Noem and Other Imperialists Try to Erase American History and Ideals

[TexasTowelie]

I don’t need to watch my dog poop to know that I need to clean up his crap.

I didn’t watch the crass campaign speeches at Mount Rushmore last night, but, sure enough, Governor Kristi Noem remains full of crap:

“Across America these last several weeks, we have been witnessing a very troubling situation unfold. In real time, we are watching an organized, coordinated campaign to remove and eliminate all references to our nation’s founding and many other points in our history,” Noem said at a Fourth of July celebration at Mount Rushmore with President Trump.

“The approach focuses exclusively on our forefathers’ flaws, but it fails to capitalize on the opportunity to learn from their virtues,” she added. “Make no mistake, this is being done deliberately to discredit America’s founding principles by discrediting the individuals who formed them, so that America can be remade into a different political image” [Tal Axelrod, “South Dakota Governor Calls Removal of Confederate Statues Effort to ‘Discredit’ Founding Fathers,” The Hill, 2020.07.03].

Gee, Kristi, is Senator Mike Rounds part of that purported effort to “discredit America’s founding principles” for saying we shouldn’t name military bases after Confederate traitors? Is the Gettysburg Police Department part of that purported effort for finally removing decals showing a traitor flag that isn’t even an authentic part of the town’s founding and history?

Governor Noem’s weak attempt to bogeyman protest as an assault on God-fearing white folks’ heritage (you don’t have to be a dog to hear Noem’s whistles) is refuted by the brave protesters who blocked the road to Mount Rushmore yesterday. They weren’t trying to erase history; they were trying to bring it to the fore, demonstrating that Mount Rushmore is not some private pomp-ground for rich and powerful white invaders but part of stolen land that by treaty belongs to the Lakota people. The Rushmore protesters, like protesters across America in this hot and dangerous summer, weren’t trying to undermine America’s principles; they were trying to get Noem and other elected officials to live up to our professed principles of an ever more perfect Union with Liberty and Justice for All.

Read more: http://dakotafreepress.com/2020/07/04/noem-and-other-imperialists-try-to-erase-american-history-and-ideals/

[dflprincess]

1. TV stations in Minneapolis and St. Paul are currently running a commercial Noem did trying to lure

business to South Dakota.

She mentions that there is no income tax, business taxes are low, citizens & business allowed to make their own decisions (I take this to mean masks) and there will never be imposed shut downs.

I know South Dakota pays for the time, but I really wish local stations would refuse the ad. It is just so full of crap.

[msongs]

2. when did lee and stonewall jackson become founding fathers? nt

[Beartracks]

4. And why in a celebration of AMERICA did Trump vow to honor Confederate traitors...

... by restoring the statues that glorify them?

Look, if Col. Billy Bob made significant positive contributions to industry or science in addition to his treasonous stint in the war of southern transgression, then a statue of him in a suit or a lab coat somewhere might be okay -- but if he's on a horse brandishing a sword in some heroic pose fighting against the United States, that shit's gotta stop.

Make no mistake: Confederates weren't struggling to make America better, they were striving to tear it asunder.

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[Beartracks]

3. They're not interested in the history that HAPPENED; rather, the "history" that was WRITTEN.

[markwbradley]

5. An American history teacher's perspective

As a teenager growing up in Northern California in the 1960’s, I was taught the “virtuous saints who crafted the Constitution without a thought to their own private interests” version of U.S. history, sans women, sans minority participation, sans racism, sans ethnic cleansing. It was boring, it was irrelevant to my life, and, worst of all, it was literally unbelievable! But when I started my college career at Chico State in 1968, no one could ignore the maelstrom of real events that required us to decide “which side are you on.” Every social science or history class I took my freshman year was a crash course in the “fierce urgency of now.” Every cherished assumption I had arrived with was being summarily torn open with a rusty knife and dumped on the carpet for further analysis. We read Eldridge Cleaver’s “Soul on Ice”, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, the “Port Huron Statement” (the manifesto of the Students for a Democratic Society), and Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique.”

Suddenly, history was alive with possibility, its fabric rich in color and textures I had never imagined. But best of all, when narrated by people whose background and experience was so very different from mine, it became understandable, and even (heaven forbid) believable! The icons of White virtue I had learned about in high school were shown to be human beings with flaws, vices, glaring blind spots in their judgments, and, yes - sometimes - brilliant ideas.

That’s when I decided I wanted to teach history. The right way!