George Orwell warned in “1984” of a world in which “the past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.”
Is that where Mayor Walsh is taking us?
… 100 years later, a similar over reaction by elected official Ben Walsh.
Removing the Columbus Monument is just as silly.
1921: The day Syracuse took a stand against dancing by banning the camel walk, the toddle and the shimmy
Let’s not go as far as San Francisco
In Syracuse you have many symbols of people who came here and did backbreaking work to make a better life for the next generation as did many other cultures. This phenomenon is not unique to Syracuse or the US. In an effort to preserve the Coliseum in Rome some have called for its destruction because of the barbaric history of the place. I say you can’t cancel out history just learn from it
Ask State Leaders to Help
Embrace history, don’t erase history
Why erase history? It was the way it was. Let’s build a better future if we decided that we are smarter now than our predecessors. I doubt we are. They built amazing things and they built a beautiful country that still attracts people from all over the world. You don’t have to be very smart to destroy what was built before. And I rest my case.
Mayor Ben Walsh – let’s fix the roads instead
This monument was put up with money from the Italian, not by the city or county, If this statue that is an historical landmark, needs to come down, then all other statues in the city need to come down as well,. Leave it alone, let’s fix the roads in downtown Syracuse,
So that everyone can better understand…
Walsh needs to see both sides
It’s a complex issue in that our ancestors erected a statue to Columbus to feel included, at a time when they felt discriminated against. Columbus was acceptable to mainstream Americans of the past, so it was an easy choice for them. But the view of Columbus (not of Italian people) is challenged by other perspectives and historical experiences (full truth or perspective only goes as far as one can see and I think that’s where everyone is … Walsh, protesters, us, etc.). There’s a purpose to saving these monuments – they do tell a story about exclusion and discrimination. Destroying or removing these statues, censors history and our ancestors fight for civil rights.
Is Syracuse Next?
Canceling Diane Feinstein
WSJ 1/29/2021 OPINION – Until the San Francisco Unified School District board stripped Dianne Feinstein’s name from one of its public schools, we were unaware of the Senator’s service to the Confederacy. While the city’s mayor, she had replaced a vandalized Confederate flag that was part of a historical display outside City Hall. So now it’s goodbye to Dianne Feinstein Elementary School.
The Feinstein purge is among the banishments the board took Tuesday night when it voted 6-1 to rename 44 schools. The most absurd target is Abraham Lincoln, who waged the war that ended slavery. Also canceled were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Webster and Paul Revere.
The criteria used to come up with the list of villains is whether they had promoted slavery, genocide, the oppression of women or “otherwise significantly diminished the opportunities of those amongst us to the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
But a name on a school is not a declaration of perfection. And a society that rummages through history to hold those of the past to the woke standards of today will soon have no heroes to honor.
In a statement, Mayor London Breed said that while the naming of city schools is a conversation worth having, she cannot understand “why the School Board is advancing a plan to have all these schools renamed by April, when there isn’t a plan to have our kids back in the classroom.”
By that measure, some future school board should regard today’s school board as equally guilty of reducing opportunities, especially for the poor, for the way they’ve denied an education to children in the pandemic.
Walsh’s knee-jerk
This monument should not be removed or rename the square. The movement for renaming was a knee jerk reaction to a summer of rioting and destructive behavior. Personally I do not find that behavior credible for reasoning for this type of change. 87 years the monument and square have been intact.
