Growing up in Chicago, the giant Christopher Columbus statue was a well-known feature in Grant Park. It is now gone. Mayor Lori Lightfoot moved to end the violent protests through an act of surrender. She unilaterally ordered the removal of statue. Problem solved? No, the problem was mob action to remove the statue and Mayor Lightfoot just yielded to violence which left many police officers injured in its wake as well as a number of protesters. Indeed, before the removal, Lightfoot’s own home was targeted after she spoke with President Donald Trump about the use of federal officers to deal with the crime surge in the city. The protesters were demanding the defunding of the Chicago Police Department. My concern is that this was an act that confirmed that rioting and violence can prevail. In the end, it was not the statue but the rule of law that was at issue in Grant Park. Both were lost in the dead of night.
As on so many other unilateral decisions by mayors, the action was taken without pre-warning and in the middle of the night. The concealment of the operation befitted the character of the decision.
Many will applaud this action. Some do not like Columbus or just like Lightfoot. Many in my large Chicago family are Lightfoot fans. Others agree with the criticism of Columbus as a historical figure, criticisms raised particularly by the Native American community that he is a genocidal figure. However, this is not about the merits of the removal decision. Most of us would welcome a debate over the removal of such statues and would seriously consider the merits of removal. I have been participating in such discussions for years.
My objection is how this was done. This will not be seen as an act of principle as much as an act of surrender by the most extreme groups seeking to destroy public art and memorials. It is yielding to mob action and comes dangerously close of mob rule over such questions.
This is why an Antifa leader recently declared “we are winning.” It is because politicians like Speaker Nancy Pelosi have shrugged off the destruction of statues in declaring “people will do what they do.” Now, Mayor Lightfoot is saving them the trouble of toppling statues. She will do it for them in a plea for peace.
I do not believe that most of those who oppose the statue support violent action, but the protests were violent. People were injured. Efforts to pull down the statue were stopped by the Chicago Police Department. They did not, as was the case in Washington, D.C., make the “tactical decision” to stand by and watch a mob destroy a statue. They held the line between collective active and mob action in such controversies.
As I have previously written, there are statues that should be removed but it is important that such decisions are made collectively and with circumspection:
Two decades ago, I wrote a column calling for the Georgia legislature to take down its statue of Tom Watson, a white supremacist publisher and politician who fueled racist and antisemitic movements. Watson was best known for his hateful writings, including his opposition to save Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager accused of raping and murdering a girl. Frank was taken from a jail and lynched by a mob enraged by such writings, including the declaration of Watson that “Frank belongs to the Jewish aristocracy, and it was determined by the rich Jews that no aristocrat of their race should die for the death of a working class Gentile.”
Yet today there is no room or time for such reasoned discourse, just destruction that often transcends any rationalization of history.
“They are winning” because antifa are the Democrats’ stormtroopers. Nancy
GoebbelsPelosi projected her own party’s new tactics onto innocent Federal law enforcement personnel. NancyGoebbelsPelosi is the modern virtuoso of the Big Lie and has been for most of her worthless career. I hope she needs urgent medical care requiring complex medical intervention when a helicopter cannot evacuate her and ambulances are blocked from bringing her to necessary help or needed help to her. That would put her in the place of honest ordinary citizens endangered by her party’s storm troops.Wouldn’t mind so much as he was a Giovanni Come Lately but How about fair play and removal of the anti Constitutional Republic types such as Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton.
This “By all means Alphonse, no, no, no, you first Gaston” between Mayor Lightfoot and her party’s rioters lets the rioters demand whatever she can’t get the Chicago city council or the state house to let her do – and she’ll “have to give in for the sake of peace – as street violence destroys democracy. It’s happened before – as early as friar Girolamo Savonarola’s “bonfire of the vanities”
Democrats, pick another name for yourselves that describes you more correctly. You’re killing government by the people, of the people, for the people because no one wants to remove these un-American mobs from our nation’s streets.
Jonathan: When Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot removed the Christopher Columbus statues you say it was an “act of surrender” to “mob action” and the loss of the “rule of law”. I think it was the prudent thing to do. Would you have preferred May Lighfoot resist, call out more police, beat up and tear gas protesters resulting in possible serious injuries on both sides? I guess so. Now you would have preferred a “debate” among stakeholders in Chicago on the pros and cons of removal of the Columbus statues…”collectively and with circumspection”. You admit you have participated “in such discussions for years”. And what came of those “discussions”? Nothing. For years the Native-American communities and other concerned groups in Chicago have called for the removal of the Columbus statues, symbols of racism and the brutal exploitation of native peoples. And for years the City resisted. Finally, the people acted–tired of endless and fruitless debates. Now that the statues have been removed to a safe place Mayor Lightfoot has promised a full and open debate. What’s not to like about the possible positive outcome of the protests in Chicago?
You also say: “We are losing the ability to speak to one another, have a conversation about the issues”. We are having that conversation right here but I doubt you read many, if any, comments to your posts. When was the last time you engaged in a serious public debate in a public forum about public statues, like Columbus, with those that might oppose your views? Probably not lately because, as you say, “Few academics would risk speaking in favor of preserving such a statue at the risk of being attacked or labeled a racist”. Hey, I get it. No one wants to be labelled a “racist”. So you prefer to criticize protesters from the sidelines–from the safety of your cloistered university office. If you are serious about having a “conversation about the issues” why don’t you go out among the protesters and talk to them about their grievances. Talk to the moms and war veterans who are linking arms, standing between the protesters and police and Trump’s goon squads who are throwing tear gas, snatching innocent protesters off the streets and holding them without probable cause. You prattle a lot about the “free speech” rights of university professors but practically nothing about the “free speech” rights” of protesters. When moms are willing to stand up to tear gas and government repression you know, as Bob Dylan famously wrote: “The Times They Are A-Changin”.
Lightfoot:. About 40 years ago there was a civil rights suit for Illinois prison inmates where the lead plaintiffs name was Lightfoot. Is this Mayor related to him?
No that was Bigfoot.
The proper thing to do with statues is to put them on the ballot and let the people vote them gone if they so choose, but we no longer do the proper thing when just being the loudest in the room gives you a win. BLM, Antifa, Occupy, or whatever you want to call them are right . They have one by committing acts of intimidation. The Demcratic Party is hoping to capitalize on this and probably will. Joe Biden will likely be elected. But what then?
Democrats seem to think they will be able to control the mob the same way the rich thought they could control France’s peasants when they joined them in the French Revolution, and the way Hindenburg, the German Army, and the aristocracy thought that they could control Hitler. I mean, they were all facing the threat of Communism and the starvation of Ukrainians in the USSR made it pretty clear communism was bad… Many times an angry mob will spend all their time demonizing the other guy up until they win and we get buyer’s remorse.
The media has decided that mob rule is just fine as well. They don’t even pretend to tell the truth any more riots are “peaceful protests,” Federal agents sent to defend Federal property are now called “Federal Troops.” I can assure you, as a once member of a few very fine Cavalry units, and having spent some time as a paratrooper, federal agents are not “Troops.”
We are told daily about the threat to democracy, the Constitution, rule of law, and the free press that President Trump is. But Trump was elected through the process this country uses, and it was Democrats that still can’t accept the results of said election. It is Democrats telling us we must abolish the Electoral college, repeal the Second Amendment, are trying to magic marker in the President’s power to pardon, and have tried to claim that every single thing the President does is some illegal overreach or crime. Rule of law and no one being above the law is a great soundbite but once again it is Democrats claiming foul when they refused to subpeona witnesses, dropped subpoenas, for some, and never let any work their way through the court, thus denying the Executive due process just so they could write a ridiculous article of impeachment over “obstruction of Congress.” They were the ones that demanded a Supreme Court nominee be denied a seat on sheer unverified reports of a sexual assault that produced zero evidence, and later it was found that a one witness had been intimidated and the NYTImes knew that and never reported it. The bggest nonsense is this notion that Trump threatens a free press.
The press in this country has never been so free. They have reported negative stories nonstop about the man. There are likely some media otlets that never once produced a positive story. For three years we watched a “collusion” investigation take place only to co,e back as debunked. The media firmly believed it and some are still preaching it. They have lied for for years and the worst of it all is that no media outlet like the New York Times, or Washington Post can sincerely say that they were duped because they have been masters at getting the inside scoop for decades. If the press, international press, the House, Senate, and a Special Counsel couldn’t find it, it’s because it was never there. They kept promoting lies anyway. Trump was and is no threat to a free press or else there would be “Federal Troops,” raiding them and journalist would be disappearing. Instead they are still there, printing lies, and high fiving each other whenever they write or tweet something anti-Trump.
Just curious, most of the early explorers who came to the new world, for most of these explorers it was a one way trip. Christopher Columbus made it back. Like Neal Armstrong, he made it back.
Independent Bob – curiously, Columbus found both the shortest way to the New World and back to the Old World on the same voyage.
Columbus was a man of insight, faith, bravery, and ambition. He was one of the greatest seaman of history.
Chicago’s mayor spits on all of us, and on Italian Americans most of all. She is a tyrant who thinks she can take a hero and declare him, infamia!
Our Democrat run States and communities (like this one) shows us well how once we yield to intimidation and terroristic tactics it just sends the message we’re tossing out the Rule of Law so that more chaos can come… and the “toughest person with the biggest stick” rules while all others are at their mercy. Welcome to Marxist Socialism folks. We’re reverting back to the Dark Ages if we don’t do what’s needed to stop this mess.
The “Rule of Law” was tossed out a long time ago, but we like to pretend. Americans are experts at turning a blind eye to reality.
Canadian eh has returned. Any I go 0n’ budda 9s appreciated
It’s a statue. Get over it.
Let problems fester and this is what happens.
“It’s a statue. Get over it.”
Have you delivered that message to the trustafarians in antifa, genius?
Because they’re the ones obsessed with statues.
What “problems” do the anarchists allege will be solved by removing statues? Will removing 2 statues bring about improvement in Chicago’s lousy school system so as to advantage minority students? Better yet, will removing statues (these 2 or others) bring about school choice so that minority youngsters need not attend schools that do not educate or graduate? Will removing statues solve Chicago’s crime problems (gangs, drugs, violence)?
Mayor Lightfoot is what you call a naive idealist whose worldview is beginning to fray. When the mob comes to surround your house,
you either assert the rights to home-privacy of an American, or you throw yet another standard of acceptable political behavior under the bus.
I think she sees now how civility is something leaders have to uphold, at whatever cost, at whatever level of authority. I think she has seen the ugly mob coming for her scalp, and wants the feds to come in and restore order.
Lightfoot is in way way over her head. Maybe she was ok as a prosecutor, but Chicago voters elected someone who is not competent to lead Chicago.
Mayor Lightfoot is what you call a naive idealist
LOL
Congressman Gohmert is introducing a bill to ban the democrat party for past history of supporting slavery. That should make the social justice warriors happy.
LOL! I saw that. Perfect. Now, how will the cancel culture justify leaving in place a political party rooted in racism? Hmm?
Biden becomes president. Pelosi is speaker of the house( 3rd in line). And Elizabeth Warren is Vice President. So this is the youth movement. A catalyst for change. What’s their average age, 77. RBG will probably outlive these guys.
Could you picture Biden and Pelosi on dancing with the stars?
What’s Wrong With This Picture?
America is at war.
If we boil the situation down to the lowest common denominator, America is at war. America is at war with an enemy of hyphenate invaders which is attempting to conquer it. Americans are vanishing due to a fertility rate in a “death spiral.” Hyphenates are being allowed by Americans to massively increase their numbers. Feminazis got the vote and America got a death sentence. In ~ 100 years, there won’t be an American left in America. It’s not eminently moral and just “diversity,” it’s forced extinction of Americans and America. Americans are too blind to see. The enemy’s goal is to complete actions aimed at “…fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Look around you – how many actual Americans do you see? Would Japan or China allow the complete displacement of Japanese or Chinese people by random foreigners? Somehow I doubt that. The Founders created America to consist of “…free white person(s).” Lincoln planned to compassionately repatriate the freed slaves to Liberia. Insidiously, immigrating Marxists gradually redirected the actual design of America into a Progressive evolution into communism. Communists are on the verge of total victory. Soon, the conquering hyphenates will demand that the “statue” of America be torn down and the “…fundamentally transformed…” America be renamed “HyphenAmerica.”
America is at war…
and Americans don’t know.
Mz. Lightfoot didn’t surrender.
Mz. Lightfoot conquered.
Mz. Lightfoot IS the enemy.
Turley’s only worried about the rule of law when he can argue this to criticize a Democrat. Just how many ways has Trump shown flagrant disregard for the precious “rule of law” Turley writes about, without criticism by Turley, beginning with cheating his way into the White House with the help of lies spread by social media by Russians who were directed by his campaign where the lies would do the most good. Then, there’s the firing of Comey to try to stop investigation into his wrongdoing, his refusal to produce documents and procurement of non-cooperation by witnesses to the Mueller investigation, firing of Jeff Sessions, trying to get Ukraine to help him cheat again, sending troops into American cities to stir up trouble, paying off porn stars and nude models, diverting Pentagon funds for political reasons….the list is so long.
Turley’s upset by the removal of a statue that was the source of protests. We are in unique times now, with a pandemic raging out of control, millions of Americans sickened and more than 140 thousand dead, the citizenry up in arms over the murder of George Floyd, Russians paying to have American troops killed and our “President” doing nothing about it, kids being forced to go to in-person school even though it isn’t safe, a congresswoman called vulgar names by a male member of Congress… the list is so long. It was a wise move by Mayor Lightfoot to simply remove the statue for now to avoid further protest. This is a sign of prudent leadership. She didn’t order it destroyed. It can be placed in a museum or elsewhere and the local council can vote on ultimate disposition, but for now, removing it helps restore peace. Kudos to her for her wisdom.
the list is so wrong.
FIFY. It’s fascinating how intransigent you, Book and the rest of your ilk are, despite all factual evidence to the contrary. Damn!
Olly, I think she’s off her meds.
Bob,
If she’s off anything, it’s her rocker and she needs more than meds. 😉
I don’t suppose it matters that Columbus never set foot in North America.
Oh no MoFo, he was a white European male. He didn’t have to set foot on North America. He’s just plain bad.
Chicago has a rule of law? I thought Chicago was part of the Wild West?
Chicago is Mogadishu.
Most of Chicago is safe and a pleasant visit. No one goes there to tour the near south or near west side, nor do they go to tour the slums of Wichita (unlike Chicago, in the top 10 of dangerous US cities – https://www.safewise.com/blog/most-dangerous-cities/ )
“Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
– Professor Turley
_______________
Alas, these are not my comments, they are the written accounts recorded as history of consequential Americans.
Professor Turley, will you burn ALL the books?
Shoot first and ask questions later.
Perhaps Mayor Lightfoot would prefer the Aztecs were left unchallenged. They were busily conquering and enslaving rival tribes, and sacrificing men, women, and children, in such a grisly manner that they even horrified Conquistadors. Archeologists found pillars comprised of the skulls of hundreds of thousands of people. The Aztecs even ground up the bones of their victims to use in the mortar.
How far North would they have pushed?
Stronger tribes wiped out, enslaved, or pushed out weaker ones. When they captured horses who had escaped the Conquistadors to form feral bands, they used those horses to war with their neighbors. When tribes obtained firearms, they used those weapons to wage war with their neighbors. Because Native Americans, just like any other human being, used superior techniques or technology to their advantage. Europeans were just the latest migration to the region, and the stronger, more advanced tribe, by far. There have been multiple human migrations from Eurasia to America, it’s just that there was a multi-thousand year break between them when the topography changed.
Native American tribes practiced slavery and the torture of captives. Just think, if the US had never formed, and inexplicably had been left alone by all the more advanced civilizations, it would likely still be a slave country. So…a black woman would be advocating that slaving people be left to their own devices.
While you are correct to point out that the various tribes living in North America were not saints and many practiced brutal and horrific acts, you can’t use that as a justification for whatever brutalities our ancestors used against them. Putting aside that of the number of tribes, some were benign and even helpful to our ancestors, blanket maltreatment of a family based on the acts of some is neither moral or legal in our present world. Similarly the oft heard argument that African slave traders somehow forgives what some of our ancestors did to the slaves is like saying it’s OK to rape a girl if her father gives her to me for that purpose.
Keyword: “ancestors”, BTB.
Unless you are aware of your past lives, and as a result you know that in a former life you committed “brutal and horrific acts” against Native Americans, you have no point.
Rhodes, I did not begin this discussion of the actions of ancestors, so I’m not sure what your point is.
I dont regret the Conquest of North America one bit. I would not exist but for it happening and neither would you.
Why don’t we get serious about our own history?
Sure we have a posterity which has elevated us. sure it came from wars and brutality
Lucky for us how it turned out.
And if we want to survive we will respect it.
You want to know how it feels when you lose?
Keep on apologizing for chaos and riot and you may yet find out.
For my part, I would like to see a return to law and order.
then we can “talk” but this is not a time for talk
but 2 months in, and no progress, well, it begins to seem a vain hope to me.
bythebook:
I am not saying that the atrocities committed by Native Americans forgives the atrocities committed by early Americans. Rather, I am saying that everyone committed acts considered atrocities today, because we are all humans, and our cultures all evolved. Therefore, if you go into the past, you are going to see increasing bad acts. Thankfully, our own American culture put us on the path to achieve the most robust individual human rights on the planet. But that path evolved, just like life on Earth did.
I do not condone any of the atrocities of the past. Society evolves, just like biology, and not always forward. Native Americans were not evil at the time, although they engaged in brutality that would have been nearly universally condemned today. They, like the Conquistadors, were the product of their time and their culture.
I absolutely wish the Aztecs never practiced human sacrifice, that the sexual enslavement of women was not nearly universal in America before Europeans arrived, witch burnings never happened, and that slavery was not a universal industry. I wish civilization advanced for human rights sooner than it did. That’s not justifying what happened, merely putting it in context for the times.
I agree with you that some tribes were helpful. They, too, were products of their time. They did not have modern sensibilities of human rights, they kept slaves, etc. Indigenous help to early settlers should still be recognized, and none of their statues pulled down, because they did not have modern values.
Every single one of us has ancestors who engaged in acts that are abhorrent by today’s values. Black, white, Asian, Latino, Native American. 100% of humanity. This is because people of the past acted according to the mores of the past.
And then you lost me with saying it’s OK to rape a girl because her father gave her to you. What the actual hell, BTB?
If you don’t despise all past Native figures, and want their names erased and statues torn down, even though they raped, murdered, conquered, wiped out rival tribes, kept sex slaves, tortured captives to death, scalped, etc, then by the same token you can’t believe that about early Americans or Europeans.
When archaeologists study ancient cultures, they do not despise them, even though 100% of them would not be acceptable today. All aspects of that early civilization are laid out intellectually, and without emotion. There is selective outrage at early America and Europe, that is not applied to the rest of the world.
Karen, I proposed that raping a girl is not justified if her father – or any relative – gives her to you for that purpose. That is analogous to those bringing up Africans selling other Africans into slavery as a mitigating factor in owning slaves. You hear that argument occasionally, including here.
I agree that all peoples in the past likely practiced customs we would find distasteful to abhorrent. I have no opinion about Columbus, but for me the question is if the positive contributions were signifcant, whether they may or may not offset other bad things, honoring them is justified. I don’t insist on it and only propose that decision is made by those who live there and in a representative and organized fashion.. Just being an historical figure by itself does not warrant a statue in my opinion, but others may disagree.
bythebook – it’s a false analogy.
If someone sold their daughter into sexual slavery, today, it would be understood to be morally repugnant, and criminal, today. All parties of the exchange would be aware of this. Yet, slavery was universal. Families actually still do sell their own children into slavery, in countries where slavery still exists today.
It’s not that African’s selling Africans makes the receipt of kidnapped slaves right. Most of what was normalized in every nation hundreds of years ago wasn’t right. Slavery was global. Universal. Existed since the dawn of mankind. Yet, people blame the US for not evolving faster away from that atrocity. People didn’t know about germ theory, or that the Earth orbited the sun, not the other way around. We have advanced in monumental steps. It is anachronistic to judge the past according to today’s standards, and selective to punish America for the planet’s sin. Western countries actually led the charge against slavery. They should be lauded for those efforts, not punished for having the exact same moral work to do as anywhere else. Western civilization developed the modern definition of human rights, which abolished slavery. Yet the false premise has taken root that America was built on slavery, and is currently a racist country. This is absurd. Mauritania waited until 1981 to abolish slavery, which is still commonly practiced today. There is no comparison with countries that actually are systemically racist, or that practice slavery. The premise is wrong.
Democrat activists selectively condemn America for its past history of slavery, when in reality, there was a Homo sapiens history of slavery, a behavior that had to evolve out of culture. Activists want to punish America for the sin that was part of every culture on the planet, an aspect that societies had to learn how to expunge. It was a logical outcome of the rule of the club. Modern civilization is actually quite young. When you consider how long some of the better known species of dinosaur walked the Earth, humans are still in the early stages of their development.
Do I wish we had evolved Western civilization faster? Yes. But it’s absurd to punish evolution for not turning faster. It works slowly. Most of the rest of the world still has a lot of catching up to do, if individual human rights are to be the goal.
I agree with you that just being a historical figure may not warrant a statue. But Christopher Columbus is not just any historical figure. He was a European who discovered America, and therefore ushered in Western Civilization. I am particularly glad that the Aztecs did not have free reign all this time, because the culture that would have evolved from them, left unchecked, would likely not remember Western Civilization.
Bythebook:
If you were an ancient Roman, under Nero’s Court, and you were sold a girl to settle a debt, you would have absolutely no idea it was wrong. No one would. Just like you wouldn’t know the lead in the plumbing was driving people mad, gladiators fighting to the death for your enjoyment was wrong, chaining tigers up and starving them to make them more vicious to said gladiators was also wrong, torture was wrong, etc. etc.
You would have been a product of your times.
I would no more punish modern members of tribes for their past of torturing captives and brutalizing captured women, or the descendant of an African tribe that captured rivals to sell into slavery, than I would punish some Caucasian because hundreds of years ago, slavery was commonplace. No one today does any of that anymore. Well, except for in Africa where slavery is still a common problem, as well as the abused child armies. 2 out of 3. Let me rephrase. I judge people by the acts they commit, not their distant ancestors.
It’s illogical, anachronistic, and morally repugnant to blame someone for society’s ills hundreds of years ago.
Karen, you make 2 main points I think:
1. We should not hold humans responsible for acting within the mores of their culture and time.
2. By virtue of their being worse cultures over time, we specifically should not hold the US responsible for slavery.
1. While those who are dead cannot be held personally responsible – it’s beating a dead human – we should hold their culture and practices responsible and primarily as guide to our current and future culture and practices. Not only were some of the past practices wrong by our more enlightened standards, they should have been clearly wrong to those of that day in any kind of personal interactions. Can we forgive the lady of the plantation house for looking away while slave families were broken up to sell them? Hell no! Whether one is a Christian or not, I think we can agree that it’s moral principles rise to the level of not condoning anything like that. Guilty as charged.If we accept the cultural relativism you are strangely advocating here, where and when does it stop?
2. We are US citizens and our past wrongs are of significantly more important substance to us than the Aztecs. As the most powerful nation in the world for about 100 years now, and one that has impacted other countries for both good and evil, it is important to much of the rest of the world. We cannot try lead the worldif we are apologists for our own shortcomings. We must own and address them for ourselves and the world. Unlike you apparently – and maybe I am wrong about this – facing those shortcomings is both a source and showing of strength. Excusing them is weakness.
Unlike you apparently – and maybe I am wrong about this – facing those shortcomings is both a source and showing of strength. Excusing them is weakness.
Yes, you are wrong about Karen’s point. Those shortcomings have been faced and we took a positive step toward becoming a more perfect union. Hell, we fought a civil war to take that step. Then we took steps backwards with policies of separate but equal. We take steps forward and backward. Today’s culture is not what it was 160 years ago or even 60 years ago.
If you truly have concerns about the direction this country is headed, then you would denounce the political party that has taken this country backwards to a time where rights and the rule of law were subordinate to their power and where non-whites were used for political ambition…the Democratic party.
Oly, we agree that we have taken positive steps since slavery to right that wrong. We don’t agree on what Karen said, nor do we agree on which party is trying to face the future and which is trying to go backwards, and that’s not even close. In fact going backwards is in the GOP motto and withdrawing from the world it’s policy for the last 3.5 years.
The English speaking people didn’t start slavery. They ended it.
The left supports slavery to this day. That is why many left wig companies and left wingers deal in China. Slave labor makes Nike shoes (etc.) and also supplies organs. They are also in huge concentration camps. Slaver’s like btb do not care. They support Biden who supported the Chinese who added financial capital to his family. There is an alliance between the reds and greens (socialists and islamists). If they take over they will then kill one another. Where is slavery (or almost slavery)? Africa and the Middle East. The greens do not permit freedom of speech and the reds pretend they do but try to stop it all the time. The reds use sexual matters to create tribalism just like Stalin. Then Stalin made an about face because he cared about power and didn’t want any groups that weren’t Stalinist. The greens (Islamists) have taken one step out of the equation. They will throw gays off the roof and kill women who are raped.
Btb talks a lot but he has the mentality of a slave…’mastah, wha do I do fur yuh’?
Told you Mayor Beetle Juice is loved by horror film fans – especially the Frankenstein Pitchfork Crowd Alliance:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/chicago-anti-police-protesters-target-mayors-home-after-her-call-with-trump?fbclid=IwAR1O8yI_UpYJIBsOmQK6SX5Ggx_E-v2NgWMZdTdTguCk3rMTEFIdTofVNZA
Ominous, but still funny.
COLUMBUS LIVED 500 YEARS AGO
OF COURSE HE WAS INCORRECT!
What these demonstrations reveal, more than anything, is a serious lack of historical perspective; an inability to place historic figures in the context of their periods.
When Columbus first crossed the Atlantic, in 1492, Europe was still emerging from the Middle Ages. Therefore Columbus was a creature of that period. One could hardly expect him to be correct by contemporary standards.
Nevertheless Columbus displayed incredible bravery when he set sail in ships that were little more than wooden tubs. For all he knew those ships would be tossed by a tempest halfway across the ocean. And the fact that Columbus was able to navigate back to Spain, earns him a rightful place in history books.
Columbus also serves as a neat compass point in history. 1492 is where the Age of Discovery begins. So whether or not Columbus was correct, in his views towards mankind, scarcely matters. His voyage put the world on a whole new course (for better or worse).
But one needn’t go back 500 years to find incorrect historical figures. Just 50 years ago now incorrect views were widely held. Therefore our schools must do a much better job of teaching history so people don’t attempt to judge the past by contemporary standards. The problem is that schools feel they must emphasize the so-called 3 ‘R’s’. Which leaves little time for the Social Sciences.
Well said.
All of which is nice, but what you’re overlooking or assuming is Columbus’s motivation: GOLD! He wasn’t Cpt. Kirk on The Enterprise, whose mission was to explore new worlds, to seek out new life and civilizations, to boldly go where no one had gone before, although that’s how history books treat him, and it’s not true. He was looking for gold, pure and simple. Profit was his motive. That message has gotten lost in the haste to praise Columbus for his bravery and sense of adventure. Also, inaccurate is the idea that Columbus “discovered the New World”. According to native Americans, who were here long before Columbus arrived (down in the Caribbean someplace–probably Hispanola or the Dominican Republic), their “world” was already well-established, and Columbus didn’t discover anything other than there was a land mass to the west of Europe containing native American nations living on their own land, each of which was self-sufficient and who had their own language, family structures and governance. They engaged in hunting, agriculture, made pottery, clothes, jewelry and were religious. The whole Columbus history concept degrades the dignity and worth of the native Americans who were here first, and who are assumed to be unimportant compared to “brave” Columbus who “found a New World”. This isn’t judging Columbus by today’s standards–it’s telling the truth. He was after gold.
James Carvale, its the economy stupid. Oh I forgot, he was a domocrat.
You wouldn’t exist if it werent for all the greed, lust, and anger of your ancestors. What do you think built cities in the first place?
A sufficiently strong group of men to pacify their neighbors and build walls
I tire of all this liberal talk. It is weak fatuous nonsense through and through.
At its very core, all civilization is organized violence.
All politics is a question of who is inside the city, and who is out.
and how do those inside the city, organize themselves to survive those who are outside the walls
Savage pre historical existence was just disorganized violence.
Taking down Columbus is a far worse sin than taking down the statutes of the losing side of the Civil war.
Taking down Columbus is a form of surrendering the premise that we are justified to exist on this Continent in any way whatsoever
This is a very grave and awful form of iconoclasm that is even more disgusting than the Taliban dynamiting the Bamiyan Buddhas.
Why? Buddhas probably would not care if their icons were destroyed., Study the doctrine if you dont understand.
but our whole existence here was a result of Columbus. Yours, mine, ours.
What is the goal? To apologize, give it all back, to who?> Nobody can restore the lost native tribes and the survivors are too few. It is preposterous
The attack on Columbus is an attack on the legitimacy of our entire civilization in North America. it’s even an attack on the legitimacy of Canada and Mexico!
it is pure anarchy and savagery to its core. We must understand this.
but its purpose is actually not what they say it is and not even this. its purpose is just to ready us for another form of plutocratic exploitation., this is why I keep hammering home the point about the billionaire funders of this chaos. They have plans for us. We are their slaves by another name.
The difference between you and me, and George Soros, is a thousand times wider than the distance between Thomas Jefferson and his slaves, when it comes to money.
This is the inequality of America that is being concealed behind all this talk of racial inequality. The inequality that allows him to destroy nations with his billions and his cunning while you and I have a “Vote,”
I tell you Massa Tom was closer to his field hands than we are to Soros. he might as well be a god as to how much more powerful he is than us!
Americans fail more and more to understand this. And I don’t mean to single out Soros, heck, Bloomberg is ten times richer than him!
our illusion of “political equality” blinds us to the massive economic inequality of the billionaire caste. that is the hidden truth behind all the smoke.
BLM is a tool of plutocracy, and men like Soros could care less what happens to statutes of dead men like Columbus, or how we feel about it.
His plans are vast, wide, cunning, and millions of people do his bidding– voluntarily! Thinking they are striving for “Equality”
NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH
Once again Kurtz ignores the fact that civilization advances more by cooperation than war and is more distinguishing feature of human behavior than fighting and war. Our history features enlarging the in group to the point that for the last 75 years, international order and cooperation has prevailed to the advantage of us all.Nationally we are also at an historical low for violence. Kurtz is suffering from headline-itis, where “if it bleeds it leads” makes him think violence is increasing – it isn’t – and a kind of juvenile Macho attitude, also favored by other tough talking tassel loafer lawyers here like Mespl.
Why did anyone, Vikings, Polynesians, Spaniards, early man, etc cross any major body of water or land bridge?
For the resources they wanted.
Which Native Americans were here first? Were those of the first migration over the land bridge the original owners of the entire future country? Were all other migration usurpers? Did any of these early people have a litigious society, with the strictest land title laws ever created, so that if anyone lived on a square meter of land, that land was then passed down to their descendants, in perpetuity, regardless of the claims of a stronger tribe?
Because if so, then there needs to be a lot of reshuffling among Native tribal lands. And those descended from the conquering, expansive, Aztecs and the Iroquois Nation have a lot of explaining to do. The Black Hills would need to refer to the Lakota Sioux, who should give it back to the Cheyanne and apologize for their genocidal wars, who should return it to through a series of other tribes, back to the Clovis people.
This whole “they were here first” is total crap. None of those tribes were there first. They all conquered it from other tribes before them.
Karen, a central fact of existence is change, and by your reasoning, none of us have claim to our property. We bought it from somebody who bought it from somebody who stole it. It seems to me that civilization requires an end to the stealing and possession is a powerful principle of ownership. If the Navahos – or whoever – lived on their land for 20 generations, it’s theirs. Can we agree to that?
The genetic paleontologists are now pointing to South America (Peru) as the landing point for the first humans, about 30-35K years ago.
And, the genetic material of the pigs they brought along most closely matches that of southeast China and Formosa.
So, any claims about which humans arrived first is open to falsification the more archeologists dig for the truth.
pbinca – you got a cite for this? Sounds interesting.
Looks like Scotland is going back to the Picts, and it’s out of the EU. Pictish human sacrifice to commence.
Natascha, whatever Columbus was after, he helped prove the world was round. Again, it took incredible bravery and navigational skills to do what Columbus did in 1492. He was essentially the Neil Armstrong of his time.
You’ve got to be kidding. You really think our education system emfasizes the three ‘R’s.