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Confederate memorial to be removed in coming days from Arlington National Cemetery

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/confederate-memorial-to-be-removed-in-coming-days-from-arlington-national-cemetery/

A Confederate memorial's days at Arlington National Cemetery are numbered.

A Confederate memorial is to be removed from Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia in the coming days, part of the push to remove symbols that commemorate the Confederacy from military-related facilities, a cemetery official said Saturday.

The decision ignores a recent demand from more than 40 Republican congressmen that the Pentagon suspend efforts to dismantle and remove the monument from Arlington cemetery.

42 comments

cbarrick

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There's a Confederate memorial in the National Cemetery?

What the actual fuck! They were literally the enemy of the United States.

DemBoSain

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Plus, Arlington was taken from Robert E. Lee specifically to become the National Cemetery.

derf82

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It was a deliberate “fuck you” to the confederacy. They literally said they wanted to bury the soldiers on the land of the man that killed them. Having a Confederate memorial is purely disrespectful. But they put it in the early 20th century where they started that Lost Cause BS while at the same time justifying Jim Crow.

GlitzyArmrest

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Traitors don't deserve monuments, especially not in Arlington National Cemetery.

yOya

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Permanently Deleted

AbouBenAdhem

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The statue, unveiled in 1914, features a bronze woman, crowned with olive leaves, standing on a 32-foot pedestal, and was designed to represent the American South. According to Arlington, the woman holds a laurel wreath, a plow stock and a pruning hook, with a Biblical inscription at her feet that says: “They have beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks.”

I dunno, it sounds like the old Roman war memorials depicting their defeated enemies submitting to peace.

Edit: I just read the Wikipedia article describing the monument’s design and history. The sculptor was actually working in Rome, so the similarity to Roman monuments may not be accidental. But he was also using the monument to imply that Black slaves supported the Confederate cause, so the memorial’s removal is clearly appropriate.

nyahlathotep

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That does sound more like a monument to their defeat than to the confederacy itself

be_excellent_to_each_other

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A shame he stopped where he did. I'm sure that's a coincidence.

Some of the figures also on the statue include a Black woman depicted as “Mammy” holding what is said to be the child of a white officer, and an enslaved man following his owner to war.

nyahlathotep

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Yeah, ok, fuck that. Tear the fucker down

Catoblepas

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Do the next sentence too:

Some of the figures also on the statue include a Black woman depicted as “Mammy” holding what is said to be the child of a white officer, and an enslaved man following his owner to war.

NoSpiritAnimal

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Yeah if we had treated them the way Rome treated it's conquests or if they had actually beaten their swords into plough shares this might be true.

Back in reality their great-grandchildren are trying to bring about civil war 2.

So no, this is a monument to an imaginary peace held by traitors that should be melted down into a monument to all the slaves who were forced to fight against their own freedom.

be_excellent_to_each_other

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Holy selective quotation, Batman!

Socsa

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The whole "lost cause" movement is about making it seem as if the Confederates were the "ethical" side, even though they lost. They symbology of the statue is heavily wrapped up in this concept - that even though the Confederacy was defeated, it was just and noble. Which, of course, implies that it would be noble to try again one day.

Altofaltception

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Can we have a similar monument for Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda?

Stern

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I dunno how many Al Qaeda members are buried in Arlington Cemetery. Should prob look that up.

Altofaltception

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Well there is a precedent where they buried enemy combatants in Arlington.

PugJesus

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Good fucking riddance.

derf82

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The decision ignores a recent demand from more than 40 Republican congressmen that the Pentagon suspend efforts to dismantle and remove the monument from Arlington cemetery.

The “party of Lincoln” everyone. /s

What awful humans Republicans are

Ultraviolet

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I thought they didn't like participation trophies.

reverendsteveii

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dope. arlington is for people who died defending america, not for people who died trying to destroy it. racist traitors don't get consolation prizes, they should've been hanged for the traitors they were.

PeckerBrown

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Good. Fuck racist pricks, fuck the GOP, and fuuuuuuucccckkkk Trump.

Whiskeyomega

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Whats Matthew Perry Got to do with the price of fish ? Oh crappy website cant be scraped for correct article info and instead gets info on Matthew Perry if you dont edit it.

WeDoTheWeirdStuff

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They are replacing the statue with a tribute to Matthew Perry

Semi-Hemi-Demigod

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Friends ran for ten years. The CSA existed for four years. Technically Chandler is a bigger part of US history.

FlyingSquid

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I like telling those "my heritage" people that the Obama administration lasted three more years than the Confederacy, making Obama a far greater part of their heritage.

IHeartBadCode

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dumdum666

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That’s a well known kbin bug - sometimes random images are selected (even porn)

pan_troglodytes

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removing traces of history just means we're doomed to repeat it...

GlitzyArmrest

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Does removing a monument also erase history books somehow?

conquer4

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No, just republicans erase books currently

FlyingSquid

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How is a monument put up in 1914 a trace of history?

Unless you mean the history of racists who praised the Confederacy but were never a part of it.

Machinist3359

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Simply replace it with a memorial for the enslaved folks these losers fought to subjugate. Let the Confederate legacy be lost to time and honor the people who persevered through unimaginable evils.

be_excellent_to_each_other

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The folks itching to repeat it are the same folks who have hooked their "heritage" on a traitorous nation that lasted less time than some of my underwear and socks.

I don't think removing these monuments to traitors from US soil is going to make much of a difference to them.

Also - monuments aren't history books, and the folks trying to get sensitive events out of history books are also the same group of people trying to keep the monuments to traitors in place.

Tremble

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This. I grew up in Virginia with folks talking about how the civil war was about states rights and not about slavery.

They use all kinds of circular and backwards thinking to somehow suggest that the confederates were heroes.

Smelt all the confederate statues to make new statues that commemorate all the people who fought against these racist southern bigots.

Take your southern heritage and shove back up your ass where it came from in the first place.

be_excellent_to_each_other

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This. I grew up in Virginia with folks talking about how the civil war was about states rights and not about slavery.

Tremble

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I used to believe it, and have made the argument more than once as a young person growing up.

be_excellent_to_each_other

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Grew up in a similar bubble, I get it.

callouscomic

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Books and museums about the Civil War literally still exist.

Potatos_are_not_friends

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Lol we don't reward losers

Catoblepas

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Where are all the monuments to Hitler in Germany?

DannyMac

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Sadly, there's probably a huge overlap between the people for keeping that monument and people that wouldn't be opposed to installing Nazi monuments

FlyingSquid

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Fair enough- when are they going to put up the memorial to Osama Bin Laden in Times Square?

GiddyGap

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We don't want to celebrate wrongdoers with memorials.

There's a reason why you don't see statues of Hitler in Germany. That doesn't mean he's not part of their history or that they are not trying to learn from the mistakes.

Ultraviolet

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Most of the Confederate monuments were put up by the KKK in the early 20th century as an intimidation tactic.

derf82

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Honoring racist pieces of shit just makes more people racist pieces of shit.