Charlottesville

Last weekend in Charlottesville has me distressed and dispirited.  Of course it was a tragedy that this women was run over and killed by some racist nut case.  Of course Americans should roundly and soundly condemn such "white supremacy" groups.  Sometimes it's very hard to believe we live in the 21st Century.  Is this as far as we've progressed?

Let me get this out of the way.  I think Trump's responses, the initial and subsequent ones, were not what was needed.  I'll explain more later.  He just continues to provide evidence he should not be the President.  (No, neither should Clinton.)  But, that said, his opponents' vehement responses were not what was needed either.  It's pretty apparent, at least to me, that their concern is more with getting rid of Trump than with opposing the racism of the white supremacy groups.  Of course those might be related.

I don't like that, because of these white supremacy nut cases, the vast majority of white Americans are cast as racists, bigots, etc.  No!  Are the vast majority of black Americans thugs?  Are the vast majority of Muslim Americans terrorists?  I'm not going to let these protesters have it both ways!  None of us should.

Speaking of Presidents, where was the outrage at the equally limited response of Obama to the looting, burning, killing, etc. in Ferguson, Baltimore, etc.?  Oh, he made speeches, but what he seemed to condemn were not the looters, the arsonists, etc., but the "big guns."  Instead of using the Bully Pulpit to help bring folks to their senses (Burning, looting, etc., is not sensible, esp if they destroy businesses that employ blacks, destroy black homes!), he went on the attack against guns.  If Trump's response was wrong, or at least mistimed (He shouldn't have blamed "both sides," not just then.), so was Obama's.  Where was the outrage, among people, among politicians, among the Lamestream media, that they show against Trump now?  All these folks who demonstrate such selective outrage lose all credibility with me.

What about these monuments, busts, etc. to those like Robert E. Lee, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, and other Southern/Confederate officers?  That's a tough one for me.  It's all about history.  On the one hand, should we honor Lee, Jackson, and others for being on the wrong side of history?  They had choices and made the wrong one.  But we can't erase history and we shouldn't try.  The Civil War, brought about due to slavery, was a black mark on US History, "the shining city on the hill."  (But consider this, as I ask my students, "Do you know that more than 80% of Southerners didn't own slaves?  Would you go to war, risking your life, to perpetuate slavery if you didn't own any slaves?"  That's what happened.  It's a bit more complicated than that, but we should remember that slavery was the key issue, the point of dispute that led to secession.)

Do we need the monuments and other things that honor those who chose the wrong side to remember history, American history?  In Europe, are there any monuments to those who perpetrated the Holocaust?  There are deniers, you know.  And some of the concentration camps are still in existence, as reminders of the Holocaust.  But there are no memorials to the Nazis who sent these millions and millions of people to their deaths.  Only the fringe nut cases still honor Hitler and his Nazi leaders; there are no monuments to them, just the remains of the concentration camps that remind us of the horrors, to keep us (I hope) from ever doing something like that again.

Am I equating Lee and Jackson to Hitler and Himmler?  Is a more fitting analogy Lee and Erwin Rommel?  Rommel was never a member of the Nazi Party and, in fact, was part of the Valkyrie Plot to assassinate Hitler in '44.  But his generalship, his brilliant actions, made it easier for Hitler to do what he did.  Do we have any memorials for Rommel?

All of us have warts, some bigger than others.  Where do we start and stop with them?  How about many of our celebrities?  John Lennon was and remains bigger than life.  Outside of the Dakota fans still gather to memorialize him.  Yet, some of the things he advocated--drug usage, free love--have ruined many people's lives, have created many dysfunctional families.  So, a memorial for him?  Is that carrying things too far?

At the very least, we need to have a discussion, a very serious one, in this country and within ourselves.  We need to examine our values.  It's difficult to have that discussion in today's climate.  Extremists from the left and the right have come to dominate the discussion--we shouldn't let them do that.  Trump was right in condemning both sides--the Neo-Nazis/KKK and Anti-Fa--he just was wrong in his timing.  The extremists are the ones screaming loudest and most often, their voices given far too much circulation by the Lamestream media.  It's an unfortunate fact that loudest and most frequent often create the narrative (I dislike using that word, but can't think of another right now) and history.  (For example, remember William Henry Harrison, "Old Tippecanoe?"  He rode his victory over Tecumseh into the White House, "Old Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too."  The thing is he didn't defeat Tecumseh.  First, Tecumseh wasn't there; his brother Tenkshatawana was. Second, the evidence is pretty clear Harrison didn't win.  He didn't lose either.  It was more of a draw.  But Harrison yelled, "I won!  I won!  I won!" loudly and often enough so that, well, he became "Old Tippecanoe" and President Harrison.)

I'm still trying to sort out a lot of this.  But if, as seems to happen more and more, if one side is condemned and the other side gets off Scot-free, I think there will be bigger trouble, a reaction that won't be nice.