Tear down the Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Wilson HighSchools, et. al

Still says a lot that it's there, especially given the reaction by those who actually lived under Soviet rule upon seeing it for themselves.

Did someone say kebab?

Did you read the part about how Fremont is an arts enclave and the statue is a canvas for public art? Most of the time someone's painted the hands red:



Every year for pride he's in drag:


X-mas:


What you can't seem to grasp is that context maters. I've explained how most of these public (not in a graveyard or battlefield) Confederate monuments were put up for white supremacist reasons.

I've shared the history of the Fremont statue, do you feel it was put up for similar reasons? Do you feel its use today is in furtherance of similar reasons?

Yes, whiner, I did read about that. I read all about how it was saved from the trash heap because someone felt it was a "work of art that was worth preserving." The bit you don't seem to grasp is that aside from just making Seattle look bad given the reputation for more socialist proclivities to begin with, is that this "context" doesn't much matter to people who actually suffered under communism and that much the same argument as far as being an insult in and of itself could be made here. Yeah, people can do shit to the statue now, but at the time it was built, the intent was to honor the man as the bringer of revolution. A revolution that brought about a despotic regime that was responsible for more murders than the Nazis. You know, context.

What Russia can teach us about Confederate statues
James Glaser, Tufts University

August 15, 2017 Updated: August 15, 2017 3:58pm

Could Russia teach us something about how to deal with difficult aspects of our national history?

Many places in the South – from New Orleans to Louisville – are in the process of bringing down statues that glorify the Confederacy. That process raises questions about what to do with these remnants of the past. Do we just toss them into the ash bin of history, purging them as if they never existed?


As a student of Southern politics who recently traveled to Moscow, I wondered if we can look to the Russians and how they have treated their Soviet past. The situations are not perfectly analogous. Many Russian people lived through the Soviet experience. Not so for the Confederacy. That said, in both cases, there is the question of whether – and how – to purge the past.

In Moscow, and in the former Soviet Union in general, there is Soviet detritus all over the place. Hammers and sickles are chiseled into buildings, bridges and other infrastructure. Sculptures of happy, heroic soldiers, workers and farmers sit on the platforms in the Moscow metro. Seven massive “Stalin buildings” dot the city.

The Russians have done more than just tolerate these leftovers. All the propaganda that the Soviets used to produce and disseminate – and there was a lot of it – is now kitsch. Kiosks sell Soviet T-shirts next to matryoshka dolls and amber jewelry as genuine Russian souvenirs. As one Russian gentleman said to me, “It’s our past and we embrace it. We lived it. We can’t just wish it away.”

It would not be very practical to knock down the buildings Stalin helped to build or hammer out all those hammers and sickles.

Statues, however, have no practical purpose and can be taken care of rather easily. Moscow has removed many of them from public space. It was one of the first impulses the Russian people had after the fall of the Soviet Union.

What is instructive is what the Muscovites have done with their statues, collecting them in a sculpture garden and giving them historical context.

The statues and monuments now reside together in a section of MUSEON Arts Park, a lovely green space next to Gorky Park. MUSEON is also known as the Fallen Monument Park, though “felled monuments” would be the more appropriate name. The park contains more than just felled Soviets. There are hundreds of other pieces sprinkled through the park. But walking through the grove of Lenin statues, sitting in the shade of a monumental Soviet coat of arms, or posing next to a large bust of Leonid Brezhnev or Mikhail Kalinin is the thrill for people like me.

Each statue or set of statues is accompanied by a panel that informs the viewer about the work, its composition and the history of its display. Notably, there is little about the leader being portrayed in the text. Each description ends with, “By the decree of the Moscow City Council of People Representatives of Oct. 24, 1991, the monument was dismantled and placed in the MUSEON Arts Park exposition. The work is historically and culturally significant, being the memorial construction of the soviet era, on the themes of politics and ideology.” The point, of course, is that the Moscow city council is careful to state that the display is not intended to glorify the past, but to document it.

What is even more powerful is how the statues are displayed. In some ways, the arrangements are reminiscent of a cemetery. White, granite “tombstones” line a path, an appropriate metaphor for the Soviet regime.

It is the large statue of Josef Stalin, however, that is most striking. Stalin has lost his nose and is in sad shape. Behind him is a monument to the “Victims to the Totalitarian Regime.” The monument is a wall comprising stone heads cocked at different angles. The heads are held in place by a grid of bars and barbed wire that evoke a prison camp. Hundreds of these victims stare at Stalin. Indeed, because of their placement, one cannot look at him without looking at them.

Moreover, in front of Stalin is a contemporary statue of Russian physicist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, one of the most notable dissidents of the Soviet era. The statue of Sakharov is seated, arms behind his back, legs and feet locked together, and head upturned to the sky. Is he staring at the stars, not an unreasonable thing for a scientist or a disarmament activist to do, or can he just not bear to look at Stalin directly in front of him? And what about those arms stretched behind his back, one of them twisted and unnatural, fist in a ball? Is Sakharov being detained, or tortured? That interpretation is suggested by the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the KGB, who faces Sakharov about 50 yards away. It is quite delicious to see a dog passing by and marking “Iron Felix.” Perhaps Sakharov is just having a good laugh

Why do these scenes, these dead Soviet statues, work so well? I would assert that by locating them together, they can be put into “historical and cultural” context, as the markers suggest. Moreover, through strategic curation, these statues have been put into dialogue with each other and with the contemporary sculptures around them and been given new meaning. The statues in their old lives were meant to honor and glorify the Soviet leaders and their regime. In their new life, they have been turned into art. As pieces of art, their meaning can be changed or supplemented by how the viewer interprets them.

This suggests there would be real value to bringing felled Confederate statues together in one place. Putting them into historical context, they can give commentary on the Confederacy, the Civil War, slavery, Jim Crow, massive resistance and even present-day politics. And locating these statues with other monuments offers all kinds of opportunity to tell the whole story of the South.

It's started.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2017/08/16/jackson-washington-park-protest-presidents-slave-owners/

Yeah, I mean, it's not like anyone who lived under Communism could have, like, I don't know, traveled to the US and saw that statue and maybe commented on it, or, like, I don't know, maybe even immigrated or anything like that. That's just crazy talk!

Watched the news lately?

Ayan Rand, Ayan Rand and her family.

I'd love to introduce you fuckers to my friend Max. Max actually grew up in the Soviet Union and could fill a couple hours of your time telling you of the horrors he saw an endured under Communism.

I'm sure my ex-mother in law, who's an American now, could tell us all about it as well.

Well of course not. Because for most Americans communists for half a century were an enemy of the United States.

Though until the Russians were seen as helping Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, those on the left loved them too.

Well, here's an example of disgusting behavior for you:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-general-Nathan-Forrest-KKK-leader-grave.html

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/24/memphis-protesters-take-shovel-to-nathan-bedford-f/

LOL! Didn't know you were in town @Captain X hit me up and I'll buy you a non-fat soy latte!

Yeah, you move that goalpost. I mean, somehow it doesn't count, because reasons.

Well, not monuments, exactly...

This is getting ridiculous.

The statue is on private property.

An open letter from Stonewall Jackson's great-great-grandsons:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...ackson_s_grandsons_the_monuments_must_go.html

That's an amazing letter.

No, you very clearly moved the goalpost to exclude people who very much have suffered under Communism in a pathetic attempt to say "that doesn't count because reasons."

So if those Confederate statues are moved to private property, that makes them okay?

No, you just moved the goalpost, all to ignore the suffering of those who actually have lived under Communism. After all, my statement was about such people, which the article Anc linked to actually does bring up.

I'm going to get a bit personal here.

Ages ago, my now-ex wife had an affair with an old high school buddy of hers. They were close friends before we met and their parents were very close. They had a fling while we were married. I eventually forgave her for it and we moved on. A few years later, he died, and she put a picture of him up on the fireplace mantle with other family pictures. I was having none of that shit and demanded that she take it down. As far as I was concerned, she was memorializing a guy who she had an affair with, who came into my house, broke bread with me, and lied to my face, who, upon getting caught, refused to apologize ("She swore an oath to you. I didn't") and was generally smug about the whole thing. She said she was memorializing a dead friend, but it seemed to me that she was putting up a constant reminder of how she could seek company elsewhere if I got out of line again. Now, I never asked her to destroy all her old photographs of the guy, but there's a place for that sort of thing. It's called a photo album. To me, the fireplace mantle is a place of honor. The keepsakes, momentos and photographs that go up there are meant for the enjoyment of the whole family. I thought it was a pretty reasonable argument to say that there are other ways to memorialize the guy and a place on the fireplace wasn't worth emotionally distressing 25% of the family.

I see the Confederate statues in the same way. There are appropriate places for them like museums and battlegrounds and cemeteries. Context is important as well. Putting up a statue of a Confederate general in the public square is more likely an attempt to racially troll African Americans and remind them of their "place". And even if it wasn't a troll, we must reserve our public spaces for monuments to those people whom we can ALL look upon with at least some degree of reverence.

And yet there are people who suffered under Communism who travel to this country and are just as shocked when they see that statue there. Believe it or not I actually agree with you about changing the context of those statues, but I am playing devil's advocate here based on the arguments against the Confederate statues.