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


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Just now, The Marquis de Leech said:

My (Welsh) grandfather, who served in the Royal Navy during WWII, hated Churchill with a passion. It was the votes of people like him that led to the 1945 election. And, yes, Churchill the Man was unpleasant, Churchill the Politician was loathsome.

But that's not why he's commemorated. The commemoration is for Churchill the Idea. For the one thing he was actually right about. For Britain's role in defeating the most evil regime in modern history - and god forbid British (or Russian) people take pride that their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents saved the world from Adolf.

TBH, I think we're only a few years away from much of the left arguing (as the extreme right have done for decades) that there was nothing to choose between the Western allies and Nazi Germany.

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Just now, SeanF said:

TBH, I think we're only a few years away from much of the left arguing (as the extreme right have done for decades) that there was nothing to choose between the Western allies and Nazi Germany.

It actually irritates me enough when people try to compare the USSR and Nazi Germany. The distinction is resolved by considering what would have happened had Adolf's regime (rather than Uncle Joe's) dominated Eastern Europe for forty years.

People who compare the Western Allies to Hitler? To Hell with them (and Churchill had something to say about Nazis and Hell).

 

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1 minute ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

It actually irritates me enough when people try to compare the USSR and Nazi Germany. The distinction is resolved by considering what would have happened had Adolf's regime (rather than Uncle Joe's) dominated Eastern Europe for forty years.

People who compare the Western Allies to Hitler? To Hell with them (and Churchill had something to say about Nazis and Hell).

 

The Soviet leaders were just as brutal as the Nazi leaders.

But, the Soviet people, not so much.  One can point to mass rape, and atrocities on the part of the Red Army, but far less in the way of mass extermination at the hands of their war machine, compared to the German armed forces.   Over the course of forty years, the Nazis would have exterminated the entire Jewish population, together with those Slavs deemed unworthy of "Germanisation".  It would be a case of murdering millions, rather than murdering tens of thousands.

And, there was nothing on the Soviet side to match the Ustasha for sheer, sickening, cruelty.

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1 minute ago, SeanF said:

The Soviet leaders were just as brutal as the Nazi leaders.

But, the Soviet people, not so much.  One can point to mass rape, and atrocities on the part of the Red Army, but far less in the way of mass extermination at the hands of their war machine, compared to the German armed forces.   Over the course of forty years, the Nazis would have exterminated the entire Jewish population, together with those Slavs deemed unworthy of "Germanisation".  It would be a case of murdering millions, rather than murdering tens of thousands.

And, there was nothing on the Soviet side to match the Ustasha for sheer, sickening, cruelty.

The only regime of the twentieth century that approaches the evil of Generalplan Ost is the Khmer Rouge.

Given forty years... they'd have exterminated not simply all "lesser" races, but be well on the way to purging the "Aryans" themselves. Starting with the French, of course, and not excluding the unfortunate Nazi-allied non-Germans. 

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4 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

The only regime of the twentieth century that approaches the evil of Generalplan Ost is the Khmer Rouge.

Given forty years... they'd have exterminated not simply all "lesser" races, but be well on the way to purging the "Aryans" themselves. Starting with the French, of course, and not excluding the unfortunate Nazi-allied non-Germans. 

Yes, the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge must qualify as the most evil regimes in modern history. 

I remember my wife's reaction, when I told her about the trial of Comrade Duch.  I mentioned that 23,000 had entered Tuol Sleng prison and 19 emerged.  She said "You mean 19,000?'  "No, 19".

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2 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

BTW if any country needs to have a 're-evaluation' of its history, it would be Japan. But I haven't seen much outrage directed at them, for some reason.

Definitely. Although there is plenty of outrage directed towards them in East Asia. That said, the extent to which they haven't taken any responsibility of their WWII history can be quite astonishing. Not only the stuff about denying having committed atrocities and so on, but they actually have a shrine in Tokyo where the souls of all their dead in that war are interned, explicitly including all their convicted war criminals. Which several Japanese Prime Ministers have visited and worshipped at. 

Their current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is the grandson of Nobosuke Kishi, one of the leading figures of the Japanese empire and arrested as a Class A war criminal after WWII. Kishi then went on to found the Liberal Democratic Party which has been the dominant political party in Japan since. 

 

 

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19 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

BTW if any country needs to have a 're-evaluation' of its history, it would be Japan. But I haven't seen much outrage directed at them, for some reason.

There's plenty of outrage directed at them in Asia.

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On 6/17/2020 at 4:17 PM, Ormond said:

Though I don't think I necessarily agree with him about Woodrow Wilson. At what point in American history exactly does being a "racist" per se disqualify one from any public recognition, 

Consider two American presidents of the 20th Century. Woodrow Wilson and LBJ. Both men were racist. But, should they both be remembered the same way? I don't think so. Wilson went out of his way to segregate the Federal Civil Service, something even his two Republican predecessors did not do. And then the Wilson watched Birth of a Nation in the White House. Even for his own time, Wilson was extreme.

Robert Caro wrote a four volume version of LBJ's life. Caro doesn't hide that LBJ was a messed up character. Even if you don't buy Caro's version of events that LBJ was the legislative mastermind behind the  1964 Civil Rights Bill, I don't think it is disputable that when advised not to pursue Civil Rights legislation LBJ said "then what in the hell is the presidency for?" LBJ championed Civil Rights bills.

Both Wilson and LBJ were racist. I don't think they should be remembered the same though.

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16 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Consider two American presidents of the 20th Century. Woodrow Wilson and LBJ. Both men were racist. But, should they both be remembered the same way? I don't think so. Wilson went out of his way to segregate the Federal Civil Service, something even his two Republican predecessors did not do. And then the Wilson watched Birth of a Nation in the White House. Even for his own time, Wilson was extreme.

Robert Caro wrote a four volume version of LBJ's life. Caro doesn't hide that LBJ was a messed up character. Even if you don't buy Caro's version of events that LBJ was the legislative mastermind behind the  1964 Civil Rights Bill, I don't think it is disputable that when advised not to pursue Civil Rights legislation LBJ said "then what in the hell is the presidency for?" LBJ championed Civil Rights bills.

Both Wilson and LBJ were racist. I don't think they should be remembered the same though.

Wilson is complex, given that he was "progressive" in some respects.

LBJ is fascinating.  To this day, I wonder why he didn't go in hard to uphold white supremacy.   He could have done.  It would have cost him little in terms of political support.   Did he fear a fresh civil war?   What would the world think today of a racially segregated USA?  I think we'd just hand wave it, as we do with the Gulf monarchies.

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6 minutes ago, SeanF said:

LBJ is fascinating.  To this day, I wonder why he didn't go in hard to uphold white supremacy.   He could have done.  It would have cost him little in terms of political support.   Did he fear a fresh civil war?   What would the world think today of a racially segregated USA?  I think we'd just hand wave it, as we do with the Gulf monarchies.

Caro doesn't hide that LBJ could be opportunistic and power hungry. But, LBJ did also seem to have soft spot for the underprivileged, which seemingly goes back to his own childhood and the time he spent teaching poor children.

I agree he is a fascinating character because of his many contradictions. He could be a real ass at times, but then also kind  or idealistic.

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50 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Wilson watched Birth of a Nation in the White House. Even for his own time, Wilson was extreme.

However, Wilson never said about BOAN that "...it is like writing history with lightning."  We searched and searched and searched for original source, of that, but there are none, only newspapers saying he said and they quote each other, but no story in which it is reported him saying it.  Mostly it seems it was D.W. Griffith who said Wilson said that.  Or Thomas Dixon.  Anyway both of them surely wanted Wilson to have said that.

However, that doesn't change the facts that Wilson was a pure segregationist, apartheid, color-based bigot and racist and responsible for a whole lot of evil.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

Caro doesn't hide that LBJ could be opportunistic and power hungry. But, LBJ did also seem to have soft spot for the underprivileged, which seemingly goes back to his own childhood and the time he spent teaching poor children.

For all his myriad personal faults, LBJ was a very committed FDR Democrat.  His focus was on extending the latter's legacy, and he did really more than anyone else to this day.  It'd be..counterproductive to pursue the Great Society while opposing the CRM.  Especially after his predecessor was assassinated.

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2 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Consider two American presidents of the 20th Century. Woodrow Wilson and LBJ. Both men were racist. But, should they both be remembered the same way? I don't think so. Wilson went out of his way to segregate the Federal Civil Service, something even his two Republican predecessors did not do. And then the Wilson watched Birth of a Nation in the White House. Even for his own time, Wilson was extreme.

Robert Caro wrote a four volume version of LBJ's life. Caro doesn't hide that LBJ was a messed up character. Even if you don't buy Caro's version of events that LBJ was the legislative mastermind behind the  1964 Civil Rights Bill, I don't think it is disputable that when advised not to pursue Civil Rights legislation LBJ said "then what in the hell is the presidency for?" LBJ championed Civil Rights bills.

Both Wilson and LBJ were racist. I don't think they should be remembered the same though.

Roosevelt and Taft would be stupefied by the implication that that was something that they would be expected to do.

I think Caro plausibly explains how the Kennedy aegis kept having non-starters and has been resigned to shine brightest in potential; transparent bad faith with those they regarded as moral inferiors that they didn't seem to understand was transparent (and that explains more than just their domestic performance). The argument that I can see for for the Kennedy administration getting the '64 bill done as well as LBJ is that not even the Kennedy Administration could squander the political capital of the Kennedy assassination to no effect- which needless to say involves a contradiction.

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On 6/19/2020 at 11:59 AM, OldGimletEye said:

Your argument presumes he was a Nazi. Was every japanese soldier a terrible person? I don't think so. And I don't think that every German who put on a uniform (excepting the Waffen SS of course) was a Nazi.

But, hey maybe you have a hard on for the fire bombing of Dresden on the grounds that everyone there was a Nazi.

The Wehrmacht actively participated in the Holocaust. So someone being a random soldier in Nazi germany doesn't mean that they're not guilty of crimes against humanity. The "clean Wehrmacht" myth is just that a myth.

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5 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

BTW if any country needs to have a 're-evaluation' of its history, it would be Japan. But I haven't seen much outrage directed at them, for some reason.

I guess you don't pay much attention to how Japan is discussed in China or South Korea.

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3 hours ago, Triskele said:

Is every US soldier complicit an Abu Ghraib?  Is there any distinction in that argument to the one you're making?  

People were differentiating between Nazis and soldiers as if only the Nazi party members, politicians, SS, SA etc were complicit, the "clean Wehrmacht" is a myth that was promoted after WWII that only the actual Nazis were guilty of crimes against humanity and the Wehrmacht itself was "clean". This is not true. The Wehrmacht actively participated in Holocaust, especially in the East, so my point was that just because someone was a random soldier doesn't mean they weren't guilty of crimes against humanity, not that all soldiers were guilty of crimes against humanity. And I don't think following orders excuses them, because I think everyone knows that shooting 100 starving Jews in a forest in Ukraine after forcing them to dig their own mass grave is wrong on every level.

3 hours ago, Triskele said:

Indeed I don't, but your reply doesn't help me understand your stance very much, and I would like to understand it.  Is the point that soldiers must betray bad orders?  

TMdL said that Japan should re-evaluate it's history but they don't see outrage about that. I agree Japan should re-evaluate it's history, but there is very much a great deal of outrage about it in some countries like China for example.

but yes I do believe soldiers must betray orders that are obviously evil.

ETA large scale crimes against humanity like the Holocaust or the Nanjing Massacre require not just the evil ideology and leadership, but also the active participation of a lot of bureaucrats and rank and file soldiers and other workers and either the support or at least apathy of the citizens of the country committing the crimes against humanity.

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Back to statues.

CNN is reporting growing tension outside the WH in Lafayette Park tonight. Apparently there’s a statue of Lee that protesters may be trying to topple.

I wonder if Trump will order tear gassing again. Or Barr. Whoever.

eta: the protesters have been sprayed with some unknown substance, pepper spray or tear gas.

And all reporters were told to leave the WH. The CNN reporter does not recall a time ever when all reporters were ordered out of the WH.

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