This is how I got it to work, more directly.

https://videosift.com/video/Why-do-these-confederate-monuments-fall-apart-so-easily?vs6=optout

The Jamal Washington monument looks awesome.

Is he a dude I should know about or has Bill just picked a "black sounding" name?

@newtboy --

Yarr. I had a pretty long response typed up, and then accidentally clicked on a link and lost it.

So here's a short version:

I agree with you on pretty much everything, but "all statues and other monuments celebrating the insurrection should go" has some caveats for me.

Civic places like government buildings, city parks, etc.? Yeah, they should all go (including the State flags that incorporate the stars and bars). But museums (which you noted you are OK with), battlefields, and even a landmark or two like Stone Mountain I feel can be re-purposed so they aren't necessarily "celebrating the insurrection" so much as "reminding us of the evil that can exist in the hearts of men -- even men that some people respect".

Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly said "It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sumbitch or another." Easier to remember that for Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee, and Stonewall Jackson, given that their roles in the Confederacy are pretty defining aspects of their legacies. But it remains true for some people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and many other founding fathers that were also slave owners, even though we often conveniently forget that aspect of their history.


--EDIT--
Oh, by the way, I love that Malcolm Reynolds quote from Firefly, and there's a rather similar one made by the Hound in the (leaked) S07E06 episode of Game of Thrones:
"Every lord I've ever known has been a cunt. Don't see why the Lord of Light should be any different."

Not as relevant as the other one, but I liked it.

That's true. And only a racist would celebrate racists, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_who_owned_slaves

Time for Americans to do some real introspection. Slavery isn't acceptable because the founding fathers did it. Considering the Constitution and the Bill of Rights they penned, it seems all the worse that they could recognise the evil slavery was yet still profit from it (and they're not suddenly good people because they released some of their slaves, or released them after they died).

I think making sure history is well recorded and taught correctly is more important than tearing down a statue. If a statue or monument is left up then it needs to clearly state the history of the subject and how they were on the "wrong side of history".

I think it is possible to recognise the good and bad that an individual has done.

Sorry, but you missed the point imo. Confederates were NOT real Americans, they were real traitors to America who renounced their citizenship and fought to destroy the Union....largely to protect their rights to own people.

I'm not for whitewashing history, but I do think all statues and other monuments celebrating the insurrection should go...because I'm a patriot and would never celebrate our enemies.
Funny enough, Robert E Lee agreed there should be no monuments, he knew they breed hatred on both sides.

As an American, it is pretty easy to say they were wrong, and I'm from Houston and I'm actually related to Lee through two separate lines. That changes nothing. Treason is wrong, period.

I'm part way there. In government buildings, city parks, etc., sure -- take 'em down. State flags incorporating the confederate flag? Yeah. Probably time to change.

Civil war battlefields / memorials? Leave 'em up. Stone Mountain? Leave it. Placards noting that these people fought for the wrong side, for wrong reasons (90% of which boils down to slavery) can / should be included. Make it clear that the efforts of these people to try to keep slavery around were evil and wrong.

I've seen it noted that there are no monuments to Hitler in Germany. True, but reminders of the terrible Nazi legacy remain, in Germany and elsewhere. Concentration camps remain, still standing as a reminder of the human capacity for evil. Nazi flags, logos, and equipment remain in museums.

In China, images and monuments to Mao are everywhere. In spite of the fact that even the Communist Party there admits that his policies and actions were terrible -- the devastating Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, etc. Some Chinese can remember and celebrate the good that Mao did (perhaps a small list) while simultaneously acknowledging his extremely tarnished legacy.


I think that being very quick to say that ALL people on the Confederate side of the Civil War were evil and wrong while their counterparts in the Union were clearly the "real Americans" is entirely too easy. The CSA was founded almost entirely in support of a very evil primary goal -- to keep slavery around. But the people in it, even the people running it, were different from the people on the other side mainly due to accidents of birth location. They fought for what they thought was necessary / right. They were wrong. But, they were real Americans -- and acknowledging that they could have been wrong in that way reminds us that the potential to end up on the wrong side of history also exists for us.

6/10 polled said they believe they should remain, a tiny bit different from wanting them standing, but surprising none the less.
So was this quote from Robert E Lee denouncing civil war monuments....

“I think it wiser,” the retired military leader wrote about a proposed Gettysburg memorial in 1869, “…not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/robert-e-lee-opposed-confederate-monuments/

Your video, The Battle Over Confederate Monuments, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Obama: a Hollow Man Filled With Ruling Class Ideas

If you read that piece by Paul Street, I guarantee you will not regret it. You might need a cup of coffee though, it's rather long. And maybe a punching bag.

Appetizer:
"Like his politico-ideological soul-brothers Bill Clinton and Tony Blair (and perhaps now Emmanuel Macron), Obama’s public life has been a wretched monument to the dark power of the neoliberal corporate-financial and imperial agendas behind the progressive pretense of façade of telegenic and silver-tongued professional class politicos."

Please, Al Franken is such a monumental idiot that he can't take a piss without getting some in his mouth. His "explanation" is fictional thinking on an embarrassing level.

Maybe they just really like the Washington Monument. :3

I've said this a few times but it never fails to amaze me.

As i understand it, this incident was preceded by a high speed chase which endangers everyone, the officers, the suspect and everyone on the streets. Adrenaline is high and i even understand maybe wanting to whack the guy.

But for the love, you have to KNOW their are helicopters and people recording you. Its absolutely inescapable.

So that leaves monumental stupidity and somehow not realizing this fact, or they simply have zero fear of reprisal or consequence.

I'm not really sure there is a third option.

So people ought to keep cows, evolutionary monuments to human carnivory and lacto-parasitism, in a state of captivity and dependence, purely for their amusement?

Vegans are astonishing.

If it were a public figure or an elected official, I wouldn't have a problem at all with them being fired.

I'm not sure if that TED talk example fits exactly. She was a PR manager right? For someone in the PR biz, that was just monumentally stupid thing to say and someone in PR should know better so I find it hard to have sympathy for someone in that case.

But yeah, it's a blurry line to be sure. For me it's a very potent example of why direct democracy isn't always great and why it's a good thing that we elect individuals to make decisions for us to counter the mob with pitchforks mentality that large groups of people tend to have.

Could you imagine if we put EVERYTHING to a popular vote? Sure some things might become more progressive, but then crap like this would happen. Imagine if the decision to use the nuclear bomb was up to direct popular vote. Our planet would be an irradiated wasteland many times over.