City Council establishes blue ribbon commission to review Lee Park statue (VA)

[struggle4progress]

by Sarah Yang | May 05 2016 | 2 hours ago

The Charlottesville City Council unanimously passed a resolution to create a Blue Ribbon Commission to review the city’s Confederate monuments ...

The commission will meet to examine race and monuments in public spaces and communicate with the Charlottesville and Albemarle communities. However, the commission is advisory only, and the ultimate decision will be made by the City Council.

The commission’s work is scheduled to be completed by Nov. 30 ...

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2016/05/brc-established-lee-park

[rurallib]

1. I don't see how this is such hard issue

Confederate "heroes" committed treason. Had the CSA won then they should have statues.

Now that we as a nation are finally coming to grips with the damage that the continuation of the Civil War has caused, it is time to end it.

There should be as many statues to confederate heroes as there are to Benedict Arnold.

[AwareOne]

2. There was no treason committed by the southern states

They were simple exercising their right to secede from a government that had been taken over by the new radical extremist party called Republicans. The party representing the "lunatic fringe" and very much like today's Tea Party. When the first group of southern states seceded, then president Buchanan ask his Attorney-general, Jeremiah S. Black for a legal opinion on the right of a state to secede. Black was a northerner from Pennsylvania who had dedicated his life to the study and rule of law. He was the chief justice of the Penn. supreme court before becoming atty general. Black wrote a 3,000 word report that stated all states had an inherent right to secede and that to try and force them back in the union by force would be an illegal, unconstitutional act.
When I see a confederate monument, I think of of the men who died trying to repel an illegal invasion of their states and I honor them.

[1939]

3. When I hear this kind of stuff

I think of the North Vietnamese destroying or vandalizing statues and graves of the South Vietnamese war dead in 1975.

Three-quarters of my family didn't come to the US till after 1900. The one-fourth of family that were here fought on the Union side. My great-great uncle was in the Iron Brigade (24th Michigan) and fought at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Mine Run, and the wilderness before buing the farm at Spottsylvania. My great-grandfather stood with George Thomas at chickamauga as a rear guard to save the Union army after the battle. He then contracted fever and was sent home. The fever led to an early death.

That being said, those monuments were raised in their memory by mothers, widows, daughters, and friends of soldiers who fought and gave their lives for what they thought was the right. While I think that they were wrong in their perception of what was "right", I honor their sacrifice and denounce any attempt to desecrate their memorials.

[Nye Bevan]

4. It's only a matter of time before demands for memorials to Washington and Jefferson to be removed

start to become overwhelming, on the grounds that these men were racist slaveholders.