Wednesday, October 11, 2017

The President isn't the only moron



If this doesn't erase history, I don't know what does.

In case you had forgotten we have a Secretary of the Interior: 
“I think we should never hide from our history or erase our history. I think we should embrace the history and understand the faults and learn from it. But when you try to erase history, what happens is you also erase how it happened and why it happened and the ability to learn from it,” Zinke said.

So, here's the history:  statutes honoring the Confederacy went up in the 20th century, not the 19th.  They went up first to remind blacks returning from World War I to mind their place.  They went up again in the 1950's, in response to the burgeoning civil rights movement, and for the same reason.

They "erase" history by claiming the causes of the war were noble and honorable and worth memorializing.  They erase history by simply erasing the reason for that war as stated by those states which seceded.  They erase history by representing a false history.

Zinke is an ass.  If there are Confederate memorials on federal land for which he is responsible, then maybe his opinion matters.  Otherwise, he's just looking for some attention in an Administration that seems to think soundbites are governance.

ADDING:  turns out what history you "erase" depends on what history you want to remember:

“Stonewall will be our first national monument to tell the story of the struggle for LGBT rights. I [Obama] believe our national parks should reflect the full story of our country, the richness and diversity and uniquely American spirit that has always defined us. That we are stronger together. That out of many, we are one.”

An email that went out to the entire White House subscriber’s list called it “our first national monument to honor the struggle for LGBT rights.”

Trump’s White House took another route. According to Andy Humm of Gay City News, when the administration “saw the pre-publicity on the ceremony, the National Park Service under Secretary Ryan Zinke’s Department of the Interior worked to certify that the flagpole adjacent to Christopher Park was not technically on federal land so that no Rainbow Flag would be flying on US government property.”

The representative at the Interior Department who had been working on the monument dropped out of attending the ceremony at the last minute.

So, not only is the monument to be ignored, but if the flagpole is, in fact, on federal land, the rainbow flag will not be flown there.

The Confederacy must be honored; gays and lesbians, not so much.

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