Florida State Senate votes to replace statue of Confederate general in U.S. Capitol with civil rights leader.

The Florida state senate has voted to remove a Confederate general from the U.S. Capitol.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-florida-statue-20180131-story.html

Each state has a right to place two statues in statuary hall in the Old Capitol building. One of Florida's statues is Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith and will be replaced by African American civil rights leader Mary McLeod Bethune.

The vote was 37 to 0. It is likely that the Florida House will get a majority to remove the statue.

There are several Confederate leaders and generals in Statuary Hall. Once one statue is removed, it will leader others in other states with Confederate leaders in Statuary Hall to ask that their state remove Confederate statues.

https://www.aoc.gov/capitol-buildings/national-statuary-hall

However, the website doesn't mention who is Confederate or not and you also have to pull up information state by state.

Kirby will not be the first Confederate removed, Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, Alabama's statue, was replaced by Helen Keller in 2009. However, this change may not have been so much motivated by getting rid of a Confederate but putting a much more well known figure in DC.

Here is a list of the statues.

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

Again it doesn't say that the individual is a Confederate. There is a link for each individual. I see six or seven Confederates there including Kirby.

This removal also keeps the process going to eliminate Confederate statues. As soon as the removal of Confederate statues recedes form the public's attention, another removal somewhere brings it to the public's attention again and inspires someone somewhere to get rid of their Confederate statue.

Also, it brings to the public's attention that there is a whole new venue to act in removing Confederate statues.

As the statues are removed the normalization of the Confederacy will be less and less and the remaining statues, as I have said before, will seem more and more anomalous.

As there are fewer and fewer Confederate statues in major cities and then fewer Confederate statues in lesser cities, citizens in cities that still have Confederate statues are going to question their leadership as to why they still have Confederate statues. I think that this issue will raise to the surface the nature of the leadership in these cities that still have Confederate statues in 2020.

At some point a Confederate statue in the town square will be associated with a rural place that is backward and undesirable. At some point a factory or business won't be located somewhere because a Confederate statue will be seen as making it difficult to recruit potential employees to work there.

At that point there will be real pressure to get rid of Confederate statues in even the most rural conservative parts of the nation.

Richard T. Hines of the "Southern Partisan" promoted in the "Southern Partisan" Plinio Correa de Oliveira's book

The title of this article is "This Secret Catholic Exorcist Cult in Brazil is Making a Deal with the Devil."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/this-secret-catholic-exorcist-cult-in-brazil-is-making-a-deal-with-the-devil

It is about the follows of Plinio Correa de Oliveira, a far right reactionary, who founded the group, Tradition, Family and Property Association, known as TFP.

http://www.tfp.org/

He was the author of a book promoting the idea that societies needed aristocracies who should be the leaders of society. His book was "Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII." The following is the link for the book.

http://www.tfp.org/nobility/    The page should be visited to observe reactionary pre-modern thinking.

The book was advertised in the Southern Partisan, Vol. 13, 3rd Quarter, inside cover. What is interesting it is endorsed by Richard T. Hines, who is listed as the Chairman of the Confederate Memorial Committee of the District of Columbia.  The book is promoted as "A Theme Illuminating American Social History." There is a section on antebellum slave holders.

Also, Ed Meese, former Attorney General and Counselor to President Reagan did a recommendation for the book and Morton Blackwell the head of the Leadership Institute wrote a foreword for the book.
http://www.nobility.org/2010/11/01/foreword-by-morton-c-blackwell/

On the side is a list of "Links of Interest." One of the links is the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Most of the links are to various hereditary societies of people who think they are special because they are descended from various individuals in the past. There is the Order of the First Families of Maine and The Order of the First Families of Mississippi. I guess this helps some people to feel they are special. Of course hereditary societies are inherently anti-democratic.

"Why Are Eight Confederate Icons Still Proudly Displayed In The U.S. Capitol?"

The link to the Village Voice article is:

https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/06/13/why-are-eight-confederate-icons-still-proudly-displayed-in-the-u-s-capitol/#CivilWarMemory

I think attention is going to turn to Washington, DC and Confederate statues and monuments on federal grounds.

Arlington National Cemetery Confederate monument isn't mentioned.  I think Donald Trump sent a wreath to the monument this year. I wasn't able to find news reporting one way or the other.

We have a petition asking Trump not to send a wreath to the monument and you can sign here.
https://www.change.org/p/edward-h-sebesta-ask-president-trump-not-to-send-a-wreath-to-the-arlington-confederate-monument

National Cathedral decides to get rid of Confederate flag stain glass, maybe the United Methodist Church will learn from this example and give up the Confederacy.

The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. has decided to get rid of their stain glass Confederate battle flags.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/06/08/washington-national-cathedral-to-remove-confederate-battle-flags-from-its-windows/?tid=sm_tw

These stain glasses were donated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in the 20th century, I think in the 1940s or 50s. They considered it one of their prize accomplishments.

This follows after St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, first dis-invited the UDC and then decided to get rid of Confederate memorialization.

This is the story about St. Paul dis-inviting the UDC.
http://richmondfreepress.com/news/2014/nov/07/confederates-hold-service-downtown-church/

This blog posting has a whole host of articles about St. Paul's giving up the Confederacy.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2015/10/st-paul-episcopal-church-moves-to-rid.html#.V1oXN_krKiM

Perhaps this will get the United Methodist Church to give up enabling neo-Confederate groups.

The campaign against churches enabling the Confederacy is documented at:

http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/churches-of-the-confederacy.html

The Episcopal Church was the leading enabler of neo-Confederate groups, but that seems to be coming to an end.

I am tied up with an important project, but I plan to get back on the topic of churches. The action of removing the Confederate battle flag from the National Cathedral will send a message to all the churches.

There are other churches with Confederate stain glass battle flags such as at the Old Blandford Church in Petersburg, Virginia. Now that stain glass now can be questioned. If one church has gotten rid of a Confederate battle flag, why not another.

Going to the Grand Review Parade in Washington, DC to celebrate the American victory in the Civil War

May 17, 2015 I will be in Washington, DC to celebrate the American victory during the Civil War.

The web page for the event is:

https://www.grandreviewparade.org/

I plan on watching the parade and attending the events of the day.

I am glad that there is a celebration of American victory during the Civil War.

This is one of the Facebook Pages for the even.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1406508746308008/

Click on the video to open it up to see all of it.