bookmark_borderRobert E. Lee memorial at Antietam Battlefield

Beautiful post from Dixie Forever about the Robert E. Lee statue at Antietam Battlefield:

You can also view the post here on Facebook.

This post really brings home for me the gravity of the horrible things that have happened, and continue to happen, in our country. The images of this statue are so beautiful, but are also a punch in the gut for me. Sadly, as the post states, this is currently one of the most threatened monuments in America. It’s despicable and sickening that this is the case. How anyone could think that the battlefield would be made better by removing this beautiful statue (beautiful both aesthetically and in terms of what it represents) is incomprehensible. If the bullies, whose goal is to inflict the maximum amount of pain possible on people who are different from them, get their way then I hope at least the statue will be returned to private land as it was before 2005, when the National Park Service took ownership of it. 

bookmark_border“Are we the only country the places monuments to TRAITORS???”

So said an idiotic comment that I saw on Facebook the other day.

In other words…

Are we the only country that places monuments to PEOPLE WHO THINK FOR THEMSELVES???

Are we the only country that places monuments to PEOPLE WHO STAND UP TO AUTHORITY???

Are we the only country that places monuments to PEOPLE WHO ARE DIFFERENT FROM THE MAJORITY IN ANY WAY???

Oh no, not that!!!

God forbid that a country put up monuments to people who are at all unique, distinctive, or remarkable.

God forbid that a country put up monuments to people who are, you know, actually worthy of being honored with monuments.

God forbid that a country put up monuments honoring anything other than compliance, obedience, and mindless conformity.

In reality, the people that this idiot considers “traitors” are not only abundantly worthy of being honored with monuments; they are the only people who are.

bookmark_borderDavid Trone believes that people like me shouldn’t be allowed to exist

Horrific, agonizing pain. My limbs feel like lead, my stomach feels sick, my lungs feel like they’re filled with rocks. I am crushed beneath an avalanche of grief, sadness, and anger. The agony is like a knife that stabs me in the heart. The entire world is dark, horrifying, disgusting. It feels as if my soul is being eviscerated, as if I will never experience happiness again. 

This is something I’ve experienced hundreds of times over the past four years. 

In this most recent instance, this pain was directly caused by Rep. David Trone, who despicably sponsored a bill * – known as HR 7474, the Robert E. Lee Monument Removal Act – which would turn the Antietam (Sharpsburg) Battlefield into yet another thing whose entire purpose is to send the message that people like me shouldn’t be allowed to exist. Yet another place in which I am not welcome, yet another area of society in which I cannot participate, yet another part of our physical world that would be altered in order to ensure that I cannot feel represented or included. 

Despicably, Trone said of his act of vicious cruelty and aggression: “I thank my colleagues for joining me in this effort to ensure Antietam honors our nation’s victory over the Confederacy rather than memorializes historical figures who fought to break up the Union and restrict fundamental human rights.”

As if forcing people to remain part of the same country against their will somehow doesn’t restrict fundamental human rights. As if inflicting on another human the type of pain that I described in the first paragraph of this blog post somehow doesn’t restrict fundamental human rights. As if decreeing that only one side in a war deserves to be honored, only one perspective acknowledged, only one story told, only one viewpoint reflected, somehow doesn’t restrict fundamental human rights. 

To “ensure Antietam honors our nation’s victory over the Confederacy” completely defeats the purpose of even preserving the battlefield as a historical site, both because the entire concept of a battle requires that there be two opposing sides, and also because there is no benefit in something existing when the very attribute that made it beautiful, distinctive, and remarkable has been destroyed. 

David Trone would like Antietam to be transformed from a historical site honoring a battle and the soldiers who fought there, into yet another monument to authoritarianism, compliance, and mindless conformity, into yet another piece of propaganda designed to send the message that any person who differs from the mainstream, from the norm, from the majority in any way, has no right to exist. 

As if sending this message somehow doesn’t restrict fundamental human rights.

David Trone’s decision to introduce this bill is an attack on me as a human being. It is an attack on me because I am different, because I do not fit in, because I see the world differently from most people, because I have different interests and passions and values and ways of thinking than the majority. Because I am different, the Robert E. Lee Monument represents me. It makes me feel included. It makes me feel that people like me are allowed to exist. By attempting to remove it, David Trone is attempting to turn the Antietam Battlefield into yet another instrument in society’s war against people like me. Yet another thing that used to make me feel represented and included, now turned into a cudgel to beat me with. Yet another tool for society to use to hammer home the brutal and intolerant message that I do not deserve to exist because I am different. 

Tell me again, why does America need another monument to authoritarianism, compliance, and mindless conformity? Why does America need yet another memorial honoring the same bland, mundane, and meaningless values that people are already bombarded with every day, in every facet of life? 

Tell me again, what is the point of the Antietam battlefield even existing, if its existence does nothing other than to stab my heart, punch me in the gut, stomp on my face, and inflict horrific and agonizing pain?

Pardon my French, but fuck David Trone. He doesn’t care a whit about fundamental human rights. If he did, he would campaign passionately against vaccine mandates, gun control, the Durham-Humphrey Amendment, and the use of full-body scanners at airports, to give just a few examples. Each of these policies restrict fundamental human rights vastly more severely than anyone from the Confederacy ever did.

How dare David Trone pontificate about fundamental human rights while simultaneously going out of his way to violate them?

How dare he go about his life as if nothing is wrong, while his actions inflict horrific and agonizing pain on other people?

It is mentally exhausting and demoralizing that acts of vicious cruelty and aggression, such as this one perpetrated by David Trone and his 6 co-sponsors, continue to happen. I am tired, I am angry, and I am exhausted. I don’t deserve for this pain to be inflicted on me, and David Trone has no right to inflict it. Despicably, he pontificates about “fundamental human rights” while actively violating mine. 

I learned from a quick Google search that David Trone has a wife and several children. How would he like it if his wife and children were beaten, strangled, dismembered, burned, and had their limbs sawed off and their bodies cut to pieces as he was forced to watch? That might sound sadistic, outlandish, excessive, ridiculous… but it has been my reality for the past four years. Perhaps if this happened, David Trone would experience a tiny fraction of the pain that I’ve experienced. Maybe then he’d have a shred of empathy for the people he’s harmed. Maybe then he’d work towards enacting policies that would compensate me for the pain I’ve suffered, rather than actively inflicting even more of it.

* as well as 6 other members of Congress who co-sponsored this bill

bookmark_borderNo, Tolstoy was not saying that making statues is wrong

Take a look at this great post, with a very true and meaningful quote, and then the obnoxious comment below it:

Um, what? He was talking about you? Really?

First of all, we are not the majority. People like those at Monuments Across Dixie and myself are the minority, as evidenced by the fact that our statues and monuments have been subjected to an almost entirely unopposed and unchallenged campaign of brutal and violent destruction across the entire country.

Second of all, Tolstoy was talking about people who design and commission statues? Really? Tolstoy was saying that making statues is wrong, even though the majority shares in it? Somehow, I doubt that very much.

What an infuriating and idiotic comment. Continuing to see people expressing sentiments such as these is exasperating and mentally exhausting.

Good for Monuments Across Dixie for posting this Tolstoy quote. Contrary to what Richard Binns claims, this quote is much more applicable to the brave minority fighting to defend what makes life worth living (Confederate statues), than it is to the cowardly majority who are cruelly destroying it.

bookmark_borderResolve and pain

My chest is tight, my arms and legs feel heavy, and there’s a lump in my throat, although my tears are somehow locked up inside of me on this cold and rainy morning. I am angered and heartbroken, as I have been so many times over the last three and a half years. As always, I struggle to find the words to express why I feel the way that I do, and why exactly the things that people have done are so horrible and have had such a profound negative impact on me.

Angela Douglas, the executive director of the Jefferson School African American Cultural Center, is the cause of the latest attack of agony, but she is just one among many. Again and again, more times than I can count or my brain can comprehend, people who think and act similarly to her have caused similar agony attacks, filling the past three and a half years with relentless, unbearable, indescribable pain.
I have no choice but to go on. I know that the actions of Douglas and those like her are horrible, and I know that I am right to be so upset, even if words are inadequate for the task of providing a full explanation. I believe that I am a good person and that what I am doing is important. I know that I am morally right and that Douglas is morally wrong.

But I am in so much pain.

And there is, seemingly, nothing that I can do about it. I am only one person. I do not have the power to stop people like Angela Douglas from committing their hideous, sadistic, sickening actions. Our society has decided that actions like these are acceptable, and that there are more important things to condemn, more important things to fight against. I disagree with this stance as strongly as it is possible for a human being to disagree with anything, but I have no power to convince society to adopt my perspective. All that I can do is to continue being a good person, continue doing what is right, continue doing what I can to stand up for the historical figures.
I don’t believe in hacking historical figures’ bodies to pieces, sawing their heads off, cutting their faces off, and burning them in a furnace.

I believe in honoring them, celebrating them, protecting them, and keeping them alive.
And that is what I will try to do, with the humble amount of resources and power that are available to me.

If other people don’t agree with me, if other people don’t find this important, then that is a negative reflection on them, not on me.

bookmark_borderA poem (of sorts)

Crickets chirp quietly

And leaves waft down from the trees.

Branches cast shadows

Through the moonlight that bathes the yard.

The serene oasis

Stands in sharp contrast

With the atrocity that took place earlier

Somewhere far away

Yet somehow close at the same time.

My statue waits for me,

His bronze skin glinting in the soft light.

Dead leaves crunch under my feet

As I go to tell him what has befallen his comrade

But there is no need;

He already knows.

“I don’t have to tell you, do I, Stonewall? You can feel it. You know what happened. Your heart is sad, and mine is, too. We will grieve, and mourn, together. You are the one thing that makes me feel just a tiny bit better, that makes this pain bearable. Things like this, are why it is so important that you exist. Things like this are why I decided to bring you into the world.”

“Don’t worry, they can’t hurt you here. I own this land, and I will protect you. I will keep you safe.”

“I’ll try to get some sleep tonight, and I hope that you can, too. See you in the morning.”

Excruciating pain

Serves also as a reminder

Of the path that I’ve chosen.

This land is mine,

A world that bigotry, intolerance, and cruelty cannot touch

In which a little statue lives

Safe, protected, beautiful, magnificent

Who wouldn’t have been born otherwise.

10/26/23

bookmark_borderAtrocity

Disgusting.

Cruel.

Vicious.

Intolerant.

Immoral.

Heartbreaking.

Again and again I’ve tried to find words adequate to describe actions like the ones that took place in Charlottesville today, and again and again the English language comes up short.

Acts like these have taken place so many times over the past three and a half hellish years that I cannot keep track, my brain cannot comprehend the overwhelming magnitude of what has happened.

Yet again, the winning side of the war decides, for some inexplicable reason, to beat up on the losing side.

Yet again, the strong, powerful establishment decides to torment the rebels, the dissenters, the underdogs, all while preposterously claiming that they are somehow disadvantaged and oppressed.

One meager statue representing human diversity, representing dissent, representing being different from the norm, amidst a sea of essentially identical statues all representing mindless conformity, deemed unacceptable in their eyes.

Having relentlessly criticized my clothes, my hair, my shoes, my socks, ridiculed the way that I speak, bullied me because I like different music and movies and books than they do, none of that was enough for them. My special interest – the one thing that makes my life worth living – had to be destroyed too, the public spaces of our country redesigned to ensure that I receive the message that I am hated, that I am unacceptable, that I am sick and deviant, that I am not welcome to exist.

I am deemed unworthy of even a single work of public art making me feel accepted, making me feel included.

Yet again my body, mind, and soul are consumed by agonizing, unbearable pain.

There are no words that can fully convey how much I hate the people – and I use that word loosely – who did this.

They do not hold the moral high ground.

They forfeited any claim to it a long time ago.

They deserve the most severe punishment possible.

But even that would not be enough, because no punishment could possibly be as severe as the punishment that they have inflicted on me – an innocent person who has done nothing wrong – through their actions.

bookmark_borderStonewall Jackson’s 1 year anniversary

Today, I am not going to focus on all of the horrible things that horrible people are doing and saying. That is because today marks one year that Stonewall Jackson has been living with me in Malden. In a world filled with beyond infuriating and beyond awful happenings, Stonewall’s existence is one thing that is 100% beautiful, magnificent, magical, and good.

I hope that you enjoy these photos of Stonewall over the past year as much as I enjoyed gathering them.

May 21, 2023
Me and Stonewall, May 29, 2023
Me and Stonewall, May 29, 2023
Me and Stonewall, May 29, 2023
February 23, 2023
February 24, 2023
May 9, 2023
September 24, 2022
October 24, 2022
December 12, 2022