Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 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.
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.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."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
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
That's so evil that it makes me giggle.

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