On Name Changing and Statue Toppling
National Review,
by
Victor Davis Hanson
Original Article
Posted By: earlybird,
6/12/2020 6:00:04 PM
General David Petraeus wrote an impassioned article in the Atlantic this week about the need to change the names of military bases that for over a century have been named after Confederate generals and to recalibrate iconic remembrances such as statues commemorating Robert E. Lee at West Point — points of reference he reminds us that have been central in his own experience and career. (Snip)Again, is this moment really the proper time to begin renaming bases and removing statues? We are in a middle of a national frenzy and chaos, in which such major decisions won’t always be done systematically and carefully to heal rather than further to inflame
"The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will forget what it is and what it was. Milan Kundera - Czech Writer
21 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
bamapreacher 6/12/2020 6:25:27 PM (No. 442653)
Bases named after Confederate generals are named after people who fought hard for what they believed in. If groups like BLM think they are fighting for a cause, they should appreciate the Confederates who did so, but of course they don't because only they are right.
13 people like this.
We need to re-examine ourselves, American culture, and our American future. It’s time to get real with one another, stripping away the collected BS of separation and blame. It’s time to get real about “merit” and its place in American society. Or we can all pontificate about the same old stuff.
7 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Proud Texan 6/12/2020 6:29:02 PM (No. 442659)
Some things just need left alone. People that complain about the name of an army fort or naval base or a statue that has existed for decades are just desperate for something to b itch about.
20 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Bogasso 6/12/2020 6:43:55 PM (No. 442670)
Replace the statues with ones of George Floyd committing armed robbery, etc. Pointing a gun at a pregnant woman...
10 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Quigley 6/12/2020 6:56:07 PM (No. 442681)
Well said. I think he said nothing can stand up to the the holier than thou irrational scrutiny of the enraged mob.
Last one out be sure to turn out the lights and disband the Dimokkkrap party- the most culpable organization ever. They better hope “their” mob doesn’t figure that out someday.
5 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
lakerman1 6/12/2020 7:45:52 PM (No. 442720)
is the non-combatant general trying to impress a new girlfriend?
5 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
fhancock 6/12/2020 10:49:49 PM (No. 442859)
Petraeus lives in an alternative universe where everything revolves around him...what has he done to deserve being listened to...zero...so take your ideas where they would be appreciated...China
4 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 6/12/2020 11:07:03 PM (No. 442869)
Will they adopt the demolition practices of the Taliban and use large explosives to deface the Confederate Monument at Stone Mountain, Georgia?
2 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 6/12/2020 11:57:29 PM (No. 442890)
I recall a Cold War Reforger Exercise in Germany and being in a small town where we were allowed to sleep overnight in a barn (with the milk cows). It was much better than sleeping in the cold rain prior to the games beginning. We departed early next morning after our little old lady hostess, fixed our entire Platoon breakfast with hot coffee (such hospitality!). Marching single-file through the town we stopped and I was standing right in front of a WWI monument erected to commemorate the men of that village who died during the "Great War." I was young, but it was like a brick hit me in the head, something I would remember forever. Those mothers, wives, siblings had the sons, husbands, and brothers who gave their final measure for their village, as they did for their country. At that moment it didn't care they were fighting against the Allies, this was a memorial for their village to lay peace upon their memories.
Then eventually, after WWII, the USA occupied West Germany, and Japan. What if the USA had told post war Germany, or Japan that ANY monuments they put up commemorating THEIR war dead would immediately be ripped from their foundations and promptly pounded into dust to erase any memory of our hated enemy? Would we be called "Ugly Americans?"
Much the same as Germany and Japan, those who fought for the Confederacy were feared by family that they might be forgotten and would be remembered best by memorials erected at cemeteries and public parks. One fact, among many, that's missing from the "BLM" narrative is that there were freed black slaves who also owned slaves, and that the first slaves in the Colonies were white - Irish Catholics and orphaned children gathered off the streets of London as part of a beautification campaign. The white slaves were provided at zero cost, whereas black slaves came with a price, and were therefore less likely to be worked to death than white children and Irish slaves would be. Once the Colonies became the United States, England began exporting their ne'er-do-wells to New Holland (Australia).
2 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
bighambone 6/13/2020 1:08:07 AM (No. 442910)
There is also the little hitch in all that talk by pandering leftist and liberal Democrat politicians about Confederate soldiers being traitors to the USA, because on December 25,1868 President Andrew Johnson granted every former Confederate soldier an unconditional presidential pardon in accordance with his constitutional powers. Following that pardon many former Confederate officers and soldiers served honorably in the US Army and are now buried in National Cemeteries throughout the South. Congress cannot overthrow a presidential pardon, so why waste time beating on what amounts to a dead horse!
I don’t have any sympathy for the Confederates as my ancestors were in the Union Army with some killed and wounded in some of the big Civil War battles. I guess the pandering politicians can change the names of historical places, but they can’t change history.
0 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Trigger2 6/13/2020 2:00:24 AM (No. 442937)
I'm beginning to wonder, how much money do these retired generals get from Soros and his traveling billionaire freak show.
1 person likes this.
For goodness sake, shut up David. Hard to be wrong and stupid twice. Just when we forgot about you being a traitor, you pop up again.
0 people like this.
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Hanson agrees that some perhaps should go. But not now.