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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#275026: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:50:07 PM

Not cool Dukes of Hazard.

Not cool.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#275027: Mar 21st 2019 at 1:07:12 AM

(quote button shenanigans)
I'm banning all of you for this. tongue
Warren wants to remove all Confederate statues.

YAY!

And put them in museums....

Depending on the museum, that could be better - many museums would include the actual racist history of the statues' creation and purpose. Also, just to note, "put it in a museum" also includes the Smithsonean's warehouse where they can gather dust for the next century. But I got tired of the arguing about four pages ago, as long as they're torn down, I don't really care if they end up in a racism-is-bad display, a warehouse, or a recycling bin.
let's not throw four in a storage container, the rest in the paving machine, and pretend racism is solved forever because we got rid of the objects the racists made.
I don't think any of us, or including Warren, are proposing any such thing. But tearing down the statues, whether to destroy them or put them in museum storage, is at least a good step forward.
"Trump's border wall money may come at expense of schools for military kids"
And water treatment facilities, too. Because who cares if the troops get poisoned while at home, training. #SupportTheTroops as only the GOP can.
Where is the line between not oppressing someone and not helping them? Is welfare the same as charity?
Interesting questions, but this seems more like philosophy and less US Politics.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#275028: Mar 21st 2019 at 1:16:44 AM

[up][up] No joke, the problems with the Dukes of Hazard went right over my head until I saw the movie based on the show.

TobiasDrake Queen of Good Things, Honest (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Queen of Good Things, Honest
#275029: Mar 21st 2019 at 2:08:35 AM

To be fair, within the context of Lost Cause, the historical consensus is that it's bullshit and that the Civil War was about slavery. The problem is the southern states and other institutions refusing to acknowledge it.

Which is why preserving their version of history is bad.

You can take a statue down off a street corner in Racistf*ck, Georgia and put it in the Racistf*ck National History Museum, but who do you think is going to be staffing it? Designing the displays? Giving the tours?

These statues exist because we let the Lost Cause narrative grow and prosper. We didn't put our boot down on its throat then and it has grievously wounded our democracy. We need to do so now, not hand it a microphone and say, "I'm trusting you to tell the history right this time!"

EDIT: There is also the issue of the social media effect. People are uncomfortably sympathetic towards attractive people and these statues are of horrible people looking proud, confident, and full of swagger. Netflix recently had to actually release a statement asking people to please stop fantasizing about getting in serial killer Ted Bundy's pants after a documentary on him hit an awful Misaimed Fandom.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to be around for the "Sexiest Confederate General" viral meme. 15-year-old girls taking selfies licking Robert E. Lee's face and shit.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 21st 2019 at 3:27:37 AM

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#275030: Mar 21st 2019 at 2:29:07 AM

If you need a long Text on *why* the statue you preserved is bad you can just have the Text and a statue and just blow it up.

The context is history. The object itself is crap.

"You can reply to this Message!"
GoldenKaos Captain of the Dead City from Cirith Ungol Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
Captain of the Dead City
#275031: Mar 21st 2019 at 2:45:37 AM

If you don't preserve their version of history, by which I mean explicitly stating that they were liars who tricked people into believing a lie, it will happen again. People forgetting history, especially history about people rewriting history for their own goals, is what leads to history (the bad bits especially) repeating itself.

Melt down all the statues obviously.

"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
PhysicalStamina (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
#275032: Mar 21st 2019 at 3:49:32 AM

i still like my solution. Destroy them all, leave the heads of a few, put those in a museum, explain that they were once pat of statues erected during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s to intimidate black people. Build a propaganda wing if you need to.

There are ways to partially preserve these things without glorifying the Confederacy, but few people seem interested in exploring them.

It's one thing to make a spectacle. It's another to make a difference.
3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#275033: Mar 21st 2019 at 4:31:44 AM

You can preserve on why they are shitty without preserving them.

Not to Godwin, but it's kind of like arguing about keeping a big concrete swastika.

Some things are just too offensive too keep, especially when you can tell about them without having their physical presence.

"You can reply to this Message!"
AzurePaladin She/Her Pronouns from Forest of Magic Since: Apr, 2018 Relationship Status: Mu
She/Her Pronouns
#275034: Mar 21st 2019 at 4:50:20 AM

There are archives out of public site where you can store this stuff. That way, historians still get any access necessary to the few remaining statues and they don't get somewhere where they get to promote white supremacy to everyone.

Also, it leaves the grand bulk of the statues to melt or use as target practice or whatever people want to do with them. I like melting them, personally, you may yet get to recycle them into something better.

[up] Maybe true, but a primary source or artifact beats having a secondary one.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Mar 21st 2019 at 7:51:44 AM

The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#275035: Mar 21st 2019 at 5:21:17 AM

[up] Maybe turn them into something which would be useful for poorer communities.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#275036: Mar 21st 2019 at 5:21:26 AM

Like I said, the museum option sounds good except they're grossly unwieldy crap that will take up the space of other artifacts.

And there's tens of thousands of them.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
RainehDaze Figure of Hourai from Scotland (Ten years in the joint) Relationship Status: Serial head-patter
Figure of Hourai
#275037: Mar 21st 2019 at 5:23:00 AM

And if you want to keep some in a public exhibit, pick the worst ones.

[up] Nobody's saying "keep all of the things".

Edited by RainehDaze on Mar 21st 2019 at 12:23:28 PM

Avatar Source
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#275038: Mar 21st 2019 at 5:33:47 AM

[up]

I know but the problem is that the South is very good at re-framing the debate on these things. A lot of Southern Confederate apologia has been re-written for the modern era and is happening to this day.

The present treatment of the Civil War is already shifting to, "What a terrible tragedy these young men [fighting for white supremacy] suffered. We need to preserve our heritage [of slaving assholes] as well as remember the sacrifices made [to keep people in chains]."

I've heard "Heritage not hate" a shit ton of times. Here's some bullshit from the New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/19/does-the-confederate-flag-breed-racism/the-confederate-flag-is-a-matter-of-pride-and-heritage-not-hatred

It is obvious that some racists have appropriated and desecrated the Confederate battle flag for their pathetic causes, but those hateful folks also commonly display the Christian cross and the American flag. Do those symbols also inspire racism?''

Perceptions of the flag depend upon context. At a national cemetery or national battlefield it is seen in the historical context of the American Civil War. At popular re-enactments of that war’s events, or in films like “Gettysburg” or “Gone With the Wind”, it is seen in a theatrical context. In the television series “The Dukes of Hazzard” the flag on top of Duke boys car has been seen as a symbol of a non-racist Southern spirit by millions of viewers internationally.

To those 70 million of us whose ancestors fought for the South, it is a symbol of family members who fought for what they thought was right in their time, and whose valor became legendary in military history. This is not nostalgia. It is our legacy. The current attacks on that legacy, 150 years after the event, are to us an insult that mends no fences nor builds any bridges.

Recent scholarship such as “The Half Has Never Been Told, Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism” by Edward Baptist, and “Complicity, How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery” by writers of the Hartford Courant have shown that slavery was not the Southern sin, but the national sin.

We of Confederate ancestry would love to sit at Dr. King’s table of brotherhood with those who wish to demonize and marginalize us. That conversation is long overdue.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Mar 21st 2019 at 5:34:20 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Robrecht Your friendly neighbourhood Regent from The Netherlands Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: They can't hide forever. We've got satellites.
Your friendly neighbourhood Regent
#275039: Mar 21st 2019 at 5:36:36 AM

My point of view on Confederate statues as of this moment is:

Destroy every last one of them, if the historical record requires that documentation about their existence remains, there's a little thing we call a 'photograph' that can do that with a lot less space taken up.

Angry gets shit done.
RainehDaze Figure of Hourai from Scotland (Ten years in the joint) Relationship Status: Serial head-patter
Figure of Hourai
#275040: Mar 21st 2019 at 5:47:10 AM

Just see how bad Technology Marches On is for digital photographs, and how poorly photos keep compared to actual artefacts (or even portraits). That's an incredibly insecure way to store information long term.

Avatar Source
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#275041: Mar 21st 2019 at 5:50:03 AM

Oh my god can we PLEASE move on.

Soban Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
#275042: Mar 21st 2019 at 6:00:04 AM

CNN: Why Trump suddenly says public should see Mueller's report

Donald Trump, the President who refused to release his tax returns, just made an unexpected gesture towards transparency, saying he'd be happy for Americans to see Robert Mueller's final report.

His comment is probably worth taking with a large pinch of salt. After all, just last week, Trump tweeted "there should be no Mueller report."

The President, with his talent for shifting the terms of a debate, weighed in on the fate of Mueller's yet-to-be-filed final report before heading to Ohio on Wednesday.

"I don't mind. I mean, frankly, I told the House, 'If you want, let them see it,'" Trump said when asked whether the American public had the right to see the fruits of the special counsel's labors.

...

The CNN/SSRS poll released on Wednesday found that 87% of Americans believe that the Mueller report should be made public. Just 9% disagree.

...

"On the recent non-binding vote (420-0) in Congress about releasing the Mueller Report, I told leadership to let all Republicans vote for transparency. Makes us all look good and doesn't matter. Play along with the game!" Trump wrote.

Ultimatum Disasturbator from Second Star to the left (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Disasturbator
#275044: Mar 21st 2019 at 6:49:53 AM

Just leak the full report already!It's obvious that making it public is going to be an uphill battle that's being prolonged by Trump's administration

[up][up]

Edited by Ultimatum on Mar 21st 2019 at 1:50:23 PM

New theme music also a box
TobiasDrake Queen of Good Things, Honest (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Queen of Good Things, Honest
#275045: Mar 21st 2019 at 7:01:33 AM

God, they are so thirsty for an AOC scandal that they're trying to fear-monger over the way she pronounces her surname. The sheer desperation to try and smear a scandal-free Congresswoman that continues to be on display here is nothing short of amazing.

AOC: she dances and she's multilingual. That monster.

EDIT: I feel like they're actually Streisand Effecting her. For those that don't know, the Streisand Effect is the product of calling attention to something you don't want people noticing.

Barbara Streisand had a home in Malibu she wanted kept out of the public eye.After a paparazzi snapped photos of it, she instigated a lawsuit to sue him for the violation of privacy. This resulted in some asshole's photos on a website somewhere becoming front-page headline news, ensuring that everyone, everywhere would soon know about Streisand's Malibu home.

Republicans are so desperate to smear AOC that they keep shining a spotlight directly on her, giving her a platform to then rebuke them, walk away smelling like a rose, and maybe drop a few of her own political talking points while she has the public's ear.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 21st 2019 at 8:07:18 AM

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
Ultimatum Disasturbator from Second Star to the left (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Disasturbator
#275046: Mar 21st 2019 at 7:08:41 AM

they're probably surfing through her trash to find anything they can use,that's how desperate they are right now

New theme music also a box
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#275047: Mar 21st 2019 at 7:15:08 AM

[up][up]The fact that she's multilingual probably does freak out part of the GOP voter base.

A real American only speaks English after all. /sarc

Edited by M84 on Mar 21st 2019 at 10:15:37 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
ciyinwanderer Since: Dec, 2018
#275048: Mar 21st 2019 at 7:18:28 AM

Oh my god can we PLEASE move on.
~Me, five pages ago

I want to see the Mueller report. I want it to have as few redactions as possible. But I'm also willing to wait for it. It needs to be detailed, complete and unquestionably accurate.

If it comes out in bits and pieces then people will make assumptions based on the first info to come out and that'll take over the narrative even if later portions disprove it. Even as a whole it'll be scrutinized and cherry picked by both sides, but when it comes out it needs to be in its entirety.

Edited by ciyinwanderer on Mar 21st 2019 at 10:18:42 AM

“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands." ~Anthony Bourdain
ITNW1989 a from Big Meat, USA Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
a
#275049: Mar 21st 2019 at 7:18:59 AM

English? We don’t do none of that stuffy British baloney in this here country. Here we only speak American.

Hitokiri in the streets, daishouri in the sheets.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#275050: Mar 21st 2019 at 7:19:39 AM

[up]'Murica! <waves tiny American flag while munching on a hotdog>

Edited by M84 on Mar 21st 2019 at 10:20:05 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised

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