Museums

Confederate Heritage Being Promoted By Donald Trump, Despite Racism And White Supremacy History Of Civil War Rebellion

Ronald 3 Comments

The Civil War ended 155 years ago, but for many people in the South and some elsewhere, they still revel in the Confederate heritage.

This is so despite the fact that the Confederate heritage is one of treason and promotion of the degradation that African American slavery represented.

It is one thing to teach about the history of the Confederate heritage, and it is fine to have public displays of Confederate heritage in museums

But in 2020, it is not acceptable to have such monuments and statues in public squares and on government property!

Whether one likes it or not, displaying such statues and monuments is promotion and endorsement of white supremacy!

The time has passed for such displays, and Donald Trump, a New Yorker his whole life, is ironically bitterly opposing any renaming of Confederate military bases, when a large percentage of the military in 2020 are non whites!

It is long overdue to take Confederate names off streets and schools, and recognize the multi ethnic and multi racial nature of 2020 America!

Trump Declaration Of War On The Arts, Humanities, PBS, National Public Radio, And Woodrow Wilson International Center For Scholars

Ronald 5 Comments

Donald Trump’s budget proposal is a declaration of war on the arts, humanities and history, undermining artists, museums, and cultural organizations, although the total budget of all cultural institutions supported by federal money is minuscule, just a few hundred million of 1.1 trillion of total annual discretionary spending, about .0003 percent of the budget.

All the creative work of the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts would be wiped out, and there would also be elimination of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which provides funding for PBS and National Public Radio, and of the Woodrow Wilson International Center For Scholars.

So all funding for cultural and educational institutions would be ended, a repudiation of the value of intellectual pursuits, and closing down agencies that have done so much good for America, opening up the eyes and minds of tens of millions of Americans who were educated by the creative work of intellectuals in all fields of the arts and humanities.

We are seeing the suppression of our institutional memory of knowledge.

This move by Trump would repudiate all the good work done in the arts and humanities by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression via the Works Projects Administration (WPA) to keep the cultural community alive and thriving.

It also is 52 years since Lyndon B. Johnson made a major commitment to culture and the arts, through the establishment by Congress of the NEH, PBS, NEA, and the Wilson Center.

All decent people must fight this anti intellectualism full throttle!

The Confederate Flag Controversy: Should It Go Further To Monuments, Statues, And Other Memories Of The “Lost Cause” of the Civil War? NO!

Ronald 3 Comments

The battle over the Confederate flag being on public property in South Carolina has caused many people to say that ALL Confederate memorials everywhere in the South should be removed!

This would include statues and monuments to Confederate leaders, such as Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, and other Confederate political and military leaders. Some say all schools, streets, highways, and other public places should have their names changed. And some would argue that such Confederate history should be removed from museums in the South and elsewhere!

This is totally CRAZY, and this author wishes to make clear his total opposition to such suggestions! This comes from a blogger who DOES believe the Confederate Flag should be removed from public property, as stated recently on this blog!

We cannot wipe out history, and the story of the Confederacy and the troops who died for the Confederacy, should not be wiped out, as that is setting up a false record of the American past.

We can honor Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders as men who did what they felt was right, but which we might disagree with today.

If we try to distort the reality of history, we are doing precisely what Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and other totalitarian nations and governments have worked to do—to distort the historical record and not teach the parts that are disturbing and embarrassing!

Americans NEED to know the true history that led to the Civil War; the horrors of slavery; the sufferings of troops on both sides of the war!

We need to learn about the motivations, and the trials and tribulations of those who led the rebellion!

We need to know the whole story, not a sanitized version of only the winning side of the Civil War!

We cannot take away the sense of honor and the loyalty felt by millions of Southerners and others who look at the Confederate States of America as a “glorious cause”!

Just remember, the “moral side” won the Civil War, but let those on the losing side keep their dignity and their history and their monuments and statues and other memorials!

Just be sure that the truth of history is taught to the younger generation, while commemorating the full story of the most significant event in American history!