Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

No one could have predicted…

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

The words do not have to be perfect.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Open Thread: Elderly Austrian Immigrant Yells At Trump & Other Nazi Supporters

Open Thread: Elderly Austrian Immigrant Yells At Trump & Other Nazi Supporters

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(h/t commentor Jim, Foolish Literalist)
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130Comments

  1. 1.

    A Ghost to Not

    The statues are a collective middle finger to blacks and the Federal govt. and all Americans. Take em all down.

  5. 5.

    Fair Economist

    A Robert E. Lee statue is more offensive than an Obama bin Laden statue would be. He was responsible for a lot more American deaths, plus he became a traitor to espouse his evil cause, and not just an enemy.

  6. 6.

    japa21

    Not just Confederate statues are going down. Chicago is discussing getting rid of a monument to Italo Balbo, which was given to the city by Mussolini. Balbo was an Italian airman who was a major factor in Mussolini’s rise to power. He also was the first to fly from Italy to Chicago, which, I presume, was the reason for Chicago accepting the monument. It was given in 1933.

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    Dolt 45 and his cabal would only pay attention (and that for barely a moment) if the name was Weißenegger.

  8. 8.

    Omnes Omnibus

    The statues are bad and should come down, but let’s not let Trump derail the discussion about the relationship between Nazis, the Klan, and other white nationalist types and this administration into a debate about statues and “heritage.”

  11. 11.

    efgoldman

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    let’s not let Trump derail the discussion about the relationship between Nazis, the Klan, and other white nationalist types and this administration

    Unfortunately, he’s not the only one.
    They do, however, have highly symbolic meaning to both sides. The fact that many are coming down, and others eventually will, will put pressure on the communities and states that still have them. All to the good.

  12. 12.

    JPL

    @Omnes Omnibus: The other day the MSM realized that Trump is not going to pivot. The other day day the MSM realized that he is not growing into the job. The other day they realized Trump is dangerous. just sayin
    Some of us, in fact the majority of us knew that months ago.

  17. 17.

    magurakurin

    @JPL:

    Some of us, in fact the majority of us knew that months ago

    and those of us who grew up in the Northeast knew Donald Trump was a worthless, racist, scumbag, sack of shit 35 years ago…

    …it’s just all so fucking surreal at this point.

  20. 20.

    magurakurin

    @Major Major Major Major: I’ll be impressed by guys like Corker when they actually do something other than run their mouth. They are senators…they have power…if and when they start to use it, I will applaud them.

    but, yeah, it doesn’t bode well for Trump that they are starting to say this shit out loud.

  24. 24.

    Frankensteinbeck

    While I’m not fond of Schwarzenegger, he beats the Hell out of the rest of the Republican Party. He embraced the stimulus and green energy, and I don’t give him much of the blame for the budget fiasco while he was governor, because Dems didn’t have a supermajority yet and the rest of his party was determined to fuck the state over for not being white. He’s an asshole with a record of assaulting women, but he’s not insane. As low a bar as that is, the rest of his party can’t cross it.

  30. 30.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    Been glued to MSNBC tonight. Rachel was interesting, Lawrence very strong, and Brian Williams’ guests solid.

    Question: is there anyone in the White House whose job it is to monitor these programs? You’d think following one’s detractors would be advisable.

  31. 31.

    Suzanne

    So when I said today that these statues could go to a museum, someone seriously made the argument that putting something in a museum is a way “to make sure no one ever sees it”.

    Um.

  32. 32.

    magurakurin

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    indeed, eh.

    damn, shit is so fucked up and bullshit right now. damn. America has always been a pretty fucked up place on one level…but damn. damn.

  34. 34.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): Usually, a “War Room” is set up where media impressions are collected for the elected official’s edification. Good news and bad.

    In the Donald White House, no one but Faux is reported on because the only thing Donald wants is adulation. He has little clue as to how all the “fake news” outlets are specifically talking about him.

  35. 35.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Suzanne: It’s like museums can’t be visited…they’re all like that big warehouse that the Ark of the Covenant was stored in at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

  36. 36.

    Lalophobia

    This is one good thing: Trump’s pulling the mask off the old ‘preserving our history’ myth. He and those Nazi fucks are tying all this old worthless Confederate dust to the Third Reich, and the majority of people in this country are not so rotten and screwed up yet that they want to be associated with THAT.

    Don’t know if it’ll stick, but it’s nice how much of a backlash this is generating for now.

  45. 45.

    Suzanne

    @magurakurin: @Villago Delenda Est: I mock stupid people.

    I go to museums all the time! I have a membership to my local art museum. When I go on vacation, I spend the majority of my time going to museums and important sites, not getting drunk and laid. I go to the library all the time! These jackasses who haven’t read a book since high school are now getting on their high horses about “preserving history”. Fucking bullshit.

  46. 46.

    james parente

    Dump the Confederate scrap metal into the Atlantic, as a base for an artificial reef project. It would be fitting if these symbols of death and hatred were used to support a full reef ecosystem. Life triumphs over death.

  47. 47.

    Suzanne

    Of course, I went to Germany not to drink beer or drive the Autobahn, but to go into a gas chamber.

  48. 48.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Suzanne:

    I spend the majority of my time going to museums and important sites, not getting drunk and laid.

    It is possible to do both. Just saying. Just get up by 10. Yes, in my own way, I am a Renaissance man.

  49. 49.

    maeve

    Somewhat off topic – in Sitka, Alaska there is a street corner with a sign that’s the intersection of Lincoln St and Jeff Davis St.
    However, its a different Jeff Davis – he was territorial governor of Alaska after the civil war
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_C._Davis
    however I always found it ironic when I lived in Sitka

    Earlier this week I was in Ketchikan, AK on a trip staying in a hotel – waiting in the lobby overheard a couple of middle aged gentlemen – one said “Now they’re tearing down more statues – what is it coming to” (it was the morning after Baltimore took down its statues – restrained myself from saying “Its about time!”) They were from Houston – not heated about it but more bewildered.

  53. 53.

    M31

    only one night after the confederate statues came down in Baltimore, someone replaced one with a huge statue of Divine HAHAHAHAHA perfect

    pic

  54. 54.

    Flanders' Former Neighbor

    I find I like Arnold far more now than when I didn’t vote for him to be my governor. Terminate hate, indeed.

  57. 57.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Diana:

    and allowing only the priests to read the evil pagan writers…

    This is the part that seemed a bit off in the comparison to museums.

    @Suzanne: Not what you said. I get that you meant that it was not your primary purpose.

  59. 59.

    Suzanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yes, I know. I saw much more than that. My point is just that I love to go to important places when I travel, even if it is emotionally difficult, because I feel expanded and enriched as a person to see them. I enjoy learning about history and touching it and walking through it, insofar as is possible. I make an effort.

    So the people protesting that removal of these statues is erasing history really piss me off. These people are not making an effort to make themselves smarter, and they are using history as an excuse. Meanwhile, it’s not the left wing who cuts funding for education and the arts, or censors textbooks, or changes the AP US History class.

  61. 61.

    magurakurin

    @Suzanne: no reason there can’t be time for museums and getting drunk and laid. I mean, museums close around sunset….

    I’ve been to a lot of museums myself….drunk and laid…not as much…wink, wink, nudge, say no more, say no more, wink, wink

  64. 64.

    Suzanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: I said “I spend the majority of my time going to museums and important sites, not getting drunk and laid.” That is true. I do not spend the majority of my time on vacation getting drunk and laid.

  65. 65.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Suzanne: I suppose people like me wouldn’t visit any museum featuring Cobfederate monuments so maybe that was their argument.

  66. 66.

    magurakurin

    @Suzanne: The part that is so shitty is that these statues present a false image of history. If the old plantation houses of the slave holders were preserved in the same was as the gas chambers in Germany then that would be accurate. If these statues were showing the evil and shame of the Confederacy then that would be accurate. But they present the ultimate “both sides” of a moment in which one side was clearly evil and wrong.

  67. 67.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @magurakurin: Take a break. Have a few drinks or avoid doing so as needed. Look for a way to clear your mind. Living in constant rage is hard to do. Just saying.

  68. 68.

    Suzanne

    @Patricia Kayden: I think you could make a great exhibit about propaganda with Confederate monuments included. I’d go see that.

    The point is that some people never go to museums, and that is dumb. If they wanted to try being un-dumb, they could get off their asses and go to a museum instead of watching a sporting event some Sunday afternoon. They could make an effort to go learn about something.

  69. 69.

    Suzanne

    @magurakurin: Agreed. Also, when I pointed out that the “preserving history” crowd doesn’t seem to object to the fact that there are no prominent slave memorials or memorials to victims of lynchings in these high-visibility public sites, they didn’t take too kindly to that. They’re not really, genuinely interested in preserving all of history.

  70. 70.

    Chet Murthy

    @magurakurin: Ta-Nehisi Coates said precisely this, back when he was blogging about his researches into the Civil War. That what’s commemorated, is a whitewashed non-history of the slavery era. He was (and is!) brilliant about all of this.

    He *woke* me.

  74. 74.

    Ruckus

    Question for an open thread.
    Any one looking for a roommate in the San Gabriel Valley area of southern CA? Non smoker, non scientologist (this one is a must), I’ve had more than enough of this one and need to move.

  75. 75.

    Suzanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: The last beach vacation I went on was in Cancun. It was awesome. We did the beach/pool thing part of the time, but we also went to Chichen Itza and the pyramid, and I swam in a sacred cenote.

    I did get tipsy and laid, as well.

  76. 76.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    They’re not really, genuinely interested in preserving all of history.

    They of course are not even interested in preserving any actual history. They fucking lost. You don’t make statues of great losers on horses. You don’t celebrate having lost. You don’t go on for the next 150 yrs acting as if you won a civil war when you got your ass handed to you. The entire rational for the war was slavery and they can’t admit that. Even when the states explicitly stated so. They are not interested in history at all. They are interested in racism. They are interested in being major assholes. And they have succeeded, unfortunately.

  79. 79.

    Suzanne

    @Gelfling545:

    In a museum is as good as gone to them.

    Then they’re intellectually lazy pieces of shit and they should step the fuck off while the rest of us have an important cultural discussion.

  81. 81.

    Fair Economist

    @Suzanne:

    Also, when I pointed out that the “preserving history” crowd doesn’t seem to object to the fact that there are no prominent slave memorials or memorials to victims of lynchings in these high-visibility public sites, they didn’t take too kindly to that. They’re not really, genuinely interested in preserving all of history.

    I recall a article by somebody who’d been a tour guide at Laura Plantation, where they actually talk some about the slaves and how they were treated. They mentioned that quite frequently, guests would get very heated at that and insist the tour shouldn’t discuss those parts (usually – I think they got some denialists too).

    Not about the history.

  82. 82.

    Diana

    @Suzanne: I think the issue isn’t that monuments =history. I think the problem may be that monuments themselves are history.

    If everything is contemporary, then you’re sort of in the Taliban/Iconclast framework of: this statute of God does not honor my God, therefore it cannot be a statute of God, therefore it has to go. And it’s no coincidence that in iconoclast eras there’s no depiction of people in biblical scenes wearing ancient clothing: people in the past were the same as today, so of course they dressed the same.

    So arguing that a statute that’s over a hundred years old is the same as something put up yesterday is to say that the past is whatever we want it to be. At that point I draw the line. If you want to replace a hundred-year-old statute with something different, because you now want to publicly honor something different, that’s fine. History needs to be rewritten in every generation because every age sees something different in the past. But to announce that a hundred-year-old statute has to be melted down because that particular statute doesn’t preserve the history you think should be preserved is to say that when history is not convenient, history should be changed. To destroy art because you don’t like what it says makes you into a bookburner. Even if it’s a worthless book.

  83. 83.

    Fair Economist

    @Suzanne:

    Then they’re intellectually lazy pieces of shit and they should step the fuck off while the rest of us have an important cultural discussion.

    Well, they *are* white supremacists. What did you expect?

  85. 85.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:
    I went to a museum in Belgium that was about the Belgium WWII resistance fighters. They showed the reason that people were resisting. It was quite moving. Not a big place but very well done.

  86. 86.

    Suzanne

    @Diana:

    But to announce that a hundred-year-old statute has to be melted down because that particular statute doesn’t preserve the history you think should be preserved is to say that when history is not convenient, history should be changed. To destroy art because you don’t like what it says makes you into a bookburner. Even if it’s a worthless book.

    Lucky for you, I didn’t say that any of those statues should be destroyed. I said they should be removed from prominent public places (where they are often literally on pedestals) and put in a museum or at a relevant historical site. A curator can properly contextualize and preserve these objects so we can continue to learn lessons of the past while dismantling the active and ongoing semiotic domination they were intended to support.

  87. 87.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Diana:

    But to announce that a hundred-year-old statute has to be melted down because that particular statute doesn’t preserve the history you think should be preserved is to say that when history is not convenient, history should be changed. To destroy art because you don’t like what it says makes you into a bookburner. Even if it’s a worthless book.

    First: Statue, not statute.

    Second: The rest of what you say is a bit incoherent.

  89. 89.

    Amir Khalid

    @maeve:
    Penny Lane in Liverpool is named after a slave trader. A few years ago there was some discussion, which I read about in the Guardian, over whether to rename it, and thus lose the connection to the quite harmless Beatles song. Last I heard, it’s still called Penny Lane.

  90. 90.

    Suzanne

    @Ruckus: I love going to see places like that. I went to the WWII museum when I was in New Orleans last year. I’ve been to a number of Holocaust memorials, including the one in Boston that was vandalized this week. I knocked an item off my bucket list last year when I went to Athens and climbed up to the Acropolis. I love going to those kinds of places.

    Museums aren’t dead to me. They’re some of the best cheap entertainment around. We have a Musical Instrument Museum here in Phoenix that is awesome.

  91. 91.

    Diana

    @Omnes Omnibus: yeah, it’s late and I’m tired.
    What’s incoherent about says that burning a book you don’t like makes you a book burner?
    (And by definition it’s a worthless book, or a worthless piece of art; why would anyone destroy a valuable book, or a valuable work of art?)

  92. 92.

    Ruckus

    @Diana:
    We have plenty of history about slavery. We aren’t asking that the history be forgotten or rewritten, we are asking that it not honor men with none. We aren’t trying to burn books, even ones that glorified the civil war from a southern standpoint. We aren’t trying to kill history. But the people who have a very mistaken idea of the civil war are trying to do that and celebrating their forefathers having done that. No one is trying to say for example that George Washington wasn’t a slave owner.
    We are saying that glorifying a war fought over slavery by the side that lost is wrong. This is not changing history it is bringing it out into the open and showing that it wasn’t glorious at all. That over 600,000 men and women died in a conflict about allowing slavery and we as a society have allowed it to be glorified is an abomination that really needs to be corrected.
    That is what this is about.

  93. 93.

    lgerard

    @Diana:

    If you want a statue of Robert E Lee then he should be depicted in the most relevant historical fashion, which is also the way most Americans remember him..

    surrendering

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Diana: Please explain why a generic statue of Lee has artistic value. Did the swastika at Nuremberg have artistic value? Was art destroyed when it was blown up?

  95. 95.

    Brachiator

    Trump just keeps on trumping.

    From the Guardian

    Trump responds to Barcelona attack by reviving debunked myth

    In responding more quickly than with Charlottesville, president cites fictitious story of general [Pershing] dipping bullets in pig’s blood before execution of Islamic soldiers

    He simply does not care about facts or truth.

  96. 96.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:
    My ship was in port in Athens for 3 weeks. Every day that I could I walked to an outdoor cafe just down the street from ruins that were hundreds of years old and no one seemed to think anything of it. It was absolutely amazing to sit there and have a tea and pastry (oh were they good) while looking down that street. Understand that the town I grew up in grew about 50% right after WWII in southern CA. The town was 80 yrs old when I graduated HS.

  97. 97.

    Suzanne

    @Diana: The issue isn’t the statues in and of themselves. The issue is context. First of all, the designers of these places used all of the spatial and architectural devices available to convey glory and honor with these things. Scale, elevation, symmetry, axial/orthogonal arrangement, etc…..all are used not just to preserve a record of their existence (like a simple grave marker or plaque would), but to establish a sense of importance and valor in public space. Robert E. Lee Circle in New Orleans is this super-high-visibility location where roads converge, ringed with steps and flowers and the statue itself is on a high column. The architecture of that space says “This guy is great and special.” Semiotically, their position within these important public spaces carries a great deal of meaning.

    The other contextual problem is temporal. We could look at these things the way we look at the Pyramids in Giza or the Roman triumphal arches, both of which were built by slaves, as anachronisms, if the descendants of those slaves were not still a marginalized class. Also, if there were monuments of equal number and prominence to the slaves, then you would have a case that time has healed the wound. But it hasn’t.

    We can continue to learn from these statues as examples of propaganda and as important historical artifacts in a museum or historical site, set in context with other artifacts that make clear that these men fought to keep people in chains.

  99. 99.

    Diana

    @Ruckus: Well, this is where you getting into Taliban-style logic.

    I’m not saying I want a statue of Robert E. Lee. I am saying that I think all the statues of Robert E. Lee should not be destroyed.

    If you want to move them into places where people can’t see them, I’m fine with that.

    I just don’t see how destroying a lot of statues is going to accomplish anything whatsoever about the over 600,00 men and women who died in a conflict that ended over a century ago, let alone anything about racism today. A lot of ancient and historical art glorified evil people. If it’s OK to destroy a century old statue of Lee, then why would it not be ok to destroy a 2,000 year old statue of the Emperor Nero, who was just as surely nobody’s definition of a good leader?

  100. 100.

    Suzanne

    @Omnes Omnibus: I actually think the statues have historical value (not really a great deal of artistic value, but historical value) as exhibits of propaganda, and the lies we tell ourselves. It is worth remembering that, I think.

  103. 103.

    Suzanne

    @Diana:

    If it’s OK to destroy a century old statue of Lee, then why would it not be ok to destroy a 2,000 year old statue of the Emperor Nero, who was just as surely nobody’s definition of a good leader?

    The descendants of the people that Nero oppressed aren’t still suffering under systemic, institutional racism.

  104. 104.

    prostratedragon

    @japa21: Alas, that comes up regularly. I don’t know why it’s still there (the intersecting street is also called Balbo) since I don’t recall much constituency for it. Maybe this time …

    Photo of Italo Balbo

  105. 105.

    Brachiator

    @Diana:

    . I just don’t see how destroying a lot of statues is going to accomplish anything whatsoever about the over 600,00 men and women who died in a conflict that ended over a century ago.

    Yep, the Civil War is over. So, there’s no point in preserving the statues of the traitorous losers of the Confederacy. To paraphrase Trump, I prefer the generals on the right side of history who win wars.

  106. 106.

    Ruckus

    @Diana:
    And where have you seen me say we should destroy them? I’m not one who thinks all of them need to be saved, you are correct about that. But I didn’t say destroy them, I said we have to change the fact that every civil war statue has been about glorifying the traitors and losers of the civil war in a way that shouts, we won. @Suzanne: explained this glorification better than I did but it exists as the basis of all the traitor statues. A lot of history in the world glorifies horrible leaders. And we should never forget that. But correcting history is not the same as erasing it. I visited many parts of Europe less than 25 yrs after the end of WWII. No where did I see a glorified statue of Hitler or anything to do with him. And I’d bet that almost no one there has forgotten him, even if they weren’t born yet.

  107. 107.

    Rp

    Sometimes books are destroyed because the publisher has excess stock. Sometimes buildings and parks and murals are destroyed because cities change. It’s absurd to suggest that once a statue goes up it’s part of history and must be preserved.

  108. 108.

    Amir Khalid

    @Diana:
    A generic statue of Robert E. Lee, if it were one of hundreds extant, could be destroyed with no loss to history. So could all of them, in fact; they have the artistic value of an Elvis portrait on velvet*. There’s surely a better use for the metal. There will still be enough non-generic statues of Lee, and even photographs, if anyone needs to remember what he looked like.

    ETA: *And were made for more or less the same reason.

  109. 109.

    magurakurin

    @Diana: I would have no problem if all the statues were simply removed to storage somewhere or an appropriate contextual display as Suzanne has suggested. Melt them all down is something of a metaphor. They need to be removed from any place of honor or homage in public places. Baltimore city has the right idea. Just take them down and night and put them…somewhere. If you only object to the literal destruction of the objects, I don’t think you will find much argument here. But the must be removed from their current positions of honor. Storage or the melting pot…actually makes no difference to me.

  111. 111.

    Suzanne

    @Ruckus: I was super-impressed by how the Germans take remembering their history incredibly seriously. By law, every schoolchild must visit at least one concentration camp during their schooling. Walking around Munich, the places of historically important Nazi activity are marked with plaques and pictures, as is the place in the Olympic Village where the Israeli athletes were killed in 1972. But there are also markers in the roads outside the homes of Jews that were killed. Buildings that were damaged in bombings during the war are preserved to show the seams of repairs, to differentiate between the old and the new.

    Very few things made me as happy as going to the Koenigsplatz and seeing women sunbathing without tops on. Fuck yeah.

  112. 112.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    You could be correct but I’m at this point going to give her the benefit.
    I think she’s wrong about removing the statues is like burning books, but I’ve heard few call for their destruction. Personally I don’t see the point of the statues being saved, unless it is for museums that show the true history of the civil war. And you don’t need a 20 ft tall statue of Lee for that. The fact that there are so many who still think that the US should have lost the war on slavery shows me that destroying at least a few of them to be rather symbolic of the changing nation that we are actually in. This bullshit administration should be the last one, this should be turned into a valuable lesson for the country. I doubt it will but stranger things have happened. Also look at it this way, many have wondered why Lincoln didn’t penalize the south and it’s leaders, that it’s led to the glorifying of the losing side of the civil war and effectively let the south think that while slavery wouldn’t be allowed, bigotry would. And they’d be right, it was for decades. Maybe we need to symbolically destroy the statues as a way of starting down the road of recovery, that the south lost not only the right of slavery but of bigotry as well, as the statutes haven’t seemingly been enough.

  113. 113.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Yes I noticed that you didn’t say she couldn’t speak, just that what she said was shit.
    ETA Which I notice that a lot of people are agreeing with. Including me.

  116. 116.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:
    That is remembering history as it really was, not as so many here remember it.
    I enjoy the movie Das Boot but in my mind I hear the sargent from the end of the movie Mash superimposed. In Mash he just keeps repeating “Goddamn Army.” At the end of Das Boot I hear “Goddam Nazis.”

  117. 117.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Sorry didn’t think I was. Lecturing. Wasn’t trying to anyway. It’s been a loooong day, I’m not sleepy and I have to work tomorrow, which is unusual for me. Maybe I’m subconsciously taking it out on you. Stranger things have happened.

  118. 118.

    Suzanne

    @Ruckus: The Germans also don’t seem to feel like they’re entitled to feel good about their country during that period. That’s not to say that every individual needs to feel a personal sense of guilt or shame, but they do seem to feel like they need to right the wrongs of their (grand)fathers. Contrast that with so many of these Southern douchebags, who seem to feel entitled to “pride” in their Confederate ancestors, and are personally offended at the suggestion that the ancestor may have done some bad shit. Whatever. There’s nothing except for white privilege that says that you get to have ancestors that the rest of us pretend were valorous. Not to mention, even if they were valorous…..that doesn’t make you shit. You have to earn your own valor through your own character.

  119. 119.

    NorthLeft12

    @Ruckus: I don’t agree that these statues were put up to honour and glorify the Confederates. Based on the timing and their locations, they were put up as a show of power and as a warning to blacks that despite the result, “we” are still in charge. They seem to me to be a daily humiliation and pointed dig at blacks and any of their Yankee friends.
    They always seem to be placed in very prominent locations around busy state and local government buildings, or in highly used parks.
    I used to think they should be left, but with new plaques that explained that they were traitors and losers who committed horrible crimes against humanity and stood up for white supremacy and for slavery. But really, just move them all. I don’t think there is a lot of value in attempting to educate the public by leaving these insults in place.

  121. 121.

    Ruckus

    @NorthLeft12:
    I lived in Charleston SC for 2 yrs. I’ve seen first hand the idea that the south didn’t lose the war, that it was still going on and that blacks have to be eradicated to end the shame. Notice that there is a conflict within that sentence. That conflict has been going on for over 150 yrs now. It’s time to at least put a symbolic end to it even if we can’t eradicate the actual concept. And it’s not just in the traitor states.

  123. 123.

    patrick II

    As for those who don’t want to remove statues of Lee because that would be removing history — let’s have statues of Lee torturing slaves, for which he is well known, or statues of him head down, ashamed and a plaque informing students of his being a traitor to his country so he could treat other human beings as livestock. If you want history, let’s not go half way.

  124. 124.

    Bruce K

    I remember when Ahnold spoke at the 2004 RNC convention and derided people worried about the economy as “girly men”. I vowed then never to spend another nickel on a Schwarzenegger movie while he, rather than his heirs, had a chance to see that money.

    I … may have to rethink that policy, given his more recent stances.

  125. 125.

    Anne Laurie

    @Gelfling545:

    In a museum is as good as gone to them.

    One of my many fond memories of the American Museum of Natural History is visiting the Hall of Mexico & Central America shortly after it opened. There were working-class families, dressed up in their best, waiting to take photos in front of the Olmec head and the Mayan Stone of the Sun calendar. And a couple of trying-to-look-bored teenagers in hoodies & designer sneaks, whose severe profiles matched those of the Mayan kings on the walls.

    If the self-styled ‘flowers of Suthrun civilization’ can’t make a similar effort… sucks to be them.

  126. 126.

    Gvg

    I do want the stupid statues destroyed. A few to museums, most blown up, melted down or destroyed in insulting ways. They are being used today to intimidate and degrade my fellow citizens who happen to be black and also any other who knows they aren’t the majority type. I hate them. Those statues are of traitors too, and it enrages me in my patriotic sentimental core that everybody else didn’t see that as soon as they were old enough to think. My rage is tied to what I know about cop shootings and incarceration rates and conviction rates different for different “kinds” of people. Those statues are political weapons being used now and my whole life. The kind of museum they belong on is one about torture and misuse of power. I don’t like the people who support them either. It’s also not a recent opinion though recent events remind me of why.

  127. 127.

    Joey Maloney

    @magurakurin: So when Venus lounges around naked on a giant clamshell she’s a “masterpiece”, but when I do I’m “intoxicated” and “no longer welcome at this aquarium, sir”.

  129. 129.

    Mary Ellen Sandahl

    @Diana: Pretty much, the monks and higher clergy were the ones who could read in the early middle ages. Charlemagne promoted monasteries as, among other things, training hubs for literate clergy, but apparently didn’t learn to read himself until later in life

  130. 130.

    feckless

    @Frankensteinbeck: I agree 100%.
    Governor P***y grabber to president P***y grabber, Nazis are bad.
    Ahnold does comes across as the semi respectable republican I thought he was before the abuse stories surfaced.

    Now if he could just treat women as people, and maybe set up the mother of his illegitimate son so she doesn’t have to bring her kid to her job cleaning toilets at the governors mansion.

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