The Weird, Random and Interesting Things That Fit Nowhere Else Thread

[rjshae]

How to do 12 different accents:

 

 

Kind of fascinating, at least to me.

[Raithe]

[Raithe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoQn2ZRp6Yo

[Raithe]

http://vaudc.org/lee-defense.html

 

 

IN DEFENSE OF GENERAL LEE

By Edward C. Smith
Saturday, August 21, 1999
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company

 

Let me begin on a personal note. I am a 56-year-old, third-generation, African American Washingtonian who is a graduate of the D.C. public schools and who happens also to be a great admirer of Robert E. Lee's.

 

Today, Lee, who surrendered his troops to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House 134 years ago, is under attack by people -- black and white -- who have incorrectly characterized him as a traitorous, slaveholding racist. He was recently besieged in Richmond by those opposed to having his portrait displayed prominently in a new park.

My first visit to Lee's former home, now Arlington National Cemetery, came when I was 12 years old, and it had a profound and lasting effect on me. Since then I have visited the cemetery hundreds of times searching for grave sites and conducting study tours for the Smithsonian Institution and various other groups interested in learning more about Lee and his family as well as many others buried at Arlington.

 

Lee's life story is in some ways the story of early America. He was born in 1807 to a loving mother, whom he adored. His relationship with his father, Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, (who was George Washington's chief of staff during the Revolutionary War) was strained at best. Thus, as he matured in years, Lee adopted Washington (who had died in 1799) as a father figure and patterned his life after him. Two of Lee's ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence, and his wife, Mary Custis, was George Washington's foster great-granddaughter.

 

Lee was a top-of-the-class graduate of West Point, a Mexican War hero and superintendent of West Point. I can think of no family for which the Union meant as much as it did for his.

But it is important to remember that the 13 colonies that became 13 states reserved for themselves a tremendous amount of political autonomy. In pre-Civil War America, most citizens' first loyalty went to their state and the local community in which they lived. Referring to the United States of America in the singular is a purely post-Civil War phenomenon.

All this should help explain why Lee declined command of the Union forces -- by Abraham Lincoln -- after the firing on Fort Sumter. After much agonizing, he resigned his commission in the Union army and became a Confederate commander, fighting in defense of Virginia, which at the outbreak of the war possessed the largest population of free blacks (more than 60,000) of any Southern state.

 

Lee never owned a single slave, because he felt that slavery was morally reprehensible. He even opposed secession. (His slaveholding was confined to the period when he managed the estate of his late father-in-law, who had willed eventual freedom for all of his slaves.)

 

Regarding the institution, it's useful to remember that slavery was not abolished in the nation's capital until April 1862, when the country was in the second year of the war. The final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation was not written until September 1862, to take effect the following Jan. 1, and it was intended to apply only to those slave states that had left the Union.

 

Lincoln's preeminent ally, Frederick Douglass, was deeply disturbed by these limitations but determined that it was necessary to suppress his disappointment and "take what we can get now and go for the rest later." The "rest" came after the war.

 

Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the few civil rights leaders who clearly understood that the era of the 1960s was a distant echo of the 1860s, and thus he read deeply into Civil War literature. He came to admire and respect Lee, and to this day, no member of his family, former associate or fellow activist that I know of has protested the fact that in Virginia Dr. King's birthday -- a federal holiday -- is officially celebrated as "Robert E. Lee-Stonewall Jackson-Martin Luther King Day."

 

Lee is memorialized with a statue in the U.S. Capitol and in stained glass in the Washington Cathedral.

It is indeed ironic that he has long been embraced by the city he fought against and yet has now encountered some degree of rejection in the city he fought for.

In any event, his most fitting memorial is in Lexington, Va.: a living institution where he spent his final five years. There the much-esteemed general metamorphosed into a teacher, becoming the president of small, debt-ridden Washington College, which now stands as the well-endowed Washington and Lee University.

 

It was in Lexington that he made a most poignant remark a few months before his death. "Before and during the War Between the States I was a Virginian," he said. "After the war I became an American."

 

I have been teaching college students for 30 years, and learned early in my career that the twin maladies of ignorance and misinformation are not incurable diseases. The antidote for them is simply to make a lifelong commitment to reading widely and deeply. I recommend it for anyone who would make judgment on figures from the past, including Robert E. Lee.

 

[Dr. Smith is co-director of the Civil War Institute at American University in Washington, D.C.]

 

[rjshae]

 

But what if you're in clown training?

[Raithe]

The trouble with amateur sleuthing and desire to Dox...

Those who aim to identify Charlottesville marchers but sometimes misfire...

Edited August 18, 2017 by Raithe

[Malcador]

The trouble with amateur sleuthing and desire to Dox...

Those who aim to identify Charlottesville marchers but sometimes misfire...

Amateur internet analysis being bunk? I am surprised. Ah well, people of all stripes have to be justice porn fetishists so this is what happens

[Guard Dog]

OK, this is going to be a bit of a rant. But bear with me please. It was rolling around in my mind on the way home yesterday. As many of you know I have studied the American Civil War at length. I am pretty ambivalent about removing the confederate markers from public places. I really don't see the aesthetic value of statues in every park. Just a matter of taste I guess. Plus statues of people in places they have no connection to makes no sense to me. Lee & Davis in New Orleans? Why? I don't see moving or just removing them as erasing history in and of itself. Although that may be the intention. I'd draw the line when it comes to removing them from Gettysburg, Shiloh Battlefield, places like that as some are now calling for. Now you ARE erasing history.

 

As big a sin as erasing history is revising it to suit modern mores. And that has been going on with the CSA since around the beginning of the 20th Century when all these statues started being placed. I am of course, referring to the "Lost Cause" narrative. That the South was engaged in a virtuous struggle against a northern tyrant bent on taking their State's Rights. It begins with the statement "The war wasn't really about slavery". It's an appealing notion and one I was once partial to myself I'm sorry to admit. But even a little bit of reading and learning about what led up to South Carolina seceding and why it all happened will disabuse any rational person of the notion it was not about slavery. It was. Not because they were evil people who enjoyed oppressing other people. It was about money. Industrial scale agriculture before the industrial revolution. Slavery was a means to an economic end they would not consider parting with so yes, it was about slavery. 

 

As pernicious as the lost cause narrative is, a new one has emerged that is equally harmful. Again it involves the failure to understand the context of events by applying modern mores to people from the past.  In yesterday's Washington Post editorial they stated the memorials were "part of an ideological campaign whose goals were to glorify men and women who betrayed the United States".  The problem with that is the United States in 1861 was a very different thing than it is in 2017. There was no "national identity". People did not consider themselves citizens of the United States, they were citizens of THEIR state. When Virginia seceded Lee would have considered himself a traitor had he not taken command of the Virginia military forces. Had Virginia not seceded he may have actually taken Lincoln's offer of command of the Union army. In those days even the army itself was not a national institution but rather a collection of units raised and supplied by the states. The United States became the country we recognize today in the years following the war. Partially because of the war and partially because of the railroad. As people became more mobile and no longer lived and died in the same states their parents did the "national identity" began to form. Calling the people who fought for the CSA "traitors" is wrong. They were the people of their time dealing with circumstances beyond their control.

 

Historical events should not be revised to suit modern mores. It should be remembered as it happened in the context it happened. To be honest I don't see the point in memorializing the political leaders of the CSA. I don't think they deserve it. Memorializing to soldiers who were not fighting for slavery, rather defending their homes from an invading force is appropriate when placed in appropriate places. Cemeteries, battlefields, etc. That the cause the fought and died for was immoral, evil even is a tragedy. But it was not one of their making. There is a great line in Shakespeare's Henry V: "Now if those men do not die well it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it" That's why I don't think we should see statues of Jeff Davis, Alexander Stephens, or folks like that. 

 

Just my $.02

Edited August 18, 2017 by Guard Dog

[Wrath of Dagon]

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

 

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been re-written, every picture has been re-painted, every statue and street and building has been re-named, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

 

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

 

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

 

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”

 

George Orwell. https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/3706.George_Orwell?page=1

[Hurlshort]

Well said GD. I find it interesting that all the people defending Lee's statue seem to know nothing about the guy.

[Malcador]

Moving statues is erasing history, how exactly?

[Wrath of Dagon]

Puzzle it out. That's something Orwell talks specifically about.

 

Edit: Still there: http://www.saint-petersburg.com/monuments/ploshchad-lenina/ Will probably always be there.

Edited August 18, 2017 by Wrath of Dagon

[Hurlshort]

I'm the first to complain when history textbooks get politicized (interestingly enough, California and Texas tend to be the worst offenders in regards to this.) I'd even go so far as to say I'd vote against removing the statue of Lee if I sat on the city council (I'd suggest alternative ways to change the message of the memorial.) But I don't live in Charlottesville, and I'm not on the city council, and if they want to change their public parks, that is their right.

 

And honestly I have a very similar view of the Berkeley protests against conservative speaker. The difference is I'd say the Berkeley protesters (Black Bloc excluded) seem to not understand that they are increasing the exposure of the speakers by trying to shut them down, and the alt-right seem to be more interested in attention than the actual cause. 

[Malcador]

Moving them isn't purging them from history though. Museums or some place rebel dead are buried is a decent place. I guess renaming streets can be seen that way, but can see why people may not want to live on Bedford Forrest Avenue at the same time.

 

Interesting there's a Lenin statue in Seattle, hah.

Edited August 18, 2017 by Malcador

[Guard Dog]

Well said GD. I find it interesting that all the people defending Lee's statue seem to know nothing about the guy.

I've read a good bit about Lee. He has been the victim of historical revisions himself. What erroneous information you hear depends on who you are hearing it from. Like Jackson he was opposed to Virginia seceding. But he never considered not fighting for his home State. He was not opposed to slavery as some have said. His attitude towards "africans" in general was paternalistic and condescending. He thought slavery was their lot because that was God's will for them. He also saw their servitude as an "instructional" period for their race that future generations would learn from. And he actually meant that in a benevolent way if you can believe that. He was a man of his time. Those views were hardly unique. That we find them ridiculously backwards and offensive now says more about us than it does about him.

 

Even his prowess on the battlefield has been subject to some revision. While his abilities as a commander are unquestioned he was a lot better in defense than in the attack. If he were a chess player he would be tough to beat if he were playing black. Playing white it's even money when he has to make the first move. His failing, as Gromnir and I have  discussed before is failing to adapt to changing technology.

 

He was not one to romanticize the war. He thought it's symbols should be put away and left to history. I think he would have been mortified at his role in the events of the past week.

Edited August 18, 2017 by Guard Dog

[pmp10]

As big a sin as erasing history is revising it to suit modern mores. And that has been going on with the CSA since around the beginning of the 20th Century when all these statues started being placed. I am of course, referring to the "Lost Cause" narrative. That the South was engaged in a virtuous struggle against a northern tyrant bent on taking their State's Rights. It begins with the statement "The war wasn't really about slavery". It's an appealing notion and one I was once partial to myself I'm sorry to admit. But even a little bit of reading and learning about what led up to South Carolina seceding and why it all happened will disabuse any rational person of the notion it was not about slavery. It was. Not because they were evil people who enjoyed oppressing other people. It was about money. Industrial scale agriculture before the industrial revolution. Slavery was a means to an economic end they would not consider parting with so yes, it was about slavery. 

 

But it's not that simple.

90% of men who made up confederate armed forces didn't own any slaves.

The popular support confederacy enjoyed was not for the benefit of a few rich men but to defend the system.

 

And frankly speaking I think history is pretty much always an art of reinterpreting the past to push modern political agenda.

[Guard Dog]

 

As big a sin as erasing history is revising it to suit modern mores. And that has been going on with the CSA since around the beginning of the 20th Century when all these statues started being placed. I am of course, referring to the "Lost Cause" narrative. That the South was engaged in a virtuous struggle against a northern tyrant bent on taking their State's Rights. It begins with the statement "The war wasn't really about slavery". It's an appealing notion and one I was once partial to myself I'm sorry to admit. But even a little bit of reading and learning about what led up to South Carolina seceding and why it all happened will disabuse any rational person of the notion it was not about slavery. It was. Not because they were evil people who enjoyed oppressing other people. It was about money. Industrial scale agriculture before the industrial revolution. Slavery was a means to an economic end they would not consider parting with so yes, it was about slavery. 

 

But it's not that simple.

90% of men who made up confederate armed forces didn't own any slaves.

The popular support confederacy enjoyed was not for the benefit of a few rich men but to defend the system.

 

And frankly speaking I think history is pretty much always an art of reinterpreting the past to push modern political agenda.

 

  Keep reading... I addressed that too

[Wrath of Dagon]

The problems of being a white nationalist in America: https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/08/17/white-nationalists-take-dna-tests-prove-racial-purity-results-hilarious/

[Raithe]

A man who planted a tree in the same area every day for 37 years...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkZDSqyE1do

Edited August 19, 2017 by Raithe

[Raithe]

Bitcoin Coinbase Hack

[Raithe]

Also...  FBI says ISIS used ebay to send terror cash to US

[Gfted1]

Facts that sound fake, but are completely true.

[Raithe]

Trump-shaped ecstasy pills found by police in Germany

[Malcador]

Facts that sound fake, but are completely true.

The Harvard, Oxford and Venus entries were interesting

[Gfted1]

Heh, I was shocked that Betty White is older than sliced bread!