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The attack on statues of Confederate leaders has now spread to the Founding Fathers and even Abraham Lincoln.
Op-Eds and news articles around the web chronicle proposals and actual efforts to erase America’s history from the public square. Some of the most disturbing efforts include:
Blasting Mount Rushmore
“Let’s Get Rid of Mount Rushmore” – the headline on a Vice op-ed by Wilbert L. Cooper reads.
“Fact is, I’m not sure there is any American president worthy of being etched into the side of a 60-foot mountain with explosives and jackhammers,” Cooper wrote. “I mean, every single one has at least been partially complicit in horrific atrocities.
Put God Back Into History And Teach Your Kids What They Won’t Learn Anywhere Else!
“… Obviously, Washington and Thomas Jefferson were remarkable individuals who helped usurp British rule in America and, eventually, establish a new empire. But they also enslaved their fellow man, committing special kinds of inhumane acts that should never be confined to footnotes. Unfortunately, that is exactly how those troublesome truths are treated when you face the awesome grandeur of Rushmore, a monument so incredible it obscures the multifaceted nature of these old dudes, transmogrifying them from individuals with a capacity both for greatness and evil into pure American deities.”
Interestingly enough, Cooper says he’d oppose a statue of Obama, too. Obama ordered some morally questionable actions, including drone strikes and unconstitutional surveillance programs, Cooper wrote.
“What I am suspicious of are monuments produced by the state, which tend to flatten out nuances and turn flawed individuals into tools of propaganda that bolster a kind of religious patriotism,” he wrote.
In Chicago, Bishop James Dukes, pastor of Liberation Christian Center, wants a statue of George Washington removed in his community and a street named for Andrew Jackson to be changed.
Lincoln Under Attack
A bust of Abraham Lincoln on Chicago’s Southside was vandalized and burned on Wednesday, NBC 5 TV reported. The statue was erected in 1926.
“What an absolute disgraceful act of vandalism,” Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez wrote on Facebook.
Monument to Supreme Court Justice Removed
A crane lifted a monument to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert B. Taney from a pedestal in front of the Old State House in Annapolis, Md., on Thursday, CBS Baltimore reported. Taney wrote the infamous Dred Scott decision in 1857 declaring that African-Americans were not US citizens.
Taney remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War and remained on the job until his death in 1865. A group cheered as the statue was removed.
Blasting Stone Mountain?
A gigantic carving of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson should be blasted off the side of Stone Mountain in Georgia, Hontas Farmer wrote at Science20.com.
“Sign this petition if you don’t want to be defined forever by the face of traitors arguably worse than Benedict Arnold, who fought for a version of slavery which was more dehumanizing than even that practiced by George Washington,” Farmer wrote. She was referring to a MoveOn.org petition.
“Those men were traitors at best,” Farmer complained. “They are in the same league as Benedict Arnold.”
Confederate Reenactors Attacked
A man attacked Civil War reenactors dressed as Confederate soldiers with pepper spray at a parade in Newton, N.C., WSCO TV reported. The reenactors were taking part in the 128th Annual Soldiers’ Reunion Parade.
Things might have been much worse. Karl Smith, the man who pepper-sprayed the reenactors, was carrying a revolver when police arrested him, WSCO reported.
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