Moments ago, I signed the ordinance that completed our sale of the parks. pic.twitter.com/LZH00Pa6cv
— Mayor Jim Strickland (@MayorMemphis) December 21, 2017
Earlier today Memphis’s city council voted to immediately remove the statues of Nathan Bedford Forest and Jefferson Davis that are on public grounds.
The city of Memphis sold two public parks containing Confederate monuments to a nonprofit Wednesday in a massive, months-in-the-planning operation to take the statues down overnight.
The City Council unanimously approved the sale of Health Science Park, home of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, and its easement on Fourth Bluff Park, home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, for $1,000 each to Memphis Greenspace Inc. Fourth Bluff, or Memphis Park, is owned by a group called The Overton Heirs.
The sale — which is almost certain to result in a lawsuit from statue supporters — allows Greenspace to legally do what the city of Memphis cannot: Remove the statues from their visible perches in the parks, Chief Legal Officer Bruce McMullen said. He said they would be stored in an undisclosed location for security reasons.
“Health Sciences Park and Memphis Park have been sold,” Mayor Jim Strickland said in a social media post soon after the vote. Operations on those sites tonight are being conducted by a private entity and are compliant with state law. We will have further updates later tonight.”
The nonprofit, which is led by Shelby County Commissioner and attorney Van Turner, brought in a crane to remove the Forrest statue first at around 6 p.m.
Greenspace signed a contract with Strickland on Friday that requires them to continue operating the park as a park, McMullen confirmed Wednesday. He said he knew of no plans for the nonprofit to sell the parks back to the city.
Here’s video of the removals:
Cheryl Rofer
Excellent! While the shitshow continues at the top, good things are happening elsewhere.
??? Martin
Every Orange County Republican member of Congress is polling below the generic Democrat. We’re going to wipe all 4 of them out.
Mike in NC
Lots of room for those statues of traitors down at Mar-a-Lago.
James E. Powell
@??? Martin:
This is excellent news, but
Schlemazel
Davis was a useless buffoon who should have been hung for treason. NBF was evil in human form. Made his living selling humans until the war came along. Fathered the massacre of unarmed blacks at Fort Pillow then, as a retirement project, help found the KKK. He deserves a statue at the bottom of a cesspit
chopper
awesome! I’ll be even happier when there’s video of the statues being burned, ground up and the ashes pissed on.
ChicagoPat
The video ends with the statue still in place… ?
mai naem mobile
I hope they lynch thr statues. Lynch ’em high.
Omnes Omnibus
Awesome!
mike in dc
Heartwarming news. Take them all down, including R.E.Lee.
Off Topic: This is what we’re up against.
Adam L Silverman
@ChicagoPat: It takes more than an hour to remove them. This was the best vid I could find.
Another Scott
Good, good.
Thanks Adam, and the sensible people of Memphis.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ladyraxterinok
Nathan Bedford Forrest and his statue a really big deal for science fiction author John Ringo. Praised extravagantly as great military genius. Until I looked him up had not known he was founder of KKK.
(Ringo v conservative. Discovered him because of his collaboration with David Weber in the March Upcountry, etc series. Multimillions of dead bodies in Ringo’s works.)
Schlemazel
@Adam L Silverman:
white phosphorus would have completed the job a lot faster.
Adam L Silverman
@mike in dc: Nunes, Gaetz, Gohmert.
mike in dc
@Adam L Silverman: Surely a coincidence that those are some of the dumbest people in Congress.
Schlemazel
@Ladyraxterinok:
Shelby foote claims there were two geniuses in the ACW, NBF and Abraham Lincoln. Even putting aside my undying hatred for the louse cause I don’t understand what it is that makes people say that about the former.
MomSense
Good riddance.
Shall we celebrate with a king from Memphis.
rock me baby
Calouste
@Adam L Silverman: Two car funeral, piss-up in a brewery, orgy in a whorehouse. All things that are beyond that team, although not as far as as actually taking down the FBI.
MomSense
@mike in dc:
I heard this tonight and couldn’t believe it. If there was any doubt about Nunes being compromised before, it’s completely gone now.
Adam L Silverman
@ChicagoPat: Let’s see if this works better:
Adam L Silverman
@mike in dc: Surely.
Jim
The people of Memphis did not agree to remove the statues, the pathetic mayor and council did. All of this planning was done late at night, behind closed doors and under the cover of darkness. Who are the 2 non-profits? I can’t find any info on them. Doesn’t a city have to offer city owned property to the highest bidder? I would have paid $2000 for each park thereby doubling what the city sold the parks for. Can you say deception, fraud, not in the best interest of Memphians? Who paid for the removal of the statues – my guess is the city. Who will maintain the properties going forward? This whole transaction smells. Hey Strickland, hope you don’t plan on running for mayor again – I will make sure you will NOT win – trust me!!!!
sharl
Meanwhile, in Nashville…
~
The part of me that likes kitsch, especially when it’s so awful that it’s hilarious, agrees with the author:
~
Despite my quirky aesthetic tastes, it would be nice if the locals and descendants of slaves had the power to get the thing removed. Unfortunately, the statue is privately owned and on privately owned land, so it will be there at least until the old racist who owns it kicks the bucket. I once suggested over at Southern Beale’s blog that maybe some entrepreneur could include it as part of a touristy vehicle tour called Weird Nashville or something like that; lemonade from lemons…
Adam L Silverman
@Schlemazel: Actually, the best theater strategists in the Confederacy was Longstreet. At least he was while working under Lee. When he went west and took over the Army of Tennessee he didn’t do so well. But he was much more strategically sound even then Lee. He recognized changes that were coming to the characteristics of war, as in how it is conducted, decades before they happened. The true strategic genius of the Confederacy was actually Judah P. Benjamin, who, among other posts, ran the Confederate intelligence services.
On the Union side there were many strategic thinkers. Lincoln, but also Reynolds, Sherman, Grant, Hancock, etc. There were a lot of tactically sound, but strategically meh folks on both sides. Partially the result that had there not been a war the vast majority of these folks would never have made flag rank. There were also just a whole lot of meh folks regardless of level of operation (tactical, operational, strategic).
Adam L Silverman
What could go wrong?
Adam L Silverman
What could go wrong part 2:
Calouste
@Adam L Silverman: The shitgibbon is supposed to travel to London in February to open the new US embassy, but details haven’t been formalized yet. I don’t think May can really afford that visit politically at the moment, especially now that her right hand man has stepped down today.
sharl
@Adam L Silverman: Ooh, I’ll bet Son of Moonraker is gonna be EXTRA busy on Fox for the next few weeks or so. I’ll be with family, so there are good chances I’ll see that.
Happy HolidaysMerry Christmas!Adam L Silverman
@Calouste: I’m not sure how that’s going to work. I thought they’d asked him to move his trip back already, but maybe I’m misremembering.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim: Click across and read the whole article. It actually explains everything and answers your questions:
http://www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/government/city/2017/12/20/memphis-council-votes-immediately-remove-confederate-statues/960707001/
Calouste
@Adam L Silverman: IIRC, there was an initial plan for September or October of this year,which then got postponed. And he won’t be welcome any time near Harry’s wedding,that’s for sure.
Yutsano
@Adam L Silverman: Aww but Dad can we enjoy the butthurt too?
hueyplong
Teacher says every time a NBF statue gets taken down an angel gets his wings.
Mike J
This makes me very happy. I grew up there. Glad this trash is gone.
And I’m willing to bet that 99% of the people complaining are in Germantown or Collierville.
Millard Filmore
@Schlemazel: Since this is an open thread, and a mention of the American Civil War … this is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad. Misquoting a comment from another blog [1]:
We Americans think of our Civil War as having an epic scale, with armies swooping across half a continent. Big decisive battles conducted by tens of thousands of men. Now take the entirety of the Civil War, do it in one tenth the time, all in one city, and you still don’t have HALF the battle of Stalingrad.
[1] http://www.bradford-delong.com/2012/10/stalingrad-at-70.html#comment-6a00e551f080038834017d3cfb01b1970c
Mike J
@Millard Filmore: The difference is everyone was against the nazis in that one.
efgoldman
@Jim:
Wow! RWNJ racist trolls almost never make it all the way over here. Way to go “Jim,”
Millard Filmore
@Mike J: Yeah, but that and the revolt of the Warsaw Ghetto leaves me in absolute awe of what men can do in wartime.
Calouste
@Millard Filmore: At the height of the battle, the average life expectancy for newly arrived Soviet recruits was 24 hours. Three days for officers.
Normandy was a beach party compared to the Eastern front.
Adam L Silverman
@Yutsano:
bmoak
IIRC, there are are more monuments, plaques, and historical markers in Tennessee dedicated to Nathan Bedford Forrest than any other Tennessean, and that includes three U.S Presidents and Davy Crockett, I don’t have my copy of James Loewen’s Lies Across American handy to check, though.
Adam L Silverman
@Millard Filmore: Ni Shagu Nazad!
Davebo
Creative! I like it.
FWIW, we’ve seen some great success in privately held non profit parks here that do a great job.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
I said in comments last night (my time) that Nikki Haley seems to have been trained in diplomacy by Doug and Dinsdale Piranha. I guess that’s true of the whole Trump administration.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: She has no previous foreign policy or diplomatic experience.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Nathan Bedford Forrest was a war criminal/mass murderer.
He massacred hundreds of captured black soldiers.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
Um, you have heard of the Piranha Brothers, right?
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Ah, yessss.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: Yes I have.
Millard Filmore
@Adam L Silverman:
Google translate says that is Russian, and it doesn’t translate.
Adam L Silverman
@Millard Filmore: Literally “not one step back”. It is the popular referent to Stalin’s order to the Red Army officially known as Order No. 227 issued on July 28, 1942.
West of the Cascades
@Millard Filmore: Not one step backward.
Cheryl Rofer
Continuing Adam’s theme of what could go wrong –
However, someone I know has good sources:
Millard Filmore
@Adam L Silverman: @West of the Cascades:
Ah, OK. Sometimes that works, sometimes you lose a million soldiers.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: Not only that, but mobile launchers aren’t so easy to hit.
Adam L Silverman
@Millard Filmore: Can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
mike in dc
@Cheryl Rofer:
Let’s hope not. I like Earth. I keep all of my stuff there!
Raoul
Hey, just want to give a shout out to y’all. Last night when the tax bill passed, I donated to the “Nowhere to Hide” ActBlue, and tweeted to Doug.
Looks like he posted a thread this a.m. asking everyone to dig in and help. We raised $6,110 in a bit over 12 hours to kick start the 50 state strategy for 2018 Dems. Awesome.
OK, Doug – raise the goal.
Omnes Omnibus
@Millard Filmore: Crimea and the Civil War were the first modern, industrial conflicts. The shock over the death tolls was totes legit.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: That was pointed out multiple times on Twitter today.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: One nuke capable gun…. One can’t find it. It isn’t much bigger than a small truck.
Aimai
@Ladyraxterinok: oh john ringo, no. Oh, no, john ringo.
Another Scott
@Raoul: I think the goal was $50,000 when he first set it up. ;-)
I’ll be throwing more in after the start of the new year.
Cheers,
Scott.
Holden Pattern
@Schlemazel: But not Sherman. Because Foote is from the South.
Seriously, I can only hope Foote was the last gasp of the goddamn Dunning School.
KithKanan
@Millard Filmore: Stalingrad poses the question “why not both?”
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim: Wow.
Gravenstone
@Schlemazel: Thermite should be your go to implement when dealing with statuary. Not too much holds up long to molten iron.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman: One truly hopes the Mueller team has a file on each and every one, in terms of how they’ve aided in the Russian disruption of our governing process.
mike in dc
@Omnes Omnibus: They have a self-propelled 170mm gun, capable of firing a boosted shell 60km. If NK has advanced in miniaturizing nukes, could be a candidate for firing a nuke shell.
Omnes Omnibus
@mike in dc: Our 155s can fire nukes. Just one gun firing once… Woohoo.
Gravenstone
@Omnes Omnibus: As in they only fired one shell in practice, or the assumption was the unit would only last for the one shot before either counter battery fire, or the effects of its own munition took it out?
Villago Delenda Est
Good. Every last statue of these traitors should be removed, from anywhere but cemeteries.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim: Your disgusting kind were defeated once…you can be beat again, and this time, no humanitarian General Sherman stuff.
Cheryl Rofer
@Omnes Omnibus: You may be thinking of “Atomic Annie.” Here’s some video. Never really went into production.
North Korea has mobile missile launchers. The latest test was of one for an ICBM that could reach the US. Much more effective.
Another Scott
SCMP:
Interesting. True? Dunno. Is it important? Dunno…
Cheers,
Scott.
Captain C
@Adam L Silverman: Nunez, Gaetz, and Gohmert: the law firm you hire when Lionel Hutz won’t take your case.
Adam L Silverman
@Gravenstone: I forgot man of the people, tie undone, no coat, sleeves rolled up, Jim Jordan!
chopper
@Jim:
ha ha, you are such a fucking piece of shit. you’re literally pissed off over removing KKK statues? go die in a fire, fuckbag.
some guy
AWESOME. south from Chester, IL, I hope I an bring my daughter and my son to urinate on these now empty pedestals as we return to Florida.
love this town, now I love it even more.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cheryl Rofer: Nope. I was thinking of 203mm and 155mm nuke shells that the US Army had back when I was an artillery officer. Every border ex we did ended in the use of a tactical nuke.
@Gravenstone: As in, if NK fires one nuke arty round, all bets are off.
some guy
Google translate says that is Russian, and it doesn’t translate.
Billy deBeck, proto-crypto-anti-Stalinist
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
“I was just following orders.”
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: Important? Yes. This is the PRC strategically signaling that they 1) can’t do any more than they have (at least right now), 2) that the problem is on the DPRK end, specifically with Kim, and 3) the President should not blame the PRC or take it out on them when Kim continues to be immovable in regard to the nuclear weapon and missile development program.
mike in dc
@Adam L Silverman: Plus Trey Gowdy and House Judiciary gunning for Andrew McCabe.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cheryl Rofer: As Omnes indicates, the US did have at one time 203mm and 155mm nuke rounds. We drilled on their use when I was in a DIVARTY HQ.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: It is a puzzlement that his actual language, as well as Nunes, the President’s son, the Volk on Fox, the alt-righters wannabe gauleiters, Assange, and the Russians is identical. Takes a lot of work to pull off that level of coincidence.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: NRAS, baby.
Mike J
@Adam L Silverman: The National Security whatchacallit Trump issued the other day explicitly said that nukes are important to the US because they stop others from attacking us. It’s a pity Trump can’t seem to understand other people may share his feelings.
Mike J
@Villago Delenda Est: Dude, the US had a nuke bazooka, the Davy Crockett.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, yes. I was originally put in for TS so I could be stuck on an NRAS roster.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike J: Yes, and it was pretty much a failure because the range wasn’t great enough to spare the crew firing it.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: Yep.
tobie
@mike in dc: Have there been any leaks about the hearing with McCabe yesterday? Apparently it lasted eight hours.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: There was an AAM for beating a standard time for special weapons assembly. And a ARCOM for a SWO who had everyone beat the time. But then, I was thinking of Atomic Annie.
Steve in the ATL
@Jim: I’m confused. You right wing idiots loved Strickland because he pissed off the libs by letting cars park in the greensward in Overton Park. But now you hate him because he facilitated getting rid of statues of traitors?
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Remember the repetition of “lithe and fierce as a tiger” from Z?
mike in dc
@tobie: All I heard was Republicans complaining that he was too “friendly” towards the Democrats as they were questioning him about obstruction.
some guy
nukes for all. mm shells for assholes. your tax dollars at work. must destroy All Communists! to 11
glad we live in a world where “Bushwick” is not a dystopian scifi movie but an fyi heads up, TrumpLandia Now Brings You more Game Point Awards
Omnes Omnibus
@some guy: Do you have a point?
tobie
@mike in dc: I see…now even a demeanor is indicative of a nefarious plot, if it’s a Democrat’s demeanor. Republicans have carte blanche to be surly, dishonest, and uncooperative.
Adam L Silverman
@tobie: Yep, from the GOP members to Fox Volks:
Sab
@Steve in the ATL: Our Strickland in Ohio was so much better, but Koch money successfully slandered him. 60 years of a life well-lived couldn’t survive their toxic lies.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Ayep.
tobie
@Adam L Silverman: I’m not sure I have the stomach for a FOX article this late at night. I’ll see if I can brave it tomorrow. Thanks all the same for posting.
maeve
@NotMax: @NotMax:
I remember it (saw it in an art theater in the 70s – and was convinced from then on that “lithe” was pronouced “lith” -almost got in an argument with someone insisting I saw it in a movie – the realized “Z: had subtitles.
On another note – until 2 years ago I lived in Sitka Alaska which has a street corner which is the intersection of Lincoln and Jeff Davis (its a different Jeff Davis – he was a Union officer who was Alaska’s first military governer – apparently his career suffered post-civil war due to his name (or maybe because he had shot another officer in an argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_C._Davis#Killing_of_General_William_“Bull”_Nelson – that might have had something to do with it )
Sab
@Adam L Silverman: Yikes is a coincidence from the midwest.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: What is that even supposed to mean? The guy “draws a blank” because he can’t speak to it? This is a crime in GOP eyes?
Yarrow
I find this kind of hilarious.
trollhattan
Home from seeing “Six Billboards.” Wonderful film, McDormand and Harrelson are stunning. Heads in directions I didn’t expect, not one bit.
Yarrow
Adam, did you see this?
If only he knew what the swans really thought of him.
Millard Filmore
@Mike J:
Wait till they pass out the nuclear hand grenades.
Villago Delenda Est
@Yarrow: Roy has set up a whole new grifting opportunity based on the farcical notion of individual voter fraud giving the election to Doug Jones.
Villago Delenda Est
@Millard Filmore: Don’t laugh. We have “suitcase nukes” that engineers are supposed to emplace on key targets…things like bridges and tunnels.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
If more Republicans follow his example, this could get ugly.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: I do not like being Nazi Germany. Can we get rid of Hitler lite yet?
Dmbeaster
@Jim: The removal plan was inspired due to recently passed State laws designed to deny Memphis the power to remove the statues from its parks. So Memphis transferred the parks to a non-profit that was not constrained by these laws. Whether it works long term, we will see. I imagine the public supports this move in Memphis since it is almost 70% non-white, even if the racists elsewhere in the State do not.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Villago Delenda Est: That was one of Dubya’s prime propaganda tools to frighten voters.
(photo #1)
(photo #2)
Ruckus
@Steve in the ATL:
Those guys weren’t traitors to Jim’s favorite cause, racism. Those guys were and are his guys. Jim hates anyone with skin darker than toothpaste.
Cheryl Rofer
@Villago Delenda Est: Not any more.
Cheryl Rofer
@Omnes Omnibus: @Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, those too. We’ve gotten rid of pretty much everything except the B-61s. The thing is, as you note, one nuke shot changes the whole equation. Some are trying to convince themselves it doesn’t. A post on that is one of the many I’ve got in progress.
Tata
@mike in dc: The Tick!
Barbara
@Jim: The point is that as far as Tennessee law goes, what “the people” want is immaterial. Tennessee has decided to memorialize the Confederacy irrespective whether people living in Memphis find these particular statues to be repellent. I am sure Strickland will leave office gracefully if not reelected. But I doubt his successor will make a big push to bring the monuments back. They’re gone, and with enough moxy and continuing pressure, maybe after 150 years the United States will move past relitigating the Civil War once and for all and address issues that actually matter to living people now and in the future.
Barbara
@TenguPhule: Does it matter whether he has actually concedes?
Stan
@Mike J:
Holy crap, was that the one where the blast radius was bigger than the range?
Stan
@TenguPhule:
How so? The failure to concede carries no legal weight, it’s just a courtesy. Or in this case a disconnection from reality. The result stands regardless.
TenguPhule
@Barbara:
Him specifically? No.
But if every Republican that loses starts to decide that they will challenge the results regardless of the margin and refuse to concede, that’s going to be another norm tossed out in regards to the normal peaceful transfer of power during an election cycle.
Perception, expectations and customs are the glue that holds a civilized society together. Moore is another small bit of solvent being applied against that.
Mom Says I*m Handsome
@trollhattan:
So good you saw it twice? ;-)
bearcalypse
They should charge people 10 dollars a hit with a hammer on those statues and they’d make back whatever money they paid the state to buy the land. And I’ll be waiting in line.