Althouse: "Amid calls for taking down statues tied to France’s slave trade or colonial wrongs, Macron said 'the republic will not erase any trace, or any name, from its history ... it will not take down any statue.'"

June 15, 2020

"Amid calls for taking down statues tied to France’s slave trade or colonial wrongs, Macron said 'the republic will not erase any trace, or any name, from its history ... it will not take down any statue.'"

"'We should look at all of our history together with lucidity' including relations with Africa, with a goal of 'truth' instead of 'denying who we are,' Macron said."

From "Slave-trade statues stay, Macron insists" (Arkansas Online).

95 comments:

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: Liberty Must Fall; 6/15/20, 12:00 PM
LYNNDH said...: Don't like him, but now at least he is standing up for HISTORY, in all its mud spattered glory.; 6/15/20, 12:02 PM
n.n said...: Remember progress to mitigate its repeat.; 6/15/20, 12:02 PM
Ken B said...: 👍; 6/15/20, 12:08 PM
Mike Sylwester said...: There's no reason for any of those statues to be there. It's just strange.; 6/15/20, 12:09 PM
readering said...: I fully agree with that sentiment, but I understand that the tide of history goes in one direction and we might as well stay afloat. Plus, I'd make a distinction between naming something after, say our Seventh Vice President, and putting up a statue, three decades later, to a treasonous Confederate General. France's history, of course, much longer than USA's. Chlodovechus, anyone?; 6/15/20, 12:13 PM
Wince said...: "Hot stoves" also should be removed.; 6/15/20, 12:14 PM
n.n said...: Will "Africa" reciprocate in kind?; 6/15/20, 12:20 PM
Birkel said...: Giving a single inch is a sign of weakness to be exploited by the enemies of enlightenment values.

I can mouth the pieties and relinquish my freedom.
Or I can tell the scoundrels to fuck off.; 6/15/20, 12:22 PM
wendybar said...: Common sense that is clearly missing from the Progressives in America.; 6/15/20, 12:23 PM
traditionalguy said...: He abolished the Memory Hole where all historical truth is forever trashed. It is almost Biblical. Twisting the truth and inserting false narratives can be wrestled with. Complete cleansing of all history cannot help anyone except the Big Brothers of our era called the MSM.; 6/15/20, 12:24 PM
William said...: England was the prime mover in abolishing the slave trade. That was one of the things that imperial Britain got right. France not so much. The Queen of Madagascar, Ranavalona I, repudiated her ties with Britain and the London Missionary Society and established an alliance with France. The reason: the British want to suppress slavery and the Christian missionaries were preaching against the evils of slavery. She had a long reign and established her authority over the entire island. On the down side her military campaigns and use of forced labor (sometimes called slavery) resulted in a population decrease of some forty percent, but omelets......In her time, she was criticized by Europeans as a madwoman, but more woke analysts now praise her efforts to keep Madagascar self reliant and independent....Feminists, Hollywood execs, and black activists should embrace this woman. Maybe a big budget picture starring whoever is the black equivalent of Helen Mirren should tell the inspirational story of her life.; 6/15/20, 12:29 PM
Mattman26 said...: Good for Macron. Nice to see that French pride and stubbornness come in handy.; 6/15/20, 12:31 PM
Anonymous said...: Holy cow. Have we really come to the place where Macron is the voice of sanity?; 6/15/20, 12:38 PM
William said...: The British who wanted stay out of the American Civil War or who sided with the Confederacy said that slavery would not end until the slave owners (as opposed to the abolitionists) could be convinced to give up on the idea of slavery. There was some merit in their arguments. After their defeat, the slave owners instituted Jim Crow which was a form of serfdom. I guess it was better than outright slavery but not by much. After the war many former abolitionists were more militant about reintegrating former Confederates into the union than in Reconstruction.....I suppose none of this makes white people look good, but if you contrast this with the history of Africa and its rulers you will find even less cause for rejoicing.; 6/15/20, 12:40 PM
YoungHegelian said...: Remember when you read such articles, that France has already had one attempt to erase the past & start again. It was called the French Revolution & it didn't work out so well.

Even the French lefties bemoan all the damage to la patrimonie culturelle that the Revolution accomplished.; 6/15/20, 12:41 PM
Narayanan said...: The French may eat cheese but they are ?!shamelessly tough?! interesting combination of national character; 6/15/20, 12:46 PM
BarrySanders20 said...: Cheese eating surrender monkeys have more sense and backbone than the majority of Americans. Sad!

That said, if it was a municipal (or state) decision to put up a monument, or to name a school after a certain person they no longer wish to be associated with, then it is fine for that same elected body to decide to take it down or change a name. A national monument should have to be changed via a national action. Washington and Jefferson owned slaves? Cannot dynamite their faces from Mt Rushmore and replace with Trayvon Martin and George Floyd unless and until the D's control both houses of Congress and President Kamala signs that bill into law.; 6/15/20, 12:48 PM
Leland said...: I agree with Macron. He understands that erasing history is about hiding the past. In the US, Democrats would love to erase how they were the party of the slave owners.; 6/15/20, 12:50 PM
danoso said...: Yep, we've sunk so low it's the French we have to turn to for courage.; 6/15/20, 12:54 PM
Stephen said...: This is an interesting way of approaching the issue, but its application to our current debates about Confederate memorials seems doubtful.

Statues of French slavers are not the best analogue to monuments to the Confederacy. The better French analogue would be Marshall Petain, the head of the Vichy Government. That is, a traitor. And here, it appears, French policy is different. https://www.france24.com/en/20130405-france-vichy-petain-belrain-verdun

Even if the analogy works, Macron's approach--dealing with the history of colonialism and slavery fully and honestly--is not the approach of those in the US who favor retaining these statues, including our President. Instead, they favor amnesia--states rights as the cause of the war, not slavery, Gone with the Wind, etc.; 6/15/20, 1:06 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: We'll see if France has any angry mobs to unleash to reverse this injustice.....; 6/15/20, 1:13 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: Damn, maybe the Frogs are more civilized than us.; 6/15/20, 1:14 PM
Gahrie said...: The first thing that Macron has said or done that I have approved of.; 6/15/20, 1:21 PM
Narr said...: Vive la France! Vive la Republique!

Let the pushback start there, in Paris.

Narr
justice poetique; 6/15/20, 1:22 PM
rhhardin said...: The muslim minority isn't going to complain.; 6/15/20, 1:23 PM
Howard said...: Cool. Nice linkage between the cheese eating surrender monkeys and Les Deplorérables. Somewhere Jean Valjean is smiling.; 6/15/20, 1:34 PM
Jupiter said...: Wait, you mean the cheese-eating surrender monkeys have more backbone than we do? Huh.; 6/15/20, 1:37 PM
gspencer said...: Macron says, "Slave-trade statues stay"

Well, that makes sense since France has invited to live within France practitioners of the slave trader that ever existed.

The Atlantic Slave Trade is but a kid brother to the Muslim Slave Trade.; 6/15/20, 1:39 PM
Mr Wibble said...: I thought bigotry was the French national pasttime?; 6/15/20, 1:39 PM
Nichevo said...: See, the Frogs aren't always wrong.

That's exactly how we should look at it, how any self-confident or at least non-self-loathing civilization should look at itself.; 6/15/20, 1:49 PM
tim in vermont said...: A lot of tearing down statues seems to come from a place of “let’s all pretend this never happened and then it won’t have."; 6/15/20, 1:50 PM
doctrev said...: Once again, French nationalism puts America's general patriotism to shame. We're pretty fond of surrender monkey jokes, but at least the French surrendered to a military juggernaut that wouldn't hesitate to burn Paris to the ground if they faced serious guerilla opposition. America is surrendering to BLM.

https://isteve.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-benefits-of-reciprocity.html; 6/15/20, 1:52 PM
Michael said...: Good for him. He knows the history of the revolutiion.; 6/15/20, 2:08 PM
n.n said...: the French surrendered to a military juggernaut that wouldn't hesitate to burn Paris to the ground if they faced serious guerilla opposition. America is surrendering to BLM.

Baby Lives Matter? No, surrender to some, select, Black Lives Matter.; 6/15/20, 2:14 PM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: The French problem is not that they are ashamed of France. It is that the French elite has so consistently misidentified France's interests while attempting to persue same.

This time they got it right.; 6/15/20, 2:16 PM
n.n said...: “let’s all pretend this never happened and then it won’t have."

Abortion culture.; 6/15/20, 2:22 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Stephen,

The better French analogue would be Marshall Petain, the head of the Vichy Government. That is, a traitor.

No, just no. This idea that the Southern states secession was treason is simply a wholesale invention of the modern Lefty hive-mind. Even Jefferson Davis was not prosecuted for treason, and when the Northern authorities attempted to do so, many, even in the North opposed it.

The American Civil War has been written on endlessly. "Treason" is not a word that its historians throw about to describe what happened. One very important reason is that it really wasn't clear from the Constitution that secession was a causus belli. The states had entered voluntarily into a national compact. Why could they not voluntarily leave it? There did not yet exist a national loyalty that overrode loyalty to one's state. As General Lee said "My loyalty to Virginia ought to take precedence over that which is due to the federal government. If Virginia stands by the old Union, so will I. But, if she secedes, then I will still follow my native state with my sword, and need be with my life." Whatever we may think of that sentiment today, it was a sentiment that all of Lee's contemporaries understood.

I also think it is apposite to remind those who think of the Northern Cause as noble & just, (which I mostly think it was) to remember that whatever the moral capital the North achieved in the Civil War, it blew it away in its horrible performance during Reconstruction. It became appallingly clear during Reconstruction that the North was incompetent as an occupying force. That incompetence inflicted economic damage on the South that survives to this day, and they ultimately abandoned Southern blacks to the vengeance of a white majority made all the more aggrieved by Reconstruction policies.; 6/15/20, 2:24 PM
hawkeyedjb said...: For those of you praising Macron today: I predict this decision will stand for a week, maybe two.; 6/15/20, 2:30 PM
Spiros said...: I wonder if young and woke Arabs feel the same way?

Also I can't believe the bastards were selling migrants from west Africa in Libyan slave markets. This is happening right now! And not a peep from the media or the BLM or Antifa trash!; 6/15/20, 2:47 PM
Browndog said...: Erasing the Civil War from our culture and history is a similar way they try to erase American Indians from our history and culture-

Offended on behalf of others because 'racism'. Names and symbols forever banished from the public square.; 6/15/20, 2:47 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: Macron-aggression; 6/15/20, 2:47 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/15/20, 2:47 PM
tcrosse said...: Something similar going on in Belgium as statues of King Leopold II are vandalized.; 6/15/20, 2:48 PM
JaimeRoberto said...: If the French start erasing their history, they'd have to demolish the Arc de Triomphe given all the destruction that Napoleon caused.; 6/15/20, 2:50 PM
Readering said...: Will no one stick up for Marshall Petain?; 6/15/20, 2:52 PM
Drago said...: doctrev: "Once again, French nationalism puts America's general patriotism to shame. We're pretty fond of surrender monkey jokes, but at least the French surrendered to a military juggernaut that wouldn't hesitate to burn Paris to the ground if they faced serious guerilla opposition."

At the outset of WW2, England and France had 1,000 more tanks than Germany, with heavier armor, and were superior in artillery along with a larger number of men in uniform.

The Belgians had quite a few divisions as well.

The Germans won quickly on the basis of aggressive mobile tactics combined with superior battlefield leadership.; 6/15/20, 2:57 PM
Jupiter said...: Here in Eugene, the vermin knocked down two statues on the U of O campus, known as the Pioneer Mother and the Pioneer Father. As a native Oregonian, I understand that this is the Californians' way of trampling on my heritage.; 6/15/20, 3:01 PM
Tom T. said...: Keep in mind that the French police have been beating the merde out of protestors for more than a year now. The protests are considered centrist or even right-wing, though, so it doesn't seem to be much of a scandal.; 6/15/20, 3:15 PM
rcocean said...: Sometimes the French can be surprisingly sane on racial matters. I believe the burka is banned in France. And you can be white/black/yellow but you'd better speech French and believe in the "French way of life" or you're out.; 6/15/20, 3:37 PM
Greg Hlatky said...: Wait, I thought the United States is the only country in history ever to have had slavery. That's what my betters tell me.; 6/15/20, 3:39 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: “I fully agree with that sentiment, but I understand that the tide of history goes in one direction and we might as well stay afloat.”

The tide of history is actually a whirlpool and, apparently, the Left understands it not at all.; 6/15/20, 3:41 PM
rcocean said...: The French have NEVER been "Cheese eating surrender monkeys" - that's just nonsense by historically illiterate rednecks and neo-cons. Its hilarious that a nation that produced Napoleon, Clemenceau, Foch, Louis XIV, or Charles DeGaulle would be labeled as such. The problem with the French is that they were too warlike, and were constantly at war and becoming over-extended and over confident. They should never have gone to war in 1939 with the USSR as active Ally.; 6/15/20, 3:43 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: Speaking of French statues, we need to have a talk about that Statue of Liberty...Not many Brothers going through Ellis Island.; 6/15/20, 3:44 PM
rcocean said...: Petain was one of the greatest Generals and Patriots that France ever produced. He was too good for France. He should have let them stew in their own juices after their brilliant leaders lead them into a war they couldn't win.

Sadly, he made the mistake of feeling he had to help France out in her time of defeat. And paid the price for his good intentions. Never, I repeat never, get involved with losers. The correct thing is to stand aside and let events take their course. Because a loser is a loser. And they will later shift the blame from themselves to you.; 6/15/20, 3:48 PM
Clyde said...: The French have already seen this movie back in 1793. We don't need latter-day Jacobins.; 6/15/20, 3:49 PM
Jim at said...: but I understand that the tide of history goes in one direction

Why do you leftists keep saying things like this? History is history. There is no right side or wrong side. There is no tide going in the right or wrong direction.

It's history. That's it.; 6/15/20, 3:54 PM
doctrev said...: hawkeyedjb said...
For those of you praising Macron today: I predict this decision will stand for a week, maybe two.

6/15/20, 2:30 PM

Hardly. I'm praising the French: if Macron does reverse himself, that will drive even more French into the arms of the National Rally.

If the North had been stupid enough to imprison even Jefferson Davis on treason charges, much less Robert E. Lee, they would have found themselves in an extremely bloody quagmire for the next fifty years, or however long it would take to push the North back past the Mason-Dixon. Being a complete historical ignoramus is a prerequisite for leftism, granted, but one advantage of the current moment is that it hardens tens of millions of whites into NEVER trusting the left. They will fight to the death, and more than likely unleash nuclear fire on New York and Los Angeles if they seriously think they will lose the coming contest. Lefty urbanites have a LOT more to lose in even a limited nuclear exchange than the countryside will.; 6/15/20, 4:15 PM
iowan2 said...: Our we encouraging rule by mob. By lethal force of mob? Does everybody get to play?

I long for the good old days of representative rule.; 6/15/20, 4:16 PM
Daniel Jackson said...: The Boy Prince will not give an inch.

Perhaps this is one song that the French get paranoid when I play it for them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laJh18_Pfb8

Nique la france 2010. Indeed.; 6/15/20, 4:19 PM
exhelodrvr1 said...: Cancel him!; 6/15/20, 4:21 PM
Daniel Jackson said...: The French is a bit complicated. Here are the lyrics; in French so Macron can understand the voices from his constituents behind his back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hPLufxXgVw; 6/15/20, 4:26 PM
Goddess of the Classroom said...: @YoungHegelian
Very well said.; 6/15/20, 4:43 PM
Stephen said...: Young Hegelian,

Perhaps secession was not seen as treason in 1861, and certainly by 1877 it was politically inconvenient to think of it that way. Now that the pro-slavery motivation for secession is clearly established, I think the analogy is reasonable.

You don't address the second point--that, unlike Macron, those who favor keeping confederate memorials, notably our President, are not interested in a disinterested reckoning with the evils of slavery and Jim Crow. In that connection, your one-sided account of Reconstruction feels out of date.; 6/15/20, 4:48 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: right answer.

Destroying history will not change a freaking thing, you leftwing fascist dorks.; 6/15/20, 4:52 PM
mikee said...: Napoleon's grave should be blasted into sand, if we're going after bad people.; 6/15/20, 5:13 PM
narciso said...: meanwhile there is a fight between arab and chechen mobs (obshina) for control of dijon,; 6/15/20, 5:18 PM
Vonnegan said...: Good for him. The world needs more people in charge making decisions like that right now.

Why not put a plaque on some of these Civil Was statutes, explaining who the person was, or when the monument was erected, to give it context? Then you have the actual history on display, and (heaven forbid) someone might learn something. For example, my older son's public middle school was named after Sydney Lanier. As a person he was pretty damn inoffensive - mostly known for being a poet and professor at Johns Hopkins. But the school was named after him in 1926, in Texas, and it was done so out of some desire to honor "southern pride", and therefore likely could be tied to Jim Crow. Well, just put up a damn plaque explaining all of this. Instead, they renamed the school after a completely forgettable mayor who serendipitously had the same last name, in order to save the $1m it would have cost to chisel the name "Lanier" off the marble on the front of the school. Idiocy.; 6/15/20, 5:19 PM
Carter Wood said...: Jefferson statue toppled in North Portland after protest
KOIN-TV 6 – 06/14/2020
After a night of protests, the Jefferson statue that stood outside of a North Portland high school has been toppled. Earlier Sunday evening, the steps of Jefferson High School was the sight of a Black Lives Matter rally led by Rose City Justice. Organizers spoke in front of a Jefferson statue—its base spray-painted with the phrase “Slave Owner.” Some time after the march moved on toward Alberta Park, the statue was toppled. It is unclear who did it and if they were involved in the Black Lives Matter march that was staged there hours before. The statue was the third to be taken down this weekend in Oregon, after two statues at the University of Oregon – the Pioneer Man and the Pioneer Mother – were taken down on Saturday evening. See also:

• Fox News – 06/15/2020 – Petition to remove Boston statue of Lincoln standing over a slave garners thousands of signatures
• ABC-7 – 06/14/2020 -- Chicago police investigate vandalism at George Washington memorial, Christopher Columbus statue
• Time – 06/14/2020 – French President Emmanuel Macron Publicly Disavows Racism but Says Colonial-Era Statues Will Stay; 6/15/20, 5:20 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Every governor in every state that has agreed to take down statues is more spineless than a cheese-eating surrender monkey.; 6/15/20, 5:22 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Oh, fuck it already. Not first, not second, not even third with the surrender monkey quip.; 6/15/20, 5:23 PM
Phil 314 said...: Does Arkansas online often cover French politics?; 6/15/20, 5:30 PM
n.n said...: the evils of slavery and Jim Crow

Reparations through blood and treasure. The residual wickedness of affirmative discrimination. The signficant progress of diversity and exclusion. Also, the sustainability of for-profit non-profit diversity rackets.; 6/15/20, 6:12 PM
Narr said...: For conservative Americans, you people (how does that sound?) go surprisingly easy on the French from time to time.

I like the place, myself, and am even a Francophile. Just today someone on TV referenced French giving up without a fight. That's a sure sign of epic ignorance--nice to see so many avoid it here.

The French did most of the Kraut-killing and being killed by Krauts in the Great War. I.e. they were like the Red Army of WWII, only there has never been an organized pro-French campaign like that mounted by lefty Westerners after 1945 to insist at every turn that the USSR deserved special consideration and concessions because of how much they suffered.

In WWII, as noted already, they fought and often quite well. The two big panzer vs French tank division fights were anything but German victories; and if you use an annualized rate they and the Germans lost as many in combat as in the first war, for that six weeks.

The upper leadership, w/o doubt, was merde. And Fortuna favored the bold baddies.

In the later part of the war the French had more divs (home and colonial) than the Brits did (home and Commonwealth) in NWE. They were very effective against the Germans along the upper Rhine in 1945 (with US stuff of course).

After 1945 they tried to hold on to Vietnam and Algeria, for too long--and at some cost. It took that arrogant asshole/magnificent bastard de Gaulle to pull that plug.

Narr
The Paris rabble has never been France; 6/15/20, 6:22 PM
Narr said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/15/20, 6:23 PM
Koot Katmandu said...: WOW I agree with him so amazing. Really surprised he had the courage to stand up and say it. Good on Him.; 6/15/20, 6:25 PM
Bob Loblaw said...: France will be the last functioning Western country. Maybe it should have been obvious from their rejection of multiculturalism - the sensible attitude is "If you want to immigrate to France, you must become French."; 6/15/20, 7:11 PM
Unknown said...: As much as I appreciate his statement, the French have a history of folding under pressure.; 6/15/20, 7:32 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Stephen,

Now that the pro-slavery motivation for secession is clearly established, I think the analogy is reasonable.

Why? Do you know how much of the rest of the world was still dependent on bound labor in 1860? The South didn't have to give a moral reason why they wanted out of the Union. They just wanted out, and it's real tough to come up with a constitutional argument in 1861 as to why they couldn't leave. This idea of a "moral" history is simply ahistorical moral preening by us moderns, and it makes for imbecilic history.

You don't address the second point--that, unlike Macron, those who favor keeping confederate memorials, notably our President, are not interested in a disinterested reckoning with the evils of slavery and Jim Crow.

Sez who? The Left? Because the Conservatives want to deal with it in a fashion other than what the Left prefers that means they don't want to deal with it at all? That's simply not defensible. Trump has done more outreach to the black community than the two Bushes & Reagan combined, and his prison initiative is one example of that outreach.; 6/15/20, 7:37 PM
Michael K said...: In WWII, as noted already, they fought and often quite well. The two big panzer vs French tank division fights were anything but German victories; and if you use an annualized rate they and the Germans lost as many in combat as in the first war, for that six weeks.

The general who commanded that Free French armored division took as his nom de Guerre, "LeClerc, " who commanded the French attempt to retake Haiti. His real name was "Philippe François Marie Leclerc de Hauteclocque" but he used "leclerc" to protect his family still in France. He saw that Vietnam was lost but was killed in a plane crash in 1947.; 6/15/20, 8:35 PM
Chest Rockwell said...: In related news, a Chechen teenager was attacked in Dijon, France a few days ago. Hospitalized, perhaps killed, by a couple of Moroccan gangsters. In response, hundreds of Chechens arrived in Dijon and have been wreaking havoc in street battles with Arabs.

https://www.jpost.com/international/france-sends-police-to-dijon-after-chechens-face-gangland-war-in-city-631606

The videos are insane.; 6/15/20, 9:06 PM
Narayanan said...: “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce” Karl Marx

and when you erase it continues to repeat as tragedy never as farce; 6/15/20, 9:08 PM
narciso said...: The french took about 30 years off and on to conquer cochinchina half as long with algeria.; 6/15/20, 9:31 PM
buwaya said...: The French conquered what is now Vietnam with minimal force. Indeed, so minimal that they "borrowed" a Spanish-Filipino regiment to take Saigon-Cochinchina. Napoleon III was good buddies with the Spanish government of the day, and that plus a bunch of Legion d'honneurs, of which my ancestor (a Spanish major of colonial infantry) was given one, and voila, about half of modern Vietnam.

The conquest of the rest took a while because -

- It was clear that the place was a white elephant. It was nice for prestige and to add an extra-exotic glamor to the French Empire, but it was always a terrible money sink.

- France got into European troubles that diverted attention to things that mattered, like fighting the Germans.

- The main opposition was not the Vietnamese but the Chinese. The big campaigns, those that could not be won by a naval landing party or a company of la Legion, were against the Chinese directly or their surrogate "deniable" proxies from the Chinese side if the border, the "Black Flags".

Vietnam was not an obvious prize even in the 1860's. Nap III offered the Spanish a sphere of influence there, essentially Annam and Tonkin, but the Spanish wisely turned it down.; 6/15/20, 10:11 PM
buwaya said...: The French problem in WWII was a gross institutional failure that had very deep roots in the nature of the French elite. They were, to put it in an oversimplified way, even more process bound than your usual bureaucracy, and crippled by petty political wrangling.

They were not being "real" about the actual war they were facing, until it was too late.

That, plus a lack of strategic depth in which to absorb losses and reform their defective systems.; 6/15/20, 10:16 PM
narciso said...: Following up

https://mobile.twitter.com/MrBeagleman/status/1272686718873997313; 6/15/20, 11:09 PM
Jamie said...: Houston is apparently dealing with its Confederate history differently from most other southern cities: it's not destroying, but is instead moving memorials to Confederate generals et al. to (for instance) museums that deal with the Civil War, and contextualizing them via the exhibits' plaques. Or so I am told.

If true, I approve. Destroying the evidence doesn't destroy the crime, to put it crudely.

And, as to whoever up-thread was saying that we should change the names of everything named for people we no longer know or care about - the modern parable of fences is for you. First, learn why it was important in the time when it was named. Then and only then can you consider wiping out the name - and it ought to be voted on.; 6/15/20, 11:25 PM
Readering said...: Last I checked, tides go back and forth. Like currents of history. Not a left-right thing. Amazing the percentage of comments that include "you leftists." Poverty of thinking.; 6/16/20, 3:54 AM
Bob Loblaw said...: ...those who favor keeping confederate memorials, notably our President, are not interested in a disinterested reckoning with the evils of slavery and Jim Crow.

Good lord. Where do you not get bombarded by this stuff? Not only the true parts, but also the after-the-fact hagiography. What a load of crap.; 6/16/20, 5:13 AM
Rusty said...: Vonnegan. Orrrrr. We could start teaching history again.
Does anyone in Wisconsin know where Brass Ball is and what happened there?; 6/16/20, 5:34 AM
Andrew said...: @Ann Althouse,
Do you know what would be a great blog post? Answer these questions, and invite your readers and commenters to do the same.
1) What statues (in America or elsewhere) do you think should actually be taken down, because of what they represent?
2) What statues do you think should remain, but you understand why other people want them down?
3) What statues do you think should remain, and you can't understand why other people want them down?
4) What statues do you fear will be taken down, whose removal would be the most offensive to you?
5) What statues do you expect to be safe from the mob?
6) What historical personages should have a statue, but to your knowledge do not?

Just a suggestion. Use your "Andrew (the commenter)" tag.; 6/16/20, 8:10 AM
Craig Howard said...: The French problem is not that they are ashamed of France. It is that the French elite has so consistently misidentified France's interests while attempting to persue same.

And that is what led to the 1940 surrender.

The individual Frenchman is no less pugnacious and no more cowardly than the average Anglo-Saxon. The French didn't surrender; their elites did.

As for Macron, I'll believe him when I see Notre Dame restored to its condition before the fire.; 6/16/20, 10:39 AM
SensibleCitizen said...: Art has an element that transcends the work itself. Art that stirs emotion, creates controversy and discussion is successful on at least that dimension.

An enlightened people does not destroy its public works of art.

The John B. Castleman statue was removed last week from its 100 year old home in my neighborhood last week. Castleman served a short time in the confederate army, but retired a colonel in the union army, never owned slaves, was and integrationist--and built Louisville's park system.

But more importantly, the statue was created by R.Hinton Perry, the sculptor of Neptune's Court Fountain which stands outside the library of congress. Like all masters of large scale bronze statuary, he only completed 15 in his lifetime. Louisville was fortunate enough to have one. And we defaced it and put in a warehouse.

Not a liberal or progress view of art in my view. And certainly not enlightened.; 6/16/20, 11:29 AM
Bunkypotatohead said...: I hope I'm not too old to help tear down the Saint George Floyd statues, when they eventually appear. Fair's fair, after all.; 6/16/20, 5:16 PM
ken in tx said...: "YoungHegelian said...

No, just no. This idea that the Southern states secession was treason is simply a wholesale invention of the modern Lefty hive-mind. Even Jefferson Davis was not prosecuted for treason, and when the Northern authorities attempted to do so, many, even in the North opposed it."

Agreed, throwing the word 'treason' around is, I think a vestige of the regional hatred that was part of the cause of the civil war.

When Confederate POWs were asked, “If you don't own slaves, why are you fighting?” the most common answer was, “Because you are here.” The Union army did not enter the South to free the slaves and restore truth, justice, and the American way. They did it because they had been stirred up to hate the South and Southerners. They wrecked havoc wherever they went, totally unrelated to military necessity. Off the top of my head, here are a few examples that I know about.

In Milledgeville, GA, they gutted the Episcopal church and burned the furniture, broke out all the stained glass windows, poured molasses in the organ, and used the sanctuary as a stable. There were actual stables in the town they could have used instead.

In North Carolina, there were isolated Mennonite communities that did not support slavery, or the Confederacy, or participate in the war at all. The Union Army burned their farms, slaughtered their livestock, and did not take any of it for their own use. It was left to rot in the field. They did not do this to deprive the Confederate army of these resources because the Southern army was already defeated and nowhere near by. They did it because they could.

Columbia, SC was declared an open city and offered no resistance to Union forces. Union soldiers looted a liquor warehouse, and burned most of the city to the ground. Union officers blamed the city for having all that liquor around.

Things like that happened throughout the South. From the Potomac to the Rio Grande.; 6/16/20, 8:26 PM