Violence in Charlottesville

[Montmorency]

You remember way back when i said we need to bring back radical reconstruction and i joked by saying you agreed wholeheartedly?

I'm glad we are finally on the same page.

Was that a specific exchange, or is there something else you're hinting at that I should be familiar with?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Was that a specific exchange, or is there something else you're hinting at that I should be familiar with?

No, this was a specific exchange back in the thread about the dylann kid who shot up the black church. The one with the rhodesia patch on his shirt at the time of the shooting.

[Montmorency]

No, this was a specific exchange back in the thread about the dylann kid who shot up the black church. The one with the rhodesia patch on his shirt at the time of the shooting.

This one?

Looking back, I took a harder line than you did.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

He wasn't. His benign legacy is a myth and he is up there with the most egregious traitors and supremacists. The pushback is most charitably identified with imbeciles and casual racists who just don't know any better and don't want to.

After seeing this type of disingenuous pushed relentlessly by people who of course wouldn't dream of calling for a memorial to Osama bin Laden at Ground Zero as an expression of heritage or history, I'm through with the belief that some may be spared. Raze everything on public land to the earth. The pigs can lick up their blood and soil from the gravel of their impressions.

The only Confederate symbol that matters is the white flag of surrender.

He was not the idol he became by any means. He seemed to be mildly anti-slavery, but more for how it coarsened white society. There is little evidence to suggest he was in any way an abolitionist. It is a clear fact that he left the US Army to fight for Virginia, knowing full well that the "peculiar institution" was one of the reasons for secession and that it underlay most of the OTHER reasons claimed for secession. He took up arms against the nation of his birth and lost.

He can be credited with keeping it a more or less conventional war and with rarely allowing his troops to indulge in rapine and murder. I shudder to think what our history would have been like with a South filled with Mosby and Quantrill units for decades. Ghastly thought that.

Lee was a man and a product of his times. He was neither unusually cruel or evil, nor was he saintly.

[Fragony]

You would almost forget it exists

[Montmorency]

Lee was a man and a product of his times. He was neither unusually cruel or evil, nor was he saintly.

The proper context of people like Lee is in the shadow of our famous statesmen and generals like Lincoln and Grant, or (for those desperately reaching) "founding fathers" like Washington and Jefferson. Thus:

[American hero], despite his flaws, was a leading light in our history and institutions who under conditions of great adversity did right and good when it counted. Robert Lee, despite his virtues, was a committed slaver who threw his chips in with the treasonous project of vitalizing white-landlord supremacy when it counted.

[a completely inoffensive name]

This one?

Looking back, I took a harder line than you did.

Ah yeah, so you did.

Also @Strike For The South do you still need a copy of HW Brands: "A restless colossus"? I think you actually meant "American Colossus"

[Gilrandir]

Why am I not surprised?
http://world.24-my.info/journalists-...arlottesville/

[Beskar]

[Husar]

Some surprisingly balanced reporting from NBC:

So yes, there were people on both sides that came looking for a fight. However, most counter-protesters were locals who were appalled to have white supremacists and neo-nazis marching thru their town.

I'm not saying you said so (and this isn't a criticism of your post, just related of sorts!), but what really gets me is not that people criticize the antifa and black block or whatever they call Stalinist and other leftist extremists, is that they do it in an attempt to equate both sides and shof the discussion away from the white supremacist rally.

In almost every left counter-demonstration in Germany you can find the antifa and it's not surprising that they exist in the US, too. The difference is they usually make up a relatively small percentage of the counter-demonstration whereas the tiki torch racist thugs are usually the (vast) majority of the racist demonstration.

It's actually the typical right-wing reaction to try and de-legitimize and entire group of people based on the actions of a very small percentage of the group in order to deflect from the fact that their pet group is entirely rotten to the core...

Or to say it in the words of Jesus, whom the right often claim to represent (even the racists):
http://biblehub.com/matthew/7-5.htm

You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

[Strike For The South]

Ah yeah, so you did.

Also @Strike For The South do you still need a copy of HW Brands: "A restless colossus"? I think you actually meant "American Colossus"

I have that book, but I have yet to read it. And you are correct on the title. I have something like 50 books on the war and have only read like 25. That goes for my whole library though. I have a nasty habit of being both compulsive and scatter brained.

Looking back on that thread I was too forgiving. When your biggest supporters are neo nazis and carpet baggers you lose The cultural memory of the war argument. the majority of the monuments have always been about race and were meant to consolidate white power. I still think about the slippery slope argument sometimes. There is a hardcore group of committed leftists who would see the whole antebellum portion of American history stricken. This is a battle over the National Myth not history. I suppose I should have been more clear in that thread. It should also be noted that most of the counter protesters were locals who hated nazis (big suprise lol)

I still believe that class is not the major reason for the crime rates (Or should I say crime statistics) in this country. And simply leveling the economic field won't even things out. American culture and policing have to change. A conviction is the result of so much more than a crime. One only needs to look at exoneration rates to draw that conclusion. I have some great books on that too. Michelle Alexanders "The New Jim Crow" being required reading for anyone serious about police reform.

I have seen a lot of people saying they refuse to wait for the local legislatures to take care of this problem. I will point out that direct action is strongest when backed by legislation. Merely tearing things down does no good because the other side will simply follow that mob mentality. Roving mobs tearing things down they don't like will simply entrench the majority of people who simply want order. Call your councilman, picket the sign, and you will enjoy much longer lasting and concrete effects.

I like Montys idea about no guns at rallies but that would live in the court system, probably for the rest of our lives.

Robert E Lee was not really a man of his times. He was part of the elite Southern Planter class. He was, quite literally a feudal style overlord. Like many southern planters of his time, he was allowed to pursue a career in politics or the officer core because of the labor of his slaves. Had the union not been so forgiving, he would have been hung. He was also not a "states" rights man either. Him and Davis quite literally bowled over the states for the needs of the CSA. I think Arlington is a fair trade for his transgressions.

Edit: Also entertaining the slippery slope argument does not mean you can't outright condemn Neo-Nazis and does not mean you can engage in false equivocation, Mr.President.

[Montmorency]

Looking back on that thread I was too forgiving. When your biggest supporters are neo nazis and carpet baggers you lose The cultural memory of the war argument. the majority of the monuments have always been about race and were meant to consolidate white power. I still think about the slippery slope argument sometimes. There is a hardcore group of committed leftists who would see the whole antebellum portion of American history stricken. This is a battle over the National Myth not history. I suppose I should have been more clear in that thread. It should also be noted that most of the counter protesters were locals who hated nazis (big suprise lol)

Edit: Also entertaining the slippery slope argument does not mean you can't outright condemn Neo-Nazis and does not mean you can engage in false equivocation, Mr.President.

The thing is, what slope is it exactly? Of course there could be any number of items that need to be revised, these aren't the only statues in the country. It usually isn't even like the politics of neo-Confederatism, but a desire to replace or update items that are no longer meaningful to the community. For a banal example, imagine a small town replacing a statue of some native sports star with a statue of another, more recent, native sports star.

If the slope is that there are other statues to look at, then that isn't a slope - we're already there, and always have been since it is latent and not something arrived at to assess and reassess public iconography. Once you realize that, you return to acknowledging the content of public debate and not merely its existence.

I have seen a lot of people saying they refuse to wait for the local legislatures to take care of this problem. I will point out that direct action is strongest when backed by legislation. Merely tearing things down does no good because the other side will simply follow that mob mentality. Roving mobs tearing things down they don't like will simply entrench the majority of people who simply want order. Call your councilman, picket the sign, and you will enjoy much longer lasting and concrete effects.

Abstractly speaking since that statue you had taken down a few days ago seems to have involved general activists rather than Antifa, my biggest problem with Antifa is indeed that they are anarchists, so they want to with state government as much as they do with fascists. In practical terms, this article comment by Curtis Carpenter also reflects some of my misgivings:

With genuine respect, I think antifa is tragically unsophisticated in its approach and its actions are conducted absent any carefully thought-out strategic objectives that could give their tactical operations meaning. In the absence of such objectives, "bombarding and besieging far right events" is at best pointless at anything but an emotional level, and is at worst counter-productive at a long-term political level.

Where, for example, is the psychological understanding of the neo-fascist elements antifa seeks to "make afraid?" Does the antifa movement not understand that many on the fringe right actually draw strength from being vilified and attacked? That they WANT confrontation as an affirmation that they matter?

Don't get me wrong, I believe that there are situations that demand confrontation. But for those confrontations to be meaningful, they need to be conducted in the context of a overarching purpose. Being against is not sufficient, and that is an aspect omitted from the brief observations here about historical anti-fascist struggles. The International Brigades in the Spanish civil war were about more than smashing fascist heads.

The thought of confronting a professional anti-fascist one on one gives the fascist a hard-on; it's what they live for. Confronting a dozen mobilized citizens giving forth denunciations scares the shit out of the fascist. Bodies are more important than specific training.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The problem with Lee is that, really, he is morally equivalent with Thomas Jefferson - both personally, morally, objected to slavery and yet both wholeheartedly participated in it and refused to free their slaves. Jefferson didn't even free his coloured children.

So - if Lee must go, so must Jefferson, doubly so because as one of the Founding Fathers he literally institutionalised slavery.

[Pannonian]

I have that book, but I have yet to read it. And you are correct on the title. I have something like 50 books on the war and have only read like 25. That goes for my whole library though. I have a nasty habit of being both compulsive and scatter brained.

Looking back on that thread I was too forgiving. When your biggest supporters are neo nazis and carpet baggers you lose The cultural memory of the war argument. the majority of the monuments have always been about race and were meant to consolidate white power. I still think about the slippery slope argument sometimes. There is a hardcore group of committed leftists who would see the whole antebellum portion of American history stricken. This is a battle over the National Myth not history. I suppose I should have been more clear in that thread. It should also be noted that most of the counter protesters were locals who hated nazis (big suprise lol)

I still believe that class is not the major reason for the crime rates (Or should I say crime statistics) in this country. And simply leveling the economic field won't even things out. American culture and policing have to change. A conviction is the result of so much more than a crime. One only needs to look at exoneration rates to draw that conclusion. I have some great books on that too. Michelle Alexanders "The New Jim Crow" being required reading for anyone serious about police reform.

I have seen a lot of people saying they refuse to wait for the local legislatures to take care of this problem. I will point out that direct action is strongest when backed by legislation. Merely tearing things down does no good because the other side will simply follow that mob mentality. Roving mobs tearing things down they don't like will simply entrench the majority of people who simply want order. Call your councilman, picket the sign, and you will enjoy much longer lasting and concrete effects.

I like Montys idea about no guns at rallies but that would live in the court system, probably for the rest of our lives.

Robert E Lee was not really a man of his times. He was part of the elite Southern Planter class. He was, quite literally a feudal style overlord. Like many southern planters of his time, he was allowed to pursue a career in politics or the officer core because of the labor of his slaves. Had the union not been so forgiving, he would have been hung. He was also not a "states" rights man either. Him and Davis quite literally bowled over the states for the needs of the CSA. I think Arlington is a fair trade for his transgressions.

Edit: Also entertaining the slippery slope argument does not mean you can't outright condemn Neo-Nazis and does not mean you can engage in false equivocation, Mr.President.

There's something of a compromise out of this, if the states wish to take it. Jackson's great grandchildren have called for his statues to be taken down, citing the morally objectionable state which he served. If the families of the biggest names similarly call for their statues to be removed, and defence of the Union can always be cited if they wish to skirt the issue of slavery, then it'll leave only the statues of no-marks, and nobody will care to make a fuss over their removal. If people don't want to provoke a civil split, they can always respect families' wishes as per, with the same results.

[Montmorency]

The problem with Lee is that, really, he is morally equivalent with Thomas Jefferson - both personally, morally, objected to slavery and yet both wholeheartedly participated in it and refused to free their slaves. Jefferson didn't even free his coloured children.

So - if Lee must go, so must Jefferson, doubly so because as one of the Founding Fathers he literally institutionalised slavery.

Lee thought slavery necessary and good, the white man's burden. He believed the highest expression of Negro existence was under condition of bondage and servitude to white masters.

Jefferson did not believe this. Also, he did not wage war against the country.

What is it with this bizarre deontologism that if one slaveholder can't be represented on state ground, none can be?

Why is it so difficult for some to tell the difference between founders and traitors?

[Strike For The South]

The thing is, what slope is it exactly? Of course there could be any number of items that need to be revised, these aren't the only statues in the country. It usually isn't even like the politics of neo-Confederatism, but a desire to replace or update items that are no longer meaningful to the community. For a banal example, imagine a small town replacing a statue of some native sports star with a statue of another, more recent, native sports star.

If the slope is that there are other statues to look at, then that isn't a slope - we're already there, and always have been since it is latent and not something arrived at to assess and reassess public iconography. Once you realize that, you return to acknowledging the content of public debate and not merely its existence.

So perhaps we are simply seeing a passing of the torch? A fundamental change in the myth? I suppose that is simply the march of time, the republic is not a static thing.

Abstractly speaking since that statue you had taken down a few days ago seems to have involved general activists rather than Antifa, my biggest problem with Antifa is indeed that they are anarchists, so they want to with state government as much as they do with fascists. In practical terms, this article comment by Curtis Carpenter also reflects some of my misgivings:

We seem to have the same general misgivings.

The thought of confronting a professional anti-fascist one on one gives the fascist a hard-on; it's what they live for. Confronting a dozen mobilized citizens giving forth denunciations scares the shit out of the fascist. Bodies are more important than specific training.

Right now people are encountering the soft outer shell of the WN movement. Mostly NEETs with no general direction. The hard center will not cry when you try to attack them. They will kill you. Full stop. That is the danger with these "punch a nazi" movements. These people do not understand how committed the other side is. The danger of the far right has been under played.

We have the potential for full on violence and as we have discussed local PDs are not equipped to deal with cable st style brawls.


My while end game is to ensure the levers of the republic. I think it goes without saying both of us are on the "left" side of this. Too far left however, and we lose it all.

[Husar]

Well, here's a feelgood story for a change:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7489596.html

[Beskar]

This video is making its rounds. An old war-era American clip about fascism which i many ways still relevant.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The problem with Lee is that, really, he is morally equivalent with Thomas Jefferson - both personally, morally, objected to slavery and yet both wholeheartedly participated in it and refused to free their slaves. Jefferson didn't even free his coloured children.

So - if Lee must go, so must Jefferson, doubly so because as one of the Founding Fathers he literally institutionalised slavery.

There are mixed records on Lee's opinion. Jefferson's is pretty well documented to be as you represent. There is no confirmation that Jefferson himself fathered children among the slaves, though the genetic evidence DOES confirm that one or more of a small set of Jeffersons (possibly including TJ) did.

However, there are already calls [by Al Sharpton] for the removal of public support for the Jefferson memorial Source, as well as Washington's name and statue from a park in Chicago source.

[Montmorency]

However, there are already calls [by Al Sharpton] for the removal of public support for the Jefferson memorial Source, as well as Washington's name and statue from a park in Chicago source.

That's nothing new from Sharpton, but the question is a worthy one. The question is, who, if anyone, should be venerated on public grounds. Jefferson and Washington? I'm okay with that. Again, despite their flaws, they still represent us well. Their hesitations with regard to slavery should be publicized, but these do not - in my opinion - disqualify them. I say this knowing full well that one day this opinion may change, or that I may be overruled by a different public feeling.

Confederate statues - with a few penitent exceptions - are not merely markers of events that have occurred or people who have lived. Given our mastery of language and writing, we would have little use for statues in that capacity. These are public symbols that mean something, and have represented only two ideals: first, as symbols of reverence for the Lost Cause and defiance to the "Yankee" national government; second, as a reminder to black people of who was still in charge.

These ideals have not served us in the past and do not serve us well today, and are not the history we should want to promote. We must memorialize (marmorealize) the Civil War without celebrating its villains or atrocities, and without promoting Southern (and recently white*) exceptionalism.

*It was always about whiteness of course, but with special regard to Southern (white) identity. The Confederacy and its trappings as beacon for white power only spread beyond the South during the Civil Rights era, and only internationalized over the past generation.

[Xiahou]

I think you can make an argument against Confederate monuments without having to slide down the slippery slope*. Just ask yourself, why is this person being memorialized?

Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are not memorialized for being slave owners. They are memorialized for playing pivotal roles in the founding of our country and laying out our form of government.

Lee and other Confederate leaders are memorialized for leading a rebellion against the US government, one of it's primary reasons for which was to protect the institution of slavery. I think if local and state governments decide they no longer want memorials to these people, they're well within their rights. I do think, however, we need to be careful when doing this that we're not purging everything negative from our history. Maybe if localities decide to remove monuments, they could be taken to museums or Civil War battlefields?

*Sadly, those on the hard left who are hot on monument destruction don't seem capable of the same discernment.

[Husar]

If there are pictures on the internet, the history is already preserved.

https://www.google.de/search?q=Rober...=1189&dpr=1.65

[Strike For The South]

We will see.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9...mount-rushmore

In other news the ACLU will no longer defend those who bring firearms to assemblies/protests.http://thehill.com/homenews/347053-a...-with-firearms

This is good news. A firearm is implicit intimidation.

I think maybe "preserving" history is the wrong way to frame it. What is more distressing is the unilateral mob action. Like if you can't be bothered to go to your councilman, no one else will either and it will devolve quickly.

I guess I'm one of those centrist liberals twitter is always talking about.

[Montmorency]

The best possible public memorial for Robert Lee is Arlington National Cemetery, a landscape of American war dead on land formerly of the Lee family's estate. (IMO better if it had been expropriated rather than purchased.)

We will see.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9...mount-rushmore

In other news the ACLU will no longer defend those who bring firearms to assemblies/protests.http://thehill.com/homenews/347053-a...-with-firearms

This is good news. A firearm is implicit intimidation.

Unfortunately, that is exactly how those troublesome truths are treated when you face the awesome grandeur of Rushmore, a monument so incredible it obscures the multifaceted nature of these old dudes, transmogrifying them from individuals with a capacity both for greatness and evil into pure American deities..

What I am suspicious of are monuments produced by the state, which tend to flatten out nuances and turn flawed individuals into tools of propaganda that bolster a kind of religious patriotism.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Trump and his white supremacist cohorts believe the reverence some Americans have for these statues is simply respect for history, and that tearing them down is tantamount to ripping pages out of a textbook. But monuments built by the state are not history—they manifestations of power. They don't tell you who, what, why, or how something happened. Instead, they just inform you who's in control. This is even true with the Confederate statues, even though the South lost the war. The reality is that the enshrinement of those generals in statues across the nation mostly did not happen right after the war as a tribute to lost struggle. Instead, they were built in the early 1900s and the 1960s, when it was crucial for those in power to signal that white supremacy would endure in the face of Reconstruction, the Progressive Era, and the civil rights movement. Erecting these statues amounted to power moves by white people who felt threatened. And now that they are being toppled, and neo-Nazis fight against their removal, their true meaning has become clearer than ever.

Good points. It probably has more artistic merit than most Confederate monuments, despite being a failed federal project on Indian land designed as a tourist trap; I don't have many defenses against its removal other than budgetary ones. Is the grandeur accidental, or just superficial after all?

Maybe heads carved out of a mountain would be more fitting for Soviet premiers than American presidents.

[Montmorency]

Mount Rushmore is an unstable piece of rock. Don't blow it up: abandon it. Pull out the facilities and maintenance crews, and let it transform into an Ozymandian spectacle of folly.

[Beskar]

Mount Rushmore is an unstable piece of rock. Don't blow it up: abandon it. Pull out the facilities and maintenance crews, and let it transform into an Ozymandian spectacle of folly.

I thought they were adding a 5th head to it?

[Xiahou]

In other news the ACLU will no longer defend those who bring firearms to assemblies/protests.http://thehill.com/homenews/347053-a...-with-firearms

This is good news. A firearm is implicit intimidation.

What about those that are carrying clubs, batons, rocks, brass knuckles or pepper spray?

[Strike For The South]

The best possible public memorial for Robert Lee is Arlington National Cemetery, a landscape of American war dead on land formerly of the Lee family's estate. (IMO better if it had been expropriated rather than purchased.)

I agree. A forced sale of land is a rather light punishment for treason. The leniency of the Union government is partially the reason we are in this mess. Meigs was very much playing the long game.

Good points. It probably has more artistic merit than most Confedertae monuments, despite being a failed federal project on Indian land designed as a tourist trap; I don't have many defenses against its removal other than budgetary ones. Is the grandeur accidental, or just superficial after all?

The entirety of the Americas is a project on native land. Do we simply excise all European influence? If so which one of the 000s of Native polities takes supremacy? Who gets what? How much native blood does one need to be part of this?

Are we arguing against monuments in general or are we arguing over the national myth? Or maybe historical pedagogy? America only works because of civic nationalism, if we don't have a common well to draw upon, we cease being a useful society. That well needs to be more inclusive and has for a long time. Removing these Confederate statues is a first step toward that.

I'm not sure when the end game is.

Maybe heads carved out of a mountain would be more fitting for Soviet premiers than American presidents.

I mean maybe, we all have our on tastes in aesthetics.

What about those that are carrying clubs, batons, rocks, brass knuckles or pepper spray?

That would qualify for me. I am unsure how the ACLU feels. The majority of the "left" people at the protest were locals. The people on the right were out of staters with firearms. It was not an equal situation.

[Montmorency]

What about those that are carrying clubs, batons, rocks, brass knuckles or pepper spray?

Should concealed carry of self-defense implements be restricted in this context? The point against the open display of arms is that it inherently perverts expression, intimidates participants, and incites to violence. This notion is so fundamental that it was recognized in ancient times. Weapons that are not displayed or made known at any time (other than in legally justified self-defense) do not appear to be germane. I would support harsh scrutiny of incidents of pistol discharge within crowds, as that's also a clear public danger. At any rate, it's impracticable to search the persons of each participant.

Brass knuckles have a pretty mixed bag of laws around them in the US; does anyone actually carry them outside of organized crime?

The entirety of the Americas is a project on native land. Do we simply excise all European influence? If so which one of the 000s of Native polities takes supremacy? Who gets what? How much native blood does one need to be part of this?

I don't support transfers of land or sovereignty to native tribes.

Are we arguing against monuments in general or are we arguing over the national myth? Or maybe historical pedagogy? America only works because of civic nationalism, if we don't have a common well to draw upon, we cease being a useful society. That well needs to be more inclusive and has for a long time. Removing these Confederate statues is a first step toward that.

I liked the author's argument in that it criticized the mode of the representation (state-sponsored mega-works) rather than the subjects.

[Strike For The South]

Brass knuckles have a pretty mixed bag of laws around them in the US; does anyone actually carry them outside of organized crime?

No

I don't support transfers of land or sovereignty to native tribes.

Fair enough

I liked the author's argument in that it criticized the mode of the representation (state-sponsored mega-works) rather than the subjects.

I have sympathy for the argument. As we have pointed out ad nueaseum, this monuments are a consolidation of white power. They have meaning in the sense they are meant to show who is in charge, who controls the narrative. If Congress decides to get rid of Rushmore, so be it. I simply wont sign the petition. I will sign all the confederate ones though.

However, My expectation is that the sponsorship of the state won't diminish but rather transition.

I think we agree, My hand wringing is over the circumvention of processes and institutions. No doubt the counter arguement to that is my privilege affords me the luxury of respecting these institutions.