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

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

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. 

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.

[sologdin]

conscripted into the luftwaffe and rendered hors de combat in his first fight, then discharged--but not necessarily a member of the NSDAP itself?

[Zorral]

By the way, guess who said this first:

"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."

The rabid white supremacist, demanders of war on the north to take possession of the federal government completely for themselves of South Carolina -- and also, guess who? Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. Slavery was the Brits' fault, they said, we merely inherited it. And now we can't get rid of it because, as Patrick Henry also said, "the general inconvenience" caused by not having slaves to cater to their every convenience, from sexual to financial.

Do we need to break this down to show the utter absurdity of this as a defense for being pro-slavery yet a good person and a fine president, particularly when the defense and expansion of slavery for personal financial gain was the calculus of every decision and action?

[Fury Resurrected]

5 hours ago, BigFatCoward said: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. 

I can’t believe this requires saying but you know your job isn’t in any way equivalent to race, don’t you? I’m not saying don’t lump everyone together at all. I’m saying don’t do that with an entire race. Here in the US this is especially important to point out because a common retort to Black Lives Matter is Blue Lives Matter and your job choice is often equated to the ethnicity of others to undermine their efforts at social change. 

[BigFatCoward]

Just now, Fury Resurrected said:

I can’t believe this requires saying but you know your job isn’t in any way equivalent to race, don’t you? I’m not saying don’t lump everyone together at all. I’m saying don’t do that with an entire race. Here in the US this is especially important to point out because a common retort to Black Lives Matter is Blue Lives Matter and your job choice is often equated to the ethnicity of others to undermine their efforts at social change. 

Really, being in the police isnt a race?  Thanks. 

I was commenting on your absurd and rampant hypocrisy.  Nothing more. 

[Zorral]

In other words, the words of someone else, not my own:

Quote

“You can go through life pretending that inequality just happens to be that way, but I hope that my work shows that it’s not: It’s created. We make choices, we’ve made choices for a long time, and our environment is because of those choices,” she said. “Until we confront that truth, we’ll never be able to make right what was wrong.”

To minimize or deny that these Founding Fathers were the conscious founding fathers of racism, white supremacy and the domestic slave breeding trade that led ultimately to the War of the Rebellion is to choose inequality consciously.  Good grief, even John Adams, and particularly his grandson, John Quincy Adams, knew this even in their time before there was a US and a Constitution.  Yes JQ knew TJ from the time he was young boy.  They both predicted the War of Rebellion as inevitable because the slaveowners were -- to use their fall back descriptor because even their vast erudition couldn't find any other adequate to describe this, "insane."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/insider/nikole-hannah-jones-1619.html?

[Fury Resurrected]

2 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Really, being in the police isnt a race?  Thanks. 

I was commenting on your absurd and rampant hypocrisy.  Nothing more. 

That’s a false equivalency though, and it’s only hypocrisy if you don’t see a huge difference between lumping a race together and lumping a job together.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

24 minutes ago, 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.

I mean, they did like watching my people burn 

 

[Fury Resurrected]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

I mean, they did like watching my people burn 

 

Woah I missed this sideline of the discussion. Did @OldGimletEye really just say that not all members of the Nazi army were Nazis???? Fine people on both sides amiright?

[OldGimletEye]

8 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

 Did @OldGimletEye really just say that not all members of the Nazi army were Nazis???? Fine people on both sides amiright?

I did in fact say that and the principle was in fact recognized by the tribunals at the Nuremberg trials. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

16 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Woah I missed this sideline of the discussion. Did @OldGimletEye really just say that not all members of the Nazi army were Nazis???? Fine people on both sides amiright?

Were you aware that this exists on French Soil right now?  Clearly the French differentiate between the Germans who fought in the Wehrmacht and the leaders of the German Government of WWII who were Nazis:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cambe_German_war_cemetery

[BigFatCoward]

33 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

That’s a false equivalency though, and it’s only hypocrisy if you don’t see a huge difference between lumping a race together and lumping a job together.

I dont see a difference in the matter we are discussing. I.e. innacurately ascribing a set of values or beliefs or actions to a diverse group of people. Because there isnt a difference. It's just as stupid.

and that wasnt even what DMC did, you just flew off the handle without any need. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

Before discussions get too heated, let me bring up something else everyone can agree on, which is of course the British empire (unless you are Niall Ferguson).

Back in the 90s (if I have my times right), India went through a period where the vestiges of colonialism were being removed, This resulted in renaming cities (Bombay became Mumbai, Madras became Chennai etc.). Even good old Victoria Terminus, train station for over a million commuters, became the Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus. Dont think any statues came down, but I also dont think there For was too much pushback regarding renaming.

To me, the greater danger was and is conflating Indian identity with Hindu identity. For instance, replacing the names of places or things associated with invaders who happened to be Muslim (predating the British empire). I'd rather the names remain, rather than align myself with the ideology of a political party/movement I find loathsome.

[sologdin]

yeah, the NSDAP was adjudicated to be a private criminal organization, whereas the wehrmacht was an organ of the german state that both pre-existed the NSDAP and whose ranks were filled by conscription. i don't think it was required to join the party when inducted into the armed forces--though after a certain point everyone in the military had to swear personal oaths to the chancellor as leader of the armed forces, rather than as head of the party.

 

ideology of a political party/movement I find loathsome

modi as the hindu trump, maybe. little danger of monument demolition developing that way in the US.

[Rippounet]

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Were you aware that this exists on French Soil right now?  Clearly the French differentiate between the Germans who fought in the Wehrmacht and the leaders of the German Government of WWII who were Nazis:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cambe_German_war_cemetery

For what it's worth, the idea is well-accepted throughout the world.

- On a personal level, my grandmother (who, you know, actually lived through those events) was always careful not to confuse the average German (which she had some contacts with) from the leadership. Though she did keep some resentment against Germans as a whole for the rest of her life paradoxically.

- On an intellectual level, there was always a peculiarity when it comes to considering the Nazi ideology. In the US there was a huge difference made between Germans and the Japanese in propaganda. The Japanese were inherently evil because of their race ; the Germans were victims of a dangerous ideology. Of course the Japanese military repeatedly ignored the Geneva convention on the Pacific front...

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that yeah, the average German joe could well wear a Wehrmacht uniform and despise Nazism. As a totalitarian ideology, obviously Nazism didn't leave the average German a lot of agency. Even being a card-carrying Nazi didn't mean you were a true believer (think of a guy like Schindler).

[Zorral]

Additionally, that ranking of Jefferson's presidency is relatively recent, i.e. came in with Virginian Woodrow Wilson and the consolidation of the success rewriting the history of the War of the Rebellion, trashing Grant and elevating all the great gentlemen of that greatest country, Virginia -- and having this the official line, taught in all the schools -- which only slowly began to be corrected after the Centennial.  Even Edmund Wilson that sour old puss bought into the revisionist glorious lost cause chivalry -- and essentially companioned by Grant as a pathetic, orrupt, ignorant, drunken loser--  bs in his Patriotic Gore, the collection of writing on the War of the Rebellion published as part of the Centennial observations.

As said previously, in his own time and for decades later, Jefferson was not admired as potus. Especially he wasn't in his home 'country' of Virginia.

~~~~~~

DMC -- maybe you should just stop digging your hole of condescension,  and arrogance deeper?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

19 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

For what it's worth, the idea is well-accepted throughout the world.

- On a personal level, my grandmother (who, you know, actually lived through those events) was always careful not to confuse the average German (which she had some contacts with) from the leadership. Though she did keep some resentment against Germans as a whole for the rest of her life paradoxically.

- On an intellectual level, there was always a peculiarity when it comes to considering the Nazi ideology. In the US there was a huge difference made between Germans and the Japanese in propaganda. The Japanese were inherently evil because of their race ; the Germans were victims of a dangerous ideology. Of course the Japanese military repeatedly ignored the Geneva convention on the Pacific front...

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that yeah, the average German joe could well wear a Wehrmacht uniform and despise Nazism. As a totalitarian ideology, obviously Nazism didn't leave the average German a lot of agency. Even being a card-carrying Nazi didn't mean you were a true believer (think of a guy like Schindler).

Exactly 

[Maithanet]

21 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

- On an intellectual level, there was always a peculiarity when it comes to considering the Nazi ideology. In the US there was a huge difference made between Germans and the Japanese in propaganda. The Japanese were inherently evil because of their race ; the Germans were victims of a dangerous ideology. Of course the Japanese military repeatedly ignored the Geneva convention on the Pacific front...

Yeah, going further, Anti-German propaganda typically portrayed Germans as automatons and machines.  Anti-Japanese propaganda was much more  racist (Tojo does not have buck teeth at all, but that became his signature look in cartoons), and typically portrayed Japanese as animals or monsters.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

30 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

For what it's worth, the idea is well-accepted throughout the world.

- On a personal level, my grandmother (who, you know, actually lived through those events) was always careful not to confuse the average German (which she had some contacts with) from the leadership. Though she did keep some resentment against Germans as a whole for the rest of her life paradoxically.

- On an intellectual level, there was always a peculiarity when it comes to considering the Nazi ideology. In the US there was a huge difference made between Germans and the Japanese in propaganda. The Japanese were inherently evil because of their race ; the Germans were victims of a dangerous ideology. Of course the Japanese military repeatedly ignored the Geneva convention on the Pacific front...

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that yeah, the average German joe could well wear a Wehrmacht uniform and despise Nazism. As a totalitarian ideology, obviously Nazism didn't leave the average German a lot of agency. Even being a card-carrying Nazi didn't mean you were a true believer (think of a guy like Schindler).

As a Joe with German ancestry, I take offense to this, Frenchman! 

[Week]

1 hour ago, Fury Resurrected said:

I can’t believe this requires saying but you know your job isn’t in any way equivalent to race, don’t you? I’m not saying don’t lump everyone together at all. I’m saying don’t do that with an entire race. Here in the US this is especially important to point out because a common retort to Black Lives Matter is Blue Lives Matter and your job choice is often equated to the ethnicity of others to undermine their efforts at social change. 

 

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Really, being in the police isnt a race?  Thanks. 

I was commenting on your absurd and rampant hypocrisy.  Nothing more. 

There is nothing hypocritical here. The diversity of thought and culture within the social construct of "race" - whether it be white, Black, Indigenous, etc. - is incomparable to the job of cop. Fucking please. The persecution complex here is what leads to cops crying about their McMuffins.