1984

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
1984.jpg
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
I'm not sure which side of the fence I am on this.

I know that in Germany, there's a great deal of shame regarding Nazi Germany, such that just about anything connected to it is against the law.
They never want to see it again. As such, I get why people would want to erase it from memorialization.
So I understand why people want to remove stuff from across the South.

On the other hand - history is still who we are. We can't escape it, and whitewashing over it doesn't undo it.
Moreover - there are a lot of Southerners who don't see the Civil War as some kind of fight over repressing blacks.
While slavery had a GREAT deal to do with why the war was waged, ultimately war is waged over resources - most of the time.
The North was screwing the South in almost the same way that England screwed the colonies - and they'd had enough.
If the North had offered a way to wean the South off of slavery - a cruel evil that - without it, the South was economically ruined -
it might have been avoided.

So I get both sides - people want to believe - at least, people I consider - nitwits - want to believe when someone disagrees with them, it simply MUST be because they're racist or stupid.
I don't see that - people don't fight their own brother to the death because they want to be bigots - they fight to the death because they're backed into a corner for survival.
 

tommyjo

New Member
Why don't you two get a room...you can wallow in your hatred and ignorance together for all eternity and let the rest of the world carry on.
 

PsyOps

Pixelated
There is history, good and bad. Do you only want to remember the good? Is the bad so bad that you can't bear it? Have people become so weak that just looking at an image stops their normal lives, and thrusts them into a debilitating state of depression?

Rather than our schools teaching history from a perspective of learning from it so as not to repeat it, they are being taught to be offended by it; that images are more powerful than one's ability to simply view it from an historical standpoint; AND to reject forms of speech that offends them.

Who to blame... Our educational institutions and parents. It's just that simple. Do not show me anything that offends me. I just can't handle it. A really sad state this country has entered into.
 

philibusters

Active Member
I'm not sure which side of the fence I am on this.

I know that in Germany, there's a great deal of shame regarding Nazi Germany, such that just about anything connected to it is against the law.
They never want to see it again. As such, I get why people would want to erase it from memorialization.
So I understand why people want to remove stuff from across the South.

On the other hand - history is still who we are. We can't escape it, and whitewashing over it doesn't undo it.
Moreover - there are a lot of Southerners who don't see the Civil War as some kind of fight over repressing blacks.
While slavery had a GREAT deal to do with why the war was waged, ultimately war is waged over resources - most of the time.
The North was screwing the South in almost the same way that England screwed the colonies - and they'd had enough.
If the North had offered a way to wean the South off of slavery - a cruel evil that - without it, the South was economically ruined -
it might have been avoided.

So I get both sides - people want to believe - at least, people I consider - nitwits - want to believe when someone disagrees with them, it simply MUST be because they're racist or stupid.
I don't see that - people don't fight their own brother to the death because they want to be bigots - they fight to the death because they're backed into a corner for survival.

I see the pre-Civil War south a little bit like modern day West Virginia and other regions where coal mining or some other industry completely dominates politics. West Virginia in the year 1900 was probably not that different from a state like Montana today. By modern standards it was underdeveloped, but you wouldn't say it was dominated by one industry. Then fossil fuels became more valuable and coal mining became the dominant force in the West Virginia economy. As time went by, the coal industry gained more and more influence on the politics of the state. When coal became less economically lucrative the influence of the entrenched coal industry made it hard for the state to exercise the flexibility to remodel its economy. I know Trump says he is going to fix coal mining. But I believe the skeptics when they say mining natural gas is cheaper and more profitable than mining coal and even if you relax restrictions intended to protect the environment from coal mining, coal mining in the long haul won't be able to compete with its other fossil fuel cousins (and as technology improves, it will struggle to compete with renewable sources of energy). Yet it is hard for West Virginia to move away from the coal based economy.

Likewise the whole southern social structure was based on slavery. Southern with large slave plantations could have made a lot of money potentially by selling their plantations and slaves and opening up textile mills. However you get the sense that would have actually worked that well in real life. First off that capitalist would have lost social status even if they became richer. Second, who would work these textile mills, poor southern whites preferred to be poor farmers rather than poor textile workers (and if fairness to them, being a poor farmer is probably a higher standard of living than being a poor textile worker in the 1900s). Lastly you get the sense the southern states would not have had laws favorable to setting a textile mill. In a dispute between farmers and a textile mill over the price of cotton, you just get the sense the courts would have favored the farmers. When the textile mill changed the direction and flow of a stream that affected farmers, you get the sense the laws would have favored the farmers. If the textile mill tried to become more efficient by verticalizing the process by buying farms and growing their own cotton, you get the sense there would have been resistance to large corporations kicking the smaller farms off their land.

While I acknowledge you said slavery had a great deal to do with the Civil War--(which I agree with), I disagree with your sentiment that the North was somehow forcing the South to continue slavery. To the contrary, the North was trying to restrict slavery. However, the southern plantation model dominated the south. That was what everybody aspired to. The south was very resistant to change, its politics and economics were completely driven by an economic model, much the same way coal dominates West Virginian politics and economics.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
Anyway, I don't see it as erasing history. Believe me, and look around you if you don't, black activists are NOT going to ever let us forget that we enslaved their ancestors. I honestly don't care one way or the other about this issue, but I do think it's silly to have monuments and memorials to defeated enemy combatants. I also understand why black people would be offended at having monuments to people who fought to keep their ancestors enslaved.

What slays me are the monuments to Nathan Bedford Forrest dotted around the South - hello?? He was one of the founders of the KKK. Are you kidding me?? And they wonder why ol' Nate gets vandalized on a regular basis. :doh: It's in such amazingly poor taste that you have to slap your head.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
Something he regretted highly within only a year after being elected to lead it, and then worked for the rest of his life to reverse and stomp them out.

But no matter.

So if Osama bin Laden later regretted orchestrating the 9/11 attacks and spearheading the terrorist movement, it would be okay to erect a statue to him in the town square?
 

itsbob

I bowl overhand
I'm not sure which side of the fence I am on this.

I know that in Germany, there's a great deal of shame regarding Nazi Germany, such that just about anything connected to it is against the law.
They never want to see it again. As such, I get why people would want to erase it from memorialization.
So I understand why people want to remove stuff from across the South.

On the other hand - history is still who we are. We can't escape it, and whitewashing over it doesn't undo it.
Moreover - there are a lot of Southerners who don't see the Civil War as some kind of fight over repressing blacks.
While slavery had a GREAT deal to do with why the war was waged, ultimately war is waged over resources - most of the time.
The North was screwing the South in almost the same way that England screwed the colonies - and they'd had enough.
If the North had offered a way to wean the South off of slavery - a cruel evil that - without it, the South was economically ruined -
it might have been avoided.

So I get both sides - people want to believe - at least, people I consider - nitwits - want to believe when someone disagrees with them, it simply MUST be because they're racist or stupid.
I don't see that - people don't fight their own brother to the death because they want to be bigots - they fight to the death because they're backed into a corner for survival.

Apples and Oranges.. you can't compare Germany and it's lack of recognition to the Nazi Party and the Southern AMERICANS not getting recognition.

Germany was at war with the world, and attempted to kill every living Jew on the planet.. MOST of what you say isn't their choice to begin with, WE eradicated any Nazi symbology and statues after the war, I even lived in barracks with the statues and reliefs of past heroes and demagogues of their past, the only part missing was the swastikas that were erased or chiseled away.

The Civil War was American v American and part of the reconciliation and reunification of our country had to do with recognizing the enemy as an equal and as a brother. We didn't have war crime tribunals based solely on whose side you were on.. we didn't have mass hangings of generals or POW camp commandants..

Those statues weren't intended to divide a country but to allow the South to retain their glory and their history and allow them to assimilate back into their own country. if I recall correctly even some Northern states have Southern statues present.

BUT lets take this a step further, farther back in time.. The signers of the Declaration of Independence? How many of them owned slaves?? So we edit the document to remove them from it?? Do we go to DC to remove EVERY single one that ever owned a slave from all of our monuments?? DO we remove their plaques from around the pond?

Do we go to Egypt and require them to destroy the Pyramids?? The Sphynx?? They were, after all, built by slaves..

How about the White House??

These men whose statues we are removing were and are Americans.. they graduated from US Military Academies.. They were no less or no more heroes and great strategists than their Northern Brethren. They fought for what they thought was right at THAT time.. we shouldn't, or CAN'T judge them by today's standards and political correctness.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
The Civil War was American v American

No, it wasn't. Once the southern states seceded, they became the Confederacy, and its citizens were Confederates. NOT Americans, unless you use the term very loosely to include Canadians and Mexicans. CSA had its own government, its own president, and its own military force.

and part of the reconciliation and reunification of our country had to do with recognizing the enemy as an equal and as a brother. We didn't have war crime tribunals based solely on whose side you were on.. we didn't have mass hangings of generals or POW camp commandants..

Excuse me? Not sure where you learned your US history, but at my school we learned about Reconstruction, which led to southerners fighting back by organizing the KKK. We also learned about the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, particularly Sections 3 and 4. The two warring factions didn't just shake hands and say good game.
 

itsbob

I bowl overhand
No, it wasn't. Once the southern states seceded, they became the Confederacy, and its citizens were Confederates. NOT Americans, unless you use the term very loosely to include Canadians and Mexicans. CSA had its own government, its own president, and its own military force.



Excuse me? Not sure where you learned your US history, but at my school we learned about Reconstruction, which led to southerners fighting back by organizing the KKK. We also learned about the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, particularly Sections 3 and 4. The two warring factions didn't just shake hands and say good game.

What did the A in CSA stand for again??
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
What did the A in CSA stand for again??

So you are one of those who believes that Canadians and Mexicans are Americans, too?

I mean, that's fine and can certainly be legitimately debated. But FACT: the CSA states had seceded from the United States and residents were no longer considered US citizens, nor did they consider themselves US citizens. They even had their own currency.
 
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