Posted on 09/08/2017 11:35:05 AM PDT by Javeth
We are witnessing a growing trend of angry attempts to erase past racial injustices through attacks upon Civil War monuments, those symbolically associated with a tragic era of slavery.
Inflamed by violence leading to a death characterized in the media as a "white supremacist rally" protesting removal of a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia hundreds of other statues, markers and other symbols memorializing important Confederate figures and events are now also under siege throughout the nation.
If we are to erase evidence and symbols of historical injustices, where does this end? After all, why stop with Confederate leaders when great blame for racial intolerance and misery can be attributed to Northern leaders for terrible oppressions directed to indigenous Indian populations?
Injustices against people like my great grandmother’s Winnebago tribal members who were forcibly relocated to reservations in Minnesota and Nebraska, for example.
So if we’re really serious about removing public memorials to "white supremacists," shouldn’t those who perpetrated devastating racial assaults upon true Native Americans be included? And why not begin with Grant’s Tomb in New York, N.Y.?
I’m referring, of course, to President Ulysses S. Grant, whose administration transferred vast tribal lands to private pioneers, land speculators, and railroad and mining companies.
If not actual genocide, his solution to the "Indian problem" certainly influenced a cultural genocide. As he explained, "I see no substitute for such a system, except in placing all the Indians on large reservations, as rapidly as it can be done."
As white settlers continued to push Indians off their tribal lands, those on reservations experienced increasing poverty and desperation. Meanwhile, Grant’s administration oversaw the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad and the great slaughters of the Plains buffalo which destroyed their traditional ways of life.
Rebellions against Grant’s Indian "peace policies" led to tragic massacres and military conflicts. Included were the Modoc War in California, the Red River War in Texas, the Nez Perce conflict in Oregon, and the Black Hills campaign and Battle of the Little Bighorn led by George Armstrong Custer.
Efforts by great chiefs such as Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, Geronimo and Cochise who led battles to preserve their lands and ways of life were ultimately defeated. They were no match for frontier generals commanding ever-growing armies and devastating weaponry.
As Oglala Chief Red Cloud told Grant upon visiting the White House in 1870, "The riches we have in this world . . . we cannot take with us to the next world. . . . "Then I wish to know why agents are sent out to us who do nothing but rob us and get the riches of this world away from us."
Grant predicted in 1874 that "a few years more will relieve our frontiers from danger of Indian depredations." Assisted by another Union leader, his prediction was provident.
General William Tecumseh Sherman who began his military career under then-General Grant in the first Battle of Bull Run of 1862 worked to bring about a "final Indian solution." In 1865 Sherman assumed command of a campaign against the Plains Indians in support of powerful politically-connected interests, including corporations involved in building the transcontinental railroads.
Following the War Between the States and his 1864 "scorched-earth" torching of Atlanta and pillaging of civilian properties which laid waste to lives and livelihoods along a large swath of Northern Georgia, Sherman renewed his Indian extermination conquest. In 1865 he was given command of the Military District of the Missouri which commenced a 25-year-long war against the Plains Indians.
As Sherman wrote to Grant in 1867, "We are not going to let a few thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress [of the railroads]." He clearly described his assigned Indian extermination objective as being "to prosecute the war with vindictive earnestness . . . till [the Indians] are obliterated or beg for mercy."
Sherman assured his subordinate General Philip H. Sheridan, "I will back you with my whole authority, and stand between you and any efforts that may be attempted in your rear to restrain your purpose or check your troops." This referred to prior authorization to kill as many women and children that Sheridan and his subordinates thought necessary when attacking Indian villages.
Both Sherman and Sheridan are forever associated with the slogan "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." So let’s also schedule the two large Washington, D.C. equestrian monuments dedicated to Sherman and Sheridan for demolition too.
Alternatively, we might heed some advice offered by Texas Governor Greg Abbot in an American Statesman article, "We must remember that our history isn’t perfect. If we do not learn from our history, we are doomed to repeat it . . . instead of trying to bury our past, we must learn from it and ensure it doesn’t happen again." He added that "tearing down" those symbols won’t change the past, nor will it help the nation’s future."
As I do to yours. I love seeing you make an idiot out of yourself. It makes my day. And I’m not angry at you dude. Anger is a big emotional investment and I invest wisely. I pity you.
You admitted here that you have Aspergers. At the time you did you might remember that I told you my grandson has the same condition. Now you’re going to deny it? And it isn’t an ad hominem when it’s the truth. And as far as the Will Rogers quote goes man, irony really is lost on you.
There you go again Lampster. The hell it was about any idea of Southern independence. It was about the right to base an economic system based on the use of slave labor and it started a war to achieve that end. war , by the way, it had every intention of winning.
I suggested that I might have it because I exhibit so many of the characteristics of Aspergers, like an astonishing ability to focus on whatever I set my mind to work on, coupled with a lack of regard for the contempt others may direct at me. It was a psuedo joke then, but it has become a pretty good joke ever since.
I personally don't think "Aspergers" is all that abnormal in a society. I find that bi-polor disorder and hyperactivity are also well within the range of what is relatively normal in a population of quirky humans. There are plenty enough people out there who exhibit real characteristics of "crazy".
It is for this reason that I do not consider "Aspergers" to be so much of an insult as I consider it to be a complement, like "Weaponized Autism."
And it isn’t an ad hominem when it’s the truth.
So if a person is ugly, and you call them "ugly" it isn't an ad hominem because it's the truth?
I think an ad hominem is any effort to degrade someone, and thereby convince others that their opinion is unworthy of consideration.
That is exactly what it was about. They had slavery while they were in the Union. Lincoln was going to guarantee that they could keep slavery as far as the eye could see, if they just remained in the Union.
The issue was about them remaining in the Union, not whether or not they would continue having slavery.
Independence was in dispute. The Continued legality of slavery was not in dispute.
What the Nazis did was come up with a theory that some secretive group was responsible for everything that went wrong in the world.
That's a lot like what you've been saying for the past few months ... or years ... or longer.
And I know that you think you're some great intellectual maverick, but people have been spreading theories like yours for over a century.
"Groupthink" isn't anything new, and it's alive and well in places like lewrockwell.com.
You suggested no such thing!. You said here you have Aspergers Syndrome and you said in spite of it you were going to keep on doing what it is you’re doing here. And to think I had a bit of sympathy for you because if you remember you clueless clown I told you my grandson has it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder dude. Stupidity is out there for all the world to see. You’re a prime example of it.
Your post is a reply to my post # 237. Here is what I said:
I'm surprised to see you admit it, but yes, that is exactly what happened. They now have the public believing that States didn't have a right to independence, and that they sent invading armies into these states to abolish slavery.Total nonsense, yet it has been made pervasive by constant repetition from the authorities and their allies.
I don't see the word "Nazi" in there anywhere, and I don't see any resemblance to Nazis other than the use of propaganda, which they did before the Nazis ever came along.
I'm pretty sure I didn't say I had Aspergers. I might have said I suspect I have Aspergers, but that is about as far as I would have gone.
Why don't you search back and find the message in question, and then we can both see which of us is wrong on this point?
Your post was a response to my post which was a response to your post where you said, "The Nazis called it "Gleichschaltung" and imposed it on everyone else."
Have you forgotten that already? You compared Americans who supported the union to Nazis. Pretty shameless.
Speaking of propaganda, the Nazis (who you brought up first) really loved loopy conspiracy theories like yours.
That's a classic from their playbook: pick some secretive villains and blame everything that happened on them.
BTW, Gleichschaltung was a lot more than propaganda. It was a total control over society.
So what you wrote, comparing the US to Nazi Germany, was particularly offensive.
If you are going two posts deep, you should let someone know. This is not the only discussion in which I am currently engaging on the internet. I've got about half a dozen going on various sites around the web.
This business of imposing conformity was not invented by the Nazis. It has long been a characteristic of Human kind to impose a doctrine on others, and punish them when they do not follow it.
That's a classic from their playbook: pick some secretive villains and blame everything that happened on them.
Well you see, there is the difference. They aren't secret. They eventually came to be called "Robber Barons", and many of their names are well known from that era. We also have the tabulation of numbers we can access, and we can see who the financial winners and losers would have been.
So what you wrote, comparing the US to Nazi Germany, was particularly offensive.
I think I compared the Nazis to the US propaganda effort, which was first. Of course the Nazis went much further, but the point here is that promulgating propaganda is bad.
You did. End of story.
Time for a process check.
This thread is titled “Will Attacks on Monuments Include Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan?”
Brother Joe, your last, on target, post to me was #204. You gallantly, but wrongheadedly, defended Sherman's genocidal aspirations.
Since, you have leveled a personal attack and folded in some references to Shakespeare and roses. Now IFF to add distraction to diversion.
Yes, I did participate (post 225) by taking downtown the hanging meatball you served. It was a whim on my part.
To the point: have you resigned? It looked like you were headed to checkmate before the board got bumped.
If you are still in the discussion and have a hankering to defend extermination talk, start with this:
“Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians! ... I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians. ... Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice.”
Like I said, the "villains" are not so secret. Even Daniel Greenfield can see them.
"If you want to understand why Samantha Power was unmasking names, that’s why. The hysterical obsession with destroying Trump comes from the top down. It’s not just ideology. It’s wealthy and powerful men and women who ran the country and are terrified that their crimes will be exposed.It’s why the media increasingly sounds like the propaganda organs of a Communist country. Why there are street riots and why the internet is being censored by Google and Facebook’s “fact checking” allies.
That doesn't mean a bunch of bankers planned the Civil War because they were afraid of losing the cotton trade.
Bankers? As i've pointed out before, they are merely one group among many that would have been affected negatively by the South trading directly with Europe. Shippers would have lost cargoes, and likely would have had to move South. Textile manufacturers would have seen an increase in their costs. Warehousing in New York, and New York dock facilities would have a sudden collapse of business. Insurance agents would have been faced with competition from Southern industries taking over what used to be their market.
My point in linking you to the Daniel Greenfield article is to show you that other people see the same sort of movers and shakers behind the scenes who have power and influence yet who do not answer to the voters.
I say this pattern was established in the run up to the Civil War, and has been in existence ever since. We modern Americans are simply facing the same monster of Crony Capitalists influencing government policy as was seen in the 1800s. It's just bigger and wealthier now, and has somewhat gone International.
No "foregone conclusions" because Lincoln's orders were not to land "more troops and arms" if no resistance.
In that case, basic supplies only.
DiognenesLamp: " He had already sent the fleet with orders to land reinforcements in the fort before he sent the letter to Pickens saying he wasn't going to reinforce the fort."
No, Lincoln's orders were not to land reinforcements, if there was no Confederate resistance.
DiognenesLamp: "Their "second thoughts" were wrong, and their first thoughts were correct.
They rightly saw that the effort would trigger an unnecessary war, and that is exactly what happened."
Trigger?? So they were all modern students of psychology concerned with "trigger words", "virtue signaling" & "safe spaces"??
I don't think so.
You need to carefully reread my post #162 above, or better yet, McClintock's "Lincoln and the Decision for War", the book it comes from.
McClintock does not falsely assert motives the data doesn't support, but does tell us what they said at the time.
DiognenesLamp: "It wasn't inevitable if the unwelcome guests had simply left after being informed they were no longer wanted.
It was the refusal to leave that escalated the situation."
Of course inevitable, given Jefferson Davis' order to demand Union troops surrender, then to militarily assault & seize Union Fort Sumter.
But to be certain nobody misunderstood, the Confederate Congress soon formally declared war on the United States and Davis sent military aid to Confederates fighting in Union Missouri.
In February 1861 Davis announced he would start war if he thought the Confederacy "assailed".
In April he did and did.
Foolishly.
But you are far from supplying "the other side" when all you give us is false analysis of fake history, pal.
paisa: "Probably because they were going about it in an unlawful, unconstitional way."
DiogenesLamp: "And what did the constitution say about it when the US broke from the United Kingdom back in 1776?"
But Americans did not break from the UK in 1776, they merely confirmed the break declared by Britain beginning in 1774 with their abrogation of Massachusetts charter of self government and including Britain's 1775 "Proclamation of Rebellion"
Those made the US Declaration of Independence a matter of total necessity, which our Founders well understood and supported.
By contrast, no Founder approved of secession "at pleasure", meaning without material legal cause.
Founders considered secession "at pleasure" nothing more than rebellion, insurrection and domestic violence, which to a man Founders opposed.
All of which DiogenesLamp well knows, but enjoys pretending otherwise.
Thanks for your essay on "virtue signaling".
You're right, I'm out of touch, still don't quite "get it".
{sigh}
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.