Statues....out with the old in with the new.

So who should stand proudly in our city centres and galleries, someone that future generations wont want to pull down and throw in the docks?

I thought Colonel Tom Moore, Nicko suggested Vera Lynn. Neither were slave traders as far as I know.

Who would you like to see honoured?? I also think Princess Diana would make a pleasing bronzed statue.

Harold "Kim" Philby? Neither was he a slave trader.

The dog owned by Wing Commander Guy Gibson of the Royal Air Force, and the mascot of No. 617 Squadron.

Maybe David Attenborough. Did so much for all those wildlife and animal documentaries.

Wait, he did die, right?

If he did no one has told him yet.
May as well forget statues, I'm sure something can be dug up on even the saintliest of people.

Vintage wrote:If he did no one has told him yet.
May as well forget statues, I'm sure something can be dug up on even the saintliest of people.

Hahahahaha oops.

I often think celebs are dead when they’re not and vice versa.

Hmmm ... the past few queens obviously merit statues. I'd add Alan Turing, Charles Darwin and Thomas Clarkson, who isn't recognized widely enough for his role in abolishing slavery in the UK.

How about a statue for Fenton?

Oh yes Fenton would be great. Although surely he's guilty of deerism.

Benton, sometimes referred to as "Fenton", is a dog starring in a viral video where he chases a pack of deer while his owner screams his name repeatedly while attempting to catch him.

On November 21st, 2011, Redditor seangp posted a video to the marijuana enthusiast r/trees subreddit titled "FENTON YOU LITTLE SHIT!"[1]. The thread received managed to reach the front page and received over 7,000 up votes in 24 hours.

Original Quill wrote:Benton, sometimes referred to as "Fenton", is a dog starring in a viral video where he chases a pack of deer while his owner screams his name repeatedly while attempting to catch him.

On November 21st, 2011, Redditor seangp posted a video to the marijuana enthusiast r/trees subreddit titled "FENTON YOU LITTLE SHIT!"[1]. The thread received managed to reach the front page and received over 7,000 up votes in 24 hours.

Lol, I remember first watching that video years ago.
It was funny, but I don't think Benton/Fenton really deserves a statue, and his owner, who let the dog off the lead in the first place certainly doesn't.

Ben Reilly wrote:Hmmm ... the past few queens obviously merit statues. I'd add Alan Turing, Charles Darwin and Thomas Clarkson, who isn't recognized widely enough for his role in abolishing slavery in the UK.

There is an Alan Turing way not far from here.
There is a very imposing statue of Queen Victoria in Piccadilly gardens in Manchester, it has always dominated the square there.

How about a Walter Mitty statue. We have a forum member who could be the model for such a statue.

Behave maddog..........

Slavery statue. The south will rise again.

(Hey, it's part of our history... )

Ben Reilly wrote:Hmmm ... the past few queens obviously merit statues. I'd add Alan Turing, Charles Darwin and Thomas Clarkson, who isn't recognized widely enough for his role in abolishing slavery in the UK.

Think pretty much every city has a statue of big, frumpy old Victoria already lol

Totally agree on your three picks.

Problem with this brain dead statue toppling trend is you'd be hard pressed to go more than a few decades back before pretty much everyone has views that would now be considered controversial.

Tommy Monk wrote:



The dog owned by Wing Commander Guy Gibson of the Royal Air Force, and the mascot of No. 617 Squadron.

Should be the new statue...

Tommy Monk wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:



The dog owned by Wing Commander Guy Gibson of the Royal Air Force, and the mascot of No. 617 Squadron.

Should be the new statue...

Ooooh, you so edgy

Tommy Monk wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:



The dog owned by Wing Commander Guy Gibson of the Royal Air Force, and the mascot of No. 617 Squadron.

Should be the new statue...

Yes we all get it Tommy.
Lovely dog, and the name was of it's time, we had a cat of the same name.

I had a Tin of Shoe Polish witch was called Ni--er Brown .By the way ,is it illegal to use the whole word on here ?

nicko wrote:I had a Tin of Shoe Polish witch was called Ni--er Brown .By the way ,is it illegal to use the whole word on here ?

I just checked, it's not word filtered.

I don't think the word is illegal anywhere, it's just insulting and is considered to be an offensive racial slur nowadays...unless you are a black rapper, then it seems you can repeatedly put in in your lyrics without any criticism.

Syl wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:



Should be the new statue...

Yes we all get it Tommy.
Lovely dog, and the name was of it's time, we had a cat of the same name.

I mention it because the dogs gravestone has just been removed...


https://news.sky.com/story/dambusters-dogs-memorial-replaced-by-raf-to-remove-its-racist-name-12030664

Well at least it was removed officially by the RAF, not dug out and destroyed to make a protest by rampaging idiots.

As I mentioned before I have Black relatives, it's not unusual to hear them say nigger among themselves !

nicko wrote:As I mentioned before I have Black relatives, it's not unusual to hear them say nigger among themselves !

It is curious, isn't it?  It is less offensive for a woman to say, She's a dumb cunt!! than to hear it from a man.  I don't know why with word-crimes the victim has a license, where the victimizer does not.

I think it has to do with the morality of the status.  Slavery and misogyny are moral offenses, while financial fraud is not.  It's not that one is deeper than the other, but just more tinged with the ewww-factor.

Syl wrote:Well at least it was removed officially by the RAF, not dug out and destroyed to make a protest by rampaging idiots.

I don't think it should have been removed at all...

Tommy Monk wrote:

Syl wrote:Well at least it was removed officially by the RAF, not dug out and destroyed to make a protest by rampaging idiots.

I don't think it should have been removed at all...

Well obviously the RAF thought different.
They have replaced the headstone now with no mention of the dogs name....in a way that's sad.

Syl wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:

I don't think it should have been removed at all...

Well obviously the RAF thought different.
They have replaced the headstone now with no mention of the dogs name....in a way that's sad.

Well, names are a human convention anyway, so he won't miss it.

Original Quill wrote:

Syl wrote:

Well obviously the RAF thought different.
They have replaced the headstone now with no mention of the dogs name....in a way that's sad.

Well, names are a human convention anyway, so he won't miss it.

Well obviously the dog wont care, neither would anyone who is dead.

One reason not to erase the names off gravestones is out of respect for the people who are left behind who have been connected with the dead, and it seems this dog, in particular it's name, played a big part in WW11.

Syl wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Well, names are a human convention anyway, so he won't miss it.

Well obviously the dog wont care, neither would anyone who is dead.

One reason not to erase the names off gravestones is out of respect for the people who are left behind who have been connected with the dead, and it seems this dog, in particular it's name,  played a big part in WW11.

Connected with a dead dog?  That's getting pretty remote, IMO.  I remember some capitalist real estate developers who bought a pet cemetery, dug up and tossed the dead the dead animals, and turned the location into apartments.

Such sentimental connections with dead pets have a dollar value, apparently.

Original Quill wrote:

Syl wrote:

Well obviously the dog wont care, neither would anyone who is dead.

One reason not to erase the names off gravestones is out of respect for the people who are left behind who have been connected with the dead, and it seems this dog, in particular it's name,  played a big part in WW11.

Connected with a dead dog?  That's getting pretty remote, IMO.  I remember some capitalist real estate developers who bought a pet cemetery, dug up and tossed the dead the dead animals, and turned the location into apartments.

Such sentimental connections with dead pets have a dollar value, apparently.

Well reading about the dogs history, and tbh I knew nothing about it till Tommy posted, I can well see why there was sentiment connected to the dog, including it's name, which was, as we keep saying in various threads, of it's time.

What a block of flats at Scampton maybe?
Its virtually impossible to erect a statue these days, someone some where will know something about the person they don't like or agree with and off we go again.
I wonder if anyone has got around to Greyfriars Bobby yet, I'm sure he's probably bitten someone or at least barked at them in his day, especially when they tried to move him from his owners grave.

Vintage wrote:What a block of flats at Scampton maybe?
Its virtually impossible to erect a statue these days, someone some where will know something about the person they don't like or agree with and off we go again.
I wonder if anyone has got around to Greyfriars Bobby yet, I'm sure he's probably bitten someone or at least barked at them in his day, especially when they tried to move him from his owners grave.

The problem with trying to marginalize claims like that, is that here in America (where this issue arose) there is a checkered past. Despite ending up as a single nation, the US had two founding’s, that cannot be farther apart. The north was predominately mercantile and manufacturing, requiring educations and industrious minds that functioned well with abstractions. The south was agrarian, relying primarily on cash-cropping (cotton, tobacco, corn, etc.) and actuated by slavery, prompting a population of laziness of mind and body.

This was a division, not only of lifestyles, but something that prompted contempt for one another. The north, industrious and energetic, disliked the slovenly, lethargic south; the south, in turn, resented the faster-paced, economically aggressive north. The issue flared up over slavery, not just as a matter of human rights, but as slavery was a symbol of not carrying one's weight. The 18th/19th-century was a time when heroes were associated with invention, expansion and enterprise, and the south was…well, slow to get in step. Still are.

So, the statutes and other symbols of each side are something of an insult to one another. Symbols of the south are homages to neo-slavery and a slow, antebellum lifestyle, while symbols of the north (to southerners) seem mercurial and perfunctory. We’ve got to decide whether we are still one nation, or remain committed to the immense rift running right down the middle of the US…which will lead to a second civil war, no doubt.

I hope to hell that no one takes his rantings seriously at this point.

The final solution then, take every statue down, even the animal ones, just in case, and never erect a statue again - job done.
It could though be an affront to those of us who can see more than one facet of human behaviour, recognise changes of attitude due to political and cultural changes and see them in the context of the prevailing attitudes of the time.

Maddog wrote:I hope to hell that no one takes his rantings seriously at this point.

There’s nothing new in this thesis. It’s quite elementary, and taught in northern schools every day. Take, for example, the following thesis, entitled: “On the Eve of the Civil War: Differences between the Northern & Southern States”, a 4th Grade lesson (ie, 10-years old).

Even though they were part of the same country, the North and the South were very different. These differences caused disagreements and eventually led to war.

One of these differences was in the area of economy. The economy of an area has to do with how people make a living and how they spend their money. In the North, the economy was based on industry. They built factories and manufactured products to sell to other countries and to the southern states. They did not do a lot of farming because the soil was rocky and the colder climate made for a shorter growing season. Most people in the North worked in factories or owned their own businesses. They also planted small farms or gardens to help feed their families. Without big farms to run, the people in the North did not rely on slave labor very much.

In the South, the economy was based on agriculture. The soil was fertile and good for farming. They grew crops like cotton, rice, and tobacco on small farms and large plantations. The many large farms and plantations required thousands of workers. Because of this great need, the farmers began to depend on slave labor instead of trying to hire people to work in their fields.
https://pennington.pwcs.edu/UserFiles/Servers/Server_414245/File/Migration/Elementary%20Team%20Pages/4th%20Grade/Curriculum%20Guides/VS.7a%20Part%201%20Differences%20between%20Northern%20&%20Southern%20States%20STUDENT%20NOTEPAGE.pdf

See also: https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/north-vs-south-prelude-to-the-american-civil-war/

http://www2.gvsu.edu/klitzkee/efforts/schoolwork/northsouthpolitics.htm

https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib4/va01000195/centricity/domain/4153/issues%20that%20divided%20the%20nation_reading%20guide.pdf

I simply draw out conclusions about how this cleavage, at the founding, has affected us today. If anything, it’s growing more intensive. Republicans have courted the south in the Southern Strategy, and Trump has stoked the coals of racial hatred.

It’s a cauldron awaiting a final eruption.

Vintage wrote: The final solution then, take every statue down, even the animal ones, just in case, and never erect a statue again - job done.

It could though be an affront to those of us who can see more than one facet of human behaviour, recognise changes of attitude due to political and cultural changes and see them in the context of the prevailing attitudes of the time.

I have no problem with that. There is a certain nostalgia about statuary that is antithetical to direct and progressive thinking.

Indeed, during the iconoclastic period (726-843), many Greek and Roman statues lost noses and penises while theology libraries grew. https://smarthistory.org/iconoclastic-controversies/

Even England, during the period of the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, went through a period of dislike/destruction of art and statuary. https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/art-under-attack-histories-british-iconoclasm/art-under-attack-1 This was in the early Renaissance, I should add, on the eve of the Age of Reason.

Can't see another age of reason coming along anytime soon.

Vintage wrote:Can't see another age of reason coming along anytime soon.

No, the age of thinking about it, and paradigm shifts is over.  This is the period of social change and acting on the new ideas.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:I hope to hell that no one takes his rantings seriously at this point.

There’s nothing new in this thesis.  It’s quite elementary, and taught in northern schools every day.  Take, for example, the following thesis, entitled: “On the Eve of the Civil War: Differences between the Northern & Southern States”, a 4th Grade lesson (ie, 10-years old).

Even though they were part of the same country, the North and the South were very different.  These differences caused disagreements and eventually led to war.

One of these differences was in the area of economy. The economy of an area has to do with how people make a living and how they spend their money. In the North, the economy was based on industry. They built factories and manufactured products to sell to other countries and to the southern states. They did not do a lot of farming because the soil was rocky and the colder climate made for a shorter growing season. Most people in the North worked in factories or owned their own businesses. They also planted small farms or gardens to help feed their families. Without big farms to run, the people in the North did not rely on slave labor very much.

In the South, the economy was based on agriculture. The soil was fertile and good for farming. They grew crops like cotton, rice, and tobacco on small farms and large plantations. The many large farms and plantations required thousands of workers. Because of this great need, the farmers began to depend on slave labor instead of trying to hire people to work in their fields.
https://pennington.pwcs.edu/UserFiles/Servers/Server_414245/File/Migration/Elementary%20Team%20Pages/4th%20Grade/Curriculum%20Guides/VS.7a%20Part%201%20Differences%20between%20Northern%20&%20Southern%20States%20STUDENT%20NOTEPAGE.pdf

See also: https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/north-vs-south-prelude-to-the-american-civil-war/

http://www2.gvsu.edu/klitzkee/efforts/schoolwork/northsouthpolitics.htm

https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib4/va01000195/centricity/domain/4153/issues%20that%20divided%20the%20nation_reading%20guide.pdf

I simply draw out conclusions about how this cleavage, at the founding, has affected us today.  If anything, it’s growing more intensive.  Republicans have courted the south in the Southern Strategy, and Trump has stoked the coals of racial hatred.

It’s a cauldron awaiting a final eruption.

That quote isn't what you said.

I think everyone knows that the south was more agrarian and the north more industrialized.

You embellished like you always do.

Maddog wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

There’s nothing new in this thesis.  It’s quite elementary, and taught in northern schools every day.  Take, for example, the following thesis, entitled: “On the Eve of the Civil War: Differences between the Northern & Southern States”, a 4th Grade lesson (ie, 10-years old).



See also: https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/north-vs-south-prelude-to-the-american-civil-war/

http://www2.gvsu.edu/klitzkee/efforts/schoolwork/northsouthpolitics.htm

https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib4/va01000195/centricity/domain/4153/issues%20that%20divided%20the%20nation_reading%20guide.pdf

I simply draw out conclusions about how this cleavage, at the founding, has affected us today.  If anything, it’s growing more intensive.  Republicans have courted the south in the Southern Strategy, and Trump has stoked the coals of racial hatred.

It’s a cauldron awaiting a final eruption.

That quote isn't what you said.  

I think everyone knows that the south was more agrarian and the north more industrialized.

You embellished like you always do.  

I admit to that from the very start:

Original Quill wrote:I simply draw out conclusions about how this cleavage, at the founding, has affected us today.

A region that loses its economic engine--slavery--there is no surprise about its resentments and antagonisms today.  What started out as a sleepy, agrarian lifestyle, made slower by slaves doing all the work, has turned into a bitter, resentful loser...willing to tear apart the nation, not once, but again and again.

We have neither the time, nor the energy to waste bringing southerners up-to-date and in-line with what has made America so successful.  America will sink into the swamp with the south, if we try to improve their lot right now.  Trump lies in that direction.

Better that we follow the Amexit program and cast them adrift.  If one day they wish to petition the US to rejoin--providing they have changed their ways--we will consider it.  As for now, we must treat them as personae non-gratae, an infection that needs to be isolated.

So you're a fucking liar.

No news there.

Maddog wrote:So you're a fucking liar.

No news there.

Strong words from someone who can do nothing but fail at gotcha! all day. Just because you are unfamiliar with the cerebral process doesn't mean you have to be hostile to it.

Surely, they don't teach that at Arlington Jr. College, do they?

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:So you're a fucking liar.

No news there.

Strong words from someone who can do nothing but fail at gotcha! all day.  Just because you are unfamiliar with the cerebral process doesn't mean you have to be hostile to it.

Surely, they don't teach that at Arlington Jr. College, do they?

Honest words.

A concept your not familiar with.