The monument on the left is no longer standing. It was taken down during the recent “Black Lives Matter” protests in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, where it had been since 1888. It was of Francis Scott Key, the author of the “Star-Spangled Banner.” Francis Scott Key was a product of his time and owned slaves that he eventually freed save one that he hired to be the foreman on his estate.
I put that memorial in contrast to a still standing one in Seattle of Vladimir Lenin. Funny, isn’t it? Lenin didn’ t have any slaves, he just enslaved a whole country for several decades under Communism, although my grandmother survived 10 years in one of those slave labor Gulags in Siberia, that puts it in a personal light for me, and gives me an entirely different perspective on Marxism. Karl Marx was a German political philosopher (son of wealthy wine merchants along the Moselle River) whose book “Dass Kapital” described what he envisioned the world’s economic life should be – Communism. Russia adopted it lock stock and barrel in 1917 under Lenin’s leadership. Communism collapsed in 1991, a discredited economic policy that does not work.
We are in a culture war, just as 1933 Germany, and 1917 Russia. History is being revised by destroying historical names, historical events, and making us feel guilty. It is strange to see the Minority Leader of the Senate and the House Speaker kneeling with their kente shawls, asking for forgiveness. Someone should tell them that there is not a single person alive today that had slaves, nor are there any black people that were slaves around to forgive them.
That Lenin is still standing, and Francis Scott Key is torn down, gives you a hint as to what the revised history will look like! The next thing will be a new national anthem! Something that is already in the works. By the way, Mickey Mouse and Disneyland are going to have to go! Walt will have to be outed as a racist, just like many other heroes and role models of our generation, like John Wayne. Democracy is just too democratic. The First Amendment needs a re-write, as dissonants need to be silenced. I’ll bet the Second Amendment does not suit the “BLM” crowd either. They will probably have to rewrite the whole Bill of Rights anyway because it was written by James Madison who owned over a hundred slaves.
I was born in Austria, and I did not come to the US until I was 11 years old. Although I was by no means German, because I was born in Austria, of Austro-Hungarian parents who came from Hungary and Ukraine, I was labeled a “Kraut” ( a pejorative for a German) by my new American “friends.” I got over it but felt some of the pangs of discrimination.
I was never invested in the Civil War that happened almost 100 years before my birth. General Robert E. Lee didn’t mean anything to me. I suspect he doesn’t mean anything to any black person my age, either. Yet I did not cheer when the “barbarians” tore down his statue. He was a symbol of the South. The Civil war was the most brutal war ever fought by this nation. Over 600,000 northern and southern men died in it. Almost everyone alive now has had a relative that died in it. Whatever that war represented, good, bad, slavery, or freedom, those boys died and were planted in the ground. And the Emancipation Proclamation declared the Black people free! What do you think their descendants feel? Joy? Hardly! Union or Confederate ancestors of those sacrificial lambs feel sorrow, admittedly not a lot, because they never knew them.
Nevertheless, I will bet that no civilized person white or black celebrated the taking down magnificent sculptings, works of art, do you think? So when these statues came down, what exactly was the purpose. Is it to pay back for the suffering of slavery? Those slaves are dead. They are going to gain very little from those statues being pulled down. Is it to make the current descendants of the armies of the South feel pangs of pain? Do you think? I think NOT. It will make them angry! It will take away their ability to remember and grieve. It will serve to further divide us socially, racially, politically, religiously, morally, and as people. All those that claim that the South was immoral and treasonous do not understand that is not how they interpreted it at all. Besides, Lincoln saw to it that not one Southern General was tried for treason. Lincoln was much too wise for that. He would rather see the country reunited than a bunch of Generals hanging from trees. He knew that would just fan the flames. True, Lee is not our heritage, but it is theirs. And damaging their heritage is not going to heal any divisions between North and South or between black and white.
Germany has kept memorials that mark the Nazi-Era, like Auschwitz, the birthplace of Adolph Hitler, and his “Eagle’s Nest” precisely to remember. They were of the mindset that contemplating this incredible crime on humanity would serve to heal some of the wounds and dissuade others to repeat history. Discarding history can be a dangerous habit that might come back to bite you in the ass.
If you think that black people will be assured or assuaged by taking down Francis Scott Key’s statue, you are living in a different world than I. A lot of black children grew up with that song, shed a tear singing it, and are now adults. They too will miss it. Many black stars sang it including Whitney Huston, Marvin Gaye, Jenifer Hudson, Beyonce, Gladys Knight among many others have rendered spectacular renditions to full stadiums who will also remember the words and music because of them. Many statues that had little to do with slavery or the South have been desecrated. Heroes, like Ulysses S. Grant, who fought against slavery and defeated the South, came down as well. Even Abraham Lincoln memorials did not escape desecration. I’ll bet that didn’t help “black lives” either.
Do you think the people that pulled down those statues had the intention to hurt the South? I seriously doubt they felt they would do any such thing. They were manipulated and bribed by the looting and pleasure of unbridled destruction. They were told that it was pay-back time for the past. Really? The past is past, and this act of destruction did nothing for the past. I can guarantee you the organizers had no intention of getting even for past events. The purpose of brutishness is to manipulate the present! The mindless mob felt good, knocking heads off statues, burning buildings, and looting stores. It was the organizers of these events that sat back and reveled in glee as to what they had accomplished. And what did they accomplish? More hate and division among us. Seeing the stores go up in flames, and the looters running out of them with an armful of looted goods did not help the image of black people, I would guess. The protesters have been played, and so have we. And who organized this? The ones who would benefit. Who would benefit from strife and division of Americans, I ask you? Think about it. Who would benefit from more racial divide? Who would benefit from blacks hating whites and visa-versa? I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.
The founders of “Black Lives Matter” are self-proclaimed Marxists. If you don’t believe it, just Google them. “We are trained Marxists!” so said Patrisse Cullors, one of the founders. And who were their mentors and role models besides Karl Marx? Does Bill Ayers and Saul Alinsky ring a bell? Saul wrote their bible, “Rules for Radicals,” and Bill is a convicted terrorist and bomb maker. With defunding the police, abolishing jails, a new national anthem, so many more monuments to take down, renaming a lot of airports, including the Bradley International Airport in LA. Tom Bradley was an Uncle Tom. I am sure of it! The entire western culture should probably be gone over with a fine-tooth comb from the Greeks on, who had a lot of slaves. Their philosophers had ideas that do not match modern progressive thought and the Romans who actually had black slaves from Africa. How many more Christopher Columbuses and Junipero Serras are still to be found? The “Trained Marxists” will need a lot more training, just to find them. The desecration of Mount Rushmore will take years with all that stone to take down. Remaking history is not going to be easy!