An artwork by British graffiti artist Banksy that was stolen last year from the Bataclan music hall in Paris has been found by police in central Italy.

The work, which depicted a young female figure with a mournful expression, was painted as a tribute to the victims of the 2015 terror attack at the venue.

It was cut out and removed from one of the venue's emergency doors by a group of hooded people using angle grinders.

According to La Repubblica it was found in a farmhouse in the Abruzzo region.

The district attorney of the Italian city of L'Aquila, Michele Renzo, said: "The finding was possible following investigations conducted by the district prosecutor in collaboration with the police and the French judiciary."

The mural had been stolen in January 2019.

• Banksy art stolen from Bataclan
• In pictures: Banksy hits Paris
• What happened at the Bataclan?

After it was taken, the Bataclan posted on Twitter: "Today we are deeply indignant. Banksy's work, a symbol of memory and belonging for everyone - locals, Parisians, citizens of the world - was stolen from us."

A press conference is set to be scheduled with further details about how it was found.

Ninety people were killed in November 2015 when armed militants targeted the Bataclan during a concert by rock band Eagles Of Death Metal.

The stencilled mural, described by the venue as "a symbol of recollection", was one of a series of artworks attributed to Banksy that appeared around Paris in June 2018.

 

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https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-52992405

Thousands of people have signed a petition demanding the removal of a statue of Australia’s first prime minister, Sir Edmund Barton, from a traditional burial site in NSW.

Port Macquarie woman Arlene Mehan, of the Mid North Coast’s Birpai people, is leading the campaign to force Port Macquarie-Hastings Council to move the statue from Town Green park on the banks of the Hastings River.

The seven-day-old petition has more than 2100 signatures and comes amid global action by the Black Lives Matter movement to tear down statues of white historical figures.

Ms Mehan said the Barton statue had always been an issue with her family.

“You wouldn’t put a statue of Hitler in a Jewish space, so it’s been a bit of a thorn,” she said.

“It’s a burial site and you’re putting a figure of white Australia on an Aboriginal burial site – it’s just not appropriate.”

 

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https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/indigenous-news/2020/06/11/edmund-barton...

 

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See also: our luck may soon expire...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who on Wednesday demanded the removal of Confederate statues occupying the U.S. Capitol, has remained silent on her father’s role in overseeing the dedication of the Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument while serving as Baltimore’s mayor in 1948.

Pelosi this week formally requested the removal of Confederate statues occupying the U.S. Capitol, dismissing them as “monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end.” Her demand comes as angry protesters across the nation take matters into their own hands, vandalizing — and in some cases, beheading — statues and monuments memorializing the Civil War era and beyond.

“As I have said before, the halls of Congress are the very heart of our democracy. The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation,” Pelosi said in her letter to Committee Chair Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Vice Chair Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).

“Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals,” she continued. “Their statues pay homage to hate, not heritage. They must be removed.”

However, her father, Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., oversaw the dedication of such a statue in Baltimore’s Wyman Park — the Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument — as mayor of the city in 1948. At the time, the Speaker’s father said people could look to Jackson’s and Lee’s lives as inspiration and urged Americans to “emulate Jackson’s example and stand like a stone wall against aggression in any form that would seek to destroy the liberty of the world.”

“World Wars I and II found the North and South fighting for a common cause, and the generalship and military science displayed by these two great men in the War between the States lived on and were applied in the military plans of our nation in Europe and the Pacific areas,” D’Alesandro said at the dedication ceremony, as detailed by the Baltimore Sun. He continued:

Today with our nation beset by subversive groups and propaganda which seeks to destroy our national unity, we can look for inspiration to the lives of Lee and Jackson to remind us to be resolute and determined in preserving our sacred institutions … remain steadfast in our determination to preserve freedom, not only for ourselves, but for other liberty-loving nations who are striving to preserve their national unity as free nations.

 

“In these days of uncertainty and turmoil, Americans must emulate Jackson’s example and stand like a stone wall against aggression in any form that would seek to destroy the liberty of the world,” he added.

City crews removed the statue in August 2017 under the direction of the city council...

 

 

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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/11/nancy-pelosi-silent-on-own...

 

 

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and anti-militarists...

Toppled monuments: A selection of controversial figures

Global anti-racism protests following the killing of George Floyd fuel the controversy over the interpretation of the colonial and Confederate eras. In Europe and the US, monuments are damaged, razed and removed.

 

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https://www.dw.com/en/toppled-monuments-a-selection-of-controversial-figures/g-53784734

 

 

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The statue of a famous Italian journalist who defended colonialism, Indro Montanelli, has been daubed with red paint and defaced with the words "racist, rapist" in Milan. 

Anti-racism protesters claimed the attack and posted a video on Instagram.

They said the statue must be removed from the Milan park named after him.

Montanelli, who died in 2001, admitted having bought and married an Eritrean girl, 12, during army service in the 1930s.

It is reported to be the first such attack on a statue in Italy in the current anti-racism demonstrations in the US and Europe. Sparked by the death of George Floyd in US police custody, the protests have targeted statues seen as symbols of colonialism and slavery. 

Activist group Retestudentimilano labelled Montanelli "a colonialist who made slavery an important part of his political activity" and said he "cannot and should not be celebrated in the public square". 

Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala, however, said the statue recognised Montanelli's indisputable journalistic contribution.

"He was a great journalist who fought for freedom of the press," he said. "When we judge our own lives, can we say that ours is spotless? Lives must be judged in their complexity."

 

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53042350

 

 

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simplified opinions, stupid politics, complex history, fooled journalists and the free media...

Rome was built on slavery and slave labor, and now the man behind it will finally pay for his sins. That could have been the logic of unknown vandals who defaced the statue of Julius Caesar in the capital of Belgium.

The incident which happened over the weekend left locals questioning the motives of the damage, the Brussels Times reports. 

Vandals scrawled the word “krapuul” (crook) on the base of the statue of Caesar in Velzeke, East Flanders. The spear which Caesar held in one hand was also torn off.

Local authorities are investigating the incident. “We will estimate more precisely on Monday the extent of the damage and the repairs to be carried out. These will be at the expense of the perpetrators,” said Mayor Jenne De Potter. 

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/491886-caesar-statue-vandalized-belgium/

 

 

Caesar paid for "his sins" a long time ago...

Oriel College in Oxford has announced that it wants to take down the controversial statue of Cecil Rhodes.

The governors of the Oxford University college voted on Wednesday to remove the statue of the colonialist.

Campaigners have called for the statue to be taken down - saying it was a symbol of imperialism and racism.

The removal is not expected to be immediate - as the college says there will need to be consultations over planning regulations.

The Rhodes Must Fall campaigners said the announcement was "hopeful", but warned they would remain cautious until the college had actually carried out the removal.

In a statement, campaigners said that until the "Rhodes statue ceases to adorn the facade of Oriel College on Oxford's High Street" there would still be protests over "imperial and colonial iconography" in university buildings.

 

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-53082545

 

See also;

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/31773

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/35884

 

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Removing monuments associated with slavery and racism is the new plaything of social justice warriors. The toppling of a Confederate statue in Virginia in 2017 was a harbinger of what would happen three years later across the nation.

Donald Trump was roasted by the US mainstream media in 2017 for warning about the removal of statues of American presidents. The nationwide debate about historical monuments flared up again this year in the wake of racially-charged protests.

“So this week it’s Robert E. Lee. I noticed that [Confederate General Thomas] Stonewall Jackson is coming down,” Trump said at an August 2017 press conference in Charlottesville, Virginia, following rallies against the city’s plan to remove the statue of General Lee in which one protester was killed.

“I wonder, is George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?” Trump said of the first and third American presidents, who both owned slaves. “You really do have to ask yourself, ‘Where does it stop?’”

The national debate about historical monuments linked to slavery and racism has been going on for years, but it was in 2020 when Trump’s warning came true.

A group of students pulled down a statue of Thomas Jefferson in Portland, Oregon earlier in June. “We’re taking the city back, one racist statue at a time,” a protester said.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/202006231079694580-trump-predicted-attacks-on...

 

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It began with Confederate generals and quickly escalated to Columbus and former US presidents; now the monument-removal crusade has come for Jesus, with racial activist Shaun King insisting the depictions are ‘racist propaganda.’

“Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down,” King tweeted on Monday. “They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been.”

He also argued that all “murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends should also come down,” calling them “a gross form [of] white supremacy… tools of oppression [and] Racist propaganda.”

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/492639-shaun-king-jesus-racist/

 

 

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the US constitution might have been signed in a haze of marijuana smoke...

 

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/31177

Dozens of historical monuments across the United States have been toppled, vandalized or desecrated in recent weeks since the May 25 killing of an African American by a white police officer in Minneapolis. The man's death caused a wave of anti-racism and police brutality protests across the country, with some unrest turning violent.

US President Donald Trump has authorized federal authorities to arrest anyone accused of vandalizing or destroying "any monument, statue or other such Federal property," with any persons charged with doing facing up to 10 years in prison, in accordance with "the Veteran's Memorial Preservation Act, or such other laws that may be pertinent."

 

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https://sputniknews.com/us/202006231079696687-trump-authorizes-arrest-cr...

 

 

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President Donald Trump’s determination to preserve iconic statues and monuments is so profound and all consuming that he’s apparently extending his policy abroad. 

In a round of new digital ads, the Trump re-elect asks people to support the president as he stands up to the angry mobs trying to tear down iconic memorials. In one specific ad, the endangered statue that the campaign spotlights happens to be the famous Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“The President wants to know who stood with him against the Radical Left,” declared dozens of ads run over the weekend on pages for Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. The ads featured a graphic with an image of the Christ the Redeemer statue above the text, “WE WILL PROTECT THIS.” The photo appears to have come from an online database of free stock images.

 

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-camp-vows-to-protect-brazils-most-ic...

 

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A renowned West Australian landmark named after a Belgian King who was responsible for atrocities that led to the death of millions of Africans has now been renamed to honour its Aboriginal heritage.

The King Leopold Ranges in WA’s far-north Kimberley region will now be known as the Wunaamin Miliwundi Ranges.

It comes amid a period of global reckoning for historic injustices perpetrated by colonial figures, which has been fuelled by the Black Lives Matter movement.

The ranges were named in 1879 in honour of Belgian monarch Leopold II, who was responsible for brutally oppressing and enslaving people in the now-Democratic Republic of the Congo during its period under European rule.

 

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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jul/03/western-australia...

 

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https://sputniknews.com/cartoons/202007071079823363-christo-pretender-/

 

 

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Amid a surge of attacks in the US and parts Europe targeting statues seen as controversial in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, triggered by the death of an African American man in Minneapolis police custody last month, a statue of prominent 17th Century slave trader Edward Colston was torn down in Bristol, UK.

The statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol, toppled earlier amid Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, has been surreptitiously replaced with a sculpture of one of the participants of the demonstrations, Jen Reid, reported The Guardian.

The sculpture by British artist Marc Quinn, entitled A Surge of Power (Jen Reid), was erected shortly before 5 a.m. on 15 July without informing the Bristol City Council.

The new black resin and steel figure was transported from Quinn’s studio on Tuesday, stored overnight outside the city, and set up in position at dawn using a hydraulic crane truck parked next to the plinth.

The figure echoes the stance adopted by Jen Reid on 7 June, when BLM protesters used ropes to pull the Colston statue, erected in 1895, from its plinth in the city centre. Reid has been photographed standing on the plinth with her fist raised in a gesture of triumph.

 

 

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https://sputniknews.com/uk/202007151079888324-ambush-sculpture-of-blm-pr...

 

 

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‘Now do Mohammed’? Cheers after Madame Tussauds in Berlin places wax Trump in a dumpster… but not everyone is impressed
The Berlin branch of the world’s most famous wax museum has placed its figurine of US President Donald Trump in a garbage-filled dumpster, sparking verbal fisticuffs online.

Madame Tussauds in Berlin, an outpost of the legendary London wax museum, placed its lifelike replica statue of Trump in a dumpster on Friday, apparently in anticipation of the Republican incumbent being defeated by Democratic rival Joe Biden in the November 3 election. 

Orkide Yalcindag, the museum’s marketing director, described the unorthodox curation as “symbolic” and “a preparatory measure.”

 

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https://www.rt.com/news/505140-madame-tussauds-wax-trump-dumpster-berlin/

 

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This could be fake news, of course...

Indian authorities expressed outrage as the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Davis, California, gifted by the government of India in 2016, has been torn down and vandalized by unknown assailants.

“The Government of India strongly condemns this malicious and despicable act against a universally respected icon of peace and justice,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement following pictures of the vandalism being spread on social media.

Unknown persons vandalised statue of Mahatma Gandhi at Central Park, City of Davis, California on 28th January. Govt of India had gifted the statue in 2016. Govt of India has condemned this malicious and despicable act against universally respected icon of peace and justice. pic.twitter.com/V3IZrymWRK

— Aditya Raj Kaul (AdityaRajKaul) January 30, 2021

The Embassy of India has brought up the matter with the State Department in DC, as has the Consulate General of India in San Francisco with local authorities.

The 6-ft tall, 650-pound (294 kg) bronze statue was sawed at the ankles and half its head was missing. It was found in Davis’ Central Park by a city employee in the morning hours of January 27. The statue has been removed and isolated and will be examined as part of an investigation.

Deputy Chief Paul Doroshov of the Davis Police Department called the statue a “cultural icon” and said the matter is being taken “very seriously.” 

 

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https://www.rt.com/usa/514137-gandhi-statue-california-vandalized/

 

May be the US government should erect statues of Donald Trump everywhere for the mad populace to vent their frustrations upon... The Biden administration would also supply the hacksaws, eggs, tomatoes and spray paints. This would have a better cleansing effect than yet another "impeachment" that is only staged for the glory of the Pelosi woman...

 

 

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President Biden revoked several Trump-era executive orders Friday, among them being an order to protect historical federal statutes, like those vandalized during the summer protests. 

Trump executed order 13934, “Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes,” during a time when federal monuments of civil war veterans and slave-owning historical monuments faced vandalism from Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA activists. 

 

Biden also revoked executive order 13925 “Preventing Online Censorship,” 13978 “Building the National Garden of American Heroes,” 13964 “Rebranding United States Foreign Assistance to Advance American Influence” and 13980 “Protecting Americans From Overcriminalization Through Regulatory Reform.”

 

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https://saraacarter.com/biden-undoes-five-of-trumps-key-executive-orders/

 

 

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FREE JULIAN ASSANGE TODAY !!!!!!!!!!!!

 Oxford University opts to keep controversial Cecil Rhodes statue

 

 

The statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes came under renewed fire during last summer's Black Lives Matter protests. Despite reccomendations to remove it, college officials said it would be too costly to take down.

An Oxford University college decided on Thursday not to remove a statue of diamond trader Cecil Rhodes after first deciding to take it down.

The movement to remove the statue of Rhodes, who got rich with mining in southern Africa during the 19th Century, intensified during last summer's Black Lives Matter protests.

 

Why did people want the statue removed?

 

Rhodes made a fortune importing diamonds and gold to the UK, mined by workers in harsh conditions in African colonies. He founded the De Beers diamond company.

Rhodes was a graduate of Oxford's Oriel College, and left his old college a large sum of money upon his death, which turned in to the Rhodes Scholarship. The prestigious scholarship allows students form around the world to attend the university, with former US President Bill Clinton among its graduates.

Rhodes, like many of his fellow imperialists, was a white supremacist who also implemented racial segregation measures.

The British colony of Southern Rhodesia was named after the mining magnate, and the unrecognized state, whose borders were broadly analogous to modern Zimbabwe, briefly kept the name Rhodesia before becoming a fully autonomous republic under majority Black rule in 1970.

 

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https://www.dw.com/en/oxford-university-opts-to-keep-controversial-cecil-rhodes-statue/a-57600352

 

See also (below): https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/35884

 

... the official story of the origins of World War I, is familiar enough by now: In 1914, Europe was an interlocking clockwork of alliances and military mobilization plans that, once set in motion, ticked inevitably toward all out warfare. The assassination of the Archduke was merely the excuse to set that clockwork in motion, and the resulting “July crisis” of diplomatic and military escalations led with perfect predictability to continental and, eventually, global war. In this carefully sanitized version of history, World War I starts in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914.

But this official history leaves out so much of the real story about the build up to war that it amounts to a lie. But it does get one thing right: The First World War was the result of a conspiracy.

To understand this conspiracy we must turn not to Sarajevo and the conclave of Serbian nationalists plotting their assassination in the summer of 1914, but to a chilly drawing room in London in the winter of 1891. There, three of the most important men of the age—men whose names are but dimly remembered today—are taking the first concrete steps toward forming a secret society that they have been discussing amongst themselves for years. The group that springs from this meeting will go on to leverage the wealth and power of its members to shape the course of history and, 23 years later, will drive the world into the first truly global war.

Their plan reads like outlandish historical fiction. They will form a secret organization dedicated to the “extension of British rule throughout the world” and “the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of a British Empire.” The group is to be structured along the lines of a religious brotherhood (the Jesuit order is repeatedly invoked as a model) divided into two circles: an inner circle, called “The Society of the Elect,” who are to direct the activity of the larger, outer circle, dubbed “The Association of Helpers” who are not to know of the inner circle’s existence.

“British rule” and “inner circles” and “secret societies.” If presented with this plan today, many would say it was the work of an imaginative comic book writer. But the three men who gathered in London that winter afternoon in 1891 were no mere comic book writers; they were among the wealthiest and most influential men in British society, and they had access to the resources and the contacts to make that dream into a reality.

Present at the meeting that day: William T. Stead, famed newspaper editor whose Pall Mall Gazette broke ground as a pioneer of tabloid journalism and whose Review of Reviews was enormously influential throughout the English-speaking world; Reginald Brett, later known as Lord Esher, an historian and politician who became friend, confidant and advisor to Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, and King George V, and who was known as one of the primary powers-behind-the-throne of his era; and Cecil Rhodes, the enormously wealthy diamond magnate whose exploits in South Africa and ambition to transform the African continent would earn him the nickname of “Colossus” by the satirists of the day.

But Rhodes’ ambition was no laughing matter. If anyone in the world had the power and ability to form such a group at the time, it was Cecil Rhodes."...

 

 

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https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/31773

 

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assange2

 

How American history gets sacrificed at the altar of fake ‘healing’      US liberals continue to neglect the age-old truism that “those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it”  By Robert Bridge 

There are no safe spaces left anywhere in America, especially if you’re an old bronze statue dedicated to dead white men with epic stories to tell. Unlike other ill-fated statues, however, the latest one to be savagely plucked from the American landscape kept silent vigil for 109 years over the most revered graveyard in the country: Arlington National Cemetery, Washington, DC.

Unveiled by US President Woodrow Wilson on June 4, 1914, the 32-foot (9.8 meters) Reconciliation Memorial (known as the ‘Confederate Memorial’ to its detractors) towered over several hundred Civil War-era Confederacy tombs, that is, until this long-vanquished army suffered a second humiliating defeat, this time at the hands of America’s Woke Army. Aside from the historical context that should have spared the memorial from the scrapyard, the statue itself, created by Moses Jacob Ezekiel, the first American-born Jewish artist to achieve international acclaim, was an exquisite piece of Neoclassical artwork.

In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, there was a desperate need for healing to occur between North and South. This was underscored by Washington’s refusal to allow Southerners to pay their respects and tend the graves of Confederate soldiers buried at Arlington. During the Reconstruction years (1865-1877), the Republicans took the first steps towards reconciliation with the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution, which abolished slavery, provided equal rights, and extended voting privileges to men of all races, respectively. These amendments were adopted under the fierce resistance of the Democratic Party that dominated in the South.

In fact, it is one of the great ironies of American history that the same virtue-signaling machinery now hard at work canceling statues, namely the Democrats, was the very same one that fought bitterly against the rights of Black Americans in the post-Civil War years. Indeed, it was the Democrats who set up the so-called Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation between blacks and whites. Democrats created various terrorist organizations, like the Ku Klux Klan, the White League, and Red Shirts, to reestablish white supremacy and Democratic Party control in the South. The same political opportunism and hypocrisy that was at play then is back at work again today.

Interestingly, the singular event that helped to bring about reconciliation between North and South arrived with the Spanish-American War of 1898. What a difference a generation can make. The ten-week conflict marked the first time prior to the Civil War that Americans – from both North and South – participated in hostilities against a foreign power. Following America’s victory, which ended Spain’s title as a global power, Republican President William McKinley set off on a 2,000-mile (3,200 km) trip across the Deep South to promote the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, which eventually passed later that year despite cries of “imperialism” by critics, namely the Democratic presidential contender, William Jennings Bryan. (Spoiler alert: he lost).

According to the historian William A. Blair in his book, ‘Cities of the Dead: Contesting the Memory of the Civil War in the South,’ it was during McKinley’s nationwide victory/campaign tour that he saw the discarded Confederate graves in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and the sight was said to have greatly troubled him. In his speech at the Atlanta ‘peace jubilee’ on December 14, 1898, McKinley not only celebrated the end of Sectionalism between North and South but also announced that the federal government would begin tending Confederate graves since these dead represented “a tribute to American valor.”  The speech left an impact on many Southerners, who saw it as a grand gesture of reconciliation and a symbol of national unification. These are exactly the sentiments that the statue at Arlington National Cemetery was meant to convey.

Authorized for construction in March 1906, Moses Jacob Ezekiel was commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in November 1910 to design the memorial, which, as mentioned above, was unveiled by US President Woodrow Wilson on June 4, 1914, almost half a century after the end of the Civil War. Could Ezekiel have designed his statue in a way that would not have offended modern sensitivities? All things considered – from Black Lives Matter protests to Critical Race Theory in the classroom – the answer is a resounding ‘Yes.’ In one of the bronze scenes depicted around the base of the memorial, a Confederate soldier is shown kissing his baby, which is being held by a black slave woman, before he heads off to war. In the words of the Arlington National Cemetery, which now answers to the administration of President Joe Biden, the scene depicts a “mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.”

“Reconciliation didn’t include nine million African Americans in the South who lived in a racial police state enforced by a terror campaign of lynching,” argued retired US Brigadier General Ty Seidule, who served as vice president of the Naming Commission. “Before 1877, more than 2,000 black men held elective office, including a black senator from Mississippi. By 1914, almost no one of color could vote, much less hold office, and the Arlington Monument celebrated the victory of white supremacy.”

Yet despite the impossibility of pleasing everyone, the statue has helped demonstrate to countless people, both Americans and foreigners, that reconciliation between warring groups is not only a possibility but, in this modern age of weapons of mass destruction, an absolute necessity. This is something that the former US Senator Jim Webb from Virginia, a Democrat, understood.

Webb wrote on the pages of the Wall Street Journal that one of his objectives as a veteran of the Vietnam War was to “encourage Hanoi finally to make peace with the South Vietnamese veterans who had fought against the North and who after the war were labeled traitors, denied any official recognition as veterans, and hundreds of thousands were imprisoned in re-education camps.”

The former US senator took a Vietnamese delegation to the Reconciliation Memorial and, pointing across the Potomac River from Arlington National Cemetery toward the Lincoln Memorial, “I told them the story of how America healed its wounds from our own Civil War. The Potomac River was like the Ben Hai River, which divided North and South Vietnam. On the far side was our North, and here in Virginia was our South. After several bitter decades, we came together, symbolized by the memorial.”

Meanwhile, even President Barack Obama, perhaps the most popular Democrat in modern times, appreciated the significance of the Reconciliation Monument in the context of what it symbolized – unification, not division – when he continued the presidential tradition of sending a wreath to the monument in 2009.

The removal of the memorial sends a terrible message not only to the American people but to the citizens of the world that the United States is a crumbling, immature society willing to erase the benevolent actions of its past in favor of yet more internal strife and partisanship.

 

https://www.rt.com/news/589394-us-liberals-history-bronze-statue/

 

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