A group is calling for a boycott of New Orleans and Louisiana over Confederate statue removal

[IronWing]

Lee had lovely nails.

 

[zinfamous]

The statues should never have been allowed to stand, just as the confederate flag should never have been allowed to fly over any government facilities at any time. EVER.

Not because "slavery was bad" or any other such touch-feely reasons. No. Neither of those things should ever have been allowed because these were rebels that fought and killed their fellow Americans in open rebellion, plain and simple.
Put in in your backyard, fly the flag on YOUR flagpole, put a bumper-sticker on your truck. I don't care. The first amendment allows you to have bad taste.

Sedition should never be rewarded with government sponsored statues, monuments, and flags of the traitorous.

See, you guys let the South get away with such things all these years because we hold all the BBQ. What you guys call "BBQ": dessicated hotdogs on a dinky grill, is really just a disgrace.

Also:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/24/americas-most-political-food

This one's for highland!

 

[werepossum]

Lee had lovely nails.

Yes, but they were press-on.

Well . . . that's what I heard.

 

[werepossum]

You might want to read an earlier post of mine. What could be worse than slavery? How about a long term genocide that the Germans and Turks could only dream of in terms of scale. Yeah those Cherokee ancestors who died by the heroes of this nation including the North. Jackson, Washington, every politician who let uncounted gallons of blood spill for land, those who promised fair compensation and herded innumerable to death and despair. Terrorists? The US government engaged in willful wholesale injustice to the point of mass murder. Effectively DC is a monument to slaughter. Shall we tear it down stone by stone? So it would seem and nothing you can say mitigates the action, hands of the North and South stained forever in blood.

If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? Our lives matter or mattered too.

It would be difficult to find any nation whose background does not include similar atrocities. Ask an Ainu, or a Pict. But it seems to me that there is a huge difference between a monument to specific noble actions or individuals within that government (even admitting that neither the government nor the individuals were or are perfect) and a monument specifically honoring such shameful activities, or honoring persons engaged in them. We can and should pick and choose among people and actions to honor with monuments. Yes, Native Americans were treated much worse than were Africans. That in no way justifies honoring the worst official treatment of the Africans, most of whom were also born in America.

In my opinion, Civil War battlefield monuments should not be of any Confederate persons; let us be content with simple engraved statements of who fought, when, and the results. We should not honor the sacrifice of those who fought for an evil cause any more than we would honor Americans who fought with honor for Hitler or even for the Kaiser. The cause for which one fights is even more important that one's behavior in that fight, in my opinion anyway. And that's a Southerner speaking.

 

[theeedude]

Where are the monuments to the victims of slavery and white supremacists?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Where are the monuments to the victims of slavery and white supremacists?

https://www.google.com/search?num=1...0.0..0.0....0...1..64.serp..0.0.0.Wop3w5FCa5I

 

[xthetenth]

From what I read in your link it's saying something different. It seems to be saying that Rommel's military prowess was exaggerated, which could certainly be true, but I was referring to his lack of war crimes. As for the whole 'clean Wehrmacht' thing, I think basically everyone knows that's bullshit. From my knowledge at least is is fair to say that Rommel was not implicated in the atrocities associated with Nazism. My guess is that he wasn't completely clean, but in a war like that I imagine almost no one was.

This isn't to laud Rommel or anything, as my whole point was to criticize both men. They seemed to be overall decent soldiers who committed themselves to deeply evil regimes. I wouldn't find a statue commemorating Rommel to be any more appropriate than a statue celebrating Lee.

Okay, I'm specifically referring to things like coordinating with the einsatzgruppen in North Africa. I linked the wrong thing. Sorry.

https://np.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4tuviz/is_it_true_that_erwin_rommel_was_kind_to_his/
https://np.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4tuviz/is_it_true_that_erwin_rommel_was_kind_to_his/

In Tunesia, the situation is more clear. Here Rommel collaborated closely with the Einsatzgruppe North Africa under Walter Rauff of gas van fame. Rommel worked closely with Rauff in using Jewish forced laborers to build fortifications for the German army and in constructing over 30 concentration camps in Tunisia where more than 2500 Jews perished during the German presence there. Furthermore on July 20, 1942 Rommel issued instructions to Rauff and his Einsatzgruppe that once the Germans had conquered Palestine, it would be the Einsatzgruppe's task to kill the Jews of Palestine. [Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers: "Beseitigung der jüdisch-nationalen Heimstätte in Palästina." Das Einsatzkommando bei der Panzerarmee Afrika 1942. In: Jürgen Matthäus und Klaus-Michael Mallmann (ed.): Deutsche, Juden, Völkermord. Der Holocaust als Geschichte und Gegenwart, Darmstadt 2006, p. 153–176] Also, he allowed a Judenrat being established in Tunis and watched on when Wehrmacht soldiers plundered Jewish Ghettos in towns like Tunis and Susse. [Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers: Halbmond und Hakenkreuz. Das Dritte Reich, die Araber und Palästina, Darmstadt 2007, p. 137f; published in English as "Nazi Palestine: The Plans for the Extermination of the Jews of Palestine", New York 2009].

 

[fskimospy]

Okay, I'm specifically referring to things like coordinating with the einsatzgruppen in North Africa. I linked the wrong thing. Sorry.

https://np.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4tuviz/is_it_true_that_erwin_rommel_was_kind_to_his/

Hmm, if you read that thread through more thoroughly it seems that the OP has misrepresented what his sources said. According to other posters in the thread the war crimes that they supposedly 'collaborated closely' on is unlikely due to the facts that there is no record of any correspondence between them and that Rommel was fighting 500km away at the time it was claimed they spoke.

This is not my area of expertise and I'm fully willing to accept that Rommel was a terrible person but I would want to see something better than a disputed reddit post.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Damn impressive speech by Mayor Landrieu of New Orleans ...
Reprinted in its whole

Was from last friday. Its a plea to reason and thought. It covers a lot of the difference between nationalism and patriotism. Probably the most impressive speech i've read or heard since Barack Obama's speech at the DNC in 2004.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...f-the-melting-pot-as-confederate-statues-fall
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...f-the-melting-pot-as-confederate-statues-fall

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...nd-confederate-praise/?utm_term=.a6462add1c51

This is one for the history books.

 

[dainthomas]

See, you guys let the South get away with such things all these years because we hold all the BBQ. What you guys call "BBQ": dessicated hotdogs on a dinky grill, is really just a disgrace.

Also:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/24/americas-most-political-food

This one's for highland!

We should have put William Tecumseh Sherman on the twenty just to remind the inbred southern hicks that the north can barbecue when they really want to.

 

[werepossum]

Not a fan of Landrieu, but that is an excellent speech.

 

[Commodus]

Damn impressive speech by Mayor Landrieu of New Orleans ...
Reprinted in its whole

Was from last friday. Its a plea to reason and thought. It covers a lot of the difference between nationalism and patriotism. Probably the most impressive speech i've read or heard since Barack Obama's speech at the DNC in 2004.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...f-the-melting-pot-as-confederate-statues-fall

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...nd-confederate-praise/?utm_term=.a6462add1c51

This is one for the history books.

I caught that as well. My favourite part is his reference to the "full past." It's not just that these monuments symbolize racism, it's that they purposefully exclude the real history that happened in these spaces. They celebrate Confederate resistance, but not the real reasons why they resisted (in no small part to uphold slavery); they commemorate the leaders, but not the slaves who suffered and died simply so that some white people wouldn't have to work as much.

The irony is that many of the people who wanted the monuments to remain would balk at the idea of these sites getting companion monuments that tell the complete story. Because, of course, it's not actually about the truth -- it's about preserving that sanitized version of the Confederacy as a ragtag bunch of rebels fighting an 'evil' Union.