New Orleans Monuments

[cwilson]

Saw this today.

http://www.walb.com/story/34679330/appeals-court-clears-the-way-for-removal-of-new-orleans-confederate-era-monuments

[Michael Semann]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

Sickening. Butcher Ben Butler is pleased, I'm sure.

[Daniel]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

I hate to see the P.G.T. Beauregard monument taken down. A true son of New Orleans. And a progressive after the war.

Dan Stewart
WIG

[Jhscott]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

Saw this today.

http://www.walb.com/story/34679330/a...-era-monuments

Those statues were never about advancing white supremacy. They were placed a century ago to show that the old Confederates had been forgiven their treason. Contemporaneous statues of Union soldiers were placed all over the Northeast and Midwest to show that those soldiers had been forgiven for a war of aggression. The government of New Orleans has now gone to a great deal of trouble to repudiate a reconciliation of a century's standing and tell the descendants of Confederate soldiers that a generation of their families deserved to see a third of its young men killed. Moreover, these politicians clearly hold #BlackLivesMatter in such contempt that, rather than address the real issues that movement raises, they invest in a fight over some old statues. Such pious pandering has done a disservice to their city and to our country. If we reject how we once made peace from a civil war, we risk another.

[WesternFederal]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

Very sad days indeed. I refuse to step foot in that City again.

[kennesaw lime]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

It's past time to stand up and stop this madness there's no difference in this and 1930s Nazi Germany absolutely no difference as in ISIS destroying ancient sites,where does this end...it's a slippery slope...here's where it starts where does it end?who gets to say it ends?who has to be appeased? What's next,who's next? Why is it okay to destroy our history? Where's our rights? Boys it's time for North and South to stand up..I ask our comrades in Blue to stand by us in this very horrible attack

[dgriego]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

The Liberty Place monument has nothing to do with the Civil war, and bears a plaque stating:

McEnery and Penn having been elected governor and lieutenant-governor by the white people, were duly installed by this overthrow of carpetbag government, ousting the usurpers, Governor Kellogg (white) and Lieutenant-Governor Antoine (colored).

United States troops took over the state government and reinstated the usurpers but the national election of November 1876 recognized white supremacy in the South and gave us our state

So, it is more a commemoration of putting a stick in the eye of the Federal government.

[thomas aagaard]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

Those statues were never about advancing white supremacy. They were placed a century ago to show that the old Confederates had been forgiven their treason. Contemporaneous statues of Union soldiers were placed all over the Northeast and Midwest to show that those soldiers had been forgiven for a war of aggression. The government of New Orleans has now gone to a great deal of trouble to repudiate a reconciliation of a century's standing and tell the descendants of Confederate soldiers that a generation of their families deserved to see a third of its young men killed. Moreover, these politicians clearly hold #BlackLivesMatter in such contempt that, rather than address the real issues that movement raises, they invest in a fight over some old statues. Such pious pandering has done a disservice to their city and to our country. If we reject how we once made peace from a civil war, we risk another.

You are making the same mistake as 90% of everyone do... including the press and the people who want the monuments removed.
They put a monument to postwar stuff into the same box as monuments of csa officers and even for ordinary soldiers.

The Liberty Place monument got everything to do with white supremacy.
It was honoring a white terrorist group who killed police officers (both white and blacks).

It belong in a museum as an example for future generations about how monuments are political statements.

Now the other statues are a bit different.

[NMVolunteer]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

That is definitely true. There is a huge difference between honoring the sacrifices of soldiers and ancestors, and being defiant and unreconstructed. That is something I learned during my (brief) membership with the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Michael Denisovich

[Pritchett Ball]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

The best course of action is to first stop all the nastiness, the back biting, personal attacks, the threats on social media, and work our political system to get laws passed to protect statues and monuments.

[NMVolunteer]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

That's assuming that the monuments deserve protection or preservation.

Michael Denisovich

[LibertyHallVols]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

LA Times reports Andrew Jackson monument is next target.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-new-orleans-general-lee-20170519-story.html

The next big fight, Suber said, will be to remove an equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837, from a prominent spot in Jackson Square in the city’s historic French Quarter.

[Silas]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

There's local talk about removing the statue of a founding father at the university nearest me in Seattle. You might have heard of the school : the University of Washington. Guess the identity of the founding father...

Preservation is more than monuments as the name of my state may be next. Not being sarcastic as it appears we really are sliding down that slippery slope. Someday I may be residing in a state called Columbia or Cascadia. Where does it stop? Should it stop?

[DougCooper]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

No doubt the good citizens of the Crescent City are trying to find someone willing to sculpt a statue of Ben Butler, to be mounted in "Butler Square" Sheesh.

[NMVolunteer]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

Like I said, some monuments do not deserve to be preserved. And as an addendum, some events and some people should not be celebrated with prominent statues. It is possible to teach the uglier aspects of history without celebrating the people who did ugly things. But then again, I just finished reading The Regular Army on the Eve of the Civil War, and I am spitting mad and unhappy with the Confederates.

There is also no precedent for renaming states, so I suspect your fears are just hyperbole.

Michael Denisovich