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The Economist calls for removal of New Orleans' Liberty Place monument
Robert McClendon, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune ^ | 10/7/15 | Robert McClendon, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Posted on 10/07/2015 6:19:55 PM PDT by BBell

The latest issue of The Economist magazine, a center-right publication that claims a weekly readership of 1.5 million, calls for New Orleans to remove its Battle of Liberty Place monument, as well as statues of famous Confederates.

The article takes aim at divisive statuary in general, but it names the Liberty Place obelisk as a concrete example of a monument that merits no public support.

"When public land and resources are used in a way that causes widespread offence, as preserving these state-sponsored tributes does, the authorities should have a good reason for doing so. In (the case of Liberty Place), they don't," the article says.

The Liberty Place monument, which now sits at the foot of Iberville Street in the French Quarter, commemorates a bloody 1874 coup against the Reconstruction government of Louisiana by a band of ex-Confederates.

As is The Economist's tradition, the opinion piece is unsigned.

The piece lays out three main arguments for keeping divisive statues in place, none of which The Economist finds persuasive. The arguments, which have been raised by many New Orleans residents who want to keep the statues, include: the need to preserve history, the existence of more pressing concerns and the difficulty in distinguishing between the relative sins of historic figures.

It is important to preserve history, the magazine writes, but official endorsement of such statues suggests the figures they commemorate "should be not just remembered but publicly revered."

The point echoes a similar theme Mayor Mitch Landrieu has used in his advocacy of the removal of the Liberty Place obelisk and statues of Robert E. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard and Jefferson Davis, all famous Confederates.

The Historic Development Commission's staff has also raised concerns that allowing the statues to stay in

(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Louisiana
KEYWORDS: libertyplacemonument; neworleans; theeconomist
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To: ncalburt

I’ve been gone since 1990...still have a daughter in Laplace.


41 posted on 10/07/2015 9:05:04 PM PDT by Cold Heat
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To: ncalburt

BTW...the author of this piece is certainly no fan of mitch.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/10/what_mitch_landrieus_latest_co.html#lf_comment=394380920


42 posted on 10/07/2015 9:08:28 PM PDT by Cold Heat
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To: Rodamala

The Economist is politically anything but center right.


43 posted on 10/07/2015 9:17:11 PM PDT by RobbyS (quotes)
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To: RobbyS

Perhaps from the Euroweenie point of view, it may well be but to us it’s left wing, just like almost every financial publication.


44 posted on 10/07/2015 9:23:21 PM PDT by Cold Heat
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To: BBell

Wow...I must have passed by it dozens of times and didn’t realize what it was.

I would hope that Lee Circle stays though.


45 posted on 10/07/2015 9:37:45 PM PDT by scrabblehack
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To: Cold Heat
Yes. When you live in a state that is about 1/3 black you have to get along. If you can't you might as well move. My kids attended a High School with a very high percentage of blacks. Both of my kids had no problems being friends with black kids and most of these kids were fine kids. The place I used to work was very diverse and we all got along fine. The drinking establishment I go to has as many white regulars as black.

Heck, even the really nice gated communities are ethnically mixed.

46 posted on 10/07/2015 10:07:49 PM PDT by BBell
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To: BBell

Pretty much the same experience here in Arkansas. The small city where I live is only about 35% but we generally have a good rapport.

However, I have noted a change, even here. It’s not bad as up across our northern border in St Louis, but it’s noticeable only if you know your neighbors and see that some of them are becoming more wary of whites to the point that it’s almost a reverse flip of racism. They seem to just assume that if your white you are now a racist or must be.

Not the older folks, but the 30ish on down young.

It has to be this president and the class warfare he has engaged in from the moment he sat down in the oval office. I worry about it a lot, as my tenants are black and I have had to really work hard to undo what the culture today is doing to them.


47 posted on 10/07/2015 11:02:29 PM PDT by Cold Heat
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To: BBell

Here’s a interesting anecdote. Just happened day before yesterday.

I try not to do this but I interjected myself into a bad relationship between two of my tenants living right behind me.

The male was late on the rent after several broken promises. Their relationship (not married) was also suffering, loud arguments and some damage was done to a interior wall.

I had already had a talk with him and his girl friend had come over to my office to apologize for the ruckus..he saw her talking to me and stormed over and tried to cuss her out in my presence. I stopped him, and read him the riot act like I have never done before, except as a sergeant in the Army.

Then I told him to get out..

The next day he was gone. But he trashed his girl friends stuff and her kids stuff. Poured bleach on the clothes....what a mess..

The entire family of the girl came to her aid and after they heard what happened they came to me and thanked me for getting involved. That she was in a terrible abusive relationship and I had busted that up, finally..

I am not evicting the girl and the kids...it’s not their fault ....so I’m eating the rent and only asking that they pay the utilities until she can make arrangements for rental assistance and I will do that for as long as it takes.

It’s all I can do, but I am fully aware that I could be in great danger for what I did. They also told me that they had never seen a white man talk to a black man in that direct fashion...they were actually impressed.


48 posted on 10/07/2015 11:17:24 PM PDT by Cold Heat
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To: Cold Heat
Actually I do agree there. The 30 on down crowd seems to be falling for this fake black militancy. Most of the black guys I hang out with are above 30. Of the guys I know that are older than me a number of them still remember segregation. And these guys are not that old. They got some stories to tell but they don't seem bitter and a lot of them joke about it.

We get a bit politically incorrect and if a stranger were to walk in they would probably think that there was going to be a racial fight any moment but we only joke around about it.

49 posted on 10/07/2015 11:53:00 PM PDT by BBell
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To: Cold Heat

Good. I’m glad the family was there for her and you are helping her out. I hope she knows how to handle a weapon.


50 posted on 10/07/2015 11:56:12 PM PDT by BBell
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To: BBell

I don’t think she has one...but I do..


51 posted on 10/08/2015 12:15:37 AM PDT by Cold Heat
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To: Cold Heat
Her family needs to step up.

I have a story a friend of mine told me.

He grew up poor and black. Did not have nothing. An older white guy that lived nearby offered him some odd jobs. Before too long he was working for this guy. When he got a bit older he was driving wreckers for this guy.

This guy had a screwed up daughter. Running away, drugs etc. She ended up living with a black drug dealer.

My friend described his boss as "old fashion" about interracial couples. He asked my friend to go get his daughter.

My friend jumped into the tow truck and drove over to get her. He walked up, knocked on the door and the black drug dealer answered and asked him what he want. He told he was there to pick up Mr. Landry's Daughter. The guy objected. My friend said he was not leaving with out her.

Needless to say he brought her back to Daddy.

Of course it did no good, she was a class A screw up.

The old white guy has been dead for years but my friend, who is my age plus or minus a few years, thinks of this guy as a father figure and gives him credit for giving him the leg up he needed when he was young. He still respects him so much he only refers to him as "Mr. Landry."

Oh, my friend does not care for Obama. He has worked hard to get were he is at and unlike 0bama he really did come from nothing. He believes that if you work hard enough you can get where you want.

52 posted on 10/08/2015 12:50:29 AM PDT by BBell
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To: Cold Heat

BTW, that is a true Louisiana Southern story.


53 posted on 10/08/2015 12:51:35 AM PDT by BBell
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To: savagesusie

Agreed.....my thoughts on slime like Keynes and those Afghan perverts? .... But some people just need killing


54 posted on 10/08/2015 2:54:06 AM PDT by Vaquero ( Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: BBell

Just because you are right about the monument being dedicated to white supremacists, does not alter the fact that I will not take anything from The Economist as truthful. I would look for a different organization to be the champion of this cause


55 posted on 10/08/2015 2:58:51 AM PDT by Vaquero ( Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: Vaquero

The economist is probably not the issue here, what they are doing is piling on to a local issue that the mayor of NO, a flaming leftwing Democrat who is and always has been up to his neck in scandal has been pushing...(since the confederate flag issue caused by that mass church shooting)

He’s doing as most dumbocrats do and trying to feather his nest with the black community as well as drawing attention from his governance issues.

It’s not the Economist. The history is real but it’s related to the post civil war carpet bagger struggle and it’s their history which is why they kept it. As a tourist attraction it’s worth it’s weight is gold, and thusfar, this is the first time I have heard a serious attempt to remove it.

My point is, that I refrain from knee jerking about a monument, no matter it’s history, that belongs to the city and is not a matter for me, you, or anyone else but a NOLA resident.

They should put it on the ballot! It’s NOLA history and it belongs to them.

Does it stay or does it go....and vote..the other side will accept it that way but not jammed through by some judicial decree or executive action.

Far too much of that going on today. Groups around the world are destroying another’s history for all sorts of reasons...It’s evil in my view.


56 posted on 10/08/2015 9:15:13 AM PDT by Cold Heat
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