I am astonished by the historical ignorance of those on this thread who imagine there is any comparison whatsoever between today’s minority, middle-class war on offensive statues and the removal of statues in the past during or after revolutionary foment. If you cannot see the difference between these things, then it’s clear your urge for self-flattery has weakened your intellectual capacities beyond repair. What you are doing or supporting in relation to Confederate statues is not even in the same historic ballpark as French revolutionaries’ creation of new monuments or Eastern Europeans’ toppling of statues of Stalin and Lenin. These latter things were expressions of mass, positive, radical intent, declarations of community or political strength. What we have in contrast today are highly elitist assaults on statues in the name of tackling “offensive” images and protecting minority groups’ feelings – a foul, implicitly racist exercise that expresses weakness and cowardice, a FEAR of the masses, which is the opposite of those older, more radical moments in history. Please do not exploit great moments in history as a justification for your tantrums disguised as radicalism.
