I'm also curious to see if the lack of spacing between paragraphs continues. If you had a bit of trouble with my last post, I apologize. It's annoying and it has come and gone a few times before. There seems to be nothing that I can do about it. But hopefully this post it will disappear.
Here's a video that makes a few suggestions on replacement statues for the statues of Americans who fought for the south and slavery that were put up in parks for public viewing. Now, ahem, while most erections for public viewing in parks, or anywhere for that matter, are not good ideas, the point that statues honouring treasonous killers of their countrymen just might be a bad idea, is a valid one.
You might have heard the spurious argument that this desecration of heritage monuments is equivalent to theft of history. You may have heard it from the constantly flapping head hole of Captain Spurious, Donald Jumpin' Jackass Trump himself.
And since saying, "I get my history from books, not statues," could be an argument for either removing them or keeping them, maybe replacement is the better tactic. As covered in several previous posts, modern day plutocrats are revered for making untold amounts of money off the sweat of their fellow man/woman, but there is a difference between them and slavery proponents of the past: they still haven't killed anyone in a civil war to maintain the situation (although I hope and think that day is coming). You could mount a very good case, and many have, (perhaps the best being Noam Chomsky) that every war was at least in part plutocrats killing people to maintain their power, but there haven't yet been the civil wars we need to unseat them. YET. I'd better post something to back THAT up...
How about just listing past presidents of the United States and the wars they have supported. Surely not all of them are guilty! Are they? Ummm…
And which of these presidents does NOT have statues, airports, monuments, libraries, schools etc., etc., named after him? So, it could be argued very effectively that the good ole U.S. of A. has made a veritable habit of honouring and memorializing bloodthirsty warmongers. Why attack just the monuments to the civil war? Sigh... Is it any wonder the United States is overwhelmingly considered the nation that is the largest threat to mankind? Although you'll never hear that from the media/propaganda controlled by them.
But let's narrow things down to statues, and possible replacement statues, related to slavery. If, for nothing else, in the interest of brevity. And for that same reason, I will only suggest one, though there could be many statues of this one person used as replacement statues all over the US. His name was Cassius Clay.
NO! Not THAT one! There are already lots of statues of him. Although Ali's former name WAS Cassius Clay, I'd go as far as to say he wasn't half the badass the Cassius Clay I'm referring to was! Intrigued??? Read (and watch) on, my friend...
Muhammed Ali, when asked about changing his name, referred to Cassius Clay as his "slave name." That leads me to believe maybe even HE hadn't heard of the guy I'm about to tell you about. While there is no doubt he did a great deal to help the civil rights movement in America, his influence probably wasn't as great or heroic as Cassius Clay's. Ali refused to fight in Vietnam stating that white people at home in America were his enemy. When referring to the Viet Cong, he said, "Shoot them for what? They never called me 'nigger.'" But that was just the beginning of his list of struggles black folks regularly suffered at the hands of their own fellow Americans. Cassius Clay was a white American, but he wouldn't have done those things to Muhammed Ali either, so I don't think he'd have had a quarrel with his namesake. Although, it would have been a blockbuster of a fight!
Cassius Marcellus Clay was a wealthy, white planter from Kentucky and a Republican political minister to Russia and Cuba. You just, you COULDN'T start from a worse place to get a civil rights activist to make a statue of! But why not watch instead of read?
The Lion of White Hall? What kind of badass grew up in a house with a name? Well just look at the lean and hungry look on yond Cassius. He might not have that look because he wanted to stab his buddy in the back though. Maybe cut off an ear or nose, or gauge out some eyes, or stab someone in the FRONT all while having a bullet lodged in his chest, but...
Have you ever seen a statue of this man? Why the frig not? Let me ask you this: have you seen a statue of anyone more worthy of a statue? This is yet another example of how selective public knowledge is. A guy KILLED HIMSELF rather than face him in a duel! A war hero, killer of criminals even at the ripe old age of 89, survivor or more duels than any other American, and the guy who might have convinced Lincoln to enact emancipation. That should warrant a statue right there! But he also donated the land for Berea College to be built on.
It was the first interracial and co-educational college in the south. It was also FREE! Tuition free that is. Let's not get TOO carried away. Believe it or not, it's still free today to promising, low-income applicants. How many of us wish we'd gone there?
So, who among the readers of this post can imagine a more worthy man of whom to build a statue? Why, I'd like to see his lean and hungry visage chiseled into a mountain somewhere! What do you reckon?
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