Posted on 04/01/2018 9:05:49 AM PDT by Simon Green
Over the decades, this quiet coastal hamlet has earned a reputation as one of the most liberal places in the nation. Arcata was the first U.S. city to ban the sale of genetically modified foods, the first to elect a majority Green Party city council and one of the first to tacitly allow marijuana farming before pot was legal.
Now it's on the verge of another first.
No other city has taken down a monument to a president for his misdeeds. But Arcata is poised to do just that. The target is an 8½-foot bronze likeness of William McKinley, who was president at the turn of the last century and stands accused of directing the slaughter of Native peoples in the U.S. and abroad.
"Put a rope around its neck and pull it down," Chris Peters shouted at a recent rally held at the statue, which has adorned the central square for more than a century.
Peters, who heads the Arcata-based Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous People, called McKinley a proponent of "settler colonialism" that "savaged, raped and killed."
A presidential statue would be the most significant casualty in an emerging movement to remove monuments honoring people who helped lead what Native groups describe as a centuries-long war against their very existence.
The push follows the rapid fall of Confederate memorials across the South in a victory for activists who view them as celebrating slavery. In the nearly eight months since white supremacists marched in central Virginia to protest the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue, cities across the country have yanked dozens of Confederate monuments. Black politicians and activists have been among the strongest supporters of the removals.
This time, it's tribal activists taking charge, and it's the West and California in particular leading the way.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Traitor or Treason definition:
United States Constitution. Article III, section 3 reads as follows:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
“But I guess that was okay since a union general was doing it to southerners. Right?”
Sherman broke the back of the Confederacy and helped end the war sooner, a blessing to both sides.
If Virginia would have remained in the Union, West Virginia would not exist.
West Virginia’s admission to the United States occurred with the consent of Congress.
“Once the South established it’s OWN country”
With what legal basis?
“The South left, peacefully.”
I guess you weren’t at Fort Sumter. April 12, 1861, when Confederate artillery opened fire on this Federal fort in Charleston Harbor. Fort Sumter surrendered 34 hours later. Union forces would try for nearly four years to take it back.
The Confederacy little understood or cared about the mismatch with the Union regarding warfighting.
They thought they could strike first and hard and sue for peace.
The Union fought to win, ruthlessly, that’s war for ya. If ya don’t like it, don’t start it.
Of course Sherman was a drunken, lunatic, killer.... And perfect for the job.
There were many atrocities and war crimes committed by the Confederacy:
Silas Gordon, Champ Ferguson, Confederate General John Bell Hood’s burning of much of Atlanta before Sherman got there, Lt. Col. James Keith, “Bloody Bill” Anderson, Fort Pillow, Captain William Clarke Quantrill, Camp Sumter in Andersonville, GA.....
Really? How many more? Round numbers are fine as long as there are sources to back them up.
Indeed he did: "You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it… Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail."
Gee, don't tell all the Southern leaders of the time that. They all thought it was about slavery and I can't imagine how disappointed they would be to be told now that they were fighting for the wrong cause.
By contrast in the 1950's fewer than 2% of the population held stock in a U.S. corporation.
When I was growing up we had one car titled in my father's name. So strictly speaking only 25% of the family population owned a car. But 100% of the family population accrued benefit from car ownership.
Likewise with slavery. Virtually all of that 5% of the population were married, so suddenly your 5% becomes 10% who draw direct benefit from slavery. Those 10% likely had children so suddenly your 10% becomes 15% or 20% or 25%.
A better indicator of how important slavery is would be the number of families in the south which were slave owners. In 1860 that reached a high of almost 50% of the families in Mississippi. Throughout the original 7 Confederate states I believe the percentage was in the mid-30s.
...concerned about the exorbitant price of goods needed from the north...Prices set by the taxes and tariffs instilled by the industrial north...
You are aware that those tariffs impacted the Northern consumers just as badly as Southern consumers? So if tariffs were worth rebelling over in the South why weren't they worth rebelling over in the North?
concise and rational thinking for a “drunken, lunatic, killer” (post 146)
Leaving aside for a moment the bald-faced lie about "indiscriminate bombing of Southern cities", had it actually happened then what was this international law you speak of that outlawed it?
“The government of the U.S. has any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war - to take their lives, their homes, their land, their everything...war is simply unrestrained by the Constitution...to the persistent secessionist, why, death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better...” Mjr. Gen. W. T. Sherman, Jan. 31, 1864.
Wow! Do you have any idea how much was left out by the two ellipsis in the middle of that quote? Any idea at all? Any clue on the context? Lets check, shall we?
The quote is context is as follows:
"I would advise the commanding officers at Huntsville, and such other towns as are occupied by our troops to assemble the inhabitants and explain to them these plain, self-evident propositions, and tell them that it is for them now to say, whether they and their children shall inherit the beautiful land, which, by the accident of nature, has fallen to their share. The Government of the United States has in North Alabama any and all rights which they choose to enforce in war, to take their lives, their homes, their lands, their everything, because, they cannot deny, that war does exist there, and war is simply power unrestrained by Constitution or compact. If they want eternal war, well and good -- we will accept the issue and dispossess them, and put our friends in possession. I know thousands and millions of good people who, at simple notice, would come to North Alabama and accept the elegant houses and plantations now there. If the people of Huntsville think different, let them persist in war three years longer, and then they will not be consulted. Three years ago, by a little reflection and patience, they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well, last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late -- all the mowers of earth cannot restore to them their slaves any more than their dead grandfathers. Next year their lands will be taken, for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too, and in another year they may beg in vain for their lives. A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit, ought to know the consequences. Many, many people, with less pertinacity than the South, have been wiped out of national existence.
My own belief is, that even now the non-slaveholding classes of the South are alienating from their associates in war. Already I hear crimination. Those who have property left, should take warning in time.
Since I have come down here, I have seen many Southern planters who now hire their negroes, and acknowledge that they knew not the earthquake they were to make by appealing to secession. They thought that the politicians had prepared the way, and that they could past in peace. They now see that we are bound together as one nation by indissoluble ties, and that any interest or any people, that set themselves up in antagonism to the nation, must perish.
Whilst I would not remit one jot or tittle of our nation's right in peace or war. I do make allowances for past political errors and false prejudices. Our national Congress and Supreme Courts are the proper arenas in which to discuss conflicting opinions, and not the battle-field.
You may not hear from me again, and if you think it will no any good, call some of the better people together, and explain there my views. You may even read to them this letter, and let them use it, so as to prepare them for my coming.
To those who submit to the rightful law and authority, all gentleness and forbearance, but to the petulant and persistent Secessionists, why, death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of, the better. Satan, and the rebellious saints of heaven, were allowed a continuance of existence in hell merely to swell their just punishment. To such as would rebel against a Government so mild and just as ours was in peace, a punishment equal would not be unjust."
That is really a long winded explanation that Sherman put far more succinctly on another occasion: "War is the remedy our enemy's have chosen. They dared us to war, and you remember how tauntingly they defied us to the contest. We have accepted the issue and it must be fought out. You might as well reason with a thunderstorm. I say let us give them all they want; not a word of argument, not a sign of let up, no cave in till we are whipped or they are."
I don't have references handy for the rest of your stuffbut based on past performance I'm betting a lot of them are out of context as well.
And let it be known that the first Nazi reference was once again brought up by a Lost Causer, who threw in a Stalin reference for good measure.
I called Godwin’s law but he thought it was a compliment ;’}
Ft. Sumter no longer belonged to the United States when South Carolina left the union. On what basis are you claiming that it did? The South laid no claims to any northern property that before the split had been owned by both sides. What gives the north a special right to lay claim to anything that was in the South? The north had it’s own shit yet you think they can have whatever the history books, written by the victors, says they can have. Just like any good liberal, the north could not simply leave the South alone to follow IT’s chosen path.
Not true - not in the slightest. The land upon which the fortifications were constructed - using FEDERAL monies BTW - was deeded to the federal government by the State Of South Carolina in perpetuity.
While physical control was in question for a short period, the ownership was never in doubt.
So in your line of thinking it would be alright for the Cuban’s to fire on the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.
On what basis are you claiming it didn't? Sumter was built on land deeded to the federal government free and clear by act of the South Carolina legislature. It was funded through money generated by all the states, not just South Carolina. As federal property, Congress exercised exclusive legislation over Fort Sumter and only Congress could dispose of it.
Just like any good liberal, the north could not simply leave the South alone to follow IT’s chosen path.
And like a good liberal you seem addicted to fake news.
“...You are aware that those tariffs impacted the Northern consumers just as badly as Southern consumers?...”
No, not really...Those taxes and tariffs were placed on goods the south bought from Europe in trade with their cotton...The north already had those industrial products and charged the south MORE for them than did Europe...The north placed the tariffs to cause the European products to be too costly for the south and forced the south to get them from the north...At HIGHER prices...
Why do you suppose there were tariffs?
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.