After Losing Support, Trump's Business and Manufacturing Councils Are Shutting Down (theverge.com) 642
Over a dozen anonymous readers share a similar report: Two White House advisory councils that once included tech leaders like Elon Musk and Travis Kalanick have dissolved, after several members resigned over President Donald Trump's weak condemnation of white supremacists. A member of the Strategic and Policy Forum told CNBC that it wanted to make a "more significant impact" by disbanding the entire group: "It makes a central point that it's not going to go forward. It's done." Soon after, Trump took credit for shutting down both that group and a separate Manufacturing Council, "rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople." The councils' members came from a range of industries, including several major Silicon Valley companies. Besides Musk and Kalanick, executives from Intel, IBM, and Dell had joined. It's been controversial from the start -- Musk and Kalanick both left months ago -- but a major exodus started this week, after Trump issued a vague statement blaming "many sides" for violence at a white supremacist rally that left one woman dead. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich resigned on Monday, saying that politics had "sidelined the important mission of rebuilding America's manufacturing base." Axios has more details.
Green Day needs to re-release American Idiot (Score:2)
Trumpagedon style https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
SO MUCH WINNING (Score:5, Insightful)
Half a year in and Trump has fucked up on every single endeavor.
Re:SO MUCH WINNING (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummm.....no. This is the media brainwashing you and the left trying to defy Trump no matter what and to spread false news to delegitimize him!
Says the coward.. please, do inform us what he's accomplished?
Re:SO MUCH WINNING (Score:5, Funny)
I hear his golf handicap improved.
Re:SO MUCH WINNING (Score:5, Funny)
2. Won by the most electoral votes evar!
3. Brought us to the brink of nuclear war!
But I'll give you a bonus accomplishment . .
4. Got more republicans than ever to realize that maybe Obamacare isn't so bad -- and that ACA and Obamacare are the same thing, contrary to the Fox News narrative.
Re:SO MUCH WINNING (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump is working under the worst conditions a president has ever had. The media is all out against him from the get go, biased to hell. The left refuses to even acknowledged he won and is an impediment to progress at every turn.
Biggest bunch of babies ever. Please go to your safe space and never come back.
"Trump is working under the worst conditions a president has ever had."
Worse than George Washington defending a fledgling nation against the British Empire?
Worse than Abraham Lincoln attempting to reunite a country divided by Civil War?
Worse than Franklin D. Roosevelt who had to fight Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War 2?
Trump has it worse because why?
Oh yeah, "The media is all out against him".
"Biggest bunch of babies ever."
Yes, you are.
Re:SO MUCH WINNING (Score:4, Insightful)
Republicans have been the bigger spenders for the last several decades. Examples: Reagan's military buildup, including SDI; Bush's wars, Medic. Plan D, and DHS. And they cut taxes on the rich, causing revenue shortfalls, and then blame the problem on Democrats. Nice work.
Re: (Score:3)
While I agree that he doesn't have it as bad as GP stated, you have to admit that he has the worst conditions ever without a major war.
Which he brought on himself. Part of leadership is taking responsibility for your actions, and he is unwilling to do even that. The bad situation he finds himself in is all his own fault, but yet he continues to play victim. This is not the traits of a leader....
Re: (Score:3)
While I agree that he doesn't have it as bad as GP stated, you have to admit that he has the worst conditions ever without a major war.
You know who believes otherwise? Donald Trump [fortune.com].
Re: (Score:3)
Don't exaggerate. Virtually everybody on the left acknowledges that he won, we're just unhappy about it.
And of course we are asking our representatives in Congress to do everything that they can to block his agenda... the President is not a king and cannot rule like a dictator.
Re:SO MUCH WINNING (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump is working under the worst conditions a president has ever had. The media is all out against him from the get go, biased to hell. The left refuses to even acknowledged he won and is an impediment to progress at every turn.
Your "liberals" are NOT IN POWER. Please get at least that one thing straight. Republicans control the House and Senate, case closed. Trump's failures to date are on them, not some "liberal" media.
That's Trump's own Party, supposed to be his friends, and they could care less about some "media... all out against him from the get go". They regularly bash this "biased" media of yours.
Yet even John McCain gives the thumbs-down to Trump [cnn.com]. Why? Chiefly, because Trump picks fights [thehill.com] with leaders of his own Party. Nevermind whatever views or causes he may or may not have, bottom-line Trump can't behave like a grown-up. That makes for great TV, and maybe it makes some people feel good ("Yeah! You tell 'em Trump!") but it doesn't get anything done.
Trump supporters need to stop asking whether they love the way-so-awesome tough shit he says and tweets, and instead ask whether they'd trust him enough, honest to God, to pay cash to buy a used car from him. Seriously. Be honest. Would you buy a used car from that man? [fineartamerica.com] It's the greatest, let me tell you, and don't believe those lies from the liberals at the CarFax - they're losers, this ride has never been in no accident, never been totaled, that puddle of oil is from something else, believe me.
Re:SO MUCH WINNING (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe, just maybe, so much of the media coverage of Trump is negative because the things his administration is doing (or not doing) are perceived negatively by a large part of the population. Maybe it's because numerous things Trump promised to accomplish "on day one," or in the first month of his term, or in the first 100 days of his term haven't been done. Maybe it's because Americans figured out they prefer having imperfect health care as opposed to none at all, and they kinda like having clean water that isn't full of coal fly ash. Maybe it's because day after day, more shady connections between Russia and the Trump camp are revealed, and the administration bungles more cover-up attempts. Maybe it's because the president looks outright incompetent having his appointees and White House staff continually infighting, resigning, getting fired, recusing themselves, and finding themselves under investigation by the FBI. Maybe it's because the public doesn't quite approve of Trump's nepotistic despotism, or the very troubling appearance that he's christened his son-in-law to do an end run around various posts that are supposed to require Congressional approval. Maybe most of America doesn't like having an increasingly angry, childish, petulant, petty, racist buffoon being the person who represents them in front of the world.
Nahhh, can't be any of that; it's the (((librul media globalist elites))) who are the problem, right?
Re: (Score:3)
I'd argue that presidents who actually got stuff done, bad stuff, are worse. Trump is too innefective to even get bad stuff done.
The Vietnam and Iraq war come to mind. If Trump were around then, he perhaps would have bungled getting war underway, which would have been a good thing.
I'm just worried his undisciplined mouth and/or fingers may start a bigass conflict
Re:SO MUCH WINNING (Score:4, Insightful)
Losing face. (Score:5, Insightful)
This NY Times [nytimes.com] article, quotes Trump's tweet:
Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Aug. 16, 2017
But I'm more inclined to believe that Trump is disbanding the councils to avoid being embarrassed by the publicity of the people on those councils quitting. On the other hand, they don't seem to be really doing anything productive anyway:
Moreover, the panels have not been seen to be particularly effective. After a few high profile events for the groups early in the Mr. Trump’s presidency, there have been few meetings since, and none more are planned.
“So far they haven’t done much,” Ms. Admati said. “They had a few meetings with a bunch of fanfare, but it was more symbolic than anything else.”
Perhaps their intended purpose was simply to make Trump look good and the councils haven't achieved that. Certainly people quitting them en-mass doesn't help that effort either.
Translation: (Score:3)
politics had sidelined the mission? (Score:3)
politics had "sidelined the important mission of rebuilding America's manufacturing base ...
Nice suckup there Brian.
Actually it wasn't politics, it was just a relatively minor Trumpian faux-pas. It wasn't the worst or dumbest thing he's ever done, or will do. It's is if, after 9/11, George Bush had said that the people working in the World Trade Center had been just as responsible for the attacks as the people on the planes. Or after the San Bernardino massacre, Obama has said "14 Americans got an unpleasant surprise as they came together to celebrate the holidays. The injuries and possibly worse were the result of actions by everyone present". Trump knows where his voter base is and didn't want to upset anyone with harsh, politically incorrect labels like "intolerant" or "hate-monger" or "racist" or "dickless inbred, syphalic-brained diarrhea guzzler".
Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fewer.
Re: (Score:2)
So if you were reading some code out loud to someone and you reached the following line making a comparison between two integers:
if (intA intB)
You would read that as "if int A is fewer than int B"?
Re: (Score:2)
Arg, silly me, expecting slashdot to behave like a sane site and perform entity encoding.
if (intA < intB)
Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Less Business Leaders Influencing Government? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
just as trump predicted ;)
Re:Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:5, Insightful)
s/dividing/divided .. USA has been divided for years and it's not something that started all of a sudden when Trump took office. America is undergoing the tyranny of SJW's and has been for years. Trump simply exposes it for the hysteria that it is. He's very clumsy in doing so, but at least he isn't walking away from the over-inflated snowflake issues and all that comes from it. He may be a big bad bully but that doesn't make him wrong on all accounts.
Oh, and for the record, I'm not a US citizen, I'm looking at this from the other side of the ocean, wondering WTF got into you people.
The fact that you believe this drivel is astounding.
As another non-US citizen, Trump is a complete dumpster fire in every way.
He isn't exposing things or confronting issues.. he's making issues worse with his horrible understanding and statements about them..
Re:Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really think this is a left vs. right issue?
Re:Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really think this is a left vs. right issue?
Everything has to be portrayed as a left or right issue to keep people distracted and fighting among themselves instead of working together to solve the actual problems.
Based on the idiotic posts in this thread, that plan is working out really well.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would i condemn the left when Trump shuts down his business advisory councils?
Re:Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Other people come to slashdot for other things. Accept it. Don't read and comment on postings that you're ostensibly not interested in.
Which this is...
This is the only article on the disbanding of certain Presidential advisory councils that included a slew of technology leaders. Your wish has been granted twofold.
Re:Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't blame Slashdot because the President of the United States is a loudmouthed idiot.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Feel free to leave. No one will miss you.
Re: Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:5, Interesting)
no, YOU'RE grandstanding! (Score:5, Insightful)
God that guy is pathetic.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Many sides are to blame for the dissolution of the Councils. Noone is saying it, so I'll say it, where are Hilary's missing emails? JOBS! What about that infrastructure bill, huh? I prefer John McCains who don't vote against my healthcare bill. THE MOOCH! JOBS!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:4, Insightful)
So you find antifa and BLM disgusting but say nothing of the literal nazis marching chanting heil trump preaching a message of all non whites must die? That doesn't phase you tho.
No you aren't fighting for America. You are fighting for an ideology that is hateful and disgusting. But keep telling yourself that you are right.
Re: Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know the far right is on the ropes when they stop trying to defend their position and start pushing conspiracy theories about actors paid to put on a fake Nazi march and fight with the (real) leftists.
Of course, all these actors are so loyal to the cause, none of them have come forward with proof (like a paycheck).
This one is weaker than Pizzagate, on a par with moon landing denial.
Re: Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:4, Insightful)
They aren't literally members of the old Nazi party but they literally call themselves Nazi's and spout the same slogans. It isn't necessary to accuse them of being Nazi's when they are sporting Swastica tattoos and chanting blood and soil.
So taking them at their word and referring to them as Nazi's seems quite reasonable.
Reasoning with Nazi's, whether they are literally Nazi's or just acting like Nazi's, isn't going to be any more successful today than it was 80 years ago, though I'm sure the Commander-in-Chief could convince himself that he could have made a great deal with them and prevent WWII.
I'm pretty confident that being a Nazi is worse than punching one in the face. Maybe we can ask some of the WW2 vets who were sent to Europe to do more than just punch Nazi's in the nose. But, sure, punching Nazi's in the nose is a crime and I don't recommend it. If you want the moral equivalent of a Nazi I'd go with a serial killer. I'd put them on about the same level of worseness.
Re: (Score:3)
To fight for this country, shoot the bastards who did bring deliberate and premeditated violence.
Anything else is fighting for Putin.
Re: Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:4, Interesting)
2. Russia's fake news, blog bombing and comment robots created astroturf in the flyover states for Trump.
3. That's called Campaign Donations In Kind, and when done by a foreign government, as the CIA says, is a felony.
If anyone at Trumpland coordinated with this campaign donation, that is a separate felony AND an act of sedition.
Re: Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
It's not trying to "change the rules" of the election. Nobody is suggesting installing Hillary. The political term is "mandate" and the Republicans clearly didn't get one. That's why they are struggling so much to govern right now. You don't have a mandate with 49% of the vote.
So the whole concept of a mandate (from the people, I'm assuming is what you mean) is fairly pointless when US elections typically get only 60% of eligible voters to even cast a vote. Let's follow your logic through: from your comment I'm assuming you feel that Obama's 2008 win with 53% of the vote counted as a "mandate"? He won with 69.5 million votes. In 2016 Trump got 63 million. To say that one got a mandate from the people when the other didn't seems like there must be a pretty incredibly thin line bet
Re: Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:5, Informative)
But a state's representation in Congress is often a mix of Democrats and Republicans. A state's representation in the Electoral College is generally single party.
So no, the EC does NOT operate the exact same way Congress does.
Re: Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are butt hurt about the Electoral College then you should be equally butt hurt about the Congress. They are both designed the same way for the same reason.
It's interesting you mention that; they are both incorrectly proportional for the same reason [qz.com], which is specifically to make them unfair in precisely the way that you believe to be justice. See, the purpose of the electoral college was never to ensure that that populous states couldn't walk away with the election; it was literally to take the vote out of the hands of the people so that they couldn't get carried away. At least, that's what Alexander Hamilton intimates in Federalist Paper No.68.
Re: (Score:3)
I'd be more sympathetic to that argument if gerrymandering wasn't a thing.
Re: (Score:3)
So petty virtue signalling is better than telling Trump things he needs to hear. You really don't make me feel very good about voting Democrat in the next election. If you are an accurate reflection on the Democrat mindset then it's horribly unhinged and divorced from any sort of pragmatism.
That's an extra bonus above and beyond advocating the labeling people as Nazis so you can act like one yourself.
Re: Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:5, Insightful)
For better or worse he's going to be President of the United States for the next three years and a couple months.
Maybe, maybe not. He's rapidly losing the support of Republicans in the House and Senate, and he really, really needs that support. The House has the power to impeach and the Senate has the power to remove him from office after the House impeaches. You know the Democrats would love to do both of those things (even knowing that Mike Pence is ready to step in), so Trump really needs to keep the Republicans on his side.
And then there's Mueller's investigation. Were a smoking gun proving Trump intentionally colluded to throw the election to have been found a few months ago, Trump might have survived it simply because the Senate would have refused to give him the boot. That is no longer true. He's become enough of an embarrassment to the GOP that if Mueller finds something even moderately bad, the Reps will kick him to the curb. And as time goes on, the Republicans are getting more and more fed up with him. A few more months of the current trends and they're going to be right there with the Democrats, looking for a reason to boot him, or worse.
At this point, I give Trump even odds of completing his first term, but that's only if he gets rid of Bannon, and starts accepting advice in the fairly near future. If he doesn't, the odds tilt heavily toward not making it four years.
I don't think he'll actually get the boot, mind you, he'll resign first. He never actually intended to be president and the job is nothing like what he thought it would be, so he might not even wait to be impeached, but instead resign in a fit of rage, blaming the media, Congress, disloyal staff and everyon else for his failure to accomplish anything of note. He may do it in the hopes that it will stop the Mueller investigation, but I strongly doubt that it would. I have no idea if Pence would pardon him if anything criminal came to light. Wouldn't shock me if Trump doesn't have any idea what Pence would do, either.
Bottom line, Trump had better figure out how to act like a president if he wants to be president for another three years and five months. And he'd really better step up his game if he wants another term. Either that or attempt to pull a Nicolas Maduro, but I don't think that would succeed in the US.
Re: (Score:2)
The cited sources MAY be news, but Slashdot has no investigators and never claimed to have any.
Re:Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you don't want to be called a Nazi, perhaps don't act like a fascist, and don't defend those who do by providing shade for them to hide in.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:5, Interesting)
Plenty? How many? Provide a number, along with full citation and reference to the polls and/or studies used to derive the data. Go on, you've made a claim, now actually back it up.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
* - citation needed
Re: (Score:2)
Do you realize your fantasy is ridiculous and will never come to pass? The revolution will not be homogenized.
Re:Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly right. I don't think Paul Ryan is a Nazi. I don't think Mitch McConnell is a Nazi. I don't think Ted Cruz is a Nazi.
Let's be pretty clear here, the majority of Republicans are not Nazis. But then again, those marching in Charlottesville with their white nationalist and white supremacist flags and sheilds are not your average Republicans. They are, well, yes, that's right, they're Nazis, and their so repugnant and evil that just about goddamned Republican out there is running from them as fast as possible...
With the exception of the Republican President of the United States.
Re:Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:4, Insightful)
Dafuq? "Liberals called me mean names and now that means I have to be an extremist murderer!"
Calm down already, you little snowflake.
Re: (Score:2)
What happened to all the personal responsibility the righties are supposed to have and value?
Re: (Score:2)
Do you realize that if you keep antagonizing moderate on your right by calling them nazi, they might actually become such [and run over leftist cuckholds without shame] ?
If a little bit of antagonism leads them to murder, they are human garbage and belong in jail.
Likewise, if you cannot control your violent or homicidal tendencies, you belong in jail.
Seriously... sticks and stones, and all that. Grow up.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you realize that if you keep antagonizing moderate on your right by calling them nazi, they might actually become such [and run over leftist cuckholds without shame] ?
Not by 2.86 million votes.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Has Slashdot been sold? (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree, that userid is not one that has been around 15 years. Mine, yes, that one, no. Guess she could have got an ID after being an AC for years....
Per /. being a platform for conservative nerds that is a good one. I literally had to walk away from /. for about 5 years because it had become so leftist infested that I literally couldn't say a word without being modded straight down. On practically anything I said as a Conservative.
So, while the ratio of conservatives to liberals on /. now seems about 50/50 to me it has absolutely not always been that way.
Re: (Score:2)
Why are there conservatives and liberals? Why can't we have a reality-based community like HN?
Re: (Score:2)
I agree, that userid is not one that has been around 15 years. Mine, yes, that one, no. Guess she could have got an ID after being an AC for years....
Um? You're talking about user scsirob (246572), while you are OYAHHH (322809). Last I looked, 236,572 is less than 322,809 (commas added for clarity). And I, Pfhorrest (545131), was definitely here in 2002, 15 years ago, so both of you, with UIDs lower than mine, were here at least 15 years ago too.
So you're the oldest (Score:2)
Anonymous Coward account.
Re: (Score:2)
And by "leftist propaganda", you mean calling out Nazis. Yes, truly a thought crime. How dare Nazis be condemned.
Re: (Score:2)
all they see is money and big donation. They don't give two-fucks about what's best for the nation.
"Rebuilding the nation's manufacturing base" won't create more jobs than it destroys, nor will it bring America wealth. It will only bring slower economic growth and an increase in poverty among the working-class American. Thing is, nobody understands economics on that level--it takes a couple pages of analysis to work out the net impact for moving manufacture, and who really has time to spend an hour or two working out every little detail of everything they encounter?--so it's easy to sell an isolated s
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Eh, no better or worse than violent communist vigilantes, really. Or racists that chant, "Dead cops now", and "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon" or variants thereof, and shoot cops dead. Sorry, that last part WAS due to some BLM members and their denial of that is BS.
Every group has an internal spectrum but the worst of them are about the same.
Re:Opportunistic (Score:5, Insightful)
There are violent BLM members. No denying it. But BLM itself doesn't stand for violence, nor is that its goal.
White supremacists, on the other hand, do stand for violence, do stand for racism. You can criticize BLM for perhaps showing some tolerance for hooliganism, but groups like Vanguard America are, to the every last one of them, violent extremists who, like their spiritual forebears, use political conservatism and the First Amendment as cover for their evil ideology.
So no, it ain't the same, and I wonder why you are trying so hard to defend the white nationalists, white supremacists and Neo=Nazis, and trying so hard to make BLM and Antifa into some sort left wing version of them? Is it a silly attempt at equanimity, or perhaps do you sympathize with people who hate blacks, Jews, and believe white people are the master race? Go on, explain yourself.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Opportunistic (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. I find it really disappointing how many people here seem to be looking for ways to excuse Nazis. They go through a lot of trouble to make it seem "fair" and "objective" by drawing false equivalences, and trying to distract from real issues.
Because first, as you point out, BLM is not in itself a violent extremist hate group. Its fundamental message is, "It's not ok for police to kill black people." To all the people saying, "white lives matter," yes, of course that's true. That goes without saying, literally, which is the point. The reason they aren't saying "white lives matter" is that we all know white lives matter without even saying it, but some of us don't seem to realize that black lives matter too, equally as much.
But I digress. The point is, though there may be some violent people associated with BLM, they're not equivalent to Nazis. Any group can have some violent members, but you have to look at the group as a whole, and it's just not fundamentally a violent group.
But aside from all of that, it doesn't matter. Even if BLM were a violent extremist group, it's irrelevant. It doesn't serve to justify Nazi groups, not even a little. We should condemn the Nazis, full stop. No justification or equivocation. Other people's bad acts are for another conversation.
Because when you say, "Sure the Nazis are bad, but BLM is bad too!", it doesn't count as a condemnation of the Nazis. What you're actually doing is taking a combative rhetorical stance, assuming that your opponent is on the side of BLM, and you're taking the side of the Nazis. Sure, you're literally saying that the Nazis are bad, but then you're defending them by comparing them to a group you assume your opponent will want to defend.
You also see this approach where Trump supporters will say, "Maybe Trump has done some unethical and illegal things, but Clinton is a crook!" Even if we were to assume that Clinton was a criminal, that's not a valid argument that we should ignore Trump's misdemeanors (and possibly high crimes).
Re:Opportunistic (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, I'm thinking white supremacists are a helluva lot more dangerous than any left-leaning protester/activist groups:
https://www.adl.org/sites/defa... [adl.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you think the US is Communist, then you really have no idea what the fuck Communism is.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
since the black community is underrepresented in the countries police forces.
Going to have to call bullshit on that, and yes, I did bring a citation.
Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS): Local Police Departments, 2013: Personnel, Policies, and Practices [bjs.gov]
Click on the PDF link [bjs.gov], and go to Page 5, Figure 5. Black officers are right around the 12% mark. Nationwide, blacks are about 13% of the US population. You couldn't ask for a more representative sample.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Opportunistic (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like Trump and Sessions wanting the logs from an anti-Trump website? Or a bunch of African-American protestors who'd like the odds of "death by cop" to come down a few points?
Re:Opportunistic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
The holy book of Islam reads more or less like the bible.
It is obvious you never read any of both.
Why spread your hate here? Get a psychological consultant instead.
Re:Opportunistic (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you give us any examples of American Muslims who want to enforce Sharia law on all Americans?
You know, you're a special kind of jackoff, DigiShaman. A loudmouthed, bigoted jackoff. You got nothing bad to say about neo-Nazis who loudly express their desire to put Jews, Muslims and "mud people" in ovens, but you literally make up some shit about how you're going to be forced to follow Sharia Law. You and motherfucking Trump. Disgraziati.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting it right? By re-framing it through the morals of the day... That is not getting it right. Why not put another statute up next to it to show future generations what we think?
They were a product of their time and to judge them against our morals is wrong. You miss the lessons learned. You miss the motivations. You are ignoring history.
How far does your offense go in destroying history? Robert E. Lee isn't the monster the left make him out to be. He held a position that persisted for hundreds of years. Slavery was an issue for hundreds of years. All of the founders had slaves... Are we to burn the constitution and abandon the ideals because they have because we judge them with today's standard? I have heard many support that because "3/5ths compromise" yet not realize that it was slave owners that wanted slaves to be counted equally!
ISIS destroys antiquity because blasphemy. We do it because offense. I see no difference.
Those statues do not tell us where we are going or where we are. They tell us where we have been. By destroying them and moving them out of sight we forget our past. We lose a part of us that help us become better.
It really makes me sad to see history destroyed and defaced. At least with moving it is still there but out of sight out of mind does not challenge you to understand it.
Re:It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Well yeah, because being against slavery is soo 2017...
They were a product of their time and to judge them against our morals is wrong.
Actually, if you look it up, quite a lot of these monuments got erected decades, even a century after the war. They were certainly a product of their time, just not the one you think.
You miss the lessons learned. You miss the motivations. You are ignoring history.
In order: The South got off easy. They wanted slaves. They lost. None of these monuments make any of that clear, so I fail to see what's being lost.
Robert E. Lee isn't the monster the left make him out to be.
This should be fun. Please explain to me how someone who owned slaves and decided to commit treason in order to be able to continue having slaves is not a monster.
All of the founders had slaves
Yeah, veneration of the founders has always baffled me too.
Are we to burn the constitution and abandon the ideals because they have because we judge them with today's standard?
What a bizarre argument considering the 15th amendment is sitting right there.
yet not realize that it was slave owners that wanted slaves to be counted equally!
ROFLMAO! Yes they did. Can you tell me why, though?
ISIS destroys antiquity because blasphemy. We do it because offense. I see no difference.
Well, one group thinks those statues desecrate their entire worldview. The other group thinks that celebrating treasonous slaveowners is not what modern democracies do. The fact that you can't see the difference says a lot more about you than either of those 2 groups.
By destroying them and moving them out of sight we forget our past.
Nah, I'm pretty sure the thousands of books, movies, history classes and artifacts from the era will manage to take up the slack.
We lose a part of us that help us become better.
Please explain to me how one statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, let alone several, accomplishes this goal.
At least with moving it is still there but out of sight out of mind does not challenge you to understand it.
And I've yet to meet a leftist that has a problem with this solution.
Re:It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Please explain to me how one statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, let alone several, accomplishes this goal.
Because it's a window to understand history for anyone willing to learn. Because it's a story that a people from a different time wanted to tell future generations. Either as a warning, a lesson, or to just be remembered. Reading the Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]... Why wouldn't you want his story to be told? Seriously... I think his is a story that should be told.
He is one of the few officers in either army to enlist as a private and be promoted to general officer. "The Wizard of the Saddle" to the 1st Grand Wizard of the KKK who ordered the KKK to take off their masks and "“volunteered to help ‘exterminate’ those men responsible for the continued violence against the blacks.”
The most important aspect I think relevant to the conversation about racism: "By the end of his life, Forrest’s racial attitudes would evolve — in 1875, he advocated for the admission of blacks into law school — and he lived to fully renounce his involvement with the Klan that he headed and abolished."
Times change. People change. If a Lieutenant General of the Confederate Army and 1st Grand Wizard of the KKK can change their view on race, any one can. Do you think there is a lesson to be learned? Do you think we can learn from him? Do you think anyone can read his story and reflect on their own life to be a better person? ... I don't understand what you perceive history to be but it's a flawed dirty mess of people just like us.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:he was a FUCKING TRAITOR (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that Robert E. Lee was against secession, right? He was more loyal to Virginia and at the time people were more loyal to their state than to the federal government. Even Abraham Lincoln asked him to lead the Union Army.
Read a history book.
Re: (Score:3)
And slavery has been around since the beginning of human history and was debated for centuries by his time. In fact, it's still going on today. I think putting it as "anyone's hero" is disingenuous. He was well respected in his time by both sides and still respected for a variety of reasons (particularly military) but also as a means to remember the Civil War.
It's not about idolizing the figures. It's about remembering. History is uncomfortable.
Re: (Score:3)
I was going to give you shit for more stupid false equivalency, but it's late, so my answer is: Sure, why not?
Re:It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
I find that entire argument pretty ridiculous. So, history is getting rewritten because statues are being removed? Do you teach from them?
There's a reason Germany doesn't have Hitler statues, you know, and it is not because they're willing to forget.
Re:It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
And I bet you really outraged when all those Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians toppled statues of Lenin! Truly a crime against humanity.
The fact that you can still have statues of the likes of Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis a century and a half after the Confederacy was beaten into the ground astonishes me. It's one thing to remember one's past, but to actually honor the leaders of the Confederacy with statues and memorials, no thanks, that's not remembering a bitter chapter from the past, that's celebrating it.
It all stems back to the fiction that the former Confederate states were allowed to propagate, that somehow the formation of the Confederacy wasn't about preservation of slavery, that somehow it was some great campaign for liberty. Well, that's bullshit. The Confederacy was entirely about slavery, and it stood and fell on that principle, so fuck Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and all the other men who sent hundreds of thousands off to stain hundreds of battlefields red for the cause of keeping men in shackles because of their skin color. We shouldn't topple their statues, we should fucking dynamite them.
Re:It's true (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
It all stems back to the fiction that the former Confederate states were allowed to propagate, that somehow the formation of the Confederacy wasn't about preservation of slavery, that somehow it was some great campaign for liberty.
That's the cover story.
In reality, all of those statues were put up during the Jim Crow era, and were part of a deliberate effort to make sure that blacks never forgot who the boss was. Other elements of the effort included segregation, regular lynchings, and use of the criminal justice system to recreate the system of black slavery, only at lower cost and with less regard for black lives, because they were now an operational expense not a self-replicating capital investment.
I recommend Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas Blackmon, to learn about this incredibly nasty and hypocritical part of American history that has been effectively excised (not accidentally!) from American education.
Re:It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
When is the last time that you voted on putting up or taking down any statue?
When the statues were put up it was only "few politicians are making the decisions rather than putting [it] to the vote of the people." Why raise the bar now?
Re: (Score:3)
It is fully up to the people of each of these states.
That's right -- and those are the exact people who decided to take the monuments down.
So, what's your point, exactly?
Re: (Score:3)
Let's not forget about the real problem: leftist nutjob trying to rewrite history by tearing down confederate statue.
Don't Confuse History with Monuments [nytimes.com]:
There is a crucial difference between leaders like Washington and Jefferson, imperfect men who helped create the United States, Ms. Gordon-Reed said, and Confederate generals like Jackson and Lee, whose main historical significance is that they took up arms against it. The comparison, she added, also “misapprehends the moral problem with the Confederacy.”
“This is not about the personality of an individual and his or her flaws,” she said. “This is about men who organized a system of government to maintain a system of slavery and to destroy the American union.”
As for the idea of erasing history, it’s a possibility most scholars do not take lightly. But James Grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association, said that Mr. Trump’s comments failed to recognize the difference between history and memory, which is always shifting.
When you alter monuments, “you’re not changing history,” he said. “You’re changing how we remember history.”
Some critics of Confederate monuments have called for them to be moved to museums, rather than destroyed, or even left in place and reinterpreted, to explain the context in which they were created. Mr. Grossman noted that most Confederate monuments were constructed in two periods: the 1890s, as Jim Crow was being established, and in the 1950s, during a period of mass Southern resistance to the civil rights movement.
“We would not want to whitewash our history by pretending that Jim Crow and disenfranchisement or massive resistance to the civil rights movement never happened,” he said. “That is the part of our history that these monuments testify to.”
“The amazing thing is that the president is doing more to endanger historical monuments than most of the protesters,” he said. “The alt-right is producing a world where there is more pressure to remove monuments, rather than less.”
Also, it seems like many of these Confederate statues glorify traitors and treason - not heritage.
Re:Anti-Trump Garbage (Score:5, Insightful)
You're seriously trying to sell it as a win?
Trump setup those councils when he took office. Everybody on the council left, and now he's disbanding them.
That's not a win. That's the loser kid sitting in a corner by himself because he smells like cat piss.