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Notes -
Another casualty in the great Confederate statues war: the grave of General Lee's horse. Good riddance to this rebellious and traitorous ungulate.
What is more significant than the event is reaction on twitter - reaction consisting, as usual, of empty talk of revenge and even more empty threats, with no hint that posters intend to take part in their fight themselves.
"Someone shall do something!"
Narrator voice: "No one did anything at all."
I personally never understood the reverence for the Southern Cause/Dixie Pride among the right. It was largely thanks to the slave states that the US got such a big black population, which in turn is responsible for turning formerly great cities like Detroit into basket cases and making downtowns of cities like Baltimore, St Louis, Memphis and many others very dangerous. Don't forget that some of these Southern plantation oligarchs even talked about incorporating parts of the Carribean directly to aid the plantation economy.
The argument that "what ruined Detroit was letting black settle there" is unconvincing because once you have such a large population, they will have to go somewhere. And Jim Crow could never have been kept forever. Really, the plantation owners were just greedy capitalists putting profits over their own people, not unlike their contemporary equivalents. Why glorify the generals who fought for such a system?
From what I understand, most of these statues were put up after the civil war as a way to placate Southerners at a time when Southern identity was still a live issue. So basically a form of pragmatism. As the years have gone by, and as whites in the US have become more monolithic, the need that necessitated these statues has faded. I suspect that's why you see these muted reactions. It may have been a big issue 100 years ago or perhaps even 50 years ago. But not now.
Hopefully the US right can come to understand two things. First, the south in the civil war deserved to lose. Second, they should have been stopped way earlier.
«Loyalty» is the pillar of right-wing sentimentalism, same as «justice» is the pillar of the left. (Strawmanned versions: «bootlicking» and «envy», respectively). The Left can't not pander to the wretched and the weak, even if their weakness is purely a matter of theatrical convention. The Right cannot not elevate and justify champions, even if those are small-minded, pointless scum or, at times, straight-up enemies. Something something The Lion, Our Hero, The Manly Leader, The Great General and His Loyal Horse, the true Man of the Right feels part of his soul would die if those were trampled upon.
And so The Left feels compelled to trample.
Seriously though, defending a horse's grave from «desecration» makes no less sense than defending a street-painted pride flag from skidmarks, so this is a fine test of mobilization potential.
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