The Berlin Wall is also approximately half a century old. I wonder if the Germans are going to turn heel in another 50 or so years and demand the rest be taken down. Because acknowledgement.
Is that what the free speech advocates in emancipation park were marching for?
"Almighty bless these brave boys who wore the death's-head, 'til the rightness of their cause is redeemed, and the inferior races are eliminated"
Doing that, then defending it for decades, is not how the Germans do it, nor is it a proper way to put events in context. If Germans "turned heel" and objected to that in 50 years, or even now, one could hardly blame them.
Looks like Carl Icahn is bailing on Trump, too.
Dude. I just made that up as a satirical parallel between the eliminationist goals of the Nazis and the white supremacist goals of the Confederacy. I would've assumed that that was clear, but it's good to know that it was close enough to the original style as to have been mistaken for it.
Lord, everyone knows that the confederacy didn't want to eliminate the black population, just keep it in permanent subjugation and bondage, as enshrined in the documents of succession and the Confederate Constitution.
And your 'satirical parallel' required direct quotes?
I guess an inability to determine fact from fiction is par for the course in this thread.
Right. I think the idealized hero on a horse perspective would carry much more weight if the statue had been erected prior to or during the war. But it wasn't. It was conceived of as a part of the "City Beautiful" movement in Virginia in the early 1900s and commissioned at the same time, by the same benefactor, as sculptures of Lewis and Clark, Stonewall Jackson, and George Clark (all figures of significant historical import in the Commonwealth). The City Beautiful movement spawned out of the ashes of the second Industrial Revolution and had designs to neoclassically reinvent traditionally agrarian cities in light of new domestic realities. The movement also sought to reinstill traditional American moral and civic values to these 'lost' pockets of America. As you know, the post-bellum epoch was, in many ways, even more tumultuous than the war itself. Reconstruction was one thing, reconciliation another entirely.
So, if we are actually interested in looking at appropriate contexts instead of paying lip service to the idea by making our historical derivations through a strict lens, we'd take these words by a sculptor involved in the City Beautiful movement to heart: "It is self evident that our public monuments should give some adequate idea of history, both local and national. Their reason for being is to inspire the beholder with high ideals and to emulation of deeds of self-sacrifice, valor, or patriotism. [These sculptures could] supplement the study of books in our schools and form a part of our educational methods. Sculpture, in other words, could perform a valuable function by teaching history and serving as an inspiration for future charity and patriotism."
(And that's a real quote.)
Last edited by Hawk; 08-18-2017 at 07:58 PM.
"For there is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it. If only we are brave enough to be it." Amanda Gorman
"When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross"