New Orleans protesters launch last-ditch effort to protect Confederate monuments

[Toews]

Quote

James Brousse plans to spend a good chunk of the next few weeks "protecting" New Orleans' Confederate monuments from impending demolition, and the 81-year-old has a message for police who will try to keep the peace: You can leave the snipers at home.

 

Brousse, the commander of the local chapter of Sons of Confederate Veterans, is part of a group of about a dozen people who have stood vigil for the past week at three monuments honoring the Confederacy — landmarks that city leaders say are mostly out of touch with how most residents see their city.

 

Brousse was at the first protest, surrounded by what he called an "overblown" police presence, holding candles and watching quietly as workers disassembled a monument honoring rebels who tried to overthrow the New Orleans city government after the Civil War.

 

And Brousse and his ad hoc group (some are members of Sons of Confederate Veterans, though the group has not officially endorsed the protests) are vowing to continue "protecting" the remaining monuments, which honor Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, a Louisiana native.

 

 

The desire to deconstruct the monuments came as the city began rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The anti-Confederate sentiment intensified in New Orleans, as it has elsewhere, after nine black churchgoers were killed June 17, 2015, at a church in Charleston, S.C., in a racially-motivated massacre. The killer, Dylann Roof, was seen on one website holding a gun in one hand and a Confederate flag in the other.

 

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, a Democrat, has contended that memorials to the defenders of slavery are out of touch with the opinions of most of the city's residents. The monuments also put some of the most divisive parts of the city's past in some of its most prominent places, he has said.

 

...

As The Washington Post reported, the workers who removed the first memorial on the morning of April 24 wore masks, flak jackets and Kevlar helmets. They were protected by police snipers perched in a nearby building.

 

The mayor said the extra protection was needed because of threats made to contractors hired to remove the monuments. Shortly after the city announced that David Mahler's company received a contract, his $200,000 Lamborghini was torched, according to CBS affiliate KLFY in Lafayette, La.

 

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-new-orleans-confederate-monuments-20170430-story.html

 

Should monuments that symbolize racism and oppression be preserved for historical purposes or removed?

I vote instant removal. Destroy all of them. the confederates were losers anyway, not sure why we need to preserve their consolation prizes.

[Tre Mac]

Keep the Dukes of Hazard car(general lee) but destroy the rest.

[HerrDrFunk]

10 minutes ago, Tre Mac said:

Keep the Dukes of Hazard car(general lee) but destroy the rest.

Funnily enough, that show destroyed more General Lees than any union army could have ever hoped to.

[higgyfan]

I don't agree with demolishing the buildings, as it seems like they destroying their history (and hiding it away to boot).

 

Slavery and severe racism is clearly part of the American history and should never be diminished or hidden.  Keep the buildings and provide detailed information of what the Confederate Army stood for and how the citizens of the armies' states treated 'people of colour'. 

 

Of course, this information would have to be easily accessible to younger and future generations and be sheltered from the various rednecks who would like to vandalize it.

 

 

[HerrDrFunk]

11 minutes ago, higgyfan said:

I don't agree with demolishing the buildings, as it seems like they destroying their history (and hiding it away to boot).

 

Slavery and severe racism is clearly part of the American history and should never be diminished or hidden.  Keep the buildings and provide detailed information of what the Confederate Army stood for and how the citizens of the armies' states treated 'people of colour'. 

 

Of course, this information would have to be easily accessible to younger and future generations and be sheltered from the various rednecks who would like to vandalize it.

They're not buildings, they're monuments. Does anyone really think a fantastically racist PoS like Jefferson Davis should be honored?

[higgyfan]

Just now, HerrDrFunk said:

They're not buildings, they're monuments. Does anyone really think a fantastically racist PoS like Jefferson Davis should be honored?

No, I don't think he should be honoured.  I just don't want him, or the rest of his cronies to be forgotten.

[Bo053]

It's still history, once you start taking down things just because you don't like that certain part of history where does it stop?

[prix57]

I guess this is probably a false equivalency but another group is going around destroying historic monuments in another part of the world.

 

http://www.boredpanda.com/before-after-isis-destroyed-monuments-palmyra/

[Tortorella's Rant]

"omg they're erasing history!"

No, you can still find out all about these characters in museums, books, online, and so forth. 

[Lancaster]

10 minutes ago, Tortorella's Rant said:

"omg they're erasing history!"

No, you can still find out all about these characters in museums, books, online, and so forth. 

Well... if a museum wants to remove "offensive" material.... who will protest that?  I mean... if you really want to find out all about these characters... just go online.

 

In any case, not everyone who supported the Confederate state were racist.  It was a multi-layered issue with many different people on either side of the war supporting for whatever reason.  

 

As the saying goes, "Whoever controls the past, controls the future."

[Johnny Shotgun]

1 hour ago, HerrDrFunk said:

Funnily enough, that show destroyed more General Lees than any union army could have ever hoped to.

But it sure drove the prices up for 68/69 Chargers!  I had a 1969 Charger with a 383 back in the early 70's never should have sold it. Hindsight hindsight.

[Johnny Shotgun]

1 hour ago, higgyfan said:

I don't agree with demolishing the buildings, as it seems like they destroying their history (and hiding it away to boot).

 

Slavery and severe racism is clearly part of the American history and should never be diminished or hidden.  Keep the buildings and provide detailed information of what the Confederate Army stood for and how the citizens of the armies' states treated 'people of colour'. 

 

Of course, this information would have to be easily accessible to younger and future generations and be sheltered from the various rednecks who would like to vandalize it.

 

 

They keep Auschwitz don't they.

[prix57]

With the way the monuments were regularly getting vandalized its probably a good idea to remove them.  Keeping these monuments up doesn't really do any good.  It would be similar to European countries keeping monuments from Nazi's up after WW2.  Historical sites or structures would be different (ie Auschwitz, Dachau, etc).

 

[Johnny Shotgun]

1 hour ago, Bo053 said:

It's still history, once you start taking down things just because you don't like that certain part of history where does it stop?

I think one of the first times I ever heard of ISIS was when they were dynamiting ancient monuments in Mosul that didn't jive with their beliefs.   "Keep dynamiting and jive on"   

[LordCanuck]

29 minutes ago, Johnny Shotgun said:

They keep Auschwitz don't they.

they dont have a monument with hitler and how many people he killed there do they?

[Johnny Shotgun]

51 minutes ago, Tortorella's Rant said:

"omg they're erasing history!"

No, you can still find out all about these characters in museums, books, online, and so forth. 

Yeah good eye deer!   Lets take them dusty ol' pyramiddy things down and slice 'em up for cooking crawdads on over the fire.  We can look at the pictures anytime.

[Johnny Shotgun]

6 minutes ago, LordCanuck said:

they dont have a monument with hitler and how many people he killed there do they?

They keep it to remember a very dark stain in our history.  One that should never be forgotten.  That had to be explained to you?

[Tortorella's Rant]

9 minutes ago, Johnny Shotgun said:

Yeah good eye deer!   Lets take them dusty ol' pyramiddy things down and slice 'em up for cooking crawdads on over the fire.  We can look at the pictures anytime.

Right. The Confederacy consisted of traitors, and they lost. &^@# them. Traitorous losers shouldn't be propped up in the city square as some band of heroes. Same goes for their flag. The only one that really mattered there at the end of the day was the white one they waved in surrender. 

[LordCanuck]

17 minutes ago, Johnny Shotgun said:

They keep it to remember a very dark stain in our history.  One that should never be forgotten.  That had to be explained to you?

what there doing in lousiana is taking down statues commemorating the souths military and political figures. They lost, should never have been put up in the first place and to compare Auschwitz to a stupid statue is SO disrespectful its not funny. They have memorials at the battles of the civil war. So ur arguments are dumb 

[Johnny Shotgun]

8 minutes ago, Tortorella's Rant said:

Right. The Confederacy consisted of traitors, and they lost. &^@# them. Traitorous losers shouldn't be propped up in the city square as some band of heroes. Same goes for their flag. The only one that really mattered there at the end of the day was the white one they waved in surrender. 

Actually the Civil War was more about two different economic models competing against each other in a young country bound loosely together. Northern industrialization against Southern agriculture.  Slavery was used both north and south albeit more so in the south in the lead up years.  European nations together with African allies who prayed on their weaker brothers all participated in the trade. No one's hands were clean.  Where to you think all that material that feed England's cotton (gin) mills came from. Yet they stood by and profited.  Robert E. Lee served 32 years in the US Army prior to the war and was slated for high command in the Union army by people like Lincoln but when Virginia broke away he declined.  He deserves recognition and those like him.