Discussion for article #237760
Why do people of the South feel the need to honor those who defended slavery and supported taking up arms against the United States?
I am not an advocate for ignoring or papering over our nation’s history, but we do need to end honoring and glorifying such people. They do not deserve statues in the public square in this day and age. They need to be relegated to the history books and in the museums as object lessons of how not to act or behave in a civilized society.
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Is anyone monitoring the rightwing sites? I have to imagine many are going ultra super mega wizard wacky or are they? I ain’t lookin…
I dipped my toes into it. You don’t want to go there. I’m guessing that there will be push back from yet-another-racist-psychopath in the days or weeks to come.
Yes, but is the foam heading in any discernible direction, urping up any interesting proper nouns?
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“Racist” doesn’t begin to get the story told on Calhoun. Study American history between the end of the era of the Founders and the 1850s and there he is, time and again, standing against social, political and economic evolution in defense of slavery and progress generally. He’s the spiritual leader of the secessionist movement of the 1850s.
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Do discern that, I need to dip more than a toe in it and that’s not going to happen. It’s generally just yelling at the latest pol to support taking down their “sacred symbol of rebel resistance.”
I was hinting, cough, cough, for any nearby TPM staffers…the occasional glance at a youtube or tmz comment is enough for me, thank you.
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I posted this on another thread a couple of hours ago. Calhoun was one of the things that was wrong with South Carolina from the very beginning.
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Can’t say I give a shit if they deface that wretched piece of racist historical symbolism.
What is it they say? Oh yeah, “All’s fair in love and war.”
I do not support vandalism. Mainly because these guys are so unimaginative.
If you’re going to vandalize the pedestal of the damned thing, do it right:
Either that or climb up to the statue and affix a bullwhip to his hand.
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This isn’t “defacing” – it’s “correcting.”
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I’ll drive down there with my sandals to give that thing a good thumping.
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Keep them scrubbing it until it’s a pile of dust.
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I tend to think of him as a big, inflamed symptom rather than the cause, but yeah.
South Carolina was the biggest thorn in the nation’s ass from 1776 until sometime in the late 20th century, when a number of viable competitors emerged for that title. Locating the 1860 Democratic Convention there was utter madness.
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It’s time for the City of Minneapolis to take this a-hole’s name off of Lake Calhoon. Replace it with Lake USS Minneapolis (the fightingist ship in WWII)
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The south and especially SC have many things to be proud of in terms of heritage.,but this statue ain’t one of them.
Honoring the Confederacy and other forms of treasonous acts, including those of nullification, should not be one of them.
Here are some things the South should honor and celebrate that have little or nothing to do with insurrection against the federal government or tainted by a bunch of racist attitudes and beliefs:
Seersucker
Pecan pie
Catfish and crawdads
Magnolia bushes
Bayous
Gospel Music
The Blues
Indigo dye
Banjo music
Soul Food
BBQ
Salt marshes
Sweet Tea
William Faulkner
Botanical gardens
Old growth hardwood forests
Stoneware
And…fucking mosquitos?
I’m sure the Southerners on these threads could come up with far better examples than I could.
Imagine what people could celebrate in the South if they weren’t so weighted down and encouraged to obsess over the ugliest and most divisive time in our history. I hope many now will stand up and renounce the leaders and losers of that insurrection (since they were wrong to uphold chattel slavery) and put the matter to bed, where it belongs…on the ash heap of history.
Hopefully, here’s to a new form of southern pride that begins to leave these relics of history, all of them, in a museum where they belong.
Oh, and Okra…The south loves their Okra. Edit: Btw, I added that.
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Oh God, the little rich girl, China ambassador what’s his name’s daughter, on MSNBC just attempted the Democrats are racist too thing attempted by FOX…Lord, the excuses and blame shifting, at least, it’s making a nice breeze on a hot, hot day.
Abby Huntsman. Daughter of billionaire. Granddaughter to a billionaire. Usually she’s railing about income inequality…cause she tries and fails desperately to relate, ya know. She’s one messed up woman. Pretty, but messed up in the head with her family’s deeply ingrained ideology and chemical polluting legacy in this country. It’s enabled her to gain the worst kind of white privilege in this country. I love the way she whines about dynasties like Bush and Clinton. Wow. How dense can she get?
Another one, born on third base and thinks they hit a triple. (Props to Ann Richards remarking on George Bush Sr.) She’s an embarrassment to that show. It used to be good before they added her to do rightwing talking points.
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