Of Confederate Statues And The Names Of Traitors

A simple question: Why are a number of U.S. army bases named after Confederate traitors?  (And rather incompetent ones at that?) Well:

"Three of the biggest bases in the United States are named after Confederate leaders, including some who were famously inept.

Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the headquarters of the Special Forces, bears the name of Gen. Braxton Bragg, a commander often assailed as one of the most bumbling commanders in the war. Bragg was relieved of command after losing the battle for Chattanooga in 1863, then served as a military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Fort Benning in Georgia, the home of Army infantry and airborne training, is named after Brig. Gen. Henry Benning, who led troops at Antietam and Gettysburg. In remarks in 1861 laying out slavery as the reason for secession, Benning warned that abolition would lead to 'black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything. Is it to be supposed that the white race will stand for that?'

Fort Hood in Texas is named after John Bell Hood, who resigned his commission in the U.S. Army to fight against it. His 'reckless' command hastened the fall of Atlanta, one historian wrote, and his losses at the Battle of Franklin were so disastrous that they have been called the 'Pickett’s Charge of the West,' in reference to Gen. Robert E. Lee’s failed charge at Gettysburg."

Thing is, I have a little history (ahem) with this issue.  Way back in 2013 I posted an article to Metafilter on this same issue.  Even blunter and from the New York Times, "Misplaced Honor" by Jamie Malanowski asked:

Why Shouldn't Us Libs Responsibly Own More Guns?

Corey Pein on the rise of left-wing gun ownership:

"Consider the tense political climate in the Pacific Northwest, where Washington state Representative Matt Shea, a dough-faced Christian dominionist from Spokane, made news last year when his instructions on how to build a'holy army'that would kill 'all males' who refused to submit to biblical law leaked to the press. 'ssassination to remove tyrants is just, not murder,'he wrote. The tyrant he referred to was not Trump, of course, but the communists he imagined running the government. 


Such paranoid fantasies may be familiar to heavy consumers of YouTube and Reddit, but watching them transposed on to the structures of governance is a novelty. As a result, many leftists and even some liberals are beginning to reconsider their feelings about firearms, joining a loose amalgamation of gun groups, from John Brown Gun Clubs (which take their name from the abolitionist) to the Pink Pistols (an LGBTQ group), Liberal Gun Club, and Socialist Rifle Association. Some of these organizations are moderate and traditionalist, others radical and revolutionary. But all share one implicit goal: to normalize firearms ownership and training among liberals. Some of their members hope such efforts will at least make Republicans think twice before attempting a massacre."

I'm absolutely fine with this.  Fascism isn't coming to America, it has already arrived as far as I'm concerned.  Unsurprisingly, many fascists have already infiltrated the government as well.  The murder of Heather Heyer by a literal Nazi was no accident.

Buying and learning to use a firearm seems like a perfectly measured response.  I'd think twice if I had kids, but it's still an option.  Lest we forget before it became a terrorist organization, the NRA really did stand for responsible gun education.  (When my dad decided to teach me how to shoot he ordered some safety manuals -- free! -- and made me read them and memorize them before he took me to the range for the first time.)

Let's be brutally honest here -- Trump is a delusional incompetent.  But the next Republican president might actually have his shit together, and the toxic fantasies of White Supremacism will come even closer to fulfillment.

Throwing Milkshakes At Fascists Is The New Punching Nazis In The Face (And Both Are The Right Thing To Do)

We live in an era where White Supremacists routinely walk into churches, synagogues, and mosques and commit mass murder, sometimes in the name of Trump.

But god forbid somebody throws a milkshake and ruins the jacket of a known fascist:

"What these critiques misunderstand is why milkshaking is so potent against Farage and his brethren: It humiliates them. Nothing animates the far right or shapes its worldview quite so much as the desire to humiliate others—and the fear of being humiliated themselves. It’s why alt-right trolls, projecting their own sexual insecurities, enjoy calling their opponents 'cucks.' It’s why they rally around blustery authoritarian figures like Donald Trump who cast themselves as beyond embarrassment, shame, or ridicule. They brandish humiliation like a weapon while craving release from it.

Getting doused in a milkshake robs far-right figures of the air of chauvinistic invulnerability that they spend so much time cultivating. They hunger to be taken seriously despite their racist views. They want to be described as dapper, to be interviewed on evening news broadcasts and weekend talk-show panels, and to be seen as a legitimate participant in the democratic process. Most politicians to the left of Enoch Powell would brush off milkshaking as a harmless stunt. For those seeking mainstream legitimacy, it’s another searing reminder that they don’t belong."

Why right-wing appeals for the left to be "polite" to them are ever taken seriously is beyond me.  Relatively speaking, a milkshake to the head is a perfectly measured counter-statement to the violence, implied and actual, of White Supremacism.