Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
OK, I’m the descendant if a GAR veteran. I’m justly proud that he served in an Indiana Regiment and did his part to end both rebellion and slavery. I’m equally embarrassed that his Grandson, my Great Grandfather was a member of the Indiana KKK during its second iteration during the 1920’s. I am no apologist for the Stars and Bars. It certainly has no place in my State if not our nation. I loath the historical revisionism of the lost cause mythogies as they, to this day, have a pervasive and evil influence in our Nation.
Most statues built to honor Confederate Historical figures were not built after the Civil War but at the turn of the 20th Century and in the 1950’s and 60’s as a means to intimidate blacks and to reinforce beliefs in Jim Crow Segregation and opposition to civil rights. If a community decides that these symbols no longer represent their values then down they should and will come.
The naming of US Military Forts after Officers that we’re not only enemies of the United States but many, like Braxton Bragg were also Jackasses and military incompetents is both absurd and ironic. Equally insulting is that not a single Military instillation is named after U. S. Grant who was by far the greatest General of the Civil war and a savior of our nation but was also the first truly modern military General. I would like nothing better than to see Fort Bragg’s name changed to Fort Grant.
Having said all this I’m critical of much that is being written at this time by polemicist who want to eliminate these historically absurd iconography (not that I don’t support that). They tend to be guilty of two historical crimes. The first is “The victor gets to write the history” and the second is viewing history anachronistically. For example this dismissive attitude of Southerners and how the could have went to war over a cause as terrible as slavery.
The Civil War was in fact, as many Southerners claim, the second American Revolution or more correctly counter revolution. The aristocratic agrarian South with it’s feudal social system was far more like the rest of the world at that time where slave/serf caste systems predominated and the small geographic regions of Northern Europe and the Northern US with their industrial revolution dependent on highly skilled free labor were in fact revolutionary. In that respect the Confederates weren’t exactly wrong in considering themselves the true inheritors of the American Revolution by fighting a counter revolution against the United States Industrial Revolution and to protect slavery and a white supremacist aristocracy. This is important history for us all to understand as it gives us an understanding of why so many good people could support such a vile and evil system as chattel slavery as that is how most of the worlds societies were at that time.
So even though we have grown as a nation and found a far superior and egalitarian way to structure our society that is infinitely superior these facts of history should not be forgotten or dismissed as old and obsolete history but should be remembered and used to reconcile this nation from its divided past.
Most statues built to honor Confederate Historical figures were not built after the Civil War but at the turn of the 20th Century and in the 1950’s and 60’s as a means to intimidate blacks and to reinforce beliefs in Jim Crow Segregation and opposition to civil rights. If a community decides that these symbols no longer represent their values then down they should and will come.
The naming of US Military Forts after Officers that we’re not only enemies of the United States but many, like Braxton Bragg were also Jackasses and military incompetents is both absurd and ironic. Equally insulting is that not a single Military instillation is named after U. S. Grant who was by far the greatest General of the Civil war and a savior of our nation but was also the first truly modern military General. I would like nothing better than to see Fort Bragg’s name changed to Fort Grant.
Having said all this I’m critical of much that is being written at this time by polemicist who want to eliminate these historically absurd iconography (not that I don’t support that). They tend to be guilty of two historical crimes. The first is “The victor gets to write the history” and the second is viewing history anachronistically. For example this dismissive attitude of Southerners and how the could have went to war over a cause as terrible as slavery.
The Civil War was in fact, as many Southerners claim, the second American Revolution or more correctly counter revolution. The aristocratic agrarian South with it’s feudal social system was far more like the rest of the world at that time where slave/serf caste systems predominated and the small geographic regions of Northern Europe and the Northern US with their industrial revolution dependent on highly skilled free labor were in fact revolutionary. In that respect the Confederates weren’t exactly wrong in considering themselves the true inheritors of the American Revolution by fighting a counter revolution against the United States Industrial Revolution and to protect slavery and a white supremacist aristocracy. This is important history for us all to understand as it gives us an understanding of why so many good people could support such a vile and evil system as chattel slavery as that is how most of the worlds societies were at that time.
So even though we have grown as a nation and found a far superior and egalitarian way to structure our society that is infinitely superior these facts of history should not be forgotten or dismissed as old and obsolete history but should be remembered and used to reconcile this nation from its divided past.
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That's the way this goes across the issue board.
