"Alt Right" activist asks for Lenin Statue to be removed

[Noomz]

Well the alt-right always promised that antifa would provoke them into greater reaction. Now they want to take the beloved Lenin Statue out of Fremont (also know as the Center of the Universe, the Artist's Republic of Fremont).

On Wednesday afternoon, a small group had gathered in front of the monument in Fremont calling for its removal. The group was seemingly led by Jack Posobiec, a pro-Donald Trump conspiracy theorist and self-described online "alt-right" activist.

Though irony seems to be consistently lost on the Alt-Right. The Lenin Statue is on private property and held in trust by the Fremont Chamber of Commerce. They're holding it for sale, asking $250,000.

So much for the Tolerant Right... Property Rights for that matter!


The statue was toppled in 1989 after the Velvet Revolution toppled communism in Czechoslovakia, and that's when Lewis Carpenter found it in a scrapyard. The English teacher from Issaquah then mortgaged his house to purchase and transport the statue to Washington in 1993 before Carpenter's death in 1994.
Issaquah debated displaying the statue before eventually deciding against it, and Carpenter's family planned to sell it to a Fremont foundry to melt it down, but Seattle sculptor Peter Bevis instead found a place to display the statue in Fremont until the family found a buyer. The Lenin statue, held in trust by the Fremont Chamber of Commerce, was unveiled on June 3, 1995, two blocks south of its current location.



The statue during happier times at the Annual Solstice Parade.

Ah yes, the Alt-Right that complains about how SJW's overreact and are offended by everything once more that they are exactly the same. Except they do it about a privately owned statue, so they want tell a private institution what it should do, something they tend to be vehemently against. Keep it classy.
I honestly can't tell one group of idiots from the other because from this point of view they're all just that: idiots.

[WhiteEagle888]

Well the alt-right always promised that antifa would provoke them into greater reaction. Now they want to take the beloved Lenin Statue out of Fremont (also know as the Center of the Universe, the Artist's Republic of Fremont).

On Wednesday afternoon, a small group had gathered in front of the monument in Fremont calling for its removal. The group was seemingly led by Jack Posobiec, a pro-Donald Trump conspiracy theorist and self-described online "alt-right" activist.

Though irony seems to be consistently lost on the Alt-Right. The Lenin Statue is on private property and held in trust by the Fremont Chamber of Commerce. They're holding it for sale, asking $250,000.

So much for the Tolerant Right... Property Rights for that matter!


The statue was toppled in 1989 after the Velvet Revolution toppled communism in Czechoslovakia, and that's when Lewis Carpenter found it in a scrapyard. The English teacher from Issaquah then mortgaged his house to purchase and transport the statue to Washington in 1993 before Carpenter's death in 1994.
Issaquah debated displaying the statue before eventually deciding against it, and Carpenter's family planned to sell it to a Fremont foundry to melt it down, but Seattle sculptor Peter Bevis instead found a place to display the statue in Fremont until the family found a buyer. The Lenin statue, held in trust by the Fremont Chamber of Commerce, was unveiled on June 3, 1995, two blocks south of its current location.



The statue during happier times at the Annual Solstice Parade.

It should be torn down and made into bedpans so it has some use.

[Ripster42]

The Civil War did not spring into existence based entirely on the election of 1860 anymore than World War I sprang into existence because of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. There was 80 years of history leading up to it.

You're literally denying that the states' own words talking about why they're leaving, either in official documents furnished to the US govt in notification; official accounts of the secession conventions; or speeches given by their governors, accurately reflect why they're leaving. It's bullshit. There was a long dispute going on at the federal level that was the source of much of the rancor: slavery. They'd been hashing out the "Property problem" since before the fugitive slave act in 1793. That 80 years of history is largely centered around that increasingly contentious issue. It's okay for you to admit that you're wrong.

[Elegiac]

A beloved statue of one of the most dangerous men in history. Why the left doesn't categorize this person in the same way that they do any number of historical mass murderers is beyond me.

Y'all have Andrew Jackson, the lesbians up in Fremont have Lenin.

[Crispin]

How does beeing against nazi's and kkk scum, automaticly make you a communist? Were the Americans who fought Nazi Germany communists?

And who cares if a Lenin statue is taken down.

[unbound]

Not sure about the whole tolerant aspect of this, but the alt-right certainly doesn't understand any of this.

The Lenin statue is offensive to who? Are there Lenin statues being put up all over the US to cause significant percentages of the population distress? Nope...and that is why this is called false equivalence.

Here are the realities of the confederate statues:
- They were largely put up during the Jim Crow era, literally peaking around 1907, to remind African Americans that many people want them to remain slaves, and that they had no interest in granting them equal rights.



- Robert E. Lee himself opposed putting up such statues in the first place - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/...ate-monuments/

“I think it wiser,” the retired military leader wrote about a proposed Gettysburg memorial in 1869, “…not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”

- The confederacy fought for the right to keep slaves. They were not interested in state rights...in fact, they were ticked off that northern states exercised their rights and didn't return run away slaves to the southern states. The confederacy wanted the federal government to step in (i.e. they wanted state rights taken away). - https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...s-over/396482/

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin…

- South Carolina (first to secede), Declaration of Causes

As a separate republic, Louisiana remembers too well the whisperings of European diplomacy for the abolition of slavery in the times of an*nexation not to be apprehensive of bolder demonstrations from the same quarter and the North in this country. The people of the slave holding States are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery.

- Louisiana

And so on by each of the states. Furthermore - https://www.washingtonpost.com/poste...nts-are-wrong/

Perhaps most perniciously, neo-Confederates now claim that the South seceded over states’ rights. Yet when each state left the Union, its leaders made clear that they were seceding because they were for slavery and against states’ rights. In its “Declaration of the Causes Which Impel the State of Texas to Secede From the Federal Union,” for example, the secession convention of Texas listed the states that had offended the delegates: “Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa.” Governments there had exercised states’ rights by passing laws that interfered with the federal government’s attempts to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. Some no longer let slave owners “transit” across their territory with slaves. “States’ rights” were what Texas was seceding against. Texas also made clear what it was seceding for — white supremacy...

[kasuke06]

I've learned that the right isn't pleased with the museums solution.
I would agree with it, since I too think the appropriate place for such monuments/statues would be a museum.

That's because when the museum option was taken it was "We're going to take this statue down, under the cover of night, with a men in black masks and body armor, with snipers covering, without the people's consent, chuck it in a storage unit, and maybe, maybe put it in a museum later"

Doing it like that is intensely wrong. Black masks and body armor is how dictatorships do things, not america.

Museum option is best option, but you have to be straight with people about it. Also, preferably not the whole masks and body armor thing.

[Ozzyorcborne]

How long before those statues of Colonel Sanders are going to be removed from KFCs because it "offends" some special snowflake?

[Ripster42]

How does beeing against nazi's and kkk scum, automaticly make you a communist? Were the Americans who fought Nazi Germany communists?

And who cares if a Lenin statue is taken down.

And, seriously, using WW2 as a real life moral measuring tool: aligning with communists isn't as bad as aligning yourself with nazis.

[Elegiac]

How long before those statues of Colonel Sanders are going to be removed from KFCs because it "offends" some special snowflake?

I daresay people would have more of a problem with Aunt Jemima than Colonel Sanders.

[Mihalik]

What.

-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_rebellion
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_communism

At best, the Bolsheviks were as oppressive as the Romanovs, and to say the average Russian substantially benefited is... just wrong.

While the Tsarists were conducting the "White Terror" (Russians seem to be fond of color coded terror). Civil wars are messy and yes, communist economics are stupid and a more centrist government would have likely been able to implement better reforms...if we were talking about any other place but Russia.

The Communists turned the most backwards and underdeveloped oppressed European state into one of the most developed and prosperous oppressed European countries by the mid 1930's.

Once again, on the long term it was an epic fail, but by 1930's from the standpoint of economic progress, availability of education and alleviation of poverty, the Communists did a remarkable job.

[Ethris]

Even in the most leftist countries you find fascists.
The numbers vary by country, but they're everywhere. WW2 is over for too long already.
The active participants have almost all died. No one's around who could tell how it felt.
The sacrifices made to stop and end the fascist regimes are almost in vain.
Fascism rears it's ugly head once again.

Yet, also let's not forget, the first, and largest Antifa force the world has ever seen landed in the Normandy on June 6, 1944, D-Day.
Antifa of today are their Grandchildren, and Great-grandchildren.
And history taught us, that these fascist ideologies and forces need to be crushed and not go unchecked.

I honestly don't know what to tell you if you are trying to equate a bunch of overprivileged, skinnyfat, whiny adult-children with soft upbringings and even softer educations with the veterans who battled unimaginable horrors during the largest bloodbath in history.

Especially when those same Antifa members will curse those veterans in the same breath for being pre-civil rights era racists who ruined the nation's economy with their baby-boomer policies. I'm not going to lump you in with Antifa because I don't know you or your politics, but do not appropriate an entire generation and its relative ideals for your revisionist nonsense.

Y'all have Andrew Jackson, the lesbians up in Fremont have Lenin.

Who's "Y'all" here? I think Jackson is reprehensible too. I think his placement on the $20 reserve note is also a fitting reprisal, because if you knew anything about Jackson, you'd know he's probably spinning in his grave knowing that his face is on a bank note.

[Elegiac]

Who's "Y'all" here? I think Jackson is reprehensible too. I think his placement on the $20 reserve note is also a fitting reprisal, because if you knew anything about Jackson, you'd know he's probably spinning in his grave knowing that his face is on a bank note.

I'd rather not glorify his image regardless of his feelings on central reserve banking.

[Cooper]

You're literally denying that the states' own words talking about why they're leaving, either in official documents furnished to the US govt in notification; official accounts of the secession conventions; or speeches given by their governors, accurately reflect why they're leaving. It's bullshit. There was a long dispute going on at the federal level that was the source of much of the rancor: slavery. They'd been hashing out the "Property problem" since before the fugitive slave act in 1793. That 80 years of history is largely centered around that increasingly contentious issue. It's okay for you to admit that you're wrong.

I'm not denying them. The immediate catalyst for the war was Lincoln's election and the Republicans stance on slavery, but that wasn't the only factor in why things got to the point where the Southern States decided to separate themselves from the Union.

There was the agrarian versus pre-industrial/shipping economy divide, which led to conflicts like the Nullification Crisis of 1832 (which had nothing to do with slavery and could have started a civil war on its own). There were the differences in religion (Puritan New England in contrast with the Episcopalian South), and, perhaps most importantly, there were the differences in what the Union meant to each region: Northerners saw themselves as Americans first, while Southerners saw themselves as citizens of their states first. Again, that is why Lee chose to fight for the Confederacy - his loyalty to Virginia.

Again, even without slavery, there still would have likely been a civil war between North and South sometime during the 19th century. There were simply too many unresolved political issues (remember, secession wasn't just a southern idea; New England states floated it during the War of 1812), and regional differences, not all of which are attributable to slavery, nor was every Confederate's motivation to fight to preserve slavery.

Slavery alone is simply too broad of a brush to use to explain the causes of the Civil War.

[Ripster42]

I'm not denying them. The immediate catalyst for the war was Lincoln's election and the Republicans stance on slavery, but that wasn't the only factor in why things got to the point where the Southern States decided to separate themselves from the Union.

There was the agrarian versus pre-industrial/shipping economy divide, which led to conflicts like the Nullification Crisis of 1832 (which had nothing to do with slavery and could have started a civil war on its own). There were the differences in religion (Puritan New England in contrast with the Episcopalian South), and, perhaps most importantly, there were the differences in what the Union meant to each region: Northerners saw themselves as Americans first, while Southerners saw themselves as citizens of their states first. Again, that is why Lee chose to fight for the Confederacy - his loyalty to Virginia.

Again, even without slavery, there still would have likely been a civil war between North and South sometime during the 19th century. There were simply too many unresolved political issues (remember, secession wasn't just a southern idea; New England states floated it during the War of 1812), and regional differences, not all of which are attributable to slavery, nor was every Confederate's motivation to fight to preserve slavery.

Slavery alone is simply too broad of a brush to use to explain the causes of the Civil War.

You could say those other issues were the reason if some other civil war had happened that we called the civil war. But that's not what happened. The civil war was over slavery, contrary to what you said. There was no large swath of the confederacy fighting for other reasons than slavery. There was no fight without slavery.

[Deleted]

While the Tsarists were conducting the "White Terror" (Russians seem to be fond of color coded terror). Civil wars are messy and yes, communist economics are stupid and a more centrist government would have likely been able to implement better reforms...if we were talking about any other place but Russia.

The Communists turned the most backwards and underdeveloped oppressed European state into one of the most developed and prosperous oppressed European countries by the mid 1930's.

Once again, on the long term it was an epic fail, but by 1930's from the standpoint of economic progress, availability of education and alleviation of poverty, the Communists did a remarkable job.

And all it took were a few Great Purges and what amounted to Serfdom for "The Working Class"

[Chrysia]

Read the whole chain. The original assertion was that not everybody who fought for the Confederacy did so to defend slavery; that some did so for state's rights.

To which the response was "This is objectively and demonstrably false. The Confederacy was more restrictive about the rights of its members states than the Union ever was."

It's actually not objectively and demonstrably false; it's arguable at best, since the Confederate Constitution was largely the same as the U.S. Constitution, and granted some new rights to member states while also removing some. What's not arguable is that some people did in fact fight for the Confederacy not out of loyalty to slavery, but out of loyalty to their state.

Whether or not they fought out of loyalty to their state is irrelevant to whether the war was about state's rights, because the Confederacy was demonstrably and clearly worse about granting rights to its member states.

[primalmatter]

And, seriously, using WW2 as a real life moral measuring tool: aligning with communists isn't as bad as aligning yourself with nazis.

Actually in terms of cruelty and innocent lives lost its far worse...

Read a book.

[Cooper]

Whether or not they fought out of loyalty to their state is irrelevant to whether the war was about state's rights, because the Confederacy was demonstrably and clearly worse about granting rights to its member states.

You keep saying that, and yet have not actually shown that the Confederate Constitution was "demonstrably and clearly worse about granting rights to its member states." That's a tough thesis to prove, because the Confederate Constitution was nearly identical to the U.S. Constitution, but for a few new rights granted to the member states they didn't previously have (the right to impeach a federal judge, the right to tax shipping, the right to issue bills of credit, for example), and a few rights taken away (the right to allow foreigners to vote, the right to outlaw slavery, for example). So at most, it is arguable that the C.S.A. Constitution was more restrictive of its member states, which is a far cry from "demonstrably and clearly."

[Sandrox]

Why is everyone so obsessed with statues lately. Who cares.