Conversation

@RobertEllsberg
@RobertEllsberg
Not to ignore:
@jeffsessions
says his choice to stake his candidacy on defending Confederate names of US military bases is “not a little thing.” He is correct. Unlike
@realDonaldTrump
who pretends that the issue is the “storied” history of the bases where brave soldiers trained,
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Jeff Sessions
@jeffsessions
.@DougJones vote to remove from all military facilities and installations the names of every soldier who fought for the Confederacy betrays the character and decency of every soldier who fought for the South in that bloody and monumental war...
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@RobertEllsberg
@RobertEllsberg
JS is clear that the issue is honoring the Confederacy. Removing names would “betray the character and decency of every soldier who fought for the South in that bloody and monumental war.” The names express “respect and reconciliation” toward those “called to duty by the States.”
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@RobertEllsberg
@RobertEllsberg
They certainly weren't an expression of reconciliation toward the descendants of those who were enslaved in those states, who continued to be brutalized and terrorized in the name of States Rights long after (as Sessions notes) “the slavery question [sic] had been settled.”
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@RobertEllsberg
@RobertEllsberg
Nothing in Sessions’ thread suggests that “question” was correctly settled. The bases were named during WWI and II in the thick of segregation, lynching and KKK terror. Thus treasonous standard bearers of white supremacy were grafted into the annals of US military history.
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@RobertEllsberg
@RobertEllsberg
Well, that was then...but now? It is not a matter as JS says of "erasing history right before our eyes” but of which history we choose to honor, which perspective reflects our living ideals. Those in AL history who marched and bled for freedom or symbols of injured white pride.
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@RobertEllsberg
@RobertEllsberg
Note: Sessions was recently the Attorney General of the US. Ironically, Trump does not oppose his election because he thinks he is a racist, but because he thinks he is too “weak.”
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