Charlottesville city council votes to remove Confederate statues that were the focus of violent 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally https://t.co/rdAbT1rvo1
— Kevin M. Levin (@KevinLevin) June 8, 2021
nobody cares. this particular culture war is over. the statues are coming down. the names are getting changed. big sad for you. https://t.co/xXOlCF27xS
— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) June 8, 2021
(Bonus points: Mr. Stepman, of the enclosed tweet, actually works for the HERITAGE! Foundation. Also, ‘Arlington is our most hallowed ground’ today because it was confiscated and turned into a veterans’ cemetery, not as a memorial to the Insufficiently Lost Cause but specifically *because* Lee was a traitor to the oath he’d taken… )
Alison Rose
Tell him “Boy, bye!”
Baud
Hitler made the trains run on time, and look how they treat him! Where will it end???
Cacti
In holding a Trumpler Youth rally there to protect white supremacist memorials, the MAGA cult probably hastened the demise of confederate statues in Charlottesville.
Poetic innit?
Gary K
Erik Loomis over at LGM uses this frequent tag at the end of his “…Visits an American Grave” series:
The Moar You Know
Seriously? Who are these people? There can’t be more than a dozen. Worldwide. Fucking ridiculous.
Steeplejack (phone)
Baud
I feel like cancel culture is getting to the point where no one can betray their country anymore.
It’s completely partisan.
smith
We win a fair number of the battles, but, oh, I’m so tired of the war.
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
More than the number of trans athletes, I’m sure.
trollhattan
“Lee did a lot of good stuff!”
“And he was a traitor who led a rebellion army that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and laid large swathes of the country to waste.”
“Lee did a lot of good stuff!”
Joe Falco
So much for White Boy Summer…
oatler.
“Premature anti – fascist”
See Studs Terkel’s “The Good War”
Another Scott
It’s good the statues are coming down.
ICYMI, Adam Serwer at TheAtlantic – The Myth of the Kindly General Lee (from 2017).
He was, of course, a monster.
Cheers,
Scott.
JoyceH
Which is why I think Mar A Lago and Bedminster ought to be seized by the feds and turned into COVID cemeteries.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: Benedict Arnold also did lots of good stuff.
Ken
So he was fighting for Texas slaveholders nearly twenty years before he betrayed his country for other slaveholders?
Brachiator
@Baud:
I thought this was said of Mussolini. In any event, just another fascist piece of crap.
Alison Rose
@Another Scott:
Feel like this could be said of like 98% of white dudez in history.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: Yeah, I think German trains always ran on time, because Germans.
zhena gogolia
@JoyceH:
Ooh, great idea!
zhena gogolia
@Brachiator:
You know, when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor . . .
Omnes Omnibus
@Alison Rose: Close down the thread, we have a winner.
sab
@trollhattan: I read US Grant’s memoir. Lee went to West Point and took oath of allegiance. After he got his college for free and then an Army career he decided all those oaths meant nothing because he was a Virginian (news to him at this point, after that free education and all those oaths?)
Actually, sort of typical of Southern manhood.
Mike in NC
The Mexican War of 1847 was nothing but a land grab.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alison Rose:
What about Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed? Well?
Chief Oshkosh
@Another Scott: This is a GREAT talk by a former Lee supporter – just a complete, one-stop-shopping that covers it all, plus, a fun speaker:
https://youtu.be/NleEmBZyvVI
JoyceH
Until I moved to Virginia, I didn’t really grasp the sheer veneration a lot of people around here feel for Confederate generals. Down the road a ways from where I live is Stratford Hall Plantation. It’s been a Lee family place for generations but its claim to fame was that Robert E. Lee was born there. When I toured the place, the guide said that once when she took a tour into a room and identified it as the room where Lee was born, a guy on the tour burst into tears.
Also? A further piece down the road is the place where Stonewall Jackson died. It’s owned by the National Park Service, and as recently as 2019, it was renamed the Stonewall Jackson Death Site. Before that? It’s official name, maintained by the National Park Service, was the Stonewall Jackson Shrine. A SHRINE!
Raven
We’re still in Beaufort,Sc doing nothing. I got an email this afternoon from a fellow I knew years ago. His wife made these interesting semi-documentaries about local peeps in the Athens area and they shot one of my wife talking about her garden, her art and her mission to spread beauty. The episode never was released but he just sent an hour long video of the day. It was 20 years ago and it’s incredible how she has kept her bearings and continued her quest. We’re visiting places where we took our pups so there is a good bit of laughter to go along with the sad. This gift really helped.
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: So that part was easy for Hitler. He also liked dogs and was a vegetarian. And he was very fond of his niece.
Mike in NC
Per USA Today, six schools in Jacksonville, FL are losing their Confederate names. It might be safe to assume there will never be a “Donald J. Trump High School” unless they build one in Moscow (and only enroll sexual predators).
billcinsd
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Eggs Benedict, the Battle of Saratoga, trying to get rid of West Point
Raven
@JoyceH: My wife is from Appomattox and I’m very familiar with all this. The unofficial nickname of Appo is”Where the Nation Reunited”.
Brachiator
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
He could whip up a tasty batch of eggs.
ETA: Yeah, “Eggs Benedict” not really named for him. Arnold fled to England, later moved to Canada and got kicked out of that country. The stink of his infamy followed him all his life.
Origuy
Speaking of revising history: Forget Shackleton, step aside Scott and Amundsen, meet the Polynesians who saw Antarctica first.
JoyceH
I just looked up the website of Stratford Hall. It’s actually owned and run by the Robert E. Lee Memorial Association, but I see the website is emphasizing first that it was the home of two signers of the Declaration of Independence, and then bringing up Robert E.
patrick II
Today I had scheduled maintenance on my home’s heat pump. The guy shows up and asks “Is a mask necessary” and I ask if he is vaccinated. He is — with Moderna, so I say so am I with Pfizer, so no mask is O.K. but we’ll keep a little distance. Then he adds — “but I regret it.”
“Why?”
“Because I lost my life insurance”.
“Who do you have life insurance with?”
“Allstate”.
“I don’t believe it. Where did you hear that?”
“On the internet”.
“I don’t think that is true.”
“And a friend told me”.
Of course, that is not true. Mostly, life insurance companies don’t ask about your vaccination, and if they do they prefer customers who have had their shot if there are comorbidities involved.
So, there you have it — another lie circling the rightwingosphere that most of us will never hear and are impervious to argument if we do.
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
I think it was “said” about both fascist dictators, that the trains ran on time. But that was false, part of the big lie. It was just unwise and illegal to mention that a train was late, as that could cause you to disappear into a camp.
And not a fun camp, but a death camp. Or at best a slave labor camp.
JoyceH
@patrick II: So the guy just ASSUMED that he no longer had life insurance and didn’t bother to CHECK?! Just… wow.
mrmoshpotato
Well, how could Trump trash betray the Confederacy?
Baud
@patrick II:
More life insurance for me.
JoyceH
This is off-topic, but feel the need to share. Whenever Matt Gaetz is in the news, I’m struck again by how strange his face is. I thought it was because his chin was so pointy, which looks weird with those chipmunk cheeks. But this evening there was a story about him on the news and they showed a lot of film footage of Gaetz, and it hit me – his pointy chin is off center! Check it out next time you see a face-on picture of him, his chin is not directly underneath his nose, but a smidge to the left.
MagdaInBlack
@JoyceH: And his eyes are too close together. The man is just goofy looking. Yes, I’m being lookist. He’s icky.
sab
My pretty little demon cat is lurking in the basement. He is eating a lot. He wanders the house at night when the humans are asleep. Half our cats like him. The other cats don’t. The dog from the same household thinks he is a demon cat. My favorite cat used to sleep with me. Now he sleeps on a chair where he can watch for the demon cat.
I do hope that at some point we can change this to small underfed cat who upon being fed changed his bad attitude. Human kids do this all the time. Why can’t cats?
Redshift
@JoyceH: Ms. Redshift worked on an archaeological dig at Stratford Hall when she was in graduate school, and had to bite her tongue constantly. Among other things, the tours there only talked of “servants,” slavery was never mentioned.
gene108
@smith:
I reach that point more frequently these days. It takes some effort to snap back.
Peale
@Origuy: I wonder if when they got home, they tried to offer trips there to see the penguins. With special discounts for AARP members.
mrmoshpotato
@JoyceH:
@MagdaInBlack: Now now. No need to body shame an alleged child rapist. Talk more about how he’s an alleged child rapist if you absolutely have to talk about the scumbag.
PaulB
The whole point about historical traitors we all remember that just about all of them did some real good for their country before their traitorous acts. That’s how they got placed into a position where those traitorous acts could do so much damage. If I were to decide tomorrow to become a traitor, nobody would care much because I’m not now, and never have been, in a position for my acts to do any real damage.
debbie
Huh, surprising that that’s not included in his Twitter bio. //
trollhattan
@patrick II:
That’s just…weird.
MagdaInBlack
@mrmoshpotato: That alleged child rapist is icky. ?
Besides, that was face-shaming. ?
gene108
@JoyceH:
Robert E. Lee was from Virginia aristocracy. His father and/or grandfather either signed the Declaration of Independence, representing Virginia, or attended the Constitutional convention, and held a high rank in the Revolutionary Army.
debbie
@JoyceH:
Check out the logo of this place. Not sure if you’d be familiar with this chain, but this is what I see when I see Gaetz.
Geminid
@Cacti: The guy who organized the Cbarlottesville rally did not really care about the statues, but instead was trying to grow his clout as a player on the alt-right. Once word got out so many neo-nazi and southern revanchist groups were coming, others disavowed the rally. The local Pagans motorclycle gang chapter let it be known that although they had provided “security” for the organizer’s news conference, their national leadership threatened to take their colors if they took part in the rally. The small group of locals have been fighting to preserve the statues through the courts would have nothing to do with the organizer or the rally.
The Thursday before the rally, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corrine Geller said that this was expected to be the largest gathering of white nationalists in decades. The organizer knew that would doom those statues, but he just valued them as a grievance. Whatever chance the statues would be left in place was gone when the people he invited came to town.
trollhattan
@JoyceH:
My standard Gaetz reference.
Jay
@mrmoshpotato:
yes, this.
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: I think he looks halfway between Beavis and Butthead, like a strange hybrid of the two.
Matt McIrvin
@patrick II: This is the first I heard of it, but apparently it’s been going around for a while:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/05/23/fact-check-covid-19-vaccine-wont-jeopardize-life-insurance-coverage/5203188001/
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@trollhattan:
Grant went to Appomattox with dirty boots. Lee wore his best uniform.
Grant had no respect for those smartly dressed Confederates…
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Raven:
There are some nice spots to eat along the dockside there.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@sab:
We’ve been training the main dog-cat into wearing her harness and hanging on the front deck with us. She now cries when we (and the dog) go out without her.
The guys have no desire to do the same.
Jeffro
Cville at large will breathe a huge collective sigh of relief when those statues come down. And rightly so.
also, F the MAGAts
people forget: we libs get mad too, only over the right things
Cheryl from Maryland
My first cousin once removed was President of the Daughters of the Confederacy during the early 1960s. She was awful, and they are awful — it’s all about the intimidation and puffing up self-esteem. This fits in with the current Confederate apologists — they just want to be top dog and lord over those they consider inferior.
Omnes Omnibus
@PaulB: Aldrich Ames.
Ken
@JoyceH: Come now, why would you talk to your insurance company to find out about your coverage, when you can read the internet? Next you’ll be saying I should talk to a doctor instead of googling treatments for my Morgellon’s syndrome.
Kdaug
As an aside, one of the primary reasons the Mexicans were fighting the Texains (as they were known at the time) was that Mexico had outlawed slavery.
Another Scott
@Chief Oshkosh: Thanks very much for the pointer. A good and brave speech at W&L.
Cheers,
Scott.
Uncle Cosmo
FTR, IIUC, da Moose did no such thing – instead he had the timetables rewritten to conform to actual operational constraints rather than classic Italian braggadocio.
The one indisputably good thing Mussolini has to his credit is the bonifacio integrale: the literal draining of the Pontine Swamps. There’s a reason malaria is an Italian word (mal aria, “bad air”) – it was the scourge of the Boot until the project destroyed the transmitting Anopheles mosquitos’ natural habitat. (And was reversed by the German defenders during the Battle of Anzio and had to be redone postwar…) Italy was declared free of malaria by WHO in 1970; the occasional case today makes headline news. /pedant