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Not to mention defacing a mountain by putting a bunch of faces on it
Defaced then refaced
I understand the point, but as an exercise, try to find four historical figures without glaring character defects. Eventually, I figure we’ll all be either judged or forgotten in time.
These are a little more than character defects… theres lots of historical figures who didn’t rape and murder.
Yeah every political leader have little oopsies like being called “town destroyer” by the people which land they invaded and towns they destroyed. They also were proud of it, used it to invade even more land, and their grandpas were also called that because it’s their family and nation thing to do for generations.
Seems like a good time to link the list of US atrocities
Lincoln also commuted the sentence of 264 other Dakotans that had to be executed the same day. If he didn’t intervene the executions would’ve been 303
Yeah. Cherry-picking can be used for good AND evil.
So what’s the real dirt on Lincoln? Did he snore or something? :P
Honestly the worst thing Lincoln ever did was choosing Johnson as his VP. Even then, I learned recently that he asked a different (better) guy, Benjamin Butler, to be VP but he turned him down. Had he lived to do Reconstruction, we might have more to critique, certainly he’d have done better than Johnson (not a high bar), but since he died he’s off the hook for figuring that one out.
You could also criticize him for not being committed enough to ending slavery from the start. But really, other than the mass hangings of the Dakotas (which could’ve been worse but was still not great), most criticism of him is just Lost Causers whining about “authoritarianism” by freeing the slaves and expanding the scope and power of the federal government as was necessary to free the slaves.
Removed by mod
It is telling that while you can’t think of something cartoonishly evil he did off of the top of your head- you definitely remember that he was assassinated.
Edit: Apparently this edit is required. Whether Lincoln held the mission of abolishing slavery personally or not, he was associated with it. And was shot in cold blood for it. Do something less than the worst thing you could do as president and the American project will answer your arrogance.
I’m not American, so I don’t really know that part of your history.
Edit: he was assassinated for wanting to give black people citizenship is what I’m reading…?
There’s a fascinating historical nonfiction book by Erik Larson that covers the early days of the American civil war.
The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War is mostly focused on the soldiers and officers manning Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the site of the first battle of the war. But it also includes lengthy discussions of how Lincoln was vilified for things he never said and blamed for things he didn’t actually do.
The southern states, specifically the landed elite, were very interested in starting a war so they could maintain their wealth and power so they used Lincoln as a scapegoat to rouse the masses
You are correct. The only other thing that Lincoln is criticized for is suspending habeas corpus during the US civil war. I don’t know what the person you’re commenting on is on about. They may be a confederate sympathizer.
How do you read that from what I wrote?
My point was: he attempted or was associated with an attempt to do something less then the worst thing he could. And he was shot for it.
Not pictured: the giant, shitty looking pile of rubble under them.
They just blasted chunks off the mountain and left the mess behind
Also not pictured: that the mountain is a spiritual site for the local tribes.
“Fun fact”: Mount Rushmore or Six Grandfathers was a sacred mountain for the Lakota to actively disrespect their beliefs
other “fun” fact: the man who defaced Six Grandfathers, Gutzon Borglum, was a member of the KKK
Gutzon Borglum
I refuse to acknowledge this is a real name.
That’s a gnome NPC in WoW, right?
Much much worse, either villain or very minor supporting character from Harry Potter. Especially that he was member of KKK.
The history of Washingtons teeth is uncertain. The evidence that those were slave teeth seems to show that the teeth were purchased.
Internet pictures with words are fucking dumb.
I’m 30 and this is the first I’ve ever heard about this. my southern Baptist homeschool curriculum told me that his teeth were made of wood and it was never something i thought to fact check as an adult.
gotta love homeschooling 🙄
According to a documentary I watched in passing on tv some years back, he had several types of dentures and most of them caused him great pain. One could even say his need for teeth helped in small part advance denture technology in the US.
I was at the museum at his estate on the potomac; the dentures were there. The plaque underneath claimed it was slaves.
Is that not how dentures worked at the time? Any tooth you got was from someone so poor they had to sell it or who had it taken from them.
Modern equivalent would be displaying shoes made in a sweatshop. Yeah terrible practice, but so commonplace its generally not a huge reflection on the character of the owner.
Both conditions apply, was the intent. Teeth from slaves that were also purchased. My wording was unclear, sorry.
It was so unclear, it seems that I am white washing racist now.
it seems that I am white washing racist now
Me too, when I called out their childish behavior.
And that’s OK! Some people just need to blame everyone else for everything that is fucked up in their own lives. I don’t support that, but it is what it is.
I don’t mean to imply you are racist at all. Whatever it turns out the provenance of those teeth are has no bearing on whether or not you are racist.
I was referencing another thread in this post, so it’s not you. Sorry to give the wrong impression.
Washington owned slaves. He was not some moral high ground individual. The only reason why they even got independence from Britain was that Britain wanted to stop the expansion of the territory and the people in the colonies wanted to continue it and kill all the natives.
Edit:
In 1784, Washington paid unnamed “Negroes” for nine teeth. We don’t know the precise circumstances, says Van Horn: “The president’s decision to pay his slaves for their teeth may have been a recognition on his part that teeth were something sacrosanct and personal.” On the other hand, being enslaved meant that any economic exchange was inherently not fair.
He literally took advantage of enslaved people to get their teeth and you consider it as just “bought”. Top tier cracker mindset. I guess that to you it was also fair for him to own his slaves because he “bought” them.
https://daily.jstor.org/were-george-washingtons-teeth-taken-from-enslaved-people/
I didn’t suggest anything about his character, and we could probably have an entirely separate discussion about imperialism.
What is important is how you source information when it comes to dental prosthetics.
Oh please, criticizing the meme because “the teeth were bought” Is an attempt to save his caharacter. And then saying that images with words are all dumb. People can see through your attempt of white washing.
I don’t give a fuck about his character.
You are making assumptions about my intent or what I believe, which is a childish argument tactic.
Again, internet pictures with words are fucking dumb. You might get a ton of likes on Facebook with that shit though.
Go on a seethe, cope calling me childish or whatever your manipulation tactic is, but your attempt of white washing is obvious. I am done talking to you.
I only see one person coping and seething. Dude has criticism about a meme because the source is questionable and you just bitch and moan. You literally put word in their mouth.
Lmao, “questionable source”, you can literally Google that in 5 seconds and see all the sources that confirm that. Now I know that memes are supposed to have sources when the users can easily Google it themselves /s. The white washing apologist just get funnier and funnier.
Lulz, wut? I called your discussion style childish and you literally just did the same thing again.
I could make all kinds of assumptions about your intents, and none of them good. But I don’t.
Wow that’s such a dumb thing I didn’t expect to read today. I can see why you would think so, but still… Wow.
Internet pictures with words are fucking dumb
Memers in shambles right now. Webcomic artists, to shreds. Researchers who use diagrams with legends in their publications, pulverized. Journalists, atomised.
A child draws a picture of his father and writes “I love you” for it is the man’s birthday. He posts the picture online.
YOU FOOLS!
Yells the mother, as she beats them both to death with a large brick.
In the halls of the United Nations, an envoy reads the latest finding of his commission: “I’m afraid every character of every alphabet is ultimately a drawing.”
“But that would mean…”
“Yes, I’m afraid. Every text online counts as internet picture with words. Including the meeting reports that Stephanie posts on our site.” Sound of typing stops, as Stephanie looks up, aghast The discussion resumes, the tone rises and descends again, a consensus is reached. It is a hard choice, but a fair one. All the lettered people are to be buried alive.
Walk up honey, new copypasta just dropped!
Lulz, good points. I should clarify that internet pictures with “facts” are fucking dumb. While that wording has gaps as well, maybe we can hone in on some specificity.
Washington’s teeth were made of diamonds and you can’t convince me otherwise.
Opponents beware
All four of them carved onto a sacred natural site known to the Plains Indigenous people of the area as the ‘Six Grandfathers’
This is why I find it surprising when USAians say “This is not us.” When talking about Trump. No bro, it was always you, maybe you just weren’t paying attention.
As a Native American this attitude is so grating. People outside the US really don’t seem to understand that it’s 55 different states, districts, and territories, along with dozens of sovereign tribes, all being forced to pretend to be one nation. Many of us can and do claim “this is not us” in the same way many Europeans would say the same about Viktor Orban.
States, districts, territories are not the same as different countries. Viktor Orban is not an European leader same as Jagmeet Singh is not an American leader.
“Why don’t Americans just march on DC and take their country back??”
If I lived in Lisbon, Portugal, Moscow would be the equivalent distance of how far away DC is from me.
I can’t and don’t want to argue with your point, however in the faceless internet space unless you specify you speak from the name of a specific subgroup, the blanket ‘American’ is implied. It’s not a lack of understanding, it’s a lack of context.
Contrary to that Europe doesn’t have one cohesive identity, your example of Orban is multiple country borders removed from me personally. I don’t have the power to vote for/against him or influence that country in any way, where that’s different in your case.
I’m not sure why you would reply if you didn’t want to argue but okay.
Thinking that individual European countries have local identities and states or others don’t is absolutely a lack of understanding and not a lack of context.
That you seem to think that everyone in the US has the power to vote for or against the president would also seem to be a lack of understanding, I chose the leader of a specific country in Europe as my example for that reason.
If you don’t have the power to vote for the president, you don’t live in a democracy.
Precisely…
Thinking that individual European countries have local identities and states or others don’t is absolutely a lack of understanding and not a lack of context.
That’s not at all what I said. It’s in fact the opposite and because of that I said I can’t argue with most of your previous points.
On your latter point, I do lack some understanding on the native reservations, but as far as I know they’re still under the governance of the US to some extent. My assumption was they can at least participate in the ‘democracy’ which affects them immensely. It’s very sad that’s not the case…
I am a little confused then as you seemed to me to be implying that American as a cultural identity precludes Oklahoman as a for instance but that European would not preclude Scottish as a for instance.
It wasn’t until 1965 that the right of non white citizens to vote was protected and it has been a constant fight since. Currently the administration is arguing that Native Americans arent citizens at all.
In the mean time it’s probably worth pointing out that nobody’s vote for president really counts for anything because of the electoral college. On top of that many of us, including myself, live in ‘winner take all’ states where the person with a plurality or majority of popular votes is awarded all of the electoral votes of that state.
In my lifetime there have been 9 presidential elections; 5 have been won by Democrats, with all 5 also winning the national popular vote. 4 have been Republicans, however only two of those elections were won by the candidate who won the popular vote.
Ah, but your regressive and racist system built by rascist white guys 250 years ago entrenches the power of regressive and racist white guys. Therefore you are a bad person.
Let’s ignore the fact that every single poll shows more Americans favoring progressive policies. Let’s ignore the systemic disenfranchisement of everyone who’s not a rich white man (and their candidates still lose the popular vote every time). Any random person in San Diego is the exact same as someone living 1600 miles away in Omaha.
Why don’t we apply the same revulsion to, idk, Belgians? King Leopold II directly killed ~10 million people in his own private colony. Doing that 116 years ago is better than George Washington freeing his last 123 slaves when he died 228 years ago?
Yeah, uh, last I checked American territories don’t have the ability to vote in federal elections. Someone from Puerto Rico can’t vote for the US president despite being governed by the US. It’s one of many bullshit systems designed to keep the GOP-Democrat right-wing ratchet going.
Contrary to that Europe doesn’t have one cohesive identity, your example of Orban is multiple country borders removed from me personally.
Orban would probably be best compared to a state governor. Just a reminder that Texas is literally larger than the largest EU country with some space leftover for a city-state or two.
The idea that the US has a cohesive identity is just… unbelievably ignorant. I’m actually amazed that you believe that considering that no one in their right mind would say the same thing about places like Africa, Europe, or South America.
I didn’t have a choice to be born here, and, had I had the option, I wouldn’t have defaced a Native American monument in the first place. This is on top of the fact that the US is currently trying to find ways of disowning/executing me (trans).
Quite honestly, maybe I shouldn’t be offended by being lumped in with other Americans, because maybe I’m not actually being included in these kinds of sweeping statements. However, it rubs me the wrong way when people imply that Americans as a whole are responsible for the things our government has and is doing.
Again, I didn’t ask to be born in the US. I don’t like that I’m “American”. No one asked me, please don’t lump people like me in with the others.
Me sowing: Hell yeah this is great
Me reaping: This is not us. What a somber moment in world history 😔
As a European, I think it’s because of all the “land of the free”, “we’re #1”, “the american dream” and “the american melting pot” bullshit.
Whatever that means when looking at history. It was only as an adult that I found out america is the villain.
Every single democracy in Europe is younger than America’s by an order of magnitude. Most have gone through 2 or 3 forms of government since it was founded. You have the luxury of not “being the villains” because your governments haven’t been around long enough to have nasty shit stick to them. They were all emphatically on board with doing vile stuff to stop the communist boogeyman, they just let America’s guns to do it.
The American exceptionalism narrative was born out of WWII, because they really were the “best” industrialized country by virtue of not being a smoking crater. Every state that has reached or is on the path to being a modern nation has blood on their hands, America just hasn’t had the chance to symbolically wash them.
Agree. I think it’s the very convenient "All of us USA #1* when it’s propaganda, but “oh it’s the BAD Americans, not us” whenever push comes to shove.
In California I don’t think I even see these so called USA #1. Maybe “I love LA” but that’s mostly cause it the fires. Pretty sure the consensus here is that Finland or Sweden or some other northern European country are #1 because they actually have socialist programs, like parental leave and real healthcare and education.
I mean, in so much as a single person representing a county goes. The first colonies were a mix of religious zealots, Virginian drug dealers (well, tobacco but that’s almost worse), and a little Dutch (who were quite active in slave trading at the time). Quickly got a few more from French and Spanish, too.
However, the US also includes annexed Mexican territory (which has its own mixed history of subjegation and torture) and slews of different immigrant populations (with their own mixed intentions). A section of my own family is here cause they tried for Scottish independence, although there’s a good chance they were sent here for being belligerent drunks.
That said, ain’t a single country on this earth without their fair share of bullshit. America is just a lovely mix of those assholes, honestly.
That would require the democrats to actually do something
I’m picturing 200 dems walking slowly chanting “we shall overcome” on the way to brunch. George Bush is there. No one tips.
That would require democrats to have fundamentally different goals than Republicans.
Nooo how dare you suggest the Democrats aren’t on our side. You’re gonna make people note VOTEE
That’s four of them. I rather think Carter was a good human being, regardless of whether or not you think he was a good president.
I can’t really agree with that given how he treated Cambodia and supported the Khmer Rouge, as well as other crimes against humanity in the name of “opposing Communism.”
Yeah but if you ignore some of the most heinous atrocities ever perpetrated he’s a nice guy
George W. Bush’s treatment by the media in recent years in a nutshell. Thank goodness for Blowback reminding people of his atrocities.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Read “The Jakarta Method”
You could look at any country in the world and find leaders that were just as bad and even worse throughout history. I think the takeaway should be that shitty people exist. Some of it is a product of the times, some of it just being awful people. Shitty people have and always will exist.
Edit: With these downvotes it almost seems like y’all thought I was defending them. I absolutely was not defending them. :)
At least they didn’t carve them into a mountain though?
They absolutely would have if they had the resources to swing it
The US Empire is definitely one of the worst States to exist in history, though, consistently.
Can’t deny that. The ratio of good/bad presidents is definitely abysmal.
This is an ml community. Anything that praises the USA or normalizes it (that is, reducing the awfulness) is gonna get down votes.
Okay, fella - take a few breaths and relax. People are products of their times. The better ones fight for virtues and values they see as better at the time. They see an opportunity others do not and rally people around those.
Others they don’t see and continue wi5h those norms, or they see the wrongs but don’t believe they can rally people around fixing them.
Do not demonize people in the past who do not meet current norms. There will never be anybody who will meet those standards.
Judge them against the standards of their peers.
What if MLK did not support feminists? Would he now be considered scum, thus negating everything good he ever did?
Heck, i don’t know if he had a stance on women’s rights explicitly. Maybe he didn’t. Is he evil if he didn’t?
There were plenty of peers, even UK and European ones, that opposed the US colonial project. Read Losurdo - Liberalism, a counter-history if you want an in-depth look at the debates of the time.
Yeah, nobody at that time knew slavery was wrong. Well, I mean, except for all the slaves, obviously, they knew, but there was no way for them to get their perspective heard because they were cut out of the political process. Who cut them out of the process? Well, uh, well you see…
People are products of their times.
You hear this a lot, but then you and look at “the times” and find arguments in favor of cultural integration dating back thousand of years.
It is true that people are the products of their time, but those times are not as radically distant moral wise as it is usually assumed.
What if MLK did not support feminists? Would he now be considered scum, thus negating everything good he ever did?
he literally addressed the national organization for women in 1966 and espoused their ideals.
giving a pass to the people from history is problematic because the same ideals of progressiveness that we pride ourselves on today were present in the past and people knew that it existed; they simply weren’t as popular back then as they are now and anyone espousing them back then were treated like tankies of their own time.
giving them a pass only helps to excuse regressivism and anti-progressive sentiment like both the republicans and democrats (respectively) practice today; this is a key reason why we have trump as president today and probably jd vance tomorrow.
Do not demonize people in the past who do not meet current norms. There will never be anybody who will meet those standards.
“Nazis were just a product of their time!”
Okay. There were staunch abolitionists across the US and especially in the UK. Many of whom were operating on the basis of equality, i.e. not the American belief that black people are a subspecies that were sent from heaven to serve whites, like all the leaders of the US though before the 1900s.
So by your own method, Washington was a disgusting human being, one would argue a demon.
There are people today rightly pointing out the looting of the global South by the global North, and yet nobody in the north is volunteering to give it all back. What disgusting human beings, if they had any decency they’d give it back and ritually kill themselves
That line only works when most of the global north aren’t more poor than those in the south.
Most people in the western world do want to remove the stolen wealth and return it, since they’ve never seen it either.
??? Do they really though? I rarely see the sentiment that literally all ill-gotten gains forming the foundation of their nation’s power and stability should be returned (and definitely not from people benefitting). Mostly it’s just tossing a few cultural artifacts, some meager reparations, and cutting back on some luxury like chocolate because it makes them feel bad. That’s the same as freeing a few slaves after you profit off them for your whole life (and we established that makes you a demon).
Or are you arguing about injustices in classes? If everyone being exploited by the rich agreed to dismantle that system it would be done by now. Doesn’t matter if you’re poor, you participate in the problem.
You probably just want your exploitation to be marginally less than the guys on the bottom, you don’t care about the core issue. Therefore being opposed to the compete dismantling of our current economic system is regressive and 90% of earth’s population are demons
My dude I’m dual citizen Chinese and us, stealing from the rich and building the fundamentals of society equally is kinda my jam, even if someone did fuck up and make me a us citizen by default.
The American working class, despite making far more than their peers in the global South, are usually more poor than their peers in the global South. Home ownership is a myth and favelas are banned here; you’ll not only never retire but even if you manage to get to retirement age all your money is going to go to medical care. You might have a car but you need it to live since there’s more distance between your house and the only grocery store than there is between most villages in poor countries. Hell all the wealth the US stole still has more people living near open sewage lines than any country in South America. Shit even the cops are more corrupt than those in the south but you can’t even bribe them since they’re paid so much by the rich to protect their property.
The American poor are happy to give up the wealth their country stole, because they never saw any of it.
Lots of “what-ifs” to dismiss people highlighting historical genocidal slavers.
Product of the times isn’t a great way to put it, but you can certainly make the argument that most people have shades of grey morality.
Science can back you up, too, as I teach social psychology and when you dig in, you find that normative human nature is pretty complex but generally very supportive for in-group and mildly empathetic even with strangers. It’s only when you dehumanize a group do you get the worst behavior, and in all four cases you see that, be it slaves or indigenous people.
When you look at those times, it’s people who recognized their humanity that ended up in the just side of history.
