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Post by DADDY O on Aug 12, 2017 13:38:28 GMT
Factual History, or Revisionism in the name of "Political Correctness"?
Here's the "Big Debate" in the southern states of America. Blacks, and others, find it offensive to have history displayed anywhere in the USA. In particular, I am talking about the American Civil War, i.e. North vs South. The confederate states were primarily Southern and succeeded from the Union in 1861. The President of the Confederacy was Jefferson Davis, who was duly elected. He appointed Robert E. Lee as the General of the Confederate Army.
The political revisionists want to "wipe out American History" by removing any statues related to the Confederacy (those of Davis & Lee in particular), as well as changing text books to either radically modify what has happened, or to eliminate it entirely.
To me, history is history whether it be good or bad, and when we start revising it to fit whatever political ideology we have, then we lose our past and the knowledge of where we came from.
So what's next? Do we eliminate the history of gas chambers in Germany, or the Holocaust, or the Great Purge in Russia, or.........I could go on and on and on, but I won't.
This is a brief history of the Civil War from WIKI:
The American Civil War was fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The result of a long-standing controversy over slavery and state's rights, war broke out in April 1861, when Confederates attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, shortly after Abraham Lincoln was elected. The nationalists of the Union proclaimed loyalty to the U.S. Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States of America advocating states’ rights to perpetual slavery and its expansion in the Americas.
Among the 34 U.S. states in February 1861, seven Southern slave states individually declared their secession from the U.S. to form the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy grew to include eleven states; it claimed two more border states (Kentucky and Missouri), the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the Union's western territories of Arizona and New Mexico, which was organized and incorporated into the Confederacy as Confederate Arizona. The Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by the United States government, nor was it recognized by any foreign country (although Britain and France granted it belligerent status). The states that remained loyal, including the border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North.
The North and South quickly raised volunteer and conscription armies that fought mostly in the South over four years. During this time many innovations in warfare occurred, including the development and use of iron-clad ships, ultimately changing naval strategy around the world. The Union finally won the war when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at the battle of Appomattox, which triggered a series of surrenders by Confederate generals throughout the southern states. Four years of intense combat left 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers dead, a higher number than the number of American military deaths in both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq & Afghanistan combined, and much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and 4 million slaves were freed. The Reconstruction Era (1863–1877) overlapped and followed the war, with the process of restoring national unity, strengthening the national government, and granting civil rights to freed slaves throughout the country. The Civil War is arguably the most studied and written about episode in American history.
Today, the battle continues with Historical Activists vs Historical Revisionists squaring off in Charlottesville, Virginia over the City's desire to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, because the City now finds it "offensive" to Blacks.
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Post by sherri on Aug 12, 2017 21:48:16 GMT
This sort of thing annoys me immensely as I can't see that studying historical facts is necessarily saying you agree with them or not. But they should not be swept under a table, no one needs to pretend they didn't happen.
The rest of the world is very aware you had a civil war. We all know, so that horse is out of the stable. Too late not to teach American children about it, it would make them look like fools. The statues or information on display about the losers is not offensive to anyone, or shouldn't be, as long as it is just factual.
But this sort of thing is becoming common everywhere. Yes, the holocaust of WW2 is now denied by quite a lot of revisionists. I have a cousin who converted to Judaism & her husband's family lost almost everyone-something like over 30 people if you include some of his great grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles etc. He himself is only in his 50s but I consider it insulting for people to try to deny the holocaust. But not in the sense of being hateful to present day Germans, more from a sense of what can happen anywhere if we aren't careful.
In Australia, this denial of history and sense of insult comes about not (as you might think) from having a convict past. It comes about in the sense that we have to feel ashamed that any white nation settled here. This means that Australia Day is fiercely opposed on the grounds it insults aboriginals and migrants. The flag is opposed because it has a union jack in one corner to represent one part of our early history. Apparently this insults migrants too. Just as it is becoming offensive to mention Christmas in schools, offensive apparently to use the terms boy or girl in schools or have toilets for the different sexes. We could go on and on.
On a modern note, Rolf Harris, an artist charged with child sex offenses, quickly had his art work removed from several buildings. My question would be why? If the art work was a good enough standard to stand alone & be bought, it should be good enough to display, no matter who did it. It doesn't signal agreement with his crimes.
With regard to your civil war, once slaves were freed, your country should have gone to the extra expense of returning a lot of them, or those they could, to their native land. It might have saved some of the problems you had down the track. Not that I support racial prejudice. But I think the legacy of slavery & conflict is there to this day. I read a report that says it takes, on average, 15 generations for a family (any family, black, white, whatever) to move up or down the social scale.
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Post by DADDY O on Aug 13, 2017 0:39:39 GMT
Great post Sherri. What was supposed to be a friendly discussion/protest on the merits of history vs revisionism has turned into a bloody confrontation between the "Black Lives Matter" organization and the White Supremists (Ku Klux Klan) even to the point of three deaths in Charlottesville......all over moving a statue of Robert E Lee.
Trump has come out to give his "Can't we all get along" speech, and all of the news networks are replaying his infamous statement at one of his rallies when confronted by a Black protester he tells the crowd of 10,000 people................"someone ought to punch him in the face", which they did. Very Presidential.......no?
BTW - the Special Council investigating the Russian Interference with Elections, is kicking ass and knocking down doors......I doubt Trump lasts one year in office. That's the good news.................the bad news is Mike Pence is the Vice President. God save us.
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Post by sherri on Aug 13, 2017 9:14:11 GMT
Revisionism is never okay in my book as it tries to hide the facts. Rather like in that novel '1984'. We also have 'Muslim lives matter' rallies here whenever there is anything about terrorism.
No one said muslim lives don't matter, just that Australian lives matter equally.
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Post by DADDY O on Aug 13, 2017 11:38:36 GMT
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Post by sherri on Aug 13, 2017 12:01:12 GMT
Considering one of the statues being moved is of a US vice president, I think all the hoohaa is a bit over the top. Trouble is, white nationalists have taken up one cause & the left the other so these statues have come to represent causes which have nothing to do with the actual historical statues. Pity all the protesters can't go home & chill out. I don't agree with the mayor or whoever who said the statues can't be allowed to define your future. Of course they don't. They represent part of your past.
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Post by DADDY O on Aug 13, 2017 17:56:24 GMT
Plot thickens..........
This entire ordeal started out as a protest NOT TO REMOVE the statue of Robert E. Lee. It was started by Steve Bannon (Senior Advisor to President Trump, and owner of Bretbart News (an ultra-right, ultra conservative Internet Blog). We will call them the "Whites". They filed for a permit to the City of Charlottesville for their protest. The City granted them their permit and told them they would be restricted to a certain park for gathering of protestors. At a certain time they would be allowed to march downtown in front of the statue in protest. Everything legal there whether you agree with their philosophy or not.
Enter the Blacks. An organization named "Black Lives Matter" (We'll call them the Blacks) finds out about the White protest. They too file for a permit to anti-protest. They were granted the permit and restricted to another park several miles away. They were also allowed to march downtown, but at a different time than the Whites.
BTW....the City and Police did a great job in the permit stage to try and keep these two groups separated.....unfortunately it turned to shit quickly.
The whites gathered and started their march, however, the Blacks ignored their timeline and started their protest at the same time. It was the Blacks that initially attacked the Whites. If you watch the videos, the Blacks are dressed in Black Tee-Shirts that say "Black Lives Matter" on the front of them. They initiated the violence, and the Whites reciprocated. And then everything turned into a Giant Cluster Fuck of Blacks vs Whites, or vice Versa.
Yes, some of the Whites were "White Supremists", and some wer "Neo Nazis, and some were KKK members........but even so, they have as much right to protest in America as anyone else.....................yet, they are being blamed by the press, when it was the Blacks that really came out of the box first.
So then, a white nut job comes out of the wood work and slams his car into a crowd of people, which killed one woman (a white one at that) and injured 19 more.
None of this should have happened. It only proves that America still has a serious race issue. Yesterday Trump did his "Rodney King" speech about "Can't we all get along". Most news networks want the President to condemn the Whites (particularly the white supremists and KKK members). He won't do it because these people helped get him elected.
Again, what a cluster fuck this has turned out to be.
One interesting point that people who do not live in America should take home with them is...................................no guns were drawn, and no shots were fired. Not everyone in America (even the crazies on both sides of this equation) are gun happy killing fools......but, we might want to take their car keys at the gate?
And that's the news from Lake WoBeGone, where the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.
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Post by granty on Aug 13, 2017 20:12:13 GMT
It's all headline news over here, and the BBC is doing its best to put all the blame on 'Donald' It wasn't Donalds fault that they were born Black, and all the protesters of the "black lives matter, but white lives don't brigade" happen to be White. Let's rearrange history to suit the blacks, because they can't get over the fact that they're black, and crying like babies.
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Post by sherri on Aug 13, 2017 22:56:51 GMT
You know, if anyone in power ever thought that the statue was a ticking time bomb, they should never have made any attempt to touch it or change the status quo. Just said it is a statue with historical overlay, can't be touched. We have trees like that that can't be touched. House fronts, sheds etc Slap a protection order on old stuff and it should come under that mantle. Then city hall can just say-it's been there 100 years (or whatever) so it is staying. Then just don't approve protest marches about it. Blind freddy could have worked out there were always going to be clashes with 2 groups protesting same day, the second group had no intention of not confronting the first group.
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Post by granty on Aug 14, 2017 19:08:17 GMT
Someone once said "in the future, the facists will be the anti facists." All I could see was a load of white people fighting each other. So where were all the Blacks in all this? Probably pi$$ing themselves laughing as they sell more drugs, and mug white people.
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Post by sherri on Aug 15, 2017 0:04:06 GMT
Granty, I don't think most black people are like that but you're right that it is often white people who make a lot of the trouble, seeing prejudice & insults behind everything.
Slavery was (and is) a terrible thing with people treated like animals, but a statue of Robert E Lee is not a support of slavery. Not if it just gives factual detail of his life. If I were touring that area, it is the sort of thing that would be interesting to see, as we often read the names of people in history but it makes it come to life more if you can see photos or statues that show what the people looked like, dressed like etc
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Post by DADDY O on Aug 15, 2017 10:46:46 GMT
Someone once said "in the future, the facists will be the anti facists." All I could see was a load of white people fighting each other. So where were all the Blacks in all this? Probably pi$$ing themselves laughing as they sell more drugs, and mug white people. I looked at the videos again, and you are right.......whites against whites. Weird
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Post by granty on Aug 16, 2017 20:23:47 GMT
Donald was right, "it takes two to tango" So how come the worlds press are so thick, they can't comprehend it? Thank fuck there's still enough people left to vote for a man that speaks what he sees. The man the press refuse to show you the public that voted for him.
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Post by DADDY O on Aug 21, 2017 10:46:24 GMT
Well..............actually Granty, Trump's approval ratings are the worst of any President before him at this tenure in his office (200 days). Before the election he had a 64% approval rating from the "Red" states (Republican States), and today he has a 32% approval rating from those same states, which means he has a 68% negative rating. Republican House and Senate members are very nervous because the midterm elections, when we re-elect Senators and Congressmen, are coming up next year, which is not far away. This also implies the Democrats will take control of the House and the Senate. If this happens, Trump will surely be impeached and removed from office.
There is a saying in America "The good news is Trump will be impeached and removed. The bad news is the Vice President (Mike Pence) will become President".
Trumps problems are huge. When a "Special Prosecutor" is appointed to investigate the President for corruption in office and obstruction of justice, it's not good. And, when the Special Prosecutor convenes a Grand Jury to bring forth indictments against his son, his daughter, his son-in-law and the President, it's really pretty bleak.
As President, Trump needs to act.....well, Presidential and quit Tweeting and keep his mouth shut. Remember the old saying "It's Better to Keep Your Mouth Shut and appear as an idiot than to Open it and Leave No Doubt".
Trump is his own worst enemy. He has not accomplished much of anything while in office. Health Care is a fiasco with many people losing their insurance (including me) due to the administrations stupidity; Build the wall is the idiotic idea ever proposed. It only includes 5/8 of the border at a cost of 24 Billion Dollars. The wall is so flimsy even my grandmother could scale it, and the Border Patrol agents say "it won't help us at all".
There is no budget yet approved; tax reform hasn't even started; Trump is killing all of our existing trade agreements (even those with Australia, Canada and Britain). The list of not accomplishing anything is long.
The sooner he goes out the door, the better. America has embarrassed ourselves long enough.
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Post by granty on Aug 21, 2017 19:25:20 GMT
You call the UK a socialist state. Yet you also have these left wing mobile terrorists turning up at every type of white patriotic rally uninvited. They cover their faces, they smash the place up, cause all the trouble, and don't even get arrested. They never get condemned by the media, they even put Arnie on the telly singing their praises. I reckon it's all Jewish conspiracy. Why else do we always get the holocaust rammed down our throats? Genocides have been going on since time began, and they're still going on today. But these people aren't as rich and influential as the Jew's. Hitler was no fool.
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