More poetic justice in Virginia

Readers with long(ish) memories may recall our post headed "Poetic justice in Portsmouth, Virginia" (WWW 13/6/20) in which we told you the sad (NOT!) story of how one of the anti-Black racism (etc etc) protesters tearing down a statue of Robert E. Lee in Portsmouth VA was injured when said statue fell on him. The story ended with Virginia Governor Ralph Northam's pledge to get "justice for all the 'protesters'."

Believe it or not, fourteen (14!) of the "protesters" and their colleagues/associates/supporters -- including a Democratic state senator, three members of the NAACP, and three "public defenders" -- have actually been charged with conspiracy to commit a felony and injury to a monument in excess of $1000.

Charges of conspiracy to commit a felony and injury to a monument in excess of $1000 have been laid against:
State Senator Louise Lucas
James Boyd, Portsmouth NAACP representative
Louie Gibbs, Portsmouth NAACP representative
LaKesha Hicks, Portsmouth NAACP representative
LaKeesha S. "Klu" Atkinson, Portsmouth School Board member
Kimberly Wimbish
Dana Worthington
Amira Bethea

Those charged only with injury to a monument in excess of $1000 are:
Brenda Spry, public defender
Alexandra Stephens, public defender
Meredith Cramer, public defender
Brandon Woodard
Hanah Renae Rivera
Raymond J Brothers

No charges have been laid against Chris Green, the father of two on whom General Lee's statue got its revenge. According to his GoFundMe page, although he cannot walk or talk, Mr Green (who is actually Black) can drink liquids and "is able to feed himself semi-solid foods and is able to drink from a cup independently. Chris is showing emotion by smiling and laughing when appropriate."

As for Senator Lucas, WAVY-TV reported shortly after the "peaceful protest" that a campaign had been launched to effect her recall. Since then, the Virginian-Pilot reports, she has filed a defamation suit against Tim Anderson, who started the campaign, who (she said) falsely accused her of inciting a riot, a felony, and of telling police to stand down while people defaced the monument. How the criminal charges will affect the civil proceeding remains to be seen.

Poetic justice in Portsmouth VA

In the wake of the George Floyd Memorial Riots, the antifa iconoclasts and loonie lefties are at it again, all across America -- and in the UK and Canada too -- trying to haul down statues of President Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee, and assorted other 19th-century white men, all of whom were racists, dontcha know.

In the capital of the Confederacy, Virginia Governorand Panderer-in-Chief Ralph Northam promised to remove the statue of General Lee, but was prevented from following through by a temporary injunction halting the removal for ten days, so a lawsuit challenging his authority so to do can be decided. The suit was filed by the descendant of a family that deeded the land on which the monument sits.

Meanwhile, just down the I-64 in Portsmouoth, "protesters" beheaded four statues on a Confederate monument last Wednesday evening, after the monument was defaced with spray paint. A "protester" told reporters that an apparent "demonstrator" was badly injured after one of the toppled statues fell on his head.

Demonstrators began spray painting the monument after Portsmouth NAACP* president James Boyd and the local organization's vice president, Louie Gibbs, were briefly taken into custody and charged with trespassing, according to the Virginian-Pilot. Their legal moouthpiece -- not "Rev" Al Sharpton -- told the newspaper that both NAACP leaders were released on a summons about 30 minutes later.

So far, the statue has not been charged with any crimes or misdemeanors, but Gov Northam has pledged justice for all the "protesters". Sounds to me like one of them has already received poetic justice!

*Footnote: Someone told me, many years ago in the Heart of Dixie, that "NAACP" stood for five critters commonly found in the South, the second one being "Alligators". Wish I could remember what the other four were.

University to pull down statue of historical figure now deemed racist

You thought it was going to be another statue of Robert E. Lee, destroyed by another southern city or school eager to prove how politically correct they are by denying public space to one of the great heroes of American -- yes, American! -- history. Noooo... This time the beloved historical figure who is to be insulted and dethroned [There must be a better word, but I can't think of it. Ed.] is none other than Mohandas Gandhi, one of the 20th century's greatest fighters against colonialism and racism.

Or so it was thought. After all, didn't the Mahatma (Great Soul) lead the non-violent revolution that succeeded in driving the evil white British out of India? Was his campaign not just against the Brits, but against racism? Didn't he believe that all men [and women. Ed.] are created equal? Errr, maybe not.

This statue of the Indian independence leader was erected two years ago at the University of Ghana, in Accra, the shithole country's capital, but was removed in the middle of this past Tuesday night, after professors at the university began a petition against the statue, which has since gained over 2000 signatures. The petition claims Mr Gandhi was a racist, citing his writings over the years in which he said Indians were "infinitely superior" to Africans, whom he called "kaffirs", a racist slur at the time.

In 1896, the Mahatma wrote: "Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness."

Mr Gandhi was in South Africa at the time. Perhaps there was some truth to what he said in 1896, but certainly there is no truth whatever to it 122 years later. Right? Anyway, his statue is gone now. It has not been replaced by a statue of an African hero [or heroine. Ed.] because [Unfortunately, considerations of space prevent us from posting the rest of Walt's comment. Ed.]

"Anti-racist" reign of terror spreads from Confederate to Catholic statues

The violent alt-left extremism that is now sweeping the Excited States of America, as seen in Charlottesville VA and many other cities, has now extended its terror in another direction. First it was the desecration and destruction of historic statuary and monuments. Now it's religious (read: Catholic) statues that are under attack.

The first victim in this latest fit of iconoclasm was the statue of Fra Junipero Serra at a park across the street from Mission San Fernando, in California. Brother Juniper was a Franciscan missionary who brought the Catholic Faith to the Spaniards and Indians in Alta California. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 25 September 1988, and canonised on 23 September 2015, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC, during JP II's first visit to the United States. Because of the Saint's recorded acts of piety combined with his missionary efforts, he was granted the posthumous title "Apostle of California".

Now the barbarians of the left, acting in the name of "indigenous rights", have spray-painted a statue of Saint Serra, covering the face, chest, and hands in red paint. The word "murder" is written in white down the front. An Indian (or Native American -- whatever's PC) boy standing with him as part of the statue has red painted under his eyes and down his front as though he were crying blood. The obligatory swastika, standing for everything the anti-Western, anti-Christian hates -- has also painted on the boy.

Thus the frenzy of destruction of statues honouring heroes of the Confederacy is extended to all statues, paintings, photographs and other reminders of people and events that make liberals, secular humanists and revisionists feel uncomfortable. But really... Fra Junipero Serra is a Catholic Saint, and his statue is a religious icon! There is talk, now, of moving the statue to a museum where it can be "protected" (read: forgotten about), but the damage has been done.

The problem is not so much the removal of a statue to a museum, but rather the question of where the revisionism ends. As President Trump has said, if statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are torn down because they were slave-owners, why not also destroy statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson? After the statues, what next? The names of buildings, streets, cities and perhaps even states? (It's already happened in Canada's capital, where the name of Hector Langevin has been taken off the government building which houses the Prime Minister's office, because M Langevin dared to suggest that Indian kids might be better educated in residential schools.) Perhaps Washington DC and Washington state could be renamed to honour... let's see... how about Al Sharpton?

Why stop there? How about reprinting American currency to avoid any association with slavery... or Freemasonry? How about rewriting, or even discarding the Constitution because many of its authors were slaveholders? History is filled with unpleasantness, just like the present. It is important to acknowledge the sins of the past, but it is also important to recognize that some of the same people also contributed great things to the world. Shall we talk only about the sins -- real and imagined -- of these people, or simply write them out of history entirely? Shall we just deface, or totally destroy all things we don't like?

It seems that the world is sinking into a chaos of barbarism like that which followed the Fall of Rome. It was that chaos that led St. Benedict of Nursia to gather books and religious articles into his monastery at Monte Cassino, there to preserve Western culture until the Dark Ages ended. What will it take to make America -- or the blue half of it, at least -- come to its senses? And until it does, who will preserve and protect the physical evidence of what went before?

WORTH WATCHING: Dr. Steve Hurley talks about Confederate statues and cultural Marxism. Just posted on YouTube today. Find out what's really behind the mania.