History is too important to be denied.
You’ve got to give it to the mayor of New Orleans and the
City Council; they know how to work the crowd.
Mitch Landrieu governs a
city with dilapidated infrastructures that rival those of some third world
countries, and has the distinction of having the 4th highest murder
rate in the U.S. for 2014. His city is on course to break that record for this year. What a pickle for a mayor. To deflect the heat, in
2014, Landrieu and the City Council got the citizens of their fine city focused
upon the dangers of second hand cigarette smoke on employees in casinos and
bars, and began their health campaign to eliminate that evil. The city
council and Landrieu spent months debating this issue.
Finally, the issue was settled. The ban was put into
effect in early 2015 and the realities of the city; the crime rate, bad
streets, the inadequate sewerage system, and the ever increasing homeless
population took center stage once again.
Landrieu and the Council needed another diversion fast, an
even bigger one than the smoking ban. Suddenly a horrendous racial-hate
crime at a church occurred, giving Landrieu yet another opportunity for a
reality-deflection.
In response he proposed the removal of four prominent
southern heritage monuments from the city that he claimed pays homage to a
despicable time in our country’s history.
Landrieu was successful, public outcry swelled and has
progressed to an endorsement of his plan by the city’s Historic District
Landmark Commission.
So far the proposal has served as quite a successful
diversion tactic. The crime rate and the other third world conditions in
New Orleans have almost completely dropped off the radar; beneficial not only
for Landrieu but also for the New Orleans Convention and Business Bureau
along with the state tourism bureau.
The reality is, in the past, there have been several
southern racial-hate crimes involving confederate symbols in our country, some
involving the same church as the latest one; yet no previous outcry in New
Orleans to bury the statues. Apparently their timing wasn’t quite right
from Landrieu’s view point.
The really sad part about all this façade of political
correctness is the fact that the mob mentality doesn’t even understand that the
statue that received the most vocalization for its removal, Robert E. Lee, at
Lee’s Circle, honors a man who was quite an outstanding Southern general
sympathetic to the abolishment of slavery. Professor Milton
Pressley enlightened my ignorance of
this fact along with some other distinguished accomplishments of Lee.
In fact, Lee was opposed to slavery, and freed his inherited
slaves. After the war he stated, “I am rejoiced that slavery is
abolished.” He also served as president of the college later to
become Washington and Lee University in Virginia. He was nationally
respected as evidenced by his appearances on two U.S. postage stamps and his
selection for inclusion in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans.
Professor Pressley's most interesting fact included the notion
that if this cleansing of all remnants of the confederacy is truly to be
successful we’ll have to ditch the name ‘Tigers’ from LSU, for that was a
nickname for many military troops from our state during the Civil War.
My suggestion for this newest Mitch Landrieu diversion tactic is
to leave history alone and better educate the public by placing plaques on the
monuments explaining why each is a part of it. History is important, for
those who do not remember the past will end up making the same mistakes in the
future.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu needs to deal with his failed policies
of the past and clean up the mess in New Orleans.
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