<p>Tar - up here - probably the corner of Sherman and Peabody. (g)
now to see who admits to getting that.
I hope folks who read your statement understand how Black folks feel when they see those statues of Lee.
Sad to say I would betcha cash money that most residents of those streets would have little or no clue who they were in US History. I am in love with Owen Parry's civil war mysteries and 90% of what I am told is historical fact were things I didn't know.
if you're into it and not too turned off you can do a day long horseback ride with tour guide at Gettysburg. my idea of fun.</p>
<p>Old: </p>
<p>I've been to Gettysburg many times. I've never done it on horseback. I think my saddle toughness is pretty tender these days. I have hired a guide for a day, though, and walked or driven the whole battle from the first contact to that long march from Seminary Ridge to Cemetary Ridge.</p>
<p>I suppose there's a time machine on the corner of Sherman and Peabody?</p>
<p>BusinessGuy: </p>
<p>Of course the slaves represented an economic issue. That's the point of slavery.</p>
<p>I can't ascribe moral equivalence to the abundance of immigrant labor in the northern cities and slavery in the South. The immigrants, for the most part, came of their own free wills, were free to migrate westwards or anywhere else they wanted, had legal rights and recourse to the courts or, failing that, were able to organize into protection and vigilante gangs.</p>
<p>The slaves were taken from their homes and families involuntarily, were not free to go anywhere their masters didn't want them to go, had no legal rights (in most jurisdictions), and were unable to organize except in a few, unsuccessful revolts that led to even more repression throughout the South. Slaves could be beaten, mutilated, raped, bred, worked to death, forced into a prizefight, and be sold away from their friends and families with no recourse of any kind.</p>
<p>In an earlier post, you represented slavery as being akin to an economy based on cattle. I can't make that leap from human beings to cattle.</p>
<p>Regardless of the moral issues involved, it is certainly true that Confederate generals and soldiers fought to preserve a cultural and economic system built on the human misery of others.</p>
<p>As for your assertion that I am "ignorant," I'll leave that judgment to others who view what we write, here.</p>
<p>Tar, here's another sobriquet for you: The War of Northern Totalitarian Territorial Aggrandizement. As reported to me by a history prof who hailed from Virginia.</p>
<p>I spent some time in the Deep South as a child, shortly after the forced integration of public schools. It was...interesting; e.g., the "colored" drinking fountain. Southern attitudes have improved a lot--though they have a long way to go, imo.</p>
<p>TheDad:</p>
<p>Was there a colored drinking fountain in an integrated school? That suprises me. In my little corner of the South, the apartheid stuff like separate drinking fountains, bathrooms, waiting rooms, and even seats in the movie theater had gone before school desegregation.</p>
<p>businessguy. I cannot agree with you on this at all. You know something offends a good portion of the population and has no useful effect on anyone else, and imho adds to divisiveness in this country.</p>
<p>Tar, the drinking fountain was theoretically integrated, as was the rest of the school by the time I was there, but by tradition it was still the "colored" drinking fountain (1956) and white kids asked me why I used it. New Orleans, fwiw. I missed having to go to school in Hattiesburg, thank goodness.</p>
<p>I look at voting patterns to see how much has changed...or not.</p>
<p>Tarhunt -
pick up a fleece pad at a tack store and do the mounted tour. Even a short ride will give you a feel of the difference in perspective. We did it a number of years ago and it was definately worth it. </p>
<p>Oldin -
"the majority of northern white folks do not have ancestors that were here during the Civil War. "
Mine were being displaced in Bosnia and other places in Europe where people perenially run with scissors and do not play well with others. America's ability to heal - albeit imperfectly - was one of the things my grandparents loved about it.</p>
<p>TheDad:</p>
<p>What's interesting about this is that 1956 is pretty early for integration. That must have been one of the first school districts to do so. My own district intgrated in the fall of 1969.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think it's fair to say that the Civil War actually made the US a real nation instead of a loose cooperative of sovereign states. In that reality, it is very difficult to call RE Lee a "traitor," even if he did swear an oath to the US.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>In a very real sense, the Civil War/War Between the States was the final chapter of the Revolutionary War. The compromises included in the Constitution to blend disparate colonies into a single political entity hamstrung development, thwarted unity and generally created a situation where you can make an excellent argument that a soldier like Robert E. Lee was a Virginian who chose to serve in the Regular Army rather than the Virginia Militia. I wish I could find the right quote, but I am sure that some of the founding fathers pessimistically predicted that leaving the issue of slavery unresolved meant future warfare and bloodshed. Before the war, the country was a collection of states, but after the war, it was a single nation whether the defeated southerners liked it or not. The Industrial Revolution, moved into fast-forward by the war, continued the destruction of the prewar culture of the United States, and replaced it with a more federally-oriented view. Nothing else would change the US as much between the birth of the nation and the creation of the giant federal bureacracy in the mid-1900s.</p>
<p>Technically, Lee was not even in violation of his oath and his commission, as he formally resigned from the army before taking up arms for the Confederacy. Had he acted against the best interest of the United States while a serving officer he would have been a traitor. The US was not a monarchy -- joining the army was not a life-long oath of fealty to a king.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You know something offends a good portion of the population and has no useful effect on anyone else, and imho adds to divisiveness in this country.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This sort of comment just makes me mad. So, diversity is fine unless it makes someone uncomfortable? Forget that. I'll take the First Amendment as written, thank you very much, and live with the consequences.</p>
<p>Businessguy--I agree; of the 4, only Lee was a good guy. </p>
<p>Tarhunt--well put. Thanks for the quotes from the States.
I too grew up in Virginia. It wasn't until I went to college and one of my 3 roommates was black that it even occurred to me that the Confederate flag might be offensive. Then I understood it right away, I hasten to say.</p>
<p>Btw, what town are you from? Petersburg, here. Battle of the Crater, and the town has never recovered, let me tell you.</p>
<p>I remember the case of the judge in Harris county that had the six flags that flew over TX on the wall in his courtroom, and they were all period pieces. He was censured for having the confederate flag. He took all of them down. I thought this was a terrible shame. We cannot rewrite history. The flag flew, and it is part of our heritage, like it or not. Shouldn't it stand as an example of an era that wasn't our proudest and the other flags show where we came from and we finally went? Revisionism is never good. We need to remember so history doesn't repeat itself. I think they should add statues of Houston and Travis, the Presidents, etc., as a show of our journey as a state.</p>
<p>Even Marse Robert had disparaging things to say about the capabilities of Negroes. Lee has been romanticized into something larger than life and perhaps he was; he's certainly something of a Shakespearian tragic figure. Come to think of it, Lincoln, Sherman, and Grant could also slip into the Bard's canon without much more than a ripple.</p>
<p>I highly recommend Ken Burns' documentary on the Civil War for a not-so-quick skimming the surface of the Civil War. After whimpering and whining, I got it as a present this last Christmas. (TheMom says I'm hard to shop for so a certain amount of direction-providing w & w is accepted.)</p>
<p>We visited Gettysburg during D's college search trips to the D.C. area, with Gettysburg College a potential Safety (it was a quick "NO!"). We took a CD-guided tour of the battlefield, parking the car and walking/climbing at many points. It was mid-afternoon when we reached the point from which Pickett's division left for their fateful charge. I held my hands as if at port arms, advancing toward Cemetary Ridge at normal "advance" pace. I'm ordinarily not very mystical but that day in the rustle of the leaves and the wind coursing through the branches above I heard ghosts whispering. Even now, it gives me a frisson to think upon it. After about three minutes I paused, looked at how much further I had to go, and turned back, imagining the Union cannon blasting away.</p>
<p>The circuit was completed late that afternoon. It was twilight when I stood in the Angle, not far from where Colonel Armisted was shot down. The ghosts were still then, but they still mourned, Union or Confederate, it didn't matter, they mourned as one.</p>
<p>====</p>
<p>And of course the Civil War was about slavery. I takes overwhelming ignorance or racist denial to think otherwise. Lee & The Civil War is one of my touchstones, showing that even good people can take the side of a bad cause, that seas of sacrifice don't make a cause any nobler or more correct (I think there's a contemporary application of that...it might come to me if I ponder a bit), and that intense passion says nothing about the merits or outcome of a cause.</p>
<p>By the way tarhunt, I didn't mean to imply in any way that you were ignorant, I actually enjoyed your posts a great deal - I was referring to the people who may be in Texas objecting to things they are not educated about.</p>
<p>I also specifically left out the moral situation of the slaves as I don't believe it's all to pertinent in a discussion of the economy.</p>
<p>My intent was to show that the vast majority of Americans, especially those who are offended by the Confederacy, only consider the moral perspective and fail to see the economic reasons behind the decisions made by the Confederate leaders and the attitude of the people.</p>
<p>I think we are in agreement Tarhunt, I apologize if it was slightly unclear.</p>
<p>BG:</p>
<p>Sorry I misinterpreted. Thanks for the clarification.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I can't ascribe moral equivalence to the abundance of immigrant labor in the northern cities and slavery in the South. The immigrants, for the most part, came of their own free wills, were free to migrate westwards or anywhere else they wanted, had legal rights and recourse to the courts or, failing that, were able to organize into protection and vigilante gangs.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think you need to do some reading before you take this position, maybe Upton Sinclair "The Jungle" along with others. The immigrant labor force was pretty much enslaved or starved. Unionization was their civil war.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think you need to do some reading before you take this position, maybe Upton Sinclair "The Jungle" along with others. The immigrant labor force was pretty much enslaved or starved. Unionization was their civil war.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I love these sorts of arguments. In essence, they are "I'm better educated than you, therefore, you are wrong." There are never actually any data. Just the old "you're stupid" or "you're badly educated."</p>
<p>I have read "The Jungle" (who hasn't?) and "The Octopus." I've also read a number of works on immigration to America that aren't works of fiction, including exhaustive tomes on the Five Points area of New York because it interests me. I also have an interest in vigilanteism in the US, which has some of its roots in the immigrant populations of the Northeast and Midwest, and some of its roots in the South.</p>
<p>Immigrant laborers were not treated well by any stretch of the imagination. But they were not slaves.</p>
<p>I dont think the statues should be removed at all!!</p>
<p>First off, the statues have been there for a long time, therefore they're a part of the history and heritage of that school. Just because some dont like it, too bad, deal with it. Why dont they start burning books that offend, like Tom Sawyer, hey why not just get rid of all of them so that way no one will ever know about Tom Sawyer ever again.</p>
<p>So say 50 years from now New York's population is made up of 100% minorities that came from different countries. Now imagine they say "the statue of liberty is offensive to us, we want it removed" should history and culture be removed because whiners complain? Hell no!!</p>
<p>"This sort of comment just makes me mad. So, diversity is fine unless it makes someone uncomfortable? Forget that. I'll take the First Amendment as written, thank you very much, and live with the consequences."
It is my impression that rights stop where they infringe on others. Ok someone clarifiy this for me...if I yell racial slurs, burn a cross, paint a nazi symbol, etc. ...is all or some of this illegal?
Now if (not saying it is true) the people most likely to yell racial slurs are the people most likely to want a Confederate flag, it seems to me that the symbol of the flag has been taken over by that association, and that should be considered. A swastika is ancient, not German and found in various cultures, yet it is considered a hate crime to paint it on a temple, isn't it?<br>
Why leave symbols with this association when you can still study, display and teach the info in a less confrontational way?</p>