Week 16 of the Quarantine
In this great future, you can’t forget your past; so dry your tears, I say.
– “No Woman, No Cry” by Bob Marley
Out with the old; in with the new! Forget the past! Let’s march into a glorious future… blind, deaf, and dumb to everything that came before us!
Word reaches us that Princeton University is taking down Woodrow Wilson’s name. It’s about time. Wilson was a scoundrel and a fool. But his name is coming off the letterhead because of his “racist thinking.” Here’s ABC…
Princeton University announced the removal of Woodrow Wilson’s name from the University’s School of Public and International Affairs, which will now be known as the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
And over on the other coast, statues are coming down. From Newsweek:
Protesters in San Francisco, California, toppled a statue of Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the U.S. who led the Union Army during the Civil War, among other monuments at Golden Gate Park on Friday.
The statues of St. Junipero Serra, the first saint of the Roman Catholic Church to be canonized in the U.S., and Francis Scott Key, the author of the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” were also torn down at the park on the same day.
And the war against the past continues. Here’s more from Newsweek…
On Friday, protesters in Washington D.C. were reported to have torn down a statue of Confederate General Albert Pike and set it on fire near the Washington D.C. police headquarters.
Two Confederate monuments were also dismantled Friday in downtown Raleigh in North Carolina, including one which was dragged through the street before being abandoned on the courthouse steps.
On Thursday night, a statue of George Washington, the first president of the U.S., was torn down by a group of people in Portland, Oregon.
A U.S. flag was seen burning at the head of the statue before it was toppled using a rope.
Another U.S. flag was seen burning over the statue after it was pulled to the ground. The statue was spray-painted with the words “genocidal colonist.”
Devil or Saint?
Okay… Pike, fighting for the South – obviously a “racist.” And George Washington, one of the richest men in the colonies… well… he was obviously a bad man. No doubt about it.
But dear readers might wonder WTF Spanish missionary St. Junipero Serra had done to attract the ire of the history-scrubbers. We had to look it up, which took us to the National Catholic Register…
Ben Leaños of the nearby town of Camarillo, one of those demanding the removal of the statue, stated: “We’ve been seeing around the country and the world statues of racist and genocidal people being taken down and we think it’s time that happens in Ventura.”
That’s right. If others are doing it, we should too!
Serra tried to help the indigenous people of California by setting up missions. That’s why the major cities of the state are named for saints – San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Francisco – and not the pagan tribes who lived there. But was Serra a devil or a saint?
We don’t know. We never met the man. So we’d give him the benefit of the doubt.
No Doubt
But doubt is not something the monument-topplers will tolerate. After 5,000 generations of humans on Planet Earth, finally, they’ve got The Truth.
So, hooray! Now, we can feel superior to our fathers, our grandfathers… and all of those many generations who erred and strayed like lost sheep.
Now, we are free from our sordid past… like a new species, brought forth only in the 21st century. Now, we bathe in the bright, warm light of TODAY… unlike the morons who came before us.
What kind of idiots would put up a monument to Christopher Columbus? Didn’t they know that Columbus was a crypto-fascist, patriarchal, white-privileged imperialist, at least partially responsible for millions of deaths (from European diseases) in the New World?
But that’s the point. They didn’t know.
But now, we do, thanks to the many savants who walk among us… many of them carrying ropes and spray paint.
It is as if the millennial generation had suddenly gained 20 IQ points. And now, with the internet, they go online and, in seconds, discover just what low-lifes and fools their ancestors were.
What kind of dumbbells would elect George Washington as their president, they ask themselves? Or Thomas Jefferson – he was a “rapist;” at least, that’s the rap laid on him by today’s all-knowing activists.
And what about the two Adams, John and John Quincy? Weren’t they New England’s white privilege in the flesh?
Bleaching History
Yes, Dear Reader, we are so lucky to be living now, rather than back then, when humans had tails. Now, our voters walk upright and our presidents are paragons of wit, charm, and virtue… with none of the taint of sin and ignorance that marred the past.
Now, with knowledge at our fingertips and our hearts overflowing with goodness, like a clogged sewer, we can get out the brushes and soap and wash away the stains of colonialism, male domination, fascism, sexism, institutional racism, gold-backed money, mullets, and all the other things we no longer like.
We can bleach our history… and, with the help of the public schools, make sure that no one ever comes in contact with those bad ideas again.
And, with the help of the Federal Reserve, we can print the money we need to right the wrongs of the past… shut down the economy to protect us from COVID-19… and otherwise make the world a better place.
(What is really stunning is that our ancestors never realized the magic they could do by printing trillions of dollars. They must have been even dumber than we thought.)
Today’s Heroes
So, let’s begin by applauding our heroes. Not the nurses and doctors. Not the “warriors” in Iraq or Afghanistan. Not the old fuddy-duddies in bronze or granite. We’re talking about today’s heroes – the protestors.
They’re right. It’s high time we gave the statues the heave-ho. Lincoln, Wilson, both Roosevelts – rascals and scalawags, every one of them. Take them all down!
But Padre Serra… Robert E. Lee… Chief Justice Taney… Ulysses S. Grant? Nobody is perfect. All are stained by sin and indelibly marked by the waters in which they swam.
As far as we can tell, they were decent men who conducted themselves with grace and courage in difficult circumstances.
Would any of us have done better?
Regards,
 |
Bill
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