🐱 Baltimore tore down all its Confederate monuments in one night

https://news.vice.com/story/baltimore-tore-down-all-its-confederate-monuments-in-one-night


In an overnight operation, Baltimore removed four Confederate monuments from the city, rushing to get them down in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The removals came hours after President Trump defended the white nationalist demonstrators who rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia, in unrest over the weekend that led to the death of one 32-year-old woman and two Virginia state troopers.

The statues were taken down at the order of Mayor Catherine Pugh with the unanimous support of the city council, which passed a resolution on Monday. Pugh told the Baltimore Sun she was surprised that more hadn’t been done to remove the statues before her term.

“I am a responsible person, so we moved as quickly as we could,” she said.

A small group of contractors took the monuments down with cranes, guarded by police and flanked by a small TV crew, a few night-owl activists, and Pugh, who told the Baltimore Sun that she personally watched the statues come down.

The four statues removed were:

• Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson Monument, which showed the two Confederate generals on horseback, put up in 1948.
• Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument, which depicts the allegorical figure of “Glory” holding a dying Confederate soldier in one arm and a laurel crown in the other, built in 1903.
• Roger B. Taney Monument, depicting the Supreme Court chief justice who wrote the 1857 Dred Scott decision, which affirmed that black Americans had no claim to citizenship, built in 1887. While Taney wasn’t officially a member of the Confederacy, he stood as a symbol for the support of slavery.
• Confederate Women’s Monument, which celebrate the role of women in the Civil War, dedicated in 1917.

The monuments were put on flatbed trucks and escorted out of town by police.

On Wednesday morning, all that was left of the city’s Confederate monuments were a handful of empty pedestals. As a result of the removals, no symbols of the Confederacy remain on public grounds in Baltimore.

The removals came hours after Trump reaffirmed his initial remarks on the Charlottesville protests that “many sides” were responsible for the violence. On Monday, he condemned (reading from prepared remarks) white supremacist groups, and on Tuesday spoke off the cuff at a press gathering at Trump Tower, reasserting that he believed there was “blame on both sides.”

 

[escapegoat]

And the KKK are the ultimate lolcows, running a giant pyramid scheme that made the Trans LifeLine scam look like child's play while running around in sheets so no one would see their faces when they behaved in ways they would be ashamed to be seen acting.

Let us not forget all the goobery Wizards and Dragons titles. Cyclops! Goblins! Imperial Kleagles!

The KKK: the original cosplayers.

 

[Scratch This Nut]

I don't really give a shit about the statues. I just wish people would stop acting like Antifa is good, and not a total fucking terrorist group, with basically the same ideas as Nazis, just reversed. A bunch of exceptional individuals with tiki torches doesn't bother me that much, when compared against the scale and level of the type of bullshit Antifa has done.

You are acting enraged that the the media is siding with the guys who aren't wearing swastika armbands.

 

[Transvaalan]

Now there's an alternate history timeline I'd love to read!

And the leaders and mass slave plantation owners were arrested and hanged for treason, the old plantation lands seized and divided up for the surviving white families and surviving Confederate veterans of the rank Captain and below, the blacks shipped off to Liberia.

And when the 1960s come around....nobody burns down masses of cities, and thousands of suburb towns never get founded, and Urban Decay never happens, and everything is basically kind of nice, the New Deal coalition never dies, and politics never gets retarded with dumbass social issues and demographic tipping never occurring. Not enough votes to change the immigration laws in 1965, and not enough people conditioned to wail about the poor colored folks.

The country goes heavily conservative in the 1980s and stays there. Forever. Gay marriage never happens nationwide, trannies stay in closets and ditches.

cryingjews.gif

 

[Trilby]

And the leaders and mass slave plantation owners were arrested and hanged for treason, the old plantation lands seized and divided up for the surviving white families and surviving Confederate veterans of the rank Captain and below, the blacks shipped off to Liberia.

And when the 1960s come around....nobody burns down masses of cities, and thousands of suburb towns never get founded, and Urban Decay never happens, and everything is basically kind of nice. Oops.

That's what happens I suppose, unless we're still hating the Irish.

 

[Transvaalan]

That's what happens I suppose, unless we're still hating the Irish.

That had petered out in the 1930s. Not as trendy, and the Irish(not Scotch Irish) had generally stopped making asses of themselves, coincidentally at a time when the nation sobered up and alcohol consumption bottomed out hard.

Oh and the Drug War would never happen the way it has. Like at all. Right up until the Meth Labs start appearing in cribs.

 

[millais]

I know we have been shitting on polls since the US presidential election, but this is perhaps the most impartial way to gauge current breakdown of public opinion rather than just blindly assuming the loudest and angriest voices in the fray are the most popular.

Most interesting figures to me: 44% of blacks and 65% of Latinos ok with keeping the statues around. And these figures are from very liberal polling organization.

http://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/misc/usapolls/us170814_PBS/NPR_PBS NewsHour_Marist Poll_National Nature of the Sample and Tables_August 17, 2017.pdf#page=9

 

[AnOminous]

I know we have been shitting on polls since the US presidential election, but this is perhaps the most impartial way to gauge current breakdown of public opinion rather than just blindly assuming the loudest and angriest voices in the fray are the most popular.

I'm in the minority of the "very liberal-liberal" who leans toward keep. My exception is it should be up to the states themselves first, and specifically the locals in the area who actually have to look at the things. Fuck jobless assholes who travel the country seeking things to be pissed off and riot about.

But if the overwhelming majority of the locals near an object want it gone, they should get their way. After all, they're the ones who have to put up with it. That's whether they just don't like it, or would just rather have something else.

 

[nosemouth]

Removing these statues means that residents will have fewer things to duck behind while dodging bullets in this crime-ridden shithole.

 

[Trilby]

Removing these statues means that residents will have fewer things to duck behind while dodging bullets in this crime-ridden shithole.

Thank you.

 

[nad7155]

"very liberal-liberal"

It makes me feel bad that you are so smart.

I miss IWC.

 

[fireatdawn]

No, I'm just sick of the media ignoring the other problem that's currently having a larger impact. Or did you miss Hamburg essentially going up in flames over the goddamn G20?

 

[Caesare]

Like I said earlier, it's pretty cringey to see people extol the virtues of the Confederacy when it was a failed state that lasted barely 4 years and was founded to preserve slavery in the South.

It failed because Puritanical Abolitionists wanted to spill blood in the name of God due to a mix of jealousy and to cleanse the South of the sin of miscegenation. They were sick of hearing about all the rumors of the harems of young black girls that those dastardly Southern gentleman were keeping all for themselves.

Like @MarineTrainedTard said, they were traitors who started a war and wanted to preserve slavery in our country.

If you follow that line of thought, every American is a descendant of a traitor. After all, most of this country's people were British subjects before the Revolutionary War. I don't see how the Confederacy is any different besides the fact that it failed due to fighting an enemy who used overwhelming force, war crimes, and scorched Earth tactics to browbeat their own neighbors into submission, just for having the nerve to want self determination the same as the original American colonists wanted from the British.

 

[Cosmos]

If you follow that line of thought, every American is a descendant of a traitor. After all, most of this country's people were British subjects before the Revolutionary War. I don't see how the Confederacy is any different besides the fact that it failed due to fighting an enemy who used overwhelming force, war crimes, and scorched Earth tactics to browbeat their own neighbors into submission, just for having the nerve to want self determination the same as the original American colonists wanted from the British.

It's different, though. The Confederacy was formed after the United States had become an independent nation, so the Confederates were betraying their fellow Americans rather than their British overlords.

Also, I don't know if you're being serious about defending the Confederacy (these past few months have smashed my trolldar into pieces), but I really hope you're not. Because "self-determination" shouldn't apply when it demands slavery.

 

[AnOminous]

No, I'm just sick of the media ignoring the other problem that's currently having a larger impact. Or did you miss Hamburg essentially going up in flames over the goddamn G20?

Wasn't Hamburg the same shit, though? Ineffectual political leaders telling the cops to stand down, with predictable results?

It's not like violence and massive property damage at G20-related events is some isolated thing that never happened before. In fact, it happens every time there isn't a substantial police presence to keep things under control.

If you follow that line of thought, every American is a descendant of a traitor.

Well, as I pointed out, it's not treason if you win. Because then you're the ones deciding what treason is.

Or as someone else put it better:

"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason." John Harrington

 

[Caesare]

It's different, though. The Confederacy was formed after the United States had become an independent nation, so the Confederates were betraying their fellow Americans rather than their British overlords.

How is that any different from the colonists betraying their British benefactors? It isn't. You really need to brush up on your history if you think that America was one large, homogeneous region before, during, and even after the American Civil War. The Southern States didn't view themselves as "fellow American's" they were Dixie, through and through. Sure, they were technically part of America, but culturally they couldn't have been further apart.

Also, I don't know if you're being serious about defending the Confederacy (these past few months have smashed my trolldar into pieces), but I really hope you're not. Because "self-determination" shouldn't apply when it demands slavery.

And no, I'm not trolling at all. I like to joke and I like to talk shit sometimes, but I'm dead serious. Slavery was a part of it, but the reality was the fact that Lincoln (and by extension, the rest of America's politicians at the time) were radical expansionists. They couldn't accept losing so much territory that the Confederacy took with them when they seceded.

And are we really going to talk about when "self-determination" should and shouldn't apply? You're saying that America's "self-determination" is more legitimate than the Confederacy's? All the CSA wanted was to keep the peculiar institution alive, which we all know wouldn't have lasted more than another 60 years or so due to the advent of mechanized farming and other advances in farming. America and her demand for "Manifest Destiny" resorted to genocide and wiped out millions of native Americans. Are you saying that is somehow more honorable and moral than using men for farm labor? Which had been in practice since Biblical times and continued long after the American Civil War, and still continues to this day in Africa and parts of Asia?

 

[escapegoat]

There could be nothing happening at all here, and the US media would do stories about a kittens rescuing babies, and press releases about how Millennials are ruining the buggy whip industry, while a single blip about Hamburg rolled by on the ticker once very twenty minutes.

Murrica. We do not care.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

It's different, though. The Confederacy was formed after the United States had become an independent nation, so the Confederates were betraying their fellow Americans rather than their British overlords.

Whatever other argument can be made for or against the CSA, I don't see how Americans can be offended by the concept of rebellion and secession when those things are glorified as the beginnings of our nation in the first place. Either rebellion is justified when you feel oppressed by your government or it isn't.

As @Coleman Francis says, the citizens of any given colony really didn't look at the next colony over and consider them "fellow Americans". Ending affiliation with the crown was about the only thing they could all agree on and just barely at that. By the same token, the South pre-war didn't consider itself to have much in common with the North, and plenty of southern posters on the farms would probably tell you the feelings of divide never went away in a lot of places.

 

[Trilby]

There could be nothing happening at all here, and the US media would do stories about a kittens rescuing babies, and press releases about how Millennials are ruining the buggy whip industry, while a single blip about Hamburg rolled by on the ticker once very twenty minutes.

Murrica. We do not care.

Sadly true. Those tickers don't explain much.

 

[Transvaalan]

How is that any different from the colonists betraying their British benefactors? It isn't. You really need to brush up on your history if you think that America was one large, homogeneous region before, during, and even after the American Civil War. The Southern States didn't view themselves as "fellow American's" they were Dixie, through and through. Sure, they were technically part of America, but culturally they couldn't have been further apart.



And no, I'm not trolling at all. I like to joke and I like to talk shit sometimes, but I'm dead serious. Slavery was a part of it, but the reality was the fact that Lincoln (and by extension, the rest of America's politicians at the time) were radical expansionists. They couldn't accept losing so much territory that the Confederacy took with them when they seceded.

The vast majority of Americans were expansionist in one way or another, and the Indian Question had already been settled, largely thanks to European powers being more than happy to attempt to use them against the American Colonists, not to mention the brutality of many of the Indians themselves. They wiped out whole forts, entire villages and families when they had chance, and often enough that frontiersmen were sick and tired of it even before the Revolution. Which ties into the other reason that Lincoln wanted the Confederacy back into the fold by any means necessary, even by letting slavery remain. He wasn't stupid enough to give the CSA time to catch up in industrial strength. Mexico was a nonentity, and Canada was only relevant because of the British. But the CSA had the potential to be a real thorn, a real threat, especially in the longer term. Domination of the Gulf of Mexico, control over the entrance of the Mississippi, political connections with the newly acquired former Mexican territories with the option of stealing more of Mexico of they wanted. It would have forced the Union to remain militarized, a highly expensive proposition, and would have put the Union in the same position as continental European powers.

I mean, its doubtful that the CSA would have survived to 1900 for many many reasons, but if they did and managed to actually get their shit together, then the CSA would likely own a larger chunk of Mexican territory, the Carribean and Gulf of Mexico almost entirely, any future Panama Canal, control the entrance to the Mississippi, a large chunk of the Southwest, possibly California and if not, be in a position to make the California Gold Rush much more dangerous and exciting.

The existence of the CSA was about as tolerable to the Union as Napoleon's France was to the British.

And are we really going to talk about when "self-determination" should and shouldn't apply? You're saying that America's "self-determination" is more legitimate than the Confederacy's? All the CSA wanted was to keep the peculiar institution alive, which we all know wouldn't have lasted more than another 60 years or so due to the advent of mechanized farming and other advances in farming. America and her demand for "Manifest Destiny" resorted to genocide and wiped out millions of native Americans. Are you saying that is somehow more honorable and moral than using men for farm labor? Which had been in practice since Biblical times and continued long after the American Civil War, and still continues to this day in Africa and parts of Asia?

Its kinda hard to defend slavery when it led directly to hordes of fucking niggers in my country.