Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Discussion in 'SBAF Blogs' started by purr1n, Dec 26, 2018.

  1. m17xr2b

    m17xr2b Friend

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    Destroying old statues of slave entrepreneurs...somewhat okay(even if that was the context back in the day whether one supported it or not). Writing racist on Winston Churchill's statue is crossing the line, the man literary saved the word from a crazy person. Clear Proof these hooligans that just want destruction and are bored at home while the politicians try to profit as best they can.
    Saw the other day Washington's and Jefferson's statues brought down and I'm like WTF..the founding fathers and the one who wrote the declaration of independence? It's clear the angry mob only want anarchy whatever world they live in without considering society or morality and have zero knowledge of history or how man kind got to where we are today.

    There's also the CHAZ area few are reporting on. I get the right to bear arms but even as a foreigner isn't this the time to use them against stupid and usurpers? I hope I'm wrong of the smell of civil war due to power grubbing mongrels.

    I'll bury my head in audio equipment thank you until this goes away or we all die of riots or global warming.
     
    Last edited: Jun 20, 2020
  2. Mithrandir41

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    You can add to that list Ulysses S Grant and Francis Scott Key statues. A great many people in these mobs are truly moronic. I guess that's what Hegel and Marx-based critical, and Critical race Theory classes will do to a mind. Academia for those who can't cut it in real sciences.
     
  3. wormcycle

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    Actually it was done by the Russian or American invading forces in Germany, and they did the right thing, but he context was entirely different, and the context is all that matters.
     
  4. haywood

    haywood Friend

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    It’s a slippery slope type situation, if you don’t have a confederate statue to pull down then the next best thing is one of any white man. Next up white women, then they can work their way down the oppression scale until only statues venerating the many accomplishments of disabled black transwomen sex workers are left.

    CHOP (née CHAZ) is what happens when white guilt overruns a city council, the police in Seattle can’t even use non-lethal crowd control now. The funny thing is while most CHOP denizens are totally against borders and open carry guns they don’t seem to mind them in their zone. If the Seattle powers that be were smart (they’re not) they’d just start building walls around the area Escape from New York style and the situation would sort itself out pretty quick once food runs out.
     
  5. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    I just hope there's a little more tolerance of the actions of a few not representing the actions and desires of the many when things happen over very short time horizons. You can put a statue back up, you know?

    I'm reminded of the bumper sticker on Tom Morello's guitar when I saw him live: "arm the homeless"

    I don't condone violence in any way shape or form. But the threat of violence has been something our nation has carried in it's change purse for generations. Why is it okay to walk into your state house while armed and white to protest an infringement on your right to freely associate, while if a large number of "other" people decide to "hang out" in a CHAZ while the police decide to leave on their own volition it's considered embroiling an "Escape from New York situation"?

    What happens when 80 not white, and white people walk into the state house with large capacity semi-automatic weapons and tactical response gear? Fortunately, we're not seeing tit-for-tat at that level, yet, right?
     
  6. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    Can we call both wrong? I believe the storming of the state capital in Lansing was a one off event however. This has been going on across the country for weeks.
     
  7. SSL

    SSL Friend

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    Is popularity the differentiating factor here?
     
  8. Thad E Ginathom

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    Personally, I cannot do anything --- except learn a lot of stuff that I should have known decades ago. And continue the fight against the racism in my own head: it takes a lifetime, it seems, to battle against what is ingrained as a (white, english, upper-middle-class, fifties) child.
    Actually, according to me it is very much ok. The man's lack of political success before the war was partly because even his fellow tories of the time considered him extreme: how bad do you have to be for that to happen! Someone had the idea, rightly as it turned out, that he might me good at the war-winning thing: he was swept back into his corner afterwards. This is where the black or white* viewpoint fails us. Leave the statue there; leave the graffiti there too? Seriously, it's an option.

    There has to be a way to keep history visible, but with some added honesty.


    Postscript.
    * This is an unfortunate choice of words. I was just trying to avoid using the word binary!
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2020
  9. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    I am afraid WW2 is, for most of the people unfortunate enough to get in the way of the Hitler grand design, the black and white issue. Churchill statues exist not to commemorate his good character but his impact on the result of the WW2. So I prefer them without graffiti.
    Complete honesty in depicting history? It may be possible but it would require a lot more wisdom that you can expect from people doing graffiti.
    Even the most progressive people I think would cringe if Adolf Hitler was getting an honorable mention because Nazi Germany was the most advanced welfare state that had ever existed. He did not start it Bismarck did.
     
  10. Case

    Case Anxious Head (Formerly Wilson)

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  11. Thad E Ginathom

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    Churchill was a monster, and I don't think that should be forgotten. Maybe it needed a monster to do the job for which he is remembered. When I was a child in 1950s/60s England, I could not understand why his reward for winning the war was to be thrown out. I'm sure there was more to the politics than just him, but he could have been a terrible peace-time leader.

    What about Drake? Isn't he one of the great heroes of Britain? Did I know, until last week, that he was also a slave trader? Nope.

    Just lately, we're getting a bit short of heroes.

    (I know this is about UK, rather than USA, but Britain seems to be very much a part of the story. India, on the other hand, isn't much bothered about anything except covid and China just now. But then, India never has been much bothered about prejudice, even though it was on the receiving end of European colonialism.)
     
  12. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    The abstract definition is not necessary, just look at the the list of some of the activities of the National Socialist People's Welfare (German: Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt, NSV) organization from Wikipedia, but you can read about it in almost any history of the Third Reich.

    "The Nazi social welfare provisions included old age insurance, rent supplements, unemployment and disability benefits, old-age homes and interest-free loans for married couples, along with healthcare insurance, which was not decreed mandatory until 1941.[8] One of the NSV branches, the Office of Institutional and Special Welfare, was responsible "for travellers' aid at railway stations; relief for ex-convicts; support for re-migrants from abroad; assistance for the physically disabled, hard-of-hearing, deaf, mute, and blind; relief for the elderly, homeless and alcoholics; and the fight against illicit drugs and epidemics".[9] The Office of Youth Relief, which had 30,000 branch offices by 1941, took the job of supervising "social workers, corrective training, mediation assistance" and dealing with judicial authorities to prevent juvenile delinquency.[10]
    ......
    These social welfare programs represented a Hitlerian endeavor to lift the community above the individual while promoting the wellbeing of all bona fide citizens. As Hitler told a reporter in 1934, he was determined to give Germans "the highest possible standard of living".[11]
     
  13. Case

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    Read plenty about the Third Reich. Calling it a welfare state stretches the definition to the extreme. The Reich's reason to exist was to create a super agrarian space to support the master race. It's main weapon in doing so was mass murder, starting with the disabled, homeless, mentally ill - children and vets alike. Hitler's desire for a high standard living was fueled by a fear of the 'stab in the back" at the home front. National Socialism is a misnomer. He saw an organization he could take over. The true goal was global genocide. Hardly a welfare state.
     
  14. haywood

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    You can’t judge a historical figure by modern definitions of morality as that’s a malleable concept and what passed for woke now may be similarly broke in a few years as society continues to change.

    What we can do is try to place things in their proper context historically rather than try to just cancel everything complicated. Do we really want to be the kind of country that bans books like Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird because people are uncomfortable about a word rather than using them to prompt kids to have a real discussion about race in America.
     
  15. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Uh abolition seriously started in the 18th century. Money meant nothing at the end. The South could have taken the British option. The British option would have been cheaper and not left the South economically ruined for the next century. The majority of poor white southern farmers who did not own slaves aspired to do so in their society. They persisted until their men were dead or crippled and their land conquered. The Union fought to preserve itself and then for abolition. Abolition was a huge motivator in getting men to enlist by the end of the war. Popular opinion changed.

    The South continued the war well past the point where they were starving. They were starving earlier on than the Japanese and Germans in either World War. They continued to fight, to reconstitute their armies days after every battle with more men to throw into the meat grinder, and continued to do so until their armies were destroyed, their lands ravaged and made unproductive, their civilians starved along with their military, and continued after their capital was burned to the ground until Lee’s army was surrounded, starving, and deserting en masse.


    Why do you blame Christianity and the Romans? The Romans practiced plantation agriculture with classical slavery. That withered away into tenant farming and then after the Crisis of the Third Century, Diocletian bound tenant farmers to the land. Diocletian was no Christian. Constantine made it permanent and hereditary. Serfdom started before the Empire was Christian and lasted over a thousand years.

    The Christian posture prayer comes from the gestures of feudal homage. Prior to that Christians prayed like classical pagans. Just as they swore homage to their material lord, they prayed to their spiritual LORD.

    Muslim prayer similarly comes from proskynesis. Persian Shahs and Byzantine Emperors made their subjects kowtow before them. Diocletian made his crawl on hands and knees.

    None of this has any connection to the Arab slave trade and transatlantic slave trade. You’re implanting your 21st century notions of right and wrong to a past where they nailed people to trees, demanded blind obedience from everyone beneath them, irregardless of if they owned them or not, and held together their state by force.
     
  16. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Those people are f'ing ungrateful idiots. Grant oversaw reconstruction. The people pulling down statues are trying to judge someone by what they think is moral in their own position in time and space. Their morals are not universal across neither time nor space. The whole concept of a universal is itself speculative.

    Take down a statue of Hafez Al-Assad or Kim Il Sung? You will be killed. Take down a Roman statue of a guy who owned slaves and killed thousands of people? You will be jailed forever and never work again. A civic death. Do it 100 years ago? Your knee caps would’ve been power drilled exactly like they would be in Syria today. Do it in Ancient Rome? Holy shit your bloodline is being wiped from the face of the earth, your family is getting murdered, everyone who watched and did nothing will be at least tortured, and they will erase you from public memory like Joseph Stalin editing photographs. These guys killed their family members and thousands of their supporters to become the emperor. Some idiot pulls down a statue of the predecessor not the immediate one who got killed? Holy shit they are questioning the institution of your absolute power and for that will die and it will f'ing hurt and the god(s) will hurt them forever after their ordained ruler does the grisly job of painfully sending them to Tartarus or Hell. It would be like North Korea except it’s public, in real time, and for all to watch like a dog shredding a rabbit and showing its master the bloody remains, proving who is allowed to piss in the yard.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2020
  17. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    I trace back to Christianity and the Romans because I come from an Evangelical family. They did not like to talk about history so I had to dig every spare moment I had. I have grudges. I hated that those people tried to keep me stupid. When I started to learn more about how the Bible was used to justify slavery, well I could not take just act like a sheep.


    The Roman civilisation was often held to a pedestal for later countries in Europe. All that striving for big and united empires, yeah it started somewhere. Add the legacy of Christianity, be it supported by Rome or elsewhere every king, prince and emperor wanted his subjects united under his (sometimes her) chosen religion. The Bible was used to enforce the rule of the king, prince or emperor and it took a monk like Luther to break the power of the Church and the nobility.

    Either way I skipped some details because well I read less than I used to. I am aware I should read more. I will look into what you mentioned. Thank you.

    Regardless, there is connection between slavery, religion and how Medieval Europe used to treat its own serfs. Remember after the fall of Rome around 476 A.D. Europe plunged into chaos. Much was lost and it took at least 500 to 800 years for Medieval Europe to rediscover what the Romans did before them.

    P.S. I know early Christians were similar to pagans because like any new cult they were still developing their habits and rituals and there must have been a lot of cross-over from other religions/cults. It took a while before the standards we know now were everyday practice. And yes Roman emperors could form their own cults of worship because "hey why not?, just honour the other Gods too."
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2020
  18. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Tit for tat response, you can’t outgun the government. I mean that’s one step from burning a police station. All of those guys carrying arms into the statehouse should’ve been arrested. Burn down a police station? Jail them for a long time. Seize a few blocks and try to proclaim another state? Most current states would still respond like the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2020
  19. robot zombie

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    In that sense, defacing a public statue poses an interesting scenario. Just from a historical perspective, it's a clear then/now depiction of things. As are the ways it's dealt with. I mean... deface a statue and you basically go down in history for better or worse. Say you're on a tour "A statue used to be here, because ___. In [year] it was torn down by ___ because ___." Same thing if it is restored. I see it as an abstract dialogue had via symbolism.

    I'm not really for or against it. To me they're statues. They mean a lot of things to a lot of people. I don't see it as something that really causes any changes. Anybody remember that supreme court case with the courthouse that used to have this monument to the 10 commandments? Well, since we have separation of church and state, it was kind of a contentious thing. There was this big back-and-forth, with multiple rulings quite literally 'chipping away'. They would try to 'knock it down' with law and then the court would find ways to keep it up, but in a more abstract form. It was originally clear and detailed, with everything listed and all of this commemorative stuff. Now there's nothing really left of that, but everybody still knows what it's about.

    Kind of begs a philosophical question of whether eliminating a statue takes what it represents out of the lexicon at all. Even if you completely remove all traces, it just becomes the place where the statue that meant whatever it meant used to stand. So I think it might actually be the other way around. I don't really understand all of this stuff about the morals of symbols. I get that the prevalence of certain symbols tends to correlate with the proliferation and acceptance of certain ideas. But does knocking down those symbols really change people's minds? I think at most it gets the thought out and those who retain the meaning within themselves remain and continue to proliferate that side. It's not an erasure of history, just an addition... well, assuming both sides are taught and talked about.

    I mean, if it's a matter of context... from a historical standpoint the context in any given time can't really change. It can only mean what it meant then, and what it means now. The meaning changes just as the context does... over time. But that only goes one way. You can't posthumously take away neither the good nor the bad implications by simply tearing it down.

    Another example might be old disney cartoons, where certain stuff that just doesn't fly has been plucked out for modern audiences. However, that is still noted and discussed any time that classic disney is mentioned. It's still tabulated and accounted for as a part of history.

    Of course, I'm looking at it in a vacuum and there are many elements I'm not accounting for. I'm trying to figure out what it's really going to look like in hindsight. There is so much going on right now I just don't know what to think.
     
  20. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    I honestly don't know what to think anymore sometimes. I simply cringe. Taking down statues will not solve anything now or later. We have to look at how we got to this point and that is not a pleasant process...
     

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