A statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

An "oh by the way" on this statue of Robert E. Lee--it's not coming down until/unless the Virginia legislature changes a law (or someone does something on a recognized excellent work of art some night). There's been a law on the books in Virginia since 1950 that localities can't take down war memorials on public land in Virginia. Everyone knew that before this grandstanding in Charlottesville last Saturday. The city council's vote to take the statue down was put in suspension by a judge, reading the law back at them. Everyone involved knows a law has to be changed in the Virginia legislature to legally take the statue down and move it anywhere else.

Robert E. Lee V and family comment on Charlottesville:


http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/16/us/robert-e-lees-grandson-comments-on-statue-removal/index.html

sr71plt said:

An "oh by the way" on this statue of Robert E. Lee--it's not coming down until/unless the Virginia legislature changes a law ...

Click to expand...

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) - The mayor of Charlottesville called Friday for an emergency meeting of state lawmakers to allow the city to swiftly remove the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

<snipped>

Signer said the attack has transformed the monuments from "equestrian statues into lightning rods." He called on Gov. Terry McAuliffe to convene a special session of the General Assembly.

"We can, and we must, respond by denying the Nazis and the KKK and the so-called alt-right the twisted totem they seek," Signer said.

Click to expand...

http://www.cbs8.com/story/36165568/charlottesville-mayor-calls-for-swift-removal-of-lee-statue

Well, yeah, but the Republicans have firm control over the state legislature. And a Virginia Republican ain't a liberal.

A point is that the Charlottesville City Council had been told that they'd need to get a change in the law before they helped start all of this. Their blue ribbon commission gave them an option of what they could do within the law until the law was changed--add context to the park--and they ignored the recommendation.

Robert E. Lee he fought for state rights. people don't want to see that , one has to look at the
times and see how people thought back then to them state rights were more important
Then anything

steve6161 said:

Robert E. Lee he fought for state rights. people don't want to see that , one has to look at the
times and see how people thought back then to them state rights were more important
Then anything

Click to expand...

State sovereignty was embedded in the Articles of Confederation but minimized in the Constitution. States did and do not have the legal authority to secede nor, in many constitutionally-specified areas, to defy the federal gov't.

The treasonous souther Secession was always about states retaining the evil of slavery and a feudal power structure, i.e the 'right' of states to be ruled by land barons... like Gen. Lee. He fought for his own interests, not those of the nation he'd pledged to serve. His statues belong in cemeteries.

Hypoxia said:

ruled by land barons... like Gen. Lee. He fought for his own interests, not those of the nation he'd pledged to serve. His statues belong in cemeteries.

Click to expand...

Hypoxia said:

ruled by land barons... like Gen. Lee. He fought for his own interests, not those of the nation he'd pledged to serve.

Click to expand...

You people demonize Lee personally too much. Sure, he led the army of defeated secessionists, so the argument that we shouldn't still have statues of him in public places is a good one, but he personally isn't the best example to dump all of the baggage of slavery and plantation system on.

He wasn't a land baron. He was a professional soldier (serving the United States with distinction up to the Civil War). He never bought or sold a slave and technically never owned slaves. He married into it. Arlington was his father-in-law's plantation; the slaves were his (about 200 of them) and when the father-in-law died in 1857, the slaves legally became his daughter's (who was a great granddaughter of Martha Washington). The father-in-law's will freed all his slaves when they could take care of themselves and the plantation could readjust to their loss. (Yes, the second part of that was self-serving, but the first part was reality. It wasn't doing the slaves any favor just to free them and turn them out into the world all on their own.) The daughter, Lee's wife, agreed with this and had, for years, been running a school for slaves (which was against the law in Virginia at the time) to help prepare them for life after slavery.

As executor of his father-in-law's estate, it took Lee until 1862 to get them all freed--but he managed it before the Emancipation Proclamation was enacted (and, as I noted elsewhere, the president of the United States at the end of the war, Andrew Johnson, himself didn't free his slaves until seven months after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. You couldn't just free your slaves and have them set up to survive on their own later that afternoon). Lee's connection with slave ownership was as executor of his father-in-law's estate and taking five years to free what then were legally his wife's slaves. He was a professional soldier, not a land baron. The house/plantation he lived on didn't ever belong to him personally. The land was his father-in-law's/wife's, not his. Lee was publicly opposing slavery as early as 1856.

He had no personal interests in either slave ownership or the land baron system.

But, yes, he led the army that was trying to retain slavery (sort of--by the time of the Civil War, the South was already in train to back out of reliance on slavery itself.)

Where our Civil War differs from other civil wars in history is that the United States (eventually) intentionally went with reconciliation. And in this reconciliation, Lee was a key figure in working with southerners on this after war's end.

The problem of the statues is that most of them came after 1900 when there was a Jim Crow movement to put blacks back into virtual slavery. That's when most of the statues across the south "honoring" Civil War southerns went up. The Lee statue in Charlottesville was erected in 1924. This is where the argument holds to take them down.

Demonizing Robert E. Lee on the basis of slave owning or being a land baron is just irrelevant to historical fact and thus waters down the argument that he, as a person, is central to the issue.

family of Robert E lee

Just listened to a few minutes of a interview on NPR of a forth great grandson of Robert E Lee Robert R Lee, he's is a twenty four year old Minister.

He compared the worshiped of the confederate statutes, to the worship of idols.

And of course as a Christian he has definite ideals about how this is wrong.
Speaking only for himself, the name and legacy of the Lee name is a heavy burden.
And is something he himself as a Christian and a man of the cloth struggles with.

I wonder if anyone has asked the direct descendants of Lee there opinions, of what is being done and said in theirs ancestors name. I would bet their opinions would be just as diverse as the country as a whole.

bluekitty69 said:

I wonder if anyone has asked the direct descendants of Lee there opinions, of what is being done and said in theirs ancestors name. I would bet their opinions would be just as diverse as the country as a whole.

Click to expand...

You're a bit behind the curve. Lee's descendants have already weighed in, saying the statues of Lee should go. Same with the descendants of Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis.

sorry

sr71plt said:

You're a bit behind the curve. Lee's descendants have already weighed in, saying the statues of Lee should go. Same with the descendants of Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis.

Click to expand...

Yeah looks like this question was answered in past posts, thanks for pointing that out.

bluekitty69 said:

Yeah looks like this question was answered in past posts, thanks for pointing that out.

Click to expand...

One of his great-great-great granddaughters has an Op Ed. piece in the Washington Post today asking that the Lee statues come down.

A historian explains why the alt-right’s rhetoric of white American heritage is pure myth

Events in Charlottesville recently cascaded into domestic terrorism. Three dead and dozens wounded as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other “alt-right” members descended upon the university that Thomas Jefferson built; their purpose, it is alleged, to defend a statue – a monument – to the Confederate Civil War soldier, General Robert E. Lee. These radical rightists arrived from all across the United States upon the college town of Charlottesville to protect, in their words, their “white” heritage. Among the many problems I have with so-called “white supremacists” is their purposeful mixing of “heritage” with “history,” rhetorically pining for a once proud “white” America.

But history proves that America was never white.

Click to expand...

UNC barricades Silent Sam statue

UNC Chapel Hill officials have put a fence around the Silent Sam statue.

A smaller inner fence now encircles the monument to Confederate soldiers with a second larger, teardrop-shaped fence encircling the statue’s surroundings.

In a letter to Gov. Roy Cooper, UNC leaders asked for his help with security on campus on the eve of a planned protest Tuesday.


http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/orange-county/article168579147.html

The university is now caught between conflicting legal interpretations of the statute from the Governor and other legal experts," the university said in a statement this afternoon.

UNC Chancellor Carol Folt, in a message to the campus community on Monday, alerted students to the possibility of a rally.

"Our concern is always for your safety and so considering the potential for a highly charged atmosphere and the very real possibility for confrontation with outside groups, we would encourage you not to attend the rally on Tuesday," she wrote. "However, if you do choose to attend, we ask you to stay alert and vigilant. Campus police will be present to help address safety concerns. If you are not attending this event, please avoid McCorkle Place and the area around the Confederate Monument."


https://www.indyweek.com/news/archi...dies-for-confederate-monument-protest-tonight

gsgs comment

Charlottesville, NC

Jones lied ? Or, the police officers who were told to only act on orders from top officials, lied ?

Jones denied that police had been told to not intervene. “There was no stand-down order from anyone in city government. None,” he said.


Why were the students attacked on their own campus ? Where were the campus police ?

Why were the White Supremacists not stopped by Charlotteville police, if themarch on the university campus was illegal ?

"The White Supremacist marchers broke their agreement by attacking students at the university campus. They had grounds to remove the permit to march in the city, and to demonstrate at the park.

/end gsgs comment

http://www.c-ville.com/council-coup-angry-citizens-take-meeting/#.WZylceQpAv4


"Jones explained that in Virginia, state law prohibits the removal of war memorials, unlike places such as Maryland and Texas that have removed Confederate monuments in the past week."

He also pointed to a federal judge who did not allow the city to move the rally to McIntire Park and issued his ruling about the same time polo-shirted neo-Nazis were swarming the Lawn. When asked why the city didn’t shut down the event after the tiki-torch march Friday night and the attacks on protesters at the Thomas Jefferson statue, Jones said, “We’d already lost in court."


Using the law against the city that is victimized

http://www.c-ville.com/kessler-dodg...arge-man-spit-pleads-not-guilty/#.WZytH-QpAv4

ESPN pulls announcer from Virginia football game because he has a Confederate general’s name

An ESPN announcer with the same name as Confederate General Robert E. Lee has been removed from an upcoming broadcast of a University of Virginia football game in the aftermath of the deadly violence in the college town over a Lee statue, according to the cable sports channel.

White nationalists rallied earlier this month against a proposal to take down a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, and clashed with counterprotesters. One woman was killed after a man crashed his car into a crowd of anti-racism counterprotesters.

The decision to remove announcer Robert Lee, which sparked anger on social media, was made for safety reasons, ESPN spokeswoman Keri Potts said. Sports media website Outkick the Coverage broke the story on Tuesday that Lee was pulled from the Sept. 2 game to avoid offending viewers.

Click to expand...

Denny

Robert E. Lee Day, also called Lee's Birthday, is a public holiday commemorating the birth of Robert E. Lee, observed each year on the third Monday in January. ... Although Lee's birth was actual January 19.

This is also Martin Luther King's birthday. He was nothing but a trouble making black preacher.

Still on Jan 19th black and white become equal.

Since I was born on Jan 19th my parents used Lee as my middle name. I was born and raised in the middle of the midwest. Because of all of this bull shit I'll never be rich and famous!

But at least I used to get a paid holiday off work on my birthday or close to it depending on the calander.

I wonder what remains of the Confederate statues in Houston and points southwest.

phrodeau said:

I wonder what remains of the Confederate statues in Houston and points southwest.

Click to expand...

George Soros will hire a bunch of desperate divers off Craigslist to SCUBA-dive through the flood zone, attaching explosives. At a given signal, Southern heritage will be obliterated.

Somebody tell Alex Jones.

where was the outrage about these statues when Obama was Prezident

why all the outrage now? President Trump just put them up? Under Obama these groups were dead silent

muycurioso said:

why all the outrage now? President Trump just put them up? Under Obama these groups were dead silent

Click to expand...

Bullshit. Have a read: https://rvanews.com/news/putting-them-up-and-taking-them-down-a-confederate-symbol-timeline/126976

‘I hope nobody loses their lives’: Armed neo-Confederates descend on Virginia to defend statue ‘at all costs’

Richmond, Virginia is bracing for violence as neo-Confederates target the former capitol of the Confederacy less than one month after Heather Heyer was killed in what many are calling an act of domestic terrorism.

CSAII: The New Confederate States of America is planning an unpermitted “Heritage not Hate” rally to defend Richmond’s Robert E. Lee Monument following the deadly “Unite the Right” rally to defend Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee statue.

“I hope nobody loses their lives tomorrow, on either side, I really do,” CSA II organizer and Three Percenter militia organizer Tara Brandau told WTVR. “That’s not why we are here.”

Friday morning, Brandau posted photos of her in a pickup truck, flashing a Three Percenter gang-sign while wearing a ‘POLICE’ hat and confederate fingerless gloves.

Two long rifles appear to be displayed in a rear window rack.

Click to expand...

It's all fun and games until some asshole fires his gun.

So does "unpermitted" mean unpermitted?

phrodeau said:

So does "unpermitted" mean unpermitted?

Click to expand...

Well they are self-proclaimed Rebels. Isn't armed rebellion in poor taste?

Three pages and not one post expressing empathy for the pigeons.

Where will they shit?

LincolnDuncan said:

Three pages and not one post expressing empathy for the pigeons.

Where will they shit?

Click to expand...

There are other statues in Charlottesville.

JackLuis said:

‘I hope nobody loses their lives’: Armed neo-Confederates descend on Virginia to defend statue ‘at all costs’

It's all fun and games until some asshole fires his gun.

Click to expand...

I suspect some photos will be taken, some neo-confeds identified, some assholes doxxed, some nazis losing jobs and homes and family. Unless they wear their hoods.