User talk:Buster7/$43.00

Historians Question Trump’s Comments on Confederate Monuments By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER, 8/15/2017, (NYT)

Annette Gordon-Reed, a professor of history and law at Harvard who is credited with breaking down the wall of resistance among historians to the idea that Jefferson had a sexual relationship with Sally Hemings, said that the answer to Mr. Trump’s hypothetical question about whether getting rid of Lee and Jackson also meant junking Washington and Jefferson was a simple “no.”

There is a crucial difference between leaders like Washington and Jefferson, imperfect men who helped create the United States, Ms. Gordon-Reed said, and Confederate generals like Jackson and Lee, whose main historical significance is that they took up arms against it. The comparison, she added, also “misapprehends the moral problem with the Confederacy.”

“This is not about the personality of an individual and his or her flaws,” she said. “This is about men who organized a system of government to maintain a system of slavery and to destroy the American union.”

As for the idea of erasing history, it’s a possibility that most scholars do not take lightly. But James Grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association, said that Mr. Trump’s comments failed to recognize the difference between history and memory, which is always shifting.

When you alter monuments, “you’re not changing history,” he said. “You’re changing how we remember history.”

Some critics of Confederate monuments have called for them to be moved to museums, rather than destroyed, or even left in place and reinterpreted, to explain the context in which they were created. Mr. Grossman noted that most Confederate monuments were constructed in two periods: the 1890s, as Jim Crow was being established, and in the 1950s, during a period of mass Southern resistance to the civil rights movement.

Why Confederate Monuments Must Fall By KAREN L. COX, AUG. 15, 2017 NYT

This isn’t just a Southern problem. The president of the United States has unleashed a new generation of domestic terrorists. During the presidential campaign, and now from the seat of power in the White House, Mr. Trump’s talk of building a wall, his denigration of women, his ban on transgender soldiers and his circle of nationalist advisers embolden the very people who showed up in Charlottesville chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” Us, of course, are the dispossessed white, heterosexual men who long for a return to an imagined patriarchy where they have a seat at the head of the table, even though, in reality, those seats are reserved for white elites.

And once again, rather than seeing clearly that Confederate monuments stand at the very center of the white-supremacist imagination, too many people are clouding the issue. Some of my fellow historians have naïvely suggested that we need to keep them to teach us the darker lessons of Southern history.

But at what cost? What the events of this past weekend have made clear is that for several generations, the Lee monument and others like it have assisted the cause of white supremacy and the deadly violence that has accompanied it. This is why communities across the region have a moral obligation to take up the cause of removing them. Artifacts of hate will be lost, but their history and meaning will not.

While what happened in Charlottesville is a stain on our nation, we should remain hopeful for the future. Those who gathered in the name of hatred and bigotry did so under the banners of defeated regimes. This does not bode well for their cause. Truly patriotic Americans, of all colors and creeds, can and should stand up to them as they did this past weekend. But we also need leadership at all levels of government to condemn not only their actions but also white supremacy itself.

[1]

Katie Kuric Interview on Yahoo

Kuric Yahoo Interview

Brunch with Bernie

6/5/2015

All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me - consciously or unconsciously. That's to be expected

Tuesday at Trump Towere

• Full Transcript and Video: Trump’s News Conference in New York By THE NEW YORK TIMES, AUG. 15, 2017

[2]

Trump U

Over the course of his career, Trump has initiated and been the target of hundreds of lawsuits.

• It all started long ago
• Bill Moyers Timeline

Chores

Facts:

• Chores are necessary. When they don't get done for months, it's very embarrassing for the project. Three areas that have been abandoned are the recipient response page, the creation of the eddyboxes, and the Hall of Fame. Since my semi-retirement from WP activities, no-one has stepped up to do those chores. How can we solve this dilemma? I think we need to think about simplifying the way we do things here. We should start a discussion at least about the following most urgent areas:

1. -Recipient Response Page - When the project started it was gratifying to read the responses of those receiving the award. Rather than let the positive comments fade into the archives I decided to save them along the way. The result is a cornucopia of positive forwarding comments. There were a few times when I was able to point naysayers to the RRP as proof that WER was doing its job. Its not a difficult task...it just requires a watchful eye on the recipients talk page and then a simple "copy and paste" to the RRP.
2. - Do members here want to upkeep and maintain the Hall of Fame? I was strongly in favor of it when the EotW was started, but that was while I still had the time to take care of it. Creating the Eddyboxes and then inserting them into the WER mainpage, the recipients talk page, and the HoF took considerable time and effort. Seeing the embarrassment it causes when it is not taken care of, I now think it might be one of the things we need to sacrifice for the sake of simplicity. Buster Seven Talk 18:00, 9 January 2017 (UTC).

Wet Paint

Back on July First 2012...when the project was only a few hours old...and Dennis warned about watching for the wet paint...he laid the groundwork for what he intended: I'm trying to start conversations in singular, digestible chunks. Of course, I can't control where the discussion goes, but I try to keep it focused on ideas for solutions, and put different problems in their own full thread, all on the same page. By the end of the year he said this: You have to remember that the sole purpose of WER isn't to deal with "civility", although that is one issue that fits the goals. We still do many different things via WER, typically not on this page. Often people drop off problems and a member will go and try to help, often with success. The Project is more a place to discuss problems, create awareness, and provide a venue for both sides of debates. If WER has done anything, it has allowed the discussion to take place in a public area, owned by no one. The real work that gets done never happens on this page. But you are right that I am not smart enough to figure out the solution on my own, and you may be right that it is structural and will require core changes, I honestly don't know. I do know that opinions are very split, and getting consensus seems hopeless at this time. And yes, usually I come across more hopeful, perhaps more so than I really feel, but it is just my way to try to project an optimistic view. For now, myself and others try ad hoc solutions in individual situations where we can, but that is a very hit or miss proposition. It is better than nothing, but still less than optimal. As for being a de facto leader, I understand why others see it that way, which is why I sometimes ride the fence, as to encourage discussion and not force the Project into my particular point of view. It is still not the role I wanted, and it is a bit uncomfortable at times, to be honest. There are a great many issues that affect editor retention, and if I had the answers, I would have no need for the project. The purpose is to get people to talk so we can learn and develop ideas.Some solutions are obvious and everyone agrees, but many (like civility) are not. The whole reason to start the project was that I knew the best ideas wouldn't come from me, but from others, and this would provide a forum for them. A look at the original edit I made to start the project [3] gives an idea of my original intent.