People who actually know actual history say most
Critics argue manyConfederate statues were built decades after the Civil War to promote white supremacy. Willfully ignorant white fragility snowflakes and bad faith revisionistsSupporterscounter that the monuments are simply memorials to ancestors who fought and died protecting their homes.
FIFY AP. Hopefully, I gave someone at the Bothsidesing Desk the vapors.
[Winston-Salem] Begins Rare Confederate Statue Removal Process
…and it’s about damn time.
Howard Snow said the city was wasting money by taking the statue down and that the money could be put to better use.
I disagree. The statue and pedestal can be fully removed and the grounds used to raise toxic toadstools. That would be better usage. Of course, if Howard Snow was born with a name more like Howard Coal, maybe he’d catch that drift.
“are simply memorials to ancestors who fought and died protecting their homes.”
What a load of crap.
They were fighting and dying to protect the right to buy, sell, and sexually abuse other human beings.
Period.
I think W-S has a higher percent of blacks than a lot of larger NC towns like Raleigh, Greensboro, Charlotte…So that might be part of why this is happening somewhat easier here than those.
And if you look at the records of when they were put up you’ll see those vile reasons being gladly and proudly promoted. And probably KKK present and welcomed. These were all put in place as a way to show white dominance and proclaim whites as superior.
FYFIFY.
Any time someone advances the “money better spent elsewhere” argument, you kinda have to ask them what other things the money should be spent on and whether there’s any plausible chance it would be spent on those things.
And start by asking them how much money we’re talking about, because you couldn’t even hire half a schoolteacher at NC rates for what it cost to cart off that stupid statue.
The real moral diversion is the part where anyone is supposed to care what they thought they were fighting for. The truth is that most of them went to war because they were fucking drafted and once you’re in a war what you’re fighting for is the smallest unit your army uses, the person to your left and right who you share food with.
No doubt most of them were avidly pro-slavery. No doubt, something between “many” and “all” of them were swept up in the growing war fever of the 1850’s, drenched in pro-slavery propaganda because the First Amendment was a joke in slave states. No doubt many of them really did think the fact that their state had been “invaded” by the Yankees was all the reason they needed.
It doesn’t make a goddamn bit of difference, any more than the reason Wehrmacht soldiers fought made a difference. It’s just a form of moral self-exculpation that people who survive being sent to war in an evil cause are always eager to adopt because people suck at taking personal moral responsibility. And it’s a fiction that the cocksuckers who sent them to die were more than happy to perpetuate.
Because what’s relevant, the only thing that’s morally relevant, is what they were sent to die for. People who lose wars in which they sent people to die for evil causes always want everyone to focus on anything that but that and the lies and misconceptions and divisions they perpetuate to that end long live after them.
As I recall, the South did not have a draft until the latter part of the war. When it was to late to affect the outcome.
North had the draft much earlier and had the New York Draft Riots.
The CSA implemented a draft basically right off the bat, in April, 1862. Basically the first orders of business once government got off a provisional basis, ratified a constitution and held elections. (Didn’t happen before the elections, of course). It was the Union that was late to the party. March, 1863.
If they’re looking for a place to attach the chain, I’d say using the Confederate / Reconstruction guide would work.
Right between the shoulder and the chin.
Back to “Battle Cry of Freedom” for me. Are you sure it wasn’t a state draft, as opposed to a CSA draft?
Or am I thinking of Gen. Patrick Clebourne’s letter suggesting enlisting slave into the Army in return for their freedom?
The old south is going down and the reason is simple…Benjamins. NC finally attracted some jobs/people to relocate there. Now they want to keep them. So screw the confederates and bring on the 4th of July parties.
And let us never forget that the individuals memorialized by these statues commit ed Treason against the United States. They and their followers were all traitors to their country and their memory is a blight upon our history.
The states didn’t have conscription on either side and no state politician in the CSA would have dreamed of taking that kind of heat.
I have no interest in being fair to anyone associated with the CSA or slavery, but the case for the legality of secession in 1860 was about as good, possibly a bit better, than the case against it.
There may be a case for the legality of secession, but I draw your attention to Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution:
"1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. . . ."
These people memorialized as Confederate “heroes” waged war against the United States and by Constitutional definition, that is treason.