“How many times…?”
“How many years…?”
“How many deaths…?”
Sometimes it seems people are just too stupid or obstinate or biased to learn.
As a “Son of Confederate Veterans” (both by heritage, and an official member of the established group) I have previously written about the Confederate Battle Flag, and “won’t go there” with this blog.
But consider the current “get rid of Southern statues now” thing.
This whole business seems to have begun when that young psychotic loser shot and killed the nine precious black church members in Charleston, South Carolina; (the site of the first conflict of the American Civil War).
And honestly, it always seems strange to me that ‘til some seminal event occurs no one “says or does diddly” about a particular issue; which suddenly turns into an “the end of the world” affair.
Lately, there is an almost mob mentality to divest courthouses, public lands, city parks and cemeteries of those immense bronze statues of Confederate generals astride their faithful equines, and lowly southern privates; faithful sentinels for over a century.
Pt. 2
The propagandists of the Nazi philosophy during WWII inspired the German masses to light bonfires and toss thousands of books into the flames; including Jewish literature and compositions unflattering to their cause.
In our own time that hellacious mob which refers to itself as “The Islamic State” has hammered multiplied hundreds of archaeological artifacts into powder.
They say those who don’t learn the from the lessons of history are bound to repeat them. I believe it.
As I was looking over my internet startup page today I noticed the latest cultural atrocity. A ten second video depicting two men bending over a ground level plaque next to a tree, and cutting away the base which secured it in place. The place? Brooklyn, New York. The event? It seems Robert E. Lee planted this particular maple tree, circa 1840. (Perhaps before it’s over the tree, itself will be bulldozed into splinters).
I can only wonder what the dearly departed ancestors of the southerners perpetrating this violence against Confederate statues and artifacts would think of their descendants. Brave men who risked life and limb for what they counted a righteous cause. Some who filled up makeshift graveyards. Others who, subsequently, shuffled their way through life; minus the benefit of eyes, or legs or arms.
That is not to say the cause for which they fought was altogether pure. The existence of slavery was a given. But slavery was never the only issue which led to the dissolution of the union. And the common man never so much as owned a slave, but fought for wife and children, and the land upon which he eked out a living.
When called to serve, he served. When called to bleed, he bled. When called to die, he died.
And perhaps, as his very lifeblood seeped into the thirsty earth, he cast his thoughts towards generations yet unborn; among them, descendants who would laugh to scorn his last full measure of devotion, break to pieces the bronze representations of his person, and denigrate the unhesitant sacrifices of their ancient grandfathers.
Afterward
I am convinced that Neo-Nazi’s and White Supremacists have perverted the existence and sacrifices of our Southern progenitors, toot the horns of racial division, and have misrepresented the flag under which their forebears served.
And as a matter of birth and circumstance, I like to think I have been granted some special insight denied to many of my peers. Some of my own ignoble ancestors held God’s noblest creation in servitude, while others among my ancient immigrant grandparents felt the sting of their whips.
I have often mused that the next target of political correctness might be the Confederate surnames affixed to ten of America’s military bases. Ft. Lee and Ft. Jackson and Ft. Gordon, etc. Today, as I was watching CNN, a former Army general gave voice to the possibility, and offered that very suggestion.
The age of Political Correctness. The age of doing what’s convenient. The removal of historical artifacts. The destruction of American History. A dearth of reason.
Speaking of another of those old songs from my youth, and a seeming inability to glean what passes for common sense…
“When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?”
(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary. Vol. 65. By William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending.
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