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In the June 1969 issue of Civil War History — Volume 5, Number 2, pages 116-132 — a renowned Southern historian attacked the legacy of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
"No single war figure stands in greater need of reevaluation than Lee," wrote Thomas L. Connelly, the late University of South Carolina professor. "One ponders whether the South may not have fared better had it possessed no Robert E. Lee."
Connelly's essay was among the first academic musket shots fired on Lee's standing as an outmatched but not outwitted military genius presiding over a Lost Cause — a reputation celebrated in fawning biographies and monuments like the one removed Friday in New Orleans.
Was General Lee overrated? Get your armchair historian on...
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The Truth About Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee: He Wasn’t Very Good at His Job
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Monday June 12 2017, @02:00AM (47 children)
No, it's not. It should have been done a long, long time ago. His statue is a symbol of everything the South stood for, including slavery. Do you think that the descendants of slaves, who suffered (and perhaps still do) much injustice, should be forced to keep a symbol of that injustice around?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 12 2017, @02:10AM (2 children)
Not only that, but I think there's different degrees here. For instance, should a statue of General Lee, installed not long after the Civil War by defeated Confederates be removed? Now, should an obelisk built in 1891 to honor a white supremacist group who fought against integration in the New Orleans police and militia be removed? I can see reason for disagreement of the former, but for the latter, no way: honoring a bunch of violent white supremacists who fought many years after the end of the Civil War is something entirely different. At least you can say the War itself was instrumental in shaping this nation's history, and Lee, whatever your opinion of him, was a big part of that history. But these other fools? I never even heard of them until last month's flap in New Orleans. They sure as hell weren't instrumental in our nation's history the way the Civil War was.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 12 2017, @06:02AM
Agreed. I never heard of those insurrectionists, until recently. They mean nothing to me, and I can't even be assed to do the minimal research that might make them mean something. Trash the obelisk, I don't care. No one outside of New Orleans - certainly no one outside Louisiana cares about it.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:37AM
The New York Magazine article that I had linked said that the attempted coup was important:
-- http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/new-orleans-removes-monument-to-white-terrorism.html [nymag.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday June 12 2017, @02:12AM (6 children)
I think a good compromise would be to ship all those disgruntled slaves' descendants to Los Angeles and San Francisco with plenty of downtown properties converted to affordable housing for them -- calling it "reparations."
It's a win-win situation that also preserves American history.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday June 12 2017, @02:33AM (1 child)
Paid for primarily with extra taxes on the southern colonies, right?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday June 12 2017, @03:08AM
No, what are you, racist or something? Refugees Welcome, as some people like to say.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:24PM (3 children)
I've got a different idea for a compromise. Get all those people who still support the "Southern Culture" of the antebellum US South. That is gather all the people together that support keeping and creating statues celebrating a culture that enslaves humans beings, a culture that believed in enslaving other humans enough to treasonously rebel from its own government, launched on attach on its own government's military base, and continued a war that killed 100's of thousands. Oh and they lost! Why not take those people and send them back to were they came from. Who knows, some of them might even fit into the post-brexit UK.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:02AM (2 children)
> [...] a culture that believed in enslaving other humans enough to treasonously rebel from its own government [...]
The U.S. Declaration of Independence said:
which resembles what we today call the right of self-determination. Not to defend slavery as a reason to form a country, I wouldn't call it treason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:08AM (1 child)
Hmm, you do realize that the Declaration of Independence has no legal standing as a founding document of the United States? While an inspirational read, it does in fact describe treason: against the British Crown, and can be read as an apologia for that act.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:04AM
The reason I mentioned the Declaration of Independence is that it, as far as I know, is the earliest expression (anywhere) of a right to self-determination. I do understand that it never had the force of law. If we acknowledge that right, we needn't call separatist movements treasonous.
Over the week-end there was a referendum on the status of Puerto Rico; one choice presented was independence. The U.S. president participated in the wording of the referendum by suggesting that the status quo ought to be an option. As far as I know he didn't denounce the presence of the independence option. In 2014, the British prime minister stated that the referendum on Scottish independence would be binding--meaning that, had there been a vote in favour of independence, his government would have honoured it. Critics of the Crimean referendum don't say that the people of Crimea ought not to have had a choice in its status, instead noting problems such as the absence of an option for continuing the status quo, denouncing the presence of the Russian military. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which doesn't have the force of law, mentions a right of self-determination.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 12 2017, @02:14AM (6 children)
Oh, in addition: I agree that keeping that symbol of injustice seems bad, however how about this suggestion: if the anti-statue-removal people don't want Lee's statue removed, how about if we put statues of Grant and Lincoln right next to it? Would they be in favor of that, or against? Then the descendants of slaves should in theory be mollified because next to the symbol of injustice is two symbols of the people who fought that injustice, but I'll bet the pro-Lee-statue people would be opposed. Why is it they like statues of Confederate generals, but they don't want statues of Union generals around? I'd say that's a pretty good indicator of them simply being racists of they don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:48AM (1 child)
right next to it, and bigger and much more prominent roo, perhaps looking down with a look of pity mixed with scorn as well. Especially Sherman.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:00PM
Don't forget the statue of Benjamin Franklin Butler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 12 2017, @05:40AM
That's not a bad idea at all. Sort of reminds me of the Confederate memorial on Martha's Vineyard.
"WHAT?!" you say, "Another confederate memorial in Massachusetts? I thought Charlie Baker wanted to tear down the "only one" [bostonmagazine.com]."
Nope. There's a much more interesting confederate memorial on Martha's Vineyard. Even weirder -- it was dedicated by Union veterans in memory of their Confederate brethren. Photo here. [typepad.com]
The history of the thing is explained here [mvmagazine.com]. Basically, a Confederate veteran moved to Martha's Vineyard after the war and at some point paid to erect a monument in honor of Union soldiers. Some years later, the Union veterans returned the favor. There are other such joint monuments in the U.S. (example [wikipedia.org]), a relic of the rather widespread reconciliation events that occurred mostly in the early days of the 1900s when Unionist troops were too old to dance victory jigs anymore and both sides were eager to heal wounds -- hence the Martha's Vineyard monument's title "The Chasm Is Closed."
However, we no longer have the Ken Burns effect to erect public monuments to reconciliation through PBS documentaries... instead, division is the political order of the day. The statues are now seen as symbols of division and thus are being removed.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday June 12 2017, @06:09AM (1 child)
Tell you what, I'll put up a statue of Grant next to Lee's if you put a statue of Jefferson Davis in the Lincoln Memorial. Deal?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 12 2017, @04:35PM
Why should a traitor get a statue in the nation's capital?
Honestly, I think the Union did the wrong thing by re-admitting the Southern states. They should have remained occupied territory, with their citizens always kept as second-class citizens. If they still haven't figured out after over 150 years that slavery is wrong, then there's no hope for them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @05:57PM
How about putting in a fountain with Calvin pissing?
(Score: 2, Funny) by cubancigar11 on Monday June 12 2017, @04:34AM (6 children)
Also, Bamiyan statues need to be removed for they stand for the glory of infidels and non-believers who. thankfully, we have stoned to death long time ago. All praise the almighty Allah!
(Score: 3, Funny) by cubancigar11 on Monday June 12 2017, @05:50AM (2 children)
In case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic. You stink! You are a senile bucktoothed old mummy with bony girl arms and you smell like an elephant's butt!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:08PM (1 child)
You been snorting crack again?
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @04:50AM
Well if you wanna go down the rabbit hole, you need to follow the white rabbit.
(Score: 1) by realDonaldTrump on Monday June 12 2017, @07:33PM (2 children)
You know, it's amazing. There were two Buddha statues in Afghanistan, a pair of twin Buddha statues. And in New York City, there were the two twin towers of the World Trade Center. And both sets were destroyed by Islam, by radical Islam. Mullah Omar said no, don't blow up the statues. But the radicals wouldn't listen. Boom! Boom! They blew them up, very bad guys. But they rebuilt the World Trade Center, made a better one. What happened was better but now we have a better one. And they're trying to rebuild those Buddha statues, to fit the pieces together (there's a word for it). And I'm rebuilding America. Fixing the horrible "carnage" going on. #MAGA
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @04:47AM (1 child)
Fake af. REAL Donal Trump wouldn't know about Bamiyan's statues, nor will most his followers :p
(Score: 2, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday June 13 2017, @07:09AM
Believe me, in the hotel business and the resort business you need to know these things. Need to know what the tourists are going to see. And for Afghanistan those statues were a big, big tourist draw. Bigger than Babur's tomb. Great tomb, but the statues were bigger. The biggest. Huge attraction and huge physically. Every part of their bodies was the biggest, if you know what I mean. Let me tell you, there would be a Trump International Hotel Kabul if they hadn't blown up those statues. Honestly. But I canceled it. Because I knew that blowing up those Buddhas would be very bad for business. Would ruin the tourism business in Afghanistan. And I saw on television, Muslims everywhere were celebrating that. There were swarms of them on the rooftops in New Jersey, celebrating it. The blowing up of the two statues. Thousands of them, celebrating. Disgusting! But great state, New Jersey, I was just at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster for a fabulous wedding! Believe me, I had a lot of fun with the bride there. And you know, someone could have figured out, a smart person could have figured out, that radical Islamic terrorists would go after the World Trade Center. Honestly, I didn't figure it out until later, but looking back it's amazing. That can't be a coincidence. The two statues and the two twin towers. All gone now, very sad. And it's sad what's happening in Kabul. The bombing by the embassies, the protests, the bombing at the funeral, all of it. It's barbaric. Especially during Ramadan. I talked to Ashraf about it, I talked to President Ghani over the phone. Nice guy, very nice on the phone. Gave him my condolences. And I told him, if he needs some more bombs, America has plenty. And ours are the biggest. He knows because I dropped one, my guys dropped one, a big one on Afghanistan. You didn't hear about it in the FAKE MSM but we did that. #TrumpHotels [twitter.com] #WINNING [twitter.com]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday June 12 2017, @05:18AM (1 child)
But given that it wasn't, and given that much of the confederacy was treated fairly well in the history books for a hundred years, it seems that better late than never is sorry excuse these days.
I've never actually seen any blacks, southern or otherwise, taking Lee, or Davis to task for their plight. Instead their impatience and anger is with contemporary government and society in general.
And can you blame them? there have been 28 presidents since the end of the Civil War. At least 3 of them should have been Blacks, by percentage of population reasoning. Instead only two claim to have been. Only 1/2 of one actually was.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:04AM
What we choose to honor and given public space speaks a lot about our culture. Move these statues to the local museum of shame. "Look kids, here are some of our bigger fuck ups, please learn from their mistakes."
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 12 2017, @05:58AM (12 children)
Sometimes, great men are forced to make decisions that they don't like. Lee didn't fight for slavery, he fought for his home state. Big difference there. Of course, today's politically correct crowd are incapable of distinguishing the difference.
Another great man who should be honored, but is not, is Erwin Rommel. Rommel was among the most honorable men in Germany, and in Europe. A career soldier, who served his country, and served well. Historians don't all agree, but many say that he was part of a plot to kill Hitler. Agreed or not, Hitler and his cronies gave Rommel the option of suicide, or public execution. Rommel suicided.
Now - I wonder if you can identify the politician who ran for office in the United States, who enjoyed the fruits of slave black labor? Which of those well known candidates personally supervised black slaves, and had them punished when they got out of line?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday June 12 2017, @06:19AM (1 child)
Like any country, they had their good and bad generals. August von Mackensen is respected in Serbia despite the fact that he was an enemy commander because of his behaviour towards the Serbs (Google "Serbian Heroes Rest Here" / "ОВДЕ ПОЧИВАЈУ СРПСКИ ЈУНАЦИ"). Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was another example, highly respected by both friend and foe alike because of his conduct.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 12 2017, @06:37AM
Thank you for that. I've heard of Mackensen, but know almost nothing about him. I had never heard of this monument before. My studies have been from the Anglo point of view, most of the time. There was a time, when good officers were taught to respect the enemy. If the enemy could make you bleed, he was a worthy opponent, and worthy of respect. If the enemy couldn't bleed you, then of course, there was no glory in oppressing him.
Today, we have forgotten all of that. Today, all enemies are ignorant barbarians. Today, we are mostly Indian Fighters, with that (then common) attitude, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday June 13 2017, @02:06AM (7 children)
I wonder, do you mean Hillary Clinton?
While I find the practice of slavery in all its forms, including the enslaving the incarcerated, repugnant, there is a significant difference: that form of slavery has not been made illegal.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @02:34AM (6 children)
Ahhhh - relativism. If it's not been made illegal, then it's not so bad. Or less bad. Excusable, anyway. Got it.
Anyway, here's one lady's take on the issue: https://kmgarcia2000.blogspot.com/2016/01/hillary-clintons-house-slaves.html [blogspot.com]
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday June 13 2017, @03:11AM (5 children)
That's a gross mis-characterization of what I wrote.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @01:45PM (4 children)
Oh, well, I do that sometimes. Whatever, that's the attitude from the left. And, the right. It's not really slavery unless you call them slaves, or something like that.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday June 13 2017, @03:01PM (3 children)
You know who else has benefited from slavery? Pretty much everyone in the USA.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @03:55PM (2 children)
Yeah, well, some benefited directly, others benefited indirectly, and others benefited not so much, while yet others benefited not at all. As for me and mine, we don't have one single slave owner in our lineage. Not one. The Native Americans in mine and my wife's ancestry practiced something similar to slavery, but after a generation or two, the slave's descendants were part of the tribe. It's only the white men in America who settled on that slavery into perpetuity bullshit. That's a very special flavor of poison.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday June 14 2017, @04:01AM (1 child)
No, I mean you, now.
Slavery exists in many countries. I suspect that you have bought products that have been made with slave labor, either abroad, or in a US prison. Not deliberately, because it's impossible for an ordinary person to know where many of the products you buy come from.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 14 2017, @01:48PM
I did miss your point. Sorry.
I try to avoid things that are probably made with slave labor. But, as you say, it's hard to know which is which. We can't assume anything, either. Wal-Mart has taken heat for purchasing items made in sweat shops, especially after a fire a couple years ago. Where is the line drawn between a sweat shop, and slavery? I think when the plant manager locks the doors to keep employees inside, he's on the wrong side of the line.
(Score: 1) by lars_stefan_axelsson on Tuesday June 13 2017, @08:44AM (1 child)
Before putting Rommel on that pedestal you might want to e.g. watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw1UJCwcgNc [youtube.com]
It's not so black and white, and Rommel was most definitely not part of the 20 July plot. But the plotters sure wanted him to be, and that's why he was implicated.
Stefan Axelsson
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @04:14PM
I'm fairly sure that Rommel is worthy of admiration, with or without the Desert Fox mystique. The video does make a very good point though. That whole Desert Fox thing is basically propaganda. At the same time, Rommel was as good as Sherman in the US Civil War, with the added benefits of mechanization. Where Sherman could move troops fifty miles, Rommel could move his troops a hundred and fifty. Sherman would probably have given both of his testicles for Rommel's motor vehicles, especially the panzers. Any of the armor, really.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @09:06AM (1 child)
The war was not about slavery but you already knew that. The slave owners were the 1%, the plantation owners, democrats. We do not burn books, remove monuments or rewrite history because we look to the future by learning from the past.
(Score: 1) by realDonaldTrump on Monday June 12 2017, @07:50PM
You know, Andrew Jackson, President Jackson, was a swashbuckler. But when his wife died, did you know he visited her grave every day? I visited her grave actually, because I was in Tennessee. And it was amazing. The people of Tennessee are amazing people. They love Andrew Jackson. They love Andrew Jackson in Tennessee. I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. And he was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He saw it coming and was angry. He said, "There's no reason for this." People don't realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Nobody asks. Why could that one not have been worked out? #MakeAmericaGreatAgain
(Score: 2, Insightful) by VLM on Monday June 12 2017, @12:32PM (3 children)
The problem with a policy of censorship because they're not progressive enough is there is no logical limit. We'll have to bulldoze over the washington monument because he owned slaves, and nuke the city of Rome from orbit just to be sure because the Roman Empire was rather problematic. We gotta bulldoze the Parthenon and the Colosseum. And the Vatican. Dr MLK jr was not progressive enough WRT feminism according to the standards of the current year, so he's gotta be memory-holed now too.
I tell ya, people who think 1984 and BNW and animal farm are instruction manuals... ugh. IIRC the main character's day job in 1984 was censorship of history books.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 12 2017, @06:28PM (2 children)
Yep, 'cause not celebrating someone is the exact same thing as systematically removing him from the history books.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 12 2017, @06:42PM (1 child)
Give them time...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @06:55PM
Actually, from a liberal perspective it is more important to leave the history intact so that people can learn from their mistakes. But hey, I'm responding to VLM so this is all gibberish apparently.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @01:53PM
People are already trying to remove statues of Thomas Jefferson and other prominent figures that weren't on the side of the Confederacy or even involved in the Civil War. It's only a matter of time before the only thing people are taught about US history is that old white men are bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 13 2017, @05:22PM
typical yankee believing whoever's own self righteous propaganda. the not-so-original do gooders. killing people to help them. freeing the slaves so you can lock them up in ghettos and let them kill themselves like animals, all the while lecturing the widows in the south for daring to be free from your falsely adopted idealism. this was a war for control, trade, money. slaves were just a form of money that was in various stages of being phased out around the world. the north took advantage of the fact that they could get by with only pseudo slavery to further their domination of the south. the slavery propaganda also conveniently kept the french from joining the war on the side of the south. like the rest of the history of the world, written by the winners and full of BS.