I've been reading and hearing a lot about people wanting to take down statues of confederate Generals:
I'd like to say here, for the record, that I approve of doing so wholeheartedly. Before any of you out there get on your hobby horse and tell me I want to erase history, let me save you the trouble.No one is erasing history. In fact, I insist that grade school and Jr high and High schools teach the history of the Southern Slaveholders Rebellion. No, I'm not going to sugar coat it and call it "The War Between the States" or some other bullshit. I'm going to straight out call it what it was, an insurrection against the duly constituted government of the United States, with the intention of overthrowing said government. Live with it.
Next, before you whinge that we're taking down every statue, I want to tell you something.
First, we aren't taking down "every statue", just the ones glorifying the leaders of the southern slaveholders rebellion. The men who betrayed the United States because they wanted to go on OWNING PEOPLE. Do you see Germans putting up statues to Sepp Deitrich and Otto Kumm* ? Do you see Chileans putting up statues honoring Augusto Pinochet ? no, you do not. Those men cannot be excised from history either, but neither should they be celebrated. In America, statues were erected to men like Nathan Bedford Forrest and others, first in order to perpetuate the myth of the Lost Cause, and second to remind blacks that the Confederacy was Never Going Away, that it would always be there to keep them down one way or another, by law if possible and by judge Lynch** if not.
The statues, and indeed all symbols of the Slaveholders Rebellion must in fact go away. Not because the men who fought for the South were not brave. There were many such. Not because the men who commanded the Southern armies weren't good generals, there were many such. But their cause was not noble. What they wanted was not good. What they did was evil, in the name of another evil. At best, they were misguided. So no, we will not forget them. But we will also not forget that the thing they stood for was a system of oppression, brutality, rape and torture. No, I will not forget the Confederates. Nor should anyone else. But I also will not give a pass to anyone who glorifies them or attempts to sell me the bullshit about "the Lost Cause". The cause should have been lost in 1789, but the Southern States demanded to be allowed to end slavery on their own time and in their own way. Well, 1792 came along and still slavery. 1803 and still slavery. 1840, still slavery. 1855, still slavery. and 1860, still slavery. It has to be faced up to that without the Abolitionists, slavery might well have continued indefinitely. (There is the school-to-prison pipeline, but that for another day.)
The issue was never "States Rights" it was always slavery. go google "Ordinance of Secession" and see for yourself.
Okay, enough for now.
Sleep now.
Belated Happy Juneteenth.
*Sepp Dietrich and Otto Kumm commanded the SS Adolf Hitler Division.
**"Judge Lynch" being a euphemism for lynching people.
