The Colston plaque saga
Written before the statue came down
(, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 11:08, Share, Reply)
my view is that if one of these bronzed victorian notables was involved in the slave trade, put that on the plaque too, don't tear the statue down
it actually makes the statue more significant if people get a full picture of the shit stuff along with the good. Tearing it down doesn't change the past, it just makes a few do-gooders feel like they've done something while actually doing fuck all, but leaving it up might inform a few more passers-by. Perhaps they might start thinking about zero-hour contracts and vietnamese sweatshops their Gap pants are made in and how modern global wealth still exploits people. or not, but at least it'll still give the pigeons a place to shit
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 12:20,
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interesting article on how Germany is dealing with it
www.inquirer.com/philly/opinion/commentary/charlottesville-nazis-germany-communists-monuments-trump-20170817.html-2
(, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 12:25, Share, Reply)
Drilling holes in a statue to allow passers-by to fuck it is a bit extreme
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Mudface The web isn't callipygian, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 12:42,
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ah, fickendaslochinderbronzennmann
that's as german as strudel or faceshitting
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 12:59,
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well, if the germans think my idea has merit I'm going to have to rethink it
Adolf Hitler 1889 -1945
Vegan and dog lover
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 12:46,
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Great
but to make it more relatable to younger people maybe just 'influencer'
Edit: you could also have a pigeon proof screen on top displaying people who have just been described online as worse than Hitler
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Mudface The web isn't callipygian, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 13:06,
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"worse than 10,000 hitlers" was one phrase that took my fancy
though I do like "influencer"
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 22:56,
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Not sure why you think it achieved fuck all.
It sparked a national and an international reaction if you remember. Locally, it caused Colston's name to be removed from street names, pubs and schools but more importantly it shone a spotlight on the unaccountable, undemocratic power that the Merchant Venturers wield in the city and it's given a boost to those who'd like to see that power removed. So it definitely has done something.
(, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 13:13, Share, Reply)
Massive gymnastics from Vaselini
You now think democracy's a good thing? You didn't seem so keen before. You've been raging against it for years. Should we have a national vote on statues maybe? See how the fucking nation feels about the Cenotaph being boarded up...
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After you my dear Alfonse No. After you., Mon 10 Jan 2022, 19:19,
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I'm seeing a stalwart democrat. Flattered, but I'm not arsed to search your posts for a response.
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After you my dear Alfonse No. After you., Mon 10 Jan 2022, 19:27,
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ah, so it created a time loop and reversed 100s of years of slavery, like superman flying around the earth, did it?
because that was the thing that was bad, not the fact that there's a statue in a park. I mean perhaps if Bristol were having a "we love Colston" parade that might be something. That's the issue with many on the left, they conflate symbols of the thing that's bad with the thing that is bad itself, and spend most of their energy attacking those symbols, be it statues or words like "manholes" or actors putting on blackface. Attacking symbols is easy and makes people think they've done something significant, but guess fucking what? The world didn't actually get any less unfair because of your sanctimonious gestures toppling statues and street name-changing. Some black kid on a council estate didn't turn into a vauxhall driving middle-class suburbanite because you joined in that twitter attack about an actor wearing blackface. That would take actual, difficult change like reforming the tax system to reduce social inequity on a fundamental level. Dealing with symbols is easy. "sparked a debate" my arse. It's the self-congratulatory smugness that shits me
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 22:28,
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There was actually a Colston parade which the toppling also put a stop to
www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2020-09-14/bristols-colston-society-to-end-after-275-years-at-the-end-of-this-year
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 5:50, Share, Reply)
ha. I stand by my rant, nevertheless
picture some poor wretch from dahomey lying in a crude hut, manacled on some alabama plantation, the skin flayed off his back from a recent lashing and weeping pus, the latest of many arbitrary punishment whippings as he's slowly worked to death picking cotton. But he hears a voice in his ear:
"don't worry, someday a bunch of earnest middle class whites will unite and together they'll have a brass statue of a long dead figure who had an indirect commercial relationship with your bondage in another country removed from a park. you see, it all evens out in the end and everyone's happy thanks to their sacrifice and struggle on your behalf. swings and roundabouts, really"
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 7:23,
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"indirect commercial relationship"
He was deputy governor of the only English company allowed to trade slaves at that time. What's indirect about that?
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 7:37, Share, Reply)
your retreat to pedantry has nowt to do with my point, I tend to assume it's some sort of coping mechanism to avoid facing the reality that I'm right, as it tends to crop up at this stage in those of a certain mindset
but for arguments sake, let's say you're unfamiliar with the terms.
if i say " indirect commercial relationship with your bondage" in reference to our nominal slave, it means he has no physical relationship with the slave. he didn't capture the slave, whip the slave, own the slave as personal chattel. he probably never got closer than 4000 miles to the slave, though the organisation he was deputy director of profited commercially from the slave trade. that's what indirect means. there's a relationship, but it's not a direct one with this slave, its through a whole series of intermediaries and behind contracts made with those intermediaries. it's an "indirect" relationship with the slave.
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 8:16,
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You could at this point just admit that you know absolutely nothing about the man, his activities, or Bristol
But sadly you won't
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 8:24, Share, Reply)
at least your pedantry had an indirect relationship to my point
(pssst. "indirect" in this sense means while not really addressing my argument at least it references part of it however irrelevantly
but the "no, you're dumb" is the final stage of coping and the one that signifies to me there's no more interest to be had in it
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 8:39,
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I'm not saying you're stupid
I'm saying that for some reason you've got it into your head that you should have an opinion on all this without first knowing some quite basic facts (or even reading the original article I posted it seems). And now you can't back down.
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 8:56, Share, Reply)
i made a point about the futile waste of focus and pointless misdirected sense of achievement gesture political symbolism like pulling down statutes gives people, in comparison to dealing with the actual serious problems themselve
so far you've talked about parades, made pedantic points on terminology, and now seem to be intent on ad-hominen face-saving. What you're not doing is saying anything pertinent to the point I made or making any counterargument. It's just dull, beni. I'm not infallible, but it'd be nice once in a while to have someone capable of responding to the actual point.
Now reading between the lines (the counterpart to accusing me of not knowing anything about Bristol is that in contrast, you do know it intimately) my guess is that you were personally somehow involved in this statue campaign, and by pointing out it's cosmic fucking pointlessness, I'm attacking something that hitherto you've taken some sort of unwarranted sense of achievement out of. I know that as you've basically reached the name-calling part of the debate it's not something you're likely to confess. But I suspect I'm right
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 10:10,
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i generally steer clear of calling you names, or indeed interacting with you at all, because this is the result
And I simply cant be arsed to decipher it all
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 11:52, Share, Reply)
well, it is true that you don't go out seeking arguments with me
and it must be going on a year since I had a decent rant on b3ta. so sorry that I picked your post in particular. I think there was some merit in the wider point I was making about such gestures which is why I said it, but it seems you're only interested in the details of the colston case you posted and I guess that's your prerogative
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 12:08,
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They tried to get the plaque changed for a long time
It was dragged out deliberately and was never going to happen. This information is readily available if you read before posting. x
(, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 19:23, Share, Reply)
my point was about statues removal in general, not Colston in particular, that's why I used "one of these bronzed victorian notables"
if some tried to change the plaque then good, it just demonstrates there's plenty who agree with my view. these kind of gestures and statue toppling are a global issue, cecil rhodes and american civil war generals and franco favourites. To me it's straws. all these people around the world who swapped plastic straws for paper and thinking they were making a difference, while at the very same time millions of tonnes of household recycling, from these very same smug little do-gooders in the west who were patting themselves on the back for buying a M&S pack of metal straws, was getting dumped on china where most of it went into landfills or was burnt in toxic fires. not that people gave a fuck what happened to it once they sorted their plastics and the council took it away. But hey! look at our straws. And even recycling is a minor issue compared to the traincrash of global warming. But they felt they've "done something" by switching to paper straws. Just like people feel they've made a difference by toppling statues and congratulating themselves for having so much more right-on views that these fuckers in the past whose evidence that people once respected them needs to be erased like stalin's ex head of secret police. they were all cunts and if we'd lived back then we'd have been so much better.
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 11:10,
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Yeah, I know there's a few statues up to Jimmy Savile
and he did a LOT of good work for charity, shame to tear down those statues because of some historical stuff. He was friends with royalty and even Margaret Thatcher so don't let's let any political correctness cause all that good work to be forgotten.
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garold you're on mute I SAID YOU'RE ON MUTE, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 13:33,
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Margaret Thatcher was incidentally the first female Merchant Venturer fact fans
(, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 14:25, Share, Reply)
Honorary member. Does not count.
Like the queen is the honorary head of the Masons or whatever.
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brb homonecrobatrachophile, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 16:03,
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I think old style colonialism had stopped by then.
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FeralCatMan Unusual disease collector., Mon 10 Jan 2022, 22:05,
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Saville fucked kids all his life and got away with it
whether there's a statue or not (and i kind of hope there is. there was still the michael jackson one up outside fulham's ground last time I was there) doesn't change shit about that, nor will pulling it down (or off) do anything. people don't see a statue of saville and think "You know, I've never tried it before, but seeing this statue maybe I will give fucking kids a go". Campaign to increase the penalties for failing to mandatory report suspected abuse if you want to make a difference. it might make the kind of tv execs who turned a blind eye to saville, think twice in the future.
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 22:45,
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Why do we need statues of anyone at all?
Interesting article.
(, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 15:06, Share, Reply)
tiger get to hunt, bird get to fly
man get to ask himself, "Why? Why? Why?"
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 22:07,
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I do kinda think we should replace them all
with big bronze ducks.
(, Mon 10 Jan 2022, 23:09, Share, Reply)
Fuck it, I’ll weigh in.
1. I don’t endorse vandalism generally.
2. The defendants admitted what they did, but the jury decided their actions did not warrant punishment. Despite what that idiot Tory said, this does not set a legal precedent.
3. Coulston was a fucking slave trader, let’s not forget that, regardless of the standards of morality at the time. The statue was not contemporary.
4. Various legal attempts to remove the statue were supposedly blocked by a small group repeatedly.
5. People say that the statue represents our history, well the events surrounding it being toppled are (or rather will) be part of our history too. If it were up to me I’d have left it on the ground, concreted it in place and put up a plaque explaining how it ended up there.
6. Food for thought: how is this any different to the now famous footage of Saddam Hussain’s statue being pulled down after the man himself was toppled?
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jonbob loves you, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 11:24,
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good points, though saddam was a recently deposed hated dictator
not some bloke dead 300 years ago who had the statues build after his death by a grateful public because of his public works he built for bristol
Maybe the Bamiyam buddhas might be a better example. Something that was built long in the past that some current residents, in this case the taliban, decided they wanted to erase evidence of because they didn't like the idea of it
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 13:37,
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Although I'm somewhat opposed to the method in which the statue was removed, I'm not really opposed to it's removal. To be honest, I couldn't give a fuck either way.
But you raise an interesting point re: Saddam Hussein. What's the statue of limitations on the actions of the subject when viewed from a contemporary perspective?
Saddam was very much a contemporary figure, and I think it's safe to say that the statue was erected by him, during his lifetime as an act of narcissism, so I don't think he's the best example. But should https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestrian_statue_of_Genghis_Khan be torn down? I mean, he killed a *lot* of people. Enough to make a noticeable change in the temperature of the fucking planet. And mostly because they didn't want to be pals.
There's no doubt whatsoever that the guy was a master strategist, but surely we only celebrate or admire his conquests because they occurred so long ago. Is there a historical watermark where we brush aside the atrocities these figures committed and instead just focus on the impressive stuff?
(, Tue 11 Jan 2022, 13:53, Share, Reply)