New Orleans Monuments

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

Well, you are turning this into a general topic about modern politics.

When it is Burial Grounds belonging to native Americans that gets bulldozer in North Dakota I don't see the reenactment community care about it.
When they protest and use their 1st amendment rights they get brutalized by militarizes police... the reenactment community don't react.
When your president allow oil pipelines to go true Native lands.... the reenactment community don't complain.

Only because its about monuments to "Southern culture" do someone suddenly care.

And yes, most people only care when it directly effect them self... that is normal. But the result is that all of this is just pure hypocrisy.


The monuments belong in museums... where they can be used in education. Not in public parks.



And the last part... I think you lost that fight back in the 1780ties. The US have always been an authoritarian state... and have been from day one.
It just use to be that it only targeted the native and black population...
Deportation, massacres, and broken treaties have been the history of the last 200+ years...
And for the black population, slavery and later Jim crow laws... and today it is a bias criminal system and police brutality...


(naturally it is not like Denmark is any better with our former colonies, and involvement in the slave trade. Or how we treated the population in Greenland... until today)

This is not meant to be about modern politics directly, but it can be inferred.

I see plenty of people that were recently upset over the Dakota Pipeline coming near Indian lands deemed sacred and part of heritage. As they have the right to do. Similar Indian groups have protested what they saw as abuses to their lands before. As I believe you are in Denmark, I am sorry if you have not seen this in the Danish press.

As a lover of my own familial history and American history in general, I do not want to see ANY monument removed for the reasons I mention above. We can reinterpret them factually with stand alone placards and let the public decide on how to interpret them for themselves. We here in America should do things differently regarding freedom of speech as we have set the example for the world for the last 200+ years in toleration of thought and conflicting viewpoints. Now, in my opinion, we have succumbed to politically correct pressures of the world that authoritarian governments press upon their peoples. If the US does not guard its own freedom of expression and of speech, who in the world will?

For the record, I would protest if someone wanted to remove a USCT memorial or a Martin Luther King Jr. memorial. I know some that do not agree with those memorials as well. BUT, there is history needing understanding there too.

As a BA/MA in American History and an avid reenactor of the mid 19th century, I have cared for these monuments with awareness marches, preservation donations, battlefield dedications, memorials, event attendance, personal research, etc. in my own efforts for the last 20+ years as many, both on this forum and off of it, have done. Others I know have done way more than I have, as I have made a small contribution to this monumental effort of guarding our American past. So, to say these monuments are 'uncared for' until now is quite erroneous- it has only come to a head due to totalitarian revisionism and desecration of memory many hold dear.

And I bet quite a bit the CS monuments, once removed, will NOT go to a museum, but sit outdoors, disrespected and abused. This is not a solution, either.

We need not fear ideas that are controversial, but see them daily, debate them, and deal with them as we do with other controversial subjects and set the standard for the world regarding the defense of all ideas and concepts. Leave the moral judgments to individuals about said events. However, how do we do this when people don't read books or learn of this in schools or go to museums?

Monuments are the key to preventing culture and identity from dying, but some want that to happen. I will leave you to decide for yourself.

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

Well, you are turning this into a general topic about modern politics.

When it is Burial Grounds belonging to native Americans that gets bulldozer in North Dakota I don't see the reenactment community care about it.
When they protest and use their 1st amendment rights they get brutalized by militarizes police... the reenactment community don't react.
When your president allow oil pipelines to go true Native lands.... the reenactment community don't complain.

Only because its about monuments to "Southern culture" do someone suddenly care.

And yes, most people only care when it directly effect them self... that is normal. But the result is that all of this is just pure hypocrisy.


The monuments belong in museums... where they can be used in education. Not in public parks.



And the last part... I think you lost that fight back in the 1780ties. The US have always been an authoritarian state... and have been from day one.
It just use to be that it only targeted the native and black population...
Deportation, massacres, and broken treaties have been the history of the last 200+ years...
And for the black population, slavery and later Jim crow laws... and today it is a bias criminal system and police brutality...


(naturally it is not like Denmark is any better with our former colonies, and involvement in the slave trade. Or how we treated the population in Greenland... until today)

I thought your post warranted repeating. As I said several days ago, this is less about the past than the threat that many white Americans now see against monuments to what they thought was their culture and what they thought was their past.

It's a shame people keep pointing to these as "southern" emblems and the debate over their presence as an attack on "southerners." They're only emblems for one slice of "the south" and the debate is in part over just where everyone else's story comes in.

My father was in the military so we moved around quite a bit, but I've lived in Arlington, Virginia for most of my life -- more than 55 of my 62 years. I'm southern. So in fact were the great majority of African American soldiers in the US army during that war. So was the town of Chincoteague, Virginia where I just spent a few day's vacation. So was Thomas Watkins of Chincoteague, a soldier in the 1st Eastern Shore (Loyal), whose unit I was entirely unaware of until I practically stumbled over his gravestone on Assateague Island a few years ago.

My county is named after the Custis-Lee mansion, but the regiments raised here during the civil war got no more mention in "Cavalier Commonwealth" (one of my school's state history texts) than Watson, his unit, or the Loudoun Rangers. I'm pretty sure I know why. The regiments organized in Arlington were "Yankees," and they were black -- the 2nd USCT, the 23rd USCT, and, I believe (I'm still researching this), the 27th and 31st USCT.

I'm a little tired of seeing people write that rethinking the placement of monuments constitutes "erasing history" when those monuments were put there by people who clearly did their own erasing, and whose crimes against history will only be perpetuated by hysterically decrying that rethinking.

I'm a little tired of seeing other southerners act like they own the patent on being "southern."

So your points about this being a modern political debate, as well as about the peculiar kind of "southern culture" being invoked, ring very true -- at least to this "southerner."

[Tyler Underwood]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

I'm a little tired of seeing people write that rethinking the placement of monuments constitutes "erasing history" when those monuments were put there by people who clearly did their own erasing, and whose crimes against history will only be perpetuated by hysterically decrying that rethinking.

I'm a little tired of seeing other southerners act like they own the patent on being "southern." "

Because they "did their own erasing" doesn't mean that in modern times the same thing needs to be done.

Just imagine how many monuments Americans could have available for the USCT, 1st SC, Loudoun Rangers, etc. if folks put as much time into having them erected as they do in tearing down statues of CS Soldiers and leaders.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

[Mark Choate]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

Well said, Tyler and thank you.

And while we are on the vein of what we are "a little tired of" I am a little tired of those sanctimonious individuals who are "pontificating from on high" with righteous indignation about who was right or wrong. There was nothing "right" about the capturing of Africans (often by their own) to be sold to the slave merchants, there was nothing "right" about the slave merchants bringing them across the ocean (mostly to northern ports) to be delivered and sold, there was nothing "right" about the institution of slavery itself, regardless of what state it happened in throughout the country. But...... it happened and is part of history.

Also, there was nothing "right" about the atrocities perpetrated by Gen. Benjamin "Beast" Butler on the people of New Orleans either, but if there were a statue to him (and I don't know if there is one anywhere), I would be saying the same thing, that it should not be taken down today.

It happened, it is our history (north and south) and those monuments should remain. Again, l just as the statues of heinous creatures such as Caligula, Caracalla, Domitian, etc.

regards,

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

"Two wrongs don't make a right" makes sense in this context only if the removal of the statues is wrong, which quite a few people on this thread have claimed, but without any argument that resonated much with the city council of New Orleans or the people who voted for them -- or, for that matter, a number of other voices on this thread.

A bigger question, it seems to me -- or at least one more relevant to the mission of the AC -- is the extent to which the moderators wish to turn the "preservation" forum into a whine cellar for complaints about contemporary culture and politics.

If you really want to do that, by all means go ahead, but I wish you'd refrain from blessing either side of the debate with the imprimatur of "The Authentic Campaigner."

That implies there's some kind of consensus among us, which there isn't, and that a self-selected group of reenactors have some valid contribution to make to local politics, which they don't.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

Hallo!

"It happened, it is our history...and those monuments should remain."

That was probably heard in Germany and Austria after 1946 arguing against the collective guilt and collective punishment of Allied "Entnazifizierung" (Denazification) efforts to erase any "remnants" in German culture, society, politics, judiciary, economics, architecture, art, or broadcast and print media. As well as criminalize symbols such as the swastika.

Museums? German museums that have say WWII fighter aircraft or restored planes do not have the swastikas on their rudders. They are also absent from model kits. German WWII reenactors (a frowned upon pursuit) have "X's" or Maltese crosses on their uniform insignia where the illegal swastikas were.

Even though it petered out in 1951 with the Cold War, it is hardly gone.

I am not making a statement, just pointing out "it" has happened before.

Curt

[Eric Tipton]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

"Two wrongs don't make a right" makes sense in this context only if the removal of the statues is wrong, which quite a few people on this thread have claimed, but without any argument that resonated much with the city council of New Orleans or the people who voted for them -- or, for that matter, a number of other voices on this thread.

A bigger question, it seems to me -- or at least one more relevant to the mission of the AC -- is the extent to which the moderators wish to turn the "preservation" forum into a whine cellar for complaints about contemporary culture and politics.

If you really want to do that, by all means go ahead, but I wish you'd refrain from blessing either side of the debate with the imprimatur of "The Authentic Campaigner."

That implies there's some kind of consensus among us, which there isn't, and that a self-selected group of reenactors have some valid contribution to make to local politics, which they don't.

Michael:

You read my mind. What an excellent poll question:

CLICK HERE TO VOTE

[GrayCaptain]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

Its not over, Gentlemen.............its not over..........

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

100+ years from now, Germany will wish they had WW2 historical sites they could show to future generations to prove the happening of that war to future generations that do not read or study history anymore.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

Hallo!

"100+ years from now, Germany will wish they had WW2 historical sites they could show to future generations to prove the happening of that war to future generations that do not read or study history anymore."

NOT to hijack the gravity and sentiment of this thread too much...

IMHO, we do not have to wait 100+ years. While "Germany" makes for an interesting study and comparison, the whole "dumbing down" of America and the "war on education" coupled with the rise of hand-held technology is already rapidly decreasing the study (and understanding) of History and Historiography.

:(

Curt

[NMVolunteer]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

100+ years from now, Germany will wish they had WW2 historical sites they could show to future generations to prove the happening of that war to future generations that do not read or study history anymore.

Of course, they wanted to prevent unpleasant people from turning those sites into shrines for war criminals and Nazis, just as bin Laden's body was dumped into the ocean. On the other hand, the call to remove statues comes from some people creating statues and memorials to bad people like Forrest, when it should have been nipped in the bud over 100 years ago. And due to poor public understanding on both sides of the arguments, some people are mistaking memorials for honorable soldiers with statues of war criminals, while others are mistaking statues celebrating atrocities and war criminals for memorials to honorable soldiers.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

Hallo!

True, but...

It was the legal opinion of the United States (and Allies) at the 1947 Nuremberg (Nuernburg) and Tokyo (later abandoned in the Bush II presidency) trials that essentially there was a collective guilt and collective punishment for the common everyday solider taking arms in support of his country as was his (legal) duty if not honor. (Obviously not all were imprisoned or executed, but "guilt" and De-Nazification remained and there were no "honorable" soldiers.)

IMHO, where one difference now lies is that, for the most part... 'Time" has healed many wounds for some, but not all.
For example, I harbor no issues, or ill will, or malice toward "Native Americans" that murdered and scalped my family members during the Rev War. Or, nothing against the Confederates that shot and killed my relatives or saw them die of starvation or dysentery in POW camps like Camp Tyler or Camp Sumter (Andersonville). Or members of the 4th Armored Division that shot at German children for "fun" one of which was my mother.
Yeah, they missed.

Others' mileage will vary...

Curt

[NMVolunteer]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

On the other hand, there are people who do feel resentment over their family being enslaved by the subjects of some statues, some people who do feel resentment over their ancestors being forcibly removed from Georgia or Diné or the plains, and some people who do feel resentment over most of their fellow religous community being mass-murdered. I feel no resentment over one of my ancestors dying at Petersburg, but that is quite different from all of my ancestors being collective victims of deliberate atrocities.

[shubal]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

Just a couple asides,
This map has some very interesting numbers related to the slave trade out of the continent of Africa.
http://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/intro-maps #9 especially has numbers related to where slaves were sent.

Also, the next time Old Spoons name is taken in vain, one might do well to look up the tragic story of Marguerite Caroline Deslonde. Little tidbit appeared on Civilwartalk recently. https://civilwartalk.com/threads/mme...-beast.133736/

For me, it seems that an idea of contextualizing monuments has a place and the Beauregard monument would have been an appropriate place to try. But how does one contextualize something so massive and dominating as the Lee monument? The power of several words will always be dwarfed by the power of this massive thing.

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: New Orleans Monuments

Just a couple asides,
This map has some very interesting numbers related to the slave trade out of the continent of Africa.
http://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/intro-maps #9 especially has numbers related to where slaves were sent.

Also, the next time Old Spoons name is taken in vain, one might do well to look up the tragic story of Marguerite Caroline Deslonde. Little tidbit appeared on Civilwartalk recently. https://civilwartalk.com/threads/mme...-beast.133736/

For me, it seems that an idea of contextualizing monuments has a place and the Beauregard monument would have been an appropriate place to try. But how does one contextualize something so massive and dominating as the Lee monument? The power of several words will always be dwarfed by the power of this massive thing.

Well, you just ruined my joke about a statue of General Butler being too expensive because of all the silver spoons you'd have to melt down for the casting... :)