Over the weekend, preparations began at Arlington National Cemetery to erase more of America's history by pretending it didn't happen. The Confederate Memorial, known to most as the Reconciliation Monument, is the next victim in the drive to re-write America's story and bow to the gods of the woke virtue signal.
The deconstruction of the memorial comes after a group of GOP lawmakers, led by Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., wrote a letter to Secretary Austin and demanded that they keep the Confederate Memorial in place until the end of the fiscal year 2024 appropriations process.
In a letter to Secretary Austin, Clyde argued that the memorial was dedicated to American unity following the Civil War rather than honoring the Confederacy, and that it would desecrate the graves of Confederate troops buried there.
The history and composition of the statue bear out Clyde's assertion of unity. Traditionally a cemetery for Union soldiers, in 1898 after victory in the Spanish-American War, President William McKinley declared, 'in the spirit of fraternity we should share with you in the care of the graves of Confederate soldiers ... Sectional feeling no longer holds back the love we feel for each other.' Over the ensuing years, many Confederate graves were moved to Arlington National Cemetery, and the monument, designed by the first Jewish graduate of Virginia Military Institute, was unveiled in 1914.
The monument itself shows a female figure on top representing the beating of swords into plowshares, the reliefs around the body of the monument depict freed slaves, and Union and Confederate figures in harmony, and even the base of the statue contains an excerpt from the Pharsalia, a poem written by Roman poet Lucan after the war between Julius Caesar and Pompey, decrying the horrors of civil war.
But in post-George Floyd America, none of that history means anything. Anything remotely associated with the Confederacy has to go.
Yes, we remember when they said that about the statue of Robert E. Lee that was removed. Then they melted down and literally defaced that statue.
On Sunday, photos could be seen of the preparations to remove the monument, scheduled to be completed by Dec. 22.
It is indeed time for Republicans to grow a backbone. We're not holding our breath for that.
The quote from Orwell's 1984 seems a little on the nose. So also are comparisons to Communist Russia, Communist China, and many more Marxist regimes in history who all tore down statues and other iconography of their history.
America ignores the warnings of Van Fleet, a survivor of Mao's Cultural Revolution, at our peril.
It really is, isn't it?
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin also spoke out against the action and warned against any desecration of the nearby grave of and memorial to Moses Ezekiel, the designer of the monument.
They wouldn't actually remove the graves of Confederate soldiers from Arlington National Cemetery, would they?
Sounds crazy, right? Yep. Right up until the point when the shovels come out.