The takedown madness continues, and seems to be spreading like an old-fashioned plague.
But first let’s take a glance at New Orleans, just lately freed from the oppressive grip of Confederate statues. Even without a hurricane or a really big storm, the city is flooding. Seems that the pumping stations aren’t working, a bad situation for a city that’s mostly below sea level.
But on Saturday, from the steps of his new rental home, Williams watched water again pour through the city’s streets after a thunderstorm dropped as much as nine inches of rain in just four hours. The ensuing flood overwhelmed the city’s pump system and covered much of central New Orleans in several feet of water, taking 14 hours to drain and prompting 200 “life-threatening” emergency calls, according to city records.
But look at the bright side. As you’re treading water in the Big Easy at least you won’t have your eyes offended by the sight of General Lee or Jeff Davis. It’s been said that the more emphasis a city puts on feel-good social justice issues, the worse they seem to do on delivering basic city services. That certainly looks like the case here.
Next up is Lord Cornwallis, a very important figure in the British Empire, but who is best known to Americans as the commander of the British southern campaign in the Carolinas and for his surrender at Yorktown. He also founded the city of Halifax in Canada, where he has a statue. However, he was also apparently naughty to the Natives, who have been demanding that his statue be removed. For now, it’s just been covered with a tarp.
Not even Chinese war gods are safe.
Portland has removed the name Lynch from two schools. Protesters might do better taking some remedial English classes there to distinguish between a noun and a verb. How long before we require anyone named Lynch to change it?
On a slightly different note, the proposed HBO series Confederacy continues to draw fire.
Whereas HBO’s show has been besieged by a #NoConfederate campaign that continues to trend during Game of Thrones broadcasts, Black America hasn’t felt such heat. But it would be a mistake to attribute the disparity to the racial makeup of the creative teams (Benioff and Weiss will serve as executive producers alongside Nichelle Tramble Spellman and Malcolm Spellman, who are black), says Packer, who notes that the original germ of his project’s premise originated with Amazon content head Roy Price, who is white.
If you’re wondering what the Black America series is about, it’s set during Reconstruction when the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are given to the freed slaves as reparations and form a separate nation, New Colonia.
The sovereign nation they formed, New Colonia, has had a tumultuous and sometimes violent relationship with its looming “Big Neighbor,” both ally and foe, the United States. The past 150 years have been witness to military incursions, assassinations, regime change, coups, etc. Today, after two decades of peace with the U.S. and unprecedented growth, an ascendant New Colonia joins the ranks of major industrialized nations on the world stage as America slides into rapid decline.
Left unexplained, apparently, is why the United States, which just fought its bloodiest war to prevent secession, was now suddenly willing to see three states, all of which have just been brought back into the Union at the point of a bayonet, secede. Much more likely, I think that colonization overseas would have been the preferred solution, something that Lincoln favored at various times. But that, I suppose, would not make as good a story.
UPDATE: The cost for the City of New Orleans to remove those oppressive monuments was $2.1 million. Whether this includes police overtime I don’t know, but I doubt it. This from a city perennially strapped for cash.
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