The social justice jihad to eliminate “white supremacy” was spawned by the successful eradication of Confederate memorabilia. Americans were not overly concerned about the disparagement of Confederate heroes but when the disparagement was turned against the Founding Fathers and Western Civilization in general, they began to take notice. The public finally realized they weren’t witnessing isolated incidents but a well-coordinated movement, promulgated by national and international forces.
The cultural cleansing of New Orleans is the latest illustration of the mindset that you can create an anti-septic city by eliminating anything that smacks of “white supremacy.” After Confederate relics are demolished, the purging of the city’s “white supremacy reminders” will be demanded. New Orleans journalists want you to believe that this is simply a grassroots effort calling for the removal of historical monuments that many perceive as offensive. But the New Orleans organization demanding the removal of historical memorials, Take ‘Em Down Nola, is an affiliate of Black Lives Matter, an incendiary international movement funded by extreme Leftist groups.
The funding for Black Lives Matter is estimated to be in excess of $100 million. Roughly a third of this comes from foundations controlled by anti-American provocateur George Soros. The discrediting of police is Black Lives Matter’s chief objective, and it has engaged in protests against law enforcement not only throughout the USA but also in Canada, Britain, Australia, – in fact globally. Black Lives Matter is a major player in the movement to end “white supremacy” – the aphorism used to describe white racism and other white behaviors that supposedly oppress non-whites. Examples of the campaign to abolish “white supremacy” are the proposed removal of the Jefferson Memorial, the renaming of Washington, DC, and the scrapping of tributes to President Theodore Roosevelt and President Woodrow Wilson.
Many New Orleans residents, black as well as white, do not support the removal of Confederate monuments. But Take ‘Em Down NOLA astonishingly has the backing of the Mayor and the City Council, as well as local journalists. To understand the thinking of those demanding monument eliminations, consider this excerpt from Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s response to a query about the removals: “…the monuments represent a historical moment in time but conflict with the city’s enduring values, about how weird it is to honor people who took up arms against our country and lost, about the inarguable role preservation of slavery played in the conflict, and about how the future does not belong to “sleepy Southern towns” that waste their time revering the Confederacy.”
How can the Mayor of New Orleans use the expression “enduring values” for a city with out-of -control crime and one of the highest murder rates in the nation? Will taking down the monuments relieve the city’s chronic unemployment or its crippling poverty rate? Will it improve its dysfunctional school system or the city’s disastrous infrastructure? Does the City Council really believe it can detract attention from the city’s atrocious living conditions by taking down century-old monuments?
If families throughout the USA were asked; “Which of the two places would you prefer to live in and raise your children; New Orleans or a ‘sleepy Southern town?'” The vast majority would, without hesitation, pick a sleepy Southern town. Americans no longer consider New Orleans a habitable city and, indeed, its population is declining.
At this point in time, legal approval has only been obtained for the removal of four Confederate monuments and the Liberty Place memorial. But, if the cultural cleansing takes place on the grand scale planned by the Black Lives Matter organization, it will radically alter the city, getting rid of most of its character and allure.
Take ‘Em Down NOLA has made it clear that taking down Confederate statuary and the Liberty Place monument are just the beginning. Its demands for additional purges begins with the proposed elimination of the French Quarter’s celebrated equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson located prominently in Jackson Square. In September 2016, using Black Lives Matter strategies, Take ‘Em Down NOLA angrily protested against the Andrew Jackson monument shouting “No justice! No peace!” There are also plans for the renaming of countless streets, buildings, schools, hospitals, and plaques in cemeteries (neutering plaques in cemeteries will reduce the fascination of New Orleans renowned “Cities of the Dead”, that have long been a tourist attraction.)
Insisting that everything in the past that conflicts with what Mayor Landrieu labels the city’s “enduring values” must be eliminated, Take ‘Em Down NOLA is taking its cleansing campaign all the way back to the city’s founding. Targeted for removal are reminders of Jean-Baptiste LeMoyne, Sieur de Bienville, an early Governor of Louisiana when it was still a territory. As he is credited with the planning and creation of New Orleans, which became Louisiana’s first capital, statues and markers celebrating Sieur de Bienville are evident throughout the city. But Bienville markers must be eradicated because he allowed the enslavement of local Indians and assisted in making New Orleans the largest black slave market in the country.
Not surprisingly, the Leftist media bubble consistently hypes the taking down of Confederate monuments as beneficial to both New Orleans and the nation. The removal of the Liberty Place memorial earned Mayor Landrieu a guest appearance on the MSNBC Rachael Maddow show. In her introduction to the Landrieu segment, Maddow described the Liberty Place protest as “A white supremacist uprising that took place in the 1870s that took dozens of lives.” This comment set the stage for Mitch Landrieu to reiterate how the seditious Confederacy started a war with its own country. A war that ended countless lives and was fought only to preserve the South’s right to enslave human beings.
As Mayor Landrieu made references to threats received by contractors being considered to remove monuments, Maddow asked for examples. Landrieu appeared flummoxed, and replied hesitatingly: “Well, it’s really hard to tell because as you know on social media and other things, it’s really hard to kind of capture it.”
The famous Liberty Place monument was erected as a testimonial to the 1874 insurrection by locals against the intrusiveness and corruption of occupying Reconstruction forces. At that time, a large segment of the occupying forces had already lost interest in the Reconstruction experiment and returned to the Northeast. Not long after this, Reconstruction was officially ended and all occupying forces were withdrawn. With Reconstruction mayhem fresh on their minds, historians did not record it in a favorable light. But in the generations following the end of this ill-starred government experiment, interpretations of Reconstruction have altered as political ideologies altered.
Like most journalists, those in New Orleans are not well versed in American history, so they rely on contemporary revisionist versions of Reconstruction in order to justify the removal of the Liberty Place monument. Not surprisingly, they turn to Columbia University professor Eric Foner to get the “truth” about Reconstruction. The Liberal establishment maintains that Foner is the “preeminent historian” on the Reconstruction period. Translation: he reports the history of Reconstruction in the way that best supports the Liberal ideology. Central to that ideology is the need for ongoing, massive restructuring of our society, stringently imposed at the Federal level.
Liberals like Foner maintain that Reconstruction should never have been abandoned – the subtitle of his book on Reconstruction is “America’s Unfinished Revolution.” This “Revolution” should have continued indefinitely and been applied to all regions of the country until all races and groups became genuinely “equal.” Of course, Liberals will never decide that “genuine equality” has been achieved, because that would mean that their society-altering programs would no longer be necessary. Liberals would be restless and fidgety without a societal-improvement project to promote.
Liberals maintain that complaints about the self-serving malfeasance of occupying Reconstruction forces were myths perpetuated by White supremacists. Professor Foner states: “The old myth that Reconstruction was just a time of corruption and misgovernment — the sort of ‘Birth of a Nation’ view — there is not a single historian in the country who still adheres to that. The historical consensus shifted a long time ago.”
Eric Foner is being deceitful to claim that all American historians, over 3,000 in number, view Reconstruction positively. This is simply not true. The unethical and dishonest conduct of the forces occupying the South during that period is still being reported. Carpetbaggers and scalawags are not myths, and the civil rights legislation of recent decades, correcting prejudicial practices in both Northern and Southern states, doesn’t negate Reconstruction’s disastrous effect on the South.
New Orleans is part of an ongoing trend by American cities to rid themselves of offensive “white supremacy.” But this guilt-ridden, masochistic destruction of heroes and history doesn’t appear to have taken hold in Europe. Elizabeth I, England’s Queen for almost 50 years, is still held in high esteem, even though the English slave trade took root during her reign. Not only was her maritime fleet heavily involved in the transatlantic slave trade, but Elizabeth herself shared in the profits. However, modern Britons realize that the Elizabethan age was a different time and cannot be judged by this generation’s opinions. The Black Lives Matter organization is protesting the “institutional racism” of British police, and hasn’t yet demanded the removal of Queen Elizabeth’s tomb from Westminster Abbey.
