Torch wielding protestors yell Nazi slogans as they defend Confederate statue

[BmorePat87]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/charlottesville-protest-richard-spender-kkk-robert-e-lee-statue/

Some white protestors, joined by Richard Spencer, were angry over plans to remove a monument from a park named after Robert E Lee in Charlottesville, VA. They wielded torches and shouted things like "you will not replace us", "Russia is our friend", and the Nazi slogan "blood and soil".

The Mayor compared it to when the KKK had a presence in the area and the head of the local GOP said the "intolerance and hatred... is disgusting and disturbing beyond words". Other pro-monument demonstrators distanced themselves from Spencer and his ilk, saying they have no place in the community, that it's an issue up to the community to debate.

[GMDino]

(05-15-2017, 08:13 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/charlottesville-protest-richard-spender-kkk-robert-e-lee-statue/

Some white protestors, joined by Richard Spencer, were angry over plans to remove a monument from a park named after Robert E Lee in Charlottesville, VA. They wielded torches and shouted things like "you will not replace us", "Russia is our friend", and the Nazi slogan "blood and soil".

The Mayor compared it to when the KKK had a presence in the area and the head of the local GOP said the "intolerance and hatred... is disgusting and disturbing beyond words". Other pro-monument demonstrators distanced themselves from Spencer and his ilk, saying they have no place in the community, that it's an issue up to the community to debate.

Idiots.

[*michaelsean*]

Replace them how?

[Belsnickel]

This battle has been so interesting to watch. My wife is from Charlottesville and we spend a good bit of time over there, so we pay a lot of attention to the local goings on like this. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this issue. Charlottesville is a city rich with history. Monticello and Ashlawn, Montpelier just up the road, UVA, the Three Notch'd Road runs through the heart of downtown, it's dripping with this stuff. This has been a very contentious issue for them. As liberal as the city is, filled with academics as well, they really like to look past the complicated relationship the city, the state, and the south has with slavery.

[CageTheBengal]

Are they defending history for a noble cause or to promote hate?

They stuff they are shouting is good enough reason to tear it down. It's obviously symbolizes qualities most of us in society would frown upon to them.

[*michaelsean*]

I'm not getting the "Russia is our friend" chants.

[Millhouse]

These kind of protesters are proving why these statues down south should be taken down. Now if it is a statue at a battlefield site, then I am against it completely. But other statues in cities or parks like this, so be it.

(05-15-2017, 11:14 AM)michaelsean Wrote: I'm not getting the "Russia is our friend" chants.

almost sounds like someone got paid to chant that, or trollin. 

[Belsnickel]

(05-15-2017, 11:51 AM)Millhouse Wrote: These kind of protesters are proving why these statues down south should be taken down. Now if it is a statue at a battlefield site, then I am against it completely. But other statues in cities or parks like this, so be it. 

See, this is where you get into the muddy waters, though. The land and the statue was donated to the city for the park. The gift to the city was for this purpose, with this statue. If this is what the park was intended to commemorate, then there is a whole other issue there.

[GMDino]

(05-15-2017, 11:14 AM)michaelsean Wrote: I'm not getting the "Russia is our friend" chants.

Probably a small but vocal minority among the racists.  

[Millhouse]

(05-15-2017, 12:02 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: See, this is where you get into the muddy waters, though. The land and the statue was donated to the city for the park. The gift to the city was for this purpose, with this statue. If this is what the park was intended to commemorate, then there is a whole other issue there.

Maybe but the statue & park was literally donated 100 years ago in 1917. Segregation and the South's version of apartheid was in full swing then, with many Civil War veterans still alive. At some point the statute for keeping a statue around just because it was donated has to end, and I think it ended decades ago in this case.

[Belsnickel]

(05-15-2017, 12:21 PM)Millhouse Wrote: Maybe but the statue & park was literally donated 100 years ago in 1917. Segregation and the South's version of apartheid was in full swing then, with many Civil War veterans still alive. At some point the statute for keeping a statue around just because it was donated has to end, and I think it ended decades ago in this case.

Completely valid opinion, and I don't disagree with you, but this is the argument that a lot of people are having with this.

[BmorePat87]

(05-15-2017, 11:14 AM)michaelsean Wrote: I'm not getting the "Russia is our friend" chants.

(05-15-2017, 11:51 AM)Millhouse Wrote: These kind of protesters are proving why these statues down south should be taken down. Now if it is a statue at a battlefield site, then I am against it completely. But other statues in cities or parks like this, so be it.



almost sounds like someone got paid to chant that, or trollin. 

Richard Spencer and the Alt-Right see Russia was a model for preserving their ethnic identity. Russia, to them, is a symbol against the globalism that destroys the white culture. They believe these statues are preserving that identity.

[Dill]

(05-15-2017, 10:12 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: This battle has been so interesting to watch. My wife is from Charlottesville and we spend a good bit of time over there, so we pay a lot of attention to the local goings on like this. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this issue. Charlottesville is a city rich with history. Monticello and Ashlawn, Montpelier just up the road, UVA, the Three Notch'd Road runs through the heart of downtown, it's dripping with this stuff. This has been a very contentious issue for them. As liberal as the city is, filled with academics as well, they really like to look past the complicated relationship the city, the state, and the south has with slavery.

Virginia is saturated with "Lee" highways, parks, schools, roads, highways etc. His home at Arlington is a national monument. This is understandable.  It would be very difficult to get rid of them all. I would very much oppose removing the Arlington monument.

I don't view a statue of Lee the same way I would a statue of Davis. Davis was an ideological leader of the Confederacy. He stood for a Confederacy of states based upon slavery. 

I don't doubt that Lee agreed with slavery, since he held slaves himself, but did he also "stand" for the slave system? He appears to have been esteemed as a great leader and brilliant general, whose abilities even his opponents admired and respected, as the Allies did Rommel during WWII.  He reluctantly went to war because he identified primarily as a Virginian.

Like Rommel, I can see why many would have a problem with a statue to him--because of all that went with his cause.  Ordinary Germans might see Rommel as a great soldier. Jews cannot forget his great soldiering enabled the holocaust.
Ordinary white folks might see Lee as a great solider, whichever side, while many African-Americans see him as foremost defender of the slave system whose devaluation of black lives continues in more or less obvious ways today (witness the right wing protesters in the link above).

In this particular case, though, I am not against removal of the Monument. If I understand correctly, it was sold, not taken down in protest of the Confederacy or some such. The park will continue to be named "Lee."  The statue will sit somewhere else.

[Dill]

(05-15-2017, 12:40 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Richard Spencer and the Alt-Right see Russia was a model for preserving their ethnic identity. Russia, to them, is a symbol against the globalism that destroys the white culture. They believe these statues are preserving that identity.

So these people see Russia as an ideological ally then, with Trump in the White House?

[Belsnickel]

(05-15-2017, 02:37 PM)Dill Wrote: Virginia is saturated with "Lee" highways, parks, schools, roads, highways etc. His home at Arlington is a national monument. This is understandable.  It would be very difficult to get rid of them all. I would very much oppose removing the Arlington monument.

I don't view a statue of Lee the same way I would a statue of Davis. Davis was an ideological leader of the Confederacy. He stood for a Confederacy of states based upon slavery. 

I don't doubt that Lee agreed with slavery, since he held slaves himself, but did he also "stand" for the slave system? He appears to have been esteemed as a great leader and brilliant general, whose abilities even his opponents admired and respected, as the Allies did Rommel during WWII.  He reluctantly went to war because he identified primarily as a Virginian.

Like Rommel, I can see why many would have a problem with a statue to him--because of all that went with his cause.  Ordinary Germans might see Rommel as a great soldier. Jews cannot forget his great soldiering enabled the holocaust.
Ordinary white folks might see Lee as a great solider, whichever side, while many African-Americans see him as foremost defender of the slave system whose devaluation of black lives continues in more or less obvious ways today (witness the right wing protesters in the link above).

In this particular case, though, I am not against removal of the Monument. If I understand correctly, it was sold, not taken down in protest of the Confederacy or some such. The park will continue to be named "Lee."  The statue will sit somewhere else.

There is a lot of truth in all of this. Lincoln sought Lee to be commander of the Union forces before Lee had formally chosen a side. Jackson was seen as one of the greatest strategists in the war and had he not fallen to friendly fire there are historians that speculate Gettysburg would have been much different. They both were magnificent leaders and military minds but they had a, shall we say, complicated relationship with the notion of slavery as well as a loyalty to the Commonwealth and so they were on the wrong side of history.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-15-2017, 03:33 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: There is a lot of truth in all of this. Lincoln sought Lee to be commander of the Union forces before Lee had formally chosen a side. Jackson was seen as one of the greatest strategists in the war and had he not fallen to friendly fire there are historians that speculate Gettysburg would have been much different. They both were magnificent leaders and military minds but they had a, shall we say, complicated relationship with the notion of slavery as well as a loyalty to the Commonwealth and so they were on the wrong side of history.

You could make the same argument with Erwin Rommel, Erich von Manstein, Ewald von Kleist, Erich Hartmann, etc.  All brilliant military minds or soldiers associated with a vile cause.  Does that cause diminish their brilliance or accomplishments?  I completely get the confederates are traitors to the US argument, because I've frequently made it.  But I don't see how memorializing the great men associated with it promotes the confederacy itself.  To me they are tragic figures but I get that some uphold them as heroes on the right side.  I just don't believe that erasing them from history, because of the beliefs of a small minority, is doing our recognition of our shared national history a service.

[Belsnickel]

(05-15-2017, 05:37 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: You could make the same argument with Erwin Rommel, Erich von Manstein, Ewald von Kleist, Erich Hartmann, etc.  All brilliant military minds or soldiers associated with a vile cause.  Does that cause diminish their brilliance or accomplishments?  I completely get the confederates are traitors to the US argument, because I've frequently made it.  But I don't see how memorializing the great men associated with it promotes the confederacy itself.  To me they are tragic figures but I get that some uphold them as heroes on the right side.  I just don't believe that erasing them from history, because of the beliefs of a small minority, is doing our recognition of our shared national history a service.

Hey, you're talking to a man who still wears a patch that proudly displays the face of Stonewall Jackson on his uniform as a Scout leader (even though our council has had for over a decade now, different council strips without his image). So I get the argument. I think there just has to be a conversation about where that line is and also making sure that we engage with the less than pleasant aspects of their lives. We're much more willing to when it comes to these guys, but in a sweeping way that goes too far. Lee and Jackson both had negative opinions of slavery, but didn't see a natural end to it. The same can be said of many of the founding fathers, but we are much more eager to memorialize them even though the held the same opinions. All because they won.

[Millhouse]

(05-15-2017, 05:37 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: You could make the same argument with Erwin Rommel, Erich von Manstein, Ewald von Kleist, Erich Hartmann, etc.  All brilliant military minds or soldiers associated with a vile cause.  Does that cause diminish their brilliance or accomplishments?  I completely get the confederates are traitors to the US argument, because I've frequently made it.  But I don't see how memorializing the great men associated with it promotes the confederacy itself.  To me they are tragic figures but I get that some uphold them as heroes on the right side.  I just don't believe that erasing them from history, because of the beliefs of a small minority, is doing our recognition of our shared national history a service.

Removing these statues doesnt remove them from history. If anything it removes the history of the actual statue on who made & paid for it, not the history it represents. It's like if a statue of Lincoln doesn't exist anywhere, does that mean he is erased from history? No, because history is found in books and now of course the interweb, though books is where the real history is told. 

To the bolded above, a vast majority of these statues were erected in the decades after the Civil War ended when the south was in full segregation mode. It was almost as if they were put up to remind the black population that even though we lost the war, we did not lose the war on equal rights with you.

[Millhouse]

Another thing I have noticed, is why do Northern states lack statues honoring those that won the war like Lincoln, Grant, & Sherman, at least compared to the South. I dont mean battlefield statues, as vast majority were fought down south. But ones that honored the figures of the war. If someone wants to get a PHD in History, they should do a thesis on this.

[*Nately120*]

Southern snowflakes defend giant participation trophy. Film at 11.