Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/06/11/pentagon-to-remove-confederate.html
…
9 Likes
The cynic in me says all these small changes – tripping statues, renaming bases, rebel flags at NASCAR! – are just token acts to appease the mob, but you know, they add up and feel like the start of actual change…
Eager to see if, as a species, we learn to stop being assholes based on melanin, or choice of church, or choice of bathroom, etc…
It’s a step.
21 Likes
Seems strange to have named bases/assets after losers in the first place.
Good riddance.
- Fort A.P. Hill – Ambrose Powell Hill Jr. …
- Camp Beauregard – P.G.T. Beauregard. …
- Fort Benning – Henry Benning. …
- Fort Bragg – Braxton Bragg. …
- Fort Gordon – John Brown Gordon. …
- Fort Hood – John Bell Hood. …
- Fort Lee – Robert E. Lee. …
- Fort Pickett – George Pickett.
Hmm, 3yrs?
“U.S. military bases named for Confederate military leaders are all located in former Confederate states. Many of those states helped elect Trump in 2016, and he is counting on them again for the Nov. 3 election.” -Reuters
14 Likes
This is a slippery slope; today it’s Robert E. Lee, but who’s next? Cornwallis? Mullah Omar? Is the Army going to rename Fort Erwin Rommel?
We’re forgetting our history!
18 Likes
Maybe the military could raise some revenue of its own by embracing corporate sponsorship. Imagine Fort Pokémon! Lunchables Air Force Base?
Then we could reduce the amount of our taxes that go toward defense spending.
I’m slightly more than half-kidding.
13 Likes
Fort Bragg is named after Braxton Bragg, arguably one of the worst confederate generals in the entire war and responsible for battle defeats that helped sink the confederacy.
11 Likes
3 years? Give me a day and i can rename these military bases/buildings.
7 Likes
GOP-led Senate Armed Services Committee has adopted an amendment behind
I’ll admit that I don’t understand why the GOP is doing this. Obviously we can discount the possibility that they believed it was the morally correct thing to do, so are we left with the conclusion that they’re doing it to give Trump a wedge issue for the fall in those states, counting on the fact that voters won’t understand (much less care) that it was a GOP-led committee that did this?
10 Likes
Yes, but getting the new “custom” sign through the federal procurement system in less than three years would be record breaking.
Joking. Kind of.
5 Likes
The orange dust mop cheeto is gonna lose his mind.
3 Likes
Who cares losers.
These guys were the enemy of the military and nation that named these things after them.
I’d suspect they’re being pushed to do it by military leadership. The Armed Services Committee is crazy balls deferential to the military they’re supposed to over see. It’s kind of a prerequisite for getting the appointment.
8 Likes
Fort Flynn?
2 Likes
He’d have to find it first.
2 Likes
It never crossed my radar, it never crossed my mind, that the US has all these bases named after traitors who picked up arms against the United States. Treason is a serious crime, is it not?
9 Likes
As always, consult your Pantone chart for a handy guide on that question.
14 Likes
Hmm. The ‘Fort Lee’ in New Jersey is named for Charles Henry Lee.
Could the one in Virginia perhaps be renamed for Sen. Richard Henry Lee? It would save on repainting signs. (No, wouldn’t work. Pretty much all landowners in those days were slaveowners, so choosing any of the Founding Fathers is fraught. That also rules out Light-Horse Harry!) Maybe Robert E Lee’s cousin, RADM Samuel Phillips Lee, USN?
Lots of Lees to choose from.
(In case you missed it, I’m not serious here.)
3 Likes
I nominate Fort Lee to be renamed Ft Kickass
13 Likes
This will have a hard time happening in three years. I predict this will play out a lot like what happens at the periodic BRACs. The military brass could probably handle it–many will probably not like it, but they will implement orders. They might whine, but they recognize the military has a large number of southern black enlistees, and mostly care about avoiding racism. They have actually handled incorporating women and LGBT pretty well as an institution despite a lot of resistance from individuals, and this is easy in comparison. And probably most personnel and enlisted won’t be at the same place in three years, so they don’t have a lot of institutional friction.
But local politicians will fight it because they will want their constituents to get upset about it. Just look at how many fans of university sports teams that are now named after Hawks and the like still call their team by the native tribe name. The locals, many of whom have jobs employed as support staff or are retired from that base or post, are going to be the most resistant.
But the argument will probably focus on costs and fiscal responsibility, and there is something to that. Converting even one Army post will be hugely expensive. Each entry has huge signs; and the local roadways have tons of signage that will need changed, and those roadway signs are expensive. You have internal documents, business cards, stationery, etc. You have DoD-wide documents that all need to be changed eventually. e.g., Policy 34-229 says that all training for the M-139 whizbang takes place at Fort Bragg, and so somebody needs to scour all documents and replace these. And vehicles at each post or base might need new painting. Given all this, the timeline seems unrealistic–it might take 3 years just to form the committee to agree on a new name. None of this is cheap, or can be done quickly, which means that there are strong chances the policy will be quietly rescinded.
2 Likes
Maybe they could try Fort Washington or Fort Jefferson?
1 Like
Do you mean people angry about systemic racism? Cause that’s not really a mob.
16 Likes
