Should confederate monuments be destroyed?

[Birdjaguar]

Yes, the violation of the treaty is what makes it criminal...but I guess the Lakota who I have heard (and read) saying it is a desecration of the Six Grandfathers are ignorant of their own culture. Food for thought, eh?

As far as the treaty goes, that matter was settled 37 years ago. The Lakota are unwilling to accept the rule of law. Their leadership has clearly decided to subordinate the economic needs of their people to the western (non Indian) principle of land ownership.

From Wiki: "On July 23, 1980, in United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Black Hills were illegally taken by the federal government and ordered remuneration of the initial offering price plus interest, nearly $106 million. The Lakota refused the settlement, as they wanted the Black Hills returned to them. The money remains in an interest-bearing account, which, as of 2015, amounts to over $1.2 billion, but the Lakota still refuse to take the money. They believe that accepting the settlement would allow the US government to justify taking ownership of the Black Hills."

The Lakota were late comers to the black hills and only arrived 1) after small pox devastated their western neighbors in 1780 and 2) under pressure of pushed out of Minnesota by US expansion. They took the land from its previous owners (the Cheyenne, Crow, Kiowa, and Pawnee). I'm not sure what happened to their sacred land in Minnesota; it may not have been so sacred after all.

Black Elk was a chief of the Oglala Sioux and lived from 1863-1950. His visions were the spiritual guide for his tribe and those visions focused the black hills as the center of the spiritual world for them. They became sacred through those visions. His book "Black Elk Speaks" is all about his life and religious thinking. The adoption of the sacredness of the Black Hills came about in the late 19th C,

Today tribes call land sacred for political reasons. It helps them lay claim to lands for court battles and helps establish reasons to bring land into trust and make it part of a reservation and part of their sovereign territory. Tribes like to claim that all of the land that they moved about on as hunter gathers is sacred or contains sacred places. "Our traditional stories say we prayed on that hill 300 years ago so all the land between own home now and that hill is our sacred hunting ground." Tribes are using the courts to gain back land they lost to Europeans. Sedentary, nomadic and semi nomadic peoples needed lots of land to live and the low density population and wide open spaces of the American West gave them access to lots of it. There were no private land holdings. Tribes were all about beating up other tribes to get the best places. Now, land has economic value beyond buffalo and picking berries. Tribal leaders are no different than the rest of us. They use what tools they have to get more land. Many Tribal leaders today are as morally bankrupt as our president.

 

[Lexicus]

Ok Tim you were right

So basically you're saying the tribal elites call the land sacred because they want the government to give it back so they can milk it for tourist dollars? That makes sense to me. I will admit to being completely unaware of this:

The Lakota were late comers to the black hills and only arrived 1) after small pox devastated their western neighbors in 1780 and 2) under pressure of pushed out of Minnesota by US expansion. They took the land from its previous owners (the Cheyenne, Crow, Kiowa, and Pawnee). I'm not sure what happened to their sacred land in Minnesota; it may not have been so sacred after all.

I still think carving a bunch of white dudes' faces on that mountain was not a cool move.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Twenty bucks says that if the Oglala Sioux started legal proceedings claiming that since the Black Hills actually were sacred to them the money being held as compensation should be theirs the Lakota would change their minds and take the money.

 

[Ajidica]

I'm not sure what happened to their sacred land in Minnesota; it may not have been so sacred after all.

Most of it ended up as casinos.
/only 50% joking

 

[Birdjaguar]

I tend to trust non-anonymous people over anonymous forum posters pretty much 100% of the time, so...

I have 12 years employed by NM tribes and developing plans for tribal council leaders regarding land use, buying land to go into trust, economic development and use of gambling revenues. Through that work I had contact and working relationships with other tribal leaders inside and outside of NM. I have seen tribal culture from the inside. It is often not as pretty as depicted by others. Were american Indians badly treated by both the US government and White folks? Of course.

Ok Tim you were right

So basically you're saying the tribal elites call the land sacred because they want the government to give it back so they can milk it for tourist dollars? That makes sense to me. I will admit to being completely unaware of this:

I still think carving a bunch of white dudes' faces on that mountain was not a cool move.

Yes and yes. Tribes compete fiercely for land and often have overlapping claims of ownership and sacredness. In the past they would have gone to war. Now they face off in court and the Dept of the Interior.

Twenty bucks says that if the Oglala Sioux started legal proceedings claiming that since the Black Hills actually were sacred to them the money being held as compensation should be theirs the Lakota would change their minds and take the money.

Don't be surprised if it happens.

Most of it ended up as casinos.
/only 50% joking

There are 20 Indian casinos in Minnesota. I don't think any of them are owned by the Sioux. They should've stayed in Minnesota.

 

[innonimatu]

As far as the treaty goes, that matter was settled 37 years ago. The Lakota are unwilling to accept the rule of law. Their leadership has clearly decided to subordinate the economic needs of their people to the western (non Indian) principle of land ownership.

From Wiki: "On July 23, 1980, in United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Black Hills were illegally taken by the federal government and ordered remuneration of the initial offering price plus interest, nearly $106 million. The Lakota refused the settlement, as they wanted the Black Hills returned to them. The money remains in an interest-bearing account, which, as of 2015, amounts to over $1.2 billion, but the Lakota still refuse to take the money. They believe that accepting the settlement would allow the US government to justify taking ownership of the Black Hills."

The Lakota were late comers to the black hills and only arrived 1) after small pox devastated their western neighbors in 1780 and 2) under pressure of pushed out of Minnesota by US expansion. They took the land from its previous owners (the Cheyenne, Crow, Kiowa, and Pawnee). I'm not sure what happened to their sacred land in Minnesota; it may not have been so sacred after all.

So your excuses are that:
1) might makes right (the present powers decide on the law)
2) it's fair to take someone's land because that land must have been taken before.

You can embrace those principles, they're very practical. You just can't play moral superiority standing on them. It's power politics, oppression in its several grades as usual. And if you know 19th century american history you'll know that many of the army officers of the Civil War (those liberators of slaves, history would have them) went on to apply a policy of genocide (as in deliberately massacring even women and children...) in the west on behalf of the federal government. There were very few good people around...

As I said, this is practical. But people who embrace that practicality shouldn't play moral games with past history. It comes across as phony.

 

[Lexicus]

So your excuses are that:
1) might makes right (the present powers decide on the law)
2) it's fair to take someone's land because that land must have been taken before.

This is not remotely what was being said

 

[Birdjaguar]

So your excuses are that:
1) might makes right (the present powers decide on the law)
2) it's fair to take someone's land because that land must have been taken before.

You can embrace those principles, they're very practical. You just can't play moral superiority standing on them. It's power politics, oppression in its several grades as usual. And if you know 19th century american history you'll know that many of the army officers of the Civil War (those liberators of slaves, history would have them) went on to apply a policy of genocide (as in deliberately massacring even women and children...) in the west on behalf of the federal government. There were very few good people around...

As I said, this is practical. But people who embrace that practicality shouldn't play moral games with past history. It comes across as phony.

I made no excuses for anything and only presented some of what actually happened or happens today. As far as "might makes right", that was a principal that Indians applied to one another and their European invaders. Those Europeans also applied that principal. The rightness or wrongness of that principal is a cultural thing that has changed as part of US policy towards Native Americans over the past 200+ years. I do not personally agree with it most of the time. My opinion about the morality of what happened in the 19th C is pretty irrelevant. What did happen did happen. It is quite easy to get on a high horse about the evil deeds of people in the past and claim how badly the US Cavalry behaved. I think that the best statement we can make about looking back is to say "Look how far we have come."

 

[Arwon]

Who's with me?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/17/politics/confederate-symbols-by-the-numbers/index.html

Amazingly, my state has 1. I do want to vandalize it. But according to the little picture, it seems to be in the middle of nowhere. I'm not driving that far for that.

Think about it, isn't it strange to have monuments to Confederate generals? You don't see monuments to Rommel in Germany do you? (at least I don't think you do, I haven't actually been there). He may be a great general, but there is no reason to have a monument for him. And yes, I know it's not entirely fair to compare Confederates to Nazis, as the Confederates didn't kill 6 million innocent people, but a lot of people did die on the ships coming over from Africa.

While I do support 1 of Donald Trump's policies, he's wrong about this particular issue. I actually watched a movie recently which illustrates what I've been saying about people who hold Nazis and Confederates to high esteem. It always seem strange to me that people support the losers in history. The movie was called Blood Father, and there was a joke about a character who kept supporting the losers (Confeds and Nazis). It's time to stop worshiping these people and start living in the present. On a side note, I think most monuments are ridiculous. No person deserves such a monument, the only exception should be Cristo Redeemer. No one else deserves a monument in my opinion.

So my vote is to destroy them all, not just move them.

They're all cheap mass produced bronze, what you wanna do is cause corrision aka bronze disease. Basically, get a couple spray bottles, one with hydrochloric acid then another with hydrogen peroxide. Make it a daily walk. They'll rust and crumble. Here's a set of tweets to that end.

Moderator Action: To be clear to everyone on CFC, encouraging and providing instruction on how to vandalize property is not okay. - Vincour
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[warpus]

Imagine the casino you could build for $1.2 billion

 

[Birdjaguar]

Imagine the casino you could build for $1.2 billion

Well, $1.2 billion doesn't cut nowadays.

http://www.livedealer.org/blog/2010/04/top-5-most-expensive-casinos-ever-built/


Go to Las Vegas or Macau. Go into any of the properties of Steve Wynn: Wynn, Encore, Bellagio. He not only understands the casino business, he has great taste in decor. The trick to success though is being able to draw crowds. Outside of Las Vegas, the most successful casinos are close to metro areas. South Dakota would be a terrible place for any casino beyond a tent.

Spoiler :

Top 5 most expensive casinos ever built
20 Apr 2010/3 Comments/in casinos /by LD
Back in 1989 Steve Wynn built the The Mirage Las Vegas at a cost of US$630 million. It was the most expensive hotel casino the world had yet seen and more than a few gaming analysts called him crazy. To meet the debt financing charges the casino would have to ‘make a nut’ of $1 million a day (ie net gaming revenues or player losses). Unheard of.

As it turned out Wynn’s Mirage did better than even he expected and debts due over the next 7 years were paid off in only 18 months. All of a sudden the casino corporate strategy goal posts were moved and in was ushered the era of “build it, and they will come”. Project feasibility was no longer constrained by considerations of whether local demand would be sufficient to fill another casino, but rather predicated on a total re-shaping of demand by the new casino. The mega hotel casino arms race had begun.

Integrated casino resorts

They don’t call the big casino developments ‘hotel casinos’ anymore. They are ‘integrated casino resorts’.

The first major entry in the race post-Mirage was the Las Vegas Bellagio. At a cost of $1.6 billion when doors opened in 1998 its price tag had jaws dropping again. But the Bellagio is nothing compared to what followed in the new millennium.

The latest integrated casino resort to open its doors is Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa. At a cost of just under $5 billion it makes the Mirage and Bellagio look downright cheap. If the Mirage needed $1 million a day to cover its $630 million price tag can you imagine what Genting International (RWS owners) are hoping players will drop at their new casino?

The staggering thing is, early reports suggest RWS is so far an unqualified success. According to Union Gaming Group they have been winning between $7 million and $8 million a day since doors opened in February this year.

The astounding thing is, RWS is neither the biggest nor the most ambitious casino project that has been built in the last five years. Less than 5 kilometers down the road from Sentosa Island at Singapore’s Marina Bay, a casino is due to open in less than a fortnight’s time. This one cost $5.5 billion (and counting) to build. The Marina Bay Sands is the current benchmark for big budget casino resorts. But it is only a matter of time before it too is trumped.

The list follows in the link.

 

[Ferocitus]

My vote is for what would cause the greatest discontent in the USA, so 10 new,
federal government-funded, solid gold statues would be perfect.

Top 10 Worst American Civil War Generals
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-worst-american-civil-war-generals.php

 

[miaasma]

That's just it. You don't know what arbitrary thing they'll judge you on a century from now.

I think you're doing fine. But I'm from the last century.

arbitrary? lol

 

[Arwon]

That's just it. You don't know what arbitrary thing they'll judge you on a century from now.

I think you're doing fine. But I'm from the last century.

Fair bet it'll be cooking and drowing their planet tbh

 

[Hrothbern]

Fair bet it'll be cooking and drowing their planet tbh

Yes
The monuments, if any left, in deserts between solar cells and the US citizens living in Alaska unless Canada welcomes them.

At 4 C higher temperature the world could look like this:

Not that I believe Parag Khanna's vision that we would rebuild part of our society on Western Antarctica (that fast), but his map does try to show where agriculture is still feasible.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm... how can that map be correct when it says the ice caps have melted to a great degree, while it keeps the land intact in Europe? For god's shake, it even keeps the Netherlands above water

Most maps i have seen of this show the north half of Europe pretty much eroded by sea. (south half is usually mountainous next to the sea, Greece being a prime example of mountains extending often right up to it).

 

[warpus]

Well, $1.2 billion doesn't cut nowadays.

Wow.. And I thought that was an over the top amount for a casino.

My post was of course tongue in cheek, but it seems that this amount is going to keep growing for quite a while. What happens if it reaches crazy amounts that the U.S. government would never be able to pay, and the natives say they want it? I guess I'm assuming that it's not just sitting in an account, not touched by anyone.

 

[Berzerker]

And maybe you shouldn't be speaking for that "whole bunch of taxpayers".

Why not? Do they get to speak for themselves?

 

[Hrothbern]

Hm... how can that map be correct when it says the ice caps have melted to a great degree, while it keeps the land intact in Europe? For god's shake, it even keeps the Netherlands above water

Most maps i have seen of this show the north half of Europe pretty much eroded by sea. (south half is usually mountainous next to the sea, Greece being a prime example of mountains extending often right up to it).

He assumed for his map, as stated in the legenda, a 2 meter sea level increase (early phase of the 4 C increase), the maps shows in red color the flooded areas (look closely to the Netherlands: it is red there , the national plan to heighten our dykes is at the drawing table)
The case Khanna is making, is the desertification and corresponding global refugee and destabilisation issues. Africa, Middle East, India, China, most of the US, Southern Europe in the bad spots and Canada, Northern Europe, Siberia in the good spots.

And yes, I would prefer maps sanctioned by the UN on the desertification and future agricultural distribution. But I could not find them.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Wow.. And I thought that was an over the top amount for a casino.

My post was of course tongue in cheek, but it seems that this amount is going to keep growing for quite a while. What happens if it reaches crazy amounts that the U.S. government would never be able to pay, and the natives say they want it? I guess I'm assuming that it's not just sitting in an account, not touched by anyone.

The Sioux are a poor tribe with lots of poor members. A billion dollars would go very far to improving life at places like Pine Ridge. I think that the leadership will change at some point and they will take the money.

About statues.

At UNC my alma mater in Chapel Hill NC there is Silent Sam.

The statue, near Franklin Street at the entrance to campus, was erected in 1913 as a memorial to more than 300 alumni who lost their lives in the Civil War. It features a Confederate soldier with a rifle in hand.

No famous general, just a tribute to those who died. But there is this:

Spoiler :

When the monument was installed, Julian Carr, namesake of Carrboro, gave a speech saying he had whipped a Negro woman until her skirt was in tatters, because she insulted “a Southern lady.”

The statue has been a source of controversy for decades, with students and others calling for its removal from time to time. A new online petition calls on the UNC Board of Governors to take it down. It is time for a change. I would move it from its current prominence to a secluded spot, remove the plaque and plant kudzu around it. Politicians lead us in places into places we don't don't want to go and then soldiers die.