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Saturday, September 05, 2020

Links - 5th September 2020 (2) (George Floyd Unrest: Statues)

Statue of Mahatma Gandhi, Parliament Square - Wikipedia - "In July 2014, Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, George Osborne, announced while on a visit to India that a statue of Mahatma Gandhi would be placed in Parliament Square, Westminster"
It is claimed that statues of Confederate generals should be taken down because they were traitors and the statues weren't contemporaneous. So since this went up 67 years after Gandhi died and he was a traitor to the Raj...

35 cops injured in further London violence as Gandhi statue defaced - "A statue of former UK PM Winston Churchill was also sprayed with the word "Racist"... The Indian high commission told TOI it would be raising the vandalism of the nine-foot bronze Gandhi statue, unveiled in 2015 by Arun Jaitley when he was finance minister, with the UK authorities."
First they came for the Confederate generals. Then they came for the slave traders...

Calls to remove 'racist' Gandhi statue in Leicester - "Prof Devji said Gandhi's "record is actually very mixed", and he was known to sympathise with Africans during the Boer and Zulu wars."Gandhi too was an imperfect human being, [but] imperfect Gandhi was more radical and progressive than most contemporary compatriots," he said.Former MP Keith Vaz, who was at the unveiling of the Leicester statue in 2009, called the Indian leader "one of the greatest peacemakers in history", and said he would "defend [the statue] personally"."

Equating Gandhi's imperfect anti-colonialism with imperialism and slavery is absurd - "Gandhi has probably done more than any other leader in the last century to dismantle the idea of White racial supremacy. There is, of course, no doubt that Gandhi was a flawed man with some ideas that seem questionable in contemporary times. But for some of this statements to overtake the work he did in discrediting the racism of the British Empire is self defeating. This absurd standard of perfection in progressive movements is only suited to people who do not want progressive movements at all...
Mahatma Gandhi statue in Washington D.C vandalized over George Floyd protest...
“King’s ability to unify – far from perfect – owed much to his ability to inhabit Gandhi’s legacy,” writes Nico Slate. “King’s connection to Gandhi strengthened his appeal to both Blacks and Whites. Gandhi represented courage, civil disobedience, and the rising colored world to many Blacks while symbolising non-threatening nonviolence to Whites.”... To say that oppressed people can only have perfect leaders and movements – is to argue that oppressed people should have no leaders and movements at all."
I doubt the author has such a holistic view of white "problematic" figures though

The monumental madness of toppling Gandhi - "We should judge people from the standards of the time they lived in, not by how we might feel today. Indeed, that means there will be many monuments to people we now think of as despicable. Public sculpture is a dialogue between the past and the present... A free society is not maintained by the brute force of easy answers, but with sometimes incredibly difficult compromises. Tyranny offers the easy answer – eliminating all the statues that displease us. But if we embrace the easy answer, soon there won’t be any statues left... While other social movements sought to win people over, this destruction in the name of tolerance creates an endless civil war that pits groups against each other. It stirs up division and hatred under the false facade of justice. Its only possible outcome is to force everyone to accept one myopic version of history while prohibiting everyone from having their own versions. Gandhi, like any human being, was fallible... In fact, that is what makes him more human and more inspirational... According to Mandela, ‘we are looking at the young Gandhi yet to become the Mahatma, when he would be without any human prejudice save in favour of truth and justice.’ If Gandhi goes, could Mandela and King’s statues and monuments soon face the same fate?"
Virtue signalling means championing uncontroversial propositions is useless. So Mandela and King will be next

Douglas Murray onTwitter - "Congratulations to everyone who guessed which founder of a major world religion was also a slave-owner. True there aren't any statues to him. Or many drawings. But perhaps the Woke mob can insist that anybody named after him just changes their name? That should do it."

Sadiq Khan will review all monuments in London to ensure they reflect city’s diversity - "Sadiq Khan has announced a commission to review statues, plaques and street names in London to ensure landmarks in the capital “suitably reflect London’s achievements and diversity”. The announcement comes after a statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down by Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol at the weekend. The bronze monument was then pushed into the Bristol Harbour... When asked if he would consider taking down a statue of Winston Churchill which had the word “racist” sprayed on it during protests last weekend, Mr Khan said: “No – nobody’s perfect, whether it’s Churchill, whether it’s Gandhi, whether it’s Malcolm X."
So if you want to protect your history, never let your city/country become "diverse"?
In 10 years time it won't just be 'slavers' who get torn down. In 100 years time all the meat eaters might be non-kosher

Christopher Columbus statue torn down, thrown in lake by protesters - "At the height of the destruction, agitators attacked an NBC12 photographer, demanding he leave the scene. A small crowd of people waved boards in the photographer’s face, grabbed him and attacked his camera."
Must have been white supremacists who tore down the statue as a false flag, since they attacked the photographer!

VIDEO: UK #BLM Protester Calls for Removal of Statue of Person They Don't Know - "A short clip from a presenter interviewing Black Lives Matter protesters, reportedly in Oxford, asking two men why they were calling for the removal of a Cecil Rhodes statue went viral as the protesters did not know who he was... “Exactly the idiots protesting have know idea who the statues represent. Over 50% of young people think it’s Nelson Mandela on top of Nelsons column. The other half don’t even know who Nelson Mandela is”... King Leopold II, Queen Victoria, Winston Churchill, and Edward Colston all had their statues either torn down or defaced as protesters took a stand against what these historical figures purportedly represented."

Park Volunteer Outraged over Vandalism of Monument to Philadelphia Abolitionist: 'He Was BLM Before There Was A Slogan' - "Protesters have defaced a statue of Philadelphia abolitionist Matthias Baldwin, dousing the statue with paint and spray-painting the word “colonizer” on the pedestal... Baldwin argued for the right of African Americans to vote in Pennsylvania during the state’s 1837 Constitutional Convention, and helped establish a school for African American children where he paid teachers’ salaries for years.“He hired blacks in his shops when that was not the norm,” Walsh said. “He was BLM [Black Lives Matter] before there was a slogan.”Protesters also defaced Philadelphia’s Civil War Soldiers and Sailors monument with graffiti reading “BLM.” That monument’s inscription reads, “All who have labored today in behalf of the Union have wrought for the best interests of the country and the world not only for the present but for all future ages.”“The irony of vandalizing a monument to those who died to end slavery is lost on the morons who don’t know their history,” Walsh said."
Of course, since what they really hate is white people and not slavers...

The historical illiteracy of Black Lives Matter - "Activists have tried to rewrite the past by defacing the Cenotaph and the statue of Winston Churchill that stands by Parliament Square. In doing so, they have condemned those who did infinitely more than they ever will to combat fascism, all the while claiming to be anti-fascists.Of all the instances of historical vandalism, one of the most striking has been the attack on a statue of Abraham Lincoln. This is the same Lincoln who freed the slaves. To freedmen and women, he was a hero. Shortly after his death, he was depicted as a Moses-like figure, defiantly leading his people from bondage, or even as Jesus Christ. Yet today, he seems to have been dismissed as just another racist ‘white saviour’... Perhaps the problem is that Lincoln’s example challenges the racial myopia of Black Lives Matter. He demonstrates that white people can, in fact, be and do good (what a radical idea!), and that defining all white people as inherently damned by the original sin of whiteness is itself a bigoted generalisation... The focus on white people as being to blame for historic slavery is one such case. Slavery has been a feature of many societies throughout history. And yet, it is only Western countries’ names that come up when people talk about who is to blame... Societies have lived without the police before, so the argument goes. But do these people really want to return to the pre-police age? Do they know what it actually looked like?In the days before modern policing, ‘justice’ was enacted by vigilante crowds, local militias or by the army. Sometimes there was a fair trial. Often there was not. Those accused of witchcraft and heresy were burned. Might meant right. Does this sound like the peaceful, progressive society activists claim to be pursuing?"
Of course, we knew they would go for Abraham Lincoln eventually. Luckily soldiers were sent to protect the memorial in DC

Boston To Remove Statue Depicting Abraham Lincoln With Freed Black Man At His Feet - "Members of the Boston Art Commission voted unanimously Tuesday evening to remove Boston's copy of Thomas Ball's sculpture Emancipation Memorial from Park Square. The work depicting a formerly enslaved man at the feet of Abraham Lincoln has stood there since 1879... "This is a frozen picture. This man is kneeling, he will never stand up," Bullock said. "This image is problematic because it feeds into a narrative that Black people need to be led and freed. A narrative that seems very specific to us for some reason. Why is our trauma so glorified?"A Howard University student and Massachusetts resident named Hannah Bessette called the statue demeaning. "Regardless of what the intentions were," she said, "It is important to note the intentions were white based intentions. As it was a white created statue." A handful of people who spoke at the meeting were in favor of keeping the sculpture where it is and adding context. But, commission member Robert Freeman said he had changed his mind after listening to two mothers in another recent virtual meeting. They spoke of bringing their sons to see the sculpture. The boys immediately noticed the shirtless Black man with broken shackles on his wrists and ankles."And their son said, 'that statue looks like dad. And the other said it looks like me'""
It's all Abraham Lincoln's fault for being a slave owner!
The former slaves who funded would be happy

UW-Madison students call for removal of Lincoln statue, 'Just because he was anti-slavery doesn’t mean he was pro-Black' - "After protesters tore down two statues at the state capitol, attention is now turning to the statue of President Abraham Lincoln at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.The statue has overlooked Bascom Hill for more than a hundred years and is a staple of graduate photos, but what he symbolizes for marginalized students isn’t land-grant universities or even emancipating slaves.“He was also very publicly anti-Black,” said Nalah McWhorter, the president of the Wisconsin Black Student Union. “Just because he was anti-slavery doesn’t mean he was pro-Black. He said a lot in his presidential campaigns. His fourth presidential campaign speech, he said that he believes there should be an inferior and superior, and he believes white people should be the superior race"... “For them to want to protect a breathless, lifeless statue more than they care about the experiences of their black students that have been crying out for help for the past 50, 60 years, it’s just a horrible feeling as a student, as a black and brown student on campus””

Black Community Elders Shutdown And Shame Anti-Statue Protest - "While Black Lives Matters activists tried to chant them down, reenactors dressed as freed slaves of Capitol Hill and Frederick Douglass gave an abridged version of the dedication speech. When the organizer told the crowd that the older generation had failed them and had nothing to teach them, a black man in a “New York City” shirt followed, raising his voice to tell the crowd his great-great-grandfather is that slave (depicted in the memorial), and “this young upstarts” better show some respect for the suffering of their people."

Anita's Hall of Social Justice & Intersectional Feminism - Posts - "Doesn't matter if slaves built the pyramids or not, they were built by SLAVE OWNERS.Statues gone! Next? Egyptian & Roman monuments of slavery!http://chng.it/wrFjPwQ7Sign my petition, let's do away with the Pyramids Of Giza.Egyptian Pharaohs were some of the busiest slave traders in history. Some racists who have spoken out against the Pyramids being demolished are saying that the pyramids were not built by slaves, they were built by low paid workers.What typical white privilege these historians are showing because Pharaoh's were STILL SLAVE OWNERS. Statues have already been removed for that reason, so why should the Pyramids be given any kind of free pass on the hate they represent?I've even had an archaeologist tell me that they are valuable, and I replied:"To who are they valuable? Straight white males like you?"I'm sick and tired of racist and transphobic history being discovered, just last week more fossils was discovered, again they were described as being "male", and "female", presenting problematic heteronormative transphobia and toxic whiteism. How about they just rebury them again along with their bigotry until they discover them to be on a spectrum of sex?It's time to address Egypt's slavery and tear down the pyramids of Egypt. Is it time to melt down the gold masks and give that money back to the ancestors of people of color who were enslaved in Egypt.The Pharaohs of Egypt enslaved black Nubian people and Jewish people and both of those groups are still doing terribly financially today because of Egyptian slavery. They are either living in ebola ravaged central Africa or coronavirus ravaged New York central park west apartments. Of course money raised from the melting down of Egyptian burial masks will help them.I asked demi-grey gendered non-binary BLM representative Monixi'que Tyroneberg from New York's Upper East Side:  "Well Anita, this is really quite simple. All statues that propagate racism and slavery have to go. You simply cannot keep something like pyramids, or the Sphinx, or even the Parthenon in Greece standing, because they are a testament to hate, slavery, racism and transphobia"."The Parthenon in Greece was build by slaves over 2000 years ago and Egypt was a slave economy until the 19th century and we have information coming in on the Aztec culture as well from AOC's office.""

Calls for redesign of royal honour over 'offensive' image - "Campaigners are calling for the redesign of one of Britain’s highest honours personally bestowed by the Queen because they say its badge resembles a depiction of a white angel standing on the neck of a chained black man.The Order of St Michael and St George is traditionally awarded to ambassadors and diplomats and senior Foreign Office officials who have served abroad... The imagery on the award’s badge portrays St Michael trampling on Satan, but campaigners say the image is reminiscent of the killing of George Floyd by white police officers in the US that led to worldwide protests... “This is a highly offensive image, it is also reminiscent of the recent murder of George Floyd by the white policeman in the same manner presented here in this medal. We the undersigned are calling for this medal to completely redesigned in a more appropriate way and for an official apology to be given for the offence it has given.” Bumi Thomas, a Nigerian British singer, activist and specialist in visual communications, said the imagery on the badge was clear. “It is not a demon; it is a black man in chains with a white, blue-eyed figure standing on his neck. It is literally what happened to George Floyd and what has been happening to black people for centuries under the guise of diplomatic missions: active, subliminal messaging that reinforces the conquest, subjugation and dehumanisation of people of colour... “For most black and brown people, there is nothing good about the empire. Most people will see this as an image of George Floyd on a global scale and a symbol of white supremacy.”The Order was founded in 1818 under King George III. It was originally created to honour service in the Mediterranean during the Napoleonic wars. The motto that surrounds the image is Auspicium melioris ævi, Latin for “Omen of a better age”."

Portland protesters topple statue of Thomas Jefferson, father of the Declaration of Independence, as culture war heats up (VIDEO) - "Although Jefferson was a slave owner, he is revered for his advocacy of religious tolerance and individual liberty – values which became foundational principles of the United States. For many, the act of vandalism was beyond the pale... demonstrators in Portland pulled down two statues honoring pioneers who settled in Oregon. It’s not clear what their motive was, but local media said that the landmarks had been targeted in the past for their alleged glorification of “white conquest.”"

Black Lives Matter protesters who toppled a statue on their own heads have created the perfect culture war metaphor - "Protesters in Virginia seriously injured one of their own when they pulled down a stone statue onto his head. This unintended tragedy sums up the irresponsible thoughtlessness of their actions.In summary, an excited crowd mounted a Confederate monument as part of the current wave of statue-felling and pushed a large stone figure onto a man who was standing underneath it, seriously injuring him and reportedly leaving him in a coma... in the minds of the activists their actions are consequence free, because all they are doing is pulling down the symbols of oppression and racism. It seems likely that a large part of the crowd had only very recently become aware that statues are to blame for, well, everything, but ultimately you don’t want the foot soldiers of revolution thinking too deeply when you’ve given them a sledgehammer and a target.This is just a smaller version of what’s happening on a larger scale. The calls to abolish police forces, cancel cultural icons and pick apart the historical myths that knot society together seem like a great idea in the fervour of an uprising, but at some point you have to deal with what comes after. For example, there are rumours those anarchists camped out in their own autonomous zone in Seattle are already running out of food, apart from some $6 hot dogs some nasty capitalists are selling. Which takes us to the unfortunate guy standing underneath the statue as it fell in the next part of the Virginia video. He could very easily be a symbol of what happens next; a victim of the good intentions of the mob.History shows that pulling down cultural icons can escalate into something very nasty.  Once you’ve pulled down all the statues, and cancelled all the TV shows that have upset someone, what comes next? What if everything isn’t perfect once you’ve purged society of all the elements that have been labelled problematic?Then you have to go after the real people who aren’t fitting in to the new world order, and where does that end? Well, it could end in someone deciding that YOU have questionable views and suddenly you’re the guy (or gal, or other) who one minute was trying to pull down the statue of hate, and the next minute being crushed underneath it. My metaphor doesn’t end there though, because keep watching the video and what do you see? The cheering of the wider crowd doesn’t stop immediately, because they are ignorant of what actually just happened. But look at those on the statue, the few that took it upon themselves to climb the edifice and bring it crashing down.They look down in disbelief at the stricken man, clutching their hammer to their chests, shocked at what they’ve just done. They didn’t see this outcome. They shout and gesture for him to be helped, but there’s nothing they can do now. They acted hastily and feverishly, they didn’t consider the consequences and now it’s too late."

Rioters Attack Police Officers In Chicago While Trying To Destroy Statue - "Far-left rioters attacked law enforcement officials in Chicago on Friday night who rushed in to protect a statue of Christopher Columbus that the rioters were trying to destroy... the extremists throwing all sorts of objects at the police officers, who were not wearing helmets or other riot protective gear. The extremists threw artillery shell fireworks at the officers, which can cause serious injury."... The attempt to destroy the statue comes as far-left rioters have destroyed numerous historical statues and monuments in recent weeks, including “statues of former Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant,” as well as the attempted destruction of a “statue of former President Andrew Jackson before being stopped by law enforcement,” The Daily Wire reported. “Statues of the man who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner,” a notable person from the Catholic church, and a Holocaust memorial have also been destroyed in recent days.”"

Wisconsin crowd pulls down statue of abolitionist who died fighting slavery - "Crowds outside the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison tore down two statues and attacked a state senator amid protests following the arrest of a Black man who shouted at restaurant customers through a megaphone while carrying a baseball bat... Statues of Wisconsin’s motto “Forward” and of Col. Hans Christian Heg were dragged away from the statehouse. The statue of Heg, an anti-slavery activist who fought and died for the Union during the U.S. Civil War, was decapitated and thrown into a Madison lake by protesters... “Slavery was abhorrent to him, and the sincerity of his views was later to be proved by the supreme sacrifice,” a biographer wrote in 1920."
It's clear that many protesters want immunity from prosecution for black people, and just hate whites - and fighting injustice is just an excuse
"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped."

Edward Colston statue replaced by sculpture of Black Lives Matter protester Jen Reid - "The statue of slave trader Edward Colston was replaced in Bristol on Wednesday morning – with a sculpture of one of the protesters whose anger brought him down.The figure of Jen Reid, who was photographed standing on the plinth with her fist raised after the 17th-century merchant was toppled by Black Lives Matter demonstrators last month, was erected at dawn by a team directed by the artist Marc Quinn... On whether there was an issue with a white artist being behind the work, Reid said: “It’s not even a question. If we have allies, it doesn’t matter what colour they are. He has done something to represent BLM, and to keep the conversation going.”A placard was briefly placed on the plinth reading “Marc Quinn loves money, not blacks” before it was removed by another member of the public to applause."
This is a great demonstration of the desire of SJWs to uncritically destroy the past due to narcissism (not least judging the past by their present standards)
It's only a matter of time before the leftist firing squad comes for this

Violence shows we haven’t moved on, says ANN WIDDECOMBE - "A hundred years before the birth of Colston Henry VIII was boiling traitors in oil. Hanging, drawing and quartering was still going on for many years after Colston's death. That was the society in which he lived and the values upheld by its law. Yet he was miles ahead of his time in philanthropy, spending his vast fortune on schools, almshouses, hospitals and churches. He had a social conscience. His association with the slave trade was through the Royal African Company, set up by Charles II and James II, which traded in gold, silver and ivory as well as slaves so it is not possible to estimate how much of Colston's wealth came from the slave trade itself. Not only was the company founded by Kings but investors included Samuel Pepys and John Locke, often called the father of English liberalism. In short it was highly respectable in the Britain of its day.It is about as logical to tear down Colston's statue as it would be to hold ceremonial burnings of Pepys's diaries"

Police line-up to guard Captain Cook statue in Sydney - "Australian Police have put big numbers out to stop a statue of Captain James Cook being vandalised in Sydney.A heavy police presence has turned out in Hyde Park, Sydney in response to a Black Lives Matter protest.What a contrast to the pathetic response seen in London and Bristol where far-left mobs were seemingly given free rein to vandalise memorials."

Hundreds gather to 'protect statues' at Glasgow's George Square as Black Lives Matter activists demand removal - "Hundreds of counter-protesters have gathered to 'protect statues' at Glasgow's George Square as Black Lives Matter activists demand the removal of a memorial to former PM Robert Peel."

Sean Davis on Twitter - "New York City, which was colonized by slave traders, is named after James Duke of York, who founded and ran a slave-trading monopoly that “shipped more African slaves to the Americas than any other institution in the history of the Atlantic slave trade.” #CancelNewYork""

Opinion | George and Martha Washington enslaved 300 people. Let’s start with their names. - The Washington Post
Cancel the Washington Post!

The Guardian facing calls to 'shut down' over founder's use of slaves and siding against Lincoln in US Civil War - "Originally called the Manchester Guardian, the paper was founded in 1821 by John Edward Taylor using profits from a cotton plantation that used slaves. After his death in 1844, the paper is said to have then demanded Manchester’s cotton workers be forced back into work.Now with a growing backlash against statues linked to slavery and racism, hundreds have signed a petition taking aim at the Guardian's history.This petition to shut the paper down has been organised by novelist Tony Parsons, who tweeted: “Shameful links to slave-owning Confederate south. Built on the profits of cotton fields. Shut down The Guardian Newspaper.”During the US Civil War the paper had sided with the southern Confederates against President Lincoln who wanted to abolish slavery.A leader piece said: “It was an evil day both for America and the world when he was chosen President of the United States.”On January 2, 1863, it accused Lincoln of having “no desire to abolish slavery except as a means of extrication from the difficulties of government”.A year and a half later it claimed: “Nor is Mr Lincoln's re-election by fraud, violence, and intimidation rendered a matter of comparatively small importance solely by the fact that it reveals nothing with respect to the real wishes and thoughts of the majority of his fellow countrymen.” The left-wing paper then responded to Mr Lincoln’s assassination by laying into his presidency... The newspaper has tried to address its past, with associate editor and columnist Martin Kettle trying to explain it in 2011... His piece suggests some things should not be judged by today’s standards."

A 2020 Presidential Candidate Once Used ‘Fine People’ in 1993 To Describe Supporters Of Confederate Statues. It Wasn’t Trump. - "a newly-unearthed clip of former Vice President Joe Biden from 1993 when he was a senator and serving as the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman shows him using the words “fine people” to refer to a group that also supported preserving Confederate statues — the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC)... When Biden launched his 2020 campaign, he stated of Trump’s 2017 remarks about Charlottesville, “And that’s when we heard the words of the President of the United States, that stunned the world and shocked the conscience of this nation. He said there were ‘some very fine people on both sides.’ Very fine people on both sides?”"

Texas Ranger Statue at Love Field Removed Over Concerns About Racist History - "Airport officials decided to remove the iconic statue of a Texas Ranger after a recently published excerpt from an upcoming book and image of the Ranger depicted in the sculpture came to light... “Jay Banks was involved in efforts in 1957 to keep black children out of a white school,” said author Doug J. Swanson. “Ranger Banks was only following orders but he was the face of resistance to integration in Mansfield in 1957.”"

Museum world rallies behind curator investigated for tweets on how to damage bronze statues - "UK arts professionals are voicing support for Madeline Odent, a curator at the Royston and District Museum and Art Gallery in Hertfordshire, who sparked controversy after discussing on social media substances that could be used to damage bronze statues. Odent posted a series of tweets to her personal account after Black Lives Matter demonstrators toppled a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol and historic statues worldwide come under scrutiny."
She better not complain if someone damage artefacts she treasures

Chief Seattle Owned Slaves.....Guess Seattle Must Be Renamed, Destroyed or Removed Like All Monuments Deemed Racist.

Roman Symposium - "Statue Julius Caesar in Velzeke, Belgium damaged ... Fingers right hand completely broken off by ripping off the spear (see further pictures)"

York Minster's Roman Emperor statue being 'looked at' following complaints - "The future of a Roman Emperor statue outside York Minster is being "looked at" following complaints and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s call for a review of controversial monuments... York Minster is understood to be reviewing the statue of Emperor Constantine, after it received complaints that the Roman Emperor supported slavery.The statue of Emperor Constantine is situated in the south piazza of the Minster, and is testament to the leader who declared an end to the persecution of Christians."

Antifa Member Arrested After Attempting to Topple Jackson Statue Also Reportedly Attacked Jack Posobiec - "An Antifa member known online for assaulting and harassing conservative personalities was arrested by federal law enforcement for his role in the attempted destruction of an Andrew Jackson monument near the White House; the accused has reportedly been identified as a “ringleader” in the attempt to destroy the monument. Jason Charter was arrested on Thursday morning by federal officials and charged with destruction of federal property... Charter self-identifies as a member of the Antifa movement which was recently designated a terrorist group by President Donald Trump... Charter, despite his involvement with the far-left group Antifa, was allowed to attend CPAC while several notable conservative media figures were banned due to accusations of being too far-right."
Strange. Liberals claim antifa doesn't exist

Junipero Serra Statues Fall as Protesters Question California Missions - "California protesters this week toppled several statues of Spanish priest Junipero Serra... While many Native Americans view the dismantling of Serra statues as progress toward dismantling the legacy of racism in the U.S., some Native Americans believe there are better ways to encourage change.“The proper way is to learn and teach rather than put a rope around the side [of the statue],” Cuevas said.Several California pastors have removed statues of Serra in order to protect them from vandalism.“The Church cannot support such violence imposed on any group, nor can it support the violent destruction of sacred symbols of any faith community,” Bishop Daniel E. Garcia wrote in a letter to the Monterey Diocese he oversees. “After exhaustive investigation it is clear St. Serra made heroic sacrifices to protect the indigenous people of California from their Spanish conquerors and soldiers.”"

Damage to Whittier statue causes ripples on both coasts - "Recent civil unrest appears to have led to the vandalism of a statue of the 19th century abolitionist poet John Greenleaf Whittier in Whittier, California... a vandal apparently sympathetic to the Black Lives Matter movement, tagged the statue of Whittier – a famous author and abolitionist – over the weekend in the California city named after him.Whittier is an eastern suburb of Los Angeles. The Whittier Daily News reported on Tuesday the Whittier statue had been tagged and had "BLM" written on it as well as "(expletive ) Slave Owners."... "People are posting a lot about how sad and disappointed that they are that someone would be willing to do this," Edmeier said. "They must have assumed, because he is an elderly, white person from that era, that he must have been racist. Someone at the Whittier Police Department also posted that they don't think this was someone from the Black Lives Matter movement. They think this may have been someone in some other group trying to start some trouble.""

Shaun King on Twitter - "Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been. In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend in, guess where they went? EGYPT! Not Denmark. Tear them down."
So much for the "myth" of the slippery slope

Michael Tracey on Twitter - "Supposedly we live in this nightmarish fascist hell-state, but roaming bands of left-wing activists can just topple whatever historical statues they want seemingly without consequence"

'If Jews took down symbols of their oppression, no flag would remain in the West' - "Former MK Dr. Einat Wilf warned against defacing and removing monuments and statues of historical figures due to associations with oppression or racism following the vandalism of statues of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill in England."If Jews took down the symbols of the discrimination, oppression, persecution, ethnic cleansing and genocide against them, not a stone or a flag would remain across the Western and Islamic worlds. Human history is mostly one of brutality and exploitation. To move forward we remember, not erase... "Swastikas are too easy [to spot], but the systemic oppression and persecution of Jews was made in the name of crosses and crescents and empires. Leaders across the Western, Slavic and Islamic worlds expelled Jews and closed their doors to us. The symbols are woven into those civilizations.""No monument is conceived by those who place it at that moment as overtly and explicitly celebrating persecution. It is from our historic and social [present] moment that these monuments are viewed as celebrating persecution. Some of our current heroes will also be so judged in the future""

Memorial to Holocaust Survivors Toppled - "A Holocaust memorial fountain in Santa Rosa, Calif., was vandalized this week"

VIDEO: Young Venezuelan Woman Warns America Where Destroying Statues Leads - "In Dallas, an unelected board decided on one day to remove a generic Texas Rangers statue from a local airport, and on the very next day, they removed it. No debate. No public comment period. Nothing. The little dictators removed it to who knows where. The media dutifully and uncritically reported it.The Natural Museum of History in New York, following no public debate or input, is removing the statue of Teddy Roosevelt. Cities are allowing mobs to pull down, vandalize, and destroy statues depicting all manner of historic figures. Yes, cities are allowing this. They could stop it if they choose to. No one in the mainstream media is asking any of them a simple question: Why? TV networks have canceled two shows that show police officers in action, COPS and Live PD... Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben’s Rice, and the Land O Lakes butter maiden have all been removed, despite the fact that the families connected to Aunt Jemima and Land O Lakes do not see them as racist at all.This young Venezuelan woman says she has seen all of this before and is warning Americans where it leads.Her name is Elizabeth Rogliani. She points to several steps Venezuela went through on its way from being one of the most prosperous countries in the Americas to a socialist police state and economic disaster:
Statues came down because socialist dictator Hugo Chavez wanted the history erased.
He changed street names for the same reason.
He changed the educational curriculum to erase history and substitute his version.
Some movies were banned, presumably for the same reason.
We’ve seen all of these happen in America just in the past few weeks... Cuban exiles tried to warn Venezuelans that they were seeing similar patterns and events they had suffered, but Venezuelans brushed them off saying they knew what freedom is and they would never surrender it."

Protesters Attacked a State Senator and Tore Down a Statue of an Abolitionist in Wisconsin - "Sen. Tim Carpenter, a Democrat, tweeted on Wednesday morning that he was observing the protests near the Capitol building on Tuesday night and was capturing a video of the incidents when he was attacked... The violent actions came after Black protester Devonere Johnson was arrested earlier in the day. Police say Johnson was captured on cellphone footage in a restaurant across the road from the Capitol, holding a bullhorn and a baseball bat, and calling customers “racist.”... Johnson resisted arrest, according to the incident report, before he was placed in a squad car. But he escaped and was eventually tackled by police.In response to Johnson’s arrest, a large group of protesters gathered in downtown Madison chanting demands for his release. The protesters tore down two statues in front of the Capitol building, one of which was of Col. Hans Christian Heg, an anti-slavery activist who fought and died for the Union during the U.S. Civil War. the protesters decapitated the nearly 100-year-old sculpture and threw it into nearby Lake Monona. The group also pulled down the Forward statue, which the Wisconsin Historical Society says symbolizes devotion and progress... Protesters also smashed lights and windows at the Capitol, and set a small fire at the Dane County jail... The Republican leader of the state Assembly, Rep. Robin Vos, called the protesters who knocked down the statues "thugs" and questioned why Gov. Tony Evers hadn’t taken more action.“This is absolutely despicable,” Vos tweeted. “I am saddened at the cowardice of Madison officials to deal with these thugs. Gov. Evers, are you going to finally do something about these protestors committing crimes on state property?”"

Statue Destroyed Of Famed Black Abolitionist Frederick Douglass On Anniversary Of Notable Speech - "A statue of famed black abolitionist Frederick Douglass was destroyed at Maplewood Park in Rochester, New York, over the weekend, which comes on the anniversary of a notable speech that Douglass delivered at an Independence Day event in the city in 1852."

France won’t ‘erase’ history by removing colonial-era statues, Macron says - "Amid calls for taking down statues tied to France’s slave trade or colonial wrongs, Macron said “the republic will not erase any trace, or any name, from its history ... it will not take down any statue”.“We should look at all of our history together” including relations with Africa, with a goal of “truth” instead of “denying who we are”, Macron said.Macron also said that the fight against racism became distorted when it became exploited by what he described as “separatists”.“It is necessary to unite around Republican patriotism. We are a nation where everyone—whatever their origin and religion—can find their place,” he said... the culture minister denounced the decision to cancel a Paris showing of “Gone With the Wind” — a film long criticized as romanticizing slavery — as contrary to freedom of expression. And he firmly condemned activists who tried to take a piece of African art from a Paris museum dedicated to artwork from former colonies."

Protesters tear down statues of Union general Ulysses S. Grant, national anthem lyricist Francis Scott Key - "Grant is widely celebrated as being one of the leading forces who helped the Union win the Civil War, bringing an end to slavery in the U.S... 'Grant did briefly own one slave he freed years before the war; but as a general he smashed the Confederacy, and as president he crushed the Klan. He presided over the ratification of the 15th Amendment. People going after Grant probably just want to break things.'... Feels like this is the slippery slope overreach —> https://t.co/wovX2GkD0s — Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 20, 2020" Yglesias deleted the tweet. I guess he didn't want to acknowledge that the "myth" of the slippery slope wan't one

Cities Protecting Statues By Disguising Them As Karl Marx | The Babylon Bee - "The move has proven extremely effective at deterring Antifa and other extremist groups, who are only looking for statues of old hateful white guys to destroy and not statues of communists. "As soon as enraged rioters see the statue isn't of a dangerous, murderous madman whose ideas killed hundreds of millions but is just of Karl Marx, they move on," said one city council member in Illinois as he put a Karl Marx wig and beard on a statue of Abraham Lincoln. "Well, first, they bow respectfully to their hero and then move on."Plaques on the statues with controversial quotes from the Founding Fathers are also being covered up with Marx quotes like "Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution!" and "Workers of the world, unite!"Some towns are reporting that Che Guevara chin stubble and a beret also work wonders at saving the monuments."

Who’s behind the war on statues? - "At first, media reports stressed that vandals were concentrating on Confederate monuments. They presented the vandals as valiant avengers who were righting historical wrongs and ridding the US of symbols of its racist past. But it has quickly become clear that Confederate figures are not the only focus of these activists’ wrath. In Portland, Oregon, protesters recently tore down statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Back in 2017, Donald Trump predicted that the people protesting against Confederate monuments would set their sights on Washington and Jefferson next. His critics scoffed, called him paranoid, and blamed him for stirring up division. But he was right... they also toppled a statue commemorating women’s suffrage and beat up a 60-year-old Democratic state senator. It seems that, in the battle against white supremacy, attacking any white person will do. After the attacks in Wisconsin and elsewhere, it is clear to see that these ‘activists’ across the country are irrational. Toppling statues simply offers them a nihilistic thrill. This is not a principled statement about racism in America.Watching all this, many people are asking: why is no one in authority stopping them? There are laws against such vandalism. Why aren’t city mayors and state governors enforcing those laws? The short answer is: because the political and cultural elite sympathise with the vandals. Indeed, some political leaders seem to be actively supporting the activists. In Philadelphia, Mayor Jim Kenney and district attorney Larry Krasner, after doing little to stop nights of looting and arson, pre-emptively removed a statue of former mayor Frank Rizzo. When rumors spread that they were about to do the same with a Christopher Columbus statue, people in the neighborhood formed an armed militia to protect it. Only then did Kenney and Krasner start evoking the law, and had the police disperse the Columbus defenders. Meanwhile, they looked the other way when a mob defaced a statue of Matthias Baldwin, a white abolitionist. The message from these politicos was clear: not only will we do nothing to prevent mobs from tearing down and damaging statues, but we will also crack down on anyone who tries to stop this from happening. It is wrong to view the extremists as isolated hotheads, or radicals bent on challenging the establishment. No, their outlook is shared with those in the highest echelons of society... The vandals are not just on the street, they can also be found in the boardrooms of our cultural institutions.And where did our street activists get the idea that all of American history, including statues of its leaders and heroes, is ‘problematic’ and needs to be eradicated from our sight? Most likely, from our elite universities and most prominent media institutions. When protesters in Portland toppled George Washington this week, they spraypainted ‘1619’ on it. That was apt, because the toppling of statues embodies the outlook of the New York Times’ 1619 Project – an initiative that claims that the US was founded for the purpose of entrenching slavery, and will never escape that legacy. The ideology of ‘1619’ is one that says burn it all down and start over.There is a parallel between the fervour and indiscriminate destruction we’re seeing applied to inanimate objects in city squares and a different kind of force being used on people in social life. The rapid spread of ‘cancel culture’ – where individuals are accused of racism and shunned from public life – is destroying careers, livelihoods and reputations. At the same time that mobs are raging on our streets, another type of mob is, with the same ferocity and recklessness, tearing apart people’s lives... those who say ‘they’re just statues, not real people’ are misguided. Our public monuments do matter, because they embody our cultural values and historical memory. They are part of what we call our civilisation... There will always be those who want to destroy rather than build. What’s unusual about the situation we find ourselves in today is that that outlook is widespread among people in positions of power. Those who are supposed to be leading society are instead tearing it down from within. As much as a street mob is a problem, our self-loathing and destructive elites in politics and culture are a far bigger problem."

WATCH: John Oliver mocked Trump in 2017 for suggesting Washington and Jefferson statues would fall - "Oliver then scoffs at Trump's "slippery slope" prediction: "I'll tell you where it stops. Somewhere! Any time someone asks, where does it stop, the answers' always f*cking somewhere. You might let your kid have Twizzlers, but not inject black tar heroin. You don't just go, 'Well, after the Twizzlers, where does it stop?'""

After Columbus Statue Destroyed, Pelosi Says ‘People Will Do What They Do.’ McCarthy Responds. - "Several days after vandals toppled a Christopher Columbus statue and then tossed it into Baltimore’s inner harbor near Little Italy, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) seemingly tried to present the act of destruction as a fact of life... House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) responded to Pelosi’s comments about the Columbus statue on Twitter, saying her “job is to write laws. Instead, she encourages mobs to break them.” He also accused her of being “complicit with criminal activity.”"

‘A Sign Of The Times’: Black Pastor Laments ‘BLM’ Vandalism Of Escaped Slave Statue - "A small-town Indiana church is reeling after their statue of Lucy Higgs Nichols, an escaped slave and Civil War nurse, was defaced with “BLM” graffiti"

Who would Black Lives Matter erect a statue to? - "these activists are unsure of what or who they prefer. This is partly because the criterion is ever moving, and partly because a lot of the culture cops are culturally and historically subliterate... Allowing monuments to stand isn’t legitimising anything. They are merely part of the fabric of the past woven into today... History cannot harm us, but if we turn our backs on it, it has a habit of sneaking up on us, and then we run the risk of going through it all again."

Move to replace Civil War statue for one of Mount Laurel’s Alice Paul is causing controversy in NJ - "Santos, a Democrat, said he’s concerned that the public has not been consulted about the proposed change. He also said he worries about the implications of state lawmakers appearing to favor one historical figure over another.“Is someone who fought for the Union and preserving the Union less important than someone who fought for women’s rights?” Santos said. “That kind of pitting one kind of historical figure against one another winds up pitting groups against one another. And I don’t think that’s the way history should be treated.”"

Iconoclasm And Violence - "More NFL players are taking a knee instead of standing for the National Anthem, because racism. At USC, some black students and woke fellow, um, travelers are damning the name of the school’s mascot, a white horse named Traveler, because it shares a name as Gen. Robert E. Lee’s mount. For that matter, according to an op-ed contributor for The New York Times, enjoying college football at all is probably racist... And our disease is spreading to England. The Guardian — of course — published someone calling for Nelson’s Column to come down from Trafalgar Square, because he was a defender of slavery.Lord Nelson, one of England’s greatest heroes. My God... Whether religious or political (e.g., French revolutionaries, militants in China’s Cultural Revolution), real iconoclasts are violent. The damage Reformation-era iconoclasm did to religious art in Europe was incalculable... That’s often what iconoclasm tries to do: erase cultural memory. The zealotry with which iconoclasts go after their targets has to do with their conviction that the image, and what it stands for, is so offensive that it cannot be tolerated, nor can its defenders be reasoned with. They can only be conquered by force.In the case of our present iconoclasts, what they are attacking are aspects of what leftist academic critics “whiteness”... The argument in favor of eliminating Confederate statues but not those of the slaveholding Founders is that we honor the latter in spite of their owning slaves, but the former have monuments built to them because they fought to preserve slavery. That’s a reasonable position to take, but it assumes that reason is driving this iconoclasm. Why is Columbus under siege, both in his monuments and in his holiday (e.g., the Oberlin, Ohio, city council just voted to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day)? Why are vandals going after St. Junipero Serra and St. Joan of Arc?Because they represent European culture and civilization, which entails Christianity. Because, in the minds of the iconoclasts, they represent whiteness. This morning I picked up a book from my shelves that I haven’t looked at since it came out in 2004: the late political scientist Samuel Huntington’s Who Are We? The Challenges To America’s National Identity. It was startling to read Huntington in light of recent events, including most of all the Trump election. It was even more startling — and deeply dismaying — to read Huntington and consider that the odious white nationalists might have a clearer understanding of what’s going on now than respectable people. Let me explain.Huntington, who taught at Harvard, writes that the country has been losing a sense of coherent identity for some time now. It’s not that Americans were a homogeneous people, but rather that its Anglo-Protestant founding culture was able to assimilate immigrants. This has partly to do with strong belief in the “American Creed,” a commonly held set of assumptions about what the nation stood for: liberty, equality under the law, equality of opportunity (if not of result), individualism, populism, limited government, and free-market economics. These ideas, Huntington said, came out of Protestant England and its reception of the Enlightenment.On assimilation, the glaring exception, of course, were the descendants of the unwilling immigrants among us: those of African slaves, for whom the American Creed did not apply. Nevertheless: American national identity peaked politically with the rallying of Americans to their country and its cause in World War II. It peaked symbolically with President Kennedy’s 1961 summons: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.’ Starting in the 1960s, writes Huntington, “deconstructionists” of national identity encouraged “individuals were defined by their group membership, not common nationality.” Pushing identity politics was a time-tested strategy for colonialist regimes, for the sake of dividing and conquering subject peoples. But the governments of nation-states instead focused on uniting their disparate peoples. (Indeed, the Civil Rights Movement was about compelling the white majority to extend the promises of the Constitution and the Creed to black Americans — in other words, to fully unite them to the whole.)Huntington says that this did not start from below, but was imposed from the top, by American political, legal, and cultural elites. He writes, “These efforts by a nation’s leaders to deconstruct the nation they governed were, quite possibly, without precedent in human history.” By 1992, the liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. warned that all this had become “a cult, and today it treatens to become a counter-revolution against the original theory of American as ‘one people,’ a common culture, a single nation.” Huntington continues, talking about how the promises of the Civil Rights movement were turned on their head by racial preferences... If you want to talk about racializing American society, it didn’t start with Richard Spencer and his crew. Led by elites, America has been balkanizing along racial and ethnic lines since the late 1960s. Multiculturalism, that 1990s buzzword, led to colleges emphasizing ethnic studies and non-Western courses, and devaluing those in Western civilization... He who controls a culture’s memory controls the culture. Huntington says that if a nation “is a remembered as well as an imagined community, people who are losing that memory are becoming something less than a nation.”... “the new white nationalists” (the term is political scientist Carol Swain’s) will not be like the fringe extremists. They don’t advocate white supremacy, but rather “racial self-determination and self-preservation.” They will reject national identity, and locate culture in race. They don’t want white culture replaced by black or brown culture.Furthermore, whites attracted to these ideas will be those sick and tired of preferential treatment policies that violate the American Creed and disadvantage them. They will, Huntington predicts (remember, he wrote this in 2004), be stirred up by the loss of jobs and widening income inequality due to globalization. And they will hate the media for using what they consider to be bias against them. Finally, immigration may make them feel that they have their backs against the wall. Because of several sociological factors, Huntington says that middle class and lower middle class whites have come to see themselves as victims. He quotes another political scientist who says these whites feel that they have no real culture or identity, so they are embracing victimization.Whites, in sum, will start to act like any other ethnic or racial group in America... historically, American identity has involved four key components: Race, Ethnicity, Culture (especially language and religion), and Ideology. Race and ethnicity as a defining core of nation is long gone. Culture is “under siege” (even more so today than when Huntington wrote his book). All that’s left is ideology — that is, the Creed. Writes Huntington: “For the Creed to become the sole source of national identity would be a sharp break from the past.”He points out that the only other examples we have of creedal nations are the communist countries. This is not an encouraging thought. After the ideology failed and the coercive power of the state collapsed, those countries more or less came apart along ethnic lines. China is the great exception, but it held together, he says, because of the widely shared Han Chinese identity.Huntington concludes that because the American Creed emerged from Anglo-Protestant culture, it probably won’t survive its demise... the data Huntington cites would lead one to predict that the decline of Christianity in the US will also hasten the unraveling of the social and cultural fabric.If Christianity, with its universalist values, is declining, then something will take its place. Something will fill the vacuum it leaves. We should not at all be surprised if this turns out to be a heightened, even militant, racial consciousness. This is the logical outcome of identity politics. This is what I mean by constantly saying that Social Justice Warriors of the Left have no idea what kind of demons they are summoning from the Right. And American elites of all kinds have no idea what they are doing by pushing the “diversity is our strength” lie. We are seeing from this side of the Atlantic how the resolute refusal of the European political and cultural establishments to take the radical challenge from mass immigration seriously is opening up a big space for the radical right to flourish. It’s going to happen here too, for somewhat different reasons... an overwhelming majority of Americans reject white supremacy. The PBS/Marist poll from last week showed that only 27 percent of all Americans believe that Confederate monuments should be taken down. The racial breakdown is: whites 25%; blacks 40%; Latinos 24%.It is reasonable to assume that a nation in which over 80 percent of the people believe white supremacy is unacceptable, but only 27 percent believe the Confederate statues should come down, is not a nation that sees those statues as symbols of white supremacy... The disassembling of the American Creed has been a 50-year project of American elites, but we are all going to reap the whirlwind. You cannot destroy symbols of people’s identity without calling forth rage."

Houston man charged with trying to plant bomb at Confederate statue in Hermann Park - "The park ranger spotted him kneeling in the bushes by the 112-year-old Confederate statue, explosives in hand... The late-night confrontation at the statue of Confederate Lt. Dick Dowling — detailed in court records by a federal agent — led to the arrest of 25-year-old Andrew Schneck... After being confronted, he tried to drink some of the liquid explosives but "immediately spit the liquid on the ground ... then proceeded to pour the contents of the bottle on the ground next to him""

As Statues Fall, What's the Best Way to Evaluate History's Heroes - "The United States is in the midst of an orgy of literal iconoclasm... Are these long-overdue corrections in the name of social justice, or simply ideologically driven acts of anti-historical vandalism? The answer depends on how we judge the moral actions of figures from the past, a question that in turn requires us to consider the nature of morality itself... Newton wrote to Robert Hooke that if he saw further than others it was because he stood on the shoulders of giants. That was a medieval metaphor that went back to before the 12th century, when John of Salisbury wrote in his Metalogicon, “Bernard of Chartres used to compare us to dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants. He pointed out that we see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature.”Medieval humility has been inverted in the modern era with the hubris that we are moral giants on the shoulders of the dwarfs of the past, wicked dwarfs who deserve our eternal scorn. As we tear down more monuments to former heroes and erase their names from our buildings, we ought to think about their blameworthiness by the standards and expectations of their own era. Those supposed moral dwarfs we now decry may have been giants of their time. And you don’t have to be a scientist to know that even the largest persons look small when seen from a distance."

America Has Problems. Tearing Down Statues Won't Solve Them - "Nelson Mandela himself wrote an essay for Time magazine about how much he admired Gandhi’s tactics and values... in the current environment, any claim or posture that’s seen as emanating from the Black Lives Matter movement, however indirectly, is taken as morally unassailable... In San Francisco, a school will spend $600,000 removing a mural depicting George Washington’s brutality toward Native Americans and American slaves—an especially odd move given that the Depression-era artwork had originally been lauded for showing the cruel and aggressive elements of early American history... it isn’t clear how any of the above-listed campaigns would materially improve the lives of African Americans, Native Americans or other disadvantaged groups... A 2017 poll conducted in the state where I live today, Virginia, found that 57 percent of registered-voter respondents supported leaving Confederate monuments in place. I doubt this means that nearly 60 percent of my neighbors believe in the cause of the Confederacy. They simply place more value than I do in these historical markers of the state’s history, tragically flawed as it is. A few miles north, at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., you can visit a memorial to the nearly 60,000 American service members who perished in the Vietnam War. The memorial lists the names of every one of them. What it doesn’t list are the names of the millions of Vietnamese and other Indochinese victims killed during the war. Many of those lives were smothered out by napalm, cut down by chopper fire, or massacred at My Lai. The war is simply described as “controversial” on the government website for the memorial... Whenever these controversies erupt, our first thought should be to add, not subtract... When I found out that US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, has a t-shirt emblazoned with the face of Subhas Chandra Bose, I was perturbed. Bose was an Indian nationalist who allied with the Axis powers during the war, even going so far as to meet with Hitler and organize an army of Indians who fought under the Imperial Japanese flag. Did Chakrabarti don a Bose t-shirt because he believed that the world would have been better off if the Axis won the Second World War? I’m very much guessing no—even if that would be the natural starting point of anyone who’d sought to get Chakrabarti “canceled.” The unfortunate fact is that Bose is today honored by some in India who view him more as an anti-British nationalist than an Axis quisling. (An airport in Kolkata is even named after him.)... To the extent we all care about the important underlying issues, such as fighting racial discrimination and promoting opportunity to all, we shouldn’t allow our culture wars over statues and symbols to dominate our discourse. To quote Mike Chase, a criminal defense lawyer who has written for years about the litany of absurd and unjust federal laws on the books, “Stop tearing down statues. Start tearing down statutes.”"

Graffiti vandals attack Robert the Bruce statue in Scotland branding him a 'racist king' - "Graffiti vandals have attacked a statue of Robert the Bruce in Scotland and branded him a 'racist king'.The monument at the Battle of Bannockburn site near Stirling was today found daubed with white paint which also read 'BLM', standing for Black Lives Matter.Another message defacing the statue's rotunda read 'Robert was a racist bring down the statue'... A campaign has sought to topple 100-plus 'racist' statues, with councils, schools and museums pulling some down without consultation to public fury."

BLM rioters destroy statue of anti-slavery immigrant who led Union troops in the Civil War - "Black Lives Matter rioters in Wisconsin decapitated and destroyed a statue of Colonel Hans Christian Heg, a Norwegian immigrant who spent his life fighting slavery before dying in battle while leading Union soldiers in the American Civil War."

Copenhagen's Little Mermaid branded 'racist fish'
Addendum: This was literally vandalised with those words

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