking why? Why do you offer 'the racists can keep their statue' as something other than a reason to tear the thing down and burn it in a fusion microwave?

 

[Ford]

You know the name Benedict Arnold, right? Quick quiz:

How many Benedict Arnold statues are there in the US?

The answer is zero. He has not been "erased" from history just because he doesn't have a statue. In fact he's the most famous traitor in our history. Next question?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Person A can have a statue that honours those dead for a lost cause. Person B can have a racist statue. Person C can have a statue commemorating men on horses. Person C can have a statue honouring bearded men. Person B can have a statue commemorating the end of slavery. It's the same statue!

Are persons B and C schizophrenic?

ha ha. I meant D and E

They should raise another statue next to Lee commemorating his less evil twin

- - - Updated - - -

You know the name Benedict Arnold, right? Quick quiz:

How many Benedict Arnold statues are there in the US?

The answer is zero. He has not been "erased" from history just because he doesn't have a statue. In fact he's the most famous traitor in our history. Next question?

Lee was once honored with a statue. People were once really racist and into that shit. That is the interesting history. The people who raised that statue are more interesting than Lee himself. Why was the Lee statue raised and not Benedict Arnold? That is interesting.

 

[southernhybrid]

Good grief, Dr. Zoidberg! If you believe in the better principles found in Democracy, then these statues should come down, since the representatives of the cities where some of these things exist have voted to remove them. Those who have objected are often from other places. Why should some neo Nazis and white supremacists from Ohio or any other state get to tell the people in Virginia that they can't remove an obnoxious symbol of slavery?

And while it's true that Robert E. Lee didn't get to choose how he would be remembered, the fact that he was against such symbols of the civil war should at least be a lesson for the rest of us. Apparently, despite his traitorous behavior, he had enough wisdom to realize that the leaders of lost wars shouldn't be celebrated by erecting monuments to honor them. We will never completely end racism, but we don't need symbols that celebrate and enable it either. It's long past due to put something more positive and unifying in their place.

 

[Keith&Co.]

How many Benedict Arnold statues are there in the US?

The answer is

One.
It commemorates the battle he got shot in, that he got promoted to general for.
The statue honors THAT battle, though. Not the entire history of Arnold.
And it doesn't bear Arnold's name.

A story tells that he asked a prisoner what the Rebels would do if he was taken by them.
"They will cut off the leg which was wounded when you were fighting so gloriously for the cause of liberty, and bury it with the honors of war, and hang the rest of your body on a gibbet."

 

[repoman]

Random ideas,

If they were some smoking gun letters between the signers of the Declaration of Independence that the Somerset v Stewart ruling gave strong motivation to kick out the Brits before slavery was declared illegal, would that not put them in the exact moral standing as racist, money motivated traitors?

I really do NOT like the unqualified use of the word traitor being thrown around and I don't understand why lefties here are so eager to use it. It is because it was done for immoral, selfish and monetary reasons that traitor deserves the invective here. If America turned into an alt-right country would the leaders of a secessionist California be traitors?

If Benedict Arnold had a long list of letters (predating his treason) extolling abolitionist views (I have no idea of his views) and hoping Somerset v Stewart became law here, would that justify a statue of him?