"General Lee Statue removed?" Topic

HEY BILL!1!!

A frew weeks ago you were asking about "Snotty Brits!" does this qualify???

Quote---
"Unfortunately you Septics [*] are much more like the bloody Irish and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, still refighting the thing thee hundred years later.

[*] "Spetic" from the Cockney ryhming slang for a Yank (American). The whole phrase is 'Septic Tank' – but as with most cockney ryhming slang the first word is used only. The reason for the link is that, like a septic tank nobody likes a filthy stinking American!!! (Source, Urban Dictionary)"

end quote

So does this qualify as a group attack? Or is the writer one of your protected coven.

As for lamenting that

quote
"It is unfortunate that many are turned off of ACW gaming because they don't want to have to deal with the drunk uncle showing up at their game spouting off about 'well it wasn't about slavery' and 'y'know slaves weren't treated that badly'. I know folks that don't want to have to deal with it. I wish we could game the ACW in a post-Lost Cause era."

endquote

WE DID game the ACW in a post lost cause era where we didn't care about such issues for almost 50 years. It is only recently with the desire for chest thunmping self-righteousness that it has become an issue. No one EVER mentioned slavery in ACW games and it was and IS a non issue.

I see no rules about racism in John Hill's Johnny Reb or Don Featherstone's War Games.

Yeah that's the whole point. There are no rules for it. But you show up to a game and have to listen to people's dumb opinions about how the war wasn't about slavery or other stupid Lost Cause myths. I'm an ACW reenactor I've heard it all.

Yeah that's the whole point. There are no rules for it. But you show up to a game and have to listen to people's dumb opinions about how the war wasn't about slavery or other stupid Lost Cause myths.

Really? I've been gaming ACW since the mid 1980's and I've never had "the drunk uncle" or someone else give out Lost Cause stuff during a game. Do you also have guys that wear Waffen SS World Tour T-shirts and show up at WWII games and discuss Nazi Ideology?

I'm an ACW reenactor I've heard it all.

Same here but trust me you haven't heard it all. Each time I keep thinking I heard it all, I hear something else that proves me wrong…
What do you portray?

If it's any comfort, in the UK we end up making peace with our rebels and erect many statues to them – Boudicca, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Guy Fawkes, Owen Glendower, Ghandi etc….there's even a statue to a George Washington (traitor!!) in London.

Removing Confederate Memorial statues is sickening; those of Robert E Lee….totally beyond the Pale.

This won't end well.

Well wargaming is a matter of self convenience when all said and done.

I've a 28mm Union army and all my WW2 stuff is German, regardless of the fact I deplore the real world regime that it would have supported and the goons having their antisemitic torchlight rant in Charlottesville the other night.

At the level of a historical game I don't choose to see Confederates Bad – Union Good, or Allies Good – Germans Bad. Nor Imperialistic Roman oppressors Bad – Pretty much everyone else Good, come to that.

What happens to real people in the here and now is a totally different truck load of statues. It's been said already but R.E.Lee is being used as a convenience by people to promote their own agenda.

Unless somewhere in the last thirty odd years I missed the bit in the history books where Bobby Lee railed against the International Jewish Conspiracy's threat to the American way of life!

Ah Legion 4 you haven't even scratched the surface. Next will be calls to dynamite Stone Mountain Georgia, and Mount Rushmore. Remember there are two slave-holders there, a republican who favored emigration for blacks (Lincoln). and a White nationalist (Roosevelt.)

Very true Otto, very true.

Something I have found here on TMP. And as Trajanus mentioned as well. Since someone e.g. plays the Germans/Nazis/SS, Imperial Japan, the USSR, USA, etc., or even the CSA[Note: not making any kind of equivalency, etc. just an example !] in wargames. Does not mean they advocate, admire, like, agree with, believe in, etc., anything those forces took as dogma, policy, etc. This goes for discussing, studying, etc., e.g. those forces I mentioned, and others as well.

As a gamer who has gamed all eras it the past. A game or discussion about the weapons, tactics, field craft, etc. of any particular military forces of the past or present. Is not an approval, etc. of their morality, etc. Just a comparison, understanding, study, etc., of those forces from a purely military standpoint, IMO. Not whether or not those forces' cause(s) was righteous, moral, evil, good, bad, ugly, etc. …
E.g. I play Orks and other of aliens in my Sci-fi games. Does not mean I am like them in real life(!) …

Agreed Trajanus. I don't have a dog in the fight, as it were, myself.

Wargaming has taught me that war is a very bad thing indeed.

It has also taught me to have great respect for the dead, hence the horror at desecretation of these war memorials….in this case Confederate ones.

Where they are War Momorials I would agree. However, you will have seen from postings on this thread large numbers were not.

The essential difference is between the many battlefield monuments and those raised in the last twenty years of the 19th Century – first twenty years of the 20th Century, which were statements from groups whose view was that Slavery may have gone but "you people" better know your place!

I note today that the direct descendants of both Jackson and Lee are asking the various authorities to remove there ancestors statues where they remain rather than have this legacy still associated with their memory.

"Same here but trust me you haven't heard it all. Each time I keep thinking I heard it all, I hear something else that proves me wrong…
What do you portray?" A Texas unit.

"What happens to real people in the here and now is a totally different truck load of statues. It's been said already but R.E.Lee is being used as a convenience by people to promote their own agenda.

Unless somewhere in the last thirty odd years I missed the bit in the history books where Bobby Lee railed against the International Jewish Conspiracy's threat to the American way of life!"

That's the whole point, the Lost Cause myth has been used since before the turn of the century to portray the Confederate troops as noble, fighting an oppressive government (who was in the wrong), ragged beyond belief (the only way the North could win was because they had millions more men and ammunition!), etc. It was a coping mechanism for these people to reenter the Union as well as subjugate African Americans (most of it).

I just got out of the dawghouse.

Ready to go back in for the sake of truth.

The preposterousness of the opponents of the statues is evident when one considers Gettysburg.

Every year thousands of civil war re-enactors from both sides descend on this little town eternally locked in a moment in time back in 1863. Here there are parades, and events, and re-enactments where people in blue and people in Grey fall all over each other in bars, pizza parlors, restaurants, ice cream shops, and cram the suttlers stores and laugh and joke and have a good time. This includes very many re-enactors who are black and form negro units or take part with "white" union units. EVEN MORE PREVALENT are the ladies (again of all colors) who deck themselves out in their finest finery, some of the creations of which are astounding. There's no racism here, there's no hatred. I see the black re-enactors either in civilian clothes or uniforms swapping drinks with people dressed like Lee and Jackson. The women do as women always do, gather together and cat about their husbands. Slavery is freely talked about and freely discussed, but everyone seems to be agreed, that is sucked but we are beyond that.

Call it what you wish, but "Lost Cause" it ain't! It's a pride and joy in their heritage, of terrible times overcome, of difficult issues put behind us. When I believe in 1903 there was a reunion of all the surviving veterans they could get to Gettysburg, there was a "re-enactment" of Picketts charge. As the old men of both sides came together at the wall, there was none of this mealy mouth whining by the chattering classes, but they fell into each others arms and wept. Go to Gettysburg at any re-enactment you find AFTER the battle that spirit of forgiveness and love of country and each other coming together again.

All this gemutlichkeit and fellowship is of course a fairy tale. The war unleashed bitter feelings that divided families for a century. It still divides the country today. But the tale of the Civil War is a tale of hope and promise that people can overcome these passions, AND HAVE LARGELY DONE SO! It is the troublemakers, race baiters, and people who don't understand America at all who have brought it up. They trace their ancestry back to those in the Republican Party of 1865 who wanted a hard punative peace, rather than Lincoln who wanted to "Let em up easy." It is amazing that none of these people who have ever suffered the slightest injustice and grown up in a spirit of privilege and over-indulgence can descend to this.

This turning from retribution and hate to adapting, adopting, and working through it bit by bit until we, unlike most other nations of the world, can not only put behind us a destructive and bitter war, but make a civic event, a grand party, a high old time in which everyone can come, buy, shop and have fun, is a miracle not to be easily tossed out. The Shiites and Sunnis are still at it.

As I said, want to see what America is REALLY like, go to Gettysburg and watch the re-enactors. Those people have done far more to bring social justice and real toleration than you have ever done.

Of course they will be the next target. and not only the southern re-enactors but the northern ones as well. Any one who has EVER gone to a re-enactment at Gettysburg will readily agree. The meaning of things change. Perhaps there is some truth to the argument that these statues were meant to reinforce the Jim Crow Laws of the mid twenties. But no one looks at them now. They have had new meanings imposed on them now by intervening generations of almost 100 years who see them as a totemic link to the history of the Great Civil War and their ancestors and friends who fought in it. That is what people are objecting to it now.

OK Bill you can dawghouse me now for speaking the truth.

i totally agree with everything you analysed Otto…

i think that the rage (and the strategic aim) adressed Vs those symbols and traditions is far more subtile than just "remove Conderacy symbols cause they remind us of racism/slavery)

Ottoathome: Well said sir!!!! John Miller

What do you portray?" A Texas unit.

Ah..okay so 4th or 5th Texas then?

5th Texas.

"Perhaps there is some truth to the argument that these statues were meant to reinforce the Jim Crow Laws of the mid twenties. But no one looks at them now."

You mean no one like all the young dudes with tiki torches marching for violence at Charlottesville? C'mon man.

Otto's comments are a hundred percent on target! He is an excellent historian, and with three masters in history and 30 years teaching it, I am also acquainted with the past. This separates the two of us from those with populist opinions based upon absolutely NEITHER KNOWLEDGE NOR UNDERSTANDING! Their opinions are hereby dismissed!

By the logic of some of the posters here, the Germans should be celebrating their Nazi heritage with statures and commemorations. After all, Hitler is arguably the most famous part of their heritage. They should be proud of that, right?

The BBC reported today that Lexington, Kentucky's Mayor is having Confederate statues removed after a vote by the city council. They're standing on a site that was once the main slave market in Lexington. He doesn't seem to believe its right to celebrate the Confederacy in the same place that men, women, and children were sold like cattle. He reasons that there might be another aspect of the region's history that could be taught there, such as the horrific practice of slavery. I guess the guy just hates American history or something.

You know, I do have to wonder why the earlier Lexington city fathers decided to put those statues on the site of the former slave market. Coincidence?

It's not the statue that's the problem. Are we afraid of the statue of Julius Caesar who overthrew democracy in Rome. A statue of Attila because his army slayed thousands. The Salem witches because they summoned up Satan.

Statues are just reminders of people and points in history that were significant in good or bad ways.

It's the people on the streets today that we should be afraid of. And what THEY think, and how THEY act.

OOOOPS! I forgot!!! Not only does the Gettysburg re-enactors do it in July, they do it again in Early November for Rememberance Day where they celebrate The Gettysburg Address!

America is dealing with its historic race problem just fine. The re-enactors handle it gently, and with love, and with great pride in their country.

America is dealing with its historic race problem just fine.

WHAT?!?!?!? That's one stunningly absurd statement….. How out of touch can you possibly get….

Lol

Bill- NUKE THIS THREAD!

On the description of the Gettysburg Re-enactments – this sounds much like English Civil War Re-enactments. Those events were highly contentious up until ~1750ish i.e. ~100 years after the Civil War, but this has faded so far until now it is "just part of our history" and allows for fun family orientated events.

I'm guessing Neo-Nazis are not invited to the Gettysburg Re-enactments.

And that's the difference. Those marching to "save the statues" don't seem to be actually all that bothered about the statues – they certainly seem to be anti-Semitic (based on their chanting), and homophobic (based on their chanting) as well as racist (based on their chanting).

And, as was noted above, many of the statues were deliberately put up to reinforce Jim Crow Laws – making them physical representations of continuing racism.

So – a racist symbol being "defended" by marching racists. I can't see anything good in that.

The "cultural defence" argument also falls down at the first hurdle. Was Lee a Nazi? I don't think he was. So what is the cultural link from Lee to the paraded Third Reich Swastikas?

The truth is (probably) there'd have been no fuss about the statues if racism/anti-Semitism/homophobia hadn't been allowed to adopt them as their totems. Failing to deal with this problem sooner has brought things to a head, and it's (probably) too late now to let things "just fade into the past".

Ironically Lee was against confederate memorials & statues.

Thomas Rosser, a former Confederate general who in 1866 queried Lee about a proposed commemorative monument.

"My conviction is," Lee wrote, "that however grateful it would be to the feelings of the South, the attempt in the present condition of the Country, would have the effect of retarding, instead of accelerating its accomplishment; & of continuing, if not adding to, the difficulties under which the Southern people labour."

link

always some elements of bad faith concerning this destructive folly:
"And that's the difference. Those marching to "save the statues" don't seem to be actually all that bothered about the statues"
But the problem are not "those marching to save the statues"!!!!!! but the elected governors and mayors who ordered, as if they were in a country occupied by Taliban or ISIS cutthroats , to remove or even destroy statues ..doing so against the will of a whole nation and under treat and after pression of leftist idlers students who, also if being a small and useless minority in the country, occupy squares and insult/agress police officers….they do it in the name of anti fascism anti dicatorship conscience…but, on the other hand, monuments in other part of the world celebrating Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Palmiro Togliatti and Spanish International Marxist Brigades are still allowed and honoured despite they represent crimes vs civilians …

Italwars, the trend is for city councils or other elected governmental bodies to vote on the removal of the statues.

Once again, if southern patriots do not separate themselves from the white supremacists and the Neo-Nazis, they are going to do their own cause a lot of harm. Lay down with pigs . . .

Wulfgar but in practice they are separated..or at least i think so..If those white supremacy gangs(what they have to do with statues of ACW i don't know) and neo nazi (again what they have to do with ACW?) are allowed , certainly not by Southern patriots, but by local gvt i suppose to stage protest marches why the media allow them and label to represent this very cause?…i do not think that the interesting postings written here by presumably citizen from Southern States supporting the honouring of Confederacy memoir have been conceived by racist or neo-nazi extremists…you can read similar sensitive postings from same menbers to check that…the political complexity and cultural value of what somebody call the "lost cause" and laso about the "winning cause" (i read here very good analisis that i was'nt aware of before) is something that the supremacists and neo-nazi do not even bother to consider above all because we are speaking of extremely rough and ineducated people (just look at their faces) and very few in number..so a problem which is very marginal for a shaping of a conscience

ITALWARS, New Orleans is 60% black. In 1874, 5,000 white supremacists descended on New Orleans to fight the government because their side lost the elections that year. Later, a monument was placed to glorify their fight against the government, and even later, inscriptions were added with white supremacist connotations.

Do you think African Americans, who make up the majority of New Orleans by 10%, want to see that stuff every day? Do you think they should be able to have a say in what is in public places they frequent?

More info:
link

I guess that cuts to the heart of the matter, really. It's completely irrelevant what anyone in this thread thinks about a statue they'll never see anyway. If it's in your town, or on state land in your state, then you should have a say. By electing officials who make those decisions, or by referendums if they go that route.

Public outcry from people a thousand miles away isn't a good reason to take down any statues. Nor is fear of violence from people who don't like them. That doesn't set a good precedent.

Muggins…in that particular case i agree with you…also if i do not understand of what symbol are you talking about.
.if there still is, even a statue DIRECTLY commemorating that 1874 clash and paying respect to those that made a criminal attempt to influence policy..i'm amazed of course

ITALWARS The Obelisk monument that he is referring to was the very first one removed. After that they went after the PGT Beauregard Equestrian statue, (which was on the national register of historic places), and "promised, promised, PROMISED" that it would be put into a museum for display and study, reflection etc.
The monument was ripped off the pedestal it was on and the surrounding mounting supports were so damaged int eh removal of the place (but the forgot to remove the one saying "listed in the national register of historic places"), that it looks like purposeful vandalism.
And for the promises of "Placing it in a museum" as they swore up and down to do?…It's currently sitting in the back of the impound lot Junk yard for the City of New Orleans.

Yeah…

I don't like the seemingly indiscriminate nature of the removals. I can't say I'm pleased to see monuments to Jackson or Beauregard being removed. They aren't really known for supporting slavery.

And I find it especially sad that memorials to confederate soldiers in general are being taken down, and the markers naming fallen soldiers. One can at least respect the soldiers who fought for their states. They were an enemy of the US, but they aren't anymore.

link

So let me get this straight Charlie 12. If people in a town want a statue of Martin Luther King toppled and smashed you are OK with it?

Unfortunately yes. If Lee, Jackson, Forrest go, then MLK has to go as well. It''s about parity of esteem. Furthermore, MLK was no saint. Far from it. Check it out some time……..

Personally, I'd prefer that the CSA heroes remained, as did MLK and those that fought for civil rights, whom I also greatly admire…but if folks want cultural vandalism, then so be it!! "One down – all down"!!!!

Help me understand the equivalence between a statue put up to honor a civil rights icon and a statue put up to try to revise history and subjugate a race of people.

Imagine for a moment that you are a black person living in the Southern states at pretty much any time from the founding of the country to the end of the Confederacy and beyond. Knowing you're not even a second class citizen, knowing that you can be attacked at any time your family beaten and raped and torn away from you for no reason, and that if you even dare to defend yourself it's the same as a death sentence. No hope, no dignity, and if you ever try to escape you will be hunted like an animal. And if caught the best you can hope for is to have your back flayed open and salt literally poured in the wound.

The bare fact of the matter that so few of you seem to want to come to terms with is that American history has glossed over centuries of oppression and genocide that rivals Nazi Germany. That fact is not going to change because a bunch of mostly white guys had fun at a reenactment of a battle. The history has already been forgotten and overwritten mostly because of the movements that erected these statues in the first place. And this history has already begun to repeat itself, hate crimes in this country have spiked massively after this last election. Nothing to do with the people wanting to take these statues down.

From an excellent twitter rant on the greater political context from someone's whose ancestors were on the receiving end of the romantic south: link

"Ponder the cognitive dissonance it takes to understand why Nazis/Holocaust = evil but simultaneously think Confederates/slavery = heritage.

/snip- due to politcal discourse/

I'm not mincing words here, because people need to understand that the Confederacy and Klan are no less genocidal or wrong than the Nazis.

The descendants of Nazi generals in Germany aren't afforded the privilege of taking pride in their "heritage", they're too ashamed to try.

The descendants of Nazi generals in Germany don't get to plead for time so that their cherished memorabilia can be preserved appropriately.

The descendants of the "good Germans" who voted for Hitler don't proudly parade themselves around Germany, or expect respect and admiration.

This Confederate porn is only permitted in Amerikkka b/c it makes angry White dudes feel good abt who they are and what they do.

Not only will they not take responsibility for White male supremacy in the past or present, they want us to celebrate them for it. GTFOH.

Let me be clear: IDGAF if your self identity is so weak that you have to take pride in human bondage/genocide. you and your ancestors.

I don't wanna hear else from White dudes about their security blanket participation trophy monuments to Confederate evil. Enough."

I think the whole thing deserves to be read to illustrate where the anger over this issue is coming from.

There could be actual dialog about how history is taught, the proper context of monuments, and the place of forgiveness and reconciliation in the face of evil. But Team Statue is too busy throwing out disgusting false equivalences comparing MLK to General Lee, getting into hysterics about communists and the end of civilization, pretending the South did nothing wrong, and making the worst arguments that once something is erected in a public space it can't ever come down or history will be totally erased.

Argue in good faith or not at all.

A more lighthearted twitter thread from another historian about statue based learning: link

Also I backed up my previous post in case it gets snipped. Because history is totally non-political guys honest.

Some really good comments, I agree with many like Otto, etc.

Regardless, IMO, a mob pulling down and destroying a statue of anyone or anything … Just comes down to vandalism and a lack of proper police enforcement. E.g. if the statue in Durham hurt or killed someone when it fell. I don't doubt there would be a law suit or two. Pointing the finger at the LEOs.

If some find a statue offensive, etc., I'd think they should go thru the proper channels with the local gov't to get it removed/moved to a more appropriate venue. Many/most of those statues were put a long time ago … and those were very different times in many cases. For better or worse …

what you said wolfgangbrooks is totally false..
Its the Northern Union behaviour, if you really wanted to make a comparison , should be compared to nazism …also because they waged a war of agression VS pacific States and against civilians..i've never heard about Confederacy brutality while i did , as everybody , about Northen one…OK you cannot stop to compare, just for you political agenda and for effect, everything you disllike to Nazi Germany..but you perfectly know that, except those useless and few neo nazi skhinneads thugs that praticipated univited at protest marches…the very ideology that stand behind this program of cultural oppression of minds , which among other terrorist cultural tactics, conceived also the one to remove statues IS the main one that could be really associated to Nazism…do you see any difference between Nazism and Comunism of left thinking or even relativism?..the hsitory and political doctrine sciences tell us that is the same thing…so please choose your side before telling us that nonsense

Fantastic stories from all of yous,

I've really enjoyed hearing all opinions on this difficult subject

For me, a Limey, I'm with the Confederacy.

I'm a sucker for the lost cause:…

Italwars I don't care what you think about American history and our current political climate, you've already displayed woeful ignorance on those fronts. And your obsession with communists is affecting your judgement.

Seriously, if you think those are the two sides of this argument you know nothing.

It is kinda of interesting Ostrowski's POV. The Brits have their own racist past to contend with, but I think they've moved on much more successfully than we have.

Wolfgang it happen that who show woeful ignorance on the subject is you and the matter is far more serious t , not only cause is your country, but because you cannot restist to show us your Godwin Law behaviour also if it has nothing to do with topic…even anti-racism or racism have nothing to with it ..but you must be aware that nobody will be afraid by your big words if used in this speculative way

Another ironic point – the defence of all these statues on their aesthetic beauty :

Oh yeah. That monument to one of the founders of the KKK sure will be missed….

Italwars: What is the difference between the Nazi ethnic supremacy and the white supremacy baked into the plantation system of the old south? What about miscegenation and segregation laws, medical experimentation on minorities, using churches as a bullhorn for nationalist, supremacist, and political rhetoric that all inspired Hitler?

How can you NOT make the associations?

BUT Wolfgang i do not deny that…but what the hell this have to do with some bands of rich , idlers , tattoed students that instead of studying listen to rap music .or, as alternate activity, go spitting and trowing stones to police officer in order to oblige the mayors to remove statues of generals of which they have not even read something?

badger22 wrote, "About 35 years ago I held up my right hand and did solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. I actually meant that Bleeped text when I did swear, and still do. Lee apparently crossed his fingers or just flat did not mean it, because when the crunch came, he did not honor that oath. He did not swear to the state of Virginia, he swore the the US. And he broke that oath. Such a man is not deserving of a statue on Government soil."

Several people have written that Lee ], and others, violated their oaths to the US. Here's the latest pre-war oath I could fins. From 1830

""I, _____, appointed a _____ in the Army of the United States, do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the rules and articles for the government of the Armies of the United States."

Note that the oath taker swears to, "the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies.." The oath is sworn in plural not singular. Even then the states were considered sovereign and it is plain that one could defend Virginia against the other states and one would not be an oath breaker. Funny how this distinction is lost on people not familiar with the mindset of the day.

Wolfgang Brooks

The problem is your own racism and prejudice. No one made a moral equivalency between Marthin Luther King and Lee. The statues of each however are equivalent, being simply symols and inanimate objects, and if a community did not like King they had the right to vote to take down his statue and smash it. This of course is justified by your own prejudice which you believe is superior to that of the KKK and the White Supremicists. If there is a town of blacks who do not want the statue of a confederate leader in the square and want to bring it down and smash it. Fine provided they do it legally. If there were a town of white supremicists who wanted to do the same with a statue of Martin Luther King, then if they do it legally, -- fine. Are you saying that they must if they had a statue of Martin Luther King in their midst tolerate it and not take it down but keep it because he is your hero? Is not this the exact situation of those statues of Confederate Generals alleged to have been erected in reinforcement of the Jim Crow Laws.

You also talk about a dialogue on race. We have had this notion knocking around for thirty years. The cry is "America has to have a serious dialogue on race!!!"

Really???

Do you REALLY want a serious dialogue on race?

To do that you would have to have the dialogue with the people you hate. That is, you would have to sit down with the White Supremicists and KKK and Neo Nazis and ask why they hate you so much. It would involve asking them why they think the way they think, stating what you think and trying to come to an agreement, a modus vivendi and a way forward. The classic definition of toleration is living with something you hate. It is not indifference. You apparently have no room for tolerance by stating all your hatreds.

Or is our idea of this dialogue simply sitting them down and railing at them and cursing them (as you seem so prolific with curses) and telling them why they are wrong and insisting they change.

Or is your idea of this dialogue that you and your like minded sit down and rail and scream about your superiority and work yourself up into a fine frenzy and then going out and massacring those who do not think like you. If that is what is in your soul, then you really should have torchlight parades.

Early in the twentieth century the American Objective Idealist Philosopher Joshua Royce delivered an address to a Princeton graduating class in which he dealt with the problem of "the other." It is too long to quote here in full, but he dealt with the problem of each of us not being able to keep in our minds "our brother." He said that we can for a few moments realize this sublime link between man and man. In these moments we can realize in our minds that the sun shines as warm on him as it does on us. That he has hopes and dreams and fears just like we do. He loves his wife, and his children and the savor of life is as sweet on his soul as it is on ours.

But this passes quickly. Royce says, and we return to enthrone our own selves and our own psyche to the center of existence. We remake God in our own image.

Royce says, we cut ourself off from our brother. He becomes to us a THING, a creature an other, something far less than us, and we say to ourselves of him "He is not as I am. He does think as I do and therefore is not as weise as I am. He not feel pain as I do, he does not see things as I do. Things are not as important to him, he is in all things a lesseer and inferior creature. He is an encumerance and reminder of our responsibility to him and we desire to be rid of it.

"He is a thing, a lesser creature- he does not feel pain as I do. He does not have the sensibilities I do." Royce here is speaking of his (our brothers) own world and sensibilities, not that they are equal as ours but they are as valid to him as ours are to us.

Royce says that we have then made of our brother "a thing" an "other" a lower life and a more contemptable creature. That his life is then utterly nothing beside our own, that he is in fact an encumberance to our own and an object of hate.

I see you have already done that.

So do you REALLY want to have a GENUINE dialog on race? Or do you want a sort of primal scream theory rant on race which will no doubt be eminently satisfying to you, but not much helpful.

I would rather, if we are to have it, have it as Royce sees it. But of course you won't You have already in your words said you want the violence, want the discord, want to make of all who do not agree with you, your enemy. The only way you can transform people is through inner transformation They must be brought to this transformation by their own thoughts, not imposing them from outside as you wish.

You also have to understand them to see what their fears and prejudices are and to understand them, otherwise you have no hope of ever ending this cycle.

Yes Wolfgang, argue in good faith or not at all. You are condemned out of your own mouth.

If you truly want tolerance and to heal the rift between races, then you will have to recognize in your enemies your own self.

America is having this dialogue and has been having it for its whole life. You are not part of it.

For me, one of many examples came without fanfare or Flapdoodle.

I used to work in a hot, smelly, horrible little industrial plant. The temperate hovered at around a hundred during the winter because of the nature of the process. We employed almost completely minorities. Black, Latino, Indian, and so forth. One of the workers was a woman. We will call her Princie, for that was her name, and she was black. She had a horrible life. Her husband took a knife to her and she bore horrible scars on her arms, leg and body where he had tried to kill her. She however killed him, and went to jail for a short period. When she came out she had only one goal in life, which was to safeguard her daughters and give them a better life. Quite beautiful daughters, and not because they had "whitish features." They were beautiful. They worked at the plant in the summer. Good workers. Princie's pride and joy. One night The whole plant rejoiced with Prince when she came in to tell us that the eldest had gotten a scholarship to Rutgers. The progress of Princie's daughters became a yearned after story and were overjoyed with their success.

Then one night as I was doing some paperwork in my office, I heard this bloodcurdling SCREAM that echoed through the huge expanse of the plant. It sounded like someone was having their arm ripped out of its socket at the shoulders. (We had equipment that could do that!) I rushed out to the floor and found Princie surrounded by supervisors and co workers lying on the floor, completely passed out. She had just gotten word that BOTH her daughters had been killed in a drive-by shooting over drugs.

That scream was the smashing of a life. everyone cried. Oh Princie recovered but she was never the same.

For those moments Princie was not distant from us. We saw that she had a life, and loves and feelings and we felt her loss as much as if it had been our own.

That is the true dialogue on race with fanfare and fanforade. That when tragedy strikes we are all as one. When joy is to be had we are one.

I will tell you another sentence on the real dialogue of race.

Every year there is the Sussex County farm and horse show. It's a grand event that goes on at a several hundred acre fairground. There are rides, barn tours, side shows, animals, Stock events, art shows, dance classes, square dancing, line dancing, polka night, mud bogs demolition derbies, firewo4rks, country and western music. Sewing, quiltery, crafts hobbies, 4H exhibits, and vendors of every hue and tuype. Stuffed in cheek by jowle are the food carts selling every kind of food and from the moment you come into the gate, you are engaged in eating your way across the fairgrounds so that by the time you reach the other side you are so stuffed you want to find a convenient rock to bask on. But the greatest treat is the 4H club Ice cream stand where literally Everyone goes to get the Tuscan ice cream. It cold, it's cheap and it's good. White, Black Indian, the other Indian, Latino, Oriental, every color and stripe and sect on the face of the earth gathered together and the living proof that 'The Sun doeth shineth as bright on our brother as on we, that he has children he loves and dotes on as do we, that life is as sweet for our brothers as it is for us.

Compared to these, wolfgang you go nuttin.

So if you want to counter the Neo-nazis, the KKK, the hate groups, next time they have a rally don't bring placards and signs and taunts. leave the sticks and pepper spray at home. Roll up in your cars with crock pots of sausage and peppers, hot dogs, hibachis with shrimp and beefsteak, ice cream, soda, iced tea, and beer and eat with them and not "kill them with kindness" but kill their hate with kindness.

Who the hell is going to club the guy handing out the ice cream. Not even a psycopath would do that!

"Yeah that's the whole point. There are no rules for it. But you show up to a game and have to listen to people's dumb opinions about how the war wasn't about slavery or other stupid Lost Cause myths. I'm an ACW reenactor I've heard it all."

Yeah, because everyone else's opinions are dumb. Thank God you're here to give us the correct interpretation of history.

Lost cause mythical opinions aren't based on fact therefore they're dumb. Might as well believe the earth is flat. Sorry.

"The essential difference is between the many battlefield monuments and those raised in the last twenty years of the 19th Century – first twenty years of the 20th Century, which were statements from groups whose view was that Slavery may have gone but "you people" better know your place!"

Again, can anyone back up this contention? Anyone? Something more than, "I feel this was why they were put up."