Statues come tumbling down. Updated. More monuments. Final updatte

FINAL UPDATE: So many Confederate monuments, place names and other tthings are disappearing or being toppled or otherise gotten rid of ttthat tthere is no way I can keep up with it. I am spending the whole day collecting documentation for my archives on stuff being taken down and will be working into this evening to get everything filed away.

There might have been a Confederate statue  that  wasn't spray painted, perhaps  in some remote area, but it seems that most got a lot of spray paint.

Some statues have come down.

Here the United Daughters of the Confederacy removed this statue which was at a prominent public place.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/02/us/confederate-statue-alexandria-trnd/index.html

They might put it up on private property, but it doesn't have any real power as a private statue as opposed to a statue on public property. When it is on public property it is basically endorsed by the government. On private property it can still do work as a private shrine, so it isn't completely powerless.

On private property the cost of the maintainancce and keeping the statue  falls on private individuals. This isn't just the statue itself and the pedestal. A path to the statue and gates and lawns and bushes have to be maintained. Trash has to be picked up. Governments with Confederate statues expend money on them in doing these functions.

It does happen that private groups raise funds for statues on public property such as restoration, but the fact that the statue  is on public property gives the statue status making it easier to raise funds.

The neo-Confederates are aging and how much  money they will have to maintain statues in the future.

In Birmingham, Alabama another statue wass removed last night or the night before.

https://www.al.com/news/2020/06/watch-live-birmingham-taking-down-confederate-monument.html

The State of Alabama is stating they will sue Birmingham. It will be interesting how this works out.

https://www.wvtm13.com/article/alabama-attorney-general-files-lawsuit-against-city-of-birmingham-after-removal-of-confederate-monument/32746959

The Republican Party will be identified with the Confederacy.

Another story about both statues.

https://apnews.com/810a6cb13ce6cdbde5b534661c5f2da6

I think that if the Democrats get elected, they won't be giving a free pass to Confederate monuments and symbols.

Recently the New York Times had an article about military bases named after Confederates.

They really couldn't care less up until 2015. Now they want the names changed. The centrist Democrats and neoliberals have decided that being anti-Confederate is part of a winning strategy.

Updated 6/3/2020

Athens, Georgia

https://www.redandblack.com/athensnews/mayor-orders-county-to-look-into-removing-confederate-monument-downtown-commissioners-speak-on-sunday-protest/article_1db335a0-a5a9-11ea-845e-bf003e49571c.html

Bentonville, Arkansas

https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/jun/01/confederate-monument-bentonville-square-be-moved/

Birmingham, Alabama

https://www.today.com/video/birmingham-mayor-discusses-decision-to-remove-confederate-monument-84290629554

Robert E. Lee statue taken down at Lee High School in Montgomery Alabama.

https://www.wsfa.com/2020/06/01/robert-e-lee-statue-taken-down-lee-high-school

Richmond, Virginia

https://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/northam-to-order-removal-of-richmonds-robert-e-lee-statue/article_311a23b3-fb8c-5d87-a0cb-ca564241b29a.html

Excellent article from "The Baffler" about the effort to dump civil rights by Mark Lilla

Mark Lilla has written a book in which he says the Democratic Party should reject what he calls "identitarian politics." Which means dropping the issues of race and civil rights.

This is the link to the article.

https://thebaffler.com/latest/mark-lillas-comfort-zone

The Baffler has an excellent article on this and shows the historical background to this thinking. The author Kimberle' Williams Crenshaw shows its origins going back to Reconstruction.

This critique of identity politics is not new. Indeed, it can be traced to the repudiation of Reconstruction itself. The lethal critiques trained against the shortlived Freedmen’s Bureau and congressional efforts to create a national commitment to eliminate widespread discrimination against former slaves sought to discredit and dismantle equality projects by framing them as dangerous pandering and insidious favoritism. It was, in effect, a critique of identity politics, with the Supreme Court intoning that black men should relinquish the status of special victims and stop making a federal case out of every slight they might encounter. Being told to live lives like everyone else while barely emerging from a status that was not like everyone else was a tough-love repudiation of a reform-oriented identity politics. Of course, the politics that underwrote white supremacy were as untamable as ever, but these were not the conceits of identity that troubled the ruling elite nor its white clients.


The Centrist Democrats and neo-Liberals are frantic over Trump winning the 2016 election. Rather than critique themselves, they are looking at who they can throw overboard to win the next elections. They reason I think that racial minorities and gays have nowhere to go, and they can depend on minority members of the Democratic Party to make rationalizations to justify voting for Democrats in elections even though the neo-Liberals are proposing to drop  civil rights.

This argument to drop identity politics of course includes dropping the issues of Confederate monuments and flags.

What doesn't occur to the Democrats is that they themselves might be dropped by large section of the public. The Democrats don't control either house of congress nor the white house nor many of the state houses. They are not in power largely as a result of their own strategies. The current situation is fluid. They still think they will dictate the future.

What also needs to be observed is that various establishment Democrats in urban centers have attempted to do some type of rationalization for Confederate monuments. It hasn't worked well. The core locations of Democratic Party strength are rejecting Confederate monuments everywhere.

Mark Lilla and his supporters need to be dump and not racial justice if we are to progress on removing Confederate monuments.

The Baffler has some wickedly delicious send ups of various elites' reasoning. It is very intelligently written. It is one of the few magazines I subscribe to in print.

Where are we now and is there an emerging counter revolution on Confederate statues

When a movement is at flood tide it is easy for the people in that movement to believe that their forces are irresistible and that they will sweep away all opposition. History shows that this is very often not true. The opposition is thinking and strategizing. They are testing methods and refining them or changing them if they don't work.

Suddenly an effective opposition emerges or effective tactics and the movement which seemed irresistible now is stalled.

So where are we now?

Seven things are working in favor of the monuments being removed.

1. They are located in center cities which aren't very Republican, have high minority populations, and are more populated by liberals and leftists. The poll for the nation or a state or even the local metropolitan area may be in favor of keeping the statue, but in the center city the polls are very likely to be against the Confederate monument.

An counter strategy might be to put a monument on private land, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) have put flags on private plots of land. However, this strategy has limitations. It does show that there is an opposition and an opposition large enough to afford the land and flag pole. However, it isn't on public land and so it doesn't have the cultural authority of a monument on public land.

Further, being a private plot of land and flagpole, the maintenance cost falls on the individuals or group behind the plot of land. Something they have to keep up over decades. Monuments on public land usually are kept up by the local municipal government or they get donors since they are on public land.

2. As monuments go down elsewhere the cities with remaining monuments will look aberrant. The monument will be references as an indicator of what type of town the city is. Corporations will note the monuments when considering locations of a factory or business unit. They will be concerned about recruiting employees to live there and realize that Confederate monuments will be a negative. Competing towns and cities which have removed their monuments will make reference to the Confederate monument in the city.

I have been amazed that Confederate things that only a few specialists like me and the neo-Confederates know about have been removed. What remains will really stick out.

3. Trump has come out for Confederate monuments which has provoked a reaction of many people to suddenly care much more about the issue and be willing to take actions against the monuments. For some people if Trump is for something they are against it. Others were against Confederate monuments but now it is on the top or near top of their agenda. Some people started to think about the issue and now care about removing Confederate monuments.

More importantly a lot of people who might otherwise chatter about rationalizations to keep the monuments are keeping quiet. Trump has discredited for many the arguments they might make.

4. There is an ongoing shift in peoples attitudes to be increasingly against the Confederacy. The high school American history textbooks are still terrible, but they aren't believed. There have been movies giving a more accurate history of the American past.

The percentage of people who grew up with segregated schools is declining. Fewer and fewer people support the Confederacy. The Civil War Round Table population is aging out.

So when there are incidents, like the Charleston Massacre or the murder of Heather Heyer, there is a sudden burst of activity. A lot of people who have rejected the Confederacy already and for them when there is some event they have just had it and they want the Confederate stuff to go.

It was just a few years ago, people who were against neo-Confederacy would tell me solemnly that they couldn't make comparisons to the Nazis. Now it is mainstream. People discuss how the Germans process the historical memory of the Third Reich. They compare honoring the Confederates to honoring other horrific people in history.  The climate has really changed and is changing.

5. Finally for the residents in a lot of cities the failure to remove Confederate monuments will be a big revelation about what city they live in and who the city leaders really are. Residents will ask why does their city still has Confederate monuments when so many others have removed them. This would be a question that some city leaders don't want to make and a revelation about their city and themselves that they don't want residents to make. A mayor who is against the removal of a Confederate monument is just not going to be take seriously when he or she has some pronouncement about Martin Luther King day or has a statement to make in the case of a police shooting of an African American.

6. Politicians who have greater ambitions then elected city office will have to consider how having the retention of a Confederate monument on their resume will impact their political futures.

7. Various scholars and others have folded on this issue, like Kevin Levin. Preservation societies, local historical associations have to consider if they want to have defending Confederate statues as part of their history when they so often go to city hall to appeal for one thing or another.

However, there is an opposition.

Right Wing:

The right wing press is defending the monuments. Breitbart in particular is reporting every incident of excess. There have been calls to remove other monuments that aren't Confederate and this is being reported as an inevitable consequence of Confederate monument removal. It is an appeal to white racial fear.

Donald Trump is in favor of the Confederate monuments thus mobilizing his base in favor of Confederate monuments. He is also the president of the United States which has its advantages.

There is an organized neo-Confederate movement. Many African American conservatives are speaking out to retain monuments. Though this strategy doesn't seem to be that important. This strategy was brilliantly satirized in this hilarious YouTube Video, "Buy Confederate Flags From a Black Guy."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is7SeH-gkHM

I think the right wing opposition will actually fuel more action against Confederate monuments. States with Republican Party majorities will have to wonder whether they want to be the party of the Confederacy. I am sure that in Alabama the Republican legislature has some regrets.

Neo-Confederates:

They aren't that relevant anymore. There aren't many that are going to be persuaded by  arguments for the Confederate monuments because the Confederacy was a good thing.

I think that there will be people dropping out of the groups since they don't want to be explaining to their relatives, fellow club members, fellow church members or co-workers why they are members. They will quit if they aren't purged first.


Centrist Democrats:

The centrist Democrats, aka neo-Liberals are I think a serious factor to consider. I have an earlier blog posting with links to articles where they argue against a campaign against Confederate statues because it is falling into a trap that Trump is setting.

What the real reason they are against it is that they want to get more white voters in the next election. This is part of a campaign among many in the Democratic Party who are saying that "identity  politics" needs to be de-emphasized which can be translated as, "let's drop civil rights from the Democratic Party agenda."

I haven't heard anything from Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton on the issue.

However, what the centrist Democrats can do is limited. They have lost both houses of Congress and lost the presidency to Donald Trump. They have no power in government and they have lost a lot of credibility with Democrats and the general public.  Their politics have led to Donald Trump being in the White House. They have limited ability to control the agenda.

The centrists run the risk that by waffling on Confederate statues or effectively opposing any real action against Confederate statues they will be further revealed as a group that stands for nothing but re-election and fudging on the issues.

Richmond mayor Levar Stoney and Charlottesville mayor Michael Signer are probably now regretting their respective courses of action. They will have eventually to have the monuments taken down, but they will get no credit for it since initially they opposed removal, but they will anger all the supporters of the Confederate monuments.

However, I think that there will be cases where individuals, organizational leaders, and some elected officials will use centrist Democratic arguments to not take action. It will act as a drag in the effort to remove Confederate monuments.

Left:

There are exceptions, like Mother Jones which is covering the movement to remove statues, but a lot of the left publications aren't giving this issue much attention. However, they will continue to drift into irrelevancy and it isn't much of a concern.

OVERALL:

I think at some point the movement to remove Confederate monuments will slow down. One reason is that the monuments that can be easily removed will be removed. The monuments that remain will be in rural areas and small cities where the opposition to Confederate monuments is limited and the support for them is strong. Though in those cases the chamber of commerce will be concerned about their city's image and wish they could just go away.

The centrist Democrats are mobilizing on this issue and more generally on a campaign against "identity politics" which means dump civil rights. Their reasoning is that minorities have no place to go so lets not do much on civil rights. However, I think that there are probably a lot of Democrats who aren't ready to sign up for this. Long term demographics argue against it.

However, I don't think any fraction of the establishment can put a break on this issue. Independent groups, both for and against Confederate monuments, are going to be taking actions on their own which will continue to put the issue before the public. Trump and the conservative media will then comment on this issue. Centrist Democrats will find themselves looking like centrist Democrats. Other Democrats will decide that they don't want to look like centrist Democrats.

This issue of Confederate monument removal after the initial easy removals will then become an issue of protracted struggles over the monuments that remain in cities where the support for monument removal isn't so strong. These struggles will keep it in the news. Right wing media and Donald Trump will keep it in the news.

The struggle will then result in the removal of monuments, one city at a time. After awhile it cities will decide that they don't want the constant agitation and decided that they need to go.

I think that after 2018 we will find it an ongoing struggle. It will require a developed strategy and a focused effort.

However, by the end of the next 12 months there will have been removed a great many Confederate monuments and those remaining will appear to be aberrant, an indicator of backwardness. Many residents in those cities will find them a painful reminder of what type of city they live in.

Also, at that time there should be a campaign about churches hosting neo-Confederate groups, the U.S. military working with neo-Confederate groups, and American history textbooks which pander to neo-Confederate groups. These campaigns will be synergistic with the campaigns to remove Confederate monuments and likely necessary for the success of campaigns to remove Confederate monuments.

The Centrist Democratic Counter Revolution Arises to Retain Confederate monuments, Update: More articles.

I have been wondering where the Counter Revolution to retain Confederate monuments would come from.  Pres. Donald Trump has come to the defense of Confederate monuments, but since the monuments are located in the center cities of urban areas this can be more an incentive for them to come down.

When there is a social revolution there can be the illusion that the social revolution is unstoppable. Often the forces of social revolution are surprised when the counter revolution arises and is unprepared.

The movement to remove Confederate monuments is not unstoppable and the counter revolution has shown up. It is being lead by the centrist Democrats.

This article first showed up on Slate, the news website of the centrist Democrats.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/08/18/trump_impeachment_chances_confederate_statue_edition.html

The title is "Are Democrats Making a Mistake by Fixating on Confederate Statues?" I don't think the Democrats are "fixating" on Confederate statues. The author, Ben Mathis-Lilley is with the title trying to stigmatize Democratic concern over Confederate monuments by using the term "fixating."

Mathis-Lilley's thinking is driven by polls and wants Democrats to focus on Trump's support for white nationalism and avoid the topic of the Confederate monuments.

Then there is this column reported in the S.F. Chronicle and then reported by Breitbart.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/williesworld/article/Trump-lays-a-trap-and-Pelosi-walks-into-it-11943839.php

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/08/21/ex-sf-mayor-willie-brown-nancy-pelosi-dems-fell-for-trumps-identity-politics-trap/

Now we have a prominent African American Democrat saying we shouldn't go after Confederate monuments. It is supposed to be a clever trap laid by Trump.  The Republicans have their Walter Williams, it seems centrist Democrats have Willie Brown.

Now Dershowitz is comparing liberals who want to take down statues to Stalinists.

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/08/22/dershowitz-liberals-stalin-statue-issue/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

Or course Breitbart wants this generally known.

I don't know why Dershowitz is called a liberal.

These articles give a rational for many liberal/left individuals to oppose efforts to remove Confederate monuments on the basis that they want to fight white nationalism but not fall into a trap or be a Stalinist. The reality is that these individuals are banal white nationalists unwilling to give up a white landscape.

I would think Democrats would learn from a policy of having candidates always triangulate their positions and filter their principles through five focus groups from the results of recent elections.

UPDATE:

As more articles like this appear I will put them in this update.

Article quoting a Democratic centrist warning that the anti-Confederate statue campaign will undermine the Democrats.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/us/monuments-confederacy-remove-rename.html?platform=hootsuite&mtrref=t.co

A quote from the article.

Paul Begala, the Democratic strategist, said his party was “driving straight into a trap Trump has set,” because the president seeks to shift the focus away from comments he made about white supremacists to his charge that opponents are trying to “take away our history.”

“While I understand the pain those monuments cause,” said Mr. Begala, who was an adviser to President Bill Clinton, “I just think it in some ways dishonors the debate to allow Trump to hijack it.”

Begala's last statement just doesn't make sense.

Another article from Politico titled, "Charlottesville fallout  divides Democrats." The lead for the story is, "The party  is wrestling with how much to focus on Confederate statues, or racially tinged issues at all." That is some are wanting to dump civil rights from the agenda.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/29/charlottesville-democrats-race-confederate-statues-242109

UPDATE:

This is a valuable article to show a larger context for this centrist neoliberal counter effort in the Democratic Party. This one of the few magazines I subscribe to.

https://thebaffler.com/latest/mark-lillas-comfort-zone