Statues, Monuments, and When to Take Down or Leave Up Ones Dedicated To Flawed Historical Figures

[DMC]

16 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

As far as the calm down- you know that’s rude, you’re deliberately being rude. It makes it hard to believe your gaffes are accidental when you are deliberately and publicly rude when they are pointed out and at various other times.

Yep.  I don't try to be rude.  But I am rude to people that call me a racist for hours for no legitimate reason.

[Erik of Hazelfield]

18 hours ago, DMC said:

Almost literally every edifice in the United States of America is an offense to the indigenous of this country.

Is it just me or was this whole argument a misunderstanding?

My understanding of what DMC meant: "Since the entire US nation is basically an illegal occupation of indigenous lands, any and every federal building in the US should be considered an offense to native Americans".

Fury's understanding of what DMC meant: "Native Americans are so fucking sensitive that they consider even buildings offensive."

Please correct me if the misunderstanding is on me.

 

[Heartofice]

9 minutes ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Is it just me or was this whole argument a misunderstanding?

My understanding of what DMC meant: "Since the entire US nation is basically an illegal occupation of indigenous lands, any and every federal building in the US should be considered an offense to native Americans".

Fury's understanding of what DMC meant: "Native Americans are so fucking sensitive that they consider even buildings offensive."

Please correct me if the misunderstanding is on me.

 

That’s how it looked to me. 
 

I mean if a phrase might have multiple interpretations then you’d think the first thing you would do would be to ask what someone meant before hurling insults around.

[Maltaran]

57 minutes ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Is it just me or was this whole argument a misunderstanding?

My understanding of what DMC meant: "Since the entire US nation is basically an illegal occupation of indigenous lands, any and every federal building in the US should be considered an offense to native Americans".

Fury's understanding of what DMC meant: "Native Americans are so fucking sensitive that they consider even buildings offensive."

Please correct me if the misunderstanding is on me.

 

My reading of it is DMC saying “indigenous people should consider this offensive” and Fury saying “you telling indigenous people what they’re supposed to think is racist”

[DanteGabriel]

3 hours ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Is it just me or was this whole argument a misunderstanding?

My understanding of what DMC meant: "Since the entire US nation is basically an illegal occupation of indigenous lands, any and every federal building in the US should be considered an offense to native Americans".

Fury's understanding of what DMC meant: "Native Americans are so fucking sensitive that they consider even buildings offensive."

Please correct me if the misunderstanding is on me.

 

This is how I read it as well. *sigh*

[Ran]

6 hours ago, Zorral said:

a terrible POTUS

Polls from presidential historians, political scientists, etc. have a strange habit of ranking him in the top 5 for the most part. Even the left-leaning crowd involved in the Sienna College poll placed him 5th. To be sure, C-SPAN's poll has consistently put him in 7th place for the last decade...

In other words, against the backdrop of all other Presidents of the United States, I strongly disagree with the notion that he was terrible. He had his good and his bad parts.

Quote

and human being is who is responsible for the racist bullshit that is this nation

The racism of the nation came to its shores long before Thomas Jefferson was ever born, and it's absurd to suggest otherwise, yet the above does so.

 

[BigFatCoward]

4 hours ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Is it just me or was this whole argument a misunderstanding?

My understanding of what DMC meant: "Since the entire US nation is basically an illegal occupation of indigenous lands, any and every federal building in the US should be considered an offense to native Americans".

Fury's understanding of what DMC meant: "Native Americans are so fucking sensitive that they consider even buildings offensive."

Please correct me if the misunderstanding is on me.

 

Yes. 

[BigFatCoward]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

That’s how it looked to me. 
 

I mean if a phrase might have multiple interpretations then you’d think the first thing you would do would be to ask what someone meant before hurling insults around.

Dont be absurd. This is the internet. 

Remember when you didn't like black panther and were automatically racist? 

It's also pretty galling when the same person saying 'dont lump everyone in together' has spent the last 2 weeks putting every police officer in a box. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

9 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

I have southern relatives. And I have had explain to them why I think confederate statues should come down. The fact is that they have heard one story (wrong) their whole lives. Trying to lay out the reasons and fixing their understanding, even going so far as suggesting books or things to read, is more helpful than just saying, "Its not my job to educate you!",

Most monuments in the South buy into the bullshit lost cause myth hard.  We need to push back hard against that bullshit myth.  It is why I suggested memorials along the lines of the Le Cambre German war cemetary in Normandy are a better way to go.

 

[sologdin]

Please correct me if the misunderstanding is on me.

we could read DMC's point as an a fortiori argument: if the monuments are substantially injurious as symbolisms that continually re-afflict emotional trauma, then even more so the actual governmental instrumentalities of colonialist occupation continually re-afflict.  it is difficult to disagree with this point. i'm not sure however if it automatically follows that "...and therefore we need not remove the monuments because no one can conceive of removing the government," even if that argument could be asserted, probably in bad faith.

there's a semantic ambiguity in the phrase 'an offense to the indigenous of this country.' kay's reading is not unreasonable, apparently taking 'offense' as an event in the mental experience of an indigenous person--the sense of being offended by something.  the phrase can be read, perhaps more charitably, as the notion of a criminal offense--not a psychological experience within a person, but a non-psychological occurrence in the world under the relevant criminal law, wherein 'to the indigenous of this country' identifies the victim of the offense.  pursuant to the rome statute of the ICC, had it been then applicable, the US should be on the hook for multiple acts of the crime of aggression and genocide; the law knows no charges more severe than these. this reading evades drawing a potentially unwarranted inference about imputing to DMC the arrogation of indigenous mental states.

we construe ambiguities, such as the above, contra proferentem, and accordingly the original drafter is found liable for the altercation.  DMC is hereby cast in judgment for all costs of these proceedings.

 

Quote

The epistemological confusion of the left:  Left wing theorizing often tries to make "lived experience"  the epistemological gold standard. The essential idea is that the oppressed have certain pieces of knowledge that the oppressors don't, an idea that traces back to at least the Hungarian Communist Georg Lukács. If true, then it stands to reason, that there are certain things the oppressor class doesn't know and needs to be "educated" about. So its a bit inconsistent to say "well there are things you don't know because of your positionality, but I'm not going to explain them."

nice. privilege arguments are rooted in ideology theory and false consciousness doctrine--the allegation that the dominant group has defects in its knowledge precisely because of its dominance.  because of this, privilege can only be broken via intervention.

lukacs, certainly, is in this line of argument, but the general doctrine goes back further, and we would need to brush any example of lived experience against the grain, too.  dubois, too. i've never been a fan of the 'i'm not gonna do your research for you.' it is a dereliction of leftist duty--especially when depoliticized bourgeois think 'research' is a synonym for shopping on amazon.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Most monuments in the South buy into the bullshit lost cause myth hard.  We need to push back hard against that bullshit myth.  It is why I suggested memorials along the lines of the Le Cambre German war cemetary in Normandy are a better way to go.

 

I mean I could be wrong, but where else do they build monuments to their loser traitors? There isn't a single redeeming thing about the Confederate South.

[OldGimletEye]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I mean I could be wrong, but where else do they build monuments to their loser traitors? There isn't a single redeeming thing about the Confederate South.

My grandfather was at Normandy. And then he battled the German Army for several months in northwestern Europe. After the war, he befriended an ex German soldier, a former paratrooper, who emigrated to the US. When I was very young, I was utterly confused by this. So I asked my grandfather about it. How could he befriend a former enemy. He told me that had he been born in Germany, he too would have likely fought in the Germany Army, or in the case of his friend the Fallschirmjager, which was technically a branch of the of the Luftwaffe.

I don't have a particular objection to war memorials dedicated to the average rank and file soldier.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

My grandfather was at Normandy. And then he battled the German Army for several months in northwestern Europe. After the war, he befriended an ex German soldier, a former paratrooper, who emigrated to the US. When I was very young, I was utterly confused by this. So I asked my grandfather about it. How could he befriend a former enemy. He told me that had he been born in Germany, he too would have likely fought in the Germany Army, or in the case of his friend the Fallschirmjager, which was technically a branch of the of the Luftwaffe.

I don't have a particular objection to war memorials dedicated to average rank and file soldier.

My grandfather was Marine intel officer in the Pacific Theater. But as a Jew, there was only one good kind of Nazi. 

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

My grandfather was Marine intel officer in the Pacific Theater. But as a Jew, there was only one good kind of Nazi. 

Max Schmelling was also in the Fallschirmjager. He could hardly be branded as a Nazi.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Max Schmelling was also in the Fallschirmjager. He could hardly be branded as a Nazi.

He put the uniform on. 

[Liffguard]

21 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

I don't have a particular objection to war memorials dedicated to average rank and file soldier.

That's fair. I think commemorations of the dead are entirely different to the glorification of specific individuals or causes. They're functionally equivalent to gravestones.

[OldGimletEye]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

He put the uniform on. 

Maybe you should look into his actions a little more. At times. I find some on left as rigid in their moral judgments of individuals as the religious right.

[Fury Resurrected]

8 hours ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Is it just me or was this whole argument a misunderstanding?

My understanding of what DMC meant: "Since the entire US nation is basically an illegal occupation of indigenous lands, any and every federal building in the US should be considered an offense to native Americans".

Fury's understanding of what DMC meant: "Native Americans are so fucking sensitive that they consider even buildings offensive."

Please correct me if the misunderstanding is on me.

 

Mostly yes, but when confronted with hey your statement sucks he doubled down and got rude about it- which is NOT how someone with good intentions behaves over a simple misunderstanding. He also elaborated that indigenous people have TOO MUCH of a point to care about this issue, doubling down that he knows what’s best for us, and we do not. Just like he knows what buildings are offensive to us, and what statements are offensive to us, and we do not.

His original statement reads like “since Indigenous people are bothered by everything, why start anywhere” which is the exact argument we run up against every single time we want anything done, like laws to protect indigenous women, like not building pipelines in our water supply, like not having racist team names (that some liberals on this board even root for) or mascots. His statement is emblematic of every person obstructing equality for Indigenous people, and his attitude is one that is emblematic of the refusal to hear native voices on issues that impact native people. 

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, Ran said:

Polls from presidential historians, political scientists, etc. have a strange habit of ranking him in the top 5 for the most part. Even the left-leaning crowd involved in the Sienna College poll placed him 5th. To be sure, C-SPAN's poll has consistently put him in 7th place for the last decade...

In other words, against the backdrop of all other Presidents of the United States, I strongly disagree with the notion that he was terrible. He had his good and his bad parts.

The racism of the nation came to its shores long before Thomas Jefferson was ever born, and it's absurd to suggest otherwise, yet the above does so.

 

When the establishment ranks TJ, the out and out racist, white supremacist vampire upon the bodies of African Americans, who wrote the founding documents of eugenics and white supremacy (Notes on the State of Virginia -- while attempting to hide that he'd done so from the people and voters of the US), who destroyed the navy that John Adams so carefully built up, leaving the US totally vulnerable to British navy attacks -- i.e. as in the quasi and 1812 wars -- unconstitutionally accepted the drop in lap territory of Louisiana, stabbed his boss, Washington in the back, scheming with the French to push the US into war with Britain -- we can go on on -- when the ESTABLISHMENT ranks him as among the top 5 presidents, yes he is the founding father of the domestic slave trade-breeding industry and white supremacy and the divisions that inevitably led to the War of the Rebellion.  And whom what he had wrought continue to insist on honoring with public monuments and names of official buildings and all the rest.

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

25 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Maybe you should look into his actions a little more. At times. I find some on left as rigid in their moral judgments of individuals as the religious right.

This is not a right-left issue. It's a Jew-Nazi one, and being a Nazi who did some good things does not absolve you of being a fucking Nazi.