1/28/2016

In New Orleans, Confederate Monuments Are Ready to Be Shit-Canned

The Rude Pundit has an idea for a new monument on Lee Circle in New Orleans. Right now, the traffic/streetcar turn is named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee, with a big statue on a big column dead in the center of the circle. A federal judge has denied a request for an injunction on taking down Robert E. Lee and three other Confederate monuments in New Orleans, so General Lee can come on down. The other monuments were statues of Jefferson Davis and General P.G.T. Beauregard, as well as a dumbass obelisk celebrating that time a group of whites attacked the integrated New Orleans police force. It's heritage, not hate.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier against the Louisiana Landmarks Society is heavy on the ol' legalese. But there is one choice line that deserves quoting. The LLS tried to use the Veterans Memorial Preservation and Recognition Act, which "makes it a criminal offense for a defendant to willfully injure or destroy any monument on public property commemorating the service of any person in the armed forces of the United States."

As Barbier points out, "Plaintiffs have not shown that any of the monuments commemorate 'the service of any person...in the armed forces of the United States.'" In a footnote, Barbier notes that, while Lee, Davis, and Beauregard all were part of the U.S. Army at one point, the monuments commemorate their role in the Confederate States of America, which is decidedly not the USA: "None of the monuments references service in the United States Army." And, besides, the monuments are being moved to a warehouse for now, not melted down and poured over a pile of Confederate flags and pissed on by descendants of slaves, as they should be.

Of course, if there's one thing that we know about the white people of the Confederacy, it's that when they lose, they are total dickholes about it. One company, H&O Investments, that was contracted to take the monuments down dropped out after the owner received death threats at work and at home, as well as threats to his business on social media and elsewhere. Other clients said they would cancel business with the company if it continued to work on the monuments. In the final insult, even after H&O backed out of the project, the owner's $200,000 Lamborghini was torched. It was not noted if a cross was burned near it.

So that idea: Instead of just taking down the Lee statue, the Rude Pundit proposes this: Lee can stay up there, but he's got to be positioned on all fours. In front of the commander of Confederate forces, Union General Ulysses S. Grant would stand proudly with his dick in Lee's mouth. Behind Lee, a male slave would be fucking the white general right in the ass. Both Grant and the slave would be flipping the bird with both hands, right at anyone who looked upon them debasing Lee.

That's the monument deserved by the assholes who have a problem with denying public space, at last, to traitors and terrorists.