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RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#274826: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:16:46 AM

Sure, keep a few so we can point to them as evidence of the lies, but that's as far as we need to go.

Well, yeah, keeping all of them is a bit ridiculous. But going the other extreme and keeping none is the problem.

CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#274827: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:20:59 AM

If we're going to reshape the mind and soul of the South, not a single one can remain.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#274828: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:23:03 AM

We could keep one and stick a big sign next to it saying RACIST LOSER PROPAGANDA.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#274829: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:25:31 AM

Speaking as a Southerner surrounded by these pieces of shit?

They are not history.

They are propaganda.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#274830: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:25:45 AM

Let's put it this way: Germany hasn't forgotten it's Nazi history. That doesn't mean that we didn't systematically remove Nazi signs all over Germany. Some we preserved, as a reminder, and turned them into a museum, but otherwise they got scrubbed from landscape as well as possible, and that includes street names.

And then we did the same in the 1990s with a LOT of the Soviet statues in East Germany. That's why Chemnitz is now Chemnitz again and not Karl-Marx-Stadt. We still haven't quite figured out a good way to preserve this part of history, but keeping monuments intact is usually not the way to go.

And, btw, I am pretty sure that the same people who wring their hands over the confederate statues cheered when the one of Saddam Hussain was pulled down.

Spain has currently its own struggle regarding what to do with what is left from the Franco regime.

I naturally don't have a say in it because I am not American, but if I had a say, I would vote for preserving only the ones which do have some sort of artistic merit and melt down everyone else (after photographing where it was positioned). Then I would take the "artistic" ones which are left, and design a museum with them and the photos of the destroyed statues which is designed to show what their purpose was and how they impacted people.

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#274831: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:28:13 AM

Some we preserved, as a reminder, and turned them into a museum, but otherwise they got scrubbed from landscape as well as possible, and that includes street names.

I'm fairly certain nobody here is proposing that we keep the things in place.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#274832: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:31:35 AM

[up] I'm fairly certain that I didn't claim that anyone HERE is proposing it. I am reacting to the usual argument of the "those are history" brigade.

RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#274833: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:31:51 AM

Oh, no, keeping the statues up and on location is not an option. They all need to be removed. The question is then do we demolish them all or do we keep some in museums as part of the 'and here's what 150 years of purposeful lies and racist propaganda looks like'.

Remember, we'll know what the statues were like even after the last one is taken down, because we'll live through the change. Putting some in museums will ensure that people in 2060 can see exactly what was being built in the US in 1960, and remember.

It's been fun.
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#274834: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:33:42 AM

[up] Aren't a lot of those statues identical anyway? I mean they are cheaply made, so I suspect that at least some of them are from the same mold. Is there a need to "preserve" more than one of them?

HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#274835: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:36:13 AM

Maybe just the ones built before the 1910s period when the "Lost Cause" theory got a lot of track as explained in the video above? No reason to keep anything more recent than that, really.

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#274836: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:37:17 AM

A lot of them were indeed made the same because they were made by the same company. Even better? A bunch of them are obviously statues of a Union soldier because the company made statues for both sides. They just changed USA to CSA on the straps.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#274837: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:39:47 AM

I mean, wouldn't it be more effective to have one them and behind them a map of the US which shows where this particular statue was erected? That would bring the point across way better than a museum with 100 statues (or how many there actually are of the mould in question.

HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#274838: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:48:19 AM

[up][up]Well, whatever you think of the ethics, can't say these guys weren't bussiness savvy.

[up]I think a picture is enough is that case, really.

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
#274839: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:51:12 AM

Can't we insert the heads of each statue up the anus of the next one, and make like a big ass-head conga line like a giant human centipede, only arrange it so that it looks like a giant penis from the sky, and stick that in the middle of Alabama somewhere?

"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#274840: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:56:39 AM

Don't think Senator Doug Jones would appreciate a giant Confederate dong in his backyard.

HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
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
#274842: Mar 20th 2019 at 9:59:41 AM

[up][up]Mississipi then, considering their flag.

[up]Just the first one that came to mind.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Mar 20th 2019 at 5:00:10 PM

"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#274843: Mar 20th 2019 at 10:05:53 AM

So I just googled the Mississipi flag and, gross.

And apparently it wasn't even the official flag for nearly a century: it was used de facto for 94 years before being adopted officially in 2001.

Because it bears repeating, gross.

Edited by HailMuffins on Mar 20th 2019 at 2:12:41 PM

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#274844: Mar 20th 2019 at 10:08:46 AM

I think Mississippi should REALLY honour history and go back to the Magnolia flag….

HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#274845: Mar 20th 2019 at 10:11:43 AM

They should just use the the design proposed in 2017.

Unless there's something wrong with it I'm not aware of, of course.

Looks dope, if nothing else.

Edited by HailMuffins on Mar 20th 2019 at 2:13:52 PM

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#274846: Mar 20th 2019 at 10:19:38 AM

Personally, I like the field of surrendered Lees idea, where you put all statues of Lee with legitimate historical value in a field at Appomattox NPS, with a bunch of interpretative exhibits, explaining the history and social context behind why people felt the need to make so many statues of a traitor.

Edited by megaeliz on Mar 20th 2019 at 1:23:27 PM

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#274847: Mar 20th 2019 at 10:20:13 AM

We could keep one and stick a big sign next to it saying RACIST LOSER PROPAGANDA.

Can it be this dumbass, specifically?

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#274848: Mar 20th 2019 at 10:45:24 AM

I'm personally in favor of hanging Participation Medals on all of them.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life

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