[Lew Silverman]

"Remember the saying "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it"?"

Unless I've forgotten my junior-high social studies lessons, the Spanish-American War started because of the desire of the Cuban (and Filipino) people to gain their independence from an overbearing and cruel Spanish government. (After all, we fought a war for OUR independence a little over a hundred years earlier). That, and the not so small matter of the sabotage and sinking of a US battleship in Havana harbor. I don't need a statue to "Remember the Maine", do I? (And if I did, there's one at Arlington Cemetery, along with memorials to Americans from all of our conflicts)

But that's not what we're really talking about here, is it? It's not really about what's happening with the statues after all -

"What's happening here is a group of people trying to jump back into the past to open old wounds to deflect the fact that they feel entitled to be given special advantages without putting in the effort to gain them on a level basis. Never have people given the
OPPORTUNITY to get ahead in life than there has in this country in the past 30 years or so. Some chose to do so and some opted to take the handouts."

So the recent concern about the statuary and memorials is just a smokescreen for some sinister plot? The "fact" that the majority of these statues were dedicated well after the Civil War ended, coincidentally at or around the same time that "Jim Crow" laws were being passed to disenfranchise a part of our citizenry, isn't a valid reason for us to discuss their relocation? No one is saying that we should forget or ignore our shared history, quite the opposite. I don't think anyone wants to forget that it took us almost 100 years after that war and TWO Acts of Congress to guarantee Equal Rights "under law" to ALL Americans. I know I don't want to forget. And I don't need a statue to help me remember.