More statues

Confederate monuments, largely a legacy of Jim Crow hate, need not be destroyed to nullify their offensive power. They should be sited on private land or exhibited in museums as relics of a painful part of United States history. Here’s an (ironic) answer to the proponents of public display:

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FOR THE RECORD

Let’s have Dahmer in bronze on the square/

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And McVeigh. We should all be aware/

Of the fear and the hate/

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Which, it seems, made us great./

John Wilkes Booth next to Lincoln sounds fair.

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Stuart Jay Silverman Hot Springs

From the web

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In response to the Aug. 18 Arkansas Blog post “Arkansas competes for auto plant” about Arkansas vying for a $1.6 billion auto plant, which often involves incentives doled out by the state:

It’ll be like that old Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen sketch of a group of old men reminiscing about their early days, each seeking to one-up the others over hardships endured.

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“Oh yeah, Governor so-and-so? Well, I’ll have MY legislature make the workers PAY Toyota just to be able to have a job there and we’ll dump toxic waste into wetlands ourselves, just so the company doesn’t have to. So there!”

tsallenarng

In response to the Aug. 21 Arkansas Blog post “Hutchinson’s office says he will set execution of Jack Gordon Greene, state has drugs”:

As usual with the Arkansas Times, only the barest minimum of information on what a convicted murderer did that resulted in his presence on death row.  I’ll say it for you: Jack Greene killed Turner Greene (MURDERED HIS OWN BROTHER) in North Carolina, and then went to Arkansas looking for his estranged girlfriend. He would have killed her, but he found Sidney Burnett (family friend of Jack Greene’s girlfriend) so he tortured, stabbed and fatally shot him. Then he went on the run to Oklahoma, where he was caught. Just for full transparency, let’s include the fact that he kidnapped his own 16-year-old niece, who somehow survived. Then, he resisted extradition to Arkansas (death penalty state) and tried for extradition to North Carolina, the place where he killed his own brother, since that state has no death penalty. Amazingly detailed strategy for a crazy person. You don’t want to talk much about any of that, do you? And there’s NO WAY you’d ever post photos of his victims, is there? Nah, let’s just focus on poor old crazy Jack and how unfair it all is.  The only unfair aspect of this is that Jack Greene wasn’t executed 26 years ago.

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Semit Sasnakra

In response to the Aug. 17 Arkansas Blog post “Arkansas Democratic Party calls for removal of Confederate monuments from public grounds:

Serious question here to the governor and the rest of our elected leaders: If you do not wish to remove the statues that honor the Confederate dead because you feel they can be used as teachable moments, then why don’t you authorize some statues honoring the dead slaves that helped build this country? If you are going after a teachable moment, shouldn’t the whole story be presented?

Poison Apple

I would rather see the Democratic Party of Arkansas demand a livable minimum wage than waste its time railing about Confederate statues. Confederate statues are benign. The hurt that Arkansas workers suffer because of economic inequality is active and brutal. The Democratic Party has forgotten the primary tenet of the FDR, HST and LBJ party, which was to provide a New Deal, a Fair Deal, and a Better Deal for the working man and woman. Bernie, start a new party. I will be with you. I will preach this as long as I am able to type.

Plainjim

In response to the Aug. 16 Arkansas Blog post “Arkansas-linked Charlottesville marcher identified, apologizes to those misidentified” about Andrew Dodson, the man who wore an Arkansas Engineering shirt at the Charlottesville white supremacist rally. Dodson remarked, “How else am I going to figure out what these guys are about?”

If he hasn’t figured it out by now, he never will.

Kate

A five-minute Google search could have saved this dolt A LOT of trouble.

Jen Chadbourne

[Re Dodson quote “I just didn’t put two and two together. It was dumb.”] So says a member of the master race.

AnnaHarrisonTerry

In response to the Aug. 21 Arkansas Blog post “Eclipse-o-rama underway”:

It was pretty cool! The light did change some here in LR, and, as they said, tree leaves cast amazing crescent-shaped shadows on the ground. It seems to me the birds got quieter here in my yard, and still are pretty quiet. If I’m still around for the next one in seven years, I’d really like to make the trek to the totality path. This was a good reminder that the universe is an amazing place, and that our politics and squabbles don’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things. I am grateful for that reminder.

Kate

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