Daily Kos: Sen. Kennedy, stripping traitors' names off military bases unfairly picks on the South

[Botany]

Sen. Kennedy's objection to the amendment is simple. He believes renaming bases named after Confederate traitors is unfairly targeting the South, because that is the place most supportive of the practice. Why are you singling out our traitors, you bastards?

Says Kennedy: "I think history will show that in the 18th century, in the 19th century, and well into the 20th century, there were many non-Confederate generals, soldiers and others, in both the South and the North who practiced racial discrimination, anti-Semitism and misogyny. I don't think we ought to just pick on the South."

snip

Those are the people being honored, and in places very far away from the "South." And few to none of them are being honored for their sublime military leadership; the statues were erected, and the bases named, generations later in a deliberate Jim Crow-era push to glorify the "heritage" of continued violence and discrimination against Black Americans. The statues were not put in the public squares because suddenly it became urgent to honor largely forgotten top and mid-tier traitors who had disgracefully not gotten their due, but as public statements glorifying terrorism against Black Americans—lynchings, arsons, and other violence—by elevating, as heroes, those who made themselves infamous for pursuing the ultimate act of terrorism in service to institutional white supremacy.

There's not much subtlety to it, which is why dancing around it now requires Kennedy to grand jeté his way past the entire Civil War to suggest that the Confederate names are being singled out for their practices of "racial discrimination," rather than "widespread murder for the cause of owning people."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/17/1953863/-Sen-Kennedy-says-stripping-traitors-names-off-military-bases-unfairly-picks-on-the-South?detail=emaildkre

*******

There is no both sides on this issue. Owning slaves and fighting for the violent end to the United States was wrong.

[spanone]

1. He is one ignorant shit.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. So friggin true.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. The northern states didn't erect statues of Confederate generals because

those states were part of and fought for the actual United States. That's why those statues are only in the southern states. Duh.

Here in Minnesota, where there are no statues of Confederate generals, a large Minneapolis lake named after pro-slavery politician John C. Calhoun, was recently re-named Bde Maka Ska, its original Dakota name. (The reason it was named Lake Calhoun in the first place was because, as Secretary of War and long before he went full-on slavery promoter, Calhoun sent the Army to survey the area and authorized the construction of Fort Snelling, one of the largest and earliest outposts in the state.) This was also extremely controversial, but mostly because the white folks in the expensive houses on the west side of the lake don't care for all that Native American stuff, didn't know how to pronounce Bde Maka Ska, and couldn't be bothered to learn.

[NewJeffCT]

4. If there are bases in the North or Mid West or West

that are named after traitors who fought against the United States, I would 100% support removing their names from bases as well.

[LakeVermilion]

5. I think that removing the property tax deduction

from the Federal income tax was unfair to northern and western states.

Just sayin!

[LakeArenal]

6. Just tear old Dixie down.

[Midnight Writer]

7. Just to be clear, this is John Kennedy, R from Louisianna, not one of the Democratic Kennedy family.