Octopus Overlords

By contrast, what is it that we are supposed to be grateful to the Confederates for? For seceding from the Union? For, in the case of former U.S. Army officers such as Lee and Jackson, violating their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”? For triggering the most bloody conflict in American history? For fighting to keep their fellow citizens in bondage?

There is nothing praiseworthy about any of this even if, like all soldiers, many Confederates showed considerable prowess and bravery in battle. But then so did Nazi German generals such as Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian. The same could be said of Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor. Heck, even the 9/11 hijackers were undoubtedly courageous if also deeply twisted. Why not honor them while we’re at it? The cause in which bravery is displayed matters a lot, and the cause of the Confederacy, to maintain and preserve slavery, was evil. Therefore we should not pay tribute to its leaders. Full stop.

If there is any Confederate worthy of special recognition it isn’t Lee but his subordinate, Gen. James Longstreet, who after the war battled white supremacist militias in New Orleans that were seeking to deprive freedmen of their rights. But it is precisely for this reason that Longstreet became anathema to his fellow Confederates. No statues to Longstreet were erected until one finally went up at the Gettysburg battlefield in 1998.

And, no, it isn’t rewriting history, as Trump claims, to take down statues honoring Confederates. The real attempt to rewrite history was undertaken by white supremacists who made a fetish of honoring the Confederacy so as to preserve segregation — the oppression of freed slaves and their descendants — when it was under challenge from the 1860s to the 1960s. Mainstream historiography has already been revised to dispel the myth of the “Lost Cause” that was created by white supremacists after the Confederacy’s defeat. Taking down the statues is simply allowing the statuary to catch up with the history.

$iljanus wrote:On the T to the Common with a lot of happy protesters. The signs are entertaining to read

Edit: Yea some is cranking Know Your Rights. The free speech contingent is rather underrepresented

Edit: And that's all she wrote. "Free speechers" skulk away. Now time to get lunch.

$iljanus wrote:On the T to the Common with a lot of happy protesters. The signs are entertaining to read

Edit: Yea some is cranking Know Your Rights. The free speech contingent is rather underrepresented

Edit: And that's all she wrote. "Free speechers" skulk away. Now time to get lunch.

em2nought wrote:If there was a rebellion over "states rights" versus the growing power of the federal government today could it be a just cause?

Kraken wrote:

$iljanus wrote:On the T to the Common with a lot of happy protesters. The signs are entertaining to read

Edit: Yea some is cranking Know Your Rights. The free speech contingent is rather underrepresented

Edit: And that's all she wrote. "Free speechers" skulk away. Now time to get lunch.

We concluded that our presence would be superfluous since the protesters vastly outnumbered the rally people, and in fact only 40-60 Trump supporters showed up. The protest crowd has been variously estimated at 15-30,000.

Wife told me the rally people started a kickstarter or gofundme or whatever to raise money for a PA system. They took it down when only two people pledged a total of $9. That's probably why nobody could hear them. I don't think they'll be back to Boston.

AFAIK the Common is still full of anti-Trump people validating one another, but the main event (such as it was) had ended by 1 pm.

Holman wrote:Trump just tweeted that the Boston counter-protesters were "anti-police agitators" and congratulated the police for being smart and tough (presumably against them).

Boston Police Commissioner says bottles filled with urine were thrown at officers during protest

El Guapo wrote:To some degree, I feel like people on my Facebook feed are overly freaking out about what Charlottesville represents. White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis rallied there to try to preserve the Robert E. Lee statue and to try to rally white supremacists more broadly. The Charlottesville mayor is still pressing ahead with trying to remove the statue. Efforts to remove Confederate statues and symbols are accelerating. Trump himself mealy-mouth supported them, but bipartisan figures across the country are roundly and severely condemning him for it.

Basically from what I can tell white supremacists pushed their noxious agenda, and they are getting tremendous pushback, such that their rally seems to have been mostly counter-productive to their cause.

But there’s one huge difference: These newer offshoots have been far more successful than we could ever have dreamed. When you see crowds of hundreds marching through the streets with their faces uncovered, when white supremacist leader Richard Spencer holds a news conference a few days after a woman was killed by one of his fellow travelers and hosts reporters in his home, it becomes clear just how much more terrifying this new generation of extremists is. They’re savvier than we were. Better connected.

Rip wrote:

Boston Police Commissioner says bottles filled with urine were thrown at officers during protest

Rip wrote:

Boston Police Commissioner says bottles filled with urine were thrown at officers during protest

Rip wrote:

Boston Police Commissioner says bottles filled with urine were thrown at officers during protest

Rip wrote:What is an LBGTQ+?

Wouldn't be easier to just say take care of everyone except straight white dudes? Cause you know, they all have it made.

Queue Dire Straits:

Money for nothing and their chicks for free....

Max Peck wrote:

Rip wrote:What is an LBGTQ+?

Wouldn't be easier to just say take care of everyone except straight white dudes? Cause you know, they all have it made.

Queue Dire Straits:

Money for nothing and their chicks for free....

It's a list that ends in "LBGTQ + Low Income Artists". Whoever posted it doesn't embrace inclusivity of commas, ampersands or kerning.

Or persons of Jewish heritage, oddly enough.

Rip wrote:
That is probably because it is them giving all the straight white dudes all that free money.

tgb wrote:

Rip wrote:
That is probably because it is them giving all the straight white dudes all that free money.

That reminds me. I need to buy some more slaves, so I'll have to send you your check after payday. Is that OK?

Max Peck wrote: It's a list that ends in "LBGTQ + Low Income Artists". Whoever posted it doesn't embrace inclusivity of commas, ampersands or kerning.

Max Peck wrote:

Rip wrote:What is an LBGTQ+?

Wouldn't be easier to just say take care of everyone except straight white dudes? Cause you know, they all have it made.

Queue Dire Straits:

Money for nothing and their chicks for free....

It's a list that ends in "LBGTQ + Low Income Artists". Whoever posted it doesn't embrace inclusivity of commas, ampersands or kerning.

Or persons of Jewish heritage, oddly enough.

Defiant wrote:

Max Peck wrote: It's a list that ends in "LBGTQ + Low Income Artists". Whoever posted it doesn't embrace inclusivity of commas, ampersands or kerning.

Actually, I don't think the plus is meant to be a conjunctive, but rather a fill in for the rest of the alphabet soup that is the list of sexual minorities.

Holman wrote:Daily Stormer has just been been booted from GoDaddy.

These are methods that protect us all against overbroad or arbitrary takedowns. It’s notable that in GoDaddy and Google’s eagerness to swiftly distance themselves from American neo-Nazis, no process was followed; CloudFlare’s Prince also admitted that the decision was “not CloudFlare’s policy.” Policies give guidance as to what we might expect, and an opportunity to see justice is done. We should think carefully before throwing them away.

It might seem unlikely now that Internet companies would turn against sites supporting racial justice or other controversial issues. But if there is a single reason why so many individuals and companies are acting together now to unite against neo-Nazis, it is because a future that seemed unlikely a few years ago—where white nationalists and Nazis have significant power and influence in our society—now seems possible. We would be making a mistake if we assumed that these sorts of censorship decisions would never turn against causes we love.

Part of the work for all of us now is to push back against such dangerous decisions with our own voices and actions. Another part of our work must be to seek to shore up the weakest parts of the Internet’s infrastructure so it cannot be easily toppled if matters take a turn for the (even) worse. These actions are not in opposition; they are to the same ends.

We can—and we must—do both.

O’Reilly goes on to worry that in today’s America, only Jews know about Hitler’s evil. For everyone else, including the president of the United States, the Holocaust is just a bad thing that happened a long time ago. What most people don’t get is that “the crimes of Hitler's regime and the population that allowed it were so terrible that words cannot come close to description,” O’Reilly explains. “President Trump did not understand that and it has hurt him. He was trying to make other points in the midst of the revulsion of white supremacists marching in Charlottesville.”

Holman wrote:Bill O'Reilly: Trump defended Nazis because, like most Americans, he doesn't really know about the Holocaust.

O’Reilly goes on to worry that in today’s America, only Jews know about Hitler’s evil. For everyone else, including the president of the United States, the Holocaust is just a bad thing that happened a long time ago. What most people don’t get is that “the crimes of Hitler's regime and the population that allowed it were so terrible that words cannot come close to description,” O’Reilly explains. “President Trump did not understand that and it has hurt him. He was trying to make other points in the midst of the revulsion of white supremacists marching in Charlottesville.”

I'd Godwinize this, but apparently most people wouldn't get the reference.

Holman wrote:Bill O'Reilly: Trump defended Nazis because, like most Americans, he doesn't really know about the Holocaust.

O’Reilly goes on to worry that in today’s America, only Jews know about Hitler’s evil. For everyone else, including the president of the United States, the Holocaust is just a bad thing that happened a long time ago. What most people don’t get is that “the crimes of Hitler's regime and the population that allowed it were so terrible that words cannot come close to description,” O’Reilly explains. “President Trump did not understand that and it has hurt him. He was trying to make other points in the midst of the revulsion of white supremacists marching in Charlottesville.”

I'd Godwinize this, but apparently most people wouldn't get the reference.

Archinerd wrote:
Nah, he doesn't get off the hook that easy. A 10 year old might be able to plead ignorance but not this P.O.(tu)S.

Holman wrote:Bill O'Reilly: Trump defended Nazis because, like most Americans, he doesn't really know about the Holocaust.

O’Reilly goes on to worry that in today’s America, only Jews know about Hitler’s evil. For everyone else, including the president of the United States, the Holocaust is just a bad thing that happened a long time ago. What most people don’t get is that “the crimes of Hitler's regime and the population that allowed it were so terrible that words cannot come close to description,” O’Reilly explains. “President Trump did not understand that and it has hurt him. He was trying to make other points in the midst of the revulsion of white supremacists marching in Charlottesville.”

I'd Godwinize this, but apparently most people wouldn't get the reference.

ImLawBoy wrote:

Holman wrote:Bill O'Reilly: Trump defended Nazis because, like most Americans, he doesn't really know about the Holocaust.

O’Reilly goes on to worry that in today’s America, only Jews know about Hitler’s evil. For everyone else, including the president of the United States, the Holocaust is just a bad thing that happened a long time ago. What most people don’t get is that “the crimes of Hitler's regime and the population that allowed it were so terrible that words cannot come close to description,” O’Reilly explains. “President Trump did not understand that and it has hurt him. He was trying to make other points in the midst of the revulsion of white supremacists marching in Charlottesville.”

I'd Godwinize this, but apparently most people wouldn't get the reference.

Speaking of Godwin, Mike Godwin (of Godwin's Law fame) declared on Twitter that he was fine with anyone calling the white supremacists Nazis.

Mike Godwin wrote:By all means, compare these shitheads to Nazis. Again and again. I'm with you.

em2nought wrote:

President Trump’s supportive comments about Confederate monuments have focused new attention on long-ignored Civil War statues of a mustachioed infantryman standing at rest, wearing a greatcoat and holding a rifle barrel.

The nameless figure, known to many as the Silent Sentinel, gazes over town squares and courthouse steps in dozens of Southern towns — but not just there.

Many of the South’s Silent Sentinels turn out to be identical to the statues of Union soldiers that decorate hundreds of public spaces across the North. Identical, but for one detail: On the soldier’s belt buckle, the “U.S.” is replaced by a “C.S.” for “Confederate States.”

It turns out that a campaign in the late 19th century to memorialize the Civil War by erecting monuments was not only an attempt to honor Southern soldiers or white supremacy. It was also a remarkably successful bit of marketing sleight of hand in which New England monument companies sold the same statues to towns and citizens groups on both sides of the Civil War divide.

Max Peck wrote:A funny thing about some of those cheap mass-produced Confederate statues.

President Trump’s supportive comments about Confederate monuments have focused new attention on long-ignored Civil War statues of a mustachioed infantryman standing at rest, wearing a greatcoat and holding a rifle barrel.

The nameless figure, known to many as the Silent Sentinel, gazes over town squares and courthouse steps in dozens of Southern towns — but not just there.

Many of the South’s Silent Sentinels turn out to be identical to the statues of Union soldiers that decorate hundreds of public spaces across the North. Identical, but for one detail: On the soldier’s belt buckle, the “U.S.” is replaced by a “C.S.” for “Confederate States.”

It turns out that a campaign in the late 19th century to memorialize the Civil War by erecting monuments was not only an attempt to honor Southern soldiers or white supremacy. It was also a remarkably successful bit of marketing sleight of hand in which New England monument companies sold the same statues to towns and citizens groups on both sides of the Civil War divide.

Max Peck wrote:A funny thing about some of those cheap mass-produced Confederate statues.

President Trump’s supportive comments about Confederate monuments have focused new attention on long-ignored Civil War statues of a mustachioed infantryman standing at rest, wearing a greatcoat and holding a rifle barrel.

The nameless figure, known to many as the Silent Sentinel, gazes over town squares and courthouse steps in dozens of Southern towns — but not just there.

Many of the South’s Silent Sentinels turn out to be identical to the statues of Union soldiers that decorate hundreds of public spaces across the North. Identical, but for one detail: On the soldier’s belt buckle, the “U.S.” is replaced by a “C.S.” for “Confederate States.”

It turns out that a campaign in the late 19th century to memorialize the Civil War by erecting monuments was not only an attempt to honor Southern soldiers or white supremacy. It was also a remarkably successful bit of marketing sleight of hand in which New England monument companies sold the same statues to towns and citizens groups on both sides of the Civil War divide.