The Atlantic, like a few other online sources, published a story aimed at unraveling 100 years of fabricated history about Robert E. Lee and the Civil War in general. The story at
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/is entitled The Myth of the Kindly General Lee and is well worth reading.
One quote in the story jumps out into the context of today. The story outlines numerous behaviors that Lee exhibited or allowed prior to the Civil War and during the war:
- splitting up slave families
- personally whipping runaways or providing explicit, cruel instruction
- reneging on terms in the wills of his in-laws to keep slaves in bondage
- capturing free slaves while battling in Pennsylvania and forcibly returning them to the south
- massacring black soldiers who surrendered in battle
The story quotes a historian who wrote about the Battle of the Crater where the black union soldiers were massacred after surrendering. That historian also described how Lee paraded other Union soldiers that were captured in battle through the local town of Petersburg, VA with townspeople gathered around to taunt the new prisoners. Lee never said a word about any of these practices. As the historian put it, "his silence was permissive."
As one local citizen of Charlottesville put it to a reporter on camera, no one is trying to forget Robert E. Lee, but instead of worshiping him as some mythical figure of Southern grace and honor, we should be remembering him for what he was... A monster.
It should be easy for Americans to understand the roots of mid-east terrorism in decades of religious and social distortions drilled into children's minds in madrassas. Why didn't the Saudis do anything about the terrorists that grew up in their country and went off to join al Queda or the Taliban or ISIS? Why are young men in the middle east unable to see that the lack of economic opportunity they face is due to the corruption and complacency of their own governments, not the rest of the world's infidel ways?
For the same reason we have tens of thousands of grossly mis-educated people walking around in Nazi-inspired attire spouting off about racial injustice, economic discrimination against "true Americans" and half-baked concepts of "pride" and Christian righteousness. The people who believe this **** have been steeped in it for 150 years like half-witted tea bags in a toxic jar by the placement of thousands of memorials and public places named after the men who initiated the disaster that was the Civil War. And now they have not only a single man at the top of government silently approving their efforts, that man is accompanied by an entire leadership team that is publicly and actively reversing if not dismantling fifty years of policy that supported education, policing and prosecution efforts aimed at correcting these problems.
Perhaps most ironically of all, the efforts to reverse and dismantle these programs -- while WILDLY popular with this ignorant base of voters -- will hurt them just as much as the "others" they so despise.
Until January 2017, you could say Trump's silence was permissive.
Since January 2017, Trump's ACTIONS are active encouragement to these idiotic, deadly forces.
There's no mystery about why these events are happening. The main mystery now is whether average voting Americans are going to do anything different to change the direction of the country. You don't have to get out of your chair. You don't have to risk getting crushed by a 20-year old hate-filled idiot on a pubic street. You just have to pay attention. VERY CLOSE attention. Study this country's history. Resist when politicians attempt to buy jobs from big business by diverting taxes from public education. Pay attention when your President and Attorney General de-prioritize civil rights investigations regarding voting and policing. And VOTE.
WTH
