After Confederate statues, America's culture war targets Betsy Ross and a founding father

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | July 4, 2019 | Stead Sellers and Alex Horton

[artichokegrower]

As the nation has celebrated its birthday with displays of its contemporary power and prestige this week, two of its cherished historic symbols came under fire - its first flag and its third president.

[artichokegrower]

The nation's growing diversity and polarization has prompted an outcry over the stain of slavery and a reckoning with some of America's most identifiable historic symbols. The debate over which figures and moments are to be celebrated and which condemned has shifted from emblems of the fallen Confederacy to those that are foundational to the nation's origin. The giants of U.S. history are being taken off their pedestals, both literally and figuratively, to be reexamined, warts and all.

And thus begins the destruction of what was the United States of America.

[madprof98]

“Begins”??? I think we’re close to the end myself.

[himno hero]

The erasure of history and heritage are common to both marxism and islam.
That is why in my mind its a marxist muslim attack on America.
That same force is the one that propelled Obama, foisting him on America.
Global resources were harnessed to make it happen.
The attack is still on, and the prescription for remedy is President Trump and ike thinkers.

[lodi90]

This shoe nonsense is just the latest proof there is no opposition party to the progressive-corportist complex. We need substantive pushback on these fascists. Not meaningless virtue signalling from useless US Senators.

[OttawaFreeper]

It’s just simply time to walk away from the bloated, emptyheaded celebrity culture and when directly confronted by it, actively resist in one way or another and in both big and small ways.

[chris37]

It has been underway for at least 100 years.

[Trump20162020]

If you sided with the Left on Confederate memorials, you don't get to complain. That was always just their opening salvo. After the Confederacy it's Andrew Jackson, Christopher Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, etc. Then maybe Texas Revolution figures. It'll finally culminate with the Founding Fathers themselves. They're not entirely there yet, but give them another decade or so. The Democrats are turning into America's own version of the ANC, and all history before The Party's ascension may be examined for being offensive.

Wonder if they'll eventually turn on their own heroes. How long can they stay 'woke' and give progressive icon FDR a pass on Japanese internment?

[Lurkinanloomin]

Be sure to thank Nikki Haley for kicking off this erasure of American history.

[LouAvul]

America's culture war is attacking all things American. Caucasians. (Even though stupid liberal crackers think they're immune.) All references to and ideology focused on Jesus Christ. Our military strength. Etc.

We're witnessing the collapse of the greatest nation. Once we're gone, the world is going to see how important we were. America was/is the only thing standing between billions of people and Outer Darkness.

It'll be like when the communists overran southeast Asia. When we were there, we kept them at bay. Heck, if it hadn't been for faggot liberals in congress, we would have won. But because of Walter Kronkite and his ilk.......

And when the communists took over southeast Asia, they weren't interested in simply conquering. They were intent upon annihilation.

People, especially our own people, are going to see this. Unless they grow more than their two or three functioning IQ points, that is. There's still time if they can just grow a brain.

[VanDeKoik]

I’m thinking of replacing my 50 star flag outside with the 13 star one permanently.

If I’m going to have my personal wall on this, then I’ll start there.

[Lurkinanloomin]

Bush League Republicans MUST become extinct before the Republic does.

[nathanbedford]

ICONOCLASM SPASM

Some Thoughts on the Destruction of Statues of Confederate War Heroes

My consistent reaction over time to the destruction of statues of Confederate generals has been to regard them as spasms of the mob and the product of cultish ideology. More particularly in the instances of Robert E Lee or Nathan Bedford Forrest, the desecrations are the product of a generation of miss education

Historically, they have a broader meaning and a sinister impulse. The French Revolution stands as an example of iconoclasm as a tool of social control rather than a mere expression of ideological purity.

Statues are icons and for millennia icons have stood in the place of written language. They are a visible, physical symbol of what is to be respected, venerated or even worshiped. Often after an episode of iconoclastic destruction new icons are erected to represent the new values to be respected, venerated or worshiped.

So in the French Revolution we saw the deliberate destruction of churches as well as the physical destruction of the bodies of priests and nuns, we saw the decapitation of the statues of Kings along the façade of Notre Dame, we saw the decapitation of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. All this was part of the rabid anticlericalism of the French Revolution. But keep in mind, the destruction of religious icons in the course of the French Revolution was not limited to the initial adrenaline upheaval but extended for four years when one might have expected passions to have cooled.

Not surprisingly, after Robespierre had led the way in a blood spasm of murder and iconoclasm, he turned about and erected a new icon toward a supreme being and summoned the people to a festival. Shortly thereafter he was guillotined.

Robespierre had erected a new icon to represent a new supreme being who was to be celebrated, venerated or even worshiped. Napoleon came along and was not in doubt about what should be the object of iconic worship; statues of Napoleon together with paintings exaggerating his Imperial magnificence became abundant. The phrase, the man on horseback, suggests statues of Napoleon. Not coincidentally, the more the cult of Napoleon grew, the more intrusive waxed his secret police.

The point is that the spasm unleashed by the storming of the Bastille, a solid fortress torn down to rubble in a fit of iconoclasm, was a tool of the revolution, as was the propaganda of Goebbels that served the ideology of Nazism. The Jacobins knew that the icons of their ideology must supplant those of the ancient regime so they changed the calendar, renamed the months and supplanted every icon of the ancient regime they could lay their hands on.

Czar Nicholas of Russia and his family learned to their sorrow, just as Louis XVI and Marie Annette learned to their sorrow, that living human bodies are also seen as icons that must be destroyed if the ideology they represent is to be successfully supplanted. Small wonder that figures of dead Confederate generals must also be executed, decapitated, and rendered into rubble.

Quite often the iconoclasm assumes the aura of religious indignation. That is the sort of iconoclasm we have seen when the Taliban smote graven images into bits but hopefully not out of history. We saw much the same during the Protestant Reformation among the nonconformist sects who effaced religious images from church walls. These examples are illustrative of an impulse to destroy an icon not just because its presence is repugnant but because the absence of an icon is needed to conform to the theology of Islam or nonconformist sects. We are reminded that the 30 Years War was one of the worst holocausts to be visited on Europe. The German town whence my ancestor left for America in its website today describes the carnage as worse than that experienced during the second world war.

The French Revolution justified its iconoclasm by declaring it stood for liberty, equality, fraternity -all certainly enlightened impulses. But regicide or the murder of priests and nuns can hardly be described as enlightened. The Taliban justify their iconoclasm because it obeys the diktat of Allah but they proffered the same justification when they severed the heads of women and children.

When 21st-century American Talibans smash Confederate icons, they are preening their virtue for all the world to see that they themselves are not racists. They will not admit the humanity of the men whose effigies they destroy. They must make way for a whole new reality and they must sweep away historical reality to do so. The destruction of Confederate statues is not just a reaction but also a tool for social control.

God help us if the tearing down of 19th century men evolves into the destruction of 21st-century men. History tells us the temptation for the iconoclasts to indulge their ideology in blood and murder is very real.

[Lurkinanloomin]

I fly this one daily US flag is up today.

[Jim Noble]

Welcoming the Confederates back with their heritage intact was the wisest thing ever done in US politics.

Undoing it is the stupidist.

[bk1000]

No. The “stain of slavery” is one WE have overcome. WE have done away with it. Others, not so much. You will not destroy this country over its sins of the past, which people have been atoning for for generations. Enough is enough. We’ll get along or we won’t. It is easy to see who is resisting getting along.

[Skywise]

Oh no - the war is just beginning.

They just crossed the line.

[headstamp 2]

[[The nation’s growing STUPIDITY and SNOWFLAKE POPULATION has prompted an outcry over the stain of slavery and a reckoning with some of America’s most identifiable historic symbols.]]

[euram]

Years ago I told everyone I knew that the war against the Confederate flag was just a distraction. First, they started with the low hanging fruit, most Northerners, Easterners, and Westerners don’t care about the Confederate flag. Once they banished the flag, they started their war on statues, plaques, school and street names. But, their ultimate goal was to attack ALL of American history prior to about 2000, by designating it “racist, homophobic, xenophobic, sexist” etc.

It’s the boiled frog tactic.

[rintintin]

“Begins”??? I think we’re close to the end myself.”

Remember, though, that “diversity is our strength”. Didn’t George Bush tell us that while allowing illegal alien entry to soar?

Freerepublic was a bastion of support for George Bush. People got banned for criticizing him, his borders policy and his Iraq war. People got banned for saying the same things about Bush - and the Iraq War - that Trump says

[rintintin]

“Years ago I told everyone I knew that the war against the Confederate flag was just a distraction”

Nikki Haley is very popular on Freerepublic. Yet she kicked off this war on our history