[Rancid]

And future generations could learn about your racist history.

I'm pretty sure we do want future generations to understand the racist history of various nations... no?

[AFAIK]

People don't have a right to not be offended.

And yet here you are acting offended by the destruction of a painting you never knew existed.

Is the lack of public monuments celebrating Hitler in Germany also offensive to you? Does that constitute holocaust denial in your view?

[blackjack21]

Every day adds to the number of reason why liberals should be treated like non-thinking animals as opposed to productive members of society...

I tend to be disinclined to mete out dehumanizing terms, but this is basically on par with the Taliban destroying Buddhist structures or ISIS destroying ancient Roman artefacts at Palmyra. It's just barbaric.

You guys could make a museum of racism where these things could be taken and displayed.

The WPA was not funding racist art. The painter was a communist who wanted to depict uncomfortable facts about Washington's life--in other words, tell the unvarnished truth so that kids didn't grow up being mindless jingoists. The idea that they are being taught today by people who put unfounded feelings before thought, humanities and history is abhorrent.

Or, insolent leftists could stop filling their diapers and whining every time they see something which offends their delicate little psyches.

And that would cost nothing.

Leaving tax dollars to be better spent on things like upgrading textbooks--and teachers, because clearly they've got some poor ones.

It's a shame they cannot move the painting but why not just cover it up? No need to destroy it.

Maybe this is just a pretext for some scam to embezzle public funds, because you are simply making too much sense.

The painting in question is not that big a deal.

It's not to you, because you are not an American, a Californian or a San Franciscan. The point of these paintings was that everybody would be able to enjoy them.

This is why you guys need a NMoR, to house all these works of art that no one even heard about until people decided they did not want to see racism on a daily basis.

Just because you are ignorant of WPA projects in the United States doesn't mean the rest of us are so obtuse and unthoughtful.

Personally, I think it is awesome to portray Washington and others as the genocidal people they were.

Washington wasn't particularly genocidal. However, I'm a big fan of Robert Griffing's work.

The painting in question is not remarkable or famous. There are no important political considerations, nor is the painting important from a cultural or artistic perspective.

The WPA paintings in San Francisco are part of its cultural heritage.

San Francisco WPA ART
I used to live on La Playa and liked checking out the murals at the Beach Chalet while waiting for a table. There are lots of places in San Francisco where you can see such art. The Rincon Center post office has some great art. They were the subject of a US Congressional investigation for anti-American art.

Yes, the crimes of Washington and others will be portrayed, just in a museum designed for that, and not in front of school kids who do not have the necessary tools to intelligently critique it.

The student's obvious shortcomings are remedied by having first class teachers and not a bunch of mindless barbarians effusing their emotions.

Being offended is a choice. You can either decide that you hate something and want to do away with it, or you can take the intelligent route and and learn about it and teach others about it so that they can decide how they feel about it...

The sad thing is that Pants-of-dog is interested in destroying the art and its context as portrayed by people who sympathize with his political views, because he's frankly too obtuse to understand what the artists were trying to convey.

And yet here you are acting offended by the destruction of a painting you never knew existed.

I knew it existed. There are a lot of great murals in San Francisco that would leave thumb-sucking bedwetting leftists rocking themselves for comfort from the horrors of mind-expanding art. Here's one of the "controversial" murals at Rincon Center.

Is the lack of public monuments celebrating Hitler in Germany also offensive to you?

I'm not German, so I don't feel offended by what they do. However, I'm a big fan of propaganda art from the period. I think it's important for people to see that stuff.



Work, Freedom and Bread. At Germany's low ebb, that was appealing. Right now, the Democrats are running on giving away the store. Can you see a parallel in such appeals?

[Pants-of-dog]

....some random and irrelevant stuff...

Since you have not shown how or why anything I said was wrong or ignorant, I am going to ignore this.

—————————

I'm pretty sure we do want future generations to understand the racist history of various nations... no? :?:

Yes, definitely yes.

—————————-

I find it amusing when @blackjack21 not only fails to understand my argument, but also tries to insult me because of his misunderstanding.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

It's a shame they cannot move the painting but why not just cover it up? No need to destroy it.

Painting over it costs $600,000 apparently. I'd do it for half and even bring my own paint.

Is the lack of public monuments celebrating Hitler in Germany also offensive to you? Does that constitute holocaust denial in your view?

The mural is not celebrating slavery.

Some European countries, including Germany, still do have a lot of antisemitic artwork on churches. There have been attempts using similar arguments to this case to remove them, some were successful, but the majority remains. Should they be removed in your opinion?

[Drlee]

This is a pretty dark chapter in American politics, as something akin to book burning is taking place on the political left. It shows a serious lack of regard for the humanities and history.

Completely agree. I wonder what those who advocate destroying a valuable work of art would say to the conservatives destroying a statue of MLK because he was a serial adulterer and treated women as objects. Maybe we should paint over all of the signs naming streets for him because in the @metoo world he would be a pariah.

The painting over of this mural is outrageous. It certainly IS comparable to NAZI book burning. There is a lot of that on the left these days. Far to much. If this is shades of things to come under liberal democrats I will vote for Trump.

[AFAIK]

@Kaiserschmarrn I'd leave it to local communities to decide what monuments and artworks they wanted in their towns and cities and don't have a strong opinion myself. I was pointing out the ridiculousness of the denial of history argument. If removing historical paintings or monuments from public places is akin to denying the historical figures and events they depicted then German towns and cities must maintain monuments to Nazis otherwise they'd be guilty of holocaust denial.

[Sivad]

I wonder what those who advocate destroying a valuable work of art would say to the conservatives destroying a statue of MLK because he was a serial adulterer and treated women as objects. Maybe we should paint over all of the signs naming streets for him because in the @metoo world he would be a pariah.

Last November, students protesting sexual violence at Morehouse College in Atlanta defaced a church named after the school’s most famous graduate. The Martin Luther King Jr. Chapel was spray-painted with the words “Practice what you preach Morehouse + end rape culture”

https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op ... story.html

[Rich]

And future generations could learn about your racist history.

All history is racist. We are not human despite our racism, we are human because of our racism. It is genocidal racism that has supercharged hominoid development. In later hominoid development the chief predator of hominoids has been other hominoids. Because of this success or fitness in genocidal tribal racism that has provided large differential reproduction rates, the fuel of evolution. The great irony is that it is genocidal tribal racism that has enabled us to engage in highly abstract reasoning in general and universal moral reasoning in particular.

However all things in moderation all things in balance, on the one hand utopian attempts to abolish tribalism, led to the murderous sectarianism of pre modern Christianity and the genocidal sectarianism of the Marxist regimes. On the one hand we need to recognise the extreme toxic tribalism of Judaism, Islam, Han imperialism and Bantu expansionism.

[blackjack21]

Tucker Carlson has picked up on the points I was making:

The insanity continues:
Chicago suburb removes school lunchroom mural because it depicts too many whites

There is something truly disturbing about US municipal authorities using tax dollars to destroy tax payer funded art, which is now a part of our national heritage. He now has people comparing this to what the Taliban and ISIS were doing. The political left seems to have lost its collective mind.

[Drlee]

Much as I am loathe to admit that Tucker Carlson is correct about anything he is right about this.

We need to purge MLK from everything for objectifying women. We need to remove Gloria Steinem for being a Playboy bunny. Time to remove art done by anyone who is not a minority or a homosexual woman.

Is this the same San Francisco that thinks that leather bars are OK?

[Deutschmania]

Washington wasn't particularly genocidal. However, I'm a big fan of Robert Griffing's work.



I'm not German, so I don't feel offended by what they do. However, I'm a big fan of propaganda art from the period. I think it's important for people to see that stuff.



Work, Freedom and Bread. At Germany's low ebb, that was appealing. Right now, the Democrats are running on giving away the store. Can you see a parallel in such appeals?

First of all , Washington was not called "Town Destroyer" for nothing . https://www.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2008/06/27/town-destroyer-versus-the-iroquois-indians , https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/notes-towards-a-native-american-history-of-george-washington/ Secondly , the National Socialist German Workers Party was not the only political party at the time to create such posters . Most every party in the Weimar Republic did , including the left-liberal German Democratic Party , and even the classical liberal conservative German People's Party . And of course the Social Democratic Party , to say nothing of the Communists , which also existed , and were serious contenders for office , really emphasized such themes .

[blackjack21]

First of all , Washington was not called "Town Destroyer" for nothing .

When I speak of "genocide," I'm speaking of the original term coined to describe the Nazi regime's "Final Solution." Anti-war folks have stretched the definition to displacement, rendering the term meaningless. A lot of the folks who want to hunt down the last Nazis really think they are setting some sort of precedent to stop that from happening in the future, while those who are stretching the term to mean anything that happens in war that they don't like will somehow naturally make it illegal or make it stop. Instead, it makes the words meaningless--like calling someone a "racist" these days. When confronted with genocide in Rwanda, Western nations promptly coined the phrase "ethnic cleansing," because the term "genocide" took on a legal meaning that would have required them to act.

As for Washington, remember he was a colonel in the British Army well before he was General of the Continental Army. The French had hired/allied with the Indians to fight the British. Washington knew they were fierce fighters.

What's remarkable about the mural story is that none of the people opposing the mural understand the value of depicting the things that actually happened--effectively reversing the apotheosis of Washington.

Secondly , the National Socialist German Workers Party was not the only political party at the time to create such posters . Most every party in the Weimar Republic did , including the left-liberal German Democratic Party

Not only every party in Germany, but parties everywhere. US war propaganda was virulently racist.





Germany gave it right back to us too.



People these days are so filled with left wing propaganda they don't even realize that they are destroying the art work of their own forbearers.

As a conservative, I enjoy seeing AOC taking Pelosi to the woodshed and destroying the Democratic Party coalition in the process. However, as a conservative, I also think preserving cultural artifacts--even ones made by communists--is worth doing. It's part of our heritage.

This one's a gas...

[annatar1914]

This one's a gas...

Thing is, ''he'' was ''fighting for freedom'' and was our ''friend''. Otherwise with that slight caveat, a brilliant post .

[Robert Urbanek]

Update: San Francisco school officials have backed down from their original decision to paint over the offending mural and will now pay to obscure the piece with panels.

In the war between Snowflakes and SJWs, the real losers are the taxpayers. The estimated cost to cover the mural is expected to reach nearly $900,000. As it is, the school district is dealing with a $26 million shortfall, which will probably lead to layoffs.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle, Section B, Feb. 23, 2020, "Native elders back Washington Mural"

[Drlee]

Wait, $900,000 dollars to cover a mural?

I will make curtains for them for a mere $850,000.00. That will save them enough to buy $50,000.00 of me-too Tshirts.

[late]

Knowing no shame...

If they didn't know shame, they wouldn't have changed their minds.

WPA art needs to be preserved, and a school is not the best place to do it. As these Depression era buildings get close to the end of their life, we ought to start getting the artwork into museums across the country.

Problem solved.

[Potemkin]

Interesting that PoD wants to destroy Communist art which depicts the truth about the Founding Fathers as racist, genocidal slave owners, and right-wingers like BigSteve want to save it for the nation. We're through the looking-glass, people.... Lol.

[Pants-of-dog]

I never claimed I wanted to destroy it.

I think I argued that they should build a museum for pieces like this, depicting the history of racism in the US.

[Potemkin]

I never claimed I wanted to destroy it.

I think I argued that they should build a museum for pieces like this, depicting the history of racism in the US.

Which is never going to happen, as you well know. You're not debating in good faith, PoD.