A portrait of Confederate general Robert E Lee that includes a slave guiding his horse is set to be reinstated in the Pentagon.

The 20-foot-tall painting, which was on display at the United States Military Academy for 70 years, will be hung in the West Point library under President Trump’s instruction despite a congressionally mandated commission that ordered its removal back in 2020.

  • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    “Under this administration, we honor our history and learn from it — we don’t erase it.”

    Well, that sounds good. So then to learn from history you’ll be wanting to do a little Critical Race Theory right? You’ll want people to know the history of LGBTQ+ oppression and the fight for gay and trans rights? You’ll be wanting to promote Black History, the history of the civil rights movement, and indigenous history, since they were erased for so long, right?

    Or could it be that this is more white supremacist doublespeak?

    • null@piefed.au
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      7 days ago

      Under this administration, we honor our history and learn from it — we don’t erase it.

      What a ridiculous thing to say.

      Taking down a portrait is not erasing history, it’s merely refusing to celebrate particular people or behaviors that the entire world finds abhorrent in 2025.

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        The same dipshits pretended that people were learning history from statues. Instead of what those statues were actually for, and that was as a gigantic fuck you to Blacks, liberals, and the United States and a celebration of the Confederate traitor losers.

      • Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip
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        6 days ago

        It’s all lies. They didn’t believe what they say, they’re doing it to make their racist as shit supporters feel like they win someone, while they rob them blind and destroy their rights behind their backs.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        6 days ago

        Also, it’s rich coming from the administration that has basically killed the Smithsonian because they don’t want them to talk about slavery.

  • DrunkEngineer@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    The portrait was originally removed by Act of Congress. Military staff who reinstated the portrait are following an illegal order.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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      6 days ago

      Sure doesn’t sound like “Defending the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic” to me, but what do I know.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Well yes but actually no. There is this silly little thing called Article II Section 3:

      He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

      Meaning it is up to the president of the united states of America to see laws be faithfully executed or not, and in this case he chose not and gave the order to do this. This would be a huge fucking deal, and a blatant misinterpretation of the laws, if half the courts in the land weren’t pro-fascism and already agreed he could do this when he froze medicaid funding earlier this year.

    • null@piefed.au
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      7 days ago

      What “Epstein Files” do you actually think are going to be released?

      Do you really believe the Trump administration is going to release documents that show Trump is a pedophile?

        • DancingBear@midwest.social
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          7 days ago

          Wait, what does it mean? To me, it means something along the lines of these shits and times are crazy now. Things are not making sense. Two semetic folks are at war and both are accusing the other of being antisemitic, as a supporter of the underdog, who are literally their brothers and sisters…. Sigh

          Edit: ok, fine I post it because it is a funny not funny commentary that suggests half of what the administration is doing is distractions. I can only hope that it is 99 percent distraction and 1% action.

          • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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            7 days ago

            You’re complaining about distractions by posting… The distraction?

            Post alligator Alcatraz or the military occupation of DC if you actually care.

            You’re swallowing the bait hook and sinker. The pedo files have zero chance to affect your king.

  • Deacon@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    This should be seen for what it is: the latest in a series of “boiling the frog” escalations on totally rewriting the history of black people in this country.

  • Azal@pawb.social
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    7 days ago

    I keep saying it over and over again. 160 years later, the confederates won.

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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    6 days ago

    The next time we get to take it down, burn it on the White House lawn. Melt down all those Confederate statues, too. Turn them all into statues of MLK, and erect them in the same places. Fuck those Traitors.

    • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Absolutely. “But muh history!”, history doesn’t require works of adulation to evil men be preserved physically to learn from them. Do they think paintings and statues of Hitler are just stored away at the back of museums in Germany? That shit is long destroyed by the allies at the end of the war. There were far too many efforts made to appease the southern states at the end of the war, and you can trace a solid line between those failures and many issues faced now.

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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    6 days ago

    Andrew Johnson was a scummy Confederate sympathizer, so he tossed out most of Lincoln’s plans for Reconstruction, which would have changed the trajectory of race relations significantly. Instead, we ended up with a century of Jim Crow.

  • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I wonder if the next move is going to be ending the 150+ year tradition of the Navy always having a ship named Kearsarge in commission. The original USS Kearsarge fought a famous Civil War battle against the Confederate raider CSS Alabama, sinking her off the coast of France. Since that time the Navy has always had a Kearsarge in commission, presumably as a giant “fuck you” to the South.

    As a side note, the US Navy named all of its battleships after states, except for one that was named Kearsarge as part of this tradition. It’s always bothered me that there was this one exception to an otherwise-perfect naming convention, which I why I support having Puerto Rico become a state - with the proviso that they change their name to “Kearsarge”.

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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        6 days ago

        Up until now, this was just history, so you know that no MAGA is aware of it. None of them know how to read, and if it wasn’t on Fox News, they’ve never heard of it. Somebody is bound to tell them now.

    • njm1314@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      At least Benedict Arnold was an American war hero at one time. He deserves it way more than Lee does.